‘Thank you, my lord.’
‘I have asked you here, Abriel — may I use your first name?’ Vangorich said. He didn’t wait for the cardinal to answer. ‘I have asked you here to consult with you about a very important appointment. As you no doubt have heard, Ecclesiarch Mesring was… removed from office.’
‘High Lord Mesring’s faith was tested,’ Creutzfeldt said, his voice rasping with unforced hatred. ‘He failed that test. He failed his God-Emperor, all Terra and the Imperium of Man. His release was a mercy the xenos-worshipping sack of wine did not deserve. Forgive me, my lord.’
‘No, please,’ Vangorich said. ‘These are emotive matters. His betrayal must have been a shock. With billions of the Emperor’s faithful subjects looking to the Ecclesiarchy for leadership, it would be unwise to leave High Lord Mesring’s seat empty for too long.’ He didn’t make mention of Koorland’s decree that the head of the Adeptus Ministorum no longer counted among the High Lords; he didn’t need to.
‘The orks are a grave threat, indeed,’ Creutzfeldt agreed, after a long uncomfortable pause. ‘If the people are to prevail against them, if their faith is to carry them through these terrible times, then they need to be shepherded to higher spiritual ground. Structures need to be maintained. Figureheads visible. Leadership unquestioned.’
‘This is why I am talking to you, Abriel,’ Vangorich said, looking off into the sunrise, ‘among other strong candidates in the ranks of the priesthood. I have been charged with finding an appropriate replacement. An Ecclesiarch for these dark times.’
‘You have spoken to Malachai?’ Creutzfeldt asked. ‘Shraile? Gorlandriaz?’
‘Among others,’ Vangorich said. He hadn’t, but he would not be drawn on the matter. Vangorich took his responsibility seriously but if the Imperium survived the greenskin apocalypse, then he would need a High Lord of the Adeptus Ministorum that he could control. He needed continued influence in at least one seat that was not his own. Creutzfeldt might indeed be that man but the Grand Master of Assassins had little intention of giving up the seat just yet.
‘Of course.’
‘I would be interested to hear your opinion on our present circumstances,’ Vangorich said.
‘I have fought the orks,’ Cardinal Creutzfeldt told him. ‘There is not a species in the galaxy, among all the rancid xenos-filth that pollutes the void, as mindlessly destructive. They live to fight. To kill. To be the end of all about them. And these invaders — the ones that are extinguishing our worlds one by one across the segmentum, led by this monstrous Beast — they are a breed apart. They are like no adversary we have ever faced. I am a humble servant of the God-Emperor and even I do not feel it heretical to claim that even He would have struggled to contain this threat.’
‘As a humble servant of the God-Emperor,’ Vangorich echoed him, ‘do you feel that we could be witnessing the end of the Imperium?’
Creutzfeldt looked at Vangorich, who in turn stared grimly into the rising sun.
‘Forgive me, my lord,’ the cardinal said, ‘but I feel that question to be a double-edged sword.’
‘It is a simple enough question,’ the Grand Master said absently.
‘If I tell you, without doubt, that we can exterminate the green plague,’ Creutzfeldt said, ‘as any in my position might be tempted to do, you would discount me as a fool living the fantasy of an Imperium long past.’
‘And if you tell me that we are doomed?’ Vangorich asked.
‘Then I would be a fatalistic fool,’ said Creutzfeldt, ‘of no use nor ornament to you or the Imperium.’
Beneath the glorious dawn, Drakan Vangorich came to a decision. He turned to the cardinal.
‘Then forget who I am,’ the Grand Master said. ‘Let me be but one amongst billions. A terrified soul, looking to my confessor for guidance, for comfort, for a truth Imperial. Cardinal, let me unburden my soul to you.’
Vangorich knelt before Creutzfeldt on the ramparts, his hooded head lowered.
‘As you wish, my lord,’ the cardinal said, making the sign of the aquila above the Grand Master of Assassins. ‘For even the strongest are allowed their doubts and fears. A man would not be a man without them. Speak, then, my lord. As if speaking before the God-Emperor Himself, who sees all, who knows all. Unburden your soul.’
‘I have lived a life of deaths,’ Vangorich told him. ‘All necessary. All in service of a stronger Imperium.’
‘The Emperor’s realm was built upon such necessities,’ Creutzfeldt said.
‘I am a blade,’ the Grand Master said, ‘in a box of blunt tools. Tools that seek to dull my edge.’
‘We all live to be of use, my lord.’
‘For so long, I have embodied the fears of others. But now I live my own.’
‘As do we all.’
‘And now all your fears are mine also,’ Vangorich said. ‘I bear the burden of the man who would act, who could act — but does not, in the forlorn hope that others will come to their senses and do what must be done.’
‘It will happen.’
‘I am not so sure,’ the Grand Master said. ‘And I become less sure, every day.’
‘The Imperium has stood for thousands of years, my lord,’ the cardinal assured him.
‘And I fear it will not last the passage of a single year more,’ Vangorich admitted. ‘We have seen our armies decimated and our fleets smashed. Impregnable fortress worlds have fallen and the industry of forge worlds is silenced. By the hour, we lose not ships and soldiers to the Beast but hive worlds and subsectors. Up until now Terra has been a healthy world in a gangrenous empire. But the orks are coming. The green tide rises about us. Terra is doomed, and with it, the Imperium of Man.’
‘I fear you underestimate the fortitude of the Emperor’s subjects, my lord,’ Creutzfeldt said.
‘As those subjects have underestimated the orks?’ the Grand Master returned. ‘I know it might not be a common sentiment to hear uttered within these hallowed halls, but the Imperium has a long history of overestimating itself.’
‘Well, my lord,’ the cardinal said, uncomfortable with such truths, ‘you would know better than I. I might not know much, but I know that the Imperium still stands.’
‘True,’ Vangorich said. ‘But for how long, Eminence? Fleur-de-Fides stood in honour of the Emperor but months ago. As did Aquillius. Now they are but mountains of smouldering masonry, turning silently in the void.’
‘But Terra,’ Creutzfeldt said, ‘is called Ancient for a reason.’
‘We stand on walls,’ Vangorich reminded him, ‘that barely a thousand years ago were crumbling before the might of the renegade Warmaster. You talk of the endurance of the past. I, like the rest of the Imperium, cannot afford that luxury. I live the threats of the present. The fears of the future.’
‘My lord…’
‘Forgive me,’ Vangorich said. ‘I go too far. You see kneeling before you a man at odds with himself and all else. I blame the High Lords for their intransigence and politics. The people for their blindness. Myself for sitting idly on my talents.’
‘I see that,’ Creutzfeldt said. ‘All the Emperor asks of us is that we act in accordance with our unique gifts. You are a man of action. My advice would be to act.’
‘Thank you for your honesty,’ Vangorich said. He lowered his hooded head and half nodded to himself. He had reached a dark decision. ‘I know that could not have been easy, especially in the viper’s nest of faith and politics that is the Imperial Palace. Eminence, would you do me one last service?’
‘Of course, Grand Master,’ Creutzfeldt told him.
‘Would you bless me?’ Vangorich said. ‘I feel the need for the Emperor’s benediction in these dark times.’
‘It would be my honour,’ the cardinal said.
Creutzfeldt put his tattooed hand on the crown of the Grand Master’s hooded head, speaking the benedictions and blessings of the God-Emperor as Vangorich knelt before him. As the cardinal drew back his hand, the Grand Master rose.