by Gav Thorpe
'I can do without, for a while,' said Lorgar. He reached towards the platter.
'Even your appetite does not match that of five thousand,' countered Kor Phaeron. 'The Powers do not give their boons freely, as much as we call them gifts. Their gratitude is earned, through ordeal and proving one's faith.'
Lorgar nodded sadly, withdrawing his hand while his gaze settled upon Hu Osys.
'My archdeacon is right. This is no path to be trodden by the weak-willed. Two days. At Meassin we will pause and you shall drink at the wells and feed at the trenchers of the Covenant. Share what you have, as you deem fitting. Pray and know that your actions take you closer to the Truth. Those the Powers judge worthy will survive.'
He returned to his books, silently dismissing his audience. Hu Osys nodded numbly and withdrew with shuffling steps, muttering thanks to the Bearer of the Word for his wise counsel.
2 5 3
Nairo stood at the threshold, aware of the contemptuous look that Kor Phaeron directed at him.
'You have something else to say?' asked the archdeacon.
If he was ever to speak up, to test the new-founded supposed egalitarian ideology of the One, now was as good a time as any.
'Lorgar, we have supplies in the caravan that we could share with the Taranthians. The nomads can hunt…' His voice trailed away as he noticed that the Bearer of the Word was sitting immobile, his gaze distant, the only movement being the breath in his chest.
'Another Long Noon and Post-noon at most, that is all they will gain from it,' said Kor Phaeron. 'The painful decisions must still be made, the testing must still be undergone. What are you staring at?'
The archdeacon turned and his mood changed instantly, his belligerence draining away to be replaced with something like sorrow. Anger quickly returned as Kor Phaeron shoved Nairo out of the door.
'Leave!'
'What is he doing?'
Kor Phaeron's voice dropped to a harsh whisper.
'Communing with the One. Leave us! Speak not of this to anyone else, or brotherhood or not I shall see your skin hanging as a flag from the mast.'
The door slammed in Nairo's face a moment before he heard a muffled low moaning, swiftly followed by indistinct words of comfort from Kor Phaeron. Dismayed, Nairo retreated along the companionway, unsure what to think of the episode.
2 5 4
To see someone as vital, so physically imposing as Lorgar in pain was dreadful. The Bearer of the Word clasped his hands to his temples, eyes screwed shut, jaw clenched as he rocked back and forth on his chair. Kor Phaeron didn't even know what he was saying; he just let a stream of words fall from his lips, hoping Lorgar could hear them. Offering comfort and support though it looked as though the Powers drove hot nails into Lorgar's brain.
A test, he reminded himself. All accomplishment was achieved through adversity. Pain was the wage of the mortal, the price paid on the route to immortality.
With a last grunt, Lorgar straightened and opened his eyes, his gaze still glassy and distant. Now came the reward and the smile that crept across his face was sublime, the pleasure so infectious that Kor Phaeron could not help but grin to witness it. It seemed even more intense than on previous occasions.
He picked up one of the water ewers and stood ready.
Lorgar shuddered visibly and his soul returned to the senses of the mortal shell in which it normally resided. Kor Phaeron could not imagine what these travels into the Empyrean were like to experience, and Lorgar had been oddly reluctant in his discussions.
Now he looked at his archdeacon with a glint in his eye, an energy Kor Phaeron had not seen since he had decided to take on the Covenant at Taranthis.
'We are vindicated, father,' said Lorgar. In these vulnerable moments he lapsed into the patriarchal appellation, but Kor Phaeron was used to it now and let it pass unremarked. Lorgar took the water with a grateful nod and downed the contents. He grinned more widely. 'The Powers have sent me a new vision.'
'New?' Kor Phaeron asked the question lightly but the declaration set his heart fluttering. The first vision had set them on this course towards confrontation with the Covenant. Was Lorgar about to change his mind, to speak of a new destiny? 'Not a vision of the One?'
'He was there, as before. Gold and light personified. Another was with Him.'
'The One have become the Two?'
'A magus, robed in blue, like the drawings of the ancient shamans. With a single eye, gazing with the brightness of the Powers, seeing all.'
'A golden god and a wise man,' said Kor Phaeron. 'Vindication indeed! The Powers assert the Truth again, assuring us that we tread the path. You will be the golden one and I the magus.'
