In the last part where we left off in Ahriman: Eternal, the Pyrodomon is in ascension and is turning all the Sorcerers in the Thousand Sons Legion into ash. Ignis has already fallen, and poor Ctesias is next. Ugh. That's just the foreshadowing, though, and it turns out it was one of the multiple timelines that Ahriman experienced when using the Key of Infinity to rewind time and redo things again and again.
While Ahriman is using the Key of Infinity, he's being pursued by the Necron Lord Setekh, and his Hyksos Dynasty. Unfortunately, Setekh is also stuck in the same loop, before Ahriman rewinds time, though his presence is also causing Ahriman's plans to sort of unravel.
There's also the ubiquitous Harlequins doing the dance and revealing bits of prophecy from some book in the Black Library that's supposed to foretell all the events. Also, speaking of Harlequins, it appears that in most timelines, Ahriman's fleet of Exiles happens upon the Aeldari being attacked by the Hyksos Dynasty when they arrived to find the Key of Infinity, which is in some pocket dimension in some space somewhere.
Meanwhile, Gilgamos and Gaumata, the latter who was resurrected in the previous book by the Pyrodomon, are planning a coup because they think Ahriman has failed them and is directionless. They believe change is the only way forward for the Thousand Sons (Exiles?), and plan to ursurp him. They are also influenced by the cult of the Pyrodomon (who saved Gaumata), created the cult, and basically turned half the Exiles' fleet, including thralls and other Sorcerers, to the service of the Pyrodomon.
Of course, this ends in betrayal when the Pyrodomon, in the form of Helio Isidorus, turns both Gilgamos and Gaumata into ash. Ah, the price of treachery, indeed.
While Gilgamos and Gaumata lead the coup and sort of paralyzed the fleet, the Necrons of the Hyksos Dynasty attack them. It is foreshadowed frequently that the Hyksos Dynasty have fallen to the Flayer virus, and are all Flayed Ones. Setekh and his Dynasty have been pretty much driven to insanity, and I think it's hinted that Ahriman might maybe have introduced the Flayer virus somehow, or led to it.
Lycomedes is Ctesias's disciple, formerly being under Gaumata, but is encouraged to go under Ctesias's tutelage by Ahriman to promote "bonds" between the Exiles.
Uh, there's also this complex memory and mindscape section where Ahriman basically "conceals" his existence from the Pyrodomon - who can detect every single Thousand Son across the galaxy - by wiping his memories and becoming a "different" person altogether. This is where his Horkos persona comes in, and he essentially flees the Pyrodomon. Unfortunately, because he has some Necron device on him that Setekh had implanted with a tracking beacon, he can't escape the Necrons, and Setekh and his Royal Court pursue him all the way to the end, until they find the Key of Infinity.
Speaking of which, there's a daemon named the Bitter Kin who was sent to assassinate Ahriman...by Ahriman himself, a future version, who has all sorts of intricate schemes. Probably to wall off his memories in order to hide from the Pyrodomon (don't ask, I don't really understand either). The Bitter Kin was able to make it as far as Ahriman's mindscape, but just as the Arch-Sorcerer planned, Ctesias arrives to save him.
Meanwhile, the Pyrodomon, distracted by the Necrons attack and unable to find Ahriman, turns his attention on the assailants and essentially brings both fleets into the warp, massacring the Necrons while preserving most of the Exiles' fleet. Cool.
Setekh has Ahriman at his mercy right before they find the Key of Infinity, only for Ahriman to essentially lift the blinkers from his eyes and reveal the Flayer virus and insanity that infected his Dynasty, so Setekh finds himself assailed by his own mad warriors and crypteks and other guys. He fights them off and continues to pursue Ahriman, only to find himself trapped in the Key of Infinity, where Ahriman explains that he has full control of it.
"You may have created it, but I learned how to wield it by using it, rewinding time and experiencing near infinite timelines over and over again." Or something like that.
Basically, everything in this book is "Just as planned!" TM, but Ahriman.
Ahriman then leaves Setekh to his slow disintegration while he finally redoes time for the final...uh, time. This time, he goes back to the War on the Planet of the Sorcerers, where he cast the second Rubric. You know, back in Ahriman: Unchanged, and undoes everything. He essentially writes Helio Isidorus out of existence, so that the Pyrodomon never happened.
So basically everything after Ahriman: Unchanged has been reset, and Helio Isidorus never existed. No Pyrodomon, and everyone sees the Second Rubric as a failure, unlike in the original where at least one Rubric Marine was returned to normal. They note this weird Rubric Marine who used to be Helio Isidorus, but in the current timeline, no one remembers who he is and can't identify him, and Ahriman just locks him up, isolating him from the others.
Instead, he moves on from the failure of the second Rubric and targets a new place where he might undo the Rubric - the Black Library. Thanks to the machinations of the Harlequins to prevent a tragedy that would befall the galaxy if Setekh and the Necrons, or the Pyrodomon, were unleashed (they basically made use of Ahriman to eliminate both Setekh, the Hyskos Dynasty and the Pyrodomon, because if they didn't, the galaxy would be in a much worse state than now), Ahriman has learned of the Black Library, and within it, he sees the possibility for a cure for the Rubric. Setting his sights on the Black Library, he orders his Fleet of Exiles toward the webway.
Also, Ahriman's flagship is the Hekaton. Not sure why it's not in the Lexicanum or the wiki. Hey, someone update those pages, yeah?
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