I was reading the section on names and how many a vainglorious Heretic, on finding this new life, chose the name Horus.

Hmm...

###

A Band Called Horus

By Me!

Under a sky of screaming faces, on a world where reality itself bled and was rent asunder by the raw forces of the Warp, a sprawling city of the lost and the damned could be found. It was a city of renegades, mutants, heretics and worse, a city where one could buy a soul, craft a demonic weapon, or even find ascension to a higher plane of existence…if one had the right mindset. It was a city called Sibiline. Most often, those wretches that came here by choice or by chance, found nothing but a premature death, either at the blade or barrel of a more long-term resident, or from the raw power of Chaos itself, which oozed from every alleyway cobblestone and every half-patched air vent.

Stalking through the streets, pushing aside throngs of slaves, sycophants, sociopaths and other assorted scum, Horus adjusted the red cloak around her shoulders and checked the respirator that was locked around her mouth. Each breath brought only clear, untainted air into her lungs – in a city like Sibiline, breathing at the wrong time might have unfortunate consequences. She had not come this far to be stymied by an inadvertent gift, whether it was the fast acting lung rot that some follower of the Plague Father had released, or the soporific musk that the followers of Slaanesh kept spewing out of every orifice (both natural, mutated, or artificial).

When she came to a corner that branched in six different directions simultaneously, Horus pulled a small, handheld auspex from one of her many pouches, slapping the side of the temperamental device until the surly machine-spirit within roused and actually did her the favor of pointing in the direction of the local magnetic north. Following that guide, she slipped past brawls and piles of corpses and came to one of the few bright spots of Sibiline: The End of the World.

The End of the World was a tavern – the likes normally found in the under hive of more civilized planets, though if the End of the World’s clientele had stepped on a civilized world, they would have either brought the whole crumbling artifice of humanity’s galactic civilization down around their own ears…or, more likely, they would have been tied to a stake and lit on fire. Horus checked to make sure this was, in fact, the place…and then ducked inside, her cloak swirling over purple puddles of indeterminate sources.

The interior of the End of the World was as wild and chaotic as the rest of Sibiline, though helpfully mediated by excessive use of banned drugs and chem-mixtures that knocked some of the more violent individuals out cold. The corners were clearly and roughly split between the followers of the four Dark Gods: The Khornite corner was a mass of red – mostly fresh blood, though there was the occasional bit of paint in there. Most of the chairs were fresh made from piled skulls, ripped from their former owners by burly bezerkers, whose yells and bellows of raw violence added a painful note to Horus’ growing headache. The corner dedicated to Tzneetch was, by comparison, a clear and definite place of quiet contemplation. There, men and women discussed their plans and schemes while drinking subdued decanters full of what could be wine or blood as easily as not. Occasionally, one might convulse and split apart in a wild maelstrom of sudden and impossible mutation…but more often than not, that didn’t disturb their games Regicide.

The most welcoming corner, though, was the one held by the followers of “Papa” Nurgle: Bloated masses of corrupt flesh sitting beside sallow, sunken looking victims of wasting plagues, all of them draped in ratty cloaks and festooned with the blistered sores and burbling pustules of their various “gifts.” They all seemed rather congenial about their continual state of decay and desiccation, and were currently singing a variation ‘Bring Me Home to Terra’, with references to humanity’s ancient homeworld replaced with the deepest reaches of hell. They were remarkably in tune, considering how many had rotten vocal cords.

And, of course, there was the corner filled with devotees to Slaanesh, the hermaphroditic god/dess of sensual excess and pleasure.

Horus didn’t look at that corner. The Sibiline Slaaneshi cultists had recently invented drugs so

additive they could make you a lifer just by looking at it.

Instead, she advanced to the barkeep –imaginatively named Barkeep - a titanic figure in a long brown cloak. His skin was pure, ebony black – though that was not a quirk of his homeworld or some mutation. Rather, it was a side effect of the radiation that seethed throughout Sibiline, even indoors – his skin had been treated long ago to react to excesses in radiation by darkening. His eyes could see in the dark better than most nocturnal predators, and his brain had been modified to make him immune to fear, to make him capable of sleeping with half his brain while keeping the other awake, and to give him near perfect recall. And that wasn’t even getting into the fast-clotting semi-intelligent blood, the acid glands under his tongue, the bones tougher than most forms of flack armor, the extra hearts, lungs, and digestive tract.

He was a Space Marine – formerly one of the most ardent and devout followers of the Carrion-Emperor and the false religion grown around his rotting corpse, the religion that held most of the human population in eternal bondage.

And, for all Horus knew…Barkeep remained a loyalist.

“Emperor bless and keep you, Horus.” He said, nodding.

