The Eye

Once again, he saw the great big eye burning in its dreams. Atop a twisted tower in a writhing world of chaos and insanity, the massive eye stared at it. A ball of fire, with a single black slit cutting it in the middle, the great eye glared down on him with a gaze filled with malice and hatred.

Satoru Honnouji jolted up from his bed, heaving. Cold perspiration poured down his face as he gulped down lungfuls of air. Shaking his head, he reached for the bedside lumen and flicked it on. A servitor rolled into his room, apparently drawn by his cries, and tilted its macabre head to look at him inquisitively.

"Problem, sir?" it asked in that mechanical voice of its own. Satoru shook his head and waved it away. The servitor did an about turn, its treads grinding against the albaster marble, but then Satoru suddenly had a change of heart.

"On second thoughts, fetch me a glass of water."

"Understood, sir." The servitor acknowledged the order before rolling away. Satoru sighed and rubbed his face. Lowering his hands, he saw that they were still trembling.

Even when wide awake, he could still feel the malicous heat of the stare. The back of his neck prickled, almost as if the eye was still watching him somehow.

It's just a dream, he told himself. A nightmare. It's not real. It'll pass.

Yet he had been having similar nightmares for the past two months. It had always been the same, that blazing eye of malice. Somtimes it would be staring from him atop an eldritch tower in a world of shifting landscapes. Other times he could perceive a red giant, the strangely angelic yet terrifying silhouette dwarfing mutating human shapes.

Oddly enough, he sometimes felt drawn to that gaze, as if it was some sort of beacon. A blinding beacon that called for all lost souls to brave the turbulent tides of the warp and sail toward...toward a world...

What was it called? A planet of something. A planet of warlocks? A planet of magic?

Satoru's head throbbed. There was a name for the world scratching at the edge of his memories, something that was trying to get into his mind, yet unable to enter. He was afraid, he realized. Afraid that if he allowed that knowledge in, there would be no turning back.

"Sir?"

Satoru jerked back in reflex, only to find the servitor beside him. It stared at him, its face a grotesque fusion of flesh and metal, and offered a tray of water.

"Thank you." Satoru lowered his head and accepted the cup. Drinking the water in one go, he then leaned back and exhaled.

Even with his eyes closed, he could still sense the blistering heat of that malicious yet seductive gaze, its pull on his soul like a siren's song.

*

The Heldrake shrieked as Satoru bathed it in molten flames, the crimson ray erupting from the thermal cannon of his Knight Crusader boring a hole within the daemonic construct. Screeching, the Heldrake tried to slash at the massive war engine, but Satoru flexed his haptic gloves. Responding to his will, Yoru smacked the claws away with its Avenger Gatling cannon. The foul ceature's claws gouged out chunks of ceramite from his shoulder pauldron. Ignoring the warning hololiths that lit his Throne Mechanicum red, Satoru rammed the multiple barrels into the draconic creature's side and letting loose armor-piercing rounds at pointblank range. The perforated Heldrake crashed back with a wail, and Satoru stomped on it with the titanic feet of his steed, crushing the foul daemon engine once and for all.

Swerving the Knight's torso around, he let loose several missiles from the Stormspear rocket pod mounted atop Yoru's carapace. They struck a second Heldrake and detonated, sending the flying creature into a spiraling crash. Taking aim, Satoru unleashed a second burst of melta energy from his thermal cannon and enveloped the tumbling daemon engine. The Heldrake screamed one last time before it combusted spontaneously.

Leaving the misshapen wrecks behind, Satoru marched his Knight Crusader forward. His auspex displayed several hulking forms in red power armor sprinting from cover, firing their boltguns in his general direction. The mass-reactive shells detonated harmlessly against his ion shield, the defensive field barely flickering from the insignificant impact.

Satoru leveled his Avenger gatling cannon and curled his fingers inside his haptic glove. The barrels spun rapidly and spat out a thunderous stream of high caliber rounds that tore through even vaunted power armor, the ceramite buckling and the flesh and bone within reduced to bloody splinters. The Word Bearers fell, cut down like wheat in a harvest.

However, they were merely a distraction. A missile swiveled and burst against his shimmering ion shieds, causing Yoru to stagger. Satoru swiveled his Knight Crusader around and triggered his heavy stubber. The assailant ducked down, dropping his missile launcher onto the ground as he dove for cover. Even without the ruins of the former cathedral to protect him, the conventional rounds of the Knight Crusader's heavy stubber wouldn't be able to penetrate his power armor anyway.

