Day and night I worked, eschewing all human contact and turning away many wealthy patrons in the process. The brilliance of the gauntlet drove my passion and skill to new heights of invention and within the month I had created a wonder, a golden reliquary of such exquisite detail, delicate filigree and precious gems that it might have sat next to any ancient repository for the bones of one regarded as a saint, and not looked out of place.
Though the Emperor had forbidden the worship of false gods and unclean spirits, I had a number of old, mildewed books rescued from the ruins of a toppled fane by a friend in the Conservatory who knew of my interest in such things. Though their talk of gods and spirits and magic was clearly nonsense and lurid hyperbole, the artwork and symbolism inspired by such belief was extraordinary. Swirling lines, interconnecting weaves and spirals of such breathtaking complexity and perfect geometries that I could stare for hours at their beguiling patterns without losing interest.
In those books I found the perfect inspiration, and the finished piece was a thing of beauty.
The Lord General wept when he saw it, and I knew from our many meetings that he was not a man given to expressing his emotions. He embraced me and paid me twice the cost of the commission, and it took all my self-control not to hand the money back. Simply being allowed to work on such a piece was payment enough.
Word of the reliquary spread, and my talents became more in demand than ever, but nothing ever moved me to such creative heights as had my work on the reliquary. Even so, my work was astonishing, and it was not long before it came to the attention of those who were shaping the future of this world and those beyond the star-sprayed heavens. On a wintry day, as I worked upon an onyx pommel stone wound in a globe of silver, the course of my life was changed forever.
A man, noble in bearing but unassuming in mien, entered my workshop in the foothills of the Sahyadri Mountains and politely awaited my attention. He spoke with a cultured voice in an accent I could not place, and told me that I was being offered a place within an unofficial artel he wished to establish. I smiled at his use of the old word, for none here now used it – too redolent of a long-dead tyrant. When I enquired who would form this artel, the man spoke of craftsmen, poets, dramatists and historians, men and women who would travel the stars with one of the Emperor’s crusade fleets and bear witness to the greatest endeavour our species had ever known.
We were to show that such an organisation was necessary, to add weight to the growing chorus of voices urging a more formal and authoritative celebration of mankind’s reunification. We would show what such an organisation could achieve. Our task would be no less vital than that of the warriors of the Expedition Fleet!
He saw my amusement, and smiled as I declined his offer. I was happy on Terra, and had no wish to venture into the unknown reaches of space. Pulling back his hood, he allowed long white hair to spill around his shoulders and told me that the very highest authority had requested my cooperation. I wanted to laugh in his face, but dared not as I saw a depth of understanding and a world of memory in his eyes. This man, this ordinary man with the weight of the world in his eyes, simply placed a cream envelope upon my workbench and told me to think carefully before I refused this offer.
He left without another word, leaving me alone with the envelope. It was many hours before I dared lift it, turning it over in my long fingers as though I might understand what lay within without opening it. To open it would indicate a tacit acceptance of his offer, and I had no wish to leave the comfort of my workshop. The flap was sealed with a blob of crimson wax, and my heart skipped a beat as I recognised the crossed lightning bolts and double-headed eagle.
But, as are all men of a creative bent, I was cursed with insatiable curiosity. I eventually opened the envelope, as my visitor had known I would, and read its contents. Though worded as a request, the words were so eloquent, so passionate and so full of hope and power that I immediately knew who had written them. The stranger, whose identity I now knew, had not lied when he had told me the importance of the individual who requested my presence.
Within the day I had packed my meagre possessions and was on my way north to the mountains of the Himalazia to join the rest of my hastily assembled companions. I will not attempt to describe the immense majesty of the Palace, for words alone can do it no justice. It is landmass rendered in geological architecture, a wonder of the world that will never be surpassed. The artisan guilds strove to outdo one another in their efforts to glorify the Emperor’s deeds, creating a monument worthy of the only being who could ever bear such a honorific without need of a true name.
Those early days are a blur to me now, though that may be because my brain is beginning to die from lack of oxygen. Suffice to say, I was soon travelling into the darkness of space, where shoal after shoal of starships thronged the heavens and greedily sucked fuel and supplies from the enormous continental plates locked in geostationary orbit.
At last I saw the vessel that would be my home for nearly two hundred years, a leviathan that shone in the reflected glow of the moon. It gleamed whitely as it spun gracefully to receive the flotilla of cutters and shuttles rising from the planet below. This was the Vengeful Spirit, flagship of Horus Lupercal and his Luna Wolves.
I quickly established myself on board, and though my possessions were meagre, my wealth was substantial, and my vanity only scarcely less so. All of which allowed me to extend my span and retain the appearance of youth with superlative juvenat treatments.
As I lie here on the floor of my workshop in the artisan decks of the Vengeful Spirit, I wish I had not bothered. What difference do a few less lines around the eyes and smoother skin make when every breath might be the last and a pleasing bliss enters my mind as portions of my brain begin to fade out?
I prospered on the flagship of the 63rd Expedition, creating many fine works and obtaining many commissions for embellished scabbards, honour markings, oaths of moment and the like. I made friends among the rest of my fellow remembrancers (as we came to be known after Ullanor): some good, some ill-chosen, but all interesting enough to make my time aboard ship extremely pleasurable. One fellow, Ignace Karkasy, wrote such hilariously irreverent poetry concerning the Astartes that I fear he may one day wear out his welcome.
The work of the Expeditionary fleet continued, and though many worlds were made compliant by the work of warriors and iterators, I saw little of them save in the words and images of my fellows. I created a lapis lazuli recreation of the world map found in the depths of one uninhabited planet, and embossed many helmets with icons of fallen brothers after the war on Keylek.
Yet my greatest commission was to come in the wake of the Ullanor campaign.
From the accounts of those who had fought on that muddy, flame-lit world, it was a grand war, a towering victory that could have been won by no other warrior than Horus Lupercal. Ullanor marked a turning point in the crusade, and many were the war-leaders who came to my workshop, looking to celebrate their presence on that historic battlefield with an ornamented sword or cane.
The Emperor was returning to Terra, and a great Triumph was held in the ruins of the greenskin world to forever stamp that moment on the malleable alloy of history.
In the Emperor’s absence, Horus Lupercal would lead the final stages of the crusade, and such a weighty duty required an equally weighty title.