M.33.001
The void between realities is not truly empty. It is a tapestry woven from belief and un-belief, possibility and impossibility, stitched by the passage of vast, unknowable things. From the tangled, iridescent corridors of the Webway, a ripple spread—not of matter displacing space, but of pattern altering reality. It manifested as an arrival, unexpected by mortal perception, yet anticipated by the one who sat enthroned at the nexus of humanity's might.
Cegorach, the Laughing God of the Eldar, did not stride forth in a burst of light or thunderous declaration. He simply was—within the heart of the Imperial Palace on Terra. This sacred, terrible place—a monument to a nascent empire and its silent, monumental ruler—had not felt his presence in millennia. The air did not ring with mirth, nor did shadows dance with playful malice. The entity known to the Eldar as the Great Harlequin, the Weaver of Paths, the Master of the Masque, stood in an inner sanctum, and there was no joy in the fractal depths of his gaze. Only a profound, unsettling curiosity that peeled back the layers of existence.
The Emperor sat upon the Golden Throne, a figure of immense, sorrowful power—a sun in human form dimmed by eternal vigil. His presence filled the chamber not with physical bulk but with sheer, overwhelming psychic force. He did not turn his head, for he perceived the world now not with eyes of flesh, but through the boundless awareness of a god bound to a throne. He knew Cegorach was there—not as a guest, but as a necessary conjunction of cosmic forces.
The silence was not empty. It was filled with the silent weight of ages, the echoes of catastrophic wars, and the low thrum of the galaxy's suffering. It was broken by a voice that was not sound, but a concept given form, resonating directly within the Emperor's consciousness. It carried the faint, underlying rhythm of a cosmic jest, but the melody was muted, solemn.
"The stage you have built is vast, and the players numerous," Cegorach projected, his form shimmering like heat over a desert, a complex array of symbols and colours perceived beyond the visual spectrum. "Yet the script falters. The antagonists you cast out return—performances corrupted beyond your design."
The Emperor's silent presence intensified—a pressure in the air like the weight of a collapsing star. He was patient, observing the nature of this intrusion, sifting motives from the layered illusions that were intrinsic to Cegorach's very being.
"There are other stages," Cegorach continued, his 'voice' shifting—taking on the resonance of ancient stone and migrating stars. "Other scripts. Other actors not born of this particular act of creation."
The Emperor's reply was silent and sharp—like a laser through diamond.
"You propose… a summons?"
"A casting call," Cegorach corrected, once more invoking the metaphor of a stage. "For players whose nature is alien to the specific contaminants that plague this realm. Souls shaped by different pressures, different cosmic laws."
The Emperor considered this. His vast intellect—burdened by the weight of holding a fading empire together and fighting a hidden war on countless fronts—processed the audacity of the proposal. To reach beyond the confines of this reality, this universe, constrained by the laws of the Materium and the Warp as known here, was a gamble bordering on madness. His instinct, honed by millennia of brutal pragmatism, urged rejection. It defied physics, sorcery, and sense.
Yet, he knew the enemy. He knew the shapes that now stalked the void and the shattered Webway. He knew the twisted forms of his own sons, transformed into instruments of cosmic horror. He knew the one Cegorach likely referred to as the joker—an interloper who had already begun to twist the Great Game further, an agent of mirth masking malevolence. Not Lorgar Aurelian. Something worse. Something... foreign. Something Chaos had never wielded before, yet now embraced.
Perhaps, the Emperor mused, the answer lay not in understanding these foes more deeply—but in finding something that could never understand them. Something from outside their paradigm of power and corruption.
He perceived the truth beneath Cegorach's theatricality: the Eldar god was not offering a trick, but a desperate gambit. The Eldar, too, stood at the edge of extinction, their ancient enemy now empowered by humanity's arrogance. This was no act of charity—it was mutual necessity.
The Emperor reached out—not touching Cegorach, but aligning with the concept of the proposal, testing its resonance against the fabric of reality and the tides of potential futures. The path was fraught with peril. It could unravel everything. But the alternative was defeat, drawn out across centuries of collapse.
"You seek actors not born of this stage," Cegorach said, echoing the Emperor's own realization.
> "Yes," the Emperor replied. The sound rumbled low in the chamber—a voice so rarely used, it felt like tectonic plates shifting. His psychic projection sharpened, focusing on the objective. "The Warp knows their shapes. Not of this realm, but drawn by the same storm."
The storm of Chaos. The psychic maelstrom that touched all realities—though differently named, differently shaped.
"And if you bring them?" Cegorach prompted.
"They may be hope," the Emperor stated, his voice devoid of sentiment. Pure strategy. Unconventional weapons for an unconventional war.
"Or madness, greater than even the jester you cast out," Cegorach finished, the shadow of a cosmic smile playing across his form. The risk was immense. The rewards... unquantifiable.
The silence that followed was no longer oppressive, but charged with nascent accord. Two ancient, unfathomably powerful beings—one a shattered god of a dying race, the other a god in chains forged of purpose—had found common ground in the face of annihilation.
Together, they formed a pact.
Not with signatures or oaths. With a convergence of will. A shaping of intent that vibrated through the non-Euclidean spaces between dimensions. An agreement to locate the pathways, to calculate the resonance, and to prepare a ritual—not of summoning, but of invitation.
The execution of the pact was not for mortal hands.
It was sown into myth—whispers seeded in the collective unconscious of nascent species. Archetypes of alien heroes, saviors from beyond, woven into prophecy. Tales of star-strangers and world-walkers, echoed across time.
It was sown into code—intricate, interdimensional algorithms hidden in the language of the universe. Perhaps embedded in the Webway's deepest mechanisms, or in the currents of the Astronomican, now subtly altered. A new purpose. A backdoor for impossible energy.
It was sown into dream—planted within the slumbering minds of psykers across the galaxy. Visions of alien vistas. Fragments of unknowable laughter. Seeds of concepts that would anchor the arrival. Echoes of war across worlds not yet known.
The Laughing God and the Anathema. The Master of the Masque and the Emperor of Mankind.
A pact born not from hope, but from desperation. A gamble not just for survival—but for victory in a war that defied reason.
Cegorach vanished not with a flourish, but a silent withdrawal. The Emperor remained upon his throne, unmoved, unblinking. The chamber returned to silence—but it was no longer the same. It now held the weight of the possible, the terrifying unknown.
The seeds were sown.
What would grow from them—heroes or horrors—would be decided in the final act.