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Note: This article is about the Regent of Terra. For the super-heavy tank see Malcador Assault Tank.


Malcador the Sigillite

Malcador the Sigillite

Malcador the Sigillite, also known as Malcador the Hero by decree of the Emperor of Mankind, was the powerful psyker and scholar who served as the Imperial Regent when the Emperor was away from Terra or otherwise engaged and also as the first Grand Master of Assassins during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy eras.

By the dawn of the 31st Millennium, Malcador was over 6,700 standard years old and could remember his date of birth to the second. His title of "Sigillite", meaning "seal-bearer" in an ancient Terran language, was a measure of the esteem and trust the Emperor had in Malcador, for he was empowered to speak and act in the Emperor's stead with the Emperor's full authority wherever he went.

It was also a reference to the Sigillites, an ancient and highly secretive organisation which had sought to gather and preserve all the greatest cultural artefacts of Mankind from before the Age of Strife overwhelmed humanity's early interstellar civilisation during the Age of Technology. Malacador had been a member of the Sigillites, and was likely their last survivor.

An extremely powerful psyker -- perhaps the second most powerful Mankind had ever known save for the Emperor Himself -- who could telepathically communicate over long, interstellar distances, Malcador was also a close advisor to the Emperor during the Unification Wars of Terra, and the man credited with founding both the Adeptus Administratum of Terra and the Officio Assassinorum, as well as creating the organisations that would become the Imperial Inquisition and the Grey Knights. He also secretly served as the first Grand Master of Assassins of the Officio Assassinorum and helped to establish that organisation in an early incarnation.

Malcador is also noted for having delivered the Chaplain Edict at the Council of Nikaea during the Great Crusade, which created a new group of Space Marines, the Chaplains, who would maintain the order and discipline of their fellow Astartes Legions. The Chaplains were intended to keep watch for deviations from the Imperial Truth and the use of psychic powers which had been banned by the edicts of the Council of Nikaea. The former violations were to be dealt with summarily, the latter to result in harsh penalties for an Astartes Librarian who refused to voluntarily cease using his psychic abilities as the Emperor had commanded.

Finally, during the climax of the Horus Heresy, the Siege of Terra, it was Malcador who willingly took the Emperor's place upon the Golden Throne, using his psychic abilities to hold back the tide of Warp-spawn who sought to invade Terra through the extension into the Webway that the Emperor had built beneath the Imperial Palace. For this act of extraordinary sacrifice that the Sigillite knew would result in his death, the Master of Mankind declared that he was forever after to be known as "Malcador the Hero."

Malcador's action freed the Emperor to face the Archtraitor Horus aboard his flagship the Vengeful Spirit in orbit of Terra, where he finally defeated and slew the Traitor Warmaster, bringing the Heresy to its pyrrhic end. Yet, when the mortally-wounded Emperor was returned to the Imperial Palace, Malcador used the last of his life energies to keep the Emperor alive long enough for Him to give His final instructions to the Primarch Rogal Dorn before being interred within the Golden Throne. Once Malcador was removed from the Throne, his body crumbled into ash, his final duty to the man he had honoured above all others complete.

History

Unity and the Great Crusade

During the conquest of Terra in the late 30th Millennium, the Emperor gathered about Him trusted lieutenants and gave them tasks and duties befitting men of status. Most of these servants were drawn from the ranks of the Terran nobility and the Space Marine Legions.

Malcador was an exception, for he was not a warrior but a man of learning with the bearing of a priest. From the early years of the Wars of Unification he was ever-present at the Emperor's side, and did engage in combat with him often using his prodigious psychic talents. His origins were unknown to all save perhaps the Emperor Himself.

Malcador had met the Emperor when He was just another Terran warlord, and was the one who originally recommended He take on the title "Emperor of Mankind."

In truth he had been a member, perhaps the last survivor, of the ancient secret organisation known as the Sigillites. They had sought to preserve the greatest and most powerful artefacts of human history from the tumult and destruction of the Age of Strife.

The fortress-like headquarters of the Sigillites in the Himalazian (Himalayan) Mountains would provide the foundation for what the Emperor would eventually transform into the Imperial Palace.

According to the Primarch Jaghatai Khan, the true identity of Malcador was discovered by his brother Horus. Horus had told the Khan that Malcador's original name was Brahm al-Khadour, a man who was a Perpetual like the Emperor Himself and was known as a cursed wanderer or the last and greatest technomage of Terra.

The Khan went on to say that Brahm al-Khadour and the Sigillites had committed great atrocities during the era of Old Night, the memories of which were later erased by the Emperor and Malcador himself.

Whatever the truth of his origins, Malcador wore the hooded robes of a simple Terran administrator. Blessed with unnaturally long life there were many rumours about the true nature of this enigmatic figure. Some believed he was the first psyker to have undergone the Soul-Binding ritual. Other rumours whispered that he was a kinsman of the Master of Mankind, distantly related to the Emperor.

