by Gav Thorpe
Lorgar signalled his assent to Kor Phaeron before disappearing into the depths of the temple-rig - a feat that had become harder and harder as he had continued to gain height and mass. Even now, nearly seven feet tall, he showed no signs that he had reached his full size. He took up the berths of four slaves and ate enough for twenty. Nairo watched him go, feeling the same sudden emptiness of spirit he experienced whenever deprived of Lorgar's company.
'Make ready for our arrival, we shall be upon the gates before wake-main,' Kor Phaeron declared.
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Vharadesh looked much as it did when Nairo had been thrown out with Kor Phaeron and his cult, an inconsequential piece of baggage like the others; the fact that they had paid no willing part of Kor Phaeron's heresy had been irrelevant.
The city was surrounded by a twenty-metre-high curtain wall of sandstone, flint and granite, much repaired in places, with the main city gate flanked by twin towers of obsidian. Beyond, through the dust and the fume of fires and engines, the spires and towers of a thousand temples rose over the line of the wall, tiled in grey and red, their bricks and stones hidden by coloured plaster.
Through the obscuring haze one could just about make out flowers, hanging in the tens of thousands from balconies and external pulpits, window ledges and roof baskets. The famed moon lily blooms for which Vharadesh was sometimes named the City of Grey Flowers and from whose petals the dyes were crushed for the robes of the priesthood.
Courier gyros buzzed back and forth, weaving between flocks of cherub gulls and temple ravens raised as messengers between the various denominations that made up the lower levels of the Covenant hierarchy.
In the distance, upon the Mount of the Prophets, the Spire Temple could be seen like a finger pointing to the Empyrean, a kilometre of white and gold, black and silver topped by a pinnacle of crystal glass. Beneath were a score of domes, each the roof to a nave capable of holding an audience of thousands, mounted by renditions of the book and the flame Vharadesh was grandeur of the highest order, an immaculate representation of physical holiness built along ordained protocols, so that the voices and prayers of the mortal world could be lifted to the Empyrean. It was home to a million and more souls, and thrice as many slaves who, dogma would attest, had no souls worth saving.
It was this last fact that stuck in Nairo's memory. Made a slave for testifying on behalf of a slave. Then, enslaved in turn and given to a preacher who would later be exiled for his own heresies. Nairo had spent more time as a teacher than a slave within the dark walls, yet the half-year between his indenture to Kor Phaeron and being turned out into the Barrens was one long catalogue of misery after another.
Despite all that, the city offered a genuine chance at freedom, whatever form it might take.
He swallowed his nervousness, though given the circumstances of their mission, the others would not think worse of him for showing a little unease. Axata was alert and ready to act in a moment. His converts were similarly scouring the other caravans, the mass of people and vehicles transiting along the coastal highways, accumulating in a mess of queues and camps around the gate. Overhead the supply dirigibles buzzed, the hum of their solar engines a backdrop to the growl of motors and chatter from the traders and pilgrims who flocked around the walls of the City of Grey Flowers.
Within a perimeter of city guards the converging masses became a pell-mell of beasts and carts and pedestrians all trying to pass through the space of a ten-metre-wide gateway. There was nobody to direct the traffic, and so there was much shouting and cursing, invoking of the Powers and the prophets, and general harassment.
Kor Phaeron need not have concerned himself about secrecy. The temple-rig and its escorting wagons had approached no closer than two kilometres to the wall when the crowds of trade missions, penitents and pilgrims around the gate were parted. A body of people several hundred strong emerged from the city, cutting through the wash of humanity like a knife blade aimed for Kor Phaeron.
The Covenant's rod-bearers, as they were known, were dressed in acolyte robes, but over the folds of cloth they wore carapaces of armour and visored helms. The symbolic rods they carried, black wooden staves a metre long bound with silver wire, were fitted with shock-spikes in case the crowds became too unruly, but it was the heavily armoured gun wagons at their back, the muzzles of their cannons projecting menacingly from squat turrets, that gave them true authority.
Axata and his converts deployed around the wagon, advancing ahead with their weapons showing but not drawn.
