by Gav Thorpe
He should have died, either by violence or from one of the many physical ailments that affect a person after long exposure to the harsh elements, yet the Powers had seen fit to carry him to this day relatively intact. From the humiliation of abject servitude to the glory of standing upon a balcony of the Spire Temple in Vharadesh, looking out across the Square of the Martyrs filled with hundreds of thousands of Faithful; at his side the Ecclesiarch of the Covenant who had personally requested - not demanded - his presence during this inauguration speech.
Lorgar looked magnificent, near three metres tall and clad in custom-made purplish-grey robes that shimmered with silken threads, a halo of gold fixed about his brow. Ostentation that he was not proud to bear but was demanded of him by custom and the expectations of the masses. On the far side stood Archdeacon Kor Phaeron, as malignant and destructive as the day Nairo had first met him, but safe within the shadow of his adoptive son.
Lorgar raised his massive hands and the hubbub of the crowd silenced immediately, leaving only the cries of the crows and gulls that circled the many spires of the grand temple. Nairo felt his heart stop for an instant, caught up in the moment. His faith had been rewarded with this opportunity to stand at the side of the Bearer of the Word, to share in his victory.
3 1 3
'Blessing of the One upon this gathering,' Lorgar declared. 'Long have I thought of this moment, since I was a child plucked naked from the desert, though I did not ever hope to see the rise of the One so furnished in the glories of the Covenant. We have achieved something great this day, something that will forever change the lives of everyone in Vharadesh and its environs.
'As free people, as a single congregation united under the One Truth, we have put aside our competing philosophies, cast aside the superstition of the old ways to set our feet upon a road to enlightenment and renewed prosperity. You have travelled this journey with me, and my heartfelt thanks cannot convey the gratitude with which I am filled, nor the humbling nature of your support.
'No more shall we sacrifice each other for the vainglory of ego and the cold promises of mortals. Divided were the oxen pulling the yoke in different directions, straining against each other in the hopes of digging our own furrow. Now we are the Disciples of the One, the Faithful who will bring down the Star of the Empyrean to walk among us and guide us to a glory-filled future. We set ourselves shoulder to shoulder, sharing the burden and the labour equally, charting the course that will reward all, not some.'
Nairo realised he had tears coursing down his cheeks. Through their distortion he could see hundreds in the square below on their knees, foreheads pressed to the unyielding cobbles in supplication.
Others had arms raised in tribute, weeping and crying. Lorgar's voice carried over all of this without need for amplification, the raw touch of it enough to set the senses alight, to fill the mind with dreams and faith and strength. Nairo resisted the urge to fall supine in the presence of such holy grandeur, knowing that decorum and restraint were required on such an occasion. He would not embarrass his saviour with such fawning.
3 1 4
Kor Phaeron had set his face in determined passivity from the outset but it was a torture not to grin, not to share the pride and elation he felt as he stood on the balcony above the converts of the One and received their adulation. He knew in an objective part of his brain that their praises were for Lorgar; he was the sun from which all light sprang. But such was the Bearer of the Word's manner, it seemed its power fell only upon those around him.
Cold, cynical politics and manipulation, and no small amount of hidden and bloody work from the Dark Heart had got them to this point. All of that was forgotten in the moment. Kor Phaeron was swept up in the majesty of the occasion, despite his austere exterior.
'This is not the end but the beginning,' Lorgar continued. 'The great works must continue, for the One shall not descend among the unworthy. The old edifices of tyranny and falsehood shall be cast down, replaced with a vision of hope and justice. The Truth incarnate will be made in Vharadesh.'
The thought warmed Kor Phaeron's heart further. He had a vision of the Holy City reborn, its image created afresh to laud not the ancient dirges of the Covenant but the Truth of Kor Phaeron and Lorgar. It was thus daydreaming that Lorgar's next words caught him unaware.
'And the city shall not be the end. All of Colchis must revel in the light of the One,' declared the Ecclesiarch. 'I shall not sit upon a golden throne like an idol to be adored, but shall continue to carry forth the message the One has set into my soul. I shall be the Bearer of the Word still, to bring the Truth to the other cities of Colchis. Such shall be the task of all, whether they walk beside me in the sun or labour alone in the darkness of the deepest cellar of the city. All thought and effort must be turned to the cause of the Truth if we are to receive the benediction and presence of the Star of the Empyrean.
