Marmon sat in his little chair, worn and weathered by his and his ancestors buttocks, and watched a meter. Before him, as always, was one of the Great Machines; vast metalworks filled with intertwining, weaving wires that carried various electrical currents about the sprawling countrysides and, as he had been told, one day the entire of the world. He could not understand such a might of human scientific achievement, yet he marveled at the grace and power of the Great Race whenever he sat in its presence. The machine was measuring and data-reading and working in such things Marmon knew not of; but he could read its meter, which jumped and bounced with a randomness that rivaled true Goodly Beauty, the creed of all people, and thanks to a piece of tape one of the Eldar Men had placed on the glass cover of the meter, Marmon was aware of when the level of some sort of gas pressure was getting to high, and to then turn the dial which, according to what he had been taught, was the right thing to do at that moment.
Then the pressure would subside and the meter would drop down once more to an, as the High priest Markmar had called it, "acceptable life sustaining level." The Priests would walk among the others like Marmon, and yes there were many in his caste who like him turned their own dials and pressed buttons and looked forever through camera lenses waiting to see something, and they would press a firm hand upon his or her back, and with a gentle and fatherly voice say "you have done a Good. The Mighty thank you for your life," or something such. But those words filled him, and as he suspected the others as well, with a great pride of fulfillment. Marmon was doing Good. He turned the dial and it was Good; and for that was all he cared.
The work was hard, arduous on the spine and neck, and he was compensated little in the way of currency, just enough to survive. But the Eldars had shown themselves to be a gregarious leadership, bestowing upon this Grand Society all proffers they would muster, and without them and their protectorate, Marmon and his kind would be wiped out. For outside the walled enclosure of the city lived a great and terrible plague upon the land that had transformed it into a wasteland of death. Upon this shivering land there grew a mutant race of Ork men, burned and mutilated by the disease that is the wild nature, dripping greenish black skin like the hide of a serpent, boiled eyes, molted, matted fur on their necks and backs, savage of mind and empty of empathy. Their black and stone like eyes, red as dying coals in a night fire, watched from the tree line of a dark and impassible forest, waiting for a time to strike at the neck. Marmon himself had never seen one for his own eyes, but the Eldars had many books of which they were described in great detail. Though Marmon was not able to read them himself, a noble and living Priest name Peter MacMullian had read him many of the books in the Science library aloud (as a form of penance for sodomizing a neighbors slave girl) and when Peter had left for the month to visit the Holy Temple at the center of the city, of which Marmon's people were not allowed entry, he would sit by a candle in his break time and look at the fantastic, gilded paintings. There were wars and heroes and men like him, and though he knew not the words, he felt that he could understand the stories from the pictures alone. He also knew this was a technical sin, what the high father would all "anomaly," so he kept the understanding to himself and turned his dial with the happiness of knowing he was doing Good and would one day ascend to lower heaven with the rest of the Good of his caste.
At the end of his work week, the tri weekly holy day of Markov, there was a revival. It was the only time Marmon and his people could enter the foyer of the Temple and engage in the daily cleansing ceremony of the Eldar. Only the Good were allowed to join the revival, signified with a badge an armband bestowed by Eldars for Good service, and they flowed in the gates at sundown making makeshift camps and shuffling into the foyer like cattle to attend to the three day service. A little big after the sun descended into darkness and the great torch fires were lit, The Emperor Pope and the high cardinals made their appearance on the stone balustrade and delivered to the people the first of many cleansing prayers. When Emperor Pope Markilov strode from behind a silver and velvet tableau to greet the many, a roar came up from the crowd.
"Deus Voft!" they shouted. "God Wills It."
Then the Speaker of Cardinals stepped to the ancient pulpit and ushered a silence over the crowd with his great pearly white hands, open to the people like he was encompassing them all. The crowd hushed to a silence, albeit a mild tremor of excitement that ran through each of them as they awaited the word of the Emporer. After a moment of silent genuflection, the Speaker spoke, his voice powerful and trembling with the dramatic prose; a perfect man for his job. The words, from the mind of the Emporer himself (for common men could not hear him speak due to his divine position,) washed over each and every of the many, and Marmon could feel the wights and weights of evil being lifted from his soul. The speaker began with an earthly blessing to mark the start of Festivities, delivered in the ancient tongue, and began his oration. He spoke of the many sins of the world, applauding those brave people's who were here in attendance; those people who were the Good, who embodied the Good. He blessed them with many thanks and praises, and delivered a prayer to the living god that was the river and the trees to protect these Good and noble people and to bring them good fortune and prosperity.
"Deus Voft!" they cried in respect and admiration. God wills it.