“You’re going to get killed one of these days,” Horus said, her voice muffled by her respirator. “Now, have you any word from your brothers in the Alpha Legion?”

Barkeep shrugged the same shrug he had every time she had asked over the past subjective decade.

Horus made a long suffering noise, then brushed her hood back – revealing a bald head, several cortex-integration implants, and the upper edge of her cyber-mantle. She cracked her neck, and then said: “Is there anything here I can drink through my respirator?”

“Oh, there’s some new drink that you take by dumping it over your head. Eats through the skin.”

Horus cocked a single, thin, eyebrow.

“That grows back, right?” Barkeep asked, the faintest hint of amusement in his normally unreadable eyes.

Horus made her eyebrow go a little further up.

Then the entire tavern was plunged into silence as the door exploded inwards – figuratively, not literally, though a literal explosion might have caused the same reaction. The noise and the dramatic movement was enough to distract even the Khornites – who stopped their arm wrestling and beheading long enough to glance at the doorway. The doorway was filled by a silhouetted figure, who stepped forward to reveal a mustachioed man that could have been forty or four hundred depending on how often he took his juvinat treatments. He wore a purple vest and golden epaulets, with a flowing, dark red cape to cement his flamboyant air, while his chest was bedecked with enough medals to be reforged into a life-sized statue of himself – all in gold. Whatever the medals were for, Horus couldn’t say, but they certainly looked impressive, as impressive as the sheathed sword at his hip and the plasma pistol holstered on the other.

“I come…” The man said, his voice unnaturally high and squeaky as he looked at each corner of the room. “Seeking a heretic…named Horus.”

Horus stood up.

The only problem was that four other people in the room stood as well – one from each corner.

The mustachioed man beamed.

###

“Lord Alendale Blakenon Blackstar Regimanto Stravakonious Lee XII, of the Ragged Helix and the Cat’s Cradle, at your service, all of you.” The mustachioed man bowed low, sweeping his hand out before him.

Horus, Horus, Horus, Horus and, of course, Horus, all looked back at him with mixed look of confusion, interest, bored perversion, and psychopathic rage. The Khornite Horus – a burly man with horns that had been cut from some dead animal and spot welded to his metal cranium – trembled as wires and tubes that hooked to an alarming set of battle drugs loaded into his backpack pumped said battle drugs into his blood stream at a constant rate. His hands clenched and unclenched as he breathed in and out, nose flaring.

“Why did you bring Horus to this pitiful meeting!? And why must Horus sit across from…that…THING!”

“That thing has a name, Horus…” The Slaaneshi Horus smiled thinly across the table. “And a gender.”

“WHICH ONE!?” The Khornite Horus bellowed.

The Slaaneshi Horus cocked zirs head. “Six.”

The Khornite Horus, who seemed like he had a hard time counting over one, trembled with rage at the mention of his God’s hated enemy’s sacred number. To his left, the Tzneetch Horus was chewing her very long fingernails to the quick in nervous, jittery motions. She cocked her head, her eyes looking at the ceiling.

“Ragged Helix. Slaaneshi asteroidal field, located in the lower Gloaming with a warp-index of 44.3-Alpha category. Three day’s sailings from the Omniconverter mindhaven. Easily infiltrated. Could be a spy from the Omnimind and minions. No, doesn’t track, spy wouldn’t come here, no probability, low probability not no. Wait, yes, no, yes, YES!” She stood up, and a small servo-skull floated out of her voluminous white robes, seeming to emerge from one of her sleeves – which yawned around her stick thin arms. The skull projected a holographic image of the Screaming Vortex – the home of Sibiline and many other worlds lost to Chaos. “Ragged Helix. Pirate Prince. Conjecture: Owns a starship. Correlation: Has manpower. Correction: Has disposable manpower. Addendum: Manpower is related purely to starship. Rogue Trader paradox, you have thirty thousand people at your beck and call but can’t screw in a luminator without a Tech-Priest…no! NO!” She grabbed at her hair. “Doesn’t track, doesn’t track, need more data! Checksum invalid…ah…ah…the variables! I CAN SEE THE VARIABLES!”

She screamed and dove under the table, her servo-skull whirring overhead in slow circles.

Slowly, the Nurglite Horus turned away from the whimpering mass of terrified, overstrung cultist that was ducked underneath the table near his feet, and asked: “So, why are you hiring us?”

Lord Alendale, who was looking a tad nonplussed by the Tzneetchian reaction, rubbed his gloved hands together, then waxed his mustache back into perfect place. “Well, why I want to hire you is simple: Horus, your talent in melee combat is unparalleled. Horus, your skill with your intellect and psyker powers is unmatched. Horus, your seductive tongue will serve me well for this mission! And, of course, Horus, your unstoppable toughness will be invaluable. And how could I forget Horus, the Unaligned-“

“Don’t…” Horus said, holding her hands up. “I’m just Horus.”