'And when all of Colchis is faithful to the One and the Truth, when as a single world and a single people we raise our voices in prayer together, that shall be the call that brings the One to us.'
3 1 5
It was a struggle for Kor Phaeron to keep in check his anger as they withdrew to the chamber beyond the balcony. The hierarchs of the Covenant were present, along with other assorted clergy and lay staff, and he dared not raise his voice against the Ecclesiarch even though he felt like taking up one of the many gilded ornaments in the reliquary and dashing it across the side of Lorgar's head.
'We did not speak of this,' said the archdeacon, moderating his tone as much as he could, though the words came out as a terse challenge.
'What do you mean?' replied Lorgar. 'It has always been our mission to bring the Truth to the whole of Colchis. Now that the Covenant lends its might to our cause there is no force on this planet that can resist the Will of the One.'
'You have…' Kor Phaeron grasped for the correct words, mindful not to cause insult in front of witnesses. 'Your words are tantamount to a declaration of war against the other cities. The Covenant's reach spreads far but we do not have the resources to fight all others.'
'There is no cause to speak of war and fighting,' said Lorgar. 'When we came to the gates of Vharadesh were we not welcomed with open arms? Has not the Truth preceded our travels and opened doors and hearts?'
Kor Phaeron swallowed hard, unsure whether Lorgar genuinely believed what he said or was simply trying to manoeuvre him into an impossible position. The archdeacon decided it was the former, for Lorgar was many things but guileful was not one of them. His faith, his genuine belief that there was One who would come to save Colchis, was an affront to the Powers. To speak of it unsettled Kor Phaeron but he had been willing to pay lip service to the idea whilst it gave him the opportunity to destroy his enemies in the Covenant. Now… Now Lorgar spoke of turning the whole world against the Powers with this new religion.
The archdeacon looked at the other priests, saw the fervour in their gazes as they looked upon the Bearer of the Word.
There could be no overt resistance against this new faith. Whatever Lorgar's disposition towards Kor Phaeron, the rest of the priesthood would oust the archdeacon without a second thought, save that cabal of individuals loyal to the plans of Kor Phaeron known with some grim humour as the Dark Heart. When the war against the cities came, and it would come, Lorgar would be forced to turn to the Powers that had sent him to this world, to beg forgiveness and for their aid. Then Kor Phaeron would ensure that all was ready for the return to the genuine Truth.
And if Lorgar wished to Bear the Word to the rest of Colchis, Kor Phaeron would remain in Vharadesh to attend to the business of the Covenant in the absence of the Ecclesiarch. Had he not railed against the structures and strictures of the old church, the bonds of its outmoded rituals and conformity? Now he had a leader who was willing to proselytise with the same vehemence that had set.
Kor Phaeron onto this journey, a high priest worthy of the office.
'As you will it, Ecclesiarch,' he sai
d, bowing to Lorgar. He pointed to the ceremonial sceptre carried by the head of the Covenant: a golden, jewelled counterpart to the crude weapon he had fashioned for himself from a censer and axle. He spoke to Lorgar but cast his gaze at the other priests present, making it clear that they too would be venturing forth on this crusade. 'The Faithful shall not be complacent. They shall bring the message of the One to the cities of Colchis. A simple choice that all must face. Submit to the Word of Lorgar, or be crushed beneath the Mace of Lorgar…'
3 2 1
Preparations were well under way for the Faithful to leave Vharadesh to take the Law and Lore of the One to the ignorant cities of Colchis. Four days had passed since Lorgar's inaugural proclamation and the city's efforts had been bent to the creation of the vast enterprise.
Nairo helped marshal the grand expedition, part caravan, part army. Former slaves laboured willingly at the same tasks that years before they had been forced to perform at the end of the scourge To serve Lorgar was to be part of the coming of the One, a player in the unfolding drama of Colchis' salvation.
