Canoness Veridyan

Ages of Darthur

The Ages of Darthur

1st Age

                                              

The Sisters could not recall the Person who left me with them .Their caustic bleached existence leaves no room for such trivialities. They remember the bell rang a cacophonous campanology, rousing the Oblate from a nodding slumber .

The eastern priory door is not typically used for postulants,and as such it took longer than usual for the Martial sisterhood of the Ebon Chalice to respond.

As to possessions, a rolled blanket propped the door alongside a dusty hourglass, broken shield, coffer full of coin, and a large inquisitorial seal. The keys to the coffer were nailed to the door with instructions to the Sisterhood to raise me alongside the the other schola Progeniums...nothing more.

The Missionaries were used to requests from high ranking members of the Imperium, and for the longest while they had taken a small yearly contingent of children unto their divine embrace. But Never before had so bold a move been made by the Inquisition .
A convent was called to decide my fate. The sister superior decided it would be a mistake to challenge outright the inquisition over such a triviality, and with a cold disdain usually left for their enemies, the sisterhood brought me unto their fold.

2nd Age




The brave died first, but death isn't particular and soon we would all bear its mark. We had taken to hiding to survive the sorrows of this blighted city of death. It was a test of our testaments, those who lasted three solar cycles would wear the hood of ascension and join our brothers in the fraternis militia.

To all manor of obscenities we bore witness. Chanting the litanies of sin did nothing to thwart a miasma of pestilence that veiled the horrors within.

Doom sirens wailed, lamenting the worlds end, the day of reckoning... Exterminatus.  Years of bleak preparation had crafted a cage in my mind. I crawled within and sealed behind.

Fear lost to hunger, and again I ventured forth for food. Charnel ruins where the larvae of life fed on the dead. I scoffed them down in silent revulsion, a lord of the flies.

Through the fog a lost scream found its way to my ears, and as I raised my hands to clamp out reality I saw her..

You could be forgiven for mistaking her as part of the sisterhood. Her attire the nominal black and red, but upon closer inspection there was too much finesse. Exotic weaponry replaced the imperial boltgun. The garments lacked a brutal coarseness, and looked soft to the touch. Finery that betrayed a noble heritage.

You may even mistake this refinement as a weakness, and not the practical clothing of an Inquisitor used to moving within the highest echelons of imperial society. In truth she was an anachronism of beauty, flamboyant against a clustered window on a plague ridden planet.  A divine revelation to mine eye.

As my faith faltered she appeared radiant, rousing a fire within. Like a moth to the flame, wrapped up in youthful heroism, I rushed to shield this maiden from her toxic tormentors. She looked upon me and and made her judgements as only a Ordo Hereticus could.

I marvelled upon that magnificent creature and vowed, as the sisters had been my gaolers, Madine would set me free.

3rd Age





I was chasing shadows on chiaroscurrii, a chapel moon orbiting the adumbral cathedral world of Ecclessia. Too long I had been here, my monochrome grip on reality was slipping. This light leaching world plays tricks on the mind.

Caravaggio gaslights painted flickering cameos on a warren of walls. I stumbled over a black of bricks and cursed my misfortune. She had evaded me again, the last member of a renegade solar cult that had forgone the Emperors light and embraced a Stygian dark.

I paused to catch my breath, hoping the respite would bring some clarity. For weeks I had tracked the coven, lancing the gloom with fanatical zeal. All had fallen before Madine's newly anointed interrogator, except one..

I lit a pair of Rembrandt candles and offered votives to the Emperor through an effigy of my mistress. The renaissance light offered little heat, and as I blankly transfixed on its mercurial incandescence my thoughts returned to Madine.

Whilst true I was vexed at having to leave my mistress's side, I consoled myself with the knowledge I was doing her bidding. The Inquisitrix's political aspirations had not gone unnoticed within the Dalthan conclave, and with the Helios succession drawing near it was a good time for potential candidates to forge alliances.

Cardinal kaufman could be useful, and thus when Madine received a formal request from the Brythonian Synod to investigate murders on Ecclessia, she was happy to oblige. A last minute invitation from her most vocal supporter Lord Inquisitor Vendrake, forced her to forgo that journey.

As the candleglim dimmed to grimdarkness, a feminal fear beset my blanched breast, I pulled taut my cowl and cocked the rifle. There was something out there, watching...waiting...

