‘No,’ said Cyrene. ‘Not that.’
‘Please enlighten us, Blessed Lady.’
She shifted in discomfort yet again, and still blushed each time they used the title. ‘It was said that those who wore false eyes would never move beyond this life to paradise beyond. Our mortis-priests always preached that they could see the trapped souls of the lost and the damned in the false eyes of servitors.’
There was silence, for a time.
‘And you believe,’ one of the priests said, ‘that your spirit would be sealed within your corpse if you surrendered your natural eyes?’
She shivered to hear it put like that. ‘I don’t know what I believe. But I will wait until they heal. There’s still a chance they might.’
‘Enough,’ a voice boomed, edged by vox-crackle. ‘You are making her uncomfortable, and I have given my word to the Urizen that she will be taken to the Spire Temple at midnight.’
‘But there’s still time for–’
‘With respect: be silent, priest,’ Argel Tal stepped closer to her, and she felt her gums itching at the drone of his armour. ‘Come, Cyrene. The primarch awaits.’
‘May the Blessed Lady return tomorrow?’ one priest piped up as they were leaving.
None of the Astartes answered.
Once outside, another crowd was waiting for her. She smiled in the direction of the noise, and offered the occasional wave, feeling her face burn with self-conscious doubt. First and foremost in her mind was the effort to keep her discomfort from showing. There would be no getting used to this. She knew she’d hate it until it either stopped of its own accord, or they left Colchis behind.
‘We didn’t have to leave,’ she said. ‘I could have answered more questions. Was I supposed to?’
Over the din of the crowd, she heard Argel Tal reply.
‘My apologies for using you as an excuse to leave,’ he said, ‘but it was too pointless to endure any longer. Questions that led nowhere, or were already answered in the Legion’s reports. Tedious bureaucracy, propagated by self-important men.’
‘Is that not blasphemy? Defying the will of the Covenant?’
‘No,’ said the captain. ‘It was a tactical retreat in the face of overwhelming boredom.’
She smiled at that, as the Word Bearers led her on.
Less than three minutes later, as Cyrene was drawing breath to comment on the warmth of the desert night’s wind, there was a crashing sound from above, the crash of a hundred windows smashing at once.
What she couldn’t see was all four of her warrior guides standing utterly still, staring up at the Spire Temple – that twisting tower of tanned stone, central in the city, taller than all else.
Around her, the crowd’s cheers soured into whispers and weeping. Two of the Astartes, she didn’t know which, began to chant prayers in monotone vox-voices, benedictions to the primarch.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘Move,’ Xaphen ordered. One of them gripped her elbow and forced her into a run. Their armour joints snarled with the change of pace.
‘What’s going on?’ she tried again. ‘What was that noise? An explosion?’
‘The primarch’s observatory on top of the central spire,’ he said. ‘Something is wrong.’
TEN
The Right to Lead a Legion
Empyrean
Misery
An hour before, Lorgar was leaning on the balcony’s railing, looking out over the city. The Spire Temple of the Covenant offered an unparalleled view of Vharadesh, and the primarch inhaled the scent of spice, flowers and sand as he watched the sun setting behind the horizon.
Magnus stood alongside him, still clad in the coat of black mail, his coppery skin burnished by occasional sweat trickles. Of the two brothers, Magnus was taller, and even in the years before losing his eye, he’d scarcely resembled their Imperial father. Lorgar was the image of the Emperor in an unknowable younger life – an immortal at thirty.
‘You have done great things here,’ Magnus said, also staring over the vista of Vharadesh. The spiralling towers, bedecked in sloping walkways, like twisted horns... The sea of red-walled homes... The great parks of moon lilies growing in unforgiving soil, ready to be spread over roads and balconies across the city...
‘I have seen Tizca,’ Lorgar’s smile was sincere, ‘and I am always honoured you can leave your City of Light, yet still praise my people’s work here.’
Magnus chuckled, avalanche-low. ‘To think such beauty could rise from riverside sand and bricks of compacted mud. The City of Grey Flowers is a haven for me, Lorgar. You have melded technology and antiquity with consummate skill. It puts me in mind of those first cities ever raised by mankind, in the deserts they were forced to call home.’
Lorgar laughed, shaking his head. ‘I’ve seen no such images in scrolls, brother.’
‘Nor have I,’ the one-eyed king smiled. ‘But in dreams. Meditations. In traversing the waves and depths of the Great Ocean.’
Lorgar’s smile fell a notch. Where his brothers were concerned, Magnus was highest in his affections, not only because he was the first of the family Lorgar had met, but because he was one of the few the Word Bearers lord could relate to. The others were, by varying degrees, feral simpletons, cold-hearted instruments of warfare, or vainglorious warlords.
Except for Horus, of course. It was impossible to hate Horus.
He loved Magnus as one of the few he could speak with, but he never believed himself his brother’s equal. Magnus’s psychic gifts were unrivalled – they’d often spoken of the things Magnus witnessed in his spiritual travels through the infinite. The past. The future. The hearts and minds of men.
‘Cairus,’ Magnus said, his voice softer now. ‘Alixandron. Babalun, most of all, for it possessed a great garden of hanging flowers akin to the one your city wears like a crown of silver blooms.’
Lorgar felt warmed by the image. The beauties of the past, rising again through human inspiration.
‘As I’ve told you before,’ he said, ‘it’s not my city. I had a hand in it, but I am not solely responsible for the wonders we see here.’
‘Always, this modesty.’ Magnus’s tone had the slightest edge of disapproval, perhaps hinting at a lecture soon to come. ‘You live your life for others, Lorgar. There is a line when selflessness becomes unhealthy. If all you do is to raise others from ignorance, when is there time for you to learn more yourself? If all you seek is a greater purpose in existence, where is the joy in your own life? Look to the future, but cherish the present.’
He nodded to his brother’s words, watching the sun set. Even as it darkened in the horizon’s clutch, it was still bright enough to pain mortal eyes. Lorgar was untroubled by such human concerns.
‘Another parade,’ he said, watching a distant street filled with revellers.
‘You sound melancholic,’ Magnus observed. ‘Your people are pleased you have come home, brother. Doesn’t that lift your spirits?’
‘In truth, it does. But that’s not a parade in my honour. It is for the refugees of Monarchia. I asked for the seven of them to be brought here after sunset. Judging by the crowd’s size, I would guess that’s the parade in honour of the Blessed Lady.’
Magnus leaned his huge hands on the balcony railing, as if leaning forward would bring the distant street into sharper focus.
‘Why is one of your refugees treasured above the others?’
‘It is the way of things,’ Lorgar inclined his head in the parade’s direction. ‘She is the only female, and I am told she possesses great beauty. Couple that with the fact she was the only one to actually witness Monarchia’s destruction. The orbital barrage blinded her. Such sacrifice appeals to the masses.’
Magnus’s patrician features hardened. ‘I hear Kor Phaeron’s calculations in your voice, brother. I have cautioned you before on heeding his words too closely, and too often. Bitterness burns within him.’