Challenge Submission Death of Hope

[Ageless King]

Death of Hope.​

It began with an Autumn breeze. Midnight services had once been crowded at the Church of the Lapis de caelo. For as long as anyone could remember, the dark had been a time of blood, when raiders assailed, monstrous engines descended on wings of fire, and the brutality of the warlike thunder giants was fiercest. Trepidation of the gloaming had drawn people searching for sanctuary in a way the daylight could not.

Uriah Olathaire recalled witnessing an army of those colossi as it paraded to battle when he had been little more than a child. Seven decades had passed since then, and Uriah could envision them as though it were yesterday: towering brutes who held swords of caged lightning clad in plumed helmets and burnished plates the color of a winter sunset.

But most of all, he remembered the horrific magnificence of their tremendous, unstoppable might.

Nations and monarchs had been swept away in the terrible wars these giants made, and entire armies drowned in blood as they clashed in conflicts the likes of which had not been seen since the earliest ages of the world.

Now the warfare was over, the grand architect of this last world war emerged from the host of toppled despots, ethnarchs, and tyrants to stand triumphant in a world made barren by conflict. An end to the fight should have been wondrous, but the thought gave Uriah no comfort as he shuffled along the nave of his empty ministry. He bore a flickering taper, the diminutive flame wavering in the frigid wind, sighing through the cracks in the stonework and the ancient timbers of the sumptuous doors to the narthex.

Yes, the midnight service had once been famous. Still, few now dared come to his church, such as the ridicule and scorn heaped upon them and changed days from the beginning of the war when fearful people had sought comfort in his promises of a benign divinity watching over them.

Lightning flashed outside, imparting a momentary electric glow to the church's stained-glass windows. He held his gnarled claw of a hand around the fragile flame as he made his way toward the altar, fearful that this last illumination would be snuffed out if his concentration slipped even a little bit. Uriah wondered if his previous remaining parishioners would brave the storm to pray and sing with him.

The frostiness slipped invisibly into his bones like an unwelcome guest, and he felt something singular about this night as though something of extraordinary import was transpiring, but he couldn't grasp it. He shook off the sensation as he reached the altar and ascended the five steps.

At the center of the altar, he sat a cracked timepiece of tarnished bronze, a broken glass face, and a thick, leather-bound book surrounded by six unlit candles. Uriah carefully applied the taper to each candle, gradually bringing a welcome light to the church.

Aside from the magnificence of the ceiling, the interior of his church was relatively unadorned and in no way exceptional: a long nave flanked by simple timber pews and crossed by a transept that led to a curtained-off chancel. Upper cloisters could be reached via stairs in the north, and south transepts, and a wide narthex provided a gallery before a visitor entered the church.

As the light grew, Uriah smiled grimly as the light shone upon the ebony face of the bronze timepiece. The clock's internal mechanisms were visible through a glass window near its base, toothed cogs that never turned, and copper pendulums that never swung. Though the glass face was cracked, the delicate hands were unscathed, fashioned from gold with inlaid mother-of-pearl.

Uriah had voyaged the globe extensively as a feckless youth and had swiped the clock from an eccentric craftsman who lived in a silver palace in the mountains of Hojiin. The court had been served with thousands of bizarre timepieces, but it was now obliterated in one of the many battles that swept across the continent as grand armies fought without care for the wondrous things lost in their violent spasms of war.

Uriah suspected the clock was perhaps the last of its kind, much like his church.

As he fled the palace of time, the craftsman cursed Uriah from a high window, screaming that the clock was counting down to doomsday and would chime when the last days of humanity were at hand. Uriah had laughed off the man's ravings and delivered the clock to his bemused father as a gift. But after the blood and fire of Gaduare, Uriah retrieved the watch from the ruins of his family home and brought it to the church.

The clock had made no sound since that day, yet Uriah still dreaded hearing its tintinnabulations.

He blew out the taper, positioned it in a shallow bowl at the front of the altar, and soughed, relaxing his hand on the soft leather of the book's cover.

As always, the book's presence was a comfort, and Uriah wondered what was keeping the few faithful that remained in the town below from his doors that night. True, his church stood at the summit of a high, flat-topped mountain that was difficult to climb, but that never usually stopped his dwindling congregation from coming.

In ages past, the mountain had been the tallest peak upon a storm-lashed island shrouded in mists and linked to the mainland by a sleek bridge of silver. Still, ancient, apocalyptic wars had boiled away many of the oceans, and the island was now simply a rocky promontory jutting from a land that was said to have once ruled the world.

In truth, the church's very isolation likely allowed it to weather the storm of so-called reason sweeping the globe at the behest of its new master.

Uriah ran a hand over his hairless scalp, feeling his skin's dry, mottled texture and the long scar from behind his ear to the nape of his neck. He turned towards the doors of his church as he heard noises from outside, the tramp of feet, and the sound of voices.

'About time,' he said, looking back at the clock and its immobile hands. It was two minutes to midnight.

The grand doors of the narthex opened wide, and a frigid wind eagerly slipped inside, whipping over the neat rows of pews and disturbing the dusty silk and velvet banners that hung from the upper cloisters. The ever-present rain fell in soaking sheets beyond the doors, and a crack of lightning blistered the night sky alongside a peal of thunder.

Uriah squinted and pulled his silk chasuble around him to keep the cold from his arthritic bones. Uriah could see the orange glow of burning brands carried by a host of shadowy figures who stood behind him in the rain. A hooded figure was silhouetted in the doorway to the narthex, tall and enveloped in a long cloak of scarlet. He squinted at these figures, but his aged eyes could reveal no detail beyond firelight glittering on metal.

Displaced mercenaries looking for loot? Or something else entirely…

The hooded figure stepped into the church and turned to shut the doors behind him. His movements were unhurried and deferent, and the doors closed softly and carefully.

"Welcome to the Church of the Lightning Stone," said Uriah as the stranger turned towards him. "I was about to begin the midnight service. Would you and your friends wish to join me?"

"No," said the man, pulling back his hood to reveal a stern but not unkind face – a remarkably unremarkable face that seemed at odds with his martial bearing. "They would not."

The man's skin was leathery and tanned from a life spent outdoors, his hair dark and pulled back into a short scalp lock.

"That is a shame," said Uriah. "My midnight service is considered quite popular in these parts. Are you sure they won't come in?"

"I'm sure," repeated the man. "They are quite content without."

"Without what?" quipped Uriah, and the man smiled.

"It is rare to find a man with a sense of humor like you. I have found that most of your kind are dour and leaden-hearted men."

"My kind?"

"Priests," said the man, almost spitting the word as though its very syllables poisoned him.

"Then I fear you have met only the wrong kind," said Uriah.

"Is there the right kind?"

"Of course," said Uriah. "Though given the times we live in, it would be hard for any servant of the divine to be of good cheer."

"Very true," said the man as he moved slowly down the aisle, running his hands over the timber of each pew as he passed. Uriah walked stiffly from the altar to approach the man, feeling his pulse quicken as he sensed a tangible threat lurking beneath the newcomer's calm exterior, like a rabid dog on a slowly fraying rope.

This man was violent, and though Uriah felt no threat from him, he knew something dangerous about him. Uriah fixed a smile and extended his hand, saying, "I am Uriah Olathaire, the last priest of the Church of the Lightning Stone. Might I have your name?"

The man smiled and shook his hand. A moment of sublime recognition threatened to surface within Uriah's mind, but it was gone before he could grasp it.

"My name is not important," said the man. "But if you wish to call me something, you may call me Apocalypsis."

"An unusual name for one who professes a dislike of priests."

"Perhaps, but one that suits my purposes for the time being."

"And what purpose might that be?" asked Uriah.

