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.’
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.’