Time froze for a second, and I glanced at the Tempormortis vambrace to see the 9 dots glow golden. Strange, right? The diodes had green, red and blue in the menu, and not golden. Not that time even existed properly inside the Warp.

I looked around the frozen army that surrounded me, and the 300 Custodes also had glowing golden eyes, while the Eldar harlequin mimed a careless shrug and blew me a kiss. Fortunately, not with his infamous pistol, but blowing on his palm.

Canis growled something in wolfish that made little sense. Or maybe not.

I looked up, and saw the giant wolf, frozen in feral rage. But it was not the wolf I was looking for. Canis was always right.

Mentally, I scrolled through other possible wolves and narrowed it down to two: Freki the Swift and Geri the Cunning.

"Geri, is that you?" I asked curious.

The huge wolf pushed through the temporal differential to glance at Canis, then tried to swipe a paw at my loyal companion, then vanished in my tesseract, locked tight with adamantium and blackstone shackles.

Another loud howl shook the crystal walls of the fortress, close enough to be heard but far enough that my dimensional sight only caught a shadow blurring through Orks and Tyranids deeper inside the maze of walls, before it vanished, leaving only eviscerated corpses behind.

That must be Freki then. Quite swift for a wolf, if I may say so myself.

"That wasn't a Primarch." Sister Stern deduced in a curt voice, while airplane-size golden wings lifted her up above the army.

"Close enough though. Russ had two wolves as his companions, Geri and Freki. The first one is Geri. I suspect they were kept locked in a cell and the Orks I sent forward managed to liberate them." I explained to the curious crowd.

Zath walked next to me and smelled my glove, while also doing some C'tan magic to scan the huge wolf I just captured.

'It was not the Orks that released this wolf, Lord Lancefire. And he targeted you believing you were a daemon, not a human. This was the Tzeentch version of our Angron protocol.' the C'tan informed me in a warning tone.

Ah, the warping influence of Chaos, of course.

We advanced further in, sometimes blowing through walls and gates, sometimes following wide corridors large enough to fit entire warships.

Then we reached the inner sanctum, the Hidden Library. Mostly by following the dead corpses left behind by Freki the Swift.

One final push, and I could return to the Fringe. Should I test the Primarchs further? Was it even necessary?

Decisions, decisions.

"We make camp here. Perturabo, you're in charge of the siege." I spoke out loud, while bringing out more portable Gellar Ramparts and the army of Kataphron Destroyers on their anti-grav platforms.

"...lost momentum." I hear Khan complain to his brothers, but I ignored that.

Geri was a clear sign that the Dark God had noticed our incursion, and was already deploying traps and other contingencies.

Someone smarter should take over the next part, and make themselves the target.

Instead, I gathered my wolves and went to visit Geri inside the tesseract.

Lash Two approached the snarling Fenrisian wolf and stabbed it gently with a Phase Claw, then licked his claw with a visible frown. "This wolf is closer to Canis than anything else I've ever seen. Should we undo the mental programming?" the C'tan Shard asked out loud.

I looked at Canis who simply stared at the larger wolf with focused eyes. "Wooo. Hrrf." Canis decided a minute later.

Clever as always, but risky. Oh well. Canis knew his business.

I released the shackles, and took a few steps back. My wolf and the Russ's companion hurled into a giant fight of fangs and claws and angry howls.

'Imperial diplomacy at its finest.' Zath commented while scratching behind his ear with a hind leg.

"Stupid" Lash Two offered without prompt.

"If it's stupid, but it works..." I quipped lightly, and began scratching the itch behind Zath's ear with my trained fingers. I had centuries of practice with Canis after all.

"He's not even a real wolf." Lash Two complained with a disgusted glance at his fellow C'tan.

"Geri the Cunning. Rumored to be smarter than most humans, even outwitting Russ a few times." I said while Zath purred under my hand.

"I was talking about this domesticated Shard..." Lash Two muttered while his Phase Claws sprang out and retracted in the rhythm of the wolf battle in front.

"You're missing the point, Lash. Geri managed to bypass the Primarchs and the Custodes, and targeted me as the primary threat among thousands of Astartes. That makes him equal to a Custodes-General that won the Blood Games to infiltrate the Imperial Palace and strike at the Emperor. Neither of you saw him." I pointed out just as Canis managed to subdue the larger wolf and held his neck in his jaws.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

The two C'tan looked at each other and sighed in tandem. 'We were in the Warp, Lord Captain. Names have power.' Zath admitted with a cautious tone.