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Nairo and the others waited for the order of Kor Phaeron, fearful but also determined. Lorgar, though not present, had made his implacable will known. First the Truth and the Word, and only after all peaceful attempts would come the swing of the mace. If the Covenant would bar their passage into the city, the servants of the One would call to the remaining thousands of the Faithful to force the issue.
'One in the Empyrean, above all others,' the former slave muttered, 'if the word of a lowly teacher is worthy of anything, please see me through this day. I have cared for your son, Lorgar, and taken his Word as my own, adopting the Truth as he has spoken it. As great as the rewards of everlasting life in the Empyrean are sure to be, I really would rather not have my mortal life ended here.'
The dark-clad rod-bearers formed up ahead of Axata and his converts, pushing aside any hope that their advance had been coincidence The smell of exhaust fumes drifted over the wagon and made Nairo cough, then silence descended, nothing but the thud of his heart in his chest to disturb the peace.
Kor Phaeron took several steps towards the warriors of the Covenant, but before he could speak they broke ranks, forming a gap in their lines for the occupants of a shaded solar ketch. From this transport issued forth a dozen men and women robed in the colours of priests, icons carried on backpoles that showed them to be of moderate rank within the complex and precise hierarchy of Vharadesh's church.
From another transporter came more rod-bearers, but with them they brought several biers, their contents looking like heaped blankets and sheets. They fell in behind the priests, as the entourage approached hesitantly, their eyes roving over everyone present, looking more afraid than Nairo felt.
'Where is the giant?' one asked, a shaven-headed priestess with her cheeks tattooed in dark blue, rings of office on her slender fingers.
'The Bearer of the Word is not here,' replied Kor Phaeron, responding quickly to the strange situation. 'I am Kor Phaeron, archdeacon of the One Truth.'
'I am Coadjutor Silena,' said the priestess. 'You are well known in this city, Kor Phaeron. Yet it is not to you that we have come forth. Why is the Bearer of the Word not with you?'
'I am his archdeacon,' insisted Kor Phaeron. Though he spoke with surety, Nairo could well imagine the confusion playing out in his former master's thoughts. Not only was their presence known, it was expected - yet this seemed to be a welcome, not a repulse.
'What is your purpose in detaining us in this fashion?' Kor Phaeron continued.
'You are not detained,' said Silena, shocked at the implication. She gestured for the guards with the stretchers to come forwards and the priests parted to let them. Nairo could see that each carried in fact a body, covered with a death shroud of the Covenant. A threat, perhaps? Had Kor Phaeron sent agents into the city ahead of their arrival? 'We have a gift for Lorgar.'
Axata and the others put their hands on their weapons, eyeing the rod-bearers suspiciously. Nairo tried to shrink back without moving, subtly placing a little more of the bulk of the shrine wagon between him and the Covenant's enforcers.
At a nod from the coadjutor, the guards pulled back the shrouds, revealing three men and four women, faces bloated and discoloured from strangulation or perhaps poison. It was not their faces that drew the gasp from Nairo though, but their robes, for six wore the grey-and-white garb of hierarchs, and the seventh the dove-grey attire of the Ecclesiarch himself.
'Praise the One!' declared Silen
a, the call echoed by the other priests and rod-bearers. She smiled at Kor Phaeron as their shout disappeared on the growing wind. 'Your exploits precede you, archdeacon. The spirit of the One has moved amongst us. Vharadesh stands ready to receive its true lord, Lorgar the Bearer of the Word. All hail the Golden One!'
THE BROTHERHOOD
963.M30
Forty-Seven Six (formerly Therevad)
It was a pleasure to burn. There was a particular smell to burning books that put Kor Phaeron in mind of a certain winter incense that was used in the Spire Temple of the Covenant. Upon each prayer hour wisps of the fumes had risen to his office, a sign that all was progressing in a timely fashion as he had ordained.