4th Age







There is a senseless futile surreality to a never ending war.. Its the little things you notice when the thunder and smoke of mortar shell abate. A bow of light, harlequin arcs a battlefield. Torrential rain diffused by super heated plasma illuminates the mud grey dead, in a chimera of chroma colour. A sober, commissar crushed by a crate of Amasec, or a munitorum error that leaves a battalion of guardsmen hopping, with a shipment of left boots.

Where once there was the thrill of the chase, now there is only the frustrating bureaucracy of war.
Even mighty agents of the Emperor's will are reduced to a supplicating crawl through the obstinate annals of the administratum.

It is ten years since the death of my former mistress Madine, and you find me on the eve of my own ascension from acolyte to Inquisitor. For ten years I have dutifully served a new master in a new Ordo. I move battle weary armies to battle worn worlds via battle fatigued fleets. I advise, assemble and assist the movement of millions of men to shield this fragile plait of planets we call the Imperium of man, from the relentless scourge of the Xenos. I am the mouth that orders the quill.

For ten long years I have borne the burden of guilt, the shame of failure, and the grief of loss. For ten long years I have searched unsuccessfully to bring her killer to justice. And now I am haunted by that failure.

As arrangements are made for my Lord Absolom Vendrake's departure from Dalthus, I am aware that I am not worthy to succeed his legacy. A specter of doubt hangs like a tenebrous cloud.
It is ironic that I am now charged with the protection of humanity, knowing how I could not protect my own mistress. I have sealed my own fate, what was within is now without and I fear for my future.

My amalathian apathy turns to anger at the thought of what might have been. And as I receive my order of ascension I cannot help but wonder what the future holds for my tormented soul.

5th Age





The path towards radicalism is taken in small steps. My own spiral towards heresy started with the departure of Vendrake. Or was it the death of Madine. It is hard to recall the events of those dark days. But recall them I must, if I am to complete the telling of this tale.

I had taken to using drugs to brighten my mood. Chiron had left his store of medicaments, to which I gratefully acquainted myself. Melancholy made worse by repetition, ground my once keen mind to dormancy. Mistakes were noted, and that terrible gaze of judgement fell upon me. My abilities and rank called into question. I did as most do and fled down into the dark dwellings of the underhive.

Here amongst the knaves and hawkers, chapmenne and rottoothed rogues I found a cloaked quiet.
I knew the place well from my latent days as Vendrake's spy master. Dirty little hobble holes, where the fleshmongers ply their trade in a corpus of dust and death.

Shadows of what once were walk beside me, mocking my choices whilst offering a parlance of redemption. I decline in cant, my preference oblivion amidst the dregs, dross, rags and refuse.


Deeper and deeper I fall. I shoulder Obscura with beastmenne and worse. Lost and forgotten relics of a doomed Imperium. Despair is all, and I wail through warp fractured flecks, lamenting the death knell of mankind.. Palpable irony leaves me laughing and crying at my absurd reflection. Escaping myself I run with resurrection menne in the ratting cove. A gambit for the tall man. No one asks and no one tells. We avoid the knock-knock by using up the cackle, but run adrift against the Moon curser. I am left for dead amongst the sumpdreck fragments of the foreshore. I close my eyes and embrace oblivion.

I wake in a cave. A rank hollow of bones and clinker where a firepit boils a witchery concoction. The acrid brew brings a tear to my watery eye, and I feel the searing pain of life. My healer another forfeit soul, cast away from the Scholastica Psykana for some unspeakable truth, recognised within me a value of sorts.

We spoke little as I regained my strength, words hold power and we were yet weary of each other.
By way of thanks, I offered him recompense. He asked only to be forgotten, but offered me a parting gift. Shuffling to the dusky corner of his crepuscular cavern, he lifted a skull of which I had taken no note. Forecast cards he offered me, the sigil on one I had seen before. Intrigued I inquired as to the meaning. He spoke of destiny, time and fate. But the words meant nothing, ravings of a renegade haruspex. I asked where the cards came from, but he proffered nothing more..


The next years were are a blur in my memory. The few notes I made, lost to entropy. My servo skull recorded much of the spoken detail, but the bigger picture remains vague at best. The Inquisition tracked me down several times, ( my name and rank scrubbed from the annals of the Ordo Xenos ). I moved constantly searching for meaning in those forecast symbols, every step a little closer to comprehension.