Satoru was about to curse when he realized that he could still "see" the Word Bearer. Even from behind a wall and obscured from normal sight, the noble pilot could still make out the vague shape of the Traitor Astartes scrambling away from his Knight Crusader.

Even though he was not sure what to make of that, he still lifted his thermal cannon and vaporized the entire wall. The Word Bearer vanished, and even though Satoru wasn't supposed to be able to see it, he knew somehow that he had slain the heretic. He could sense the Traitor's life-force vanish somehow, his thoughts being silenced by the lethal strike.

...thoughts?

Satoru scowled and shook his head. Why did it sound like he was able to read the heretic Astarte's thoughts? That wasn't possible. He wasn't a psyker, not like one of those sanctioned psykers employed by the Astra Militarum. He was a pilot, a noble who commanded an Imperial Knight...

"Ah..."

He went quiet after a moment. Dread filled him, but he quashed it and moved on. He had cleared the sector here, and his Knight had suffered damage. He began limping his Knight Crusader away, heading for the Sacristan trailer.

Do not ignore it.

You know something is wrong.

The ghosts whispered to him from inside his Throne Mechanicum as he walked his machine back to safety. The phantoms of the Honnouji lineage were drifting around him, whispering into his ear. He could feel their judgemental gazes, but he ignored them all.

They lacked the potency...the malice of that great fiery eye.

"Sir Honnouji." Kikaudo's voice came over the vox. The Sacristan had been waiting outside the trailer, his mechadendrites waving around as he prepared to administer field repairs, but he wasn't patient enough to wait until Satoru returned to the trailer. His dry, mechanical voice hissed, taking on a sinister aspect within the confines of the Throne Mechanicum.

Waving the ghosts away with a force of will, Satoru thumbed the vox button. "What is it, Kikaudo?"

"A ship has just landed just west of here. I'm not very clear on the details, but they seem to be looking for you."

"Who is 'they'?" Satoru demanded, though a sense of foreboding gnawed at his chest. For some reason, he could see the gunship even though that was impossible. Yet, he couldn't "see" its occupants. There was a chilling void where he set his third sight on, a darkness that filled him with loathing and dread.

"Women in golden power armor and armed with power swords." Kikaudo paused for a moment. "Sisters of Silence...I believe that's what they are called."

"Witch hunting blanks? What are they doing here?" Satoru frowned. Considering the enemy, he wasn't surprised. "The Word Bearers must have been enacting some sort of socerous ritual then. Probably to summon...something. The Sisters of Silence must be here to hunt them."

"Probably." Kikaudo didn't sound convinced. "I tapped into the noosphere after they contacted me, and there is a lot of vox-chatter in orbit. Seems like they arrived in one of those black ships."

The premonition grew larger, and Satoru swallowed. His mouth went dry, and his heart hammered in his chest like a piston in one of those Tech-priests' damned machines. The eye came back to haunt him once again, and this time he remembered the name of the location of the flaming beacon.

Planet of...Sorcerers.

They were calling for me. They have always been. Because I'm one of them...I'm a witch.

And now the witch hunters are here...

"Did you tell them where I was?" Satoru asked. There was a moment of silence, and he could imagine Kikaudo shaking his head. The Sacristan then realized that his master couldn't see him - despite the fact that Satoru actually could - and then spoke up.

"No. I told them that you are still in the middle of battle and are currently unreachable."

"Good, keep it that way. I'm returning for now, I need you to make some quick repairs, and then I'll, uh, go back to being out of reach."

"Sir Honnouji." Kikaudo sounded serious. "What do you intend to do about these...Sisters?"

Satoru pondered for a while, but his mind was a blank. A cold, black blank. The terrifying voice scrabbled at the edge of his consciousness, and once again he felt its pull...to seek a haven for witches and outcasts.

The Planet of Sorcerers. Prospero. He didn't know why the second name came to mind, but it did, sliding itself into his thought processes naturally as if it had always been there, lodged somewhere in his memories.

"My lord?"

"...no, it's nothing. Sorry, I was just thinking." Satoru took a deep breath and shuddered. Around him, ghosts continued to dance and pass judgement in that silent, condescending manner typical of Honnouji arrogance. Haughtiness and nobility that an illegitimate heir like Satoru had no understanding of. "I don't know, Kikuado. I really don't know what to do now."