Rich smoke filled the Vaults of Caralos. The nature of the volumes being torched made it all the sweeter for the First Captain. Volumes of Imperial lore. Books dedicated to the veneration of the Emperor. Tracts on the Imperial Truth, treatises by Remembrancers, slender pamphlets of prayers dedicated to He Who Rules Terra.
With hand flamers continuing their blazing work, the Ashen Circle moved methodically through the archives, hacking down the shelves with their axe rakes to make pyres of paper and vellum. Word Bearers Chaplains - once creators and curators of this collected wisdom - emptied flasks of clear oil no longer considered blessed, before the gathered squads turned their weapons upon the sodden mounds of shredded pages. Flames rose to the ceiling, yet the fumes and fire were no hindrance to the power-armoured warriors.
It was Lorgar's will that all trace of the Cult of the Immortal Emperor be expunged from the Legion, that the Word Bearers would remove the traces of their inglorious past from the worlds of compliance lest the Emperor make another show of doing so for them, as He had on Monarchia. If the creed of Lorgar was to be wiped from the galaxy, it would be by the hands of his own sons and no other. To do their primarch's bidding on such an important matter had brought out the most zealous of the Ashen Circle, even those who were firmly sworn to the ideals espoused by their outlawed faith in the Emperor.
Kor Phaeron gloried in the destruction for reasons not shared with most of those present. It was the end of a falsehood. It mattered not whether the Emperor was a god. He was not one of the Powers, and it was to those immortal beings he owed his first and only allegiance. The 'Old Faith', he had started calling his beliefs amongst a growing coterie of conspirators. The Brotherhood lived again, spawned from the Dark Heart of the XVII, as it had been on Colchis.
There were many who desired faith, needed it to sustain them in these troubling times. If faith in the Emperor was banned they would look elsewhere to fill the void, and it was then that Kor Phaeron had their ear.
When all in the lower vaults was aflame, Kor Phaeron signalled for his company to ascend from the depths to the surface level of the sealed vault, leaving burning ruin in their wake. They came to the main nave of the library, the accumulated scripture of a century lined upon ebon shelves. Banners depicting Lorgar crowned in the halo of the Emperor's light hung from the beams above. Eagles of gold with eyes of ruby festooned the capitals of the pillars holding up the mosaic-dad ceiling. Long scrolls inked red with litanies of devotion made streamers across shelf after shelf of books.
'A just fate, long-delayed,' stated Lieutenant-Commander Menelek. 'I never really understood why you Colchisians were so adamant that you write down everything.'
The former Imperial Herald, veteran of the Legion's origin on Terra, waved for his squads to continue the destruction. All of them bore the markings of the First Founding, their loyalty to the Emperor unquestioned for over one hundred years.
'Why did you tolerate it?' asked Jarulek, motioning for his own men to muster on him as he came up beside the lieutenant-commander. 'Our barbaric Colchisian superstitions?'
'The Emperor had not forbade it,' Menelek said in explanation. 'It is only by His censure that we act.'
'And the Will of Lorgar,' said Kor Phaeron.
Flames licked up the high stacks, catching on the banners. The snarl of chainblades reverberated across the library, punctuated by the crash of upended cabinets and splintered wood.
'The primarch is right to address his error, but the chastisement came too late. We are already diminished in the eyes of the other Legions for our tardy conquests. The necessity for this punishment will lower our standing even further. Perhaps we should even return to being the Imperial Heralds. Scour away the last of these Colchisian delusions and make the Seventeenth great again.'
'I think that settles things.' Jarulek's voice on the vox was distorted by the static of a ciphered channel.
Kor Phaeron blink-activated an icon in his display to reply on the same frequency.
'Lorgar wills it.'
The bark of Bel Ashared's bolter was harsh and sudden. The explosion of its round against the side of Menelek's helm even sharper. An instant later the library was filled with a cacophony of bolter fire, the hiss of meltaguns; through the flames sparked lascannon beams and the flare of missiles. Caught in a prepared crossfire, the former Iconoclasts were cut down, their return fire of no threat, swiftly ended.
In thirty seconds, one hundred Space Marines were felled, armour slashed, broken and shattered by the treacherous attack.
