False Gods

THIRTEEN Who are you? Ritual 0ld friend

Horus opened his eyes, smiling as he saw blue sky above him. Pink and orange tinged clouds drifted slowly across his vision, peaceful and relaxing. He watched them for a few moments and then sat up, feeling wet dew beneath his palms as he pushed himself upright. He saw that he was naked, and as he surveyed his surroundings, he lifted his hand to his face, smelling the sweet scent of the grass and the crystal freshness of the air.

A vista of unsurpassed beauty lay before him, towering snow-capped mountains draped in a shawl of pine and fir, magnificent swathes of emerald green forests as far as the eye could see and a wide river of foaming, icy water. Hundreds of shaggy coated herbivores grazed on the plain and wide pinioned birds circled noisily overhead. Horus sat on the low slopes of the foothills at the base of the mountains, the sun warming his face and the grass wondrously soft beneath him.

'So that's it then,' he said calmly to himself. 'I'm dead.'

No one answered him, but then he hadn't expected them to. Was this what happened when a person died? He dimly remembered someone teaching him of the ancient unbelief of ''heaven'' and ''hell'', meaningless words that promised rewards for obedience and punishment for wickedness.

He took a deep breath, scenting the aroma of good earth: the fragrances of a world unchecked and untamed and of the living things that covered the landscape. He could taste the air and was amazed at its purity. Its crispness filled his lungs like sweet wine, but how had he come here and… where was here?

He had been… where? He couldn't remember. He knew his name was Horus, but beyond that, he knew only fragments and dim recollections that even now grew faint and insubstantial the more he tried to hold onto them.

Deciding that he should try to find out more about his surroundings, he rose to his feet, wincing as his shoulder pulled tight, and he saw a spot of blood soak through the white woollen robes he found himself wearing. Hadn't he been naked a second ago?

Horus put it from his mind and laughed. 'There might be no hell, but this feels like heaven right enough. '

His throat was dry and he set off towards the river, feeling the softness of the grass through newly sandalled feet. He was further away than he thought, the journey taking him longer than expected, but he didn't mind. The beauty of the landscape was worth savouring, and though something insistent nagged at the back of his mind, he ignored it and carried on.

The mountains seemed to reach the very stars, their peaks lost in the clouds and belching noxious fumes into the air as he gazed up at them. Horus blinked, the afterimage of dark, smoke wreathed peaks of iron and cement burned onto his retinas like a spliced frame of harsh interference dropped into a mood window. He dismissed it as the newness of his surroundings, and headed across the swaying plains of tall grass, feeling the bones and waste of uncounted centuries of industry crunching beneath his feet.

Horus felt ash in his throat, now needing a drink more than ever, the chemical stink growing worse with each step. He tasted benzene, chlorine, hydrochloric acid and vast amounts of carbon monoxide - lethal toxins to any but him it seemed - and briefly wondered how he knew these things. The river was just ahead and he splashed through the shallows, enjoying the biting cold as he reached down and scooped a handful of water into his cupped palms.

The icy water burned his skin, molten slag dripping in caustic ropes between his fingers, and he let it splash back into the river, wiping his hands on his robe, which was now soot stained and torn. He looked up and saw that the glittering quartz mountains had become vast towers of brass and iron, wounding the sky with gateways like vast maws that could swallow and vomit forth entire armies. Streams of toxic filth poured from the towers and poisoned the river, the landscape around it withering and dying in an instant.

Confused, Horus stumbled from the river, fighting to hold onto the verdant wilderness that had surrounded him and to hold back the vision of this bleak land of dark ruin and despair. He turned from the dark mountain: the cliff of deepest red and blackened iron, its top hidden in the high clouds above and its base girded with boulders and skulls.

He fell to his knees, expecting the softness of the grass, but landing heavily on a fractured hardpan of ash and iron, swirling vortices of dust rising up in great storms.

'What's happening here?' shouted Horus, rolling onto his back and screaming into a polluted sky striated with ugly bands of ochre and purple. He picked himself up and ran - ran as though his life depended on it. He ran across a landscape that flickered from one of aching beauty to that of a nightmare in the space of a heartbeat, his senses deceiving him from one second to another.

Horus ran into the forest. The black trunks of the trees snapped before his furious charge, images of lashing branches, high towers of steel and glass, great ruins of mighty cathedrals and rotted palaces left to crumble under the weight of the ages dancing before his eyes.