“Won’t that get confusing?” The Slaaneshi Horus asked.

“Nope!” The Tzneetchian Horus said from her seat. Everyone jumped, as no one had seen her go from ‘nervous wreck on the ground’ to ‘sitting calmly at the table as if nothing had happened.’

Lord Alendale shook his head. “Still, you may wonder what I wish to hire you for…”

The Slaaneshi Horus nodded, waving one elegant hand – a hand bedecked with gemstone rings and glittering pendants and piercings and tattoos. Zi said: “Whatever it is, it surely is quite blessed to have six people involved in its beginning. Six is a sacred number…” Zi glanced at the Khornite Horus, zir lips twisted in a barbed smile.

Lord Alendale’s head exploded.

Blood, bits of bone, and his still flopping tongue splattered each of the Horus’. Slowly, each looked at the Khornite Horus, who casually holstered an ornately carved bolt pistol, the barrel still smoking.

“Five now.” He grunted.

“…he hadn’t even PAID US YET!” Horus shouted as she stood up at the end of the table. “Do you know how RICH a Pirate Prince is!?”

“Don’t care.” The Khornite Horus grumbled.

“And, by the love of Horus – the original Horus – how in the name of the Warp are we going to even know what he wanted us to do now!?” Horus continued. “I don’t know about any of you, but I sure as hell am not rolling in gold and jewels!”

“Horus needs no jewels!” The Khornite Horus stood to glare into her eyes.

“How are you going to reload that gun once you run out of ammo!?” Horus shouted back.

“IT DOESN’T RUN OUT OF AMMO!” The Khornite Horus bellowed.

“Yeah!” His bolt pistol agreed.

Everyone blinked in surprise.

“Aha!” The Tzneetchian Horus stood, holding up one of Lord Alendale’s gloves. “I have determined why he wished to hire us!”

“Because of our…” The Nurglite Horus yawned, showing rotted teeth, a fetid cloud of purification emerging from his throat along with a cloud of buzzing flies, which immediately alighted on the refreshments that Lord Alendale had left out for them. Slowly, the Slaaneshi Horus pushed zi’s plate away. “Special talents.” The Nurglite Horus finished his slow sentence.

“No! That’s why! Not what!” The Tzneetchian Horus started to pace back and forth, looking intently at the glove. As she paced, Horus and the Khornite Horus slowly sat, but kept glaring at one another. “A Rogue Trader cipher. So, a fallen Trader. NO, not likely, no mutations, not duplicitous enough. Medals and ranks indicate Imperial ties. Foolish, but uncorrupted? Impossible! No, just unlikely. Or insightful! Profit can be made without religious affiliations. But what profit. Ciphers cracked!” She gasped. “Ah! The Hedernatheron!”

Horus, who had just stopped glaring at the Khornite, threw herself to her feet, knocking her chair over. “WHAT!?”

“Excuse my ignorance…” The Slaaneshi Horus drawled. “But what in Abaddon’s name is the Hedernatheron?”

“Artifact. Powerful. Built by Eldar. Contains demons. Webway. Connected to War in Heaven. Old Ones. Necrons involved? Unknown! C’tan? No, non-cannon.” The Tzneetchian paced back and forth. “Lost in Cat’s Cradle. Dark Eldar might visit and interfere. No, they don’t care,

can’t torture demons, not fun enough-“

“Speak for yourself…” The Slaaneshi Horus purred.

“-ahhh…yes! YES!” The Tzneetchian nodded. “Depending on the demon, Hedernatheron might be useful, but dangerous, or simply world destroying. Worth opening to find out. Yes.”

The Nurglite Horus yawned, and another stream of flies alighted on the meal, which by now looked as if it had been left out for a few weeks, not a few minutes. “So, he wanted us to go to the Cat’s Cradle and get this Herdthingy? Sounds…easy enough…” he sighed. “I’d prefer to just get drunk…and take a nap…”

The door opened to the small, private chamber. Barkeep, standing at his full, imposing, two meter height glared in at them, glaring most of all at the bloody corpse and the still writhing tongue. His eyes flicked from it to Horus, who shrugged, then inclined her head at the Khornite Horus. Barkeep followed that and frowned deeper. The Khornite Horus looked back without a single hint that he cared even slightly that a Space Marine was glowering at him.

Barkeep sighed, slowly, then said: “Horus, your tab bounced.”

The Nurglite Horus gulped, loudly.

“Horus, one of your friends just said that Queen Leszlin is dead.”