Whatever the truth, Malcador was always considered to be a man possessed of the greatest wisdom and was held in special regard by the Emperor, for he had earned his place alongside the superhuman Primarchs as an advisor to the Emperor.

Malcador was eventually appointed to administer the Emperor's Imperial Palace and through it he managed the administration of the newly conquered Terra. As the Great Crusade progressed, Malcador's power and influence grew as he became overseer of the Imperial Tithe and the chief of the newborn Council of Terra and its related Administratum.

As the Primarchs were rediscovered one by one during the course of the Great Crusade, the Emperor found His time increasingly consumed by leading the Imperial forces, leaving Malcador behind on Terra to oversee all the bureaucratic needs of the rapidly-expanding Imperium. During this time, he was accompanied by the Primarch of the Space Wolves Legion Leman Russ, the second of the Primarchs to be found and a native of the pre-industrial world of Fenris. As a result of his upbringing, Russ was finding it difficult at first to adjust to the far more technologically advanced culture of the Imperium. During this period, Malcador acted as a companion and tutor for Russ, and the two bonded to some extent.

Malcador's opinions held the force of law for many within the Imperium and his insights aided many of the galaxy's greatest heroes. Malcador had great respect for human history and he had a wide foundation of knowledge on the subject, having literally lived through much of it. He viewed himself as a link to the past glories of humanity's lost golden age during the Age of Technology and his most important role was to remind the Emperor of both why all other human empires had fallen and of all that humanity had been though over the millennia.

His most prized possessions were two ancient paintings recovered by the Sigillites from the disasters of the Age of Strife: the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci and Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh. He displayed these treasures of the ancient past in his personal chambers.

During the Great Crusade, Malcador served as the Emperor's primary representative when he was unavailable and often acted in his stead, or preceded his arrival, the intent being for the Emperor to make His presence known only in the event of Malcador's failure to conclude a situation satisfactorily.

One such event was the humbling of the Word Bearers Legion in the ruins of Monarchia forty solar decades before the start of the Horus Heresy. The Word Bearers had been called to task for their failure to spread the Imperial Truth across the worlds they had conquered in the Emperor's name. Rather than bringing an end to religion and superstition, the Word Bearers and their Primarch Lorgar had been teaching the people of their conquered worlds to worship the Emperor as their god.

During the incident, an enraged Lorgar slapped Malcador 20 metres through the air with the back of his hand. The Sigillite, a normal-sized man, survived the assault and even managed to regain his footing, displaying physical resiliency far beyond that of other mortals, though he still suffered several cracked bones. He also demonstrated his potent telekinetic ability, retrieving his fallen staff and bringing it quickly to his hand. The Emperor ultimately intervened and used His psychic might to force the Word Bearers into compliance with His will, though the incident would set Lorgar down upon the path of ultimate corruption by the Ruinous Powers.

In a statement Malcador later made to the magister and astropath Sibel Niasta, a dying servant and friend, which he stated was a lie to comfort humanity, he claimed that he and the Emperor had intended to agitate the Primarchs and ultimately turn them against one another. The resulting conflict between them was intended to purge those Primarchs and Astartes who were not worthy of leading humanity once the Great Crusade's objectives had been completed. Their goal, Malcador claimed, was to eliminate the Space Marine Legions just as they had the earlier Thunder Warriors. The result would be that in the wake of the Great Crusade, only mortal humans, not genetically-engineered superhumans would be the true inheritors of the galaxy. But the Chaos Gods intervened to corrupt half of the Primarchs before the plan could come to fruition, leading to the Horus Heresy and the collapse of all the Emperor's carefully laid plans to restore Mankind's golden age.

Malcador, First Lord of Terra

The Emperor & Malcodor The Sigilite

The Emperor of Mankind and Malcador the Sigillite

As the Great Crusade drew to a close in the early 31st Millennium, the Imperium had achieved its greatest victory yet during the Ullanor Crusade against a massive Ork empire. After Ullanor was restored to Imperial rule, the Emperor held a great triumph to recognise this high point of the Crusade and to honour all the warriors of the Imperium, mortal and Astartes alike, for their valour.

The glory of this triumphant spectacle as so many of the Imperium's scattered military forces gathered in one place for the first time in centuries was to remain in the mind of every Astartes as the climax of the great endeavour they were engaged upon. It would prove to be a bright memory to recall in the dark days of the Horus Heresy after Astartes had turned against Astartes and Primarch against Primarch.

During this triumph the Emperor proclaimed that His most beloved son Horus was to be the Imperial Warmaster and the new supreme commander of the Great Crusade's military forces while He announced His own intention to return to Terra to pursue a secret project intended to benefit all Mankind.