Then the tenor of his voice turned, and he slunk over and transformed from the high standing, block shouldered lover of all men, to a more menacing and aggressive demeanor. He was going to talk about Them; the unGood. The people who chose to reject the Eldars and their gifts, instead living a life fraught with sin and malice and evil deeds. Marmon hated them who deceived and lied and spun tales of disrepute about the Eldars, and he felt the anger boiling up within him as the Speaker erupted into his gushing torrent like a bull on a straight charge; firey and diabolical he stood like a hooded judge with all the fury of Lucifer, spit coiling and flying from his lips as he systematically shredded all their so called "beliefs" and "rights." A murmur began to rise in the crowd, men began to hoot and cheer out slurs and words of vengeance and annihilation, calling for the unGood to be murdered and burned out an destroyed. The sermon of brimstone smoke continued; and the Speaker now seemed to grow to a unusual hight and power, high above on the pulpit like some old world demon, casting down Divine Imperial Judgement upon the unGood. Marmon let his voice join the chorus as they hooted and hollered and called the mountain down on into the silky black of deepest night. When the Speaker had finished the crowd took up a chant and from the balustrade was brought forth an enormous wooden figure of Saint Marko the Pious and Clean, crowned with the thorns of a burberry bush of some significance, and held it upright for all the crowd to behold. The chant rained down through the cheers of elation; "Deus Voft! Deus Voft! Deus Voft!" and the figure was cast in effigy upon a massive pyre to be burnt and purified and reborn again. Then came a feast and much dancing and drinking of wine and prayer to the Eldar; on into the very first rays of the light, when the haggard and sleepless masses would climb Century Hill, led by the People's Cardinal Patrick Dorrough, and under the rising sun made their prayers to The One Eldar, father of all Homo Superior, who had was yet still the only man Emperor to have ascended into the plains of heaven before his death. He was the immortal sun that gives us all life. Another feast followed, and then another as the second day went on. Marmon made his bed under an apple tree on that night, and slept to dreams of unGood prowlers seeking to destroy all that was Good and holy. Orks and Hobgoblins and Ogre folk racing down the unfruited plains outside the city, hack knives in their teeth, human skin tied to their bodies as clothing, bathed and soaking in blood and viscera and innards. He awoke in a sweat, and prayed for forgiveness for the dream, then slept only on the thoughts of Good and Righteousness. When he arose the next morning, the healing rain of God was falling softly over his head; a blessing for this new day, and it was Good.
The third day was the most somber of the revival, for it was a day of remembrance for the ancestor race that had sacrificed so much for the Good. Each of the many drew forth from the crowd as it waded the wide banks of the river, and cast stones into its depths as an acknowledgement of the dead. For this was where all of them would one day lie, and in fact as he leveled the stone for his mother and father into the murky depths, some iron workers were wading waist deep into the waters with the body of an old man. He was very much dead, at least a month or so in which he had been laid in vigil in his home, and his skin was grey now and decomposing. Each of them wore an expression of grave sorrow, and they cradled and bore him on the water with the utmost care. As they got deeper, they let god take him into the next world with a wail of women going up from the banks. He had been 100 years old, Marmon heard from a raggedy man with golden teeth, the father of his whole family. Marmon said a personal blessing for the Good this man had done, and cast his stone into the swirling waters.
The last feast took place that afternoon and the ceremony was ended with another appearance of The Emperor Pope and his Speaker upon the balustrade, now adorned in his ornate battle gear, the Speaker ushered in the next work cycle with a venomous declaration of war upon the unGood; as was always the case. He called out to the warriors of the faith to rise up and root out this clandestine and deadly group and bring them before this council for judgement. A roar from the crowd, the chant started up again, and sixteen or seventeen (Marmon always had trouble with counting over five,) men and women in burlap tunics with cloven, misshapen, and shaven heads were led, ropes round their necks, out onto a wooden platform bellow the pulpit. They looked shrunken and starved, their eyes hung like wet eggs in their swollen sockets, skinny and heaving they were pushed and prodded into a parallel line with the crowd. The sound of fury was deafening, the many demanded justice. Soldiers now appeared on the platform in their fierce Imperial regalia, and the heckles turned to adoring cheers for these Holy heroes, and they waved in acknowledgement to more cheers and cries. Then came the greatest cheer, for a man clad all in black robes so dark and obsidian that to look into to them too long would cause madness. The executioner was he, a monster of a man standing at eight feet with arms like tree trunks and palms big enough to encompass a normal mans whole head. At his side he wore sheathed in a diamond encrusted scabbard the sword of the king, an ancient and renowned weapon long thought to have been lost to history, but uncovered by the Last Emperor Pope and returned to the city where it was tasked with carrying out Imperial Justice to unGoods. Marmon had been in its presence many times, but the feeling he had when he was a young child and had first glimpsed it in the hands of another executioner, never subsided. Even now, a grown man, the sight of the blade made him giddy like a child with sweets; the power of the Emperor and of God personified. The executioner strode to the center of the platform and, with a flourish, released the blade and held it aloft. Blood was in the air now, the unGood must be punished.
