The First Heretic

Cyrene said nothing, though she smiled at his gentlemanly use of her profession’s archaic title. But what was there to say? The invaders had the city in lockdown. The seeds of rebellion would never take root in such unfertile ground.

District by district, the exodus from Monarchia began after those first purges. Once the gates were opened, a ceaseless flood of humanity spilled from the city.

By nightfall, the mass evacuation was fully underway. Monarchia’s wealthiest citizens – most of them merchants or high-ranking clergymen serving as Speakers of the Word – secured their own transportation, leaving the city for secondary estates in other towns. The morning air above Monarchia was dense with shuttlecraft boosting away to other havens, ferrying the rich, the important, the economically vital and the spiritually enlightened to sanctuary elsewhere.

Cyrene hadn’t left yet. In truth, she wasn’t certain she would leave. She stood on the balcony of her second- floor habitation pod – somewhere between a room and a cell in the Jiro Apartment Block, in one of the cheapest parts of town.

The nearby speaker towers blared their message, over and over. ‘Strict weight allowances are in effect for personal belongings on the evacuation craft. All residents of Inaga District are to report to Yael-Shah Skyport or the Twelfth Trade Gate immediately. Strict weight allowances are...’

Cyrene tuned out the warnings, watching the people flocking through the streets below, strangling traffic with their slow, marching queues. There, at the end of the street, one of the XIII Legion directed the herds of people like livestock. In its hands, the false angel carried the same weapon as its brothers, the massive rifle with its supply of explosive ammunition.

Cyrene leaned on the balcony’s railing, bearing witness to the eternal theatre of oppressor and oppressed, of conquerors and the conquered. Her district was due to be evacuated by tomorrow morning. The process was stilted, with a great deal of curses cried and lamentations heaped upon the silent false angels.

‘Strict weight allowances are in effect,’ the speakers boomed again. Those vox- towers had been used for the city’s thrice-daily prayer readings, speaking words of tolerance and enlightenment to all sheltering within the city. Now their holiness was perverted, as they served as the invaders’ mouthpieces.

Too late, Cyrene saw she’d been noticed.

The air turned thicker and hotter from engine wash, as a small skycraft drifted over the street at the same level as her balcony. A two-man vehicle, its skin formed from sloping blue armour, was suspended on whining turbines as it weaved through the air. The false angels seated in its cockpit scanned the second-level windows of the buildings as they passed.

Cyrene’s shiver threatened to become a tremble, yet she remained where she was.

The craft hovered closer. Rotor fans blew hot air from the craft’s anti-gravitational engines. The false angel in the gunner seat leaned forward, adjusting a hidden control on his armour’s collar.

‘Citizen,’ the warrior’s vox-voice was a raw bark over the speeder craft’s engine. ‘This sector is being evacuated. Proceed to street level immediately.’

Cyrene took a breath, and didn’t move.

The warrior glanced at his companion in the pilot’s seat, then looked back to Cyrene in her quiet defiance.

‘Citizen, this sector is being evac–’

‘I heard you,’ Cyrene said, loud enough to carry over the craft’s infernal din.

‘Proceed to street level immediately,’ the warrior said.

‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked, her voice still raised.

The gunner shook his head and gripped the handles of the massive calibre weapon mount, aiming it directly at Cyrene. The young woman swallowed – the gun’s muzzle was the size of her head. Every bone in her body gave a panic-twinge, pleading she run.

‘Why are you doing this?’ she demanded, drowning her fear with anger. ‘What sins have stained us all, that we must leave our homes? We are loyal to the Imperium! We are loyal to the God-Emperor!’

The false angels remained unmoving for several seconds. Cyrene closed her eyes, waiting for the hammer- hard impact that would spell her destruction. Despite the moment, she felt a smile tickling her lips. This was an insane way to die. There’d be nothing left to bury.

‘Citizen.’

She opened her eyes. The warrior had lowered the cannon’s aim. ‘The Emperor, beloved by all, ordered the XIII Legion here and mandated our actions. Look at us. Look upon our armour, and the weapons we bear. We are his warriors, and we do his will. Proceed to street level and evacuate the district.’

‘The God-Emperor demanded that we abandon our lives?’

The warrior snarled. It was a crackling machine-growl, only rendered human by the hint of anger within. This was the first emotion Cyrene had heard from the invaders.

‘Proceed to street level.’ The warrior brought the cannon to bear again. ‘Now. I will slay you where you stand if you cast your ignorant heathen words once more over the name of the Emperor, beloved by all.’

Cyrene spat over the side of the balcony. ‘I will go, only because I seek illumination. I will find the truth in all this, and I pray there will come a reckoning.’

‘The truth will be revealed,’ the warrior said, as the craft made ready to hover away. ‘At sunrise on the seventh day, turn and look back to your city. You will witness the illumination you crave.’

And so dawned the seventh day.

The lightening sky found Cyrene Valantion standing atop a rise in the Galahe Foothills, her traditional dress hidden beneath a long jacket clutched tightly against the worsening autumn wind. Her hair blew free in a mane,