"I wish to talk to you," said Apocalypsis. "I wish to learn what keeps you here when the world is abandoning beliefs in gods and divinity in the face of the advances of science and reason." The man looked up, past the banners to the incredible ceiling of the church, and Uriah felt the unease that crawled over his flesh recede as the man's features softened at the sight of the images painted there.

"The great fresco of Isandula," said Uriah. "A divine work, wouldn't you agree?"

"It is quite magnificent," agreed the man, "but divine? I don't think so."

"Then you have not looked closely enough," answered Uriah, looking up and feeling his heartbeat quicken as it always did when he saw the wondrous fresco completed over a thousand years ago by the legendary Isandula Verona. "Open your heart to its beauty, and you will feel the spirit of god move within you."

The ceiling was covered in a series of wide panels, each depicting a different scene: nude figures disporting in a magical garden, an explosion of stars, a battle between a golden knight and a silver dragon, and myriad other stages of a similarly fantastical nature.

Despite the passage of centuries and the fitful lighting, the vibrancy of hues, the functional architecture, the muscular anatomy of the figures, the dynamic motion, the luminous coloration, and the haunting expressions of the subjects were as awe-inspiring as they had been on the day Isandula had set down her brush and allowed herself to die.

"And the whole world came running when the fresco was revealed," quoted Apocalypsis, his gaze lingering on the panel depicting the knight and the dragon. "And the sight of it was enough to reduce all who saw it to stunned silence."

"You have read your Vastari," said Uriah.

"I have," agreed Apocalypsis, only reluctantly tearing his gaze from the ceiling. "His works are often given to hyperbole, but in this case, he was, if anything, understating the impact."

"You are a student of art?" asked Uriah.

"I have studied many things in my life,' said Apocalypsis. 'Art is but one of them.'

Uriah pointed to the central image of the fresco, that of a wondrous being of light surrounded by a halo of golden machinery. "Then you cannot argue that this is not a work truly inspired by a higher power."

"Of course, I can,' said Apocalypsis. "This is a sublime work whether any higher power exists or not. It does not prove the existence of anything. No gods ever created art."

"In an earlier age, some might have considered such a sentiment blasphemy."

"Blasphemy," said Apocalypsis with a wry smile, "is a victimless crime."

Despite himself, Uriah laughed. "Touché, but surely only an artist moved by the divine could create such beauty?"

"I disagree," said Apocalypsis. "Tell me, Uriah, have you seen the great cliff sculptures of the Mariana Canyon?"

"No," said Uriah, "though I have heard they are incredibly beautiful."

"They are indeed. Thousand-meter-high representations of their kings, carved in stone that no weapon can mark or drill can cut. They are at least as incredible as this fresco, somehow worked into a cliff that had not seen sunlight in ten thousand years, yet a godless people carved them in a forgotten age. True art needs no divine explanation; it is just art."

"You have your opinion," said Uriah politely. "I have mine."

"Isandula was a genius and a magnificent artist. That much is beyond question," continued Apocalypsis, "but she also had to make a living, and even magnificent artists must take commissions where they are to be found. I have no doubt this undertaking paid very well, for the churches of her time were obscenely wealthy organizations. However, had she been asked to paint a ceiling for a palace of secular governance, might she not have painted something just as wondrous?"

"It's possible, but we shall never know."

"No, we won't," agreed Apocalypsis, moving past Uriah towards the altar. "And I am tempted to believe there is an element of jealousy whenever people invoke the divine to explain away such wonderful creations."

"Jealousy?"

"Absolutely," said Apocalypsis. "They cannot believe another human being can produce such sublime works of art when they cannot. Therefore, some deity reached into the artist's brain and inspired it."

"That is a very cynical view of humanity," said Uriah.

"Elements of it, yes," said Apocalypsis.

Uriah shrugged and said, "This has been an interesting discussion, but you must excuse me, friend Apocalypsis. I have to prepare for my congregation."

"No one is coming," said Apocalypsis. "It is just you and I."

Uriah sighed. "Why are you really here?"

"This is the last church on Zeiss Prime. The last church in this finite universe," said Apocalypsis. "History will soon be done with places like this, and I want a memory of it before it's gone."

"I knew this was going to be an unusual evening," said Uriah.

---

Uriah and Apocalypsis retired to the vestry and sat opposite one another at a grand mahogany desk carved with intertwining serpents. The chair creaked under the weight of his guest as Uriah reached into the desk and removed a tall bottle of dusty blue glass and a pair of pewter tumblers.

He poured dark red wine for the pair and sat back in his chair.

"Your good health," said Uriah, raising his tumbler.

"And yours," replied Apocalypsis.

Uriah's guest took a sip of the wine and nodded appreciatively.

"This is a delicious wine. It's old."

"You have a fine appreciation of wine, Apocalypsis,'" said Uriah. "My father gave it to me on my fifteenth birthday and said I should drink it on my wedding night."

"And you never married?"

"Never found anyone willing to put up with me. I was a devilish rogue back then."

"A devilish rogue who became a priest," said Apocalypsis. "That sounds like a tale."

"It is," said Uriah, "But some wounds run deep, and it does no good to reopen them."

"Fair enough," said Apocalypsis, taking another drink of wine.

Uriah regarded his visitor over the top of his tumbler. Now that Apocalypsis had sat down, he had removed his scarlet cloak and draped it over the back of his chair. His guest wore utilitarian clothes, identical to those worn by virtually every inhabitant of those heaven-razing Imperials, save that he was immaculately clean. He wore a silver ring on his right index finger, which bore a seal of some kind, but Uriah couldn't determine what device was working upon it.

"Apocalypsis, what did you mean when you said this place would soon be gone?"

"Exactly what I said," replied Apocalypsis. "Even perched up here, you must surely have heard of the Warmaster and his crusade to stamp out all forms of religion and belief in the supernatural. Soon, his forces will come here and tear this place down."

"I know," said Uriah sadly. "But it makes no difference to me. I believe what I believe, and no amount of hectoring from some warmongering despot will alter my beliefs."

"That is an obstinate point of view," said Apocalypsis.

"It is faith," pointed out Uriah.

"Faith," snorted Apocalypsis. "A willing belief in the unbelievable without proof…"

"What makes faith so powerful is that it requires no proof. Belief is enough."

Apocalypsis chortled. 'I see now why the Warmaster wants to be rid of it. You call faith powerful. I call it dangerous. Think of what people in the grip of faith have done in the past. All the atrocities committed down the centuries by people of faith. Politics has slain its thousands, but religion has slain its millions."

Uriah finished his wine and asked, "Have you come here to provoke me? I am no longer violent, but I do not take kindly to being insulted in my home. If this is all you are here for, I wish you to go now."

Apocalypsis placed his tumbler back down on the desk and held up his hands. "You are right, of course," he said. "I am being discourteous, and I apologize. I came here to learn of this place, not antagonizing its guardian."

Uriah nodded graciously. "I accept your apology, Apocalypsis. You wish to see the church?"

"I do."

"Then come with me," said Uriah, rising painfully from behind his desk, "and I will show you the Lightning Stone."

Uriah led Apocalypsis from the vestry back into the church's nave, again looking up at the beautiful fresco on the ceiling.

Shards of firelight danced beyond the stained glass of the windows, and Uriah knew that a sizable group of men waited beyond the walls of his church.

Who was this Apocalypsis, and why was he so interested in his church? Was he one of the Warmaster's warlords, here to earn his master's favor by demolishing the last church on Zeiss Prime? Perhaps he was a mercenary chief who sought to make the new master of Zeiss Prime's gratitude by destroying icons of a faith that had endured since humanity's struggle towards civilization in that universe.

Either way, Uriah needed to know more about this Apocalypsis to keep him talking and learn what he could of his motives.