I learned contradictory tales of a sacred device that grants wishes, or knowledge, or both. An atrophied Deamon engine, crafted by warpsmisths in the eye of terror. Or a true A:I pre Mechnaicum machine; the bloodclock, to whom fleshclock sacrifices are made every hour of everyday.. Fewer still spoke in hushed tones of the heart of the Arkke and the rock of ages.. Finally I heard tell of the aetherium obscured, Ordo Chronos's ChronoLogicus citadel. Destroyed by the Deathwatch in an untimely fashion. The final clue, a courtesy of the deamonhost Clapsydra, my fall from grace with the lure of chaos complete.


Anticipatory, I now stand in front of that infernal machine. My mind a library of questions. One amongst all others rises above.



“ Step forward Lemniscate..“ The words appeared in my mind in a way I could not communicate.

“Why do you call me thus.. my name is Darthur” . A false bravado, when I truth I no longer knew who I was..

“You are as you have always been and will be, now step forth through liminal, and ask the question.” A mix of cold fear and adrenalin coursed through my veins.. could this thing really hold the truth I seek.

The wind howled in icy gusts amongst the soot and embers. Through the detritus I could see the bodies of men. Some hulking giants in the armour of the aegis, swords still thrumming with power an aeon after creation. Others barely bearded. Flack jackets bleached to the bone. Curiosity got the better of me, and I willed words into being.

“what are you , And who are these men..?

The answers came too fast, before I had finished the words. “ I am all that remains , a relic remnant of rubble'd ruins. And these.. the carrion at the carcass. But that is not the right question.. “

I inched forwards towards my destiny with quiet resolve. A heavy cloak and hood kept the cold air from my shrouded face..the ancient armour suitably fitting, for this archaic environment. I knelt at a small outcrop of rock and placed a bespoke shrine to Madine. Blood red candles burned with a fierceness befitting the former Ordo Hereticus Iinquisitor. I stood and tentatively approached the boundaries marker of the Device. For the first time I could see the ritual markings in there entirety.
The snaking shape of the sigil flowed around the central Chronological device and out towards a smaller ruin, umbilical'ed to the larger, via blood red mechadendrites. A cogged corpse propped the ruin, its head lolling to reveal a dusty hourglass. I readied myself for the answer and clearly formed the words in my mind before speaking, words I had asked a thousand times to a thousand souls...

“ Who killed Madine .. ? “

“That is not the right question, step through the liminal and ask the question..” Confusion raced through my body, I twisted around to make sure I was the only person present.. the whistling wind my only company. The candles on the shrine had gone out and I stepped forward over the bounder line in a dazed and panicked state.

“Ask the question Lemniscate ..” Again the words flowed without sound yet I heard them as if they had been shouted. I shook my head in turmoil.. “ Wait “

“Ask the question !” My head spun as a rising tinnitus of turbulence peaked in my mind,I searched deep and longing thoughts and feeling until I could stand the ringing noise no more..



“WHO AM I.. ? “



“ Yes that is the question.. now we can begin the ritual..”








A wave of Euphoria rushed over me and I sank to my knees, exhausted on the scree. Could this really be the question I had sought my whole life?. But what of Madine..? a barrage of questions tumbled onto me as I knelt in front of the machine. They would have to wait.. I could sense impatience from the ancient sentience, and as winter rain began to fall upon the plains I knew time was against us. My fate was now as bound to this device as that poor cogcorpse.

“Rub the redskull and bring the hourglass”

I saw the sun set from beneath my hood, and a moonless gloom swept across the ruins. Had it been that long..? the rain began to fall faster and faster. The rhythmic patter on my shield, lulling me into a pattern of movement at odds with the situation. I rubbed the skull in the sheen of past hands, and grabbed the hourglass from its silent guardian without contest. The sense of nonbeing I had accepted my whole life began to ebb away. As I stepped into the dark under croft of that profane apparatus a primordial truth dawned.. Know thyself !












I awoke to the sound of distant thunder. It was still raining, but within the rain I could taste the ash of war. I lay on my back staring up towards a tumult grey sky. The rain fell heavy on my face and pooled in the back of my burlap hood. I looked around for the Chronologicus. Behind me some forty or fifty meters.. It seemed quiet.. almost like any other ruin, no sense of power emitted from its stony façade. Around and beneath me were the bones of humanity. As far as the eye could see was death. I stood up to better get my bearings, and saw a flash of lightning on the horizon. I counted out loud until the crack of thunder stuck, rolling over the plain of skulls with a reverberating ease. In the distance vast pyramiidens burned with a sense of morbid eternity. Churning pillars of sootblack smoke out across the bleakest of worlds .. Bromholme.

