Few Imperial fleets ventured near Colchis, and not merely because of its lack of resupply capacity. Rumours circulated, citing unreliable shipping lanes, and the disappearance of the 2,188th Expeditionary Fleet in a nearby region, added fuel to that particular fire. Colchis seemed a world focused upon looking inwards, even backwards, refusing to clear its skies of wreckage from the Dark Age of Technology, and resisting all Imperial edicts to establish new orbital bases. The planet’s one concession was to allow the Mechanicum of Mars access to those serene hulks, letting the tech-priests plunder whatever they desired.
And they’d done just that, with great enthusiasm, for great profit.
The region was not haunted. No Imperial commander would ever give voice to a laughable superstition, when such words were holdovers from a more indecorous age. Yet still Colchis saw scarce traffic, and its resistance to supplying the Great Crusade remained inviolate.
It was said this defiance could only have come from Lorgar, the Emperor’s Seventeenth Son, for no other authority would allow a planet to remain so curiously provincial. In the capital city, Vharadesh, a golden plaque was fixed to the immense doors leading into the Spire Temple of the Covenant. This tablet marked the primarch’s supposed words – words he’d never admitted, yet never denied, speaking to his father.
‘Take me from my home, and I will sail to the stars of your empire. I will serve as a son must serve. But let Colchis stand as I have shaped it: a planet of peace and prosperity.’
It was also said, by the few that witnessed such rare moments, that the primarch smiled each time he passed those words, and reached out to stroke his golden fingertips across the etched lettering.
Colchis was hardly devoid of technology. It enjoyed the benefits of Imperial life and culture, despite its master’s hesitance to supply materiel for the Emperor’s war. Auspices in the sky-traffic towers of Vharadesh tracked the activity in orbit, with scanner consoles lighting up at the sudden pulse of so many signals.
It had been many years since the Urizen returned home.
This time, there was someone waiting for him.
The ship bore a proud title, named in honour of a legendary city in the murky tides of Prospero’s complicated mythology. The Sekhemra was the only live vessel in the heavens above Colchis, and it rested in its geocentric orbit, weapons unpowered, shields inactive. The humble strike cruiser seemed content to wait in silence, bathing its red hull in the fierce illumination offered by the system’s sun.
Reality opened in an uneven rent, and the Word Bearers fleet streaked across the void, great engines also streaming light into the darkness as they powered towards their home world.
On the strategium of the Fidelitas Lex, the Lord of the Legion watched the red ship’s resolving image on the occulus. He smiled, and closed his eyes as emotion threatened to overtake him.
‘Incoming hail,’ a bridge officer called.
‘Open channel,’ Lorgar replied. The smile didn’t leave his face when he opened his eyes, and the occulus projected a grainy image from the opposing vessel’s command deck.
The pict revealed a giant in unprepossessing black-stained mail armour, surrounded by his own bridge crew. His skin had a dark, coppery hue, as if he spent many long days under alien suns, and his helm bore a scarlet plume of cresting hair. One eye was sealed, puckered shut from an old wound. The other glinted with a colour that couldn’t be made out through the image’s distortion.
‘A trifle melodramatic, brother,’ said the giant in an amused baritone. ‘That many ships, when I only brought one.’
‘You came,’ Lorgar said through his smile.
‘Of course I came. But you owe me some answers, dragging me across half the Imperium like this.’
‘You’ll have them, I promise you. It lifts my heart to see you.’
‘And mine, to see you. It has been too long. But... brother,’ the giant hesitated. ‘There was talk of Monarchia. Is it true?’
The smile faded. ‘Not now,’ Lorgar said. ‘Not here.’
‘Very well,’ said Magnus the Red. ‘I’ll meet you in the City of Grey Flowers.’
Life always struggles in the desert.
On Colchis, as on many of the Imperium’s dryest worlds, the indigenous life coped with the climate however it could. For the human population, it was a matter of coastal cities, immense water filtration facilities, irrigation farming, and dealing with the seasonal floods from the rushing rivers that acted as blood vessels for the arid plains.
Vharadesh, the Holy City, was the nexus of such industrious efforts. Swathes of irrigated farmland reached out from the city walls, a triumph of ingenuity over nature. Colchis was a thirsty world, but the perfection of the human form showed in all things.
For other forms of life, lacking the capacity to affect their own environment, adaptation and evolution went hand in hand. Many plants in the drought-wracked scrubland had leaves with a layer of fine hairs to catch and hold more moisture from the infrequent rainfall, and as a defence against the wind’s drying touch. Colchis demanded much from its native life.
These forms of plant life had been catalogued by Imperial scholars over the years, and promptly ignored. All except for one wildflower growing in the alluvial deserts – a flower that couldn’t be dismissed so readily when it meant so much to the Colchisian people.
The moon lily bloomed with leaves of silver, white and grey – all to reflect more of the sun’s harsh light, stunting its own photosynthesis in the name of survival. Fragile, beautiful, the moon lily was a gift between lovers, a decoration at weddings and festivals, and those trained in its breeding and care were as respected as teachers and priests among the populace.
Across balconies throughout the city, especially on the spires claimed by the Covenant, great hanging gardens of white and silver blooms contrasted against the tan stone walls. Vharadesh was the Imperial designative name for the capital, and in the ruling caste’s religious sermons, it was referred to with passion and pride as the Holy City.
But to the people of Colchis, Vharadesh would always be the City of Grey Flowers.
Its wide streets were filled with cheering crowds as the Legion returned home, and when the first Stormbird – a vulture of gold – roared in for a landing by the Spire Temple, the people flocked to see their messiah return, and the pilgrims he brought with him.
Argel Tal was approaching this carefully. He wasn’t sure how she would react.
‘You will have to be careful on the surface,’ he said.
It had taken four months to reach Colchis from the ruin of Forty-Seven Sixteen. Four months of flight through stable warp conditions, four months of training and prayer, four months of listening to Xaphen debate about the Old Faith, and what hidden truths might be contained within the legend of the Pilgrimage. Argel Tal wasn’t sure what he believed, and the alien presence of doubt left him cold. He’d spent much of his time with Cyrene, as well as drilling the Seventh Company to battle readiness, and duelling Aquillon in the practice cages. The Custodian was a nightmare of an opponent, and both warriors enjoyed the challenge offered by the other. They weren’t even close to being friends, but grudging admiration was a fine foundation for meeting each other in the duelling ring.