The Tzneetchian Horus grabbed her face. “No! Best laid plans, ruined! Frak! Frak and frak and FRAK!”

Barkeep shrugged, and spoke over her wailing: “Horus, a friend of mine just reported to me:

He’s in the Cat’s Cradle.”

Horus looked up from her hands, her eyes wide.

“Horus, someone sat on your mourn-fruit.”

“Well…there goes the last of my interest in staying here.” The Slaaneshi Horus mumbled.

“And Horus-“

The Khornite Horus growled.

“-I just don’t like you.” Barkeep closed the door.

“So…” Horus said, turning to the other Horus’. She arched one of her thin eyebrows. “We head out, then?”

###

“Horus detests the weakling crutch of sorcery!” The Khornite Horus bellowed into a spreading pool of vomit.

“That didn’t stop you from stepping through, did it?” Horus asked as the Khornite Horus wiped bile from his lips. He glared at her, then glared at the world that they stood on, while the Tzneetchian Horus lowered her arms, crackling psychic energy flowing around her body in a wreath of witchfire. Slowly, the robed figure leaned back and against a stone pillar that jutted out of the uneven ground they stood on.

Horus rather liked the view – it was a fine change of pace from the Deep Gloaming, where Sibiline had been located. The sky, for one, was an actual hue and not a spreading blanket of screaming faces and impossible planets. Instead, it was a pale blue, streaked with the impossibly gorgeous sweep of a ring system, with three large moons hanging in the air – each one pock marked with craters and colored a different distinct color. They stood on an island of grey-white stone, rising out of the ocean that surrounded it in a semi-regular hexagonal pattern. Pillars jutted from the regular flatness that made up the island – each pillar was cube shaped and some glowed with still flickering writing.

“Paradox…the beginning of the Cat’s Cradle…” The Slaaneshi Horus sprear zir’s arms wide, zir’s clothes having changed in transit through the impromptu warp portal ripped open by a few quick human sacrifices. Now, zi wore a skin skimming swim-suit made of tiny barbs that hooked their flesh in a thousand places. Zi adjusted a toggle on one strap and wriggled in pleasure. “Where too now, Horus?”

The Tzneetchian Horus sneezed loudly and collapsed to the ground in dead faint. The Slaaneshi Horus sighed and pulled out a hypodermic, but Horus knocked zir hand aside.

“Do you know what that drug would do to her?”

“Don’t worry, it’s just a cocktail of Barrage, Slaught, pure Stims, White Flower, Final Kiss, ground up Sweet-Meats, some ashes from an Imperial Saint, and my personal favorite…” The Slaaneshi Horus wiggled the hypo. “Cocaine!”

Horus facepalmed.

The Tzneetchian Horus jerked her head up. “Straight!”

The Khornite Horus snarled. “STRAIGHT LEADS INTO AN OCEAN, SORCERCESS!”

“Just…go straight…” Her head slapped against the ground as she passed out again. The Slaaneshi Horus looked disappointed, the shrugged and injected herself. The Khornite Horus slammed his fists together and charged at the ocean, bellowing loudly. And, as if terrified by his approach, the water sloshed aside and stones rose from the water, forming an intricate pathway that the Khornite ran along, blindly charging forward.

Horus glanced at the Slaaneshi Horus, whose face was stretched in rictus grin of insane pleasure, while zir nostrils flowed with blood. Horus turned to the Nurgulite Horus, who just shrugged: “Hey…” He said – a fly that flew from his lips alighted on her respirator and reminded her of why she was glad she had it. “He’ll…hit any traps…”

At that sentence, the Khornite bellowed in rage as a half dozen tentacles reached from the waters he was charging over and grabbed him. He started to punch the tentacles, shouting: “BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!”

“It doesn’t have a skull!” Horus shouted as the Slaaneshi Horus drew an elegant looking and well lubricated sonic pistol from…somewhere that Horus really didn’t want to think about right now. Zi leveled it and opened fire, squealing music emerging from the sonic pistol as it fired concussive blasts of pure noise. One struck one of the tentacles, bursting the flesh and spraying the air with pinkish blood and bits of blubber.

The Khornite Horus had gotten his hands around several tentacles and was pulling on them as hard as he could. Horus ran forward, not bothering to draw her weapon, as she picked up his dropped chain-axes and hurled them up. The Khornite Horus didn’t even notice, too busy tying the tentacles in knots. The two chain-axes fell in the ocean.

“Oh come on …” Horus muttered.

