The Dornian Heresy - The Bolter and Chainsword

not erupt in the hoped for bloodshed.
They greeted each other as allies in
Chaos, although it did at least mean
that from then on they were keeping
two Traitor Legions from the
Emperor‟s throat.
Their contribution did not come
without a price, however. The
continuous strain began to take its toll,
and towards the end every day that
went past left another brother as a
powder-dry corpse inside his power
armour. With the Space Wolves and
Dark Angels just days from Terra, the
Emperor was forced to break the
stalemate and confront Dorn directly.
Magnus felt the psychic battle going on
aboard the Phalanx, but was powerless
to intervene. Though the Dornian
Heresy was ended that day, it left the
Emperor wounded to the core, and
Magnus felt every one of those agonies
across the light-years.
The Bloody Aftermath
As the Traitor Legions scattered to the
stars, the Thousand Sons arrived to do
what they could. Along with the Iron
Warriors, Magnus interned the
Emperor‟s paralysed body within the
life-sustaining mechanism of the
Astronomicon. Meanwhile, the rest of
the legion put their talents to use in
cleansing the taint of the daemonic
from the planet. Terra had been the site
of many desecrations and
summonations, and it took decades to
ward all of the portals that had been
created. The worst site of all was inside
the old Imperial throne-room. When
Dorn had found that the Emperor had
escaped him there he had desecrated
the nascent webway portal that had
been under construction. An army of
daemons had flooded out, and even
after the Heresy it took an almighty
effort to seal.
Magnus threw himself wholeheartedly
into finding a way to restore his
father‟s vitality. It became an
obsession, with effective command of
his legion falling to Captain Ahriman
of the First Great Company. One day
Magnus emerged from the
Astronomicon in high spirits, and,
eschewing all offers of company, left
Terra, saying only that the solution was
“to gather together the Emperor‟s
sons”. What was meant by this, he has
never explained, not even to his own
legion or to the High Lords of Terra.
By this point most of the primarchs
were either dead or turned to Chaos,
and as the millennia pass, fewer and
fewer remain alive.
The Thousand Sons have never grown
used to the unsettling nature of their
primarch‟s frequent disappearances
and unheralded returns. At first his
quests were measured in months or
years, and he found the time to lead
them on the quest to purge the Space
Wolves from their homeworld of
Fenris. As time went on, Magnus
vanished for decades at a time, his
whereabouts obscured from even the
most determined of seers.
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In Magnus‟ absence, Regent Ahriman
went to great lengths to see the
Thousand Sons rebuilt. His callous and
high-handed attitude towards the lives
of allies, especially those of the
Imperial Army, meant that even as
their numbers rose, the regard in which
they were held fell. This reputedly
earned a furious rebuke from Magnus
on his return, after which Ahriman was
careful to show more respect for nonpsychics,
or at least to moderate his
public comments.
At the end of his life, Regent Ahriman
was finally able to redeem himself.
When the hexagrammatic wards used
to seal the webway portal in the old
Imperial palace began to decay and
threatened to tear wide open once
more, Ahriman was at the forefront of
researching a way to permanently close
Magnus had shadowed the small band of outlaws through the badlands for more
than a fortnight, but having searched for years to find his man, he was content to
wait a little longer. They had finally shaken off the Arbites squads in the
badlands three days ago – Magnus had been tempted to subtly lend a hand, but
if his target had needed help to escape local law enforcement, he wouldn‟t have
been worth the effort of saving. They always seemed to be troublemakers. They
would see a wrong and, filled with the righteous certainty of their convictions,
seemed compelled to right it, be it a corrupt official or a den of possessed.
Despite the man‟s filthy clothes and several days‟ growth of stubble, he had the
same patrician bearing that he remembered from so long ago. The way their
inner purity shone out from beneath the often grimy exterior, it was no surprise
that some had called them „Grey Knights‟. It also explained the devotion they
inspired in their followers. It made sense, Magnus supposed. Their father would
have been the same even before he rose to power.
Up ahead, wild magicks flickered across the sky from their target. Perhaps it
was ostentatious, but he preferred to make contact just as they were fighting for
their lives against the forces of the daemonic. Then, with the bond of
comradeship established, Magnus would reveal to the man his true lineage - the
reason for his unearthly powers, and why he had never grown old. The man was
one of the Emperor‟s immortal sons, from the days when He had walked among
humanity and sowed his wild oats. They were, in a sense, Magnus‟ brothers.
He would also explain that within them they held their father‟s only hope for
salvation. Down the long millennia, Magnus had dedicated his existence to
contacting every one of these very special individuals. When he had found
enough, they could be gathered together to heal the Emperor‟s soul and bring
Him back from the point of death. They were the hope of all humanity. It was a
mission so audacious and secret that his brother primarchs, and even the
members of his own legion could not be trusted to know about it.
What Magnus would not be able to tell these Grey Knights was the extent of the
sacrifice that would be involved. Only by releasing their spirits from their
physical forms and infusing them into the Astronomicon could the Emperor hope
to be saved. Magnus just hoped that his father would be able to forgive such an
act.