Moral Support (Chapter 3, Part 2)
Cremation was standard practice for every religion approved by the Inquisition. The red-clad mortuary chaplains only needed Gvish to specify the details. Corporal Saqqaf had requested no special accommodations. His bones would be pulverized into ashen residue after his flesh burned away. Private Awan was of the Ātapararan tribes, so the charred remnants of his skeleton were to be carefully packaged and shipped back to his home city to be repurposed.
Gvish left nothing to chance. After badgering the mortuary chaplains, he pulled aside the alchemist in charge of the cremation furnaces to ensure she also understood her instructions. Only then did he rally the squad in one of the mortuary’s parlors.
The parlor was a wide chamber. An entire wall was made of stained glass, through which the steel maws of the cremation furnaces protruded into the room. Saqqaf’s and Awan’s bodies had been wrapped in clean shrouds and placed on gurneys in front of two of the furnaces. Their Ranger grave-coins had been removed from their necklaces and bound over their mouths with a single strip of gauze.
Gvish took his own place between the two bodies, with his back to the stained glass, and surveyed his squad. The living were still coated in sweat and glittered with gold dust from Bracha’s anti-magic cannister; their faces were downcast. Saqqaf and Awan faced him on their gurneys. He could feel the accusation in their blind, shrouded gazes.
If I’d put an end to Bracha’s nonsense, this wouldn’t have happened.
He swallowed his rage and kept the eulogies simple. “Zayn Saqqaf was a good man. A loyal, steadfast man, who did his duty to Archon and Empire. He was also a better field cook than any of us deserved.”
Low laughter rippled through the squad.
“And as for Ujjwal Awan … I know he didn’t have long with us. Didn’t even get a chance at a proper ranging mission. Still, he fulfilled his duties without complaint, no matter how unpleasant. His example is one we can all learn from.” Gvish walked forward, resting his hands on the brows of his fallen men. “Corporal, Private, you have both done your duty. You are honorably discharged. Go now to your well-deserved rest.”
Private Tawfiq jumped the gun here, muttering, “Let this prayer be golden-clad.”
There was more that needed to be said before the bodies could be burned. However, Gvish couldn’t be the one to do it. He stepped out from between the bodies and clasped the shoulder of Corporal Daneshvar. They’d served together long enough that nothing more needed to be said.
Daneshvar took Gvish’s place between Saqqaf and Awan and intoned, “Children of the Truth have passed into the dust, oh Shepherd. Mother of Change, welcome them.”
“Mother of Change, welcome them,” the squad echoed.
Gvish moved all the way back to the wall and stood silently. In his peripheral vision, he noticed the mortuary chaplains, waiting in the corners of the room, exchanging looks with each other. He ignored them. As a Habarzelan, there were lines he would not cross, not even to honor his subordinates.
Daneshvar continued, “Children of Truth cry out for shelter, oh Shepherd. Steward of the Dead, embrace them.”
“Steward of the Dead, embrace them.”
“Children of Truth are burdened by sins, oh Shepherd …”
The litany continued onward in this manner for another twenty-five lines. Each line invoked the Kimian Empire’s patron goddess, the Shepherd of Dust, by one of her many epithets. Gvish didn’t remain idle. Softly, so as not to interrupt his squad, he prayed in the Habarzelan way.
“Truth, welcome Zayn and Ujjwal into your light. Pardon their idolatry. See only the virtue in their spirits, ready to be forged anew. Cleanse them of their impurities in the crucible of your grace.”
He spoke slowly, pausing between sentences, as much to reflect as to give Daneshvar time to wrap up the litany. Those pauses gave his thoughts and his eyes time to wander. He found himself staring at the stained glass.
The sprawling image contained a multitude of thousands. Each figure had been simplified into angular silhouettes of simple polygons. Gvish had been to enough military mortuaries to recognize that these were meant to be the many gods worshipped by the Empire’s pagan majority. Some were humanoid, while others had bestial or monstrous shapes. Pantheons were grouped together and color-coordinated. The spot where he’d stood a moment ago featured the Shepherd and her vassals, all rendered in sanguine or golden hues. Off to his left, a circle of sky blue and buttercup yellow figures stood in for the gods of Awan’s people. While some of the figures were significantly larger than the others and served as the focal points of their respective pantheons, none, not even the Kimian pantheon, were elevated above the others.
That honor went to Truth alone. At the dead center of the wall, hugging the ceiling, a semicircle of platinum had been set into the window, surrounded by a fiery corona of glass coated in gold film. The rays of this holy sun stretched out to touch the larger figures, and the light leapt from them to the smaller ones. It was a glorious hierarchy, binding the gods worshipped by the Empire’s many pagan nations under one authority.
Anger tightened Gvish’s chest. Morality officer or not, Bracha should know that picture is a lie.
All Habarzelans understood that there was no god but Truth. The idols worshiped by the pagans were either wayward spirits, like the Shepherd, or daímōns who had been deified, like the Laumés. Some were mere delusions. The empire’s henotheistic hierarchy was an Inquisition construct. Centuries ago, they’d pilfered Habarzelan theology to force all the Empire’s religions into a single framework. Even the idea of spirits drifting from Truth’s grace was recycled to ban problematic idols.
Before he’d deployed to the Tamseszén Front, none of this bothered Gvish. Truth tolerated the antics of the pagans. There would come a day when He melted down and reforged the world, but until then, only the Habarzelans were expected to worship Him alone. So long as the soldiers under Gvish’s command respected his right to not pray with them, he would not begrudge them their rituals.
It wasn’t like his squad claimed to be Habarzelans. They earned brotherhood with him on the battlefield. They didn't harass him, demanding a form of fraternity that was incompatible with their life choices.
Why is that so hard for you to grasp, Inquisitor?
The Shepard litany neared its end. Gvish took a deep breath and concluded his own prayer. “Craft for them new bodies in the forge of your glory, to dwell in fullness forever. So be it.”
His timing was perfect. A heartbeat later, the squad chorused, “Let this prayer be golden-clad.”
Gvish strode forward. He gestured for Daneshvar to take Saqqaf’s gurney, while he grasped Awan’s. Together, they wheeled the fallen into their respective furnaces.
The mortuary chaplains swept into the room to seal the furnace hatches. The mortuary’s alchemist, clad in the yellow uniform of the Frontier Corps, manipulated the panels to the side of the hatches. Carmot furnaces drew upon the Soul, sending ripples through Gvish’s gambeson, and converted that magical energy into incinerating heat. White light blared through the shutters on the hatch windows.
In his mind’s eye, Gvish saw the wrappings of his men catch fire and their flesh blacken to char.
He saw the black figure of Bracha, moving with inhuman grace, fueled by the gifts of an idol.
No more deflecting that idolator, Gvish vowed. Time to put him in his place.