In part, I suspect, his inability to stick to the point for very long was because the events he was attempting to recount were still relatively recent, and he simply felt more comfortable recalling more distant, less immediately painful memories. Readers with sufficiently long memories may recall that in my preface to the third volume I mentioned that the material therein had formed an extended digression in Cainʹs account of his activities during the Thirteenth Black Crusade suffice it to say that it was far from being the only one and several of these anecdotes were at least as long as his account of Adumbria campaign.
Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re‐learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.Įditorial Note: I must confess to feeling a certain amount of relief in finally being able to present the latest extract from the Cain Archive to my fellow inquisitors for their perusal, this volume of his memoirs having turned out to be by far the most difficult editorial task Iʹve tackled to date. TO BE A man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio‐engineered super‐warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever‐vigilant Inqui‐ sition and the tech‐priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever‐present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants-and worse. YET EVEN IN his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon‐infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperorʹs will. Vast armies give battle in His name on uncounted worlds. IT IS THE 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.
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