By now, the beast was angry enough that it had started to fully emerge from the waters, the tentacles all connecting to a vast, beak-like center, which opened and closed, revealing millions of tiny eyes recessed along the inside of the beak, which glowered out at the five trespassers. Now Horus did draw her weapon – a hot-shot las pistol, upgraded and modified over the years. She started to put shot after shot after shot into the tentacle beasts’ mouth, which just seemed to make it angrier. Indeed, it went from just holding the Khornite – who had started chewing on a tentacle with his mad battle lust – to dragging him to the beak.

“Oh, no, stop…” Horus said, entirely disinterested as she fired shot after shot into the beast’s eyes. It didn’t seem to notice. The Slaaneshi Horus stepped up beside her, and started to fire shots into the beast as well, sonic blasts and las bolts causing pink blood to flow freely.

The Nurglite Horus had laid down beside the Tzneetchian, his arms behind his back, entirely disinterested in the affair.

The Khornite Horus, still screaming in pure rage, vanished into the beast’s maw.

Slowly, it submerged, water frothing and bubbling where it had gone under. Horus and the Slaaneshi Horus lowered their weapons, looking at the now still water, standing on the floating stones. For a moment, there was stillness and silence.

“Well…at least we tried …” The Slaaneshi Horus said.

The water exploded with a sudden surge of violence. The two Horus’ leaped backwards and fell over themselves as the beast lurched over the floating stone path, its belly distending. Pink blood sprayed both of them as the Khornite Horus punched his way out of the blubbery flesh, dragging with him a massive, uncracked skull, dripping with pink blood and bits of brain. He held it over his head, the spinal column clattering on the stones under his feet.

“BLOOD FOR THE-“

“Yeah, we know…” Horus muttered, rubbing her temple.

“-BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE-“

“Yes, skull throne, we get it!” Horus snapped.

“-SKULL THRONE!” The Khornite Horus finished, still holding the skull over his head as the beast slipped back into the waters. He brought it crashing down onto the path with a bellow that made Horus’ headache increase by another painful notch.

“You done?” Horus asked.

“Yes.” The Khornite Horus said.

###

The end of the path came to another island. This one had pillars – monoliths, really – mounted in a circular pattern around a distortion in the air – a ripple, as if under intense heat or the bend of a sharp gravitational field. The five heretics stood, watching it, for a few moments before the Nurglite Horus said: “Well…I guess we tried…” He turned and tried to leave, but the Khornite Horus and Horus herself grabbed him by both arms, stopping him from walking off.

Looking through the ripple, they could see the next step on their path through the Cat’s Cradle – for Paradox was merely the beginning. The Cat’s Cradle was named for connection points like this, places where space bent and warped and the bending could be walked along like a man using a slide-walk. But rather than getting from one hab to another, these distortions would lead to other words. In this case, the ripple showed a vast battlefield. Trench-lines snarled left and right, with barbed wire and stub-gun emplacements. The chattering sound of the stubbers was an undertone that could be heard through even the ripple – but the other blasts of lasgun fire and artillery shells were muted and silent.

“Ahhh, yes, the twin traitor legions! Still fighting…yeah, still fighting after ten thousand years.” The Tzneetchian Horus nodded, chewing her fingernails with an obnoxious clack, clack, clack noise. “Think the other side is loyal. Hee. Thinks other side fights for the Corpse-God. They fight. They fight a lot . Use cloning sorcery to get new soldiers. Still fighting. Ten thousand years, very funny…very very funny, they’d be allies if they knew, but they don’t…advantage…hmm…” She tapped her chin. “No, no, no advantage. Stealth. Illusions…”

“Plague.” Horus said, looking at the Nurgilite Horus.

He sighed. “Aww man…”

“Plague!?” The Khornite Horus bellowed. “We should just RIP AND TEAR!” His still dripping hands clenched into fists. "There are SO MANY! THAT MEANS THEY HAVE SO MANY GUTS!"

“You look fetching in pink, you know?” The Slaaneshi Horus purred. The Khornite Horus’ rage became absolute, and more importantly, distracting: He was too busy trying to punch the pink blood off of himself that he didn’t notice Hours shoving the Nurgulite Horus through the ripple. On the other side, the Nurgulite Horus stood there for a few moments. An artillery shell landed fifteen meters to the left of him, and seven hunks of sharp, red hot shrapnel zipped through his body. He staggered, then stood upright, no worse for the wear. He grumbled under his breath, trudging forward over mud and broken bits of plastecrete.

A few traitor guardsmen – wearing tattered, ancient uniforms – turned their lasguns on him as he walked towards them. “Yeah, yeah, death to enemies, whatever…” He said, walking past them as lasbolts impacted against his flesh with expanding blasts of vaporized puss and smoking bits of flesh. The three traitor guardsmen fled…and carried with them the gifts of Papa Nurgle.

