Another pause reached out between them.
At last, Lorgar smiled, bleak and unamused. ‘Perhaps he did bring meaning. But he did not bring the meaning humanity needs. That’s what matters.’
‘Go on,’ Magnus said. ‘Finish the thought.’
‘Since then I have crusaded across his empire for over a century, raising icons and faiths in his image – and only now he objects? After a hundred years, only now am I told that all I’ve done is wrong?’
Magnus kept his silence. The doubt he felt shone through his narrowed eye.
‘Magnus,’ Lorgar smiled as he saw the emotion on his brother’s face, ‘only the truly divine deny their divinity. It’s written thus in countless human cultures. He never denied his godhood when he first came to Colchis to take me into the stars. You were there. He witnessed weeks of celebrations in his honour, never once rebuking me for lauding him as a god. And since then? He has watched me crusade for him, never saying a word about what I’ve done. Only now, at Monarchia, did he bring down his wrath. When he decided my faith had to be broken, after more than a century.’
‘Faith is an ugly word,’ Magnus said, idly stroking the bound spine of the great book he always carried chained at his hip.
‘Why were we born to be warriors?’ Lorgar asked, apropos of nothing.
‘Finally,’ Magnus laughed, ‘we reach the reason you summoned me to Colchis. Why are we warriors? A fine question, with a simple answer. We are warriors because that is what the Emperor, beloved by all, required in the galaxy’s reclamation.’
‘Of course. But this is the greatest age in mankind’s history, and instead of philosophers and visionaries... it is led by warriors. There’s something poisonous in that, Magnus. Something rotten. It is not right.’
Magnus shrugged, with a whisper of fine mail. ‘Father is the visionary. He needed generals at his side.’
Lorgar clenched his teeth. ‘By the Throne, I am sick to my core of hearing those words. I am not a soldier. I have no wish to be one. I am not a destroyer, Magnus. Not like the others. Why do you think I spend so long establishing compliance and creating perfect worlds? In creation, I am vindicated. In destruction, I am–’
‘Not a soldier?’
‘Not a soldier,’ Lorgar nodded. He looked exhausted. ‘There are greater things in life than excelling at shedding blood.’
‘If you are not a soldier, then you have no right to lead a Legion,’ said Magnus. ‘The Astartes are weapons, brother. Not craftsmen or architects. They are the fires that raze cities, not the hands that raise them.’
‘So we are speaking in hypocrisies today?’ Lorgar managed a smile. ‘Your Thousand Sons are responsible for much of Tizca’s beauty, let alone Prospero’s enlightenment.’
‘True,’ Magnus returned the smile, altogether more sincere, ‘and they are also responsible for a great number of faultless compliances. The Word Bearers, by comparison, are not.’
Lorgar fell silent.
‘Is this about Monarchia?’ Magnus asked.
‘Everything is about Monarchia,’ Lorgar admitted. ‘It all changed in that moment, brother. The way I see the worlds we conquer. My hopes for the future. Everything.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘Do not patronise me,’ Lorgar snapped. ‘With the greatest respect, Magnus, you cannot imagine this. Did the lord of all human life descended upon you, burn your greatest achievements to ash and dust, and then tell you that you – and you alone – were a failure? Did he throw your precious Thousand Sons to the ground and tell your entire Legion that every soul wearing their armour was a wasted life?’
‘Lorgar–’
‘What? What? I spent decades on Colchis dreaming of the day god himself would arrive and lead humanity to the empyrean. I raised a religion in his honour. For over a hundred years, I have spread that faith in his name, believing he matched every dream, every prophecy, every mythic poem about the ascension of the human race. Now I am told my life was a lie; that I have ruined countless civilisations with false faith; that every one of my brothers who laughed at me for seeking a greater purpose in life was right to laugh at our bloodline’s only fool.’
‘Brother, calm yourself–’
‘No!’ Lorgar instinctively reached for a crozius that wasn’t there. His fingers curled in a rage that couldn’t be released. ‘No... Do not “brother” me with indulgence in your eyes. You are the wisest of us all and you see nothing of the truth in this.’
‘Then explain it. And shackle your temper, I have no desire to be whined at. Or will you strike me, as you struck Guilliman?’