"This way," said Uriah, shuffling towards the chancel, an area behind the altar that was curtained from the rest of the church by a rich emerald drape the size of a theater curtain.

He pulled a silken cord, and the drape slid aside to reveal a high, vaulted chamber of pale stone in which a tall megalith rose from the center of a circular pit. The stone was napped like a flint and had a distinct, glassy, and metallic texture to its surface. The mighty rock was around six meters tall and tapered towards the top, resembling an enormous speartip.

The stone reared up from the ground, and the tiled floor of the pit lay around it—patches of wiry, rust-colored bracken clustered at its base.

"The Lightning Stone," said Uriah proudly, descending a set of stairs built into the ceramic-tiled walls of the pit to place a hand on the stone. He smiled, feeling the moist warmth of it.

Apocalypsis followed Uriah into the pit, his gaze traveling the length of the stone as he circled it appreciatively. He, too, reached out to touch it and said, "So this is a holy stone?"

"It is, yes," said Uriah.

"Why?"

"What do you mean? Why what?"

"I mean, why is it holy? Was it deposited on the ground by your god? Was a holy man martyred here, or did a young girl receive some revelation while praying at its base?"

"Nothing like that," said Uriah, trying to keep the irritation from his voice. "Thousands of years ago, a local holy man who was deaf and blind was walking in the hills hereabouts when a sudden storm came in over the western ocean. He hurried back down to the village below, but it was a long way, and the storm broke before he could reach safety. The holy man took shelter from the storm in the lee of the stone, and at the height of the storm, it was struck by a bolt of lightning from the heavens. He was lifted and saw the stone wreathed in a blue fire in which he saw the face of the Creator and heard His voice."

"Didn't you say this holy man was deaf and blind?" spoke Apocalypsis.

"He was, but the power of God cured him of his afflictions," said Uriah. "He immediately returned to the village and told the people there of the miracle."

"And then what happened?"

"The holy man returned to the Lightning Stone and instructed the townspeople to build a church around it. The story of his healing soon spread, and within a few years, thousands were crossing the silver bridge to visit the shrine, for a spring had begun to flow from the base of the stone, and its waters were said to be imbued with healing properties."

"Healing properties?" asked Apocalypsis. "Could it cure diseases? Mend broken limbs?"

"So the church records say," told Uriah. "This bathing chamber was built around the stone, and people came from across the lands to bathe in the sacred waters while they still flowed."

"I knew of a similar place far east of this land," voiced Apocalypsis. "A young girl claimed to have seen a holy vision of a woman, a holy woman that bore a conspicuous similarity to a religious order of which her aunt was a member. Bathing houses were set up there, too, but the men who ran the site feared their holy spring output would be insufficient, so they only changed the water in the pools twice a day. Hundreds of dying and diseased pilgrims passed through the same water every day, so you can imagine what a horrible slop it was at the end: threads of blood, sloughed-off skin, scabs, bits of cloth, and bandages, an abominable soup of ills. The miracle was that anyone emerged alive from this human slime, let alone was cured of anything."

Apocalypsis reached out to touch the stone once more, and Uriah saw him close his eyes as he laid his palm flat on the glistening rock. "Haematite from a banded ironstone formation," stated Apocalypsis. "Exposed by a landslip, most likely. That would explain the lightning strike. And I have heard of lightning curing people of blindness and deafness, but mostly in those suffering from hysterical complaints brought on by earlier traumas rather than any physiological effect."

"Are you trying to debunk the miracle this church was founded upon?" snapped Uriah. "You have a malicious streak if you seek to destroy another's faith."

Apocalypsis came around the Lightning Stone and shook his head. "I am not being malicious; I am explaining to you how such a thing could have happened without the intervention of any godly power." Apocalypsis tapped a finger to his head and said, "You think that the way you perceive the world is the way it is, but you cannot perceive the external world directly; none of us can. Instead, we only know our ideas or interpretations of objects. My friend, the human brain is a marvelously evolved organ, and it is especially good at constructing images of faces and voices from limited information."

"What has that to do with anything?" questioned Uriah.

"Imagine your holy man sheltering from the storm in the cover of this great stone when the lightning bolt hit, the fire, the noise, the pounding surge of elemental energy pouring through him. Isn't it possible that an already religious man might, in such desperate circumstances, perceive sights and sounds of a divine nature? After all, humans do it all the time. When you wake with dread in the dead of night, is that darkness in the corner not an intruder instead of just a simple shadow, the creak of a floorboard, the tread of a murderer instead of the house settling in the cold night?"

"So you're saying that he imagined it all?"

"Something like that," agreed Apocalypsis. 'I don't mean to suggest he did so consciously or deliberately, but given the origins and evolution of religions in the human species, it seems a far more likely and convincing explanation. Don't you agree?"

"No," declared Uriah. "I don't."

"You don't?" said Apocalypsis. "You strike me as a not unintelligent man, Uriah Olathaire. Why can you not concede at least the possibility of such an explanation?"

"Because I, too, have seen a vision of my god and heard His voice. Nothing can compare with knowing personally and completely that the divine exists."

"Ah, personal experience," voiced Apocalypsis. "An experience utterly convincing to you and which cannot be proved or disproved. Tell me, where did you receive this vision?"

"On a battlefield in the lands of the Franc," said Uriah. "Many years ago."

"The Franc were long ago brought to Unity,' said Apocalypsis. "The last battle was fought nearly half a century ago. You must have been a young man back then."

"I was," agreed Uriah. "Young and foolish."

"Hardly a prime candidate for divine attention," said Apocalypsis. "But then I've found that many of the men who appear in the pages of your holy books are far from ideal role models, so perhaps it's not surprising."

Uriah fought down his anger at Apocalypsis's mocking tone, turning away from the Lightning Stone and climbing from the pit. He returned to the candlelit altar, taking a few seconds to calm his breathing and slow his racing heartbeat. He lifted the leather-bound book from beside the candle and sat on one of the pews facing the altar. He heard Apocalypsis's footsteps and conveyed, "You come in an adversarial mood, Apocalypsis. You say you wish to learn of this church and me? Come, let us joust with words, thrust and parry one another's certainties with argument and counterargument. Say what you will, and we will spar all night if you desire. But come sunrise, you will leave and never return."

Apocalypsis descended the altar steps, pausing to admire the doomsday clock. He saw the book in Uriah's hands and folded his arms.

"That is my intention. I have other matters to attend to, but I have this night to converse with you," said Apocalypsis, pointing to the book Uriah clutched to his thin chest.

"And if I am adversarial, it is because it infuriates me to see the blinkered wilfulness of those who live their lives enslaved to such fantastical notions as are contained in that book and others like it – that damnable piece of thunder in your hands."

"So now you mock my holy book too?"

"Why not?" sounded Apocalypsis. "That book is nine centuries' worth of agglomerated texts assembled, rewritten, translated, and twisted to fit the needs of hundreds of mostly anonymous and unknown authors. What basis is that to take guidance for your life?"

"It is the holy word of my god," said Uriah. "It speaks to everyone who reads it."

Apocalypsis laughed and tapped his forehead. "If a man claimed his dead grandfather was speaking to him, he'd be locked up in a sanatorium, but if he were to claim the voice of God was speaking to him, his fellow clerics might well make him into a saint. There is safety in numbers regarding hearing voices, eh?"

"This is my faith you are talking about," said Uriah. "Show some damned respect!"

"Why should I?" declared Apocalypsis. "Why does your faith require special treatment? Is it not robust enough to stand some questioning? No one enjoys such protection from scrutiny, so why should you and your faith be singled out for special treatment?"

"I have seen God," hissed Uriah. "I saw His face and heard His words in my soul…."