After the Emperor's declaration, he returned to Terra and the Imperial Palace. The Emperor had much work to do, the exact nature of which He was unwilling to discuss with Horus, the Primarchs or any of his other generals. He drew to him certain advisors, chief among them Malcador the Sigillite and the Fabricator-General of Mars, and issued them new commands.

The Emperor also convened the first Council of Terra. Unlike the War Council overseeing the Great Crusade, of which Horus was now the leader as Warmaster, the Council of Terra would attend to the matters of state and the establishment and maintenance of Imperial law across the myriad worlds of the Imperium. In particular, the Council of Terra was to administer the Imperial Tithe. Under its auspices would fall all the civil government of the Imperium.

Malcador, the Emperor's most trusted advisor, was named as the First Lord of the Council and would lead it in the Emperor's absence as the Regent of Terra. The Fabricator-General, Chief Custodian of the Legio Custodes Constantin Valdor and the leaders of the astropaths and administrative divisions of the Imperium were appointed to the Council as well. Having established the new governing body of the Imperium, the Emperor then retreated to His private subterranean vaults beneath the Palace to initiate His new secret project. But while the Emperor was locked away in His subterranean factories, political dissension began to foment.

In the meantime Horus had set about his new duties with relish. But secretly the Warmaster was dismayed that the Emperor would no longer be fighting at the side of his Astartes. The Primarchs were also appalled at the news of the formation of the Council of Terra.

The Emperor's staunchest followers felt they had been let down by their father. They were insulted that they had not been consulted on the formation of this new ruling body and that they had not been offered seats on the new council. Some of the more egotistical Primarchs were outraged. They felt that the Emperor had turned His back on them and given power to petty mortal administrators and the sycophantic Tech-adepts of Mars.

Seeds of Heresy

Horus felt slighted when the Emperor retreated to Terra to work in His laboratories and dungeons rather than continuing what he felt was the more important work of the Great Crusade. As worthy as the honour of being named Imperial Warmaster was, it was nothing compared to the sense of loss Horus felt as his father abandoned him.

He had done his best to carry on the fight and lead the glorious Great Crusade. But many Astartes had died and not once had the Emperor cared enough to honour them with His presence. As news filtered from Terra of the Emperor's latest pronouncements, Horus became ever more estranged from the man he thought of as his father. More and more he thought only of his mission to complete the conquest of the galaxy and bring even more glory to his Space Marine Legions.

The Warmaster joined his XVI Legion, the Sons of Horus, on the moon of Davin. The Legion had some ties to the primitive warrior-society of Davin from their previous conquest of the world solar decades before and it was at the request of the Davinite priests that the moon had been targeted. Cleansing the moon of its plague-worshipping cultists was a simple task for the Legion, but Horus was felled by an assassin's blade, the Kinebrach Anathame, wielded by the Nurgle-corrupted former Imperial Planetary Governor of Davin, Eugen Temba.

The wound festered and the medical experts of his Legion proved unable to treat him. Horus was soon close to death. In desperation Horus's Apothecaries enlisted the help of the Davinites. Horus was treated by a Davinite sect. He was carried into the Temple of the Serpent Lodge a dying man and emerged some solar days later apparently cured and bursting with energy. None know what profane rites to the Dark Gods were performed to save him.

Horus commanded that all his senior officers be inducted into the Warrior Lodges which had proliferated secretly through the XVI Legion in the decades following its initial conquest of Davin. Within a short time, the entirety of Horus' Legion had been inducted. In the following solar months Horus extended the Warrior Lodge system to other Space Marine Legions with the blessing of those Primarchs who would later ally themselves to his cause. So it was that the seed of Heresy was first planted in the heart of the Emperor's greatest champion and within some of the most powerful military forces in the galaxy.

Horus had listened to the blandishments of the Ruinous Powers of Chaos and made his pact with them while he lay unconscious within the Temple of the Serpent Lodge. He would deliver to them the Emperor and they would give him the galaxy. It was a simple bargain and one that made sense to Horus. Humanity was under dire threat from the daemons of the Warp, though few recognised the danger. If the Emperor knew, He seemed to ignore the threat.

After his sojourn on Davin, Horus was a changed man. The Warmaster drew to him those Primarchs he could trust the most. He met with each in turn and corrupted them. After he secured the loyalty of nearly four full Legions of Space Marines, he hoped to draw more forces into his web of deceit. Horus despatched his agents to other Legions and began the process of winning to his side various Imperial Commanders and Mechanicum Forge Masters. The latter held positions of authority on the Forge Worlds of the Mechanicum. They also controlled the fearsome Titan Legions of the Collegia Titanica. With these powerful war machines at his side, Horus believed that he might even be able to force the Emperor to submit to his rule without more bloodshed.