The executioner turned and pointed to the first unGood, a man in his mid twenties with flash blonde hair and green eyes misty with tears. The soldiers pushed him to his knees and the man let out an audible sob. A low chant came over the many; "REPENT! REPENT!" The executioner laid the tip of the blade upon the woodworks before the unGood and spoke.
"Do you repent the deeds of yours which were unGood my child?" The man sobbed out an answer and bowed his head. The executioner turned back to the crowd; "He admits his unGood and is saved!" He brought the blade down with a thunk, and away rolled the unGood's head, where it was kicked into the crowd by one of the soldiers, and held up in the arms of the many as they shouted "Saved! He is saved!" Then came the next and the next on down the line until there was a thick and viscous puddle of blood pooling on the platform and running down to the earth where it had collected into a stone vat. All those who were there upon the platform confessed and was saved from the hell of this world, each one falling to their knees and accepting their unGood and became cleansed in the water of life. Their bodies were then cast into the crowd where they were carried and laid in the river, having been released from their sins and able now to join the rest of the Good in that burial place. Marmon helped four other men carry one such headless corpse to the pristine waters, and laid him carefully with his ancestors. Later, once the saved had been released to the river, the many gathered once more at the balustrade and the Speaker gave a blessing to the blood of the saved and called the processions to their end. With this, the many thanked the Emperor and left the temple, their voices rising and joining in holy song. Marmon went back to his home and laid upon his cot and closed his eyes, thanking God and the Emperor for Good and falling quickly into a deep sleep. He dreamed of Good that night, a woman clad in white who took his member in her hands and stroked until he burst. The mother of men had blessed him, and he awoke stained with his own seamen and sweat; and it was Good.
Marmon turned the dial. And it was Good. The priests told him, he was doing the most Good his tiny mind could be capable of. That made him happy inside. It was the only thing that could be expected of his caste, and that was Good. Marmon watched the meter and he turned the dial and he helped the Good be spread among his brothers and sisters. Peter had told him that, in a moment of weakness, when Marmon questioned his Good, and believed he may have done unGood, Peter had shown him the light. If Marmon didn't turn the dial, Good would not be done, unGood would, and so even if he felt like he wasn't spin enough, he was. Marmon didn't really understand it complete, but as long as it was Good that didn't much matter. He turned the dial and people were saved.
The priests taught them how to do Good, and how to tell when Good was unGood; and that was helpful because Marmon had struggled with it in the past. There was a thin line between them, and it was far to easy to do unGood and think you were doing Good. Peter would explain to him when he felt this way that his questioning of what was Good and unGood was Good but also unGood, and he should stop. Marmon was confused by this, so he decided to keep these thoughts to himself, and he would rake his own skin with a leather whip when they surfaced in his mind. He didn't want to do unGood, but he couldn't always tell what was and what wasn't; that was the curse of he and his people. It was the thing that separated him from the Eldar Men, the Eldar men were incapable of unGood, for all they did was only Good and nothing else, and that made them superior to him, better than him; Good. He often wished he could be one like them, but it was not his place. He was not born an Eldar and therefore was subject to the reign of his inferior becomings; and his wish was sin. But still he wished. At least for him to be as Good as he could possibly be with his shortcomings, would be Good enough, and Peter had told him such; he could never be an Eldar, but he could be almost as Good, if he tried hard. So Marmon took these thoughts that may have been Good or unGood, but he decided they were Good and he was Good and God would know this. He had a personal relationship with God, after all.
That week he got a surprise, and it was in commemoration of his Good. A new leather backed chair sat at his station, a card propped up on the seat which read (as Peter appeared and took the card reading aloud) "For the Good of our Righteous Brother, Marmon." He was full of pride, his chest swelled up in a puff, they had actually used his name! Given by God and Good Men of the Emperor. Marmon thanked Peter and the other priests profusely, then sat carefully in the new chair like it was constructed of some ancient and unworthy material that would break apart at the slightest touch. It was comfortable, more comfortable than his old wooden chair, and he smiled and it was Good. He suddenly felt eyes upon him, and turned. Looking over his shoulder he saw Devan, a man ten years his elder, quickly spinning away and showing his back to Marmon. The air of contempt hung in the air. Devan was muttering to himself. Marmon decided to forgive him, and ignore it, but he could feel Devan's scornful stare upon him wherever he went.
This a was troublesome development; for know Marmon was struck with the thought that by not denouncing and exposing Devans unGood, he was on the path of becoming unGood himself. But he struggled with it; was not it unGood to think Devan was culpable in unGood without proof? Where was the line? He busied himself with the dial and the meter and decided he would have to act soon, unless Devan changed his attitude. Sadly he did not.
One particular day, Devan finally made his contempt known in the mess hall. Sweaty and stinking of wine, he reached out and grabbed the collar of Marmon's robe and shouted at him.
"Why do you deserve a chair?" He gurgled.