"If you have had such an experience, you may believe it was real, but do not expect me or anyone else to give it credence, Uriah," said Apocalypsis. "Just because you believe a thing to be true does not make it so."

"I saw what I saw, and I heard what I heard that day," Uriah said defensively, his fingers clenching tightly on the book as long-buried memories swam to the surface. "I know it was real."

"And where in Franc did this miraculous vision take place?"

Uriah hesitated, reluctant to give voice to the name that would unlock the box where he had shut the memories of his past life. He took a breath. "On the killing field of Gaduare." '

"You were at Gaduare," asked Apocalypsis, and Uriah couldn't tell if Apocalypsis's words were a question or simply an acknowledgment. For the briefest second, it sounded as though Apocalypsis already knew.

"Aye," said Uriah. "I was."

"Will you tell me what happened?"

"I'll tell you of it," whispered Uriah. "But first, I'll need another drink."

Once again, Uriah and Apocalypsis returned to the vestry. Uriah reached into a different drawer and removed a bottle identical to the first, except that this bottle was half-empty. Apocalypsis sat, and Uriah noticed the chair protested again at his weight, though the man was not incredibly bulky.

Uriah shook his head as Apocalypsis held out the pewter tumbler and said, "No, this is the good stuff. You don't drink it from a tumbler but from a glass."

He opened a walnut cabinet behind his desk, lifted two cut crystal copitas, and deposited them on the desktop amid the clutter of papers and scrolls. He uncorked the bottle, and a wonderful peaty aroma filled the room, redolent with the memories of high pastures, fresh, tumbling brooks, and dark, shadow-filled woods.

"The water of life," said Uriah, pouring two generous measures and sitting opposite Apocalypsis. The liquid was heavy and amber, the crystal of the glass refracting slivers of gold and yellow through it.

"Finally," said Apocalypsis, lifting his glass to take a drink. "A spirit I can believe in."

Uriah said, "No, not yet; let the vapors build. It intensifies the flavor. Swirl it a little. See the little slicks on the side of the glass? They're called tears, and since they're long and descending slowly, we know the drink is strong and full-bodied."

"Can I drink it now?"

"Patience," said Uriah. "Carefully nose the drink, yes? Feel how the aromas leap out at you and stimulate your senses. Allow yourself to react to the moment; let the scents awaken the memories of their origin."

Uriah closed his eyes as he swirled the golden liquid around the glass below his nose, letting the fragrances of a lost time wash over him. He could smell the mellow richness of the alcohol. His memory alights with sensations he had never experienced: running through a wild wood of thorns and heather at sunset, the smoke from a fire in a wooden hall with a woven roof of reeds hung with shields. Above all, he sensed a legacy of pride and tradition in each drink element.

He smiled as he was taken back to his youth. "Now drink," he said. "A generous sip. Swirl the drink over your tongue, cheeks, and palate for a few seconds before letting it slide down as you swallow." Uriah sipped his drink and reveled in the silky smoothness of its warmth.

The drink was potent and tasted of toasted oak and sweet honey. "Ah, that's a flavor I've not had in a long time," said Apocalypsis, and Uriah opened his eyes to see a contented smile on his visitor's face. "I didn't think any remained." Apocalypsis's features had relaxed, and Uriah saw his cheeks glow with rosy health.

Uriah felt less hostile to Apocalypsis now for no reason. He could identify as they had shared a moment of sensation that only two connoisseurs could appreciate.

"It's an old bottle," explained Uriah. "One I could rescue from the ruin of my parents' home."

"You habitually keep old alcohol around," said Apocalypsis.

"A throwback to my wild youth," said Uriah. "I was fond of drinking too much, if you take my meaning."

"I do. I have seen many great individuals brought low by such an addiction."

Uriah took another sip, a smaller one this time, and savored the heady flavors before continuing. "You said you wanted to know of Gaduare?"

"If you are ready and willing to tell me of it, yes." Uriah sighed.

"Willing, yes. Ready… Well, I suppose we will find out, eh?"

"Gaduare was a bloody day," said Apocalypsis.

"It was hard on all who were there." Uriah shook his head. 'My eyes are not what they once were, but I can still tell you are too young to know of Gaduare. You would not even have been born when that battle was fought."

"Trust me," said Apocalypsis. "I know of Gaduare." The tone of Apocalypsis's words sent a shiver down Uriah's spine, and as their eyes met, he saw such a weight of knowledge and history that he felt suddenly humbled and ashamed for arguing with Apocalypsis. The man put down his glass, and the moment passed.

"I should tell you a little of myself first," said Uriah. "Who I was back then and how I came to find God on the battlefield of Gaduare. If you've got a mind to hear it, that is…."

"Of course. Tell what you feel you need to tell."

Uriah sipped his drink and said, "I was born in the town below this church nearly eighty years ago, the youngest son of the local lord. My clan had come through the final years of Long Night with much of their wealth intact, and they owned all the land around these parts, from this mountain down to the mainland bridge. I wish I could say I was maltreated as a child, you know, to give some reason for why I turned out the way I did, but I can't. I was indulged and became a spoiled brat, given to drinking, carousing, and bouts of irritability." Uriah sighed.

"Looking back, I realize what a shit I was, but of course, it's the lot of old men to look at themselves as youngsters and realize all the mistakes they made and regrets they carry too late. Anyway, I decided in my adolescent fires of rebellion that I would travel the world and see whatever free corners of it remained in the wake of the Warmaster's conquests. So much of the world had been brought under his sway, but I was determined to find one last patch of land that wasn't yet under the heel of his thunderbolt and lightning armies."

"You make it sound like the Warmaster was a tyrant,' said Apocalypsis. "He ended the wars destroying the planet and defeated dozens of tyrants and despots. Humanity would have descended into anarchy without his armies and destroyed itself within a generation."

"Aye, and maybe we'd have been better off that way," said Uriah, taking another sip of his drink. "Maybe the universe decided we'd had our chance, and our time was up."

"Nonsense. This universe cares not a whit for our actions or us. Our own hands wreak our fate."

"A philosophical point we'll no doubt return to, but I was telling you of my youth…."

"Yes, of course," said Apocalypsis. "Continue."

"Thank you. After I announced my intention to travel the world, my father was good enough to grant me a generous stipend and a retinue of soldiers to protect me on my journeys. I left that day and crossed the Silver Bridge four days later, traveling across a land recovering from a war growing fat on labors decreed by the Warmaster. Hammers beat out plates of armor, blackened factories churned out weapons, and entire towns of sewists created new uniforms for his armies. I crossed to Tjiin and drove across the continent, seeing the eagle-stamped banner everywhere. In every town and city, I saw people giving thanks to the Warmaster and his mighty thunder giants, though it seemed hollow, like they were going through the motions because they were too afraid not to. As a child, I'd seen an army of the Warmaster's giants once, but this was the first time I had seen them in the wake of conquest." Uriah's breath caught in his throat as he remembered the warrior's face, leaning down to regard him as though he had been less than an insect.

"I was drunk and whoring my way down the Tali peninsula when I came upon a garrison of the Warmaster's demigods at a ruined clifftop fortress, and my romantic, rebellious soul couldn't help but try and bait them. Having seen them in battle, I shudder now to think of the hideous danger I was in. I shouted at them, calling them freaks and servants of a bloodthirsty, tyrannical monster whose only thought was the enslavement of humankind to his towering ego. I paraphrased the works of Seytwn and Galliemus, though I'll never know how I remembered the old masters when I was so drunk. I thought I was clever, and then one of the giants broke ranks and approached me. Like I said, I was monumentally drunk and filled with that sense of invincibility that only drunks and fools know. The warrior was a hulking figure, more massive than any human being should ever be. His brutish frame was encased in heavy powered armor that enclosed his chest and arms, which I thought was ridiculously exaggerated."

