‘I can hear,’ his gritted teeth almost strangled the words, ‘another voice.’
Yes. One of my kin. It comes for you.
‘This... is not what... my primarch wanted...’
This? The creature dragged the helpless Astartes closer, and burst Argel Tal’s secondary heart with a flex of thought. The captain went into violent convulsions, feeling the pulped mass behind his ribs like a bunch of crushed grapes, but the daemon cradled him with sickening gentleness.
This is exactly what Lorgar wanted. This is the truth.
Argel Tal strained for breath that wouldn’t come, and forced dying muscles to reach for weapons that weren’t there.
The last thing he felt before he died was something pouring into his thoughts, wet and cold, like oil spilling behind his eyes.
The last thing he heard was one of his dead brothers drawing a ragged breath over the vox-channel.
And the last thing he saw was Xaphen twitching, rising from the deck on struggling limbs.
Lorgar lowered the quill once more. An unknowable emotion burned in his eyes – whatever it was, Argel Tal had never seen it before.
‘And so we come full circle,’ said the primarch. ‘You died and resurrected. You found the crew slain. You sailed out from the Eye, taking seven months to do so.’
‘You desired answers, sire. We brought them to you.’
‘I could not be prouder of you, Argel Tal. You have saved humanity from ignorance and extinction. You have proved the Emperor wrong.’
The captain watched his father closely. ‘How much of this did you already know, sire?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘You lingered for three nights in the Cadian caves with Ingethel. How much of this tale had the creature already told you before you sent us in to the Eye?’
Lorgar released a breath, not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh. ‘I did not know what would happen to you, my son. Please believe me.’
Argel Tal nodded. That was good enough.
He started to answer, but the affirmation caught in his throat. Was this the genetic loyalty all Astartes felt for their primarchs, only magnified in the XVII Legion? Would he ever be able to see deceit in his father’s eyes, even if the Urizen lied right to his face?
Entire worlds had fallen to Lorgar’s oratory without a single shot being fired in anger. In his son’s eyes, he personified the persuasive, soulful charm so resplendent in the Emperor – always seeming above anything as base and crude as deception.
And yet, Ingethel’s words cast the shadow of doubt.
‘I believe you, father,’ he said, hoping the words were true rather than knowing they were.
‘We must cover our tracks.’ Lorgar shook his head slowly. ‘The Cadians’ lives are evidence that the Emperor must never see. With his watchdogs among us, my father will know we witnessed the Cadian rituals, and that we ventured into the Eye. We must remain pure in the Emperor’s eyes. The storm revealed nothing. The Cadians... well, they were destroyed for their deviance.’
Argel Tal swallowed acid. ‘You will destroy the tribes?’
‘We must cover our tracks,’ Lorgar sighed. ‘Genocide has never given me pleasure, my son. Tales of unrest will be spread among the fleet, and we will use tectonic weapons on the landing site to destroy the tribes that occupy the wastelands.’
Argel Tal said nothing. There was nothing he could say.
‘You are reborn,’ Lorgar pressed his palms together. ‘The gods have reshaped you, granted you this great blessing.’
That’s one way of seeing this, Argel Tal thought.
‘I am possessed,’ he replied. The words did no justice to the sense of violation, yet any other explanation would be too crude a fit. ‘We were possessed, as evidence to you that Ingethel’s words of the gods were truth.’
‘I need no more convincing. Everything, at last, has fallen into place. I know my role in the galaxy, after two centuries of struggling to find the right path. And we will come to see your... union... as something avataric, something that exalts you in the eyes of the gods. Not a sacrifice. You were chosen, Argel Tal. Just as I was.’ And yet, he did not sound as certain as his words insisted. Doubt shadowed his tone.
Argel Tal seemed lost in thought, watching the skeletal play of his opening and closing hand.
‘Ingethel warned us all: this is merely the beginning. We will change as the possession takes hold, but not until the ordained time. These gods will cry out from their haven here in the storm, and when we hear them call to us, we will begin our... “evolution”.’
‘What form will these changes take?’ Lorgar was writing once more, recording every word in his rapid, elegant script. He never went back to amend mistakes in his handwriting, for there were never any errors to amend.
‘The daemon said nothing of that,’ Argel Tal confessed. ‘It said only that this age was coming to
