Reaching the top of the grand staircase, Burias continued on towards a pair of gigantic, arched
doors on the opposite side of a long gallery. Huge, stone tablets lined the walls of the gallery, each
more than twenty metres in height and covered in intricate, precisely carved script, just a part of the
Book of Lorgar, said to have been carved by the Dark Apostle Jarulek.
At the far end of the gallery, at either side of the great doors, stood a pair of warrior-brothers, the
two chosen to act as the honour guard accompanying the First Acolyte to the exhortation. Each wore
long robes of cream over their blood-red armour, and stood static in their positions, bolters held
13
clasped across their chests. Tall curling horns extended from the helms of the warriors, and the pair
made no reaction as Burias crossed the gallery to stand before the great doors.
A partially hidden side door clicked open, and a shuffling, robed figure emerged. Bent almost
double, the figure’s face was obscured beneath its hood, and it bore a brazier upon its back from
which strong smelling incense smoke wafted in thick clouds. Sickly thin, grey-fleshed, shaking
hands clasped a metal lidded bowl, and as the awkward figure hurried towards him, Burias raised his
arms out to either side. The attendant lifted the lid on the bowl, revealing a stiff brush sitting in oil.
Burias stood impassively as the shuffling figure daubed his armour with the sacred cleansing oils,
stretching to reach his arms. Its duty done, the figure turned and retreated back within the sanctity of
its den. Idly, Burias wondered for how many centuries the pathetic creature had performed this duty.
He pushed such thoughts from his mind as he strode forwards and placed a hand upon one of the
great doors. Perfectly weighted, it swung open noiselessly at his light touch. Without pause, Burias
entered the sanctum of the First Acolyte, the door sliding shut behind him.
The entrance room was sparsely decorated, with little ornamentation. Arched doorways led off
to other parlours and rooms of worship, and on the other side of the large room hung a curtain of
bone beads, leading to a smaller antechamber. Burias was always intrigued by the floor when he
entered this room, and he stared down at it in awe. The entire floor space had been constructed in a
clear, glass-like material, and beneath it was a gigantic stone-carved, eight-pointed star. Around the
star, a red liquid writhed and boiled with a life of its own, and as he watched, faces and hands
appeared within the viscous substance, clawing at the smooth glass beneath him. He grinned at the
pained and angry expressions of the beings within. He imagined that they looked at him jealously,
walking freely without containment as he was. Once, he had asked Marduk what they were. Are
they daemons trapped within, he had questioned? Marduk had replied that they were, in a sense. He
called them the Imaginos, and he claimed that they were but reflections that mirrored the inner
daemons of those that looked upon them. A face manifested itself right beneath Burias’s feet, and
ripped its smiling face open, revealing a snarling and spitting visage beneath. Burias laughed softly,
and snarled back at the creature.
“Is it time already Burias?” asked the powerful voice of Marduk, the First Acolyte, from behind
the curtain.
“It is, First Acolyte.” Burias replied. He could just make out the shadowy form of his master
behind the beaded curtain, a large, dark silhouette kneeling within the slightly raised small room
beyond.
“A shame. I was experiencing some most lucid dream visions. Most enlightening,” said the
voice. “Come closer, Burias.”
Obeying his master’s order, he strode across the room. Up close, he could make out the details
of the bone beads, seeing that they were tiny skulls. Were they real, shrunken with sorceries? He
wondered, as he had done a million times before.
“Surely the exhortation will be such that any regrets as to its timing will be soon forgotten,”
suggested Burias.
“Sometimes I think you should lead the sermons, such a golden tongue you have,” said Marduk.
The shadow of the holy warrior rose to its feet and rolled its shoulders, loosening muscles that had
been immobile for long hours of prayer and meditation. He angled his neck from side to side,
producing cracking sounds, and turned around. With an imperious sweep of a gauntleted hand, the
First Acolyte brushed the beaded skull curtain aside and stepped down into the room. Burias
instantly lowered his gaze respectfully. Coiling smoke followed in Marduk’s wake, and Burias
could taste the dry, acrid incense in the back of his throat.
Eyes downcast, he saw that the Imaginos had fled. He could feel the closeness of the First
Acolyte: the charged air, the electric taste of the gods that hung upon him. Truly, he was chosen of
the gods, and Burias relished the sensation.