On the other side of the ripple, Horus rubbed her hands along her bald head. “So…” She

glanced at her fellow heretics. “Anyone feel like playing desecrated Tarot?”

###

“And one nun…” Horus threw down a card where a Sister of Battle was caught in a rather delicate and undignified position with several canines. “And that makes a desecrated flush.”

“**** IT ALL!” The Khornite Horus threw his cards into the air.

“So, what do I win?” Horus asked.

“A night with me?” The Slaaneshi Horus purred, rubbing zi’s finger along Horus’ thigh. Horus looked at her, then arched one of her narrow, narrow eyebrows.

“I won’t rip your skull from your head and drink blood from it…” The Khornite Horus growled, his eyes murderous. “How is that for a victory gift?”

“I can arrange the death of your most hated rival!” The Tzneetchian Horus rubbed her palms together. “Yes! I will begin by talking to Treptikon the Vicious…he can begin to attack the shipping lanes of the Koronus Expanse, sending up the prices on grapthafruit and glimmerwine. Then! THEN! YES!” She stood, starting pacing in eager circles. “Drive up costs in Calixus Sector. Cause Inqusitorial headaches. Lead to reprisals against Treptikon. Reprisals, countermeasures, counter-countermeasures, can sell self to highest bidder. Infiltrate radical sect, engineer overthrow of shrine world, profane temple…cause and effect, leads to-“

“Uh, no thanks…” Horus said, but the Tzneetchian Horus was too busy cackling with glee – it seemed she had discovered a way to topple the entire Imperium by destroying a single transport. The timing, it seemed, would be everything.

And, of course, it would take almost ten thousand years to complete the rippling chain of cause and effect.

“I can give you a clear path through the battlezone ahead…” The Nurglite Horus said, plopping himself down beside the group, panting softly. His grotesque flesh glimmered with sweat, and it looked as if his right arm had been blown off, but even now, it started to regenerate. Wriggling flesh pushed out of the socket, growing like a nest of small snakes.

“I’ll take that prize,” Horus said with a grin. She stood, stretched, then walked towards the portal, glancing over her shoulder at the other heretics. “Come on.”

“There better be more killing in the next one…” The Khornite Horus growled.

###

Stepping out of a land littered by the festooned, rotting corpses of the dead – most of them sprouting mushrooms or shambling about with dead eyes and maggoty gums – the heretic stepped through the latest portal and into…

“A…theater?” Horus asked, looking at the Slaaneshi Horus, who squealed with glee as zi grabbed one of the dangling costumes that hung from hooks on the wall. The costume looked a bit like a harlequin outfit – checkered and brightly colored and splashed with yellows and red – but it had been cleverly stitched together from many pieces. The Slaaneshi Horus cooed softly.

“It’s skin!”

“Skin?” Horus asked.

The Slaaneshi Horus nodded, rubbing zi’s cheek against the outfit. “Skiiiiin. Can’t beat that taste.”

Horus shook her head, looking at the Tzneetchian Horus, who was vibrating rapidly in one spot, even as an ear splitting laugh echoed through the wooden walls of the dressing chamber, causing the mirror on the wall to rattle slightly. The braying, howling laugh echoed again and there was a sound of fervent, eager applause. Horus frowned, and the Tzneetchian Horus clapped her hands.

“Ah! AH! It’s Farce!”

“This is that…” Horus said.

“No, no, we’re on Farce.”

“No, we are a farce.”

“No, we’re a farce, on Farce!”

The Nurglite Horus stuck a finger in his ear, blinking. “Wait, we’re a farce on first? Where’s the second?”

“No, we’re the first farce on Farce!” The Tzneetchian Horus nodded.

“I’m lost.” The Nurglite Horus said a moment later.

“No, you’re last.”

“No, I-“

“SHUT UP BEFORE I RIP YOUR SPINE OUT AND BEAT YOU TO DEATH WITH IT!” The Khornite Horus screamed.

“Shh!” The Slaaneshi Horus hissed, zis ear pressed against the door that exited out of the dressing room. Zis eyes closed and zi sighed softly. “I can hear music. Come!”

Zi opened the door, and then hurried out into the corridor beyond. The other heretics followed, eagerly, walking along a curving, curving, curving corridor – the ground rotating in a slow three hundred and ninety degrees, with gravity matching the floor perfectly. The windows showed floating wooden houses and spires of wood and steel and coppery plates, and the occasional open topped, circular amphitheaters – those seemed to be filled with dark shapes, sitting in the cheap seats, while the expensive seats were empty and bare.

At the end of the corridor, there was a door. The sound of laughter came through it, thick and braying- with an odd, inhuman accent twisting it all.

