Outside of the Plague Planet, people don't talk much about the Death Guard's mansion.
Aside from a few vague rumors that are large and impressive, even most people within the Eye of Terror know very little about it.
In fact, outside the confines of this hell, few people truly understand it.
To the people of the Empire, the name Mortarion merely represents a reminder of the past and has no other meaning.
And this is exactly what the Lord of Death wants.
To understand this, one must first understand the character of the Primarch, a complex man even among his fallen brothers.
He cannot be described directly as angry, unlike people who can directly describe Angron, the King of Slaughter. At the same time, he does not have the desire for control like the Priest King Lorgar.
Mortarion carries more of his past than most of his brothers, and according to him, it all came too late and too hard to accept.
He was the last Primarch to succumb to the Dark Gods and the last to arrive on Terra to take part in the siege.
According to widely disputed rumors, he was also the last Primarch to evacuate Terra.
For Mortarion, contradiction, conflict and opposition are more than anything else. His heart is full of hatred - for his father, for his experience, for the Empire, and for himself.
The world in which he was fostered was so poisonous that even if the Emperor treated him differently, it could not erase the scars in his heart.
N'Galtar, the Deathstroke Herald, knows these things. This is not a secret in the Legion, and it does not diminish N'Galta's respect for his master in any way.
In his faith, "hurt" is not something to worry about—it should be celebrated, cultivated, and if possible, amplified.
They understand that attempts to stop corruption will only bring about the greatest disappointment, but those of the Corpse Emperor's lackeys do not understand - there is no need to shut it out. Learn to embrace it, learn to use it, or you will be trapped in a long and tiring process.
fail.
Still, Engalta was anxious.
A long time has passed. Although the passage of time in the Eye of Terror is strange, if measured by the rotation of the Plague Planet, it must have been at least several centuries.
The legion has become accustomed to silence, accustomed to each doing its own thing.
Typhonse, that insufferable figurehead, became the figurehead of many of them during the empty years, although his many successes never offset the suspicion he aroused in the older generation.
"We know exactly what you did to us."
Ngarta thought as he walked.
"We won't forget."
He walked there with the ferryman Mawson, which took them a long time because the terrain was deliberately designed to be rough.
They wound their way along the steep shoulders of the steeple, sometimes being forced down, where the air was thick and the mutants drove scores of mortal slaves.
They strode past the altar filled with rotting objects, squeezing through the squirming piles of flies, where they could see the ever-rotating mill wheels, and the wet ground under their feet was littered with bones.
After a long time the ground began to rise, the black soil glistened with moisture and dark leaves spread around them.
Demons hissed at them from the warm shadows, a pool of stagnant water boiled uncomfortably, and a huge monument swayed by the roadside, badly worn by the corrosive winds that blew constantly.
Finally, they saw an extremely heavily defended castle.
The steep side walls of the fortress rise hundreds of meters high from the green-lit deep valley without handrails.
The place was like a mountain, its terrain rising far beyond all practical considerations to the point of hubris and madness.
Towering spiral towers crowded each other, with lanterns hanging from the spiers, and stone steps winding around the sloping wings of the hall, sometimes leading to somewhere, sometimes ending in mass graves or smoke-filled places.
Here is the decaying church of God, empty of people, rising from the ground like an abandoned tomb, and in the air mingled with incense and the sweet smell of the dead, the dying and the risen.
"You can never quite get used to it...how huge it is."
The Deathstroke Herald looked up at the fortress and sighed.
"It is said that it is still getting bigger."
The ferryman echoed, not seeming too interested.
"Only God knows what happened."
This is the palace of the Lord of Death, filled with petitioners, messengers, wizards and prophets. Countless mutants and demons are crouching on the battlements that stretch for several kilometers.
Pilgrims filed toward the lock, so numerous that they filled the causeway halfway across the continent.
The priests of the corrupted god preached to them endlessly, their shrill shouts punctuated by the sound of broken bells.
The Pilgrims peered out from their battered hoods, hungry eyes waiting for one of their brothers to fall so they could chew a little gristle that night.
Above their heads floated spaceships and gunboats, leaving wisps of smoke in the blazing auroral night sky.
Beyond that, there was only the sound of the floating shroud, as strange as the sound of a whale, shimmering like a mysterious midnight ghost.
N'Galta didn't need to emphasize his presence here. As he and the ferryman walked toward the gate, the crowd spontaneously backed away and made the sign of three on their chests, even the demons carrying infected whips.
He also stopped and stared at the Deathstroke Herald.
The blind haulers shuddered to a stop, the trucks filled with mushy fruit rocking on greasy axles, and the mutants stared at them with big shining eyes, panting and spitting out a bunch of tusks from their fanged mouths.
Strings of saliva.
"Is it always this big?"
Engarta asked, looking at the crowd with interest.
"Yes."
The ferryman said as he walked slowly to the gate.
"I never knew exactly why they came."
"Same reason as we did."
Engarta sent a signal to the distant guards, and the iron shaft began to rotate.
"But only we can go in."
The gate, like everything here, is a parody.
It is said that they are only seven centimeters taller than the Eternal Gate on Terra.
Mortarion did many similar things - basically trivial things, as a mockery of fate, such as the turret being slightly higher than the Imperial Senate, and the city walls being steepened by seven degrees.
Still, the effect is impressive.
The fake door was held by a group of mutants with chains, and it took ten minutes to open it.
Only then do the dark interiors of the mansion become apparent.
A pile of crumbling, half-ruined rotten stones, piled together in a haphazard manner, getting higher and higher, interconnected and intertwined, forming a fragile, bloated city, like a nest of thorns stuck high in the clouds
.
There is a mist around its foundations, boiling over the black surface and leaving smudges on the rocks.
The great demon roared from the arcane prison buried deep in the magic tower, shaking the wet earth all the way to the center of the world.