In the cataclysmic climax of the Siege of Terror, the fatally wounded Emperor was carried to The Golden Throne by Rogal Dorn, in the aftermath of his monumental triumph over Horus. The sight that met Dorn’s eyes was one of utter devastation – Malcador, the Master of Mankind’s most loyal confidant, lay upon the throne, drained of all vitality, his withered form ravaged by the relentless psychic energies that had battered him within the Imperial webway.
The tech-priests, in a desperate bid to preserve the Emperor’s life, traded the dying Malcador’s place with Him on The Golden Throne, modifying it to indefinitely sustain the Emperor’s dwindling vital functions. As Malcador was removed from the marvelous mechanism, life abandoned him, his body crumbling to ash upon the cold stone floor.
In this final act, the faithful Malcador demonstrated his unwavering loyalty and love for the Emperor. He drew upon the fragments of his depleted strength, offering them up as a nourishment to the Emperor, strengthening his master to endure the looming ordeal.
Through Malcador’s ultimate sacrifice, the Emperor gained a fleeting respite from oblivion, issuing his last commands to his servants. His life, against all odds, would be sustained for the next 10,000 standard years within the augmented life support systems of The Golden Throne.
From then, the Emperor would serve as the lighthouse in the warp, the psychic beacon of the Astronomican, replacing the now-lost Imperial webway project, straining his might to shield humanity from the deepest horrors of the immaterium. Through Malcador’s sacrifice, humanity clung onto existence, facing the encroaching darkness of the Age of the Imperium with a single mantra on their lips: “The Emperor Protects.”
Yet the legacy of Malcador, the Hero, lives on as one of the vital elements of the system that prevents humanity from plunging into the abyss of non-existence. Let’s rewind a bit and delve into the earlier days of the Imperium – when the Emperor endorsed Malcador’s selection of eight Grey Knights from among the Knight’s Errant Sigite before the Siege of Terror.
Malcador had convinced the Emperor of the need to create a new cadre of Space Marines, specifically designed to combat the threats of the warp. The Emperor, acknowledging his oversight in the creation of the first Legiones Astartes – conceived to battle threats in the physical realm, not the immaterium – approved of Malcador’s initiative.
Among the 12 individuals Malcador presented to the Emperor, many had served the Imperium with distinction. Eight Astartes, drawn from both loyalist and traitor legions, included his own distinguished Knights Errant – Tylos Rubio, Mesa Varon, Janus, Epimetheus, and Chiron. Four mortals, former iterators Kyele Cinderman, Lemuel Gaon, and the Silent Sister Amanda Kendall, became the foundation of the Imperial secret police, known across the galaxy as the Inquisition.
The Space Marines, accompanied by Malcador, ventured through the portal into the webway, towards the moon of the gas giant Saturn – Titan. Malcador’s formidable powers shielded Titan from the devastation of the Horus Heresy. Upon the frigid methane plains, a vast Fortress Monastery had been erected, a storehouse of geneseed, rumored to be from the Emperor Himself, and teeming with thousands of aspirants, each a psyker. This new formation of Space Marines was organized not as a legion, but as a chapter, a specialized, less numerous army of Astartes. Malcador, however, was required to return to Terra, laying the foundation for the next chapter in the saga of the 41st millennium.
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