Context: Former First Acolyte, now Dark Apostle Cerastes and an apothecary, last survivors of the Eightfold Bane warband, get rescued from a derelict spaceship by scavengers under leadership of Captain Wrack. Instead of killing them, he decides to turn them into cultists.
‘The Emperor protects.’
Still reeling from Cerastes’ question, Wrack didn’t see who spoke. It might even have been she who answered. She wasn’t sure. ‘The Emperor protects,’ Cerastes repeated, as if examining the taste of an absurdity. The words seemed weak, a rote statement with nothing to support it.
‘The Emperor protects?’ Cerastes said, the interrogative undermining the credo even more. ‘Does he?’ There was silence in the hall, a taut silence, taut as a throat pulled back before being sliced open. ‘Does he?’ Cerastes asked again, and the words were the slicing of the throat. ‘What does he protect you from? From hardship? From disease? From death by misadventure? From your enemies?’
‘From the enemies of the Imperium,’ said Wrack, the words weak and brittle in her ears. ‘From the xenos and the heretic.’
‘And from me?’ said Cerastes. He looked around, as if inviting the hand of the Emperor to strike him down. ‘If the Emperor protects, why am I on this ship? Why are you at my mercy? Your only guarantor of life is my good will, and we all know that. And I ask again, protect you from what? Do you even know what I am?’ He paused. ‘What do you know of the true gods? Nothing. Nothing at all.’ He laughed. ‘If you will hear me, I will teach you many things. One of the greatest lessons you will learn is the nature of irony. Thus, know this – what the False Emperor seeks to protect you from is the gods you are never to know exist. I know the truths of your creed to a depth you can never expect to reach.’ Cerastes began to pace slowly and steadily back and forth. He looked every crew member in the eyes.
The intensity of his address struck Wrack like a physical blow. Do not listen. Do not listen. She mustn’t. Just standing here passively was an act of heresy when such words as these were being spoken. But Cerastes’ voice would not let her cover her ears or turn away. His reason was even more powerful.
‘There is a difference,’ said Cerastes, ‘between faith and revelation, between belief and knowledge. You believe the Emperor to be a god. Is he? Does he protect? Do you feel his eye on you, and the touch of his hand on your heart?’
I do, Wrack tried to say. I do! She couldn’t bring herself to lie.
‘I, too, have faith,’ Cerastes continued. ‘I have faith in the gods’ favour. I have faith in the teachings of Lorgar. I have faith in the Word. But I do not need to have faith in the reality of the gods. I have proof of that.’ He stopped pacing in the centre of the hall again and stretched his arms out to either side. He tilted his head back as if he were staring through the ceiling and the hull of the Witness to Duty, out into the void, and beyond. ‘I am proof of their existence. Once, I was as you are. I was mortal, another of the deluded billions on Legitur. No longer. I am unburdened of lies. I am transformed. I have fought side by side with daemons.’
‘There are no such things,’ someone moaned, begging to be allowed to hold on to the comforting falsehoods of ignorance. ‘Ah, but there are. I have spoken with them, and they with me. I have seen the glories of Chaos Undivided, and I shall see them again. So, if you embrace the truth, will you.’
Wrack shivered – in fear, but also, to her astonishment and guilt, with curiosity. She knew she should only be hearing a threat in what Cerastes said. Yet a part of her responded to the promise.
‘You have been indoctrinated since birth to accept a meaning of faith which is nothing more than belief without thought, an enforced allegiance surrounded by an ornamentation of falsehoods and empty promises. The Emperor protects.’ Now the phrase sounded like a curse. ‘The words would be meaningless, but they are not. Their meaning is a lie. They are a hope that you express in the face of a universe that teaches you at every moment of your lives that the hope is a delusion. ‘The true gods keep their promises. Their reality is beyond question. Faith in them is not a belief in their existence. I do not need to believe in this ship for it to be real. No, faith in the true gods is instead a form of loyalty, and it is rewarded.’ He spread his arms, and the light around him seemed to bend. There was a faint crackle, and wisps of black energy spiralled up and down his horns.
‘It is rewarded very well indeed,’ said Cerastes.