Zardu Layak - Origins: Known as the "Thrice-Born," "The Binder of Souls," and "The Voice of the Unspeaking," Zardu Layak's true name is now lost, but it is recorded in his Legion's lore that he was once an officer of the Ashen Circle, a Terran by birth, and a devout destroyer among the original Imperial Heralds Legion of all that pertained to false superstition and errant creed.He oversaw the burning of a hundred temples and countless tomes of lies in the Emperor's service even after the primarch Lorgar was reunited with the XVIIth Legion and renamed it the Word Bearers.But then came the Word Bearers' brutal censure by the Emperor and the destruction of "the Perfect City" of Monarchia on the world of Khur. As the Primarch Lorgar led his Legion into the wilderness after their punishment, Layak was contrite and ashamed, soul-sick and lost, and quickly a fervent convert to Erebus' and Lorgar's new teachings in which he sought solace, but even this did not fill the terrible void within him.So it was that when he began to receive visions in which he believed his Primarch spoke to him directly. He concealed them from others for fear his shame had driven him mad. In those visions the golden-skinned apparition of Lorgar bade him to reconsider his work, not to burn the books and lore he encountered, but to read them, covet them, to search in them for the hidden truths that the Emperor had not wished His sons to know.Word upon word, rune upon rune, glyph upon glyph was a new creature born, a creature who named himself from the Book of Lorgar using the ancient practice of Sortilege as Zardu Layak, the "Eater of Wisdom," but who came to be known more swiftly by his Legion as the "Crimson Apostle" for his fiery raiment and the scalding blood in which he daily daubed his armour.After his rebirth, Zardu Layak donned a daemonic helm chained directly to the flesh of his face and pledged to never let any but the Chaos Gods themselves see his face again.Assigned to the Chapter of the Ochre Gate as its Dark Apostle by the Legion's First Chaplain Erebus, who sought to channel his fervour, Zardu Layak quickly proved more than a mere voice of the Legion's First Chaplain. Soon the Chapter began to seek missions of its own, away from its parent Legion for long stretches, and each time it returned it was further changed.Like a cancer, Zardu Layak had embedded himself deeper into its carcass, so that after a time, the Ochre Gate was no more and now the Chapter of the Unspeaking stood in its place, with Zardu Layak its de facto master.Though First Captain Kor Phaeron was disquieted by the Crimson Apostle's growing power, much of which he would keep hidden until the atrocity on Calth, Lorgar pronounced himself pleased by Zardu Layak and his devotion to the word of the Primordial Truth.Lorgar assigned the Chapter of the Unspeaking and their master to command a key assault at Calth, though so changed and mutated had they become by their interaction with the power of the Warp that complete concealment was needed for them until the hour came to strike.After his participation in the Battle of Calth, Layak replaced both Erebus and Argel Tal as Lorgar's closest confidant in the later stages of the Heresy.