- 39
- 4
When the Emperor forged The Emperor's Spear or Gungnir he imbuned it with a very small fraction of his "sight" which allows Leman Russ and Constatin Valdor to see the truth of all things they pierce with the spear. For instance Valdor was able to see the whole life of a girl he killed with the spear.
So what ability would this be?
Then he moves it, lashing the blade in close, shattering the skull-plate and slicing up all that stimm-bulked gristle. As edge meets flesh, his mind floods with revelations, truths, prophecies, interpretations. He knows her name as it was given to her ― Rebaka Sova Kache ― and sees her birth and her childhood, and the abuse she has suffered and the choices she has made, and how she had to embrace violence else become its victim, and how her soul has slowly withered amid atrocity until she is now the monster she once feared and there is no fate left to her but extinction. Then she is dead, the skein of her soul cut short amid a flail of blood, and the visions snap into nothing. The spear only tells the truth, and only when the strike is made and completed. Its words are those of failures and compromises, and the bearer is reminded of mortality and its endless disappointments. More killing follows, fluent and pitiless, until the vehicles are smouldering amid blackened salt and the remaining tech-warriors are pleading for a clemency that has no place on this kind of battlefield. Valdor walks away from the smoke, letting his companions finish their work. As he does, he senses the voice of his master in his mind, as so often occurs once a task has been completed. +You understand the weapon now,+ the voice transmits. +It uncovers truths,+ Valdor sends back. +It seeks imperfection.+ +You gave it to me. It would be more powerful yet still wielded by Your hand.+ Something like a soft laugh, though already colder than it used to be. +It does not magnify your power, Constantin. It checks it. Killing has been made easy for you, so it will do you good to be reminded of the soul-stories of your victims before you end them.+ Valdor pauses, digesting this. He has never been able to contest any injunction from his master, and is perfectly aware of why that is. +You told me there were two such blades.+ +I did.+ +Where is the other one?+ But there is no answer given. Valdor feels the withdrawal of that colossal mind, and then there is just the dust-veiled sun, the acrid flame and the last cries of the dying. |