The Horus Heresy Begins

The Imperial Planetary Governor of Istvaan III, Vardus Praal, had been corrupted by the Chaos God Slaanesh, whose cultists had long been active on the world. Praal had declared his independence from the Imperium, and practiced forbidden psychic sorcery, so the Council of Terra charged Horus with the retaking of that world, primarily its capital, the Choral City. This order merely furthered Horus' plans to overthrow the Emperor.

Although the four Legions under his direct command -- the Sons of Horus, the World Eaters, the Death Guard and the Emperor's Children -- had already turned Traitor and now pledged themselves to Chaos, there were still some Loyalist elements within each of these Legions that approximated one-third of each force; many of these warriors were Terran-born Space Marines who had been directly recruited into the Legiones Astartes by the Emperor Himself before being reunited with their Primarchs during the Great Crusade. Horus, under the guise of putting down the rebellion against Imperial Compliance on Istvaan III, amassed his troops in the Istvaan System.

Horus had a plan by which he would destroy all the remaining Loyalist elements of the Legions under his command. After a lengthy bombardment of Istvaan III, Horus despatched all of the known Loyalist Astartes down to the planet, under the pretense of bringing it back into the Imperium. At the moment of victory and the capture of the Choral City, these Astartes were betrayed when a cascade of terrible Virus Bombs containing the Life-eater virus fell onto the world, launched by the Warmaster's orbiting fleet.

On the planet's surface had been over one hundred companies of Space Marines drawn from the Emperor's Children, Death Guard and World Eaters Legions. Of these, fully two-thirds miraculously survived the bombardment, thanks to the warning messages they received from their loyal comrades in orbit. The conflict on Istvaan III became the first battle in the history of the Imperium in which Space Marine fought Space Marine. Former comrades and brothers-in-arms became bitter foes as treachery abounded. No quarter was asked for and none was given.

As the Traitors launched their orbital barrage of death on the Loyalist Space Marines on Istvaan III, Captain Nathaniel Garro of the Death Guard seized the frigate Eisenstein and fled towards Terra, to bring warning of Horus' treachery. Stranded hundreds of light years from any stretch of inhabited space, the Loyalists were eventually found by Primarch Rogal Dorn of the Imperial Fists Legion, and brought back to the Sol System.

After arriving in the Sol System with the news, Garro, his fellow Death Guard Astartes, the Remembrancer Euphrati Keeler, and the former Luna Wolf Captain Iacton Qruze were all placed in a fortress on Luna that belonged to the Sisters of Silence while the Emperor determined whether they were truthful or were simply further pawns of the Chaos Gods.

Malcador the Regent

Large-sigillite

Malcador the Regent, First Lord of Terra

During this time, the Emperor still continued to busy Himself with His secret project in the vast dungeons beneath the Imperial Palace. The Emperor was seemingly oblivious to the events which would play out in the early days of the Heresy on Istvaan III, Calth, Signus Prime and Prospero. He had appointed Malcador as the First Lord and Regent of the Imperium, to rule in His stead, whilst He continued to work on the secret project in the depths of the Palace.

No one could guess at what was happening within the vaults. Of all the people who worked in the dungeons only Malcador was allowed free and regular access and none dared question the First Lord of Terra about the secret workings within.

Malcador did not relish his job as the Imperial Regent in the final days of the Great Crusade, and every day seemed to bring forth new difficulties. The Space Marine Primarchs openly resented his authority, constantly questioning his right to command them and refusing to maintain contact with him. The Mechanicum of Mars was restless, sending daily demands to be admitted to the Emperor's presence; even the lowly clerks and administrators of Terra appeared to need to have orders repeated to them multiple times before carrying them out.

Despite all of these distractions, it had become clear to Malcador that a genuine crisis was building. Warp Storms were hampering interstellar communications and the Astronomican was weakening. Entire regions of the Imperium were cut off from Terra. Horus had not been in direct contact with him for many solar weeks and Malcador had found it impossible to ascertain the whereabouts and well-being of most of the other Space Marine Legions.

Sigillite-icon

The personal Sigil of Malcador, precursor to the later icon of the Inquisition

It felt to Malcador as if the Imperium was at its weakest point for many years, and could prove to be easy prey for a determined enemy. After he learned of their arrival in the Sol System and had confirmed their claim that Horus had indeed turned on the Emperor, Malcador went to Luna and approached Captains Garro, Qruze and the Sister of Silence Amendera Keel.

He told them that the Emperor needed them, for they would become a part of the formation of a new Imperial organisation, outside the boundaries of the existing Imperial bureaucracy, which would utilise "...men and women of inquisitive nature, hunters who might seek the witch, the traitor, the mutant, the xenos."