'I think that is so,' said Lorgar, laying a hand on Kor Phaeron's shoulder. The priest trembled at the thought and tears misted his vision.
'I had always believed…' He knelt, holding Lorgar's massive hand in his. 'I knew that I did the work of the Powers. Others scorned me, but still I knew that the Truth would be known. Through you, Lorgar, it shall be.'
'Through us,' said Lorgar. 'We must preach the Word of the One, and the Truth will return to Colchis.'
And I shall be archdeacon of the Covenant, thought Kor Phaeron, risen to my rightful station as lord of Vharadesh.
2 6 1
From Meassin on to Ahesh Ahuk, and thence to Kofus on the lava plains of Toursas, the followers of Lorgar travelled from encampment to encampment, quelling such armed resistance as was raised against them and speaking to the freed slaves. Ten thousand, twenty thousand, thirty thousand numbered the host of the One by the time they liberated the internees of the plantations at Seasas and Ouresh.
The number of the gathering devotees proved problematic, as it had after Taranthis, and a semi-permanent camp was set at Merina where the greater part of the Faithful remained while Lorgar took the core of the converts into the deeper desert, ever driven on by his visions to pave the way for the arrival of the One.
'It is not enough that we break the shackles of slaves. There are others who have sought succour from the Covenant and been rejected,' Lorgar told Kor Phaeron after the Bearer of the Word had announced that they would once more be heading for The Sands that Slay.
There is nothing of worth in the Low Barrens, Kor Phaeron replied, but Lorgar simply smiled. The archdeacon would not accept this. 'You would recruit more of the Declined? That would take an age. The slaves come to us a thousand, three thousand at a time. The nomads of the wastes live in tribes no more than three, four hundred strong. Were you even to find them, we would waste all our resources on the recruitment. This plan is folly, Lorgar. We should head next for Ghastaresh, to the salt flats.'
Lorgar would not be swayed though, and in his calm manner insisted that they would head into the Low Barrens at the following wake-rise, which would herald the next Dawnaway.
The journey was not so storm-ridden as the first, though winds raged and sands stripped paint from metal and timbers with a fury that flayed uncovered flesh. When asked where they were heading Lorgar would not reply directly, saying only that he was being guided by the One. Kor Phaeron continued to comfort him as repeated visions assailed Lorgar's waking thoughts - always of the golden warrior and the robed magus, which the archdeacon took as a sign that the Powers were still content with the course their messengers had taken.
Then they came upon the expanse known as the Crater of Sorrows: forty kilometres across, scarred into the wastes in a bygone age and littered with the debris of a broken skycity. Rich pickings for any who dared its rim, but such treasure hunters were few and far between for the crater was cursed by the Powers, haunted by a drake-beast that lived beneath the sands and devoured entire expeditions.
The nomads had many names for the monster, whose presence forced them to divert by a day and more on their journeys between the oases at Fourrh, Khornasa, Al Nerga and Ashadsa.
Khaane's Serpent it was called, and the Doom of Cities. Mostly it was known in Declined legend as the Kingwyrm.
2 6 2
It was with some anxiety that the caravan crossed the ridged rock into the bowl of the crater early one Mornday. Patrol yachts and lookouts scoured the sands for any sign of the diabolic creature. At word from Lorgar they left their vehicles on rocky ground and ventured out on foot, swathed in robes and carrying thick shades against the strengthening sun.
The winds swiftly eradicated all trace of their route, but the slowly rising orb of the Powers gave them the means to navigate for the heart of the Crater of Sorrows. Some four kilometres they had traversed when there came a shout from scouts on sunstriders riding a few hundred metres ahead.
Lorgar spied it next with his immortal eyes, but it was only moments before Kor Phaeron saw that which had raised the alarm.
A ridge of sand, near ten metres high, ploughing through the dunes on a course parallel to their own. Axata called the several hundred to order, at first gathering them en masse to meet the Kingwyrm as they watched its course change, circling around them now that they had stopped. How it knew of their position was impossible to tell.
'No!' Lorgar called out to them. 'Spread out. Give it no single target.'