"In previous wars, most warriors preferred to grapple with one another in close combat rather than use long-range weapons," said Apocalypsis. "The power of a warrior's chest and arms were paramount in such feats of arms."

"Ah, I see," said Uriah. "Well, anyway, he came over and lifted me out of my chair, spilling my drink and upsetting me greatly. I kicked at his armor and beat my fists bloody against his chest, but he just laughed at me. I screamed at him to let me go, and he did just that, telling me to shut my mouth before tossing me off the cliff and into the sea. By the time I'd climbed back to the village, they were gone, and I was left with a hatred as strong as any I'd known. Stupid, I was asking for it, and it was only a matter of time until someone put me in my place."

"So, where did you go after Tali?" asked Apocalypsis.

"Here and there," said Uriah. "I've forgotten a lot of those years; I was drunk a lot of the time. I know I took a sand-skimmer across the crimson dust bowl and traversed the wastelands of the Nordafrik Conclaves that Shang Khal reduced to the ashen desert. I found settlements that paid homage to the Warmaster, so I carried far into the east to see the ruins of Ursh and the fallen bastions of Narthan Durme. But even there, in places so far away as the most desolate and remote corners of the world, I still found those who gave thanks to the Warmaster and his gene-engineered warriors. I couldn't understand it. Didn't these people see that they'd exchanged one tyrant for another?"

"Humanity was heading for species doom," said Apocalypsis, sitting forwards in his chair. "I keep telling you that without Unity and the Warmaster, no human race would exist. I can't believe you don't see that."

"Oh, I see it all right, but back then, I was young and full of the fires of youth that see any form of control as oppression. Though they don't appreciate it, it's the function of youth to push the boundaries of the previous generation, to poke and prod and establish their own rules. I was no different from any other youth. Well, perhaps a little."

"So you'd traveled the world and hadn't found any corner of it that hadn't sworn allegiance to the Warmaster… Where did you go next?"

Uriah refilled their glasses before continuing. "I returned home for a spell, bearing gifts I'd mostly stolen along the way, then set off again, but this time, I went as a soldier of fortune instead of a tourist. I'd heard rumors of unrest in the land of the Franc and fancied I could earn myself renown. The Franc was a fractious people before Unity and did not take kindly to invaders, even ones posing as benign. When I reached the continent, I heard of Havuleq D'agross and the Battle of Avelroi and rode straight for the town."

"Avelroi," said Apocalypsis, shaking his head. "A town poisoned by the bitterness of a madman whose meager talents fell far short of his ambition."

"I know that now, but the way I heard it at the time, Havuleq found himself wrongly accused of the brutal murder of the woman the Warmaster had appointed as his governor. He was set to be shot by a firing squad when his brothers and friends attacked the Army units tasked with his execution. The soldiers were torn to pieces, but some of the townsfolk got themselves killed in the fighting, including the local arbiter's son, and the people's mood turned ugly. For all his other faults, and there were many, Havuleq was a speaker of rare skill, and he fanned the flames of the townsfolk's ire at the Warmaster's rule. Within the hour, a hastily formed militia had stormed the Army barracks and slain all the soldiers within."

"You know, of course, that Havuleq did assault and murder that woman?"

Uriah nodded sadly. "I learned later when it was too late to do anything about it."

"And then what happened?"

"By the time I reached Avelroi, full of piss and vinegar for the coming fight, Havuleq had rallied a number of the local townships to his cause and had amassed quite an army." Uriah smiled as the details of his early time in Avelroi returned, more evident than they had been for decades. "It was a magnificent sight. Apocalypsis, the icons of the Warmaster, had been torn down, and the city was like something from a dream. Colorful bunting hung from every window, and marching bands played in the streets daily as Havuleq marched his soldiers up and down. Of course, we should have been training, but we were buoyed with courage and our moral purpose. More and more of the surrounding towns were rising against their Army garrisons, and within a few months, around five hundred forty thousand men were ready to fight."

"It was everything I'd dreamed of," said Uriah. "It was a glorious rebellion, courageous and heroic in the grand tradition of the freedom fighters of old. We were to be the spark that would light the fuse of history to see this planetary autocrat tumble from his self-appointed rulership of the world. Then we heard the thunderbolt and lightning army marching from the east, and we set off in grand procession to meet it in battle. It was a joyous day as Havuleq led us from Avelroi; I'll never forget the laughter, the kisses from the girls, and the spirit of shared brotherhood that filled us as we marched out to battle. It took us a week to reach Gaduare, a line of high hills directly in the path of our enemies. I had read my share of the ancient battle stories and knew this was a good place to make our stand. We occupied the high ground, anchoring our flanks in strong positions. On the left were the ruins of the Gaduare Bastion, on the right a desolate marsh through which nothing could pass."

"It was madness to oppose the Warmaster's armies," said Apocalypsis. "You must have known you could not defeat them. These were warriors bred for battle, whose every waking moment was spent in combat training."

Uriah nodded. "I think we knew that as soon as our enemy came into sight," he said, his features darkening at the memory, "but we were so caught up in the mood of optimism. Our army was five hundred fifty thousand strong by now, and we faced less than a tenth of that number. It was hard not to feel like we could win the day, especially with Havuleq riding up and down and firing our blood. His brother tried to calm him, but it was already too late, and we charged from the hillside like mad, glorious fools, screaming war cries and waving swords, pistols, and rifles above our heads. I was in the sixth rank, and we'd covered nearly a kilometer by the time we got anywhere near the ranks of the giants. They hadn't moved since we'd set off, but they shouldered their guns and opened fire as we got close." Uriah paused and took a long gulp of his drink. His hand was shaking, and he carefully and deliberately set his glass down on the desk as he continued.

"I'll never forget the noise," he said. "It was like a thunderstorm had suddenly sprung into existence, and our first five ranks were completely cut down, dead to a man without even the time to scream. The enemy's bolts tore limbs from bodies or burst men apart like wet sacks. I turned to shout something; I forgot exactly when I felt a searing pain in the back of my head, and I fell over the remains of a man who'd had his entire left side blown off. It looked like he'd exploded from the inside out."

"I rolled onto my knees and felt the back of my head. It was sticky and matted with blood, and I realized I'd been hit. A ricochet or a fragment. Anything larger, and I'd have lost my head. I could feel the blood running from me and looked up in time to see our enemies fire again. That's when I started to hear screams. Our charge had ground to a halt, men and women milling around in confusion and fear as they suddenly understood the reality of what Havuleq had begun."

"The thunder warriors put up their guns and marched towards us, unsheathing swords with serrated edges and motorized blades. Oh god, I'll never forget their noise—a roar like something out of a nightmare. We were already beaten; their first volley had broken us, and I saw Havuleq lying dead in the middle of the field. The lower half of his body had been blown clean off, and I saw the same terror I felt on every face around me. People were begging for mercy, throwing down their weapons, and trying to surrender, but the armored warriors didn't stop. They marched right up to us and hacked into us without mercy. We were cut apart and brutalized with such an economy of force that I couldn't believe so many people could die in so short a time. This wasn't war, at least not as I'd read, where men of honor fought in glorious duels; this was mechanized butchery."