"Geri, can you find your Cold Alpha? Leman Russ?" I asked just as Canis withdrew at my side.

The huge wolf measured me and my wolves with intelligent eyes then sniffed in distaste. "Wuf."

Good enough. We were not friends, but had a common goal. Nothing different from most of my allies.

"We should recover Freki as well. That damn wolf is breaking all the speed records running around." I commented as we returned to Warpspace and the thundering sounds of Volcano Cannons and Neutron Lasers drilling through the walls of the Hidden Library.

"...hurf." I heard a light wolf sound as Geri melded into a shadow and vanished.

"Did he say we should wait?" I asked Canis a bit confused.

Canis held up 4 glowing claws, and started retracting them. By the time the claws were in, two more wolves landed behind us, one white and one grey.

I saw my son Menelau smack his face with a metal palm at the sight, before turning his attention back towards the siege.

Crashing in slow motion, the walls of the Hidden Library fell to reveal countless book-shelves and hundreds of Lords of Change lying in wait. Or perhaps in ambush.

"Loot everything and kill the parasites if they interfere!" I yelled out loud, urging my army to advance.

Canis ran forward and ate a few books, including the leather covers, before turning and snapping a Great Daemon in half with a projection of golden jaws.

Like a plague of locusts, we entered the precious library and began grabbing everything, our looting sacks already prepared to load up as many books or artifacts as possible.

I had the biggest loot bag, of course. The tesseract had enough space to store a billion planets, if and when I could actually grab a whole planet with my mind. Meanwhile, books were far easier to steal.

Mnemorach lead his merry band of Solitaires on a looting spree as well, sometimes fighting and stabbing reluctant books before throwing them into a magic bag without end.

Deeper inside the library, Ork Looters were in heaven, beating up complaining books and hacking apart daemons and book-shelves, and often each other.

Genestealers and Tyranid Tyrants chased after fleeing daemons that tried to save some precious book or another, until they encountered a pair of blue horrors flying on magic carpet and flinging around weird spells, from pretty butterflies and soap bubbles to acid rains and chain lightning.

"Get those two, my wolves..." I asked on whim, and 5 wolves barged into the Hidden Library.

Freki reached the targets first, and ripped one daemon in tiny bits, then ate them. Geri grabbed their magic book instead, while Canis and the C'tan wolves did a little tug of war with the second blue daemon, until the horror got torn in three.

"Curious! Boring!" a Great Daemon with two heads spoke in tandem, making the other daemons draw back in obvious fear.

This was Kairos Fateweaver, a famous Lord of Change.

"Three questions, Fateweaver. Will Tzeentch die today?" I asked on a whim.

The two heads turned to look for me, and failed to locate me. "Perhaps. Not today!" the heads answered in mild confusion.

"What is my name?" I asked next, moving closer to the Great Daemon.

A wave of something passed over me, reminiscent of the scanning wave I felt inside the Pharos. Probably identical, if I remembered correctly.

"Pef Lancefire." One head answered while the other used a claw to scratch his cheek. "Curious indeed. Someone without a True Name." the other head answered in a pained voice.

I changed my third question, which didn't matter anymore. "After I kill the blue mollusk, the Twin-headed Aquila will need a twin-headed Servant. Will you become the Twin Angel?"

My temporal vambrace glowed golden again, as time stood still. Yeah, the gaze of the Emperor was upon me, so I stepped through frozen time and touched the Great Daemon with my right hand. Golden light exploded from my chest, as the Emperor's Sword inside my heart emerged to await the Fateweaver's reply.

"No! You will not steal Kairos from me!" a blue voice ripped through the Warp, as tentacles rose to grab the Fateweaver before it could turn.

"We make our own Fate!" the two heads answered in tandem, for once in agreement. Kairos_Fateweaver died, and lived again.

"Curse you, Lancefire!" Tzeentch yelled as his Great Daemon transformed into a Twin Angel, the blue feathers burning off to become white and gold.

"Fight me, Janitor!" I demanded while speeding up to combat speed, the Emperor's Sword glowing in my hand.

A thousand eyes opened on the mollusk body, staring down at me mockingly.