When the Slaaneshi Horus opened the door, the heretics stepped out onto a balcony. Sitting on a large, plush chair was a tall, muscular looking cross between a human and some vicious eagle – golden eyes and sharp beak. Raw energy crackled around it and its clawed fingertips were pressed together in a tent as it leaned back against its throne, eyes fixed on the stage splayed out below them, which was occupied by the strangest set of players any of the heretics had seen: An ork – muscle bound and furious – a underhive ganger with pink hair and a look of utter terror in her eyes, an Eldar and a fallen Space Marine.

Each of them was wrapped in glowing blue-white chains, which shimmered and rippled as the Eldar – a tall, broad shouldered sort for his race, with long, knife tipped ears and almond shaped eyes – stepped up and said: “Don’t…have a grox…man…” His teeth were clenched, tight.

The Ork stood still. Then the chains around his body flashed and he bellowed in rage, then staggered forward. “WHY YO’ LIL GIT!” He grabbed the Eldar and started choking him.

“Now now…it’s just playful choking…” The bird-headed humanoid murmured softly, rubbing his index finger under his beak. The Ork was shocked again, bellowing.

“DOH!”

“Oh splendid! A show!” The Slaaneshi Horus ran to the railing, looking over it with gleaming eyes. Zi looked back at the demon, while the Tzneetchian Horus hurried forward and knelt, low, bowing her head down.

“Greetings, oh Lord of Change…greetings…oh Demon Sar’tir…”

“Hurm…” The demon rubbed his beaky jaw, looking at the gang of heretics, then at the Tzneetchian in particular. “You know my true name. That is a task worthy of recognition, follower of the Ways. And you are a pskyer? Hmm…curious…what brings you to my…playhouse?” He gestured to the stage play that was being performed. It seemed to be some form of comedy – a human one, due to the human reference words – but it was either so ancient or so esoteric that the humor was lost on all save Sar’tir and his audience of phantoms. Laughter rose from those ranks easily, while the Slaaneshi Horus just looked lost.

“We’re here for the Hedernatheron…” The Tzneetchian Horus bowed, low.

“He has it.” Horus and Sar’tir said at the same time, pointing at the Eldar. On the stage, underneath the chains, he had a small necklace, with a complex, trapezoidal object dangling from it. It glittered and flashed under the light of the stage, even as Sar’tir looked at Horus with an interested look.

The Slaaneshi Horus beamed. “Oh, Sar’tir the wise and magnificent, might I beg from you, the honor of taking the Eldar wretch from your hands? Clearly, he is quite a poor actor…”

“They are all poor actors…that is how I prefer it.” Sar’tir said, sounding amused.

“Be that as it may,” zi continued, undaunted. “Surely, you know that my Dark Prince quite enjoys the delicacy of an Eldar soul, freshly plucked and served to her on a platter. Such a gift will go quite a ways to bringing you some…shall we say…interesting actors. I know quite a few who can entertain in ways you cannot begin to imagine…” Zi purred, rubbing zir finger along the Lord of Change’s chest.

Sar’tir chuckled. “Send me a hundred of your worst performers…those who will be on a fast track to spawndom, if they did not come here.”

“Your wish is my command…” The Slaaneshi Horus bowed low. As zi bowed…zi beamed, with wicked, sharp teeth, and licked zir lips.

###

The Eldar skidded along the greyish stone ground of the first world in the Cat’s Cradle, his robes catching underneath him as he tumbled, rolled, and came to a stop and still somehow managed to seem quite graceful about it. He glared at the heretics around him as the Slaaneshi Horus knelt before him, rubbing zir’s fingers along his chest, ripping aside mesh-armor as easily as if it had been papersilk. This revealed pale alien flesh…and the shimmering red sphere of a soulstone.

Zi chuckled, eagerly: “Oh yes. Yesssss…”

The Eldar glared at zi, while the Tzneetchian Horus whispered. “Get the Hedernatheron! Get it! Get it get it get it!”

“I’m getting it! Let me savor this!” The Slaaneshi Horus hissed, then looked back at the Eldar. Zi grinned. “So, will you surrender yourself to the dark lord of sensation?”

“No,” the Eldar said, his voice musical – holding tones deeper and more pure than a human throat could manage. Then he smirked. “No. First…you will die. Then you. Then you.” He nodded to the Tzneetchian Horus, then the Khornite Horus, then, the Nurglite Horus. “And then you.”

“Oh? And how will you manage that?” The Slaaneshi Horus chuckled. “We have you bound. We have you tied up. We have your soul , oh fallen Guardian…”

“Well…” The Eldar shifted, slightly, drawing himself up to look directly in the Slaaneshi Horus’ eyes. “Firstly. I’m a Ranger.”

Zi shrugged.