Nairo felt it too. Though he was not so often in Lorgar's presence of late, the Ecclesiarch being occupied with his studies and works, Nairo was still filled with the same hope that had stirred him when the child had been found in the camp of the Declined. The liberation of Colchis had begun and would not be stopped. It made him almost tearful to think that he might live to see the day when all on his world were free of bondage, that the dream he had taught others in his youth might become a reality by the hand of Lorgar.
But all was not perfect. Kor Phaeron continued to have his venomous claws deep in the soul of the Bearer of the Word. The rest-eve before the vanguard of the Faithful host was due to set out, Nairo found himself attending alone to the Ecclesiarch. As he helped the giant man to dress for the final mass - so different from the boy in the desert yet so much the same also - Nairo dared voice his opinion.
'Kor Phaeron has too much power, Bearer of the Word,' he said gently as he slipped a broad belt around the waist of Lorgar. 'You have given him the authority to run all of Vharadesh in your absence.'
'He is my archdeacon,' Lorgar replied, holding up his arms for Nairo to wind the sash about him.
'Always he has served himself as much as you,' Nairo insisted.
'And you have not?' Lorgar said quietly. 'Was it for the One that you followed, or for the chance to be lifted from slavery? I remember the lessons that fell from your lips, equal in machination to the sermons of Kor Phaeron.'
Nairo tied the belt and started to pin golden badges upon the breast of the Ecclesiarch's robe - sigils of his office and the One.
'If that is the case then I have been vindicated, for the freeing of those in serfdom has paved the way to the glorious ascent of the One.' He slid plain silver rings onto the massive fingers of his holy master. 'Kor Phaeron is archdeacon, but in your absence might as well be Ecclesiarch. What tempers his ambition now?'
'What more could he achieve?' countered Lorgar. 'If, as you say, he is paramount in authority, he aspires only to maintain such position. Above all else he is still driven by the True Word, and in me he has seen that given form, and through me has been delivered to the heights from which the Truth shall be spread. Even if self-interest should guide him, it is married to the interests of the Covenant and the One.'
3 2 2
Nairo found he could not argue against this, though half-formed misgivings still nagged him when he returned to his chambers, his sleep that night fitful, his dreams portending some formless disaster yet to come. He woke fatigued. The former slave performed his final tasks in a half-sleep until he and a mass of others were assembled outside the city.
Soldiers and riders numbered in their thousands, accompanied by such engines and vehicles as could be made available - wagons and half-tracks, armoured trucks and sun-yachts in their hundreds. With them, shaded by great parasols carried by teams of sternbacks, the Faithful waited for the Ecclesiarch. Priests and deacons of all ranks, along with countless missionaries and freed slaves, with food stockpiled over the preceding days, great tankers of water and feed for the beasts drawn by teams of hundreds. Manpower was not an issue for the Covenant - there were countless multitudes willing to bend their backs and blister their hands in service to the Bearer of the Word, in exchange for a blessing or just to be in the presence of the Golden One.
Lorgar appeared at the gate and the cheer of the Faithful shook the walls - walls recently repaired and bolstered, which spoke something of Kor Phaeron's paranoia that all would not go well and enemies might come to Vharadesh sooner rather than later. As large as the force that departed was, ten thousand armed followers still remained to guard the City of Grey Flowers against an enemy that might think to strike at the Covenant's heart while its spiritual leader was abroad.
With the Ecclesiarch came his archdeacon, carried upon a shade-covered sedan chair in the burgeoning light of Dawnaway. Lorgar walked beside it, unheeding of the sun's merciless power. Kor Phaeron stepped down and Nairo was close enough to hear the exchange between them.
'Go with the blessings of the Covenant as well as its mortal servants,' said Kor Phaeron.
Voice trembling, Lorgar laid a hand upon the back of Kor Phaeron's head and bowed, touching his forehead to that of the man who had raised him as his son and acolyte.
'Be strong for me, father, and stand ready for my call.'
'All that you need, Vharadesh shall provide,' Kor Phaeron assured him.
'I shall not return to these gates until Colchis is saved,' promised Lorgar. He straightened, nodded gently as though assuring himself, and set his eyes upon the distant horizon. He raised his voice so that it carried across the vast tumult of humanity sprawled before the Holy City, his words carried to the minds and hearts of all who were present within and without.