Lorgar hesitated. After a moment, he brushed a white petal from the railing with his golden palm. Anger quietened, without fully fading, as the petal flitted down through the air. He met Magnus’s gaze.
‘Forgive me. My choler is kindled, and my control lacking. You’re right.’
‘I always am,’ Magnus smiled. ‘It’s a habit.’
Lorgar looked back out over the city. ‘As for Guilliman... You have no idea how fine it felt to strike him down. His arrogance is unbelievable.’
‘We are blessed with many brothers who would benefit from being humbled once in a while,’ Magnus smiled, ‘but that is for another time. Speak what must be spoken. You are afraid.’
‘I am,’ Lorgar confessed. ‘I fear the Emperor will break the Word Bearers – and break me. We would be cast alongside the brothers we no longer speak of.’
The silence was hardly comforting. ‘Well?’ Lorgar asked.
‘He might,’ the one-eyed giant said. ‘There was talk of it, before Monarchia.’
‘Did he come to you to ask your thoughts?’
‘He did,’ Magnus admitted.
‘And he went to our brothers?’
‘I believe so. Don’t ask what sides were taken by whom, for I do not know where most of them stood. Russ was with you, as was Horus. In fact, it was the first time the Wolf King and I have agreed on anything of import.’
‘Leman Russ spoke in my favour?’ Lorgar laughed. ‘Truly, we live in an age of marvels.’
Magnus didn’t share the amusement. His lone eye was a deep, arctic blue as it fixed upon Lorgar. ‘He did. The Space Wolves are a spiritual Legion, in their own stunted and blind way. Fenris is an unmerciful cradle, and it breeds such things in them. Russ knows that, though he lacks the intelligence to give it voice. Instead, he swore that he’d already lost two brothers, and had no desire to lose a third.’
‘Two already lost.’ Lorgar looked back to the city. ‘I still recall how they–’
‘Enough,’ warned Magnus. ‘Honour the oath you took that day.’
‘You all find it so easy to forget the past. None of you ever wish to speak of what was lost. But could you do it again?’ Lorgar met his brother’s eyes. ‘Could you stand with Horus or Fulgrim, and never again speak my name purely because of a promise?’
Magnus wouldn’t be drawn into this. ‘The Word Bearers will not walk the same paths as the forgotten and the purged. I trust you, Lorgar. Already, there’s talk that compliance was achieved on Forty-Seven Sixteen with laudable speed. Settler fleets are en route, are they not?’
Lorgar ignored the rhetorical question.
‘I need your guidance, Magnus. I need to see the things you see.’ The gold-skinned primarch watched the procession weaving through the streets, marching closer by the minute.
‘You know of Colchisian mythology, and the Pilgrimage to where gods and mortals meet. You know how it matches the beliefs of so many other worlds. The empyrean. The Primordial Truth. Heaven. Ten thousand names in ten thousand cultures. It cannot be mere superstition, if shamans and sorcerers on so many words all share the same beliefs. Perhaps father is wrong. Perhaps the stars hide more secrets. Perhaps they truly do hide the gods themselves.’
‘Lorgar...’ Magnus warned again. He turned from the balcony, and moved back into the expansive chamber atop the Spire Temple. The domed ceiling was glass, offering a breathtaking view of
the sky as night fell. The stars were beginning to make themselves known, pinpricks of light in the sapphire sky.
‘Do not hunt for something to worship,’ Magnus said, ‘merely because your faith was proven false.’
Lorgar followed his brother, slender fingers toying with the hem of his grey robe’s sleeve. The Word Bearers primarch spent much of his time on Colchis in this spire-top observatory, staring up at the stars. It was here that he’d watched and waited for the Emperor’s arrival so many decades ago, mistaken in the belief that he would be a god worthy of worship.
‘Is that how you see me?’ he asked Magnus, his voice softer than before. Hurt shone in his eyes, flecked with buried anger. ‘Is that how you judge my actions? That I cast about in ignorance, desperate for something, anything, to hear my prayers?’