"Let go of me brother, this is wrong," Marmon shrieked.
"Shut up you jackass!" Devan shouted, "I been here ten more year than you, and I never got me a new chair!" By now the eyes of the many were upon them.
"Brother please," Marmon pleaded with him, cupping his hands in prayer, "you are misguided by the unGood!"
"Give me that chair boy!" He shouted. Marmon dropped to his knees and began to wail; others joined him.
"Holy Emperor save us from unGood and Satan and bring us to everlasting peace and love..." Marmon did not feel the blow initially, and he crumpled as Devan brought the weight of his Anthology textbook down on Marmon's head a second time, droplets of shimmering red blood poured over his face from a gash the books metal bindings had opened, but he, somehow, stayed upright and continued his prayer. The third blow knocked him to the ground, but it would be the last Devan would levy. Through the blood drenched curtain he realized was his own hair he watched the penitent Good people descend upon Devan all in a rush; scooping him up and violently dragging him head first over the dirty and cobbled stone floor of the mess hall so that his face was bounced and scraped over the stones leaving a trail of red in its wake. Men kicked his head as he was dragged past, and soon it looked less like a human and more like some rotted pumpkin or other garden vegetable, beaten in and sunken, his skull smashed open and his brain spilling out from within. Someone had picked Marmon up and stood shoulder wrapped around him, holding his weight. Blood choked back words and he spit, nearly falling back to the earth, but his unseen companion steadied him and poured water over his face.
"Be still my brother," they spoke, "you have done Good."
Marmon could see better now, and he was being led to a doctor when he saw the crowd that had now gathered lifting Devans corpse, now mutilated far beyond anything resembling a human, and attempting to fix a noose around his neck, which wasn't entirely easy to find. As he was loaded into a wagon, he could see they had given up on the noose and had simply spiked Devan with spears and left his body upon a hastily constructed altar as a sacrifice to Good.
Marmon prayed for Devan still, though he wasn't sure of it being Good, he felt it was the right thing to do then. The doctor was a kindly man and he gave Marmon six white tablets to swallow and a glass of pure water, which was as a nectar of gods to his lips. Soon he remembered nothing, and slipped into unconsciousness. He awoke alone in a hospice cot with a severe pain in his head. His hand traced the warm metal stitches upon the top of his head and he picked off a bit of scab, black dead blood long dried. He wondered how long he had been there, and if it was unGood to not be there to read the meter and turn his dial. And he wondered about Devan, for he was there alone for sometime and the image of the older mans face had been etched into his mind. Why, he pleaded to God, why did he do it? He was a Good man once. He wondered where he went wrong. He wondered if there was any Good there to be found. Was it Good for the many to kill him so? In an act of supreme passion, not a writ of Imperial significance, Devan had been murdered, was that act not unGood? His headache worsened and he thought of it no more. He just closed his eyes and read the meter and turned the dial in his head until he drifted back into a deep sleep.
Marmon was back to work in a week, and it was Good. He sat majestic in his new leather backed chair to marvel at his new found celebrity, and turned his dial. The many now gathered round him at meal times to ask him how he had become so Good; but he humbly dismissed such notions.
"The Eldars are the ones to thank," he would say, "they will lead you to the Good."
Devan had been replaced, a mousey man called Ishmar with wine colored eyes and hair, who looked menacing but as Marmon would find, was a very Good and pious man. They became fast friends and Marmon thanked the Eldars for their continued gifts. He soon had a bit of a following, the many revered him for his Good and sang his Holy praises. The Eldars were pleased with his works, he asked Peter if it was Good or unGood and Peter assured him it was Good.
"You are spreading the Good to all my son," Peter told him, "that is the most Good a man in your predicament can ever hope to bestow. Be thankful, my son, you are doing the Good and Righteous thing, which is all that is expected of you." He nodded in thanks and returned to his dial. Good be praised!
Marmon turned the dial. That was his life, and what a life of Good it was. A few months went by, the doctors removed the metallic staples from his cranium, gave him a clean bill of health and a pocketful of blue and yellow tablets that shone like tiny gems in the sunlight for, as the doctor had said, "the alleviation of stress." Doctor Trogmullain was a Good and trustworthy man, and he was right in part about the tablets, they did take away his pain. But they gave him horrid dreams full of demonic faces and savage blood boiling brutality that he had stealthily tossed the remainder of the pills into the rubbish with his meal trash. Marmon knew disobeying the orders of the Doctor was not Good, perhaps even an unGood, but he decided the dreams were more of an unGood and his continued suffering was Good; righteous and so he banished the thought from his mind. After a while, the pain grew numb and eventually went away complete, and he was left with only a scar underneath the eaves of his hair and the memory. He made an offering to the Eldars of his flesh as penance; scaling a great piece from his upper arm and burning the wound with a heated bar of iron to seal the opening and stop the torrent of blood. He bit down hard on a bit of wood wrapped in a leather glove to silence the scream from the depth his gullet, the blood pooling on the floor before him as he codderized himself. And it was Good, and he felt Good, and released from pain; and after the pain had weakened and he could pull his frame up to his feet, he knew that God was pleased with him. Rays of heaven passed through the cloud layer above the city following the healing rains, whose vaporous smell reeked off the land in a humid fog, a sweet smell of flowers and wetted dirt. God blesses me with this day, he thought to himself, and it is Good and it is love. He shaded his eyes to the bright as the clouds moved from sight; the city coming to life below his window. He watched the people as they went about their daily business and proffered a blessing, the one bestowed upon him in that moment by God, and he could feel the Good flowing through him. Today was another day.