'It begins! The Word or the Mace shall be our creed. We must be merciful but unflinching, compassionate yet relentless. Every life lost in the cause shall be in vain if we shirk from the final duty the One has set before us, yet each soul saved shall live immortal in the Empyrean of the One. We may falter, we may fall, but we cannot be defeated while we stay faithful to the Truth. Onwards, children of the One, onwards to glory and salvation!'
3 2 3
As Lorgar had spoken, so it was.
Great were his accomplishments, and sparse is the time and space for their recollection. Be it known that he travelled and laboured for many days along the coast and into the deserts, bringing the Word and the Truth with him.
The Faithful first came upon Golgora, beyond the Covenant city of Tezenesh, and before the walls Lorgar spoke of the Truth and the coming of the One. The viziers and elders of Golgora had not been idle in the time of Lorgar's ascension, and knew well of the Bearer of the Word and the following he had gathered. Touched by the spirit of the One they opened their gates to the Faithful as had Vharadesh, and welcomed the Truth into their city.
So it was at Ctholl and Martias, Lanansa and Hourldesh. Yet not every city was pleased to be subjected to enlightenment. At Epicea, for long centuries a stronghold of the Church of the Archivist Deliverance, boulders were cast from catapults on the walls and flaming arrows welcomed the disciples of the Truth.
Mighty were reckoned the towers of that city, yet for only a Long Noon, Post-noon and Duskeve did they hold against the fervour of the Faithful. Assailed from without, finally the city was broken from within by those who had been swayed to the Truth brought to them by the words of Lorgar. At the fall, as Lorgar had promised, the Epiceans were given the choice of submission or death. A few chose death and were quickly sent to the Empyrean to meet the judgement of the One. Most chose conversion, either out of fear or finally repenting before the sermon of the Ecclesiarch, having initially resisted out of fear of slavery. Knowing that they would be able to live freely under the Covenant, where before they would have faced subjugation, the Epiceans rejoiced for a whole day and wholeheartedly swore their city to the
cause.
Other cities resisted or capitulated, or were razed, their populations slain to the last adult, irrevocably corrupted by their wayward faith and dogma. Great was the carnage at Cathrace, where only one in ten converted, and tears marked the cheeks of the Ecclesiarch as the great pyres consumed the bodies of those who refused to hear the Truth.
Nairo watched his holy master mourn the city from Duskeve to Coldfall two days after, as he went alone into the desert to seek solace and communion with the One, returning with a shroud over his face and his golden skin hidden beneath the ash of the razed city.
3 3 1
Many were sent to Vharadesh, not in captivity but as pilgrims ready to learn. They were set to labour for the Covenant, as willing servants not as slaves, building roads and stations, digging canals and founding convents and monasteries upon the route to guide the Faithful back to the Holy City.
From among these converts, thousands were sent forth upon long journeys across the desert, or by ship around the vast coast of the continent. They were tasked by Kor Phaeron to move ahead of the host of Lorgar, to those cities where opposition was yet strong. By word and deed they weakened the resolve of the defenders, sometimes even conducting a coup or otherwise overthrowing the city before the Faithful had actually arrived.
Among the upper hierarchy of Vharadesh these clandestine missionaries and warriors were known as the ushmetar haul - 'the blade that cuts mortal existence to part the way to the Empyrean mount'. They more frequently called themselves the Brotherhood of the Knife.
As the Word spread across the continent, along the coasts and up the scant rivers, so the network, prosperity and civilisation of the City of Grey Flowers grew, sending tribute and people in ever-growing numbers to the coffers and cloisters of the archdeacon.
Kor Phaeron oversaw this vast swelling of temporal power, hordes of converts sent to him by Lorgar inculcated into the beliefs of the Covenant, as appropriately directed by the archdeacon and his coterie of hierarchs. Never did he stray from the Word of Lorgar, yet as well as the Ecclesiarch's teachings he impressed upon the newly Faithful the need for obedience and discipline, the virtues of sacrifice and the necessity of determination.