Aquillon heard the tension in his brothers’ voices. ‘The Word Bearers will not languish under suspicion forever. In three years, have you seen evidence that they still worship the Emperor? And look at them now: already their rites are growing closer to the traditions of the other Legions. This is almost like Sigismund knighting one of his templars at a gathering of the Imperial Fists.’
Kalhin shrugged. ‘Perhaps they have come a long way from the fanatics we joined, but the stink of desperation yet clings to their breath when they shout their battle cries. I still do not trust them.’
The Occuli Imperator didn’t take his eyes from the red-clad figure speaking with his new warriors as they knelt before the blind girl from the dead world.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Neither do I.’
‘Not even Argel Tal?’
‘One warrior in an entire Legion.’ Aquillon left the railing, turning back to his Custodians. ‘He is the only one I trust. That’s the problem.’
V
Smoke and Mirrors
It was a lie, of course.
Blessed Lorgar didn’t return to Imperial space right away. One of the fleet’s scout vessels was chosen to carry the primarch back to his main crusade fleet, and a grand event was held on every deck of De Profundis to honour the Urizen before he left.
And that was the lie.
I was there when the primarch bade farewell to his sons Xaphen and Argel Tal, and I travelled back to safer space with the new lords of the Gal Vorbak.
Lorgar, meanwhile, travelled the same path that the daemon Ingethel had chosen for his children.
With the Custodians blinded to his true destination, Lorgar went into the Eye.
His last words to Argel Tal will never leave me – not only for the events they set in motion, but for what they did to my friend, and how they changed him.
‘Take the truth to Erebus and Kor Phaeron. While I am gone, they will be the Legion’s lords, and they will orchestrate the spread of true faith in the shadows of my father’s empire. I shall return to them soon.’
Xaphen swore an oath never to fail his primarch.
Argel Tal did not. He spoke in a voice soft enough to break hearts, ‘We are heretics, father.’
Lorgar laughed his melodic laugh. ‘No, we are saviours. Is all in readiness?’
‘It is.’
‘Sail far and wide without me, but keep the Custodians away from Imperial listeners. Once you return to stable space, they will resume their astropathic contact with Terra. My father will suspect the truth if he knows we came this close to the galaxy’s edge, and suspicion alone will be enough to damn us. I cannot remain here to block their pet astropath’s reaching voice. Find a solution. Xaphen, look to the texts retrieved from Cadia. The rituals within them will provide the answer.’
‘By your word, sire.’
‘Keep his watchdogs alive, Argel Tal. There may yet be a means to win this war without bloodshed. But keep them silent.’
With his last words ordering the first of a thousand treacheries, the primarch boarded his vessel and left us.
What he saw within the Eye is the source of near-infinite speculation. Many of the Word Bearers came to me for weeks afterwards, wracked by dreams that barely faded when their sufferers awoke. The blood connection between Aurelian and his sons was a powerful one indeed, for what Lorgar saw with his own eyes, his sons witnessed in horrifying echoes.
It was Xaphen who spoke most of his dreams, while Argel Tal remained next to silent. The Chaplain would speak with a fevered cast in his voice, as if harsh whispers could pierce the walls of my humble chamber and reach the primarch halfway across the galaxy.
He spoke of Lorgar walking the surface of worlds where the oceans were formed from boiling blood, and the skies stood dark under heavenly cities of clanking black steel. He told me of an entire Legion in the crimson of the Gal Vorbak, waging war before the gates of a golden palace.
Most tellingly of all, he described world after world dying under the tainted touch of alien claws. He swore that this was the Imperium’s demise – a godless empire reaved clean by inhuman tides. Only faith would save mankind from fate’s promises. Only worship of the Great Powers nestling within the warp.
Perhaps these were the lessons Lorgar was seeing for himself, while his sons returned to spread the word among the other fleets.
Cadia burned, just as we’d all known it would. The tribes were destroyed by Argel Tal’s own command, and the world left in silence, ready to be seeded with colonists in the future. He never once asked me to forgive him for it, just as he never asked me to console him over the murder of Vendatha.
I love him above all others, not only for saving my life, but for the fact he stains his soul with such blackness, yet masks his guilt and shame so completely. He has never broken, despite carrying the secrets and sins that will damn or save our entire species.
I believe the only mistake he ever made was in allowing himself to grow closer to the Custodes