Marmon sat at his dial and watched the meter, and turned the dial, and watched the meter, and was Good. Peter was on sabbatical, and had been relieved by Keirnan O'Corchran of the order of the Holy Smoke and shield, a shrewd man in his mid fifties with lightning white hair and purple skin; but he was Good like his brothers and took a quick liking to Marmon, who by now had grown to be known very well even in the circles and covens of the Eldar. A low born who had done such Good as no low born since the Beatius himself, Soon-to-be-Saint Reginald Vandermeer; such a man was this Marmon they said to each other over cups of wine, could he be the prophet they had waited for all these centuries? Marmon took these workings in stride, as a Good and humble man should, but in his secret place, where the world could not listen and it was only he and God, he could elate himself. In this alone time, as he lay in his cot before sleep each night, he reveled in this popularity ad fame; imagining the day when he could evolve and become an Eldar himself...Suddenly he was frightened, he feared that last thought; it may have been taken as unGood by some. And so he decided, in that very moment, to deceive and mislead his fellows; he would keep these thoughts to himself, yes, that was the right thing to do. He didn't need to weigh down the priests with his questioning, he would do Good penance later and repay God for his misgivings. God would always forgive him; it was His divine way of the righteous path. Marmon busied himself with his meter and dial once more, and soon forgot his moment of sin altogether; and once more he was Good and humble.
During his recovery, Marmon had missed a revival of some apparent entertainment; a raggedy man who sat on the stoop of his building complex told him in the days before the next celebration of Empire.
"Our soldiers, Good bless and keep them, captured a malicious Orkish spy who had been living in the filth with lepers and retards, studying our people and subverting Good wherever it went," the raggedy man told him, "that's the first one I ever did see, disgusting creature, they put him out of his misery and he let up a yelp like the Satan himself!" Marmon cursed himself that he had missed such a sight, and spat in the street.
"I would have liked to see one," Marmon said, and though the raggedy man gave him an apt and concise description, Marmon still wished. He added that sin to his penance and cleared his conscience of those unGood thoughts, thanked the raggedy man and made his way to the mess for breakfast.
"Spread the Good my brother," he heard the raggedy man call after him, and he turned and waved in return, but the man was gone. He felt Good and the excitement of this next revival rose into his chest as he hoped perhaps there would be more Orks captured that he could see. He walked into the Science building, nodding a hello to the Eldar security men who use to laugh and point at him as he passed, but now nodded back in a gregarious gesture. Even the men of war now honored his Good; Marmon smiled, entered the great open work floor, sat at his station and turned his dial. The meter stayed very low that day and he only had to turn the dial six times, a new record. It seemed Good was shining upon him this day!
The next day was the last before the revival, and he was filled with a tangible, almost edible, overwhelming feeling of excitement; the Good was flowing from his very soul and he spread it thick and viscous over all whom he met that day. A shandy woman washing her underskirts in the morning dew, two young boys wrestling over a heel of bread, stray dogs circling round them in anticipation, a man in a tattered day suit and toppemhat reciting verses of some Alursian (2nd Age Royalty) epic in a lurid vocal, traveling salesmen calling out the terms and prices and prestige of their wares, a band of men and women in garish multicolored uniforms from some forgotten kingdom, banging out a famous and well loved folk song "My Love Lies Over The River," soldiers standing vigil at street corners, their spears tied off with ribbons and fresh flowers, young teenage girls giggling in a pack about them, flirtatious and lovely, men in dark coats with curled, black hair, sitting in shop openings debating science and magic, a cat that skittered into his path then disappeared into an alleyway, over the hills and dales the harrowing cries of a cleric singing a mourning prayer, and above them all, the light of heaven pouring down like shimmering links of purest silver from the deep heart of the sun. And it was Good, for these people would soon be saved, as he had. You see, Marmon, in all his low birth and lacked intelligences, had a plan. He would do the Good only a man such as he could bestow; he would save all these people; like the infamous Christ of legend and rumor. He would become a Christ himself.