Magnus watched the stars coming out for the night. He noted several constellations already – their shapes taken and bestowed on Chapters within the Word Bearers Legion. There, the faint image of a crozius crowned with a skull; there, the high seat, adopted as the symbol of the Osseous Throne; and there, the flared circle of the serrated sun.
‘That is how history will judge you,’ said Magnus, ‘if you remain devoted to this path. No one will see your desire to elevate humanity or raise the species into some unknown enlightenment. They will see you humiliated and weak, desperate for something to believe in.’
‘Humanity is nothing without faith,’ Lorgar whispered.
‘And yet we do not need religion to explain the universe. The Emperor’s light illuminates all.’
‘That is what you always fail to see,’ Lorgar moved over to a table with several crystal wine glasses. ‘You think faith is about fear. About needing things explained to ignorant minds. Faith is the greatest unifying element in mankind’s history. Faith was all that kept the light of hope burning through the millennia on the thousands of worlds we now reclaim in this Crusade.’
‘So you say, brother.’ Magnus shrugged. ‘You will not be judged kindly for that belief.’
Lorgar poured a glass of dark wine, its scent heightened by the powdered spices added during its fermentation. Lacking the climate for grape vineyards, Colchisian wine was almost always made from dates. The bitter drink reddened his lips as he sipped it.
‘We are immortal,’ Lorgar pointed out. ‘Why would we worry for the future when we will still be around to shape it?’
Magnus ventured no answer.
‘You’ve seen something,’ Lorgar pressed. ‘Something in the Great Ocean. Something in the warp you stare into so often. Some... some hint at what might be. A future yet to come?’
‘It doesn’t work that way, brother.’
‘You’re lying. You are lying to me.’
Magnus turned his gaze from the darkening sky. ‘Sometimes you see and hear only what you wish. You’re wrong, Lorgar. Father is not a god. There are no gods.’
At last, Lorgar smiled as if he’d waited hours for those words to be spoken.
‘Is he a magical sky-spirit dwelling inside a mythical paradise? No. I am not a fool. He is not a god as primitive cultures once understood the concept. But the Emperor is a god in all but name, Magnus. He is psychic power incarnated within a physical shell. When he speaks, his lips never move and his throat makes no sound. His face is a thousand visages at once. The only aspect of humanity he possesses is the facade he wears to interact with mortals.’
‘That’s a very melodramatic perception.’
‘And it is true. The only difference between you and I is that you call him father, and I call him a god.’
Magnus sighed, his breath rumbling as he suppressed a growl. ‘I see where you are leading with this. Now I see why you summoned me. And Lorgar... I am leaving.’
Lorgar offered a golden hand, reaching out to his brother. ‘Please, Magnus. If the Emperor is what he is, there might be other beings that wield the same power. How can so many legends of divinity, from so many disparate cultures, all agree on other powers that exist beyond the veil? There must be gods in the universe. Our species’ most natural instincts cannot be wrong.’
‘This reeks of desperation,’ Magnus sighed. ‘Have you considered that father warned you for a reason?’
‘There is no shame in seeking the truth, Magnus. You of all souls should know that. Have you seen nothing of this in your travels through the Great Ocean? No beings that a human civilisation could perceive as a god or daemon?’
Magnus did not reply. His gaze burned into his brother.
‘My mind is alive with questions,’ the Word Bearer lord confessed. ‘Where in the galaxy would gods and mortals meet?’
The giant’s lip curled. ‘The Great Ocean hides much beneath its tides, Lorgar. We have both walked worlds where the warp bleeds into our reality, only to be manipulated by heathen ritemasters and misinterpreted as “magic”. Would you deceive yourself as they do?’
‘Stay,’ Lorgar implored. ‘Help me.’
Magnus shook his head. ‘Help you stare into the abyss? You want me to guide you along the paths walked by primitives and barbarians?’
Lorgar drew a shaky breath before replying.
‘Help me seek the truth that lies behind the stars. What if we are waging a false crusade? This might be an unholy war... World after world is purged or brought to compliance... We might be strangling the truth – a truth believed in one form or another by countless cultures... We... We... I hear something call out to me, day and night. Something in the void. Is it fate? Is this how we perceive the future? By hearing destiny’s voice whisper our names?’
