Rhodes uttered the name, and everyone present showed disbelief. That name was taboo in the Imperium—the first Primarch to betray them, the one who led to Horus's corruption.
"Rhodes, I told you—don't bring him up again. I know you want to save those corrupted brothers.
"But Magnus and Horus are enough. The rest aren't worth saving," Guilliman shook his head.
Come on, brother—how do I get this through to you? No one in the Imperium likes him.
"Even so, the Ecclesiarchy is crucial to the Imperium—perhaps more than the Mechanicum. Without their faith, the Emperor wouldn't have His current power nor be able to suppress the Dark King," Rhodes said.
"Lorgar won't return. Even if I agreed, he wouldn't. He's fully pledged to Chaos," the Emperor said.
The Imperium wasn't lacking people to write scripture; no need to bring back that traitor.
And if he were brought back, where would that leave the Emperor's face? He had personally destroyed Monarchia with Guilliman.
"I don't mean Lorgar himself. I mean his clone. You and Guilliman should know—after I defeated that Necron Overlord,
I claimed his spoils. Fabius Bile had once cloned many Primarchs—including a clone of Lorgar," Rhodes said with a smile.
The real Lorgar could not be brought back. Given a Primarch's pride, he would never submit. Rhodes had long foreseen this, which is why he used the clone to compose the Necrons' proselytizing texts.
If he could write scripture for the Necrons, he could certainly revise the Imperium's—he wrote the originals, after all. Tweaking them should be no problem.
"A clone? Rhodes, didn't you tell me you destroyed those clones?" Guilliman asked.
"Lorgar begged for mercy—and my psychic sense told me keeping him would be useful. He could help me in future," Rhodes said.
Rhodes's psychic power now was not much weaker than Magnus's; he could even sit the Golden Throne for a while.
"Rhodes! How could you keep him? You mean to have the clone write scripture? Under what identity?" Guilliman asked.
Rhodes really dared. How much did he like Lorgar? If the Eldar Laughing God manifested, they'd be best friends at this rate!
"We can have Lorgar conceal his identity. He isn't the original anyway. We can give him a new name and place him in the Ecclesiarchy's upper ranks," Rhodes said.
Ordinary citizens didn't even know Chaos existed—and who had seen a Primarch? The traitor Primarchs' visages had been purged from Imperial records.
"The Word Bearers will notice. They won't fail to recognize their Primarch," Guilliman said.
Gene-seed came from a Primarch and bore a trace of psychic essence. That essence absorbed Warp energies and corrupted the seed.
It also bound a Primarch and his gene-sons intimately, forging a deep connection.
"But none of the Word Bearers are the gene-son of Lorgar. He's just a clone!
"He has no bond with those Word Bearers," Rhodes said.
Abaddon could raise his daemonblade and cleave his own father's clone—why not the Word Bearers?
And nowadays, the Word Bearers largely served under Abaddon. The Primarch in question basically never left home; he wouldn't dare—Corvus Corax was blocking him.
After awakening to the Warp's essence, the Raven Lord could solo most Chaos Astartes—his combat power was terrifying.
"Rhodes—did you give him a cosmic phantom-beast?" the Emperor asked suddenly from the Golden Throne.
Lorgar was created as a propagandist—meant to be an ambassador—but turned into a zealot.
For such a zealot, the most important thing was a god. If he had a god to worship—and that god favored him—Lorgar would be happiest.
The Emperor knew this son well. If Rhodes became his god and granted him Primarch-level power—
Then the Lorgar clone would be Rhodes's diehard, loyal to the death.
"Yes. I've already given him a cosmic phantom-beast. He's now at Primarch level. He reveres me utterly—sees me as his god," Rhodes said candidly.
They were his spoils; he'd handle them as he pleased. Besides, that Necron campaign also rescued Rogal Dorn.
"I see. Then change his identity and place him within the Ecclesiarchy. I'll invest him as my Living Saint and have him personally draft new canon," the Emperor said.
Since He had decided to hand over power, He wouldn't micromanage Rhodes. So long as it was for humanity, fine.
He could confer the title of Living Saint and let him enter the Ecclesiarchy covertly to write scripture.
"Father! Perhaps this is an opportunity. We can make something of it—maybe bring back Corax, even draw some Chaos forces," Guilliman said, eyes gleaming.
"Guilliman, you want to use this clone?" Rhodes asked.
"Yes. Since the Imperium has accepted Horus and Magnus, why not Lorgar?
"We can release the news—say Lorgar has returned to the Imperium. For whitewashing, we can borrow from Horus and Magnus.
"This will reach Chaos—Lorgar will hear it, and so will Corax," Guilliman said.
He was the only brother whose location they knew. If he heard, Corax would certainly return to the Imperium, to see what was going on!
Even Leman Russ, who had gone into the Eye of Terror, might be lured out again.
"I'm not sure if Corax is now a Daemon Prince or still a Primarch," the Emperor said.
In the Warp, Corax had seemingly fully transformed into a Daemon Prince—albeit aligned with the Imperium, aligned with His will. But a Daemon Prince was a Daemon Prince. After ten thousand years in the Warp, his essence had changed.
"Father! Corax is loyal. He entered the Warp to avenge you—to avenge all those slain by the traitors—chasing Lorgar!
"If Magnus can return, and Horus can return, why not Corax? He never betrayed us," Guilliman said.
"If he wishes to return, I welcome him. I very much welcome this son back," the Emperor said.
"That's easy. The cosmic phantom-beasts can purify Warp corruption. As long as Corax still aligns with the Imperium, even if he's become an undivided Chaos Daemon Prince, we can bring him back," Rhodes said.
"Then do as you say. Let the fake become real and the real become fake. We'll say the Daemon Prince Lorgar is a clone, a counterfeit made by the traitors.
"The true Son of the Emperor has been in stasis on Terra, under repair," the Emperor decided after a pause, spinning out a perfectly plausible story.
This would certainly break the real Lorgar in Chaos. From today, the clone would be the true Lorgar.
The Emperor would also publicize who actually wrote the Ecclesiarchy's scriptures—to build momentum for the clone's return. The only one hurt would be the real Lorgar.
On hearing this, the Raven Lord Corax would hasten back to confirm the truth.
"So be it," Rhodes said.
After further discussion of details, Rhodes took his leave, joined his wife and two sons at the banquet, and received leading Churchmen and nobles.
When the banquet ended, he went to a secret base to meet the Lorgar clone—
And informed him that he would soon replace his original.