I stood upon a ridge looking down towards a mort sea of cadavers that swept in tides towards a monumental golden temple, flanked by glorious archangel towers. The bleached bones of the plains behind, lay in stark contrast to the bloated brown rotting remains of a recent holy war. Chainswords and chalices littered the ground, and at every turn destruction.

I had heard about this place many times from the sisters, but never before had I set foot within this charnel house. A cardinal world like no other. Before I could finish the thought the unnatural noise of war brought me fast to my senses. Upon the celestial tower a weary watchman spied me through a glinting eyeglass. Beneath him a fraternal throng had gathered, all wielded weapons of war, and all started up the the morbid mound with murder in mind. Turning away I took a tumble. My foot slipping on the rain slick skulls I sent them toppling down the ridge like boulders. The ever familiar sound of gunfire rang out over the thunder and rain. I instinctively snapped off a few bolt rounds in response and scrambled to my feet.

Running on skulls in the rain is no easy task I assure you, but let it be known I did my best. I cursed my heavy cloak and armour for slowing me down then thanked my good sense for wearing it as as more shots rang off my back shield. The militia had rounded the crest and were intent on adding my apostate bones to their pile.

The machine was within spitting distance now, but still no sign of life.. Again I snap fired my bolt pistol, drawing my sword in readiness for combat. Why did the machine bring me here of all places, this means nothing to me. I cursed my foolishness, I doubt I was the first soul tricked by some forgotten tainted device, and I doubt I would be the last. My gun emptied its last shot and as I reached for another magazine, I saw a golden haloed figure crest the rise. His appearance seemed to inspire the marrow men who lurched forward with renewed vigor. They were upon me now. Cracks of thunderous lighting forked into the plains, adding unnecessary drama to the melee. A lasbolt tore my at cheek and I panic fired in blind and furious vengeance as I felt the world spin.

Colours faded into sounds and the violent men moved in a slow unnerving motion. A glimmer of chainswords tarried with unnatural physics, and I saw the round that killed me leave my pistol in a predetermined blaze of glory.






At some point I must have fallen unconscious, because again I woke to see the sky, not a dull ash grey blanket, but a thin due laden morning mist of a sky. Clouds moved at there own pace un-harried by wind. A bleak winter sun paled a yellowhite light onto a damp grey cemetery and the wet grass upon which I lay. I took a minute to enjoy the piece after what seemed like a violent dream.
I noted the brackish gnarled and twisted oaks had shed most of their leaves. The few that remained burned a copper brown against that moist air. My hood, wet from the rain, no not rain blood !. Pain flared through my face..instinctively I pressed gloved hands to a semi cauterized wincing wound. The silence broken by own galled grunts, I lifted the heavy weight of being, into that beautiful entropy;the garden of Morr..

I recognised the place almost instantly.. how different this place of death was to the woeful world I had just come from. This the place of my youth. About me I looked to reconcile my memory of it to the reality I saw before me. Harsh winters and warm summers were spent reading the writings of the clergy. My ministorum misdemeanors were often played out betwixt the hollows within the woad of wood. I cared not to look for the Chronologicus, as I needed little assurance, and feared no threat. I knew that beyond that thicket of thorns lay a path that led to the road, that led to Convent of the Sister of the Ebon Chalice. These Linden trees here about I climbed many times , cutting and crafting small shields and such for sword practice. I found it strange I could barely believe I was back . So long I longed to away from this place or rules and scripture. But here, now, I could not wish to be any place other. So enamored, I had almost forgot the wound to my face. Around here or some place else, a timbran hut stands or stood. Built by my own hands as a walloway from my goalers. I looked for signs of change, but within the thick o the thicket all was brush. I pushed forward through the sunken gravestones and moss lined sepulchers, for a but few yards before coming a complete stop.

A crypt unfamiliar to memory stood upon a place beloved by me most. A great gnarled linden tree, its snake ourobos roots, enshrined a cabal of skulls I had engraved many times. The branches made light but hard shields that gave me a sprightly advantage over my fellow oakensheilded peers during in sparing lessons. But no branches were left.. sigils of warding I did not recognize were cut into its bracken bark. Its branches already formed or in the midst of forming new shields, so similar to the ones I created myself I stood a back. The catacomb itself seemed to draw upon my imaginings. An engraving of Vendrake and a dusty hourglass adorned its side. I moved closer to inspect and I saw Him, prostrate in a mere of his own blood. A simple back shield cracked into pieces from the force of the impact. I looked around to seek a perpetrator but saw only the under-croft of the Chronologicus. I knew then in my heart I was guilty. Shaking, I bent down to acknowledge my crime, barely daring to turn the body and remove that cowl of damnation. Scared to into paralysis I shunned the truth . The Choronologicus spoke for the first time in our journey. The voice an echo of my own thoughts.“ Reveal and accept the truth Lemniscate and bring forth what you must “

How can this be, what senseless joke is this. I spoke the words in silence for I knew the truth. I knelt again in sombre reverence, offering a prayer of forgiveness to the almighty Emperor, and removed the cowl...