Bestial howls echoed across the landscape, and Horus paused in his mad scramble as the sound penetrated the fog in his head, the insistent nagging sensation in the back of his mind recognising it as significant.

The mournful howls echoed across the land, a chorus of voices reaching out to him, and Horus recognised them as wolf howls. He smiled at the sound, dropping to his knees and clutching his shoulder as fiery pain lanced through his arm and into his chest. With the pain came clarity and he held onto it, forcing the memories to come through force of will.

Howling wolf voices came again, and he cried out to the heavens.

'What's happening to me?'

The trees around him exploded with motion and a hundred-strong pack of wolves sprang from the undergrowth, surrounding him, with their teeth bared and eyes wide. Foam gathered around exposed fangs and each wolf bore a strange brand upon its fur, that of a black, double-headed eagle. Horus clutched his shoulder, his arm numb and dead as though it was no longer part of him.

'Who are you?' asked the closest wolf. Horus blinked rapidly as its image fizzled like static, and he saw curves of armour and a single, staring cyclopean eye.

'I am Horus,' he said.

'Who are you?' repeated the wolf.

'I am Horus!' he yelled. 'What more do you want from me?'

'I do not have much time, my brother,' said the wolf as the pack began circling him. 'You must remember before he comes for you. Who are you?'

'I am Horus and if I am dead then leave me be!' he screamed, surging to his feet and running onwards into the depths of the forest.

The wolves followed him, loping alongside him and matching his steady pace as he lurched randomly through the twilight. Again and again, the wolves howled the same question until Horus lost all sense of direction and time.

Horus ran blindly onwards until he finally emerged from the tree line above a wide, high-cliffed crater gouged in the landscape and filled with dark, still water.

The sky above was black and starless, a moon of purest white shining like a diamond in the firmament. He blinked and raised a hand to ward his eyes against its brightness, looking out over the black waters of the crater, certain that some unspeakable horror lurked in its icy depths.

Horus glanced behind him to see that the wolves had followed him from the trees, and he ran on as their howling followed him to the edge of the crater. Far below, the water lay still and flat like a black mirror, and the image of the moon filled his vision.

The wolves howled again, and Horus felt the yawning depths of the water calling out to him with an inevitable attraction. He saw the moon and heard the company of wolves give voice to one last howled question before he hurled himself into the void.

He fell through the air, his vision tumbling and his memory spinning.

The moon, the wolves, Lupercal.

Luna… Wolves…

Everything snapped into place and he cried out, 'I am Horus of the Luna Wolves, Warmaster and regent of the Emperor and I am alive!'

Horus struck the water and it exploded like shards of black glass.

Flickering light filled the chamber with a cold glow, the cracked stone walls limned with crawling webs of frost, and the breath of the cultists feathering in the air. Akshub had painted a circle with eight sharp points around its circumference, on the flagstones in quicklime. The mutilated corpse of one of the Davinite priestess's acolytes lay spread-eagled at its centre.

Erebus watched carefully as the priestess's lodge thralls spread around the circle, ensuring that every stage of the ritual was enacted with meticulous care. To fail now, after he had invested so much effort in bringing the Warmaster to this point, would be disastrous, although Erebus knew that his part in the Warmaster's downfall was but one of a million events set in motion thousands of years ago.

This fulcrum point in time was the culmination of billions of seemingly unrelated chains of circumstance that had led to this backwater world that no one had ever heard of.

Erebus knew that that was all about to change. Davin would soon become a place of legend.

The secret chamber in the heart of the Delphos was hidden from prying eyes by potent magic and sophisticated technology received from disaffected Mechanicum adepts, who welcomed the knowledge the Word Bearers could give them - knowledge that had been forbidden to them by the Emperor.

Akshub knelt and cut the heart from the dead acolyte, the lodge priestess expertly removing the still warm organ from its former owner's chest. She took a bite before handing it to Tsepha, her surviving acolyte.

They passed the heart around the circle, each of the cultists taking a bite of the rich red meat. Erebus took the ghastly remains of the heart as it was passed to him. He wolfed down the last of it, feeling the blood run down his chin and tasting the final memories of the betrayed acolyte as the treacherous blade had ended her life. That betrayal had been offered unto the Architect of Fate, this bloody feast to the Blood God, and the unlovely coupling of the doomed acolyte with a diseased swine had called upon the power of the Dark Prince and the Lord of Decay.