The Emperor had foreseen that the end of the Horus Heresy would cost Him greatly, so much so that He would no longer be able to take an active hand in Mankind's survival. Yet He also knew that the threat of Chaos would not see defeat with the fall of Horus, but would continue to haunt humanity. The very nature of the Horus Heresy had proven that the Space Marines were not immune to corruption as the Emperor had once hoped. So the Emperor set His hand to plans that would win a wider victory from the ashes of a most personal defeat.

As the closest of the Emperor's servants, Malcador was ordered soon after the start of the Heresy to scour the galaxy for those who were worthy to help save the future of humanity. This was a monumental task made all the more difficult by the anarchy created by Horus' growing insurrection. That is how the Sigillite came to be on Luna, and the fate of Battle-Captain Garro became inextricably intertwined with the future survival of all Mankind.

Under the Sigillite's own seal (the future symbol of the Inquisition), Garro was tasked with finding 7 other Loyalist Astartes from amongst both the Loyalist and Traitor Legions who were utterly devoted to the Emperor and his Imperium in body and soul. These Space Marines, called the Knights-Errant, would one day form the core of what would later evolve into the Grey Knights Chapter of Astartes, the Chamber Militant of the Inquisition's Ordo Malleus. Iacton Qruze was retained closer to home, acting as Malcador's "hand" in certain investigations such as the case of Solomon Voss. The foundations of the Inquisition were thus born in the fires of betrayal.

3. Cpt

Former Death Guard Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro receives the personal sigil of Malcador

The Sigillite next met with the Primarch Rogal Dorn in the Imperial Palace on Terra. They discussed the portentous events that were happening across the galaxy. The Warmaster, for reasons Dorn was quite at a loss to fathom, had turned upon their father, and was committing his forces to an all-out war against the Emperor. That war would come to Terra and Mankind's homeworld needed to be ready for the assault of the Traitors. The Imperial Palace needed to be fortified.

The Emperor had asked Dorn, as a personal boon, to return to Terra with his Imperial Fists Legion and oversee the preparations personally, but Dorn did not feel up to the task and feared failing his father and humanity. Using his vast wisdom, Malcador counseled the troubled Primarch, helping him realise his true fears and how to overcome them so that he would be ready when Terra and the Imperium needed him.

Malcador was active in many other ways during the Heresy. As well as orchestrating the foundation of the Knights-Errant at the Emperor's command and aiding Rogal Dorn in preparing the defence of Terra, he would use his secret position as Grand Master of Assassins to attempt to have Horus assassinated several times. Whilst several of his chosen Assassins -- including the first-ever Execution Force -- came close to their target, none succeeded, and the attempts were eventually given up, on the orders of the Emperor Himself. The Emperor still hoped that His most-favoured son could be saved from the corruption of the Ruinous Powers.

Malcador later worked with the Primarch of the Space Wolves Legion, Leman Russ, to assassinate Horus with the Knights-Errant while the Traitor Warmaster was in battle on the world of Molech. Malcador selected Garviel Loken, only recently recovered from a bout of insanity after the Knights-Errant had recovered him from the ruins of Istvaan III, to command the mission, which also ultimately failed to kill the Arch-traitor.

Malcador next appeared at the council between the Primarchs Rogal Dorn, Sanguinius, Leman Russ, and Jaghatai Khan as they discussed their strategy to face the Traitors. Malcador accepted Russ' decision to leave Terra to face Horus directly, but nonetheless attempted to quietly convince the Wolf King to stay on Terra during a chess match. Malcador admitted he had grown fond of Russ over the years since they had first met, and could not help but wish that the Emperor had engineered the Primarchs to get along better with each other.

Severian Malcador Sigismund

Knight-Errant Severian, Malcador the Sigillite and Sigismund during the Horus Heresy

As the Heresy worsened, Malcador found himself afflicted by despair and felt out of his depth. His life had been utterly devoted to the Emperor's cause since their fateful meeting long years previously at the Sigillite Fortress, but he had never been a warrior or a general. His skills lay in administration and lawmaking, and although he shared a mysterious psychic bond with his master that no one else could understand or rival, even he was now denied daily access to the Master of Mankind.

That any Space Marine Legion could betray their oaths of loyalty to the Emperor was inconceivable to him. He could not understand how four Primarchs could do such a thing and the question threatened to unhinge his mind with madness. But the Emperor assured the Sigillite, that as long as He drew breath, the evil that assailed them would not conquer Mankind. The Emperor would make Horus and his misguided followers rue the day that they had dared to turn Traitor and embraced the Warp.

Malcador the Hero

After many long solar months, Malcador and Rogal Dorn were finally granted an audience with the Master of Mankind. The order to appear before the Emperor had been timely, coming as it did just as news had reached Terra of the disaster of the Drop Site Massacre on Istvaan V. The two men looked up at the Emperor from bended knee.