'Some of them still live,' reported Jarulek as he looked down on the form of Menelek at his feet. The lieutenant-commander weakly grabbed at the captain's greaves before being kicked away. Jarulek aimed his bolter at Menelek's head.
'No,' ordered Kor Phaeron. He gestured towards the main doors while smoke and fire continued to fill the space around them, an almost living thing. Oil flasks and flamer ammunition casks started to smoke and explode among the fallen. The moans of the wounded became curses across the vox until Kor Phaeron silenced the company link to address Jarulek and his brothers. 'Leave them among the ashes of the Emperor they failed.'
BOOK 3:
INVOCATION
108 years ago [terran standard]
22.5 years ago [colchisian calendar]
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'High Adjutor Silena, please come in.'
Kor Phaeron waved his associate to one of the plain wooden chairs that were arranged around the library. The priestess nodded her thanks and sat down. She still wore a travel cloak over her robes, dusty from her journey, her eyes ringed pale from the glare goggles now placed on her brow above her heavily tanned face. Unbidden, Axata stepped forwards carrying a tray with cups of water. The chief disciple of Kor Phaeron, now officially ranked as gundeacon-prime, wore a smooth suit of sculpted armour that whined slightly as he moved, a grey tabard denoting his rank over the black plates.
Silena took one of the plain day goblets and swiftly downed the contents.
'Your business in Lo Shassa was successful?' the archdeacon asked. Though Axata swept the library for spyholes and archeotech devices every day, Kor Phaeron knew better than to speak openly of his plans and schemes within the walls of the Spire Temple. Though if Silena bore the news he hoped such precautions might become redundant in the future.
'I bear grave news, archdeacon,' Silena said solemnly though her expression did not match her sombre tone. 'Hierarch-vizier Jusua and his missionary caravan were ambushed in the Valley of the Red Queen. Bandits, probably, or perhaps militants from one of the other cities.'
'A shame,' said Kor Phaeron. 'Jusua and his brethren were the last of the Relic Wardens. Now I will have to appoint new chief guardians of the armouries and museums. I told him it was folly to seek to parley with the outlanders but he would not listen. In fact, the more I insisted that he did not speak with the ambassadors of Koray, the more he was determined to do so.'
'Here is that list you asked for, archdeacon,' said Axata, sliding a paper onto Kor Phaeron's desk bearing the names of favourable candidates to the now-empty positions of the three Relic Wardens.
'I heard a rumour in the city,' said Silena, dropping her voice. 'Several of those who spoke against you in the Consortium have left Vharadesh with their families and entourages. Pilgr
images, they say, but there is also word that they complain of 'a dark heart' corrupting the works of the Covenant.'
'Enemies of the One,' growled Kor Phaeron. 'Let them flee to the other cities. Their pleas will fall on deaf ears after the centuries of subjugation and disrespect the Covenant has laid upon its neighbours.'
'They might yet foment rebellion against Lorgar, send agents into the church to undermine his leadership,' said Axata.
'And that is why I have entrusted the guard of this temple to you, my vigilant gun-deacon. Or perhaps I should have considered someone else?'
'No, I will see that the Bearer of the Word is safe,' the burly soldier replied. 'My life and soul are sworn upon it.'
'And I will see his works come to full fruition,' Kor Phaeron assured them. 'The Consortium convenes again in four days' time. They shall ratify Lorgar's elevation to the position of Ecclesiarch, and the Covenant will be united in the worship of the One and the Truth.'
'Where is the Golden One?' asked Silena. 'I would receive his blessing again if possible.'
'Where he always is,' said Axata with a smile. He gestured to a heavily leaded window, beyond which spread the roofs and towers of the City of Grey Flowers. 'If not in the grand library, he is among his people spreading the True Word.'
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The Powers work in the most arcane ways, thought Nairo.
A little over a year and a half earlier he had become a miserable slave, taken from his place as a teacher to labour in the most gruelling and degrading fashion beneath the whip of a tyrannical priest. And from thence into the desert, the property of a deluded exile.