Take care, ye warring houses, for a blight greater than any temporal and temporary enemy walks among ye. Li Halan, drop thy scope against thy Hawkwood brother; Hazat, unclench thy ceramsteel cestus; embrace thy prodigal siblings, that ye may stand bold and resolute against the taint of the warlocks in our midst.
Who has not heard the tales of these apostates? Who has not heard of their stealthy descents into unhallowed sites anathema even to the godless Second Republic, there to emerge with all manner of obscene artifacts? Who has shut his ears to the whispers of their diabolic arts, their demon-bequeathed sciences? I am no Inquisitor, nor do I wholly support their crusades, but if ever the Avestites are needed, it is to purge the innocent of these.
They truck with demons and cavort naked under the abyssal skies; they descend into the desecrated ruins of laboratories, there to entertain succubi and conclude all manner of unhallowed pacts; they scorch the souls of the faithful with hell-flame and deaden the minds of the righteous; they play host to abyssal devils and chthonian golems; no sin is too great for them. They revile the Pancreator with their arts, which in a mockery of the Holy Names they dub Antinomy, the way of the Anti-Name.
These warlocks are also lovers of all manner of blasphemous technologies, avenues of exploration from which even the scientists of the Second Republic turned their cybernetic eyes in horror. Verily, they care little whether they corrupt the virtuous with technology or magic, so long as their masters' purposes are advanced.
That warlocks serve and venerate the monstrous demons beyond the stars is evident to even the simplest among us; yet for all that, their specific aims remain as mysterious as the foul ends by which they achieve them. Perhaps it is just as well, that children and the feeble may sleep soundly of nights thereby.
The Synod has killed many, but has had less fortune in securing some for interrogation. Captured warlocks rarely stay imprisoned long, for they are as cunning as jala-vipers; I have heard rumors that one warlock, bound and writhing under the Avestites' shock prods, spontaneously gave up the ghost in a puddle of deliquescing slime, causing all present to flee the dungeon lest they be overwhelmed by the rancid stench.
I must now warn the gentle reader; for warlocks are often fair of face, and readily mingle with the innocent when they must come among us in pursuit of their goals. By certain signs may ye know them, for their blasphemous practices leave a taint upon their bodies. Yea, the Pancreator does not lightly dismiss these prodigals' deviation from His will, and causes their sins to be made manifest upon their flesh. All have heard, no doubt, of the "witch-marks" by which warlocks may be detected in our midst, the third nipples, cataract-plagued eyes, pus-bearing tumors, hidden horns and other signs of the Empyrean's displeasure. When a stranger bearing such signs comes among ye, contact the Inquisition at the first opportunity; for warlocks seek nothing less than to contaminate and defile all whom they encounter, and they take particular delight in debasing the holy.
I remember the days before my ordination, when I was sent to study and pray at the great Cathedral on Pentateuch. I became fast friends with a fellow student, a devotee of the Eskatonic Order, one Brother Marcos; we held lengthy discourse on all subjects theological and exalted the Pancreator in the pursuit of all manner of manly sports. Marcos was as fair as I am dark, and so perfectly formed that one might well imagine him blazing forth incarnate from the Celestial Sun itself. A great bond formed between us, and the bishops thought us nigh inseparable.
His fall came at the hands of a warlock, the infamous harlot Kylena Decados, disowned even by that iniquitous house. Even at this age I cannot bear to speak aught of it, but I must tell that his corruption was so complete that he spat upon me as I wept at the auto-de-fe. It was Marcos' voice that wailed and gibbered as he died on the pyre, but his soul had been taken by the Decados and replaced by that of a demon. I only pray he has found the Empyrean's peace.
I repeat: This is one cancer that must not be tolerated among us. These are no Ur-Obun, to be scrutinized and warily tolerated; warlocks, any and all, are naught but a cosmic sickness, a tangible dimming of the Empyrean. They give the godly no respite and must thus expect none in return. Display only sufficient mercy to give them an opportunity to recant; should they refuse, send them to their reward with as little regret or compassion as ye would display to a stinging swamp-fly.