He was seated upon a huge chair fully ten metres above them. The chair was bulky and machine-like, fabricated of metal, gold in colour, and gigantic mechanised doors of the same golden metal blocked the strange portal behind him. Beyond lay the Labyrinthine Dimension of the Aeldari Webway, intended to serve as a direct and instantaneous transport network between all the worlds of the Imperium if the Emperor's project proved successful.

This new human Webway would recreate the vast network of Warp Gates that had once bound together the Old Ones' and the Aeldari's ancient interstellar empires and would allow Mankind to advance at a more rapid rate, scientifically and economically, than at any other time in its history. A human-dominated Webway would also truly unite the Imperium, preventing Mankind from ever again being divided by time and great distance, and would insulate humanity from the perils of the Warp.

Golden Throne-Imperial Webway

The Emperor of Mankind upon the Golden Throne

The Warp Gate the Emperor had constructed and the short section of Webway passage beyond required constant psychic maintenance lest they fall into ruin. At first this demanded only a small portion of the Emperor's psychic might and so He was able to command His armies and do all that was expected of Him as Emperor. But the hideous monstrosities that ruled the Warp -- the self-proclaimed Chaos Gods-- had ever been His foes, and now conspired to subvert the Emperor's goals as they had since the day He had launched the Great Crusade.

To this end they had tempted the naive Magnus the Red to warn Him of the very plot they had initiated, the betrayal of the Imperium by Horus. Magnus sent his warning by means of powerful psychic sorcery and this broadcast had wreaked havoc upon the protective psychic shielding surrounding the Emperor's fragile Webway construct.

The spell of Magnus not only allowed the foul denizens of the Warp entry to the section of the Webway the Emperor's secret army of Adepts and Tech-priests had by then conquered, it destroyed the delicate controls the Emperor had set in place. Now the Warp Gate He had constructed required virtually all of His psychic power and mental concentration to secure lest it rip open a permanent doorway between Terra and the Warp, flooding the homeworld of Mankind with the daemonic legions of the Ruinous Powers.

The Emperor told Malcador that he had to take the Emperor's place on the psychic amplifier known as the Golden Throne, which provided the psychic sheath needed to protect the new, human-built sections of the Webway which had been intended to be the Emperor's final gift to humanity before the Horus Heresy had begun. The Emperor's original choice of his replacement on the artefact had been the Primarch Magnus the Red, but since Magnus and his Thousand Sons Legion had sided with Horus and the Chaos God Tzeentch during the Fall of Prospero, Malcador was now his chosen successor and the only remaining human psyker with enough strength to carry out the duty.

In the days before the final confrontation between the Emperor and Horus aboard his Battle-Barge the Vengeful Spirit during the Siege of Terra, the Emperor ordered Malcador to summon "..men of character, skill and determination" who would be tested and trained to become the elite group of investigators intended to root out treachery across the Imperium in the centuries to come to prevent any event like the Horus Heresy from occurring again. The Emperor also told Malcador to prepare himself for the dreadful sacrifice that he would be called upon to make.

The forces of the rebel Warmaster Horus had won a great victory on the bloodstained plains of Istvaan V early in the Heresy. Almost the entirety of three Loyalist Legions of Space Marines, which included the Raven Guard, Salamanders and the Iron Hands, had been annihilated by Horus' Traitors. The Primarch Ferrus Manus was dead -- beheaded at the hands of his former brother Fulgrim of the Emperor's Children Legion. The Primarchs Corax and Vulkan were missing, also presumed dead by the victors, though their bodies had not been recovered from the corpse-strewn battlefield. Meanwhile, the war within the Webway had been going badly for the Emperor.

Even though at first the army of the Legio Custodes and the Silent Sisterhood had managed to push back the daemonic invaders, they had taken many casualties. The Imperial forces had never had the advantage of numbers and each death weakened them, whereas the daemons appeared to have a numberless horde at their disposal. Despite thousands of daemons and their allies having been destroyed or banished back into the Warp, there were always thousands more to take their place.

The Terran Warp Gate would remain closed to the daemons for as long as the Emperor was able to power it from His throne atop the golden portal. Only the mightiest of psykers had power enough to do this and even then most would be exhausted and fail in a short time. Only the Emperor Himself had the might to keep the gate closed permanently and for Him the effort grew harder as the daemonic forces gathered their strength beyond. For as long as the daemon horde threatened to breach the portal, the Golden Throne would be His prison.

As Horus' forces began their final assault on the Sol System and the Siege of Terra began nine standard years after the Traitors had first turned upon the servants of the Emperor at Istvaan III, the Sigillite returned from his mission to recruit the foundation of the Inquisition. Only through the most artful of psychic subterfuge were Malcador and his new recruits able to pass unscathed through the battlelines and come unharmed and unseen before the Emperor within the inner sanctum of the Imperial Palace.