Marmon rounded a corner onto the wide avenues that led to the proper ministries and their adjoining workshops, and filtering into the large market square at the gates of the Eldar district, he presented his ID card and work visa to the scanning machine flanked by two rather gruff looking soldiers, veterans of one of the last Orkish wars from the looks of it; burnt skin that had rehealed itself in a molted, motley pattern. The machine gave a ring of acceptance and the mechanical gate opened with a woosh, and with a smile and nod to the soldiers, he went through into the Eldar district. Inside the gate was markedly different; while outside in the low caste area was a tumult of raging, sweating bodies and rising, heaving voices surging like mud in the dead of the sun, within the walled and gated district, the streets were empty, quiet, and pristinely scrubbed of any type of blemish or rubbish. Great molds of shining, marble block stone like some Roman palace or Christian altar, columned and mathematically placed to the specifications of some Eldar Builder Wizards secret design, there was a form and formality to the avenue that was a pall comparison to the littered walkways and shabby brick and mortar and wood buildings of Marmon's lot. Everything was there for a purpose, for many purposes even, and in the shadow of these such wonders, Marmon was engulfed with thoughts and thanks and praise to the Great Race; for they were truly Good and they were Good like God. Along the walls and in between the columns were the statuesque visages of former Emperors and Kings and Popes and Men of Science; Eldar legends and hallowed ancestors of the Great Race. Tammerlann, Vercorixix, Demitrius, Fornacaitious, Thelo, Messoderia, Mark; names well known to Marmon, the great men who built and protected the Empire, now sat as silent as Watchers (monks who cut their tongues out as their coranative ceremony,) their faces stern and terrifying, but cold stone and unmoving they sat still. He left a few prayers for these heroes, as he did every morning, and moved on to his work building. How Good he felt!
At the edge of this monarchical causeway was the central square, third district; a chasmous opening in the stone to an oval, parkwayed with marble benches and column ridden, but in that selfsame scientific pattern of regal Eldar mathematic philosophy. Marmon could not even count the number, maybe one hundred or even more, stretching up into the heavens where, adjoining terraces and other smooth and sloping stonework, they fell in a great dome encrusted with jewels and precious metals and painted among the plaster ceiling tiles were depictions of great saints and Eldars and Emperors and Prophets and wars from long ago fought with wooden clubs and rocks and holy revivals and well loved stories from the Book of Faith; the sacred Eldar text that no man else could read, but whose tales had been many times told over the generations until they were as common as spring rain among even the lowest born of the people. Marmon stepped briskly through the chamber to the hall of his building, showed his card once more to another scanning machine (this one without military accompaniment,) and slipped within the steel plated wooden doors.
Marmon turned the dial, but, he thought as the meter dipped at dropped far below the "acceptable limit," wasn't there more he could do? For the Good of course. Couldn't he have some greater purpose? Was it so hard to believe? He kept such thoughts to himself, but he knew, deep in the pit of his stomach, that he was destined for something with far more meaningful applications. "Far more meaningful applications," was a phrase he'd heard Peter use before, and though they had always told him he could by hope to understand such things, he felt now he couldn't help but understand them. He was sure he could do more, he would swear on gods name if it proved anything! He may have been just gods tool, but can a tool not adapt and change with the marching of time? Can't a man do enough Good that the circumstances of his birth were irrelevant? He decided, in his own mind and in his own heart, that it was Good that he wanted to do, and therefore as Eldar logic would have it, it was therefore Good. How could the desire to be Good and do Good be unGood? He had seen men kill and be killed and eviserated and disemboweled and hung from the city gate in the name of Good; people burned at steaks and whipped into unconsciousness, beaten and bruised and raped and destroyed. Was that Good? What was Good, if those such things were not unGood? It couldn't, he decided, be unGood, even if he would still keep it from anyone else.
Another day he turned the dial (fourteen times only,) and smiled his smiles and gave Good and right courtesy, and though excited for the coming bloodletting revival, he could feel himself becoming loth to the work. Why should I turn this dial, he was now thinking, for if I didn't would anything change. But he quickly dismissed this thought as it was an unGood thought, and prepared a Good penance for when he returned home later. A few extra lengths of the sodden leather whip would do, at least, for a man as Good as he.
Anton met him in the mess hall that afternoon, as Marmon craned over his bread and mash, the small and beady eyed man came and sat across from him putting out his hand in a gesture of kindness.
"Anton of block 9," he said with a grin, "Good to meet you oh most pious!" Marmon looked up at the man from his bowl, then back down.
"I am eating," he said, raising the wooden spoon to his mouth, "can't you see that?" Anton seemed taken aback, and he began to fidget nervously in his seat.
"Yes well..." he began, but Marmon cut him off.
"Yes well what," he said angrily, spitting a chunk of stew meat as he snapped his jaws, "you presumed to interrupt me most rudely?"
"I just wanted to..."
"Have you any respect for anyone else?" Marmon was shouting now and the whole of the cafeteria had commenced to watching, "have you?"
