The dim yellow light of day spilled through the famous crystal dome of the Temple of the Water God.
The dome, supported by marble columns, was exquisitely engineered.
Sunlight, passing through it, became dappled and shimmering.
Walking within, Klein felt as though he moved beneath the water.
This dome had been built around an ancient natural spring, revered as a sacred water deity long before the Lord of War had ruled Macragge as its true sovereign.
And now, the Temple District, where priests of Macragge and even the gods of Ultramar served, fanned out in a radial pattern centered around this Temple of the Water God.
Klein skirted the pool formed by the spring, denarii silver coins clinking in his pocket.
Lucretius had given him thirty-five denarii silver coins.
This was not a loan.
According to Lucretius, it was an advance on Klein’s salary.
As the work required to earn this salary, Klein would later have to help him translate newly unearthed cuneiform clay tablets from the vicinity of Odin City.
Stepping out of the Temple of the Water God, Klein’s field of vision suddenly broadened.
The mountain contours spread like a longbow drawn taut.
Temples built from stacks of gray-white stone unfolded along the curved ridge, their spires and domes dyed gold by the setting sun suspended among the distant peaks, like burning candle flames one by one, making the entire Temple District a candelabrum offering sacrifice to the gods.
The surrounding environment, too, seemed cowed by the authority of the gods, growing tranquil.
The common calls of Macragge’s mountain birds and the clamorous cries of hawkers from the streets and alleys vanished completely here.
Klein could only hear prayers coalescing into a chant, drifting softly from those temples along with the scent of incense, lingering all around.
He sensed it…
reality here felt thinner than in other parts of Macragge.
The veil between the Warp and the Materium was easier to breach.
Temples, churches, sacrificial sites, these were places closer to the Immaterium.
Places where matter began to ebb and spirit began to rise.
The boundary between reality and the Warp.
Here, Klein could more easily cross into the “Warp” and truly awaken the psychic power of this body.
However, even within the Temple District, the thickness of Macragge’s veil was still noticeably greater than elsewhere.
For Klein to cross into the Warp, he would likely need to find an even more critical location, along with other means of assistance.
Klein’s gaze swept over the temples.
At the highest point, in the central position, naturally stood Macragge’s Temple of the Lord of War.
The target of this war was the barbarian nation called Illyrium, located in the Far North of Macragge, also known to the people of Macragge as the Bandit Kingdom.
There, a multitude of splintered barbarian tribes lived.
Since ages long past, Illyrium and Macragge City had been locked in an unending war, like a pair of diametrically opposed twins on a single planet.
Illyrium, savage; Macragge, ordered.
Illyrium, impoverished; Macragge, prosperous.
Illyrium, insane; Macragge, rational.
Illyrium, divided; Macragge, unified.
Their wars, it seemed, had become an eternal theme in Macragge’s history.
Illyrium had several times drawn near, even breached Macragge City, the most recent being only a few decades ago.
Macragge City’s armies had likewise razed Illyrium flat several times, the most recent also just a few decades ago, the war Konor led.
But Macragge City had never truly destroyed the barbarians of Illyrium.
The barbarians of Illyrium were like a kind of tide, often receding, but always surging back again.
They could be routed, defeated, driven back, but afterward they would hide among the mountain caves of the Far North, hide within temples known only to them, and strike again the moment an opportunity came.
They could only be defeated, never annihilated.
The people of Macragge often whispered this.
But one could not exactly blame Macragge City for lacking martial virtue.
After all, even the Primarch Lion El’Jonson could not tame Illyrium.
During the Imperium Secundus era, that Lion, in order to eliminate Konrad Curze who hid there, even attempted to directly orbitally bombard Illyrium, to deliver an Exterminatus upon it.
Only Guilliman opposed the orbital bombardment, so the Lion switched to saturation bombing by gunships within orbit, burning Illyrium into a wasteland and killing two-thirds of its population in a single stroke.
Yet even so, Illyrium did not yield, still in rebellion even by the forty-first millennium.
It was exactly like a villain in a children’s program who, no matter how much damage they take, fully resurrects with full health in the very next episode.
Klein’s gaze shifted away from the Temple of the Lord of War.
He now increasingly suspected that the Temple of the Lord of War might have a touch of Khorne, and that Illyrium might have a touch of Khorne as well.
Illyrium and Macragge City could very well be Khorne’s left hand striking his right, farming war KPIs on the spot.
Then came the Temples of the Talassa Gods, the Temple of the Broken Beacon, the Temple of the Cleansing Gardens of Laks…
and the Temple of Simonetta.
That slender, elongated temple consecrated to the Goddess of Beauty, Simonetta, lay exposed in Klein’s field of vision.
The entire temple seemed the product of an architect venting genius in defiance of physical laws: gossamer-thin bracket sets, towers like sharp spikes, vast quantities of maddening filigree and stained glass.
The whole temple exuded a perilous beauty.
“Goddess of Beauty.” Klein savored the words twice over.
If he had the Inquisitorial Rosette in hand, he would summon a starship into orbit above the Temple District right now and burn this Temple of Simonetta to glass with a single lance, leaving not even dregs behind.
He had lost count of how many days he’d been missing Inquisitor Greyfax.
He did not walk toward the Temple of Simonetta, but toward the deeper recesses of the Temple District.
The gods enshrined in the Temple District were beyond numbering.
Those in the prime spots behind the Temple of the Water God were all gods who held power and status in Macragge, gods well-served by their priests.
The more unpopular and un-priested a god, the deeper their temple tended to be in the Temple District, for deeper in, the land prices were cheaper.
It was exactly as old Lucretius had said: in Macragge, the most powerful witchcraft was called the denarii, and the most powerful god was also the denarii.
Klein panted heavily as the mountain path climbed until his heart raced.
Only then did he reach the temple he was seeking, or rather, the church.
It was a church of no great size, perhaps only as large as a five-story apartment building.
Yet anyone who saw it could tell at a glance that this church was ancient.
It was nearly entirely built of rough-hewn stones, thickly covered in dark moss.
The ground and walls seemed almost fused into one.
The overall architectural style still retained that of Macragge’s Old Night era.
Klein lifted his head slightly.
Upon the church’s great door stood a cross carved from stone.
This was a Catholic church, the place where Professor Lucretius’s “priest” friend in the Temple District served.
Klein stepped inside, and the instant he entered, his gaze was captured by the mosaic upon the wall straight ahead.
The mosaic was severely faded, the gemstones that once formed the figures’ eyes long since vanished.
Yet it was still clearly a masterwork.
The tiles, in their mottled hues, seemed like flowing liquid under the dim orange light, weaving into agile forms, robust human bodies, and the annihilation of stars…
Especially the two protagonists of the mosaic painting.
Merely looking at them sent tremors through the soul.
There was the Silver Dragon, coiling above the desert, starlight held in its eyes, the fire of creation roiling in its jaws.
And the Silver Dragon’s adversary, the Golden Knight astride a black steed darker than night, a lance of pure silver in hand.
“Ah!
Sir, you truly came?”
(Translated by yourtl.app)