Horus Lupercal's first memory took place when he was six years old. He considered this a bad omen. Most children have their first true recollection at age three. Here he was, lurching at half mental-speed. The memory was this: he shattered a glass with his mind. It was tinted green, with little bubbles and imperfections that implied home craftsmanship (In truth, it had been made in a smoking manufactorum with low quality standards). An invisible force tore through it, reducing it to emerald sand. Outside the window was the hive city, needle-thin black spires and yellow smoke, and it occurred to six year old Horus that the world was unaccountably brittle.
From there, childhood drew out in agonizing detail. One of his better memories was running into a shop to escape steaming acid rain, and finding himself in a pet store. There were perhaps two hundred yapping dogs. His presence quieted them all. This was well before Horus knew he was a god; he simply thought of himself as a bad luck token.
Soon he was in a gang and soon he was in charge of a gang. By this point he had learned to control his bad luck, and had become a remarkably dangerous young man. With perhaps twelve other disgruntled children, they burgled and mugged their way through the alleys. There were no alternatives. Well, there were alternatives. As a child in the subcity of Hive 9, he could've worked in either the mines or the brothels. Mugging was safer. At age eleven, he killed a man for the first time. It was an accident. Horus had never held a boltgun before, and didn't know how to use it. The force, the sound was incomparable. Like lightning. He wondered what the man on the receiving end felt. His friends cheered him and he pretended the murder was intentional.
At twelve-years-old, Horus Lupercal learned his destiny.
"Daemons and angels," according to the residents, invaded the slums. They were looking for Horus. He went to meet them.
It was there that a golden giant said, "Horus Lupercal, I am your father."
If the man was hoping for a reaction, he was disappointed.
"What are your thoughts?" said the man.
Horus was nauseous, shivering, beginning to doubt his sanity, but showed no sign. He didn't flinch.
The man had eyes like his - the same green as tinted glass and steaming corrosive rain - but the man was
glowing. Horus recognized the glow for what it was: a projection. Something shifting in the air, a font of golden static. He hurt to look at. The man said he was Horus's father, and it was probably true. If only Horus could just look at him, through the haze. What stood before him was a tear in reality, and made him want to cry.
On either side of him were armored monsters with automatic weapons and faced like predators. They hissed air through facial grilles. So, they breathed. Humans, maybe? Their armor was unlike anything he'd ever seen. The sheer heaviness of it. The beastly proportions. Those heaving shoulders, those narrowed eyes. The golden man wore something similar, but with no helmet. Confidence? Hubris?
At that Horus felt the slightest pressure. An ache at his temple. It hardened. Someone was trying to muscle their way into his thoughts. Horus pushed back.
"You have the same gift," said Horus, voice almost cracking.
"And what gift is that?"
"I don't know what its called. I can feel it in the air."
"On Terra they call us psykers. But for you and I, I don't think that word is quite enough. You and I both have the gift." The man took a step close. It was a heavy step. "I am the God Emperor of Terra. I am the Guardian of Mankind. Wherever stars reach, I reign. This gift is much, much more than realize."
"Why are you here?" said Horus.
"I've come to bring you home."
The later Primarchs would said when they left, they were conflicted between duty to their homeland and duty to the Emperor. Horus felt neither.
The years that followed were gentle ones. Terra was city on city on city, a world of blackened ferracrete and steel. At night, the city lights lit the smog with mottled rainbows. All was blinking. All was loud. But that was only the Terra Horus flew over. He and the God Emperor made their home in marble palaces, drifting from one gold-and-white villa to the next. The real Terra existed only as ash in the window.
The father wanted a warrior for a son. The lessons began as history. It wasn't until his late teens that his father introduced him to military theory. At twenty, Horus was allowed to preside over combat exercises. The God Emperor said, "I want you to have a feel for your Legion."