Heeding these wise words, the converts split into smaller groups, putting several dozen metres between themselves as the bulge in the ground that was the Kingwyrm turned sharply and arrowed towards them. At the centre stood Lorgar, mace in his hands, shade discarded so that he might move freely, sweat running in thick rivers from his bald scalp. His skin was the colour of liquid gold in the low sunlight, inhuman muscles bulging beneath.
About half a kilometre distant, the hump in the sands disappeared.
2 6 3
With the progress of their foe hidden from sight, the converts started to panic, shouting to each other to see if its course had been spied, moving closer together again, instinctively seeking the protection of the group.
'Keep your distance!' roared Lorgar, but his warning came too late.
In a spume of broken rock and red sands a hundred metres high the Kingwyrm erupted from the desert depths, its fanged maw open to swallow two dozen converts amidst several tonnes of grit and ash. With a crash that sent ripples flowing through the sands, the monstrous beast fell upon the surface, crushing another thirty men and women beneath its bulk.
Kor Phaeron stood rooted to the spot, never in his life having faced anything so terrifying. Here was the wrath of the Powers incarnate and his first thought was for the wrongs he had done them with his lip service to Lorgar's sermons of the One. He offered up silent prayer and apology there and then, promising never to stray from the path of the Empyreal Truth again.
The Kingwyrm was neither worm nor serpent nor drake, not any creature depicted in the histories and bestiaries that Lorgar had translated for Kor Phaeron. It was near two hundred metres long flanks shimmering with triangular scales of gold and red, each the equal in size of a warrior's full shield. Black barbs like vestigial limbs, each five metres long studded its length, dragging it through the sands. Behind its head was a bony, frilled crest that encompassed its neck, splayed slightly and quivering, marked with rings of ochre and blue among the gold.
Three clusters of multifaceted eyes stared at the archdeacon from beneath horny brows, the sun, sand and dead warriors reflected in gem-like organs each the size of his head. The mouth split almost the length of the five-metre-long head, lined with several rows of scimitar-like teeth, black as the ambulatory barbs, dripping with thick saliva whose noxious stench could be smelt even at this distance. Broken bones and pieces of flesh from the converts wedged between the fangs alongside older pieces of rotting carcasses and the bones of animals that had wandered into the Kingwyrm's lair.
2 6 4
Axata and his warriors responded with shouts and curses while fusil blasts and explosive arrows bounced harmlessly from the Kingwyrm's thick scales. The monster thrashed its tail, flattening another score of Kor Phaeron's soldiers, carving a metres-deep furrow in the red sand.
Lorgar broke into a run, heading directly for the Kingwyrm, mace held in one hand as he accelerated to a full sprint, seeming to fly over the shifting grit dunes leaving barely a footprint in his wake.
The Kingwyrm saw him and coiled, raising its head thirty metres above the desert, silhouetted against the merciless glare of the rising sun. It swayed left and right, eyes glittering judging the approach of its prey.
Without a sound, the Kingwyrm lunged, massive jaw falling upon the Bearer of the Word, scooping him up in a flurry of sands and shattered rock.
Kor Phaeron let out a cry of dismay and fell to his knees, his weapon falling from numb fingers. He watched in disbelief as the Kingwyrm reared up again, trailing an avalanche of sand from its jaw, straightening its neck to swallow. Similar shouts of horror and fear echoed from the converts.
Suddenly the Kingwyrm tilted its head, flexing its neck again, as though its meal had become stuck. It spasmed and threw its head sideways, crashing into the ground to smash a handful more of the converts into bloody paste. Head lolling the monster thrashed through the dunes, its claw-barbs churning the air and sand with uncoordinated scrambling.
A ripple passed along the beast from head to tail, hurling tons of dirt into the air, a shiver that rattled the barbs while the crest fluttered for several heartbeats and then fell limp.
Kor Phaeron stared on dumbstruck as the Kingwyrm's mouth opened slowly, the jaw prised apart from within by Lorgar, who staggered out along a lolling tongue as though it were a boarding ramp, before falling face first into the sand.
Almost as one the converts and Kor Phaeron were on their feet and dashing to the aid of the Bearer of the Word.
'Don't touch me!' Lorgar warned, struggling to his feet, coated head to foot in the saliva of the Kingwyrm. His skin was sloughing away from the muscle in places, dribbles of melting fat falling to the dirt. 'Its spit burns the flesh.'
