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To make this quick, the Emperor should have Acausality Type 4, in his base form, for existing beyond linear time.
Here we can see Horus travel back in time through the Warp, because he knows the Emperor is experiences time differently, and has a conversation with Him.
Here we have Cawl, who is made out of multiple minds and one of them is Ezekiel Sedayne, that is exploring a mountain beacon that causes one to re-experience their past. And when Cawl experiences one of Sedayne's memories, he has a conversation with the Emperor.
Time is a river. It flows only where it can. It is bound by laws as sure as that of gravity. Horus cheatingly followed the path of before like a man can return to a river's source and walk its length again. He remembered now. Events must play out as they did. Some beings, however, are timeless. Through the act of remembering, Horus escaped time's shackles. The Emperor's soul had never felt time's lash so heavily as other men, and so there, in memory, father and son met. Horus' spirit walked out of step with his former self. He looked through the back of his own head as his past and present moved out of synchronisation. How naive he had been. How excited by this outpouring of affection. He had been taken in completely. He allowed himself to be angry about that. Horus and his small party came to the foot of the steps. From the great chair, the Emperor stared down at him. There was imperious pride and triumph in His face as He looked upon His creation. But no love. Never that. From the vantage of the present, Horus looked back upon the Emperor's affection and saw it for a sham. Back then, he had not known. Back then, he had believed. Horus of Cthonia and Warmaster Horus knelt before the man who would become a god ― the first shaking with joy at reunion with his father, thee second disgusted by himself. Silence fell. From His high seat, the Emperor intoned, 'Horus of Cthonia! Do you swear fealty to me, your creator, the Emperor of Mankind? Do you swear to serve me faithfully, to bring the light of the Imperium to every world touched by the hand of our people, to protect them from the dark, to deliver them from ignorance, to give them succour when they are in need, to guide them where they falter, to save them when they are in danger…' The Emperor went on with His list of pompous demands. Warmaster Horus looked up while his weakling former self grovelled in the light. His mouth split far wider than a human's could, evincing a reptilian smile. 'Hello, father,' he said. +It is not enough that you pursue me through metaphor and dreamscapes? Now you chase me down the roads of what has been,+ said the Emperor. 'I will chase you where I must, father,' he replied. His smile spread. 'You sound tired.' Snow whipped past Horus from the shadows of a forest hidden on the edge of sight. Lupine shapes prowled behind him, panting hot breaths, eyes of red, green, pink and blue shining from shadowy faces. +Be careful, Horus,+ the too-perfect voice rang in his head. +The past gives me strength. It has worn itself into the fabric of things, and cannot be altered. It is not mutable like the place you made your last attempt on my soul, and that did not end so well for you.+ Light flared. Horus was pushed back away from his former self as he ecstatically pledged to follow the cause of crusade. Behind the glare Horus saw another Emperor, a man in pain, bound to a seat He could not leave, holding back a tide of darkness while a lone sentinel waited, hammer in hand, before a sealed gate. And past that, a third version of the Emperor, fleetingly glimpsed, this one a corpse trapped within a machine grown monstrous around His throne. The Warmaster laughed, and pushed back, drawing on the might of his allies. 'I was weak. Now I am not.' The light dimmed. 'The truth makes me strong.' +False strength derived from false truths. As you draw it, it eats you alive from the inside. Drag upon their lies as much as you wish ― you are not strong enough to come against me in this way, my wayward son, and you never shall be.+ The Emperor of the past continued to speak. 'Will you, Horus, first of my primarchs, stand by my side and shepherd humanity into a new era of prosperity and peace, where no xenos race might oppress us, and no fault of our nature undo us?' The Emperor stared at him with His rich, brown eyes, and it was the man of the past and the man of the moment combined when He spoke next. 'Do you swear this, Horus, do you swear it?' Light swamped Horus Lupercal's form, and cast him from nowhere into somewhere. | ||
~ The Lost and Damned |
Cawl opened his eyes. Sedayne's eyes. He was on the bridge in other mountains far from the Alapi. Centuries separated the two memories. But memory is wise to time's illusion, and nothing separated them at all. One room was exited, and another entered. 'Belisarius Cawl,' said the Emperor. Confused by the name, Sedayne looked upon his hands. They were old and veined already. Decades of war lay between this moment and the moment that saw Cawl and Sedayne inside the engines of Diacomes. Another room in time. Another door that could be opened at will by the speaker. 'My name is Ezekiel Sedayne,' said Sedayne. 'For now,' agreed the Emperor. The Emperor was by his side at the bridge's parapet. Cawl, or was it Sedayne, trembled as he looked upon Him, but He appeared unremarkable, as He often did. His long hair was tied back. He wore a scientist's white, crisp garb. He was not tall, and nor was He short. He was handsome, but not outrageously so. Slight but not thin. An unremarkable being were it not for the terrifying sense of power that radiated from Him, as untamed as the heart of a star. Sedayne felt fuzzy. The working of time demands that memories of the future be hard to hold, and they slipped away. Why had he come out there? 'To rest,' he said aloud. But he did not remember what he was doing before he came to the bridge. 'You are the Emperor,' said Cawl. Or Sedayne, or both of them. 'I am,' said the Emperor. 'Am I meeting you?' 'You have met me many times, Belisarius,' said the Emperor. 'But not as…' he frowned a frown on Sedayne's face. It was a younger face, but still old. 'But not as me.' 'In a manner of speaking.' The Emperor looked at him sidelong. 'In another manner, you are Ezekiel Sedayne, and always have been, and Cawl is a fragment. An artefact left behind by a desperate man's attempt to stay alive.' 'That hasn't happened yet,' said Cawl. 'When is this?' 'Every moment, no moment, a moment gone. Nothing ever passes, not truly, but goes only beyond notice.' 'Ah,' said Cawl, or Sedayne. 'You are free of this. Is that so?' 'No one is free of time,' said the Emperor. 'Not even me. As long lived as I am, it is ironic that the one thing I lack is time.' The Emperor frowned. 'There is never enough.' 'Is this a dream within a dream, a dream remembered, or did this really happen?' asked Cawl. The Emperor laughed. It was a sound as terrible as avalanches thundering down mountainsides. 'Is there any difference between those things?' 'Are you always this frustratingly gnomic?' said Cawl. 'Because, to be frank, it is a little disappointing.' The Emperor laughed again, with genuine mirth. 'I do like you, Belisarius, though many do not. But it is not your duty to be popular, it is to be important . Every dream is a reality somewhere. Know this, Belisarius Cawl, I will need you. You will think you have betrayed me. You will not in the end.' 'What are you talking about? You are the Omnissiah! I could never betray you.' 'You will,' said the Emperor sadly. 'But you will be right to. You will not again.' 'Does Sedayne remember this conversation?' 'Foresight is not a steady friend, Belisarius. One day it may strike with startling clarity. For centuries it is only a feeling. This is a good day.' 'Did this really happen?' The Emperor smiled again. 'I am really here?' BANG! | ||
~ The Great Work |