14
“You can look up now, Burias, your reverential obeisance has been witnessed,” said Marduk, a
sarcastic tone tingeing his words.
Burias raised his gaze to meet his master’s flinty, cold eyes. “Have I angered you, First
Acolyte?”
Marduk laughed, a harsh, barking sound.
“Anger me? But you are always so careful with your displays of respect. How could you have
possibly angered me, Burias?” Marduk held Burias’s gaze, dark humour in his eyes. “No, you have
not angered me, my friend,” he said, turning away. “My mind is… occupied. The dream visions are
coming to me more frequently since leaving the Maelstrom, the closer we draw to the planet of the
great enemy.”
“Your power grows, First Acolyte,” said Burias, looking at Marduk’s strong profile, his skin so
pale it was translucent.
“And yours with it, my champion.” Marduk growled.
Burias grinned ferally. “That it does.”
Marduk’s head was ritually shaved, except for a long, braided length of black hair that sprouted
from his crown. A network of criss-crossing, blue veins pulsed beneath his flesh. Cables and pipes
pushed through the skin at his temples, and his teeth had grown into sharp fangs over the centuries.
He was truly a terrifying warrior to look upon, and his armour was bedecked with honorifics and
artefacts of religious significance. Burnished metal talismans, tiny shrunken skulls and Chaos icons
hung from chains on his ornate, deep red armour. A scrimshawed bone of the prophet Morglock was
strapped to his thigh with padlocked chains, and extracts from the Book of Lorgar, scratched upon
human flesh, hung from his shoulder pads.
“And how is Drak’shal today?” asked Marduk, looking deep into Burias’s lupine eyes.
“Quiet. But I can feel he is… hungry.”
Marduk laughed. “Drak’shal is always hungry. It is his nature. But I am glad he is not strong
today: today is no time for him to come to the fore. Keep him in check. His time will come soon
enough.”
“I look forward to it. He so likes to kill.”
“Yes, he does, and he does it very well. But come now, we must not keep the Dark Apostle
waiting.”
The pair left the sanctum, Burias leading the First Acolyte in silence, the icon held out before
him, reverentially clasped in both hands. The honour guard fell into position a step behind. They
walked through twisting corridors and up further flights of stairs until they came to a great, golden
door, details picked out in relief. Once there, all four of the Word Bearers warriors dropped to one
knee and bowed their heads. They waited in silence for several minutes before the doors before
them were thrown open.
“Arise,” said a dangerously softly spoken voice.
Raising his eyes, Burias looked upon Jarulek, the Dark Apostle of the Host. Bedecked in a black
robe that covered much of his ancient, blood-red armour, he was neither particularly tall nor broad
for one of the Legion. Outwardly, he projected none of the sense of brutal power that Kol Badar
exuded, nor the potent vitality that Marduk possessed. Nor did warriors fear him for the lethal
savagery that Burias knew lurked only barely beneath the surface of his own demeanour.
It was perhaps the confidence of one who knew that the gods themselves sanctioned his actions
that made warriors tremble before him, or perhaps it was the absolute belief in what he did, the fire
of faith that burned within his soul or whatever of it was left, for it had long been pledged to the
ravenous gods of Chaos. Whatever it was, Jarulek inspired fear, awe and devotion in equal
measures. His words were spoken softly and deliberately, but on the battlefield his voice would rise
to a powerful howl that was terrifying and inspiring to hear.
15
Every centimetre of Jarulek’s exposed pale skin was covered in the hallowed words of Lorgar.
Tiny, intricate script was inscribed perfectly across his flesh. Litanies and catechisms ran
symmetrically down each side of his pale, hairless head, and his cheeks, chin and neck were
sprawled with passages and curses. There was not a place upon him where you could place a datastylus
and not be touching the hallowed words of the great daemon primarch. Devotions,
supplications, orisons, they extended over Jarulek’s lips, inside his cheeks and across his tongue.
Not even his eyes had been spared, citations of vengeance, hate and worship scribed on the soft,
glutinous jelly of those orbs. He was a walking Book of Lorgar, and Burias was in awe at his
presence.
“Lead the Dark Apostle forth, Icon Bearer,” intoned Marduk. Six additional guards of honour
stepped into place around Marduk and the Dark Apostle, and together with the pair accompanying
Marduk they represented the eight points of the star of Chaos.