Lorgar fell silent as Magnus came to him, the larger brother gripping the other’s robed shoulders. The golden primarch’s lips were trembling. His fingers twitched and shook.
‘My brother, you are raving,’ said Magnus. ‘Look at me. Peace, Lorgar. Peace. Look at me.’
Lorgar did as he was asked. Magnus the Red, the Crimson King, fixed his brother’s gaze with his own remaining eye.
‘Your eye has changed colour,’ Lorgar murmured. ‘I hear them calling, Magnus. Fate. Destiny. I hear destiny’s thousand voices...’
‘Focus on me,’ Magnus intoned, speaking slow and soft. ‘Listen well to my words. You are speaking from fear. A fear of failing again. A fear of dooming another world to destruction. A fear that father will order a third Legion, and a third son, to be purged from history.’
‘The fear has faded. I am no longer afraid. I am inspired.’
‘You cannot hide it from me with mere words, brother. And you are right to fear what may come to pass. You stand on the precipice of destruction, and still contemplate a path that will send you falling over the edge. I understand your pain. Everything you achieved on Colchis was for a flawed faith. Every compliant world is one your Legion must revisit and reshape. But you cannot live in fear of making another mistake.’
Lorgar said nothing for several moments. At last, his shoulders slumped.
‘You could have helped me, Magnus.’ The Word Bearers’ primarch lifted his brother’s hands away, and walked back to the wine table. ‘We could have taken the Pilgrimage together, and sought the place where the stars are stained by divine influence. You see into the Great Ocean better than anyone else. You could have been my navigator.’
Magnus narrowed his good eye. In sympathy, the puckered scar marking the absence of his other eye pulled tight.
‘What do you intend to do, Lorgar? You have no idea of what you seek.’
‘I will continue the Great Crusade,’ Lorgar smiled, taking another swallow of the dark wine. ‘I will cast my fleet across the galaxy, and bring every world we find into compliance. And as we sail the heavens, we will be as pilgrims seeking a holy land. If there is truth behind the legends so many cultures share, then I will find it. And with it, I will enlighten humanity.’
Magnus said nothing. Disbelief robbed him of speech.
Lorgar drained the wine. It stained his golden lips again. ‘I will apply my Legion’s full strength to
the Great Crusade, and never raise another monument in the Emperor’s image. I will do it all under the watchful eyes of his Custodes war dogs. Surely there is no harm in recording ancient tales of faiths from the cultures we encounter? You yourself assured me they were all false. Father said the same.’
‘I am leaving,’ Magnus said again, and moved to the centre of the room. Resting his gloved hand on the great leather-bound book chained to his belt, the primarch looked back at his brother. They would not meet again for almost forty years, and the galaxy would be a very different place by the time they did.
They both sensed this. It carried between them in that lingering stare: half-challenge, half-plea.
‘What swims within the Great Ocean that you’ve always kept from us?’ Lorgar demanded, teeth clenching. ‘What secrets hide within the warp? Why do you spend your life staring into it, if there’s nothing there? What if I asked our father about your secret travels into the aether?’
‘Farewell, Lorgar.’
The Word Bearers lord pulled back his hood, his handsome features rendered into true gold by the candlelight.
‘Is there a place where reality and unreality converge? An empyrean, a heaven that humanity has always misunderstood? A realm where gods and mortals meet? Answer me, Magnus.’
Magnus shook his head as motes of misty light began to form around him. A teleportation lock from his vessel in orbit. Wind, from nowhere, began to breathe.
‘What are the voices?’ Lorgar screamed over the rising winds. ‘Who calls to me?’
‘If you will not alter your path, then only one thing awaits you in the stars,’ said Magnus.
Lorgar stared in rapt silence, hungering for the answer, but Magnus spoke only a single word before vanishing in a burst of bright light and white noise.
‘Misery.’
ELEVEN
In a God’s Service
Confession
The Pilgrimage
For several kilometres around the Spire Temple, revellers in the streets looked up in horror as the tower-top exploded in searing light. A dusty powder rained down from the observatory – its glass dome pulverised to the tiniest, twinkling shards.
The First Heretic Page 14