Blood pooled beneath the corpse, trickling into channels cut in the floor before draining into a sinkhole at the centre of the circle. Erebus knew that there was always blood, it was rich with life and surged with the power of the gods. What better way was there of tapping into that power than with the vital substance that carried their blessing?

'Is it done?' asked Erebus.

Akshub nodded, lifting the long knife that had cut the heart from the corpse. 'It is. The power of the Ones Who Dwell Beyond is with us, though we must be swift.'

'Why must we hurry Akshub?' he asked, placing his hand upon his sword. 'This must be done right or all our lives are forfeit.'

'I know this,' said the priestess. 'There is another presence near, a one-eyed ghost who walks between worlds and seeks to return the son to his father.'

'Magnus, you old snake,' chuckled Erebus, looking up towards the chamber's roof. 'You won't stop us. You're too far away and Horus is too far gone. I have seen to that.'

'Who do you speak with?' asked Akshub.

'The one-eyed ghost. You said there was another presence near.'

'Near, yes,' said Akshub, 'but not here.'

Tired of the old priestess's cryptic answers, Erebus snapped, 'Then where is he?'

Akshub reached up and tapped her head with the flat of her blade. 'He speaks to the son, though he cannot yet reach him fully. I can feel the ghost crawling around the temple, trying to break the magic keeping his full power out.'

'What?' cried Erebus.

'He will not succeed,' said Akshub, walking towards him with the knife outstretched. 'We have spirit-walked in the realm beyond for thousands of years and his knowledge is a paltry thing next to ours.'

'For your sake, it had better be, Akshub.' She smiled and held the knife out. 'Your threats mean nothing here, warrior. I could boil the blood in your veins with a word, or rip your body inside out with a thought. You need me to send your soul into the world beyond, but how will you return if I am dead? Your soul will remain adrift in the void forever, and you are not so full of anger that you do not fear such a fate.'

Erebus did not like the sudden authority in her voice, but he knew she was right and decided he would kill her once her purpose was served. He swallowed his anger and said, 'Then let us begin.'

'Very well,' nodded the priestess, as Tsepha came forward and anointed Erebus's face with crystalline antimony.

'Is this for the veil?'

'Yes,' said Akshub. 'It will confound his senses and he will not see your likeness. He will see a face familiar and beloved to him.'

Erebus smiled at the delicious irony of the thought, and closed his eyes as Tsepha daubed his eyelids and cheeks with the stinging, silver-white powder.

'The spell that will allow your passage to the void requires one last thing,' said Akshub.

'What last thing?' asked Erebus, suddenly suspicious. 'Your death,' said Akshub, slashing her knife across his throat.

Horus opened his eyes, smiling as he saw blue sky above him. Pink and orange tinged clouds drifted slowly across his vision, peaceful and relaxing. He watched them for a few moments and then sat up, feeling wet dew beneath his palms as he pushed himself upright. He saw that he was fully armoured in his frost white plate, and as he surveyed his surroundings, he lifted his hand to his face, smelling the sweet scent on the grass and the crystal freshness of the air.

A vista of unsurpassed beauty lay before him, towering snow-capped mountains draped in a shawl of pine and fir, magnificent swathes of emerald green forests as far as the eye could see and a wide river of foaming, icy water. Hundreds of shaggy coated herbivores grazed on the plain and wide pinioned birds circled noisily overhead. Horus sat on the low slopes of the foothills at the base of the mountains, the sun warming his face and the grass wondrously soft beneath him.

'To hell with this,' he said as he got to his feet. 'I know I'm not dead, so what's going on?'

Once again, no one answered him, though this time he had expected an answer. The world still smelled sweet and fragrant, but with the memory of his identity came the knowledge of its falsehood. None of this was real, not the mountains or the river or the forests that covered the landscape, though there was something oddly familiar to it.

He remembered the dark, iron backdrop that lay behind this illusion and found that if he willed it, he could see the suggestion of that nightmarish vision behind the beauty of the world laid out before him.

Horus remembered thinking - a lifetime ago, it seemed - that perhaps this place might have been some netherworld between heaven and hell, but now laughed at the idea. He had long ago accepted the principle that the universe was simply matter, and that which was not matter was nothing. The universe was everything, and therefore nothing could exist beyond it.

Horus had the wit to see why some ancient theologian had claimed that the warp was, in fact, hell. He understood the reasoning, but he knew that the Empyrean was no metaphysical dimension, it was simply an echo of the material world, where random vortices of energy and strange breeds of malign xenos creatures made their homes.