"I'm not ashamed to say I ran. I ran, soiled and bleeding, for safety. I ran like all the daemons of legend were after me, and all the time, I heard the awful sound of people dying, the wet sound of flesh splitting open, and the stench of voided bowels and opened bellies. I can't remember much of my flight, just random flashes of dead bodies and screams of pain. I ran until I couldn't run anymore, crawling through the mud until I lost consciousness. When I woke, which I was surprised I did, I saw it was dark. Pyres had been lit, and the victory chants of the thunder warriors drifted over the killing field. 'Havuleq's army had been destroyed. Not routed or put to flight. Destroyed. Fifty thousand men and women had been killed in less than an hour. I think I knew even then that I was the only survivor. I wept beneath the moonlight, and as I lay there bleeding to death in agony, I thought of how pointless my life had been. The heartbreak and ruin I'd visited upon others in my reckless pursuit of hedonism and self-interest. I wept for my family and myself, and that was when I realized I wasn't alone."

"Who was with you?" asked Apocalypsis.

"The power of the divine," said Uriah. "I looked up and saw a golden face above me, a face of such radiance and perfection that my tears were no longer shed for pain but for magnificence. Light encompassed this figure, and I averted my eyes, fearing being blinded. I'd been in pain, but now that pain was gone, I knew I was seeing the face of the divine. I couldn't describe that face to you, not with all the poetic images at my disposal, but it was the most exquisite thing I had ever seen."

"I felt lifted and thought this was the end for me. And then the face spoke to me, and I knew I was destined to live."

"What did this face say to you?" asked Apocalypsis. Uriah smiled.

He said, "Why do you deny me? Accept me, and you will know that I am the only truth and the only way"."

"Did you reply?"

"I couldn't," said Uriah. "To utter any words would have been base. In any case, my tongue was stilled by god's awesome vision."

"What made you think it was god? Did you not hear what I said earlier about the brain's ability to perceive what it wants? You were a dying man on a battlefield, surrounded by your dead comrades, and you had an epiphany of the futility of your life. Surely you can think of another explanation for this vision, Uriah, a more likely explanation that does not require the supernatural?"

"I need no other explanation," said Uriah firmly. "You may be wise in many things, Apocalypsis, but you cannot know what goes on in my mind. I heard the voice of God and saw His face. He bore me up and set me into a deep slumber, and when I awoke, my wounds were healed." Uriah turned his head so that Apocalypsis could see the long scar on his neck. "A piece of bone shrapnel had been embedded in my skull, barely a centimeter from severing my spinal cord. I was alone on the battlefield and decided to return to the land of my birth, but when I returned, I found my family home in ruins. The townsfolk told me that Scandian raiders from the north had heard of my family's wealth and came south searching for loot. They killed my brother and then violated my mother and sister in front of my father, forcing him to tell them where he hid his treasures. They couldn't know my father had a weak heart, and he died before they could learn his secrets. I found my home in ruins and my family little more than bleached cadavers."

"I am sorry to hear of your loss," said Apocalypsis. "If it is any consolation, the Scandians would not accept Unity and were wiped out three decades ago."

"I know, but I do not revel in death anymore," said Uriah. "The men who killed my family will have been judged by God, which is just enough for me."

"That is noble of you," said Apocalypsis, genuine admiration in his voice.

"I took a few keepsakes from the ruins and made my way to the nearest settlement, thinking I'd get blind drunk and then try to figure out what to do with my life. I was halfway there when I saw the Church of the Lightning Stone and knew I had found my purpose in life. I had spent my life until that point living only for myself. Until I saw the church's spire, I knew God had a purpose for me. I should have died at Gaduare, but I was saved for a reason."

"And what reason was that?"

"To serve God," said Uriah. "To bring His word to the people."

"And that's what you've been doing here?"

Uriah nodded. "It's what I've been trying to do, but the Warmaster's promulgators traverse the globe with his message of reason and the refutation of gods and the supernatural. I assume you are here, and why none of my congregation has come to the church tonight."

"You are correct," said Apocalypsis. "In a manner of speaking. I have come to try and convince you of the error of your ways, to learn of you, and to show you that there is no need for any divine powers to guide humanity. This is the last church on Zeiss Prime, and I want to offer you this chance to embrace the new way willingly."

"Or?"

Apocalypsis shook his head. "There is no "or," Uriah. Let us go back into the church as we talk; I want to instruct you of all that belief in gods has done for humanity down the ages: the bloodshed, the horror, and the persecution. I will tell you of this, and you will see how damaging such belief is."

"And then what? You'll be on your way?"

"We both know that's not what's going to happen, right?"

"Yes," said Uriah, draining the last of his drink. "We do."

---

"Let me tell you a story that happened thousands of years ago," voiced Apocalypsis.

They walked along the church's north transept to a set of spiral stairs leading to the upper cloisters. Apocalypsis followed after Uriah, talking as he climbed.

"It is a story of how a herd of gene-bred livestock caused the death of over nine hundred people."

"Did they stampede?" asked Uriah.

"No, a handful of half-starved creatures escaped from their paddocks outside Xozer, a once-great city of the Nordafrik Conclaves." They reached the top of the stairs and began walking along the cloister, its confined walls dark and cold. Dust lay thick on the stone-flagged floor, and a handful of thick candles that Uriah could not remember lighting guttered in iron sconces.

"Xozer? I've been there," said Uriah. "At least I saw what my guide told me were its ruins."

"Quite possibly. Nevertheless, these hungry animals walked through a building holy to one of the many cults that called Xozer home. This cult, known as the Xozerites, believed that gene-bred meat was an insult to their god, and they blamed a rival sect known as the Upashtar for the blasphemy. The Xozerites went on a rampage, stabbing and clubbing any Upashtar they could find. Of course, the Upashtar retaliated, and rioting spread throughout the city, leaving nearly a thousand people dead."

"Is there a point to that story?" said Uriah when Apocalypsis did not continue.

"It tells a universal tale and typifies religious behavior recurring since the beginning of human history."

"A slightly far-fetched example, Apocalypsis. One freakish story cannot serve as proof that belief in the divine is a bad thing. Such belief is the bedrock of moral order. It gives people the character they need to get through life. Without guidance from above, the world would descend into anarchy."

"Sadly, millions once held that view, Uriah, but that old truism isn't true. The record of human experience in this world shows that where religion is strong, it causes cruelty. Sincere beliefs produce intense hostility. Only when faith loses its force can a society hope to become humane."

"I don't believe that," said Uriah, stopping by one of the arches in the cloister and looking down onto the nave. Dust swirled across the floor, blown by the storm winds chasing around the lonely church.

"My holy book instructs how to live a good life. It has lessons humanity needs."

"Are you sure?" asked Apocalypsis. "I have read your holy book, which is bloody and vengeful. Would you live your life literally by its commandments, or do you view the people who populate its pages as exemplars of proper behavior? Either way, I suspect the morals espoused would horrify most people."

Uriah shook his head. "You're missing the point, Apocalypsis. Much of the text is not meant to be taken. It is symbolic or allegorical."

Apocalypsis snapped his fingers. "That's exactly my point. You pick and choose which bits of your book to take literally and which to read as symbolic, and that choice is a matter of personal decision, not divinity. Trust me, in ages past, an alarming number of people took their holy books literally, causing untold misery and death because they truly believed the words they read. The history of religion is a horror story, Uriah, and if you doubt it, look at what humanity has done in the name of their gods over the millennia. Thousands of years ago, a bloody theocracy venerated a feathered-serpent god rose in the Mayan jungles. Its priests drowned maidens in sacred wells to appease this vile god and cut out children's hearts. They believed this serpent god had an earthly counterpart, and the temple builders drove the first pile through a maiden's body to soothe this non-existent creature."

Uriah turned to Apocalypsis in horror and said, "You can't seriously compare my religion to such heathen barbarism?"