“And secondly…” The Eldar’s deep, bright blue eyes shifted to look over zir’s shoulder, then into zir’s eyes. “She’s going to shoot you in the head.”

The Slaaneshi Horus had a moment to look shocked before the back of zir's head exploded, smoke pouring from zir's mouth and around zir’s ears. Zir’s lifeless body slumped to the side as the Tzneetchian Horus, Khornite Horus and Nurglite Horus spun to face…Horus, who had drawn her hot-shot laspistol with one hand. Her other hand threw her red robes back, revealing battered, unadorned carapace armor and her other hand, which held a crossbow.

She spun the crossbow around and fired a bolt into the Tzneetchian Horus’ heart.

The Tzneetchian Horus looked at the bolt, then at Horus, then beamed: “Just as planned…”

Then her face fell. “Wait.”

The bolt exploded into flames, consuming the psyker in a flash of heat and light. By that point, the Khornite Horus was charging straight at Horus, howling. She fired, calmly, and shot off one of his tubes, releasing a spray of combat drugs into the air. The Khornite Horus staggered, and gave her time to sight the crossbow – which had auto-cocked and reloaded. She fired again, and this bolt slammed into the Khornite Horus’ open lips, plunging up into the soft roof of his mouth. He staggered forward, almost grabbing Horus’ carapace armor, before collapsing to the ground, head burning into ash.

Horus swung her weapons to bear on the Nurglite Horus.

He sighed. “I’m going to take more than that to kill…”

She opened fire with both weapons. Bolt after bolt slammed into his chest as las blasts blew hunks off, shooting bits of his shoulders, head, chest, and thighs off, releasing flash boiled blood and puss into the air. The bolts burst into flames, only to have the flames go out, quashed by the horrific corruption oozing from every wound. The crossbow clicked, the laspistol chimed loudly.

“See?” The Nurglite said, shrugging. “Bye now.”

He stepped forward, opened his mouth, and vomited a greenish bile on Horus’ face. The bile flew against her face…and then stopped, a golden light flaring and crackling in a blaze of heat and energy. The Nurglite staggered backwards, reaching up to cover his eyes. “Augh!”

The energy field stopped flaring, and Horus swept her arm up, revealing a glowing golden I, with a raised skull in the center.

A rosaries.

The symbol of the Holy Inquisition.

“Oh frak me…” The Nurglite Horus gurgled.

The Inquisitor – who was most definitely not named Horus – smiled sweetly, reaching into her pouch with a free hand. She pulled out a small ring.

“That’s…a Jokero Melta ring, isn’t it?” The Nurglite Horus asked, bile dripping down his throat.

“Yup.” The Inquisitor said.

“…ahhh dang…”

The small, digital-weapon pulsed with the heat of a small star. The concentrated heat, normally used to destroy main battle tanks, consumed the Nurglite, reducing him to a smear of foul smelling bile and offal.

In the silence that hung in the air afterwards, the Eldar sat up, his binding keeping him from standing for the moment. He smirked, looking at the Inquisitor, and asked: “So…what took you so long, mon’keigh?”

She smirked, stepping around to cut him free, kissing him on the ear. “Do you know how long it takes to search a warp storm for a lost Eldar and an important artifact?”

He squirmed, standing and turning to glare at her. “If I wasn't immortal, I’d have been upset that it took you ten years…”

She smirked. “Just be glad I’m insane enough to waste ten years looking for you, you arrogant ass. “She tapped his chin. “Come on, we still have to shoot our way out of this…”

He nodded, opened his mouth, stopped…and then swore, loudly, in his native tongue – the most beautiful curse that most humans would ever hear. His hands – long and elegant and slightly cooler than a humans – caught her chin and cheek, drawing her in for a tight, warm kiss. She pressed against him, then drew back, grinning a bit.

“Aren’t you glad I’m a Radical?”

“Mmmhmm…”

“Now, come on…and, my name is officially Horus until we’re out of here…”

“Horus?”

“Oh, don’t look so shocked. The rest of these losers were named Horus. It’s a really common name here.”

“Hurm. So, you’re telling me…an Inquisitor named Horus snuck in among heretics named Horus to find me, holding the Hedernatheron…which, if I translate it into Low Gothic properly, is the Cage of Horus…and you don’t find any of this odd?”

“What can I say?” A soft chuckle. “The Emperor works in a mysterious way, Hou’r’iace.”

“Thank you for utterly mangling the pronunciation of my name for a cheap pun.”

“I need some way of staying sane…”

And then the two were gone.

After minutes of silence, the Tzneetchian Horus sat up, ash falling away from her still living body. She blinked a few times.

And grinned.

“Just as planned.”

THE END