Malcador had finally received the call and was now prepared to perform his final duty to the man he had followed for the greater part of his life. Once within the depths of the Imperial Palace, the Emperor asked if Malcador was prepared to take His place upon the Golden Throne. Ever loyal, the Sigillite was more than willing to sacrifice himself for his Emperor. But before he ascended to take the Emperor's place upon the Throne, the Sigillite had one last duty to perform.

He was accompanied by a group of twelve hooded attendants. In stern silence the Emperor surveyed the robed figures that Malcador had brought before Him, and He saw that his faithful servant had done well. Of the twelve, four were mortal lords and administrators of the Imperium possessed of an inquisitive nature and unyielding strength of mind. The other eight were Space Marines, many of them his Knights-Errants, whose abilities were as peerless as their dedication to the Emperor.

Some hailed from Legions that had abandoned the Emperor's light in favour of Horus' dark promises, but these Battle-Brothers had never lost their loyalty and had fought the Heresy from within. Fulsome in His approval of the selection, Malcador the Sigillite ascended to the Golden Throne, replacing the Emperor who now stood before the edifice with His loyal captains Rogal Dorn and Sanguinius.

Malcador could not speak, such was the concentration he had to bring to bear in order to control the tempestous forces at his call. The Emperor directed the attention of the two mighty Primarchs, "Behold the greatest sacrifice of our age! Malcador the Sigillite is no more. Henceforth he shall always and only ever be Malcador the Hero!" At this, the three figures retired from the Palace's vault and made ready to teleport onto the Battle-Barge of Horus.

The task of keeping the daemons out of the Imperial Palace was daunting for the Emperor, the greatest psyker in the galaxy with millennia of experience to call upon. Though he was a powerful psyker in his own right, perhaps the second most powerful after the Emperor save for Magnus the Red, Malcador was still a mere mortal, his mental powers nothing compared to that of the Emperor, and this task proved overwhelming, consuming him body and soul in a matter of solar hours.

When the Primarch Rogal Dorn brought the mortally injured ruler of Mankind back to the Golden Throne after he had defeated Horus in the Siege of Terra, Dorn found Malcador sitting wasted, psychic energy lashing across his shriveled body like lightning, tortured by the psychic bombardments of the collapsing Imperial Webway.

He was almost dead when the Tech-priests made the exchange -- disengaging Malcador from the strange machine even as they moved to modify it to support the Emperor's crippled life functions indefinitely. As Malcador was removed from the device, the last flicker of life left him and the dust of his corpse blew across the stone floor. Yet Malcador had managed to prove one final time his loyalty and love for the Emperor, for despite his ordeal and agony, he still managed to gather what remained of his wasted power, and willingly forsook it to feed the Emperor and allow his master to survive the ordeal to come.

Malcador's final sacrifice allowed the Emperor to awake from His coma briefly and give His servants their final orders to persevere against all the odds before being interned silently for the next 10,000 standard years within the modified life support systems of the Golden Throne.

From there the Emperor would maintain and project the psychic beacon of the Astronomican into the Warp as a replacement for the now-lost Imperial Webway project and do his best to shield humanity from the worst terrors of the Immaterium. Through the sacrifice of Malcador the Hero, Mankind would live on, and its people would face the growing darkness of the Age of the Imperium that was about to dawn with a single chant upon their lips.

The Emperor protects....

Foundation of the Grey Knights

EmperorGreyKnightsChosen

The Emperor approves of Malcador's choice of the 8 founders of the Grey Knights from among the Sigillite's Knights-Errant before the Siege of Terra begins.

It was Malcador who convinced the Emperor of the necessity of creating a new force of Space Marines specifically tasked with fighting the threats of the Warp. The Emperor would later concede He had made a mistake when He created the original Legiones Astartes, for they had been intended to fight the threats to humanity found only in the physical realm, and not the far worse horrors of the Immaterium.

The Emperor had believed that the Ruinous Powers would not be able to interact with the physical realm as easily as had proved the case or to corrupt His most powerful servants with such little effort. The creation of the new corps of psychic Space Marines was intended to remedy this terrible oversight.

Among the twelve individuals Malcador had presented to the Emperor in the days before the Siege of Terra when he took the Master of Mankind's place upon the Golden Throne were many of those who had already served the Imperium well. Eight of the twelve were Astartes drawn from both the Loyalist and Traitor Legions. These included many of the most prominent of his own Knights-Errant, including Tylos Rubio, Macer Varren, Janus, Epimetheus, and Khyron. Among the mortals were the former Iterator Kyril Sindermann, the former Remembrancer Lemuel Gaumon and the Silent Sister Amendera Kendel.

After they were presented, the Emperor gave His approval, noting that Malcador had chosen well and the project should continue. Malcador had decided to split the group up to deal with the very different tasks set before them; the four mortal lords were kept separate from the Astartes and moved to lay the framework of what became the early Imperial secret police force known as the Inquisition while the Space Marines travelled with Malcador through a Webway portal to the moon of the gas giant of Saturn known as Titan.