"I apologize," Anton muttered, casting a glare at Marmon, "I suppose I believed you to be something else." He picked up his bowl and plate and began to leave when Marmon jumped to his feet.
"What was that?" he quivered. Anton turned. A crowd was gathering.
"I believed you to be something else, Good day sir," Anton hissed. Marmon pointed a bony knuckle and smiled devilish.
"unGood," he said, his temper rising with his elation, "unGood!" Marmon hollered. The many were picking up on this, and they canted in return. Anton gave him a look of sheer hatred and began to make a case back, but it was too little to late for the flailing mob that descended upon him then. They grasped him up in their hands and carried him up above their heads as he screamed forgiveness and of Marmon's lies. But the mob was stung in its feeble heart an it's fires of rage had been rightly stoked. He would not been seen again until the end of the revival. Marmon sat back at his sup, and smiled over his Good deeds.
The revival had rekindled his spirits, like he knew it would, and he neglected his nessicary penance in lieu of becoming late for the opening blessing. Marmon was not alone this time as he strode the high walled walkways of the temple ground, a following had sprung up behind him, men and women of his caste who wished to live his life saving ways and means; they did not chant his name, not yet, but they followed wherever he went. When he sat upon an open space to pray and prepare for the Emperor, they camped around him like some tribal chieftain, all seated pointing inward at Marmon, watching him and feeling his Good. A young girl with opal eyes and dirty, brown skin stared at him and he smiled. She hid behind the skirts of her mother.
"Bless you child," he said suddenly, "bless you with Good." A cheer went up among his followers, and more joined every passing moment. The woman brought her child before Marmon, and he touched her face and gave her his Good.
"Bless you," he said, and as she looked into his eyes he felt a fire in his loins, "you are beautiful." The little girl smiled.
"Thank you kind sir," the mother said.
"Bring her to my chambers later and I shall bestow her with another blessing." A confused look scaled across the mothers face, but subsided, and she smiled.
"Oh course, we would be honored."
The cheer rose again. Marmon smiled, but also smiled secretly. He could nearly taste her flesh.
The revival went on much like it always had, with its feasts and speeches and remembrances of the ancestral race and the Emperors past, but with a markedly different flavor; the Speaker, and thus the Emperor himself, had even called Marmon by name, and praised his Good and noble works to the cause of his and all people. Red blush washed over his cheeks as the Speaker bid him to rise and he was given his own raucous chorus of "Deus Voft!" by the many who had gathered.
"This is what all of you must strive for," the Speaker called out, his voice booming above the din of the crowd, "to be as Good as our Marmon here, regardless of his birth!" Marmon waved a hand to the people and humbly sat back in his place. The many followed this example.
"It is not I who must be thanked or praised," he spoke into the silence that had settled, as if the Speaker meant for Marmon to address his people, "but the Eldar Men, for it is only their example which I follow and do my very best to be Good." The crowd thundered once more, and the revival went on.
As the Speaker became the shade of his demonic procession, he would mention Marmon again; as the victim of two savage attacks by unGood traitors. The crowd asked for blood to be spilt, and they're mesmerizing preacher agreed.
"This Good and pious man has twice now been struck down by another in name of his Good and has yet still carried the torch of Greatly Beauty and Goodness on into the darkness of blackest evil. First by a jealous spy of the Orks, who beat him down with a SACRED TEXT! In the Holy library floor!" The many screamed threats and curses and obscenities. "All the while your Holy brother Marmon was invoking the prayers of Good! As his very head was cloven in by our own religion and theory, by an EVIL man!" More cries, cheers, commits, and curses followed.
"Bastards!" A man quite close to him bellowed, "kill them all!"
"What say you to these," the Speaker was gesturing to a succession of women, children, old men, cousins, brothers in law, daughters, and crones of the families of the two men, "the seed of these evil men, laid bare before us under the sun that is the God and the Emperor! What say you? Shall they be spared. The cry that followed was a definite and deafening "NO!" scattered with various other versions of the word, and more screams of "kill them! Kill them all!" Marmon smiled.
"Then it shall be so," the Speaker turned and the crowd erupted. Out of the archway came the executioner with his cleansing sword. Marmon suddenly stood. A hush fell over the preceding, even the executioner stopped to hear his words.
"I believe this is folly," he spoke softly but clearly, and Everyman could hear him, "these people should not be saved my lord God Emperor, they are the spawn of evil. Why lay them in the river with our esteemed dead when they have done nothing to deserve it. They are not unGood, they are evil. And should be fed to wolves and Orks." The many liked that idea, and shouted their agreement unto their living God. The Speaker rose and spoke with the Emperor for a brief moment, then returned to his pulpit. He raised his massive hand for quiet.
"The Emperor wills it," he said, and with that they were upon them, climbing up the wooden platform and grabbing each one of the evil gathered there up in arms and dragging them out the wide temple avenues toward the city gate. "Deus Voft!" they chanted. Marmon followed with his people at his side; a strong man named Cornellus, built like an Ox and with a brain to match, had made it his personal service to watch over and protect Marmon. He brought with him others as well; cousins and such of his household. Marmon thanked him.