I looked older and thinner, much thinner, sallow bare bones, rakish and gaunt, a long grey bear , and woody hands with splinters and ink. The face did not look anguished, and I was relieved to see a faint smile, I knew was too early for rictus. We were at peace. I lifted the body into the tomb and pulled close the curtains. I noticed an open book, the ink still wet, but refused to look any further. Gathering up the man's meager possessions, broken shield and rolled bed linen. I walked back to the under-croft feeling what few men have felt, and readied my self for the final destination.







I knew before I entered where I was going. There was only one place left for me now...Madine.
Some things I will keep to myself, there is no need to expand upon the details of our relations, but suffice to say, a warplost ship within the Jericho reach was the place of my own conception. The youthful Madine placed me into the care of the sisters at the bequest of her wounded radical savior.

That is all.. for now.

6th Age






In seeking absolution I find exultation.. I watch them flock, with scornful indignation.
Immortality and divinity they whisper, and all come with Rogation.
I am beseeched by devoted, my martial powers duly noted, on my head a halo floated.

Golden robes are draped about me in a episcopicide of hieromachy .
I am named of the chalice "the chosen". Within the transepts hushed tones gently spoken.
Defender of the ebon cup, from the lips the Emperor supped.

Sitting in its reliquary above the gilded chancery, the incensed pilgrims squint in flagellation, thurifer adulation, Rembrandt vernicle, vestry vespers, stoup the stylites ridel rood.







Although they started with a revelation of guilt, the decades succeeding the events of the Chronologicus saw me reach the heights of my fame and martial prowess.

I looked to atone past sins, aligning myself with the ministorum. Contrition brought confession, that sought satisfaction and finally.. absolution. My penance martyrdom within a holy crusade on distant battlefields. A triumph in death was not be. I awoke time over time from that eternal sleep.

Many began to wonder as worlds were brought back to the fold. I led from the front testing fate at every turn. In perfect contrition I washed away sin with the blood of my enemies. The more I pushed against my ourobos nature the more I became who I needed to become. In the end I went willing, almost complicit with what destiny had in store for me.

Year upon theody year blessedbled into decretal decades. Time ticked past in a slow and tonsured tremendum. In between the bloodshed and screaming deaths I began to accept myself.

Triumphant we returned, laying the bones of our enemies at the sombre temples of a cardinal world.
A penitent man, armoured for past wars, I doth it all and embrace the pilgrims way. Enshrined within humble servitude, I let a candle light my way. But even here on this most sacred of sepulchres, war is ever present. I cannot escape my path. Anchorites on hoodoos anoint my sword with an ampulla of oils. Within the apse beadsmenne pray for my soul, and I am blessed with a golden aureole. A mersion of miters pal upon the pavis, and as I slay the enemies of a chastised chalice, my trials of redemption are interrupted by a pealing thunder.

I watch from below as mendicant men led by an militant ancress, mistake a shadow of me for reliquary thief. As they hinder up the mort sea to bring about my destruction, I pursue in piety to get a glimpse of the man I once were. Arcs of electrified static stand my hairs on end and a shiver of regret runs the ream of my back as I see my former self vanish in a rapturous hail of thunder.

I had come so far. But the Absolution I so desperately sought had to come from deep within. My journey was not yet at an end.

7th Age





I had been preparing for my death for some time..

The chirurgeon called it corruption, a canker in my body caused by exposure to the warp. The hourglass was emptying. They no longer thought me immortal when I could barely lift my armour.
My usefulness to the Ecclesisiarchy on the wane, I requested my extensive and imposing battle augmentations removed .

I was allowed to keep the halo, and It served me well over the following decades as a scholarly elder within the cloistered monkery that aligned with agapetae convent of the Ebon Chalice. My first post was Marshal of Martyrs, a teaching role for the young fraternii. I took to the bardocucullus with an easy familiarity. Recalling my own lessons on gun and sword practice from yesteryears.