Then the Emperor turned Horus over to his lieutenants, who gave him more specialized lessons. Malcador the Sigillite had all many of radical beliefs about "political science," which he firmly instilled in Horus. There was the old man Axmans who was "the greatest pioneer in the field of intelligence gathering and espionage." The best of these tutors was Narcan, a field commander retired by grievous injuries. He had survived an artillery strike. His limbs were cybernetic, and he spoke through a vox. What little flesh was left of him was leathery and wet, sometimes weeping blood, the result of a rejected skin implant and botched genetherapy. Every hour he had to be massaged with special chemicals. The first lesson he shared with Horus: "Don't get hit by artillery." Narcan was an unparalleled genius; it was his tutelage that gave Horus a sense of the Great Crusade's scope.
Horus had been the most dangerous ganger in Hive 9's subcity. He was now the most dangerous ganger in the universe. This thought was funny to him, but didn't make him laugh.
As a matter of fact, nothing made Horus Lupercal laugh.
His father, on the other hand, was always in a good mood. The God Emperor of Mankind was fond of feasting and drinking. He was a natural host; there were always people in the palaces, enjoying his company, fawning over him, while he presided with a grin. It was rare to be along with him. His entourage of generals, bureaucrats, scientists, and general sycophants regarded Horus with a steady resentment. The court was a venomous one. Horus came to understand why: his father delegated authority on whims. There was something disturbingly
casual about how he administered the greatest empire in human history.
Once Horus did catch him alone. They were along on the veranda. The balustrade was carved ivory; the pillars were carved to resemble plump cherubs. Beneath them, the floor was checkerboard marble. Ahead of them, beyond the cherubs, the black agony of industry swept to the horizon. The Emperor dismissed the servants.
"I have not always... been honest with my subordinates. Including you," said the Emperor. "But you're older now. I would like you to accompany me on the Great Crusade. I think you're ready to hear some truths. Ask me anything."
"Are you... What are you?" Horus asked. "Where did you come from?"
"I was born, the same way as everyone else. To a human mother, before you ask. Her name was Lucretia. I was born M28.113."
"What happened to her?"
"I think my birth was very hard on her. Whatever it was that was special about me... It was very, very bad for her. She was dead within a year. She heard voices. Saw visions. At the end, her skin, her skin actually started to change... I was too young to remember. The village head, he told me that she died of natural causes. I suspect he killed her. For the good of the village. I don't blame him," the Emperor said. "The gift you and I have... it may have opened a door it wasn't meant to."
"What's your name?"
"Where I was from, only the mother can name a child. She was never cognizant enough to name me. They used to call me the boy."
"Are you the most powerful psyker who has ever lived?"
"No," said the Emperor. "During the Age of Strife, I faced a rival warlord who could topple mountains with his voice. He was just a maelstrom. There was nothing like it. It took an orbital bombardment to kill him. We scoured the earth clean of him. There wasn't even ash at the combat sight, just glass. And there was another man, I remember, who was disemboweled with a chainblade. He kept himself alive through sheer psychic force of will. His organs were completely exposed. His heart was partially torn open even. You could see them still pumping to this uneven, desperate beat."
"What happened to him?" said Horus.
"He lived for another three days. Then died the instant he fell asleep. His mind relaxed its grip I suppose. Imagine the agony. Knowing he would've had to sustain his concentration, that horrible force of will, forever. I don't know how he even lasted three days."
"You... You kill heretics."
"That's not a question," said the Emperor.
"You kill heretics, knowing full well that you're just a man. How do you justify that?"
His father reared on him. The soft golden aura roared infernal; blue eyes turned smoldering.
"Just a man?" said the Emperor. "All the years you spent here, and you think I'm just a man? Look out at this view, boy. Or at the stars. I am a living symbol of the order of the cosmos. I ended the Age of Strife. Understand that, without me, there is none of this. And there's no you. There's only madness.
"The old scholars blame the Strife on technology taken too far, but that's only a half truth. Science let humanity outpace the gods. The world lost religion, and without gods there was no objective morality, no objective truth, just the morass of subjective perception. You have to understand, you can't strip life of meaning and maintain order. The empires and laws of the old world evaporated, boy. The minute you burn the holy texts, you are throwing civilization in the pyre. You can never, never say I am 'just a man.'"
"If humanity needs a god," said Horus, "why does it have to be you?"
"Because I made it so." The Emperor leaned against the railing. "Accompanying me will be good for you. You've been sheltered from warfare for too long. Its time you see what I'm fighting."