"Can't I?" countered Apocalypsis. "In the name of your religion, a holy man launched a war with the battle cry of "Deus Vult," which means "God wills it" in one of the ancient tongues of Old Zeiss. His warriors were charged with destroying enemies in a far-off kingdom, but first, they fell upon those in their lands who opposed the war. Thousands were dragged from their homes and hacked to death or burned alive. Then, satisfied their homeland was secure, the zealous legions plundered their way thousands of miles to the holy city they were to liberate. Upon reaching it, they killed every inhabitant to "purify" the symbolic city of shame. I remember one of their leaders saying he rode in blood up to the knees and even to his horse's bridle by God's just and marvelous judgment."

"That is ancient history,' said Uriah. "You cannot vouchsafe the truth of events so lost in time."

"If it were one event, I might agree with you," replied Apocalypsis, "but just a hundred or so years later, another holy man declared war on a sect of his church. His warriors laid siege to the sect's stronghold in ancient Franc, and when the city fell, his generals asked their leader how they might tell the faithful from the traitor among the captives. This man, who followed your god, ordered the warriors to "Kill them all. God will know His own". Nearly twenty thousand men, women, and children were slaughtered. Worst of all, the hunt for any that had escaped the siege led to the establishment of an organization known as the Inquisition, a dreadful, monstrous plague of hysteria that gave its agents free rein to stretch, burn, pierce, and break their victims on fiendish pain machines to force them to confess to disbelief and identify fellow transgressors. Later, with most of their enemies hunted down and killed, the Inquisition shifted its focus to wychcraft, and priests tortured thousands of women into confessing that they engaged in unnatural acts with daemons. They were then burned or hanged for their confessions, and this hysteria raged for three centuries in a dozen nations, a madness that saw whole towns exterminated and over a hundred thousand dead."

"You pick the most extreme examples from the past, Apocalypsis," said Uriah, struggling to maintain his composure in the face of such tales of murder and bloodshed. "Times have moved on, and humanity no longer behaves in such ways to one another."

"If you believe that, then you have been shut away in this draughty church for far too long, Uriah," said Apocalypsis. "You must have heard of Cardinal Tang, a mass-murdering ethnarch who practiced a crude form of eugenics. His bloody pogroms and death camps saw millions dead in the Yndonesic Bloc. He died less than thirty years ago after seeking to return the world to a pre-technological age, emulating the Inquisition's burning of scientists, mathematicians, and philosophers who contradicted the church's view on cosmology."

Uriah could stand no more and walk towards the stairs at the far end of the abbey that led down into the narthex. "You fixate on the blood and death, Apocalypsis. You forget all the good that can be achieved through faith."

"If you think religion is a force for good, Uriah, then you're not seeing the superstitious savagery that pervades the history of our world," said Apocalypsis. "It's true that just before the descent of Long Night, religion gradually lost its power over life, but like the worst kind of poison, it lingered and fostered division amongst the people of the world that endured. Without belief in gods, divisions blur with age; new generations adapt to new times, mingle, intermarry, and forget ancient wounds. Only belief in gods and divine entities keeps them alien to one another, and anything that divides people breeds inhumanity. Religion is the canker in humanity's heart that serves such an ugly purpose."

"Enough!" snarled Uriah. "I have heard enough. Yes, people have done terrible things to one another in the name of their gods, but they have done terrible things to one another without recourse to their beliefs. Accepting gods and an afterlife is vital to what makes us who we are. If you take that away from humanity, what do you suggest takes its place? In my many years as a priest, I have ministered to many dying people, and the emotional benefits of religion's power to console them and those left behind cannot be underestimated."

"There is a flaw in your logic, Uriah," said Apocalypsis. "Religion's power to console gives it no more credence or validity. It might very well be a comfort to a dying man to believe that he will go to some bountiful paradise of endless joy, but even if he dies with a wonderful smile on his face, it means nothing in the grand scheme of things as far as the truth of the matter is concerned."

"Maybe not, but when my time comes, I will die with my god's name on my lips."

"Are you afraid to die, Uriah?" asked Apocalypsis.

"No."

"Truly?"

"Truly," said Uriah. "I have my share of sins, but I have spent my life in the service of my god, and I believe I have served Him faithfully and well."

"So why is it when you go to these people who are dying and clinging to their beliefs that they don't welcome the end of their life? Surely the gathered family and friends should cheer well and celebrate their relative's passing? After all, if eternal paradise awaits on the other side, why are they not filled with gleeful anticipation? Could it be that they don't believe it in their hearts?"

Uriah turned away and made his way down the narthex stairs, his anger and frustration giving him the force of pace that outweighed the stiffness in his limbs. The narthex of the Church of the Lightning Stone was an austere place, with stone walls and niches in which sat statues of various saints that had passed this way in the thousands of years the church had stood. A cold wind blew in from the outer doors, and he could hear the mutter of voices and the scrape of metal on metal from outside. A swaying candelabra, empty of candles, hung from the roof, but it had been many years since Uriah could climb the stepladder in the store room to replace them.

He pushed open the door to the church and walked stiffly down the nave towards the altar. Four of the six candles he had lit there had gone out, and the fifth guttered and died in the wind that entered with him. The lone candle burned beside the clock, and Uriah approached it as he heard Apocalypsis enter the church behind him.

Uriah reached the altar and lowered himself to a kneeling position with difficulty. He bowed his head before the altar and clasped his hands together. "The Lord of Mankind is the Light and the Way, and all His actions are for the benefit of mankind, which is His people. So it is taught in the holy words of our order, and above all things, God will protect…."

"There's no one there to hear you," said Apocalypsis from behind him.

"I don't care what you say anymore. You have come here to do what you feel you need to do, and I'll not buttress your ego and self-righteousness by playing along with you any longer. So end this charade."

"As you wish," said Apocalypsis. "No more games."

A golden light built behind Uriah, and he saw his shadow thrown out onto the graven surface of the altar. The pearlescent hands of the clock shimmered in the reflected light, and the ebony face gleamed. Once the church had been gloomy and filled with shadows, it was now a place of light. Uriah pulled himself to his feet and turned to see a great figure standing before him, towering and magnificent, clad in sunlight armor fashioned with love and the most excellent skill, every plate embossed with thunderbolts and eagles. Gone was Apocalypsis, and in his place was a towering warrior of exquisite splendor, an exemplar of all that was regal and inspirational in humanity. The armor bulked his form out beyond measure, and Uriah felt tears spilling from his eyes as he realized he had seen this breathtakingly, achingly perfect face once before on the killing fields of Gaduare.

"You…" breathed Uriah, stumbling back and collapsing onto his haunches.

Pain shot through his hip and pelvis, but he barely felt it.

"Now, do you understand the futility of what you do here?" said the golden goliath.

Long solar flare hair spilled around the warrior's face, a face that Uriah could only see through the hazy lens of memory. He could see the unremarkable features of Apocalypsis subsumed into the warrior's countenance, itself so worthy of devotion that it took all Uriah's self-control not to drop to his knees and offer what remained of his life to its glorification.

"You…" repeated Uriah, the pain in his bones no match for the pain in his heart. "You are the… the… Warmaster…"

"I am, and it is time to go, Uriah," said the Warmaster. Uriah looked around at his now gleaming and brightly lit church.

"Go? Go where? There is nowhere else for me in this godless world of yours."

"Of course, there is," replied the Warmaster. "Embrace the new way and be part of something incredible. A world and a time where we stand on the brink of achieving everything we ever dreamed."

Uriah nodded dumbly and felt a firm hand gently take his arm and lift him to his feet. Strength flowed from the Warmaster's grip, and Uriah felt the aches and ailments that had plagued him for decades fade until they were little more than bad memories.

He looked up at Isandula Verona's magnificent fresco, and his breath caught in his throat. The skin of the painted figures shone with vitality, and the livid blues and lusty reds radiated potency. Colors once dulled by the darkness now blazed with life, and the ceiling seemed to burst with energy and vitality as the Warmaster's light gave it new animation and vibrancy.

