The First Heretic

‘You embody the Emperor’s hope. You are his belief in a greater way of life, and his desire to raise humanity to achieve its greatest potential. You devote yourself to these ends, forever selfless, utterly faithful, striving for the betterment of all.’

Amusement gleamed in the primarch’s eyes – eyes so like the Emperor’s own.

‘Poetic, but indulgent, Erebus. What of my failings? If I am not proud like Horus Lupercal, nor impatient like Magnus the Red... What will history say of Lorgar Aurelian?’

Erebus’s solemn facade cracked. A moment of doubt flashed across his features, and he glanced to Kor Phaeron. The gesture drew a whispered chuckle from their primarch.

‘You are both conspirators,’ he laughed, the sound soft. ‘Do not fear my wrath. I am enjoying this game. It is enlightening. So enlighten me, this last time.’

‘Sire,’ Kor Phaeron began, but Lorgar silenced him, reaching to touch his foster father’s hand as it rested upon his shoulder.

‘No. You know better than that, Kor. I am not “sire”. Never to you.’

‘History will say that if the Seventeenth Primarch had one weakness, it was his faith in others. His selfless devotion and unbreakable loyalty caused him grief beyond the capacity of a mortal heart to contain. He trusted too easily, and too deeply.’

Lorgar said nothing for several moments, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. His shoulders rose and fell with his quiet breaths, the whip-welts inflamed and angry, burning with the faint sheen of sweat dusting his body. Fresher brand marks burnt into the flesh of his back were scabbing over now.

At last, he spoke, his eyes narrowed to slits.

‘My father was wrong about me. I am not a general like my brothers. And I refuse that destiny. I will not blindly walk the same paths they already tread. I will never understand tactics and logistics with the effortless ease of Guilliman or the Lion. I will never possess the skill with a blade shown by Fulgrim or the Khan. Am I diminished because I recognise my faults? I do not believe so.’

He looked down at his hands once more. Fine-fingered, barely callused, the hands of an artist or a poet. His mace – the black iron crozius arcanum – was as much a sceptre of office as it was a weapon.

‘Is that so wrong?’ he asked his closest advisors. ‘Is it so wrong of me to walk the ways of a visionary, a seeker, rather than a simple soldier? What is it within my father that renders him so thirsty for blood? Why is destruction the answer to every question he is asked?’

Kor Phaeron clutched Lorgar’s shoulder tighter. ‘Because, my son, he is gravely flawed. He is an imperfect god.’

The primarch met his foster father’s eyes in the chamber’s gloom, the glance sharp and cold. ‘Do not say what you are about to say.’

‘Lorgar...’ Kor Phaeron tried, but the primarch’s glare silenced him. His eyes were sharp with a plea, not with fury.

‘Do not say it,’ whispered Lorgar. ‘Do not say we tore our home world apart all those years ago in the name of false worship. I cannot live with that. It is one thing for the Emperor to spit on all we have achieved as a Legion, but this is different. Can you piss upon the Covenant and the peaceful Colchis we created after six years of civil war? Will you name my father a false god?’

‘Speak the truth,’ Erebus cut in, ‘even if your voice shakes.’

Lorgar lowered his ash-streaked face into his filthy hands. In that moment, Erebus and Kor Phaeron locked eyes. The latter nodded to the former, and the First Captain spoke again.

‘You know it is true, Lorgar. I would never lie to you. This is something we must all face. We must atone for this sin.’

‘The Chaplains stand with you, sire.’ Erebus added his voice to Kor Phaeron’s. ‘The heart of every warrior-priest in the Legion beats in rhythm with yours. We stand ready to act upon your word.’

Lorgar shrugged off their platitudes, as well as his foster father’s reassuring hand. The movement split the healing scabs on his shoulder blades, birthing trickle-rivers of dark blood weeping down his golden back.

‘You are calling my entire life a lie.’

‘I am saying we were wrong, my son. That’s all.’ Kor Phaeron dipped his gnarled hand into the bowl of ash by Lorgar’s side. Monarchia’s dust spilled through his curled fingers, stinking of charred rock and failure. ‘We prayed to the wrong god for the right reasons, and Monarchia paid the price for our mistake. But it is never too late to atone. We purged our home world of the Old Faith, and now you fear as we all fear: Colchis prospered under the old ways and its legends, until we ravaged it in the name of a lie.’

‘This is heresy,’ Lorgar trembled, barely containing his emotion.

‘It is atonement, my son.’ Kor Phaeron shook his head. ‘We’ve been wrong for so long. We must purge the root of our errors. The source lies on Colchis.’

‘Enough.’ The ash on Lorgar’s cheeks was split by trailing tears. ‘Both of you... Leave me.’