The Bearer of the Word flung himself into the sands and scraped what he could of the thick gunk from his naked body, exposed flesh raw in places when he was finished. Only then would he let Kor Phaeron tend to his wounds, with the command to Axata and the others to return to the caravan and salvage such scales and bones as they could from the huge corpse.
'And what would you do with them?' asked Axata.
'Fashion a sign,' said Lorgar, 'so that all who pass shall see that the slayer of the Kingwyrm will be found at Merina. The Word shall travel faster and farther than ever we could bear it ourselves.'
2 7 1
'What do you mean, 'that's it'?' said Lorgar. He turned his massive bald head and looked down at Nairo, face screwed up with irritation. 'All I see is dust and smoke, and my eyes are far keener than yours.'
'And that is all you'll see of the fabled City of Grey Flowers this wake-main,' replied Nairo. As the two of them stood at the bow of the temple-rig, just above the forward drives, he looked at the haze of sand and clouds on the horizon. 'And on the wake-rise you will see why.'
It had been nine more days since Lorgar's defeat of the Kingwyrm, in which many Declined had flocked to the call of the one they called the rain-caller and wyrmslayer. Rimwards they had travelled, through the desert and into the Periphery, the Bearer of the Word intent upon arriving at Vharadesh as though on some unknown appointment with the Powers.
True to Nairo's word, having travelled through the rest-eve of Dawnaway, the caravan of Kor Phaeron's disciples reached the first proper roads that led to famed Vharadesh as the light of Mornday spread across the coastal clifftops.
They left the rest of the tens of thousands of Lorgar's converts behind, to make camp away from sight of the city and its defenders. Coming out of the Periphery, they met no traffic at first, for the bulk of the city's visitors came along the coastal roads from Assakhor and Tezenesh. Such traffic brought with it much grime and soot, smog and dirt, and the fume of their wake shrouded the city from wall to highest tower, so that only the vaguest outline of turrets and the high pinnacle of the main temple co
uld be seen.
They soon reached the plains, sands miraculously turning to terraces of rice paddies and flowing cereal fields by dint of the arcane irrigation systems dug beneath the land. Set into motion by the ancestors in an untold age, the filtration and desalination systems continued to provide fresh water up to fifteen kilometres from the city, though each year brought more irreversible malfunctions and losses; in places hectares of formerly fertile land had returned to scrub and wilderness, leaving patchworks of grey and red among the yellow and green.
Slaves worked the fields beneath the gaze of pacing overseers, while the rice crops, requiring a far more attentive and loving master or mistress, were given as reward to the free farmers, in return for continued allegiance to the Covenant. Overhead, dirigibles drifted at mooring ropes, their cargoes of milled flour, dried rice and other bounty of the 'fertile arc' lifted on long ropes to be carried to Vharadesh or sent in trade to the other conurbations that dung to existence at the edge of Colchis' vast main continent.
Nairo watched the slaves, recalling the turn of the Powers' whim that had placed him under the charge of Kor Phaeron rather than beneath the whip of an oat-grower's thugs. He pointed to a nearby field of green com, and to the men and women pulling the weeds from between the stiff rows.
'That could have been me, Lorgar,' he said. 'Kept in bondage to the Covenant, I might have lived out my days on one of these plantations.'
'But you did not, and the Powers brought you to me,' the youth replied, understanding his intent. He dutifully asked the question. 'How did you meet Kor Phaeron?'
Before Nairo could furnish the answer, a shout from the preacher drew everyone's attention. Atop the pulpit, Kor Phaeron addressed his people.
'We come nigh to the sanctuary of the serpents,' he warned them. 'Be vigilant, for the air itself is corrupted by their complacency. There is not one ally here for our message - trust none who you meet on our way. Every slave is an eye of the Covenant, every trader an ear. The name of Kor Phaeron is not welcome in these lands, and so if asked you will say that you travel under the mastery of Kor Adaon. Say nothing of our purpose, if possible, and little if not. We are simply seekers of wisdom, having completed a missionary pilgrimage in the deserts. Lorgar! Remove yourself from sight! We shall not have our arrival heralded by rumours abounding of a giant come to the Sacred Towers.'