At the gates the procession stopped and awaited the soldiers to open up the sealed hatches in the portcullis walls installed for just this purpose; to dispose of the wicked. After a moment, there was the metal clanking of gears and the hatches began to burst open revealing the wasteland below. The many then went about the process of casting this Salems Lot out into hell, down a shaft and out into a ten to twenty foot drop that nearly all would not survive. They dropped screaming out of sight, but if one had been listening very close, like Marmon was, they would hear the cracking bones and sorrowful moaning that was rising from the wasteland floor. He said a quick prayer to ensure that the souls of these evil seeds would be blocked access to the Heavenly Plane, and smiled for it was Good.
Back upon the temple grounds they feasted, and Marmon's sup was joined with the many of his people, bivouacked around him as they had earlier in the temple. He sat humbly by the apple tree, where one of his people had pitched for him a tent, and met with many of them, blessing them upon their brow with his Good. As the sun sunk below the cloud layer, the mother and young girl came forward and he smiled in secret once more.
"Good woman," he said, extending his hand and brushing tenderly the child's hair from her eyes, "I thank you."
"No we thank you Good one," she replied, and pushed her daughter forward, "please bestow a blessing upon my child, for I have had four little babies in my womb and only she still lives." Marmon nodded.
"I must inspect the child," he said, and ran his bony fingers round her body, "for to see her Good."
"Please," the mother said. Marmon ran his fingers along and looked into the child's eyes. His secret smile was broad now.
"There is something," he began, a look of puzzlement upon his face, "wrong with your child."
"What?!??" the mother said with fear on her words, "what is wrong?" He stood and the crowd parted as if a dire wind had bestruck them backwards.
"She has the touch..." he began, low and dramatic and building, "of the unGood!" he suddenly shouted. A gasp of horror rose from the many.
"How can we save her?" They cried. Marmon put up his hands to beseech them silence. He smiled.
"I must purify the child!" They cheered in such a joyous din that God himself would have awoken, if he did indeed ever need to sleep. The mother fell to her knees sobbing, "save her! Save her!" She wept. Marmon grasped the childs hand, then the mothers, and led then to his tent, the many spilling their years of joy and Good as he went. Cornellus and his brothers formed a wall of bodies at the tents entrance behind. He sat the two down and sat himself, facing them over a fire one of his people had constructed. The smoke spiraled up into a haze above them, as no hole had been made for its escape; the tent was hot and musty and they sweat profusely as he spoke. Marmon told the woman there was only one way left to save them now.
"You told me you'd lost three other children before this one," he said, gesturing at the girl, "that was my first sign of the evil within you. It has been passed through the generations of your family, from whence or whom I cannot say, but I would think your mother also lost many children."
"She did," the mother wept, "my brother and I were the surviving of twelve children." Marmon smiled.
"Then it is so," he said, "you have the seed planted within your very being, and it cannot be erased very easily. You saw what was done to the evil we witnessed just this day at the temple ground, the same will be done to you. Unless you listen very carefully to me," she nodded, "Good." He pointed to the child, "stay there," he muttered. He undrew his robes and stood naked before them; his skin glistening with sweat, his pale member flickering in the fire light. The mother did the same. He was upon her in moments, punching her face and baptizing in her blood. He placed his member were it was designed to fit and penetrated. The child watched in silent horror. The mother wept and praised the Good. He slid himself into where he was not designed to go, and a squeal of pain and puddle of blood followed. He but his lip. It was Good.
When he was done the mother lay soaked in red, whimpering at his feet. He snarled suddenly, and wiped the sweat and blood from his forehead.
"It did not work," he said leaning down over her and running a hand through her hair. Her voice was choked back in tears.
"Why?" She mustered.
"You are too full of the unGood even for me," he picked up a good size rock and palmed it, "you must be cleansed." He move to the child and directed her to lie face down on the dirt floor. The rock came down with a mighty blow and shattered the skull in a swift motion. And then again and again and again until the child was not moving. The mother looked on with wide eyes and a gaping open mouth as Marmon moved to her. She offered little resistance.
When he was done with the cleansing, two bodies lay decimated at his feet, and the blood was running down and out the front of the tent flap. Marmon exited to a large crowd, who exulted at his appearance, smothered in blood and holding the rock aloft.
"The evil has been destroyed!" They roared in approval. He fell into Cornellus' arms, now without an once of energy left, and he was laid down and washed by his people, and they dragged the bodies from his tent and burned them in their midst. He lay there under the apple tree and smiled once more that secret smile that men do hide, and praised the Good in him.
There he slept that night, under the apple tree and the sky and God himself, and in his dreams he was visited by the white goddess, who blessed him and kissed his lips and loved him so.
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