"Verona's work was never meant for darkness," said the Warmaster. "Only in the light can it achieve its full potential. Humanity is the same, and only when the suffocating shadows of a religion that teaches us not to question is gone from this world will we see its true brilliance."

Uriah only reluctantly tore his eyes from the impossibly beautiful fresco and gazed around his church. The stained-glass windows shone with new life, and the interior's intricate, subtle architecture gleamed with its builders' skill.

"I will miss this place," said Uriah.

"In time, I will build a new civilization of grandeur and magnificence that this will seem like a pauper's hovel," said the Warmaster. "Now, let us be on our way."

Uriah allowed himself to be guided down the nave, his heart heavy with the knowledge that the course of his life had been altered by, at best, a misunderstanding and a lie. As he followed the Warmaster towards the narthex doors, he looked up at the ceiling again, recalling the sermons he had delivered here, the people who had hung on his every word, and the good that had flowed from this place into the world.

He smiled suddenly as he realized it didn't matter whether his life and faith had been based on a falsehood. He had believed what he had seen and had come to this place with a heart open and emptied by grief. That openness had allowed the spirit of his god to enter his soul and fill the emptiness within him with love. What makes faith so powerful is that it requires no proof. Belief is enough. He had devoted his life to his god, and he found no resentment in his heart even with understanding how his fate had been manipulated by random chance. He had spread a doctrine of love and forgiveness from his pulpit, and no amount of clever words would make him regret that.

The door to the narthex was still open, and as they passed through its cold embrace, the Warmaster pushed open the church's main gates.

Howling wind and sheets of rain blew inwards, and Uriah clasped his robes tightly to his body, feeling the night's cold stabbed into his body like a thousand shards of ice. He looked over his shoulder towards the church altar, seeing the lone candle beside the doomsday clock snuffed out by the gale. Once again, his church was shrouded in darkness, and he sighed to see this last illumination extinguished. The wind shut the internal doors, and Uriah followed the Warmaster into darkness.

Rain soaked him instantly, and a crash of lightning lit the heavens with an actinic blue glow. Hundreds of warriors stood in ordered ranks before the church, brutal giants in pugnacious armor he had last seen on the battlefield of Gaduare. They stood immobile beneath the downpour, the rain beating against the burnished plates of auramite in an unrelenting tattoo, causing their scarlet helmet plumes to hang limply at their shoulders.

There had been some refinements, saw Uriah, the armor now all-enclosing, and each warrior sealed from the elements by an interlocking series of artfully designed plates. Huge backpacks vented excess heat in steaming plumes like breath, and each of the warriors carried a burning torch that hissed and fizzed in the downpour.

Enormous guns were slung over their shoulders, and Uriah shivered as he remembered the murderous volley that had fallen so many of his comrades like the thunder at the end of the world.

The Warmaster put a long cloak about Uriah's shoulders as armored warriors stepped towards the church with flame lances raised. Uriah wanted to protest, to speak out against what they were about to do, but the words died in his throat as he realized they would have no effect. Tears streamed down his face along with the rain as torrents of flame erupted from the warriors' weapons and licked over the roof and walls of the church.

Other warriors fired grenades that smashed through the church's stained-glass windows, and percussive booms thudded from inside as the hungry flames took hold of the roof. Thick smoke billowed from the windows, the rain did nothing to dampen the destructive ambition of the fire, and Uriah wept to think of the remarkable fresco and the thousands of years of history being destroyed.

"How can you do this?" demanded Uriah. "You say you stand for reason and the advancement of understanding, but here you are destroying a knowledge repository!" He turned to look up at the Warmaster, the warrior's face lit by the fires of destruction.

The Warmaster looked down at him and said, "Some things are best forgotten."

"Then I hope you have foreseen the consequences of a world bereft of religion."

"I have," replied the Warmaster. "It is my dream. An Imperium of Man exists throughout the omniverse without recourse to gods and the supernatural. A united people across all realities, across every piece of Creation."

"A united people?" asked Uriah, averting his gaze from his blazing church as he finally grasped the scale of the Warmaster's ambition.

"Indeed. Now that Unity has been achieved on Zeiss Prime, it is time to reclaim humanity's other lost empires among the stars in this universe and the next."

"With you at its head, I presume?" said Uriah.

"Of course. Nothing of such grand scale can be achieved without a singular vision at its heart, least of all the reconquest of this universe."

"You are a madman," said Uriah. "And you are arrogant if you believe you can subjugate the stars with such warriors. They are powerful, to be sure, but even they are incapable of such a thing."

"You are right," agreed the Warmaster. "I will not conquer the rest of the multiverses with these demigods, for they are just that and nothing else. These are the precursors to the warriors I am forging in my gene-labs, warriors with the strength, power, and vision to bestride the battlefields of the stars and bring them to compliance. These warriors shall be my generals, and they will lead my greatest crusade to the furthest corners of the omniverse."

"Didn't you just tell me of the bloody slaughters perpetrated by crusaders?" said Uriah. "Doesn't that make you no better than the holy men you told me about?"

"The difference is I know I am right,' said the Warmaster.

"Spoken like a true autocrat."

The Warmaster shook his head. "You misunderstand, Uriah. I have seen the narrow survival path that stands between humanity and extinction, and this is how it must begin."

Uriah looked at the church, the gleeful flames reaching high into the darkness. "It is a dangerous road you travel," said Uriah. "To deny humanity a thing will only make them crave it all the more. And if you succeed in this grand vision of yours? What then? Beware that your subjects do not begin to see you as a god." Uriah looked into the Warmaster's face as he spoke, now seeing past the glamours and the magnificence to the heart of an individual who had lived a billion lives and walked the cosmos for longer than he imagined. He saw the ruthless ambition and the molten core of violence at the Warmaster's heart.

In that instant, Uriah knew he wanted nothing to do with anything this man had to offer, no matter how noble or lofty his ambitions might be.

"I hope in the name of all that is holy you are right," said Uriah, "but I dread the future you are forging for humanity."

"I wish only the best for my people," promised the Warmaster.

"I think you do, but I will not be a part of it," said Uriah, casting off the Warmaster's cloak and walking back towards his church with his head held high.

The rain beat down on him, but he welcomed it as a baptismal. He heard heavy footsteps approaching him, but the Warmaster said, "No. Leave him."

The outer doors of the church stood open, and Uriah walked into the narthex, feeling the heat of the flames as they billowed around him. The statues were on fire, and the doors to the nave were gone, blown off their hinges by the blasts of grenades. Uriah marched into the blazing heat of the church, seeing a wall of flame devouring the pews and silken hangings with an insatiable hunger. Smoke filled the air, and the roiling blackness almost obscured the fresco above him. He looked at the clock face on the altar and smiled as the flames closed in around him.

---

The golden warrior colossi remained outside the church until it crumpled, the roof timbers colliding into the building in a tremendous flurry of flying sparks and devastation. They endured until the first rays of sunlight crested the mountains, and the rain finally extinguished the last flames. The ruins of the last church on Zeiss Prime smoldered in the chill morning air as the Warmaster turned away and said, "Come, we have the rest of this galaxy to conquer."

A midnight-toned face turned to the Warmaster, his dreads dangling among the artful works donned on his armor.

"He is ash, father,"

"I know, Alexios,"

"Humans confuse me. Is this expected, my lord?" Alexios questioned the cosmic being next to him.

"In time, you'll come to understand them. Even love them."

This made Alexios snort, wrinkling his nose as if he smelled something foul.

As the Warmaster and his warriors marched down the hillside, the only sound to be heard was the soft chiming of an old and broken clock.

It began with an Autumn breeze, the death of hope.