"Cawl."
The Primarch's voice echoed through the grand hall.
Belisarius Cawl, upon hearing his name, bowed deeply, his towering frame shifting with mechanical precision. Then, with a helpless shake of his head, he spoke: "If there had been another way, I would not have chosen this path."
Guilliman gave a slight nod, his vast intellect piecing together the events from the fragmented tableau before him.
His gaze drifted to Calgar, who instinctively prepared to explain, yet Guilliman merely smiled, his nod suffused with understanding. No words were needed.
Calgar's emotions churned—a tempest of gratitude and indignation. He felt an urge to offer the highest courtesies to Cawl and his retinue, yet another part of him longed to strike them down with his power fist. If he possessed the foresight to discern that Cawl's outrageous actions were driven solely by the desire to revive the Primarch, perhaps he might have wielded the xenos blade himself in Guilliman's stead. But he was no Tigurius. To Calgar, what he saw before the resurrection was a Mechanicus savant and two xenos beings seemingly snuffing out the last vestiges of Guilliman's life.
"Do not trust them!"
"They used xenos to slay the Primarch!"
A voice rang from outside the sanctum, its owner's heeled boots striking the floor in rapid succession.
Greyfax, having escaped from the *King of Explorers* using every means at her disposal, stormed into the hall, her words charged with urgency.
But as she entered and locked eyes with Guilliman, she froze in her tracks.
"It seems you've arrived somewhat late," Guilliman said with a faint smile. The Thirteenth Primarch possessed a touch of humor his brothers lacked.
He cast his gaze over his sons and their guests, seeking shared levity in their expressions. Yet, even Calgar and Tigurius bore solemn faces, their features hardened by eons of strife, as though they had forgotten how to smile.
A shadow of unease fell upon Guilliman. Keenly observant, he realized that humanity had undergone profound and troubling changes.
"The world has shifted," Cawl remarked, his tone tinged with resignation.
Determined to understand this era, Guilliman gestured for all but Cawl to leave.
A protracted series of conversations began. First, he spoke with Cawl, then summoned Calgar, Tigurius, and others in turn—even the xenos. Those who were not summoned lingered just beyond the sanctum doors, eager to remain as close as possible to their Gene-Father.
Through these dialogues, Guilliman pieced together the state of the Imperium and the galaxy's fractured landscape.
The doors opened and closed repeatedly.
Calgar, lingering near the entrance, discreetly observed Guilliman's expression whenever the doors parted. To his dismay, he noted the Primarch's visage growing ever graver.
When Iphigenia emerged, and Greyfax was called within, Guilliman's face betrayed something Calgar had never witnessed before: anxiety.
Before Calgar could glean more, the doors shut once again.
"The Primarch is troubled," Cawl murmured, his mechanical eyes narrowing as he gazed down at Calgar.
"Why?" Calgar asked, perplexed. "Ultramar endures. The Chapter thrives…"
"You have done well," Cawl reassured him. "He holds you in high regard. You need not fear that you are the source of his discontent."
Relief and a sense of pride washed over Calgar, tempered by the weight of their uncertain future.
---
"How did the Imperium come to this?"
The first words Greyfax heard upon entering were laced with both bewilderment and lament.
She raised her eyes to meet the Primarch's.
Guilliman sat upon his throne, his elbows resting on his knees, his face buried in one hand. The lines on his brow seemed etched by a millennium of despair.
For a moment, Greyfax felt a kinship, a shared sorrow.
"All that my father and I strove to build has crumbled," Guilliman continued, his voice heavy with reproach.
"The Empire of Reason and Science has been supplanted by the Ecclesiarchy. Humanity has regressed into ignorance and superstition, enduring ceaseless suffering. Countless worlds are no more than hellscapes designed for torment, where people can do little but kneel before priests and pray to my father…" His tone grew colder. "If any of my brothers saw this Imperium, they would laugh bitterly."
"The only solace," he added after a pause, "is that Ultramar still retains a glimmer of reason."
Greyfax listened in silence. As a staunch believer in the Imperial Truth, she had felt this despair before—on Cadia, where she had witnessed the depths of the Imperium's zealotry.
"I understand your pain," she finally said. "When I saw people bowing to a winged mutant as though it were divine, I could not help but think how far the Imperium has fallen."
"What of the Talon Sector?" Guilliman asked abruptly. "Cawl spoke highly of it."
Greyfax furrowed her brow, then allowed a faint smile. "Indeed, it is exceptional. It was once a thorn in the Ecclesiarchy's side. Even the priests who dared tread there succumbed to the 'Plague of Unbelief.'"
"They've only improved," she continued. "Even pariahs find acceptance there—can you imagine? They have schools and jobs for the soulless. Their institutions even teach about daemons, referring to them as 'Warp entities,' while their countermeasures are termed 'anti-Warp protocols.'"
Guilliman listened intently, finding hope in the Talon Sector's example of rationality.
But Greyfax swiftly tempered his optimism.
"They thrive not because they are wiser or more virtuous than the rest of the Imperium, but because their reality is more stable—and because they are led by a heretical technological savant."
"In this age, rationality is a luxury," she said gravely. "One's access to it depends not on virtue, but on circumstance."
"Talon employs abominable intelligence, rejects the Ecclesiarchy, and is in direct conflict with the Inquisition. Agents sent there disappear without a trace. The only information we receive is what their intelligence apparatus allows us to see."
Her voice grew somber. "In many ways, the Talon Sector resembles rogue human factions from ten millennia ago, such as Raen'dahn. To the Imperium of today, they may even be more dangerous."
Guilliman regarded her words with measured skepticism, aware of Greyfax's biases. Yet, he could not dismiss the truth of the sector's threat.
"You make a compelling point," he admitted, his gaze lifting to the vaulted ceiling of the sanctum. "But I believe the Inquisition must temper its dogma with tolerance. If people are forced to endure hellish lives, they will inevitably succumb to the lure of daemons."