As pleasing an axiom as that was, it still didn't answer the question of where he was.

How had he come to this place? His last memory was of speaking to Petronella Vivar in the apothecarion, telling her of his life, his hopes, his disappointments and his fears for the galaxy - conscious that he had told her those incendiary things as his valediction.

He couldn't change that, but he would damn well get to the bottom of what was happening to him now. Was it a fever dream brought on by whatever had wounded him? Had Temba's sword been poisoned? He dismissed that thought immediately, no poison could lay him low. Surveying his surroundings, he could see no sign of the wolves that had chased him through the dark forests, but suddenly remembered a familiar form that had ghosted behind the face of the pack leader. For the briefest instant, it had looked like Magnus, but surely he was back on Prospero licking his wounds after the Council of Nikaeal?

Something had happened to Horus on Davin's moon, but he had no idea what. His shoulder ached and he rotated it within his armour to loosen the muscle, but the motion served only to further aggravate it. Horus set off in the direction of the river once more, still thirsty despite knowing that he walked in an illusory realm.

Cresting the rise that then began to slope gently down towards the river, Horus pulled up sharply as he saw something startling: an armoured Astartes warrior floating face down in the water. Wedged in the shallows of the riverbank, the body rose and fell with the swell of the water, and Horus swiftly made his way towards it.

He splashed into the river and gripped the edges of the figure's shoulder guards, turning the body over with a heavy splash.

Horus gasped, seeing that the man was alive, and that it was someone he knew.

A beautiful man was how Loken had described him, a beautiful man who had been adored by all who knew him. The noblest hero of the Great Crusade had been another of his epithets.

Hastur Sejanus.

Loken marched away from the temple, angry at what his brothers had done and furious with himself: he should have known that Erebus would have had plans beyond the simple murder of the Warmaster.

His veins surged with the need to do violence, but Erebus was not here, and no one could tell Loken where he was. Torgaddon and Vipus marched alongside him, and even through his anger, Loken could sense his friends' astonishment at what had happened before the great gate of the Delphos.

'Throne, what's happening here?' asked Vipus as they reached the top of the processional steps. 'Garvi, what's happening? Are the first captain and Little Horus our enemies now?'

Loken shook his head. 'No, Nero, they are our brothers, they are simply being used. As I think we all are.'

'By Erebus?' asked Torgaddon.

'Erebus?' said Vipus. 'What has he got to do with this?'

'Garviel thinks that Erebus is behind what's happening to the Warmaster,' said Torgaddon.

Loken shot him an exasperated stare.

'You're joking?'

'Not this time, Nero,' said Torgaddon.

'Tarik,' snapped Loken. 'Keep your voice down or everyone will hear.'

'So what if they do, Garvi?' hissed Torgaddon. 'If Erebus is behind this, then everyone should know about it: we should expose him.'

'And we will,' promised Loken, watching as the pinpricks of vehicle headlights appeared at the mouth of the valley they had only recently flown up.

'So what do we do?' asked Vipus.

That was the question, realised Loken. They needed more information before they could act, and they needed it now. He fought for calm so that he could think more clearly.

Loken wanted answers, but he had to know what questions to ask first, and there was one man who had always been able to cut through his confusion and steer him in the right direction.

Loken set off down the steps, heading back towards the Thunderhawk. Torgaddon, Vipus and the warriors of Locasta followed him. As he reached the bottom of the steps, he turned to them and said, 'I need you two to stay here. Keep an eye on the temple and make sure that nothing bad happens'

'Define "bad".' said Vipus.

'I'm not sure,' said Loken. 'Just… bad, you know? And contact me if you get so much as a glimpse of Erebus'

'Where are you going?' asked Torgaddon. 'I'm going back to the Vengeful Spirit! '

'What for?'

'To get some answers,' said Loken.

'Hastur!' cried Horus, reaching down to lift his fallen friend from the water. Sejanus was limp in his arms, though Horus could tell he lived by the pulse in his throat and the colour in his cheeks. Horus dragged Sejanus from the water, wondering if his presence might be another of the strange realm's illusions or if his old friend might in fact be a threat to him.

Sej anus's chest hiked convulsively as he brought up a lungful of water, and Horus rolled him onto his side, knowing that the genhanced physique of an Astartes warrior made it almost impossible for him to drown.

