[Andor] Death
[coughing]
[Andor] Sundering.
The Emperor's Light is the only light.
That which He illuminates, the only path.
[Andor] The harbinger and the fool.
[slams fists]
Which is it, reader? Which am I?
Either.
Both.
Turn the last card.
[Andor] The faceless void.
An ignominious end.
Death is coming.
Even now, he waits at your door.
Measure your next steps with care, Inquisitor.
My thanks, Guious Andor.
You have served the Emperor as we all must.
This cruel universe will not remember your name,
but trust that I shall.
[gunshot]
What did he see, lord?
The same as the others.
[foosteps approaching]
Burn it.
Burn everything.
[flames whooshing]
[suspenseful music]
[foosteps fading]
Will there be any Astropaths left before you're done with this?
There is a fate line somewhere, Si'ana,
one that does not see my end.
I will find it.
Not all futures can be divined.
The ripples of every action cannot be seen to conclusion.
Can they not? The Aeldari believe so.
You still hold that those xenos and their witch-seers would help us?
We have an enemy in common.
That has not prompted them to kindness before.
True enough.
A thought for tomorrow.
Today, we can be certain of this.
If we do not leave for Terra soon,
we shall be late for your investiture.
There is time yet.
They can hardly begin the ceremony without me.
[electronic beeps]
Inquisitor Arturo has docked.
He's waiting for you in the receiving chamber...
He's come to escort you to Terra.
Is he alone?
No. He has a retinue of four.
I'll need my effects.
Have Gutter and the others meet us there.
You're expecting trouble?
Wake Turk, and reset his kill count.
[drums beating]
[Kiamoro] Greetings and welcome.
[footsteps approaching]
It is good to see you, my old friend.
[hands bang]
Old friend?
[laughing]
It feels like yesterday we were wasting our evenings
with amasec and dice.
It was a century ago.
And now you stand on the precipice of greatness.
Investiture. On Terra, no less.
Bureaucracy comes for us all in the end.
You shouldn't have come.
You knew that someone would.
Eventually.
And the investiture?
Is this just the cover you needed to board my vessel?
It's as real as anything else.
But what difference does it make?
You know then?
[Arturo] About your obsession with the Tarot?
[Arturo] About the Aeldari?
Yes. I know.
We almost died at Antioth, Arturo.
The Arch-enemy knew our every move.
We handed them a hundred worlds.
Billions died.
Even with your limited psychic ability,
tell me you cannot still hear their screams.
There was nothing more we could have done.
But what if we could have?
- What if we knew? - We are not gods.
We have only the certainty of the moment.
Only the Emperor can divine the future.
And yet He has given us the foresight
to wield such tools as might.
We cannot stack the deck, Kiamoro.
We must play the hand we are dealt.
Very well.
[gunshot]
- No! - [grunts]
[swords clash]
[grunts]
[suspenseful music]
[gunshot]
Damn you, Kiamoro!
[sword clashing]
You invite ruin.
[Kiamoro] You come to see it done.
[yells]
[Arturo] Someone must stand in your way!
[swords clashing]
[grunting]
[laughs]
[gun blasts]
Must it be you?
[gun blasts]
[gasps]
[yells]
Who else?
[thud]
[Arturo] I wish you'd understood.
[gun blasts]
[explosion]
[screams]
[laughing]
[flames crackling]
[phase hum]
[upbeat music]
[gun shots]
[grunts]
It seems you're not the face of death today.
[grunts]
[air whirring]
[thuds]
[gun shots]
[yelling]
[slashes]
[screaming]
[gasps]
[gun blasts]
[intense music]
Turk! Now!
[growling]
[slam]
[growling]
[gun blast]
[growls]
[grunts]
[growls]
[yells]
[footsteps]
[gun blasts]
[grunts]
[growling]
[blades slashing]
[intense music]
[blood splashing]
Day denounces night!
[beeping]
- [boom] - [thuds]
[grunts]
[fire crackling]
[footsteps approaching]
What shall I do with her?
Take her to the cell.
[footsteps fading]
[Eerie music]
Who sent you to kill me?
I will not ask again.
[machine whirring]
Cellulor inhibitors.
I wonder...
Am I the first to wear them?
Who?
I did not come here to kill you.
[Kiamoro] This... tells a different story.
[blade stabs]
You cannot break me.
Many have claimed as much before.
[assassin] It is never the many.
It is the single crack
that topples the walls of empires.
I do not fear you, assassin.
You will not leave this chamber alive.
[Kiamoro] Like the hundreds of others I have interrogated,
[Kiamoro] You will tell me your truths
[Kiamoro] And beg for release in death.
Yes.
Your deeds roll before you like the smoke of corpse pyres.
You, Inquisitor,
[assassin] Are by every account a hard man.
[assassin] A capable man.
A man whose cruelty is matched only by his arrogance.
But...
the Tarot cards.
[ominous music]
[assassin] You want answers?
[assassin] For all the hardships you have endured.
[assassin] For all your training and resolve.
[assassin] For all of your might,
[assassin] Did you ever consider
[assassin] That, in this universe of horrors,
[assassin] There could be something worse?
[Kiamoro] You stand unsteadily on that pulpit.
[Kiamoro] I am not an acolyte or some unbloodied initiate.
[Kiamoro] For almost two hundred years I have stared down the darkness.
[assassin] Yes...
[assassin] Heretics,
[assassin] Aliens,
[assassin] Daemons...
[assassin] You have faced them all.
[assassin] But what of a child?
[assassin] What of a child orphaned by war?
[explosions]
[assassin] What if need and instinct drove that child to kill?
[assassin] To master what they must.
[assassin] What if death was the only companion the child ever knew?
[assassin] What if this child was plucked from their world as you were?
[assassin] But instead of the hallowed halls of the Schola Progenium,
[assassin] They were taken by far harsher masters?
[drilling]
[jostling]
[machines operating]
[assassin] What if these monstrous teachers...
[assassin] Cut away whatever humanity remained in the child
[assassin] And left behind nothing but a weapon?
[gun shots and screaming]
[Eerie music]
You've spent your life trying to avoid death,
but its child is here now.
You are a lethal thing.
That fact I do not deny.
But you, like all the rest, have failed.
[assassin] Have I?
[assassin] Then where is your armour?
As I said, Inquisitor,
I did not come here to kill you.
[assassin] For all that you see and have seen,
[assassin] You are blind to an obvious truth.
[assassin] That here, where you seem most in control,
[assassin] You are also at your most vulnerable.
My mission was simple.
To bring you here.
To have you sit there, across from me.
The famed interrogator in the chair of his office.
[assassin] Lure.
[assassin] Witness.
[assassin] I came to play both roles.
[assassin] And I did not need to parse the skeins of fate to do it.
[gunshot]
[thuds]
[air whirring]
[gunshot]
[air whirring]
[squishing sound]
You should have paid more attention
to the Tarot readers you burned like sump trash.
Hubris is the weapon the fool uses to cut his own throat.
[crunching sounds]
[Eerie music]
[door opens]
[beeps]
[grenade explosion]
Did you get what you wanted?
Yes.
Good. Your investiture awaits.
Well then.
Let us go and change the future.