Through the use of Malcador's abilities, Titan had been cloaked from the ravages that had befallen the Sol System during the battles of the Horus Heresy. The eight Astartes discovered that a great fortress-monastery had already been established on Titan's frigid methane plains, stocked with all the supplies, materiel and vehicles needed to create a new Space Marine force. This included stockpiles of gene-seed drawn from an unknown source whispered to be the Emperor Himself.

The fortress was already filled with thousands of Aspirants drawn from locations across the galaxy, many untrained while others had once been selected for service with the remaining Loyalist Legions, though every single one was a psyker. The new Space Marine force would be organised not as a Legion, however, but as a Chapter, a smaller, more focused army only a few thousand Astartes strong. As Malcador needed to return to Terra immediately to carry out his last duty for the Emperor and Mankind, he chose Janus to serve as the first Supreme Grand Master of the new Chapter, which was to be called the "Grey Knights."

As he left, Malcador cast his last and greatest psychic enchantment. The entire moon of Titan was hidden within the shifting tides of the Immaterium, shielded from its many dangers by Macro-Gellar Fields and sigilic rites of protection that had been prepared on the moon beforehand. In this way, Titan and its Grey Knights were protected from the final battle of the Horus Heresy while Janus and his seven comrades built and organised their new Chapter safely within the Warp. Titan finally emerged into the Immaterium approximately a thousand Terran years later in the 32nd Millennium.

The Grey Knights, now a fully-forged Chapter dedicated to the defence of Mankind from the daemonic terrors of Chaos, contacted the Inquisitor Lastan Neemagiun Veritus, once known as Kyril Sindermann, to let them know they were ready to join the fight. In the wake of the War of the Beast, the Grey Knights would become the highly-classified Chamber Militant of the new-formed Ordo Malleus of the Inquisition.

Appearance and Abilities

Malcador wore simple, priest-like robes that were normally used by Adepts of the Imperial Administratum. To many outsiders the Sigillite looked like a normal Adept from this august body. He was known for having the appearance of a slender, elderly man even though he was one of the most powerful psykers in the galaxy. What set him apart from normal Adepts of the Administratum was his psychic presence and his trademark staff that was capped with a gold Imperial Aquila wreathed in flame as his badge of office as First Lord of the Imperium and the Regent of Terra.

The Sigillite was believed to be the second most powerful natural born psyker in human history after the Emperor, perhaps surpassed only by the Primarch Magnus the Red. He was gifted with extraordinary telepathic and telekinetic abilities, as well as greatly increased physical and mental fortitude, as displayed during the incident with Lorgar on Monarchia when he survived an assault from the massive Primarch that should have killed a man of his apparent age and physical size.

The Sigillite was also blessed with a lifespan far greater than that of normal, unaugmented humans, having survived for an unknown number of Terran centuries before even meeting the Emperor of Mankind at some time before the start of the Unification Wars.

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Trivia

Brahm al-Khadour, the name Jaghatai Khan claimed was Malcador's birth name, is likely a reference to the Khidr or al-Khidr. The Khidr is a name ascribed to a figure in the Quran as a righteous servant of God possessing great wisdom or mystic knowledge.

In various Islamic and non-Islamic religious traditions, the Khidr is described as a messenger, prophet, wali, slave and angel, who guards the sea, teaches secret knowledge and aids those in distress.

See Also

Sources

  • Codex: Grey Knights (5th Edition), pp. 6-7
  • Horus Heresy: Collected Visions, pp. 15, 46, 188, 247, 249-250, 252, 254, 260, 322-324, 359-361, 367
  • Horus Heresy: Visions of Death by Alan Merrett
  • The Flight of the Eisenstein (Novel) by James Swallow
  • Nemesis (Novel) by James Swallow, pg. 47
  • The First Heretic (Novel) by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
  • Age of Darkness (Anthology), "The Last Remembrancer" by John French
  • Deliverance Lost (Novel) by Gav Thorpe
  • Horus Heresy Chapbook (Anthology), "The Lightning Tower" by Dan Abnett
  • Garro: Oath of Moment (Audio Book) by James Swallow
  • Garro: Legion of One (Audio Book) by James Swallow
  • The Sigillite (Audio Book) by Chris Wraight
  • The Horus Heresy - Book One: Betrayal (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pg. 16
  • The Last Remembrancer (Short Story) by John French
  • Vengiful Spirit (Novel) by Graham McNeill
  • Malcador: First Lord of the Imperium (Audio Book) by Laurie Golding
  • Wolfsbane (Novel) by Guy Haley, Chs. 4-9
  • The Buried Dagger (Novel) by James Swallow, Chs. 6-7
  • The Last Council (Short Story) by L.J. Goulding
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