Lorgar shook his head. ‘He worries he isn’t worthy, that’s all. But you’re wrong – these refugees are nothing to do with Kor Phaeron, though I confess the Covenant dearly hungers to capitalise on their popularity. I requested their presence here tonight, for I wished to meet them. No more, no less.’
Magnus was appeased. Silence stretched out between them. As with all close brothers, it was a comfortable quiet, as meaningful and worthy as the words they shared.
Only one matter remained raw.
‘How did it come to this?’ Magnus eventually asked. ‘I know of Colchis’s religious wars. I remember the day I arrived with Father, and you offered him a world devoted in worship. But we have fallen so far, and so fast. How did it come to this?’
Lorgar didn’t meet his brother’s eye. He continued to look down upon the city.
‘This whole world burned under a crusade I led almost two centuries ago. I dreamed of god’s arrival. I suffered hallucinations, visions, nightmares and trances. Night after night after night. Sometimes, I would wake at dawn to find blood running from my eyes and ears, and our father’s face burned into my mind. Of course, I was too young, too naive, to realise what I was. How could I know what psychic power boiled within me, seeking a release? I was not you, to know from birth how to control my sixth sense. I am not Russ, to be able to howl and have every wolf in the world howl with me. My powers always fired in fits and bursts, coming in feasts or famines. I was eight years old when I realised that some people had pleasant dreams instead of endless nightmares. Nothing could have shocked me more.’
Magnus remained silent. Despite all their talks, all their closeness, this was a tale he’d not heard from his brother’s lips before.
Lorgar closed his eyes and continued.
‘I waged a holy war in the name of a father who finally descended from above, saw the oceans of blood and tears shed in his name, and simply didn’t care. I wasted my youth hunched over scripture and religious codices, planning for the messiah’s coming, believing he would give meaning to all human life – meaning that thousands of human cultures are forever seeking. And I was wrong.’
‘The Emperor brought meaning,’ said Magnus. ‘Just not the meaning you hoped for.’
‘He brought as many questions as he did answers. Father is hollowed through, infested by secrets. I hate that about him. He is a creature incapable of trust.’
Another pause reached out between them.
At last, Lorgar smiled, bleak and unamused. ‘Perhaps he did bring meaning. But he did not bring the meaning humanity needs. That’s what matters.’
‘Go on,’ Magnus said. ‘Finish the thought.’
‘Since then I have crusaded across his empire for over a century, raising icons and faiths in his image – and only now he objects? After a hundred years, only now am I told that all I’ve done is wrong?’
Magnus kept his silence. The doubt he felt shone through his narrowed eye.
‘Magnus,’ Lorgar smiled as he saw the emotion on his brother’s face, ‘only the truly divine deny their divinity. It’s written thus in countless human cultures. He never denied his godhood when he first came to Colchis to take me into the stars. You were there. He witnessed weeks of celebrations in his honour, never once rebuking me for lauding him as a god. And since then? He has watched me crusade for him, never saying a word about what I’ve done. Only now, at Monarchia, did he bring down his wrath. When he decided my faith had to be broken, after more than a century.’
‘Faith is an ugly word,’ Magnus said, idly stroking the bound spine of the great book he always carried chained at his hip.
‘Why were we born to be warriors?’ Lorgar asked, apropos of nothing.
‘Finally,’ Magnus laughed, ‘we reach the reason you summoned me to Colchis. Why are we warriors? A fine question, with a simple answer. We are warriors because that is what the Emperor, beloved by all, required in the galaxy’s reclamation.’
‘Of course. But this is the greatest age in mankind’s history, and instead of philosophers and visionaries... it is led by warriors. There’s something poisonous in that, Magnus. Something rotten. It is not right.’
Magnus shrugged, with a whisper of fine mail. ‘Father is the visionary. He needed generals at his side.’
Lorgar clenched his teeth. ‘By the Throne, I am sick to my core of hearing those words. I am not a soldier. I have no wish to be one. I am not a destroyer, Magnus. Not like the others. Why do you think I spend so long establishing compliance and creating perfect worlds? In creation, I am vindicated. In destruction, I am–’
‘Not a soldier?’
‘Not a soldier,’ Lorgar nodded. He looked exhausted. ‘There are greater things in life than excelling at shedding blood.’
‘If you are not a soldier, then you have no right to lead a Legion,’ said Magnus. ‘The Astartes are weapons, brother. Not craftsmen or architects. They are the fires that raze cities, not the hands that raise them.’
‘So we are speaking in hypocrisies today?’ Lorgar managed a smile. ‘Your Thousand Sons are responsible for much of Tizca’s beauty, let alone Prospero’s enlightenment.’
‘True,’ Magnus returned the smile, altogether more sincere, ‘and they are also responsible for a great number of faultless compliances. The Word Bearers, by comparison, are not.’
Lorgar fell silent.
‘Is this about Monarchia?’ Magnus asked.
‘Everything is about Monarchia,’ Lorgar admitted. ‘It all changed in that moment, brother. The way I see the worlds we conquer. My hopes for the future. Everything.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘Do not patronise me,’ Lorgar snapped. ‘With the greatest respect, Magnus, you cannot imagine this. Did the lord of all human life descended upon you, burn your greatest achievements to ash and dust, and then tell you that you – and you alone – were a failure? Did he throw your precious Thousand Sons to the ground and tell your entire Legion that every soul wearing their armour was a wasted life?’
‘Lorgar–’
‘What? What? I spent decades on Colchis dreaming of the day god himself would arrive and lead humanity to the empyrean. I raised a religion in his honour. For over a hundred years, I have spread that faith in his name, believing he matched every dream, every prophecy, every mythic poem about the ascension of the human race. Now I am told my life was a lie; that I have ruined countless civilisations with false faith; that every one of my brothers who laughed at me for seeking a greater purpose in life was right to laugh at our bloodline’s only fool.’
‘Brother, calm yourself–’
‘No!’ Lorgar instinctively reached for a crozius that wasn’t there. His fingers curled in a rage that couldn’t be released. ‘No... Do not “brother” me with indulgence in your eyes. You are the wisest of us all and you see nothing of the truth in this.’
‘Then explain it. And shackle your temper, I have no desire to be whined at. Or will you strike me, as you struck Guilliman?’
Lorgar hesitated. After a moment, he brushed a white petal from the railing with his golden palm. Anger quietened, without fully fading, as the petal flitted down through the air. He met Magnus’s gaze.
‘Forgive me. My choler is kindled, and my control lacking. You’re right.’
‘I always am,’ Magnus smiled. ‘It’s a habit.’
Lorgar looked back out over the city. ‘As for Guilliman... You have no idea how fine it felt to strike him down. His arrogance is unbelievable.’
‘We are blessed with many brothers who would benefit from being humbled once in a while,’ Magnus smiled, ‘but that is for another time. Speak what must be spoken. You are afraid.’