“First, we worship,” said Jarulek. “Then we kill a world.”
“I risk my men in there, and I am told to forget all about it?” spat Lieutenant Varnus. “There is some
kind of cult organisation operating in Shinar, perhaps across the whole of Tanakreg. We are just
getting close.”
Varnus glared across the plain metal desk at Captain Lodengrad. The captain looked of middling
years, but it was hard to gauge. He could have been forty, or a hundred and forty, depending on how
much augmetic surgery he had been subjected to. Certainly he didn’t appear to have aged in all the
time Varnus had known him.
There were no features within the blank walls of the interview room other than the desk, the two
chairs and the door. One wall was mirrored, and Varnus stood glaring at his tired and angry
reflection. He knew that a trio of conjoined servitor twins stood beyond the mirror, recording and
monitoring every movement made and every word spoken in the room. His heartbeat, blood
pressure and neural activity were being analysed and recorded on a spooling data-slate, the details
noted down by fingers ending in needlelike stylus instruments.
“Sit down, lieutenant,” said the captain.
“You seriously want me to go back on patrol and just forget everything I saw in that damned
basement?”
“No one said anything about you going back to work, lieutenant,” said the captain. “You
disobeyed a direct order, and you struck a fellow enforcer.”
“Oh, come on! If I had obeyed your direct order, sir, the whole place would have gone up in
flames. And Landers is a loudmouth cur. He was questioning my order. And he reports directly to
me, if I recall correctly.”
“Sit down, lieutenant,” said the captain. Varnus continued to stare at his own reflection. “Sit
down,” the captain repeated, more forcefully.
“So what, are you going to kick me out? Send me back to work the damnable salt plains? Like
before you recruited me?” Varnus sat back down and folded his arms. “You knew what I was when
you gave me this job. If you didn’t want that, then you should never have pulled me out of the
worker-habs in the first place.”
“Forget about all that, lieutenant. I’m not getting rid of you just yet. I’m just telling you to forget
everything about what you saw in that basement. It is no longer our concern.”
“Not our concern?” exclaimed Varnus. “That was no group of isolated, small-time, hab-gangers,
captain. The information they had was highly classified material: maps, plans, schematics. They had
plans of the damn governor’s palace, for Throne’s sake! You know what would happen if they
managed to get explosives within the palace? They could knock out the entire city’s power in one
go, and what would happen then, captain? It would be bedlam: rioting, looting, murder. It would
take a lot more enforcers than you have to put all that down. The PDF would have to be brought in.
It would be absolute bedlam.”
16
“Are you quite finished, lieutenant?” asked the captain.
“Um, let me think. No. No, I’m not actually.”
“Well, hold onto those thoughts. There is someone here who may be able to answer them,” said
the captain, rising to his feet. Varnus raised an eyebrow. “I’m sick of listening to you, lieutenant.
I’m going to get some caff. Wait here.”
The captain walked to the door and knocked twice. The door opened a moment later, and he left
the room.
Varnus pushed his chair back and placed his feet on the table. He closed his eyes. He was so
damn tired.
The door opened a few moments later. Varnus didn’t bother to open his eyes. He sighed
dramatically.
“It’s Varnus, isn’t it? Lieutenant Mai Varnus.” The voice was hard, and the lieutenant dropped
his feet from the table, standing to look up into the face of the newcomer.
The man was big, bigger even than Landers, and he was dressed in the severe black uniform of
an Arbites judge.
Throne above! An Arbites judge!
The blood rushed from Varnus’s face, and he licked his lips.
The judge walked around Varnus and sat down in the seat recently vacated by the captain. His
jaw was thick and square, his nose flat against his face and his brow heavy and solid. In all respects
the judge looked hard and unrelenting. His intimidating physical presence was further enhanced by
heavy ablative carapace armour and by the severe black uniform he wore over it.
“Sit down, lieutenant,” he ordered forcefully, his eyes cold and dangerous, his voice deep.
Varnus sat down warily.
“What you discovered, it is not within the jurisdiction of local enforcers. It is within the
jurisdiction of Imperial law, Arbites law.”
Varnus frowned darkly.
“However, I have been reading your record,” continued the judge. “It was… interesting reading.
The Arbites could use a man like you, lieutenant.”
