Lorgar’s kindly eyes, already weary, now grew cold. ‘I do not despise my br—’
‘You cannot lie to me,’ one head said.
‘And if you try, I will always see through to the truth,’ said the other.
The primarch forced himself to nod, before placing his helm back on. It took a moment for the cracked eye lenses to flicker into clarity, but a grainy picture materialised soon enough. Curiously, Lorgar couldn’t see the daemon through his left eye lens, merely the horizon beyond. In his right eye, the creature sat in hunched repose.
‘Get on with it,’ he growled this time. Three of his teeth were loose and bleeding.
‘It will happen at Calth,’ the right head said.
‘Or it will happen, yet not at Calth,’ said the left, though its placid tone wasn’t one of argument.
Lorgar still tasted blood in the back of his mouth. His eyes wouldn’t stop watering, and he suspected the pain in the bridge of his nose was a mashing break that would need resetting.
‘What will happen?’
‘You will face Guilliman,’ both heads squawked in eerie unison. ‘And you will slay him.’
Lorgar hesitated. To consider it, truly, was almost beyond him. Even if there was no way to avert the coming crusade, did it truly have to come to such measures as fratricide?
His own selfishness was a surprise. With a shake of his head, he considered the other side of the coin. Was fratricide worse than genocide? The loss of life would be immense on both sides of the divided Imperium, among the faithful and the ignorant.
He had to focus.
‘Go on.’
‘I am Kairos, the Oracle of Tzeentch,’ said both heads. ‘I am bound to always speak one truth and one lie.’ The creature rattled its withered wings. Several blue-black feathers, the colour of ugly bruises, drifted from its pinions. ‘But this is a moment of great divinity. A nexus of possibility. A fulcrum. The Great Gods have bound me to speak only the truth, in this moment of moments.
‘I am sworn now to stand before the chosen of the pantheon, and offer a choice. Now, and never again, I may speak with one mind. No lies. No words of deceit from one mouth, and words of truth from another. This, now, is too important. The gods are in alignment for the first time in an eternity.’
‘And the Unbound?’
Both heads regarded Lorgar with impassive, unblinking eyes. ‘Kharnath violated the accord. But the Blood God is still bound by it. Still oathed to it. The pantheon of heaven is kin to the primarch pantheon of your species. They wage war amongst themselves, just as you will wage war against your brothers. Existence is strife.’
‘To strive,’ the second head added, ‘is to live.’
The thought chilled Lorgar’s blood. A convocation of warring gods. ‘I understand.’
‘No,’ the first head said. ‘You do not.’
‘But you will,’ the second nodded, ‘in the decades to come.’
‘I bring you a choice,’ added the first head. ‘Face Guilliman and slay him.’
‘Or let him live,’ finished the second. ‘And taste the shame of defeat.’
Lorgar wanted to laugh, but the creeping sense of unease held the mirth back. ‘How is that a choice?’
‘Because of Calth,’ both heads replied. One was silently weeping now, the other grinning with beakish malice. Could a bird grin? Somehow, this one did. Lorgar couldn’t help but stare.
‘You must choose whether you walk a path of personal glory, or one of divine destiny,’ said the first head.
The second spoke through its crystalline tears. ‘You must choose whether you will stand among your brothers as an equal, with vengeance as your goal, or work in the name of the gods, tasting shame for a greater victory.’
‘I am not a vain man.’ Lorgar felt his broken ribs aching as they slowly re-knitted beneath his armour and flesh. ‘I seek enlightenment for the species, not self-glorification.’
‘You will end this war with many scars,’ the first head lowered in bizarre respect.
‘Or you will end it dead,’ nodded the second, ‘in one of a thousand ways.’
‘Get,’ Lorgar forced the words through a barricade of teeth, ‘to the point, creature.’
‘Calth,’ the first head intoned. ‘You will be given one chance – and only one chance – to shed Guilliman’s blood. It is written in the stars, by the hands of the gods. If you face him at Calth, you will slay him.’
‘But you will lose the war,’ said the second. ‘You will earn your brothers’ respect and awe. You will savour your vengeance. But your holy war will falter. The Emperor’s defences will be enriched by too many defenders, drawn there by fates that would otherwise have been denied. You may never even reach Terra.’
Lorgar turned from the daemon, shaking his head in wonder at their offer. Like ruined wings, the remains of his cloak flapped in the breeze.
‘Is this prophecy? If I fight Guilliman, I am destined to win, yet I will lose all I sought to achieve?’
The daemon’s first head hawked and spat bloody saliva in a thick string. As it coughed, the second head spoke. ‘It is prophecy. You will not always be the lost one, Lorgar – the weakest of your brothers. You will find your strength in this faith. You will find fire and passion, and become the soul you were born to be. That is why Guilliman will die at your feet, if you choose to make it so. Fight him at Calth, and you will finish the battle with his blood on your face. You crave that temporal triumph, and it could be yours.’
The first head twitched with sudden movement, regarding him with its beady bird’s eyes. ‘But the cost is high. To bring about this future, you will be at Calth, instead of standing in the place your species most needs you to be in that ordained hour. If you face your brother Guilliman, and choose human honour over the destiny of your species, you will kill him. Yet in doing so, you will fail in your hopes of setting humanity free from ignorance.’
‘I say again, that is no choice at all.’
Both heads laughed. ‘Is that so? You are human, whether you choose to confess to it or not. You are a slave to mortal emotions. The primarchs are far from a perfection of the human recipe, despite their individual might.’
‘There will come a time,’ the first head smiled with beak-creaking amusement, ‘when your pride and passion will demand that you destroy the Warrior-King of Ultramar.’
The second nodded in accord. ‘But weigh the balance, Emperor’s son. A moment of personal glory, proving to your brothers that you are ascendant among them… Or paving the way for the future of your species. All prophets make sacrifices, do they not? This will become one of yours.’
‘If,’ the first finished, ‘you live long enough to make it.’
Lorgar said nothing for some time. He listened to the wind toying with his tattered cloak, and the withered feathers on the daemon’s wings.
‘Show me,’ he said in a soft voice.
THE SHIP BURNED.
On the deck around him lay a hundred dead mortals and slain Ultramarines. The walls of the strategium shuddered, venting air pressure and feeding the flames sweeping across the entire bridge deck. Thrones stood in flames. The fire was already cremating those that had fallen in the last few minutes.
Lorgar saw himself at the heart of the flames, his crozius in his gauntlets. The image wore red armour, in mirror of the Word Bearers he had seen at the Eternity Gate, and cast its maul aside with an angry flourish. Whatever battle it had been fighting had taken its toll; the image of himself stood in cracked armour, with its face blackened by burn scarring.
‘For Monarchia,’ the image of Lorgar raged through bleeding gums and split lips. ‘For watching me kneel in the dust of my many failures.’
At first, Lorgar couldn’t make out who his image was addressing. Then, with grim and wounded majesty, Guilliman staggered from the flames. Silently defiant even as his armour blackened into a burning ruin, the Lord of Macragge drew a gladius. His helm was gone, baring a face that remained stoic despite a crushed skull. One arm was gone, ending at the elbow. Blood ran in viscous rivulets from the joints of his armour. His white cloak was aflame.