I enjoyed the role and did my best to pass on the accumulated bellicosity of knowledge, but as my malady amassed, as did my infirmity. I requested a cassock within the cartulary and the Archimandrites responding cathisma was positive. The Cenobites of the records office were a cloistered custo-capuchin of would be eremites. Insular and aloof they jealously guarded the long history of the fraternity, and saw me as an unwelcome intrusion. I kept myself to myself and had a servitor record my teachings to a bible of scrolls .. year after year we committed combat conflicts to codex. It formed a lexicon on hostility against every human and xenos enemy I had encountered over my long years at war.

In catharsis and as way to escape the daily routine of Monasticism, I took to deciphering some of the more arcane and esoteric literature within the librarium. It was whilst reading of the Eschatonic times of the the great schism, I noted the Ex libri fine filigree of a master artisan. A remembrancer . named Solomon Voss. Although many of his words had been redacted, it was the illuminations that caught my eye. Tremendous tracery at odds with the frugal utilitarian book of hours the clergy are given to read. In comparison my own scrolls seemed severely lacking. Fuelled by a deep desire to accomplish such perfect renditions, I started my own greater work. A whorl worthy of my own eddying history.

I eschewed the constricting confines of the Monastery and embraced nature. I knew of course the coming end of myself, and I preprepared to leave this reality with a semblance of immortality. I had an existing crypt recarved with sigils and motifs befitting my antiquity, and repositioned within the limey linden woad of wood , as best my memory recollected. I lived as a hermit, a lonely anchorites existence, as I began to write my hagiogrpahical Opus Maius .. The Lemniscate Chronologicus. A definitive history of the ages of Darthur.

The words came easily enough, although many radical concepts I obscured within high Gothic or Cant. Seasons came and went as I perfected my chosen art. The quill an extension of my quick wrist, illuminated the darkest tenets of my deeds with a grace that first felt unnatural. But as the years past and I shrunk into the Autumn of old age, hoary years that betrayed me on the battlefield paid their own dividends back, with patience and accumulated knowledge.

From time to time A Sister would drop by to scold or chagrin. I let it pass, those Achromatic harridans know nothing more than war. My fraternal friary friends know better than to disquiet a vellum bound stylite within his own ascetic glebe. Internunicios often passed through the lychegate in the summer months, to seek out the hermit who makes the lightweight lindensheilds for swordpractice. I break from my Lavra Lectern or hearsecloth bound homolegomena to pass on my knowledge whilst still able. Between the wrenching pain of my sickness I overcome en-feebleness to write.

I am awoken from a recurring mare. A sweating swivven, my darked cell stickly with little pools of saliva. I, slumped indecorously upon my iron bed gasping for air. My aspergellum just out of hands reach, and my lifes work cluttered about me unfinished.

It is a layman, a sergeant who's life I once saved a lifetime ago upon a world whose name I no longer recall. He sought me, the golden aureoled sinner saint out, after years of a searching pilgrimage.. I see myself anew within the shock of his eyes. I know not what he was expecting but, it was not me. I thank him for his assistance, and he stays a while whilst I hurry to finish the tome.

I send him on his way as the bluster of Autumn descends into the cool chill of winter. I know what is coming and wish to leave this place as I came .. alone. He goes, begrudgingly.. but leaves me with the knowledge my life was not in total bereft of good, nor in vain.

I feel the reapers ache of affection more and more, and as I start the end of the book, arrangements are made with the Sisters for the trental interment of my body and soul.




At the first of rain I awake remarkably early. The book is Complete and I lay it open on the bed along with notes to the Cartulary for its placement within the library's orarium. After washing my feet and hands in the ritual way, I light my thurible censor and offer up a final theody to the Emperor. I then kneel In front of my relic shrine to Madine and requiescat pray.
forgive me for the sins of the past and the sins yet to come.

I stand In trinity and perfect contrition. At final peace with my actions I look to a lime of linden trees and watch in humble appreciation as a sorrel of ochre leaves tumble to an umber forest floor amidst the cyclical decay of life, death and rebirth. A wisp of absolution wind caresses my smiling cheek and all is black.

8th Age





My last testament to Madine is to stand vigil, ever watchful as her eternal guardian within the deep catacombs of Brythonis. A rudimentary machine spirit to inhabit my cranium and hopefully succeed in death which I could not achieve in life. For even in death duty does not end.

       " Writings taken from The Lemniscate Chronologicus "