Horus Lupercal, Warmaster of the Imperium of Man, stood silently upon the bridge of the Vengeful Spirit. Around him, the tactical display projected a starfield bathed in red, detailing the last pockets of resistance from a minor xenos species—forgotten even before their extermination was complete.
His eyes traced the flickering sigils of the display, but his mind wandered elsewhere.
There had been dreams. They had begun subtly—shadows shifting behind flames during post-battle rites, the faintest sound of giggling behind the hum of the engines. Now they came with alarming clarity: a face, chalk-white and stretched into a terrible grin, watching him from within fire. It didn't speak. It merely watched, as though amused by something Horus could not yet understand.
The laughter always echoed after the visions faded.
He had dismissed them at first as stress-induced phantasms. But this was not fear. Horus Lupercal feared nothing. This was paranoia, rooted not in cowardice but in command—an instinct honed by centuries of war. Something, or someone, was watching. Not physically, but through the veil. Through the Warp.
And the dreams were not just dreams. They had begun shortly after the Davin campaign, after his wounding and recovery in the Temple of the Serpent. He remembered awakening, not fully himself. Even now, memory of that moment remained fractured, like a puzzle rearranged by someone with a twisted sense of humor.
The face was always there, in the background of his dreams. A jester's face, half in fire, half in shadow. Laughing.
He had told no one. Not Maloghurst. Not Erebus. Not even his father.
In truth, he had grown distant from his advisors. Erebus, ever eager to whisper honeyed words, had only irritated Horus with his sermons. It was clear now the Word Bearer priest was playing his own game. And Maloghurst—loyal, yes—but too weak, too mortal to carry the weight Horus bore. Horus no longer trusted anyone with his thoughts.
Instead, he turned to something older. Something forbidden.
In a sealed chamber aboard the Vengeful Spirit, behind layers of encryption and psychic locks, Horus had begun to pore over texts recovered from Davin—not just from the Serpent Temple, but from the subterranean vaults left untouched after compliance. Writings in languages lost before the coming of the Emperor. They spoke of powers beneath powers, gods who laughed, and agents of change that wore the skins of clowns and kings alike.
They spoke of a Jester of the Void—a being who mocked destiny itself, who twisted the threads of fate for amusement, not power. A being who whispered madness into prophets and drove warriors to betray their oaths, not for vengeance or belief, but for fun.
Horus read on, fascinated and disturbed.
The more he read, the more the dreams made sense. He began to see the pattern. The dreams weren't random—they were escalating. And they weren't just his. Some of his equerries had begun muttering of strange reflections in polished armor. A junior astropath had clawed his eyes out after hearing a "voice that giggled through the Warp." A statue in the shrine deck had been subtly vandalized—its face altered into a distorted grin. No one had claimed responsibility.
Coincidence? No. Not with the Warp.
And always, in the heart of it: the laughing face. A mask? A being? A daemon?
A memory stirred. A whisper from the visions he had seen on Davin, when he lay dying—when something had reached into his soul and offered truth. But there had been more than just the serpent. There had been others. And behind them all, unseen by even Erebus's rituals, someone had laughed.
The campaign continued. The last of the xenos were purged. Victory chants echoed through the Vengeful Spirit. Yet Horus felt no triumph. Only isolation. He watched his Legion celebrate, and felt detached—like a puppet observing its own strings.
He began to question the Emperor's motives more deeply than ever before.
Why had He not told them the truth of the Warp? Why had He built a Crusade on lies and silence? Why forbid the truth, if it were not dangerous to Him?
Worse—what if it was not just the Emperor manipulating fate?
What if someone else had taken an interest in Horus Lupercal?
He remembered the grin, the laughter, the sigils burning behind his eyes. They were not daemonic in the traditional sense. They were… deliberate. Insulting. They mocked prophecy. Mocked loyalty. Mocked him.
He had always believed his destiny lay in the stars. Now, he feared it was being written as a joke.
He would come to regret ever doubting the Emperor. But by then it would be too late.
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Horus Lupercal, the Warmaster, the Scion of the Emperor, stood at the precipice of destiny. And far away, deep in the Warp, something watched him.
And laughed.