Tarkos
I thought it was a patron of ours, but I was mistaken. It's older, much older. Older than the Four. Soon there may be Five when the martyr awakens (it showed me that). Who cares? Sometimes it shows memories from eons ago, when the galaxy (reality?) was young and pure. Brothers, we were born too late. False hopes, false gods, that's all we were given. It was a true god once, but he was tortured, mutilated, reforged. Perhaps corrupted (no, not corrupted. It is above morality). It doesn't want us here. It showed me what's behind the veil. I saw a possible future. We were wrong, brothers. Ours isn't the right path. I must stop it. My sight is clear now. [...] Forgive me, brothers. These stars are not meant for us.
Tarkos' diary.[1]
Tarkos, nicknamed the Hand of Alpharius and Tongue of the Serpent, was an Alpha Legion commander who operated in the Caligari Sector. Though he initially intended to destabilize the sector in support of the 13th Black Crusade, Tarkos made contact with an ancient entity there. This drove him insane. He was eventually killed by a local inquisitor.[1]
Biography
In late M41, Tarkos was initially part of the Chaos forces who worked to throw the Caligari Sector into anarchy to prepare a second front for Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade. He and his warband established local Chaos Cults and propped up a "prophet" to spread anti-Imperial thinking in the Dagnor System.[1]
Eventually, Tarkos became aware that things were not as they seemed in the Caligari Sector. He eventually discovered a being which he called the "Beast with a Thousand Eyes". At first, he considered it a daemon and hoped that it would support the traitors' cause, but eventually realized that it was not aligned with Chaos. The contact with the Beast drove Tarkos into insanity. In his diary, he claimed that he would slip into and out of phases of lucidity, while receiving visions of the past and the future, including the actions of Radical inquisitor Uther Tiberius. As a result, Tarkos became disillusioned with his existence, realizing that even the Chaos Gods were yound compared to other forces in the universe, and that the Alpha Legion had only ever been granted "false hopes, false gods". Some of his comments suggest that he began to recognize the Alpha Legion's identity as "Alpharius" and "Hydra" in the Beast, evidently realizing some overlap in both forms of insidious spread.[1]
Even though he kept the command of his warband and the cults he had set up, Tarkos tried to correct the Alpha Legion's "path". Whether his actions were still rational in any way at this point, however, is unclear. Tarkos' network was ultimately uprooted by a local inquisitor. The Alpha Legion commander fled with his last forces into a underground hideout on Vismar Minoris. There, his warband and followers unleashed Daemons, but were ultimately defeated and killed by the inquisitor. Tarkos confronted the Imperial, stating that he was "Alpharius" and that the "Hydra" would devour him, though his wording suggested that was actually referring to the Beast with a Thousand Eyes. When the inquisitor responded by calling Tarkos a traitor, the Alpha Legionnaire called out the modern Imperials' religion and fanaticism as contrary to the Emperor's will. He then screamed "For the Emperor" before being cut down by the inquisitor.[1]
In the aftermath of Tarkos' demise, his network in the Dagnor System collapsed and was mopped up by Imperial forces. However, the local inquisitor collected Tarkos' writings, believing that the Alpha Legionnaire had seemingly wanted to die and that there was a need to understand his motivations.[1]