'Hastur, is it really you?' asked Horus, knowing that in this place, such a question was probably meaningless, but overcome with joy to see his beloved Sejanus again. He remembered the pain he had felt when his most favoured son had been hacked down upon the onyx floor of the false Emperor's palace on Sixty-Three Nineteen, and the Cthonic bellicosity that had demanded blood vengeance.

Sejanus heaved a last flood of water and propped himself up on his elbow, sucking great lungfuls of the clean air. His hand clutched at his throat as though searching for something, and he looked relieved to find that it wasn't there.

'My son,' said Horus as Sejanus turned towards him. He was exactly as Horus remembered him, perfect in every detail: the noble face, wide set eyes and firm, straight nose that could be a mirror for the Warmaster himself.

Any thoughts that Sejanus might be a threat to him were swept away as he saw the silver shine of his eyes and knew that this surely was Hastur Sejanus. How such a thing was possible was beyond him, but he did not question this miracle for fear that it might be snatched away from him.

'Commander,' said Sejanus, rising to embrace Horus.

'Damn me, boy, it's good to see you,' said Horus. 'Part of me died when I lost you.'

'I know, sir,' replied Sejanus as they released each other from the crushing embrace. 'I felt your sorrow.'

'You're a sight for sore eyes, my boy,' said Horus, taking a step back to admire his most perfect warrior. 'It gladdens my heart to see you, but how can this be? I watched you die.'

'Yes,' agreed Sejanus. 'You did, but, in truth, my death was a blessing.'

'A blessing? How?'

'It opened my eyes to the truth of the universe and freed me from the shackles of living knowledge. Death is no longer an undiscovered country, my lord, it is one from which this traveller has returned.'

'How is such a thing possible?'

'They sent me back to you,' said Sejanus. 'My spirit was lost in the void, alone and dying, but I have come back to help you.'

Conflicting emotions surged through Horus at the sight of Sejanus. To hear him speak of spirits and voids struck a note of warning, but to see him alive once more, even if it wasn't real, was something to be cherished.

'You say you're here to help me? Then help me to understand this place. Where are we?'

'We don't have much time,' said Sejanus, climbing the slope to the rise that overlooked the plains and forests, and taking a long look around. 'He'll be here soon.'

'That's not the first time I've heard that recently,' said Horus.

'From where else have you heard it?' demanded Sejanus, turning back to face him with a serious expression. Horus was surprised at the vehemence of the question.

'A wolf said it to me,' said Horus. 'I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous, but I swear it really did speak to me.'

'I believe you, sir,' said Sejanus. 'That's why we need to move on.'

Horus sensed evasion, a trait he had never known in Sejanus before now and said, 'You're avoiding my question, Hastur, now tell me where we are.'

'We don't have time, my lord,' urged Sejanus.

'Sejanus,' said Horus, his voice that of the Warmaster. 'Tell me what I want to know.'

'Very well,' said Sejanus, 'but quickly, for your body lies on the brink of death within the walls of the Delphos on Davin.'

'The Delphos? I've never heard of it, and this doesn't look like Davin.'

'The Delphos is a place sacred to the Lodge of the Serpent,' said Sejanus. 'A place of healing. In the ancient tongues of Earth its name means "the womb of the world", where a man may be healed and renewed. Your body lies in the Axis Mundi chamber, but your spirit is no longer tied to your flesh.'

'So we're not really here?' asked Horus. 'This world isn't real?'

'No.'

'Then this is the warp,' said Horus, finally accepting what he had begun to suspect.

'Yes. None of this is real,' said Sejanus, waving his hand around the landscape. 'All this is but fragments of your will and memory that have given shape to the formless energy of the warp.'

Horus suddenly knew where he had seen this land before, remembering the wondrous geophysical relief map of Terra they had found ten kilometres beneath a dead world almost a decade ago. It hadn't been the Terra of their time, but one of an age long past, with green fields, clear seas and clean air.

He looked up into the sky, half expecting to see curious faces looking down on him from above like students studying an ant colony, but the sky was empty, though it was darkening at an unnatural rate. The world around him was changing before his eyes from the Earth that had once existed to the barren wasteland of Terra.

Sejanus followed his gaze and said, 'It's beginning.'

'What is?' asked Horus.

'Your mind and body are dying and this world is beginning to collapse into Chaos. That's why they sent me back, to guide you to the truth that will allow you to return to your body.'

Even as Sejanus spoke, the sky began to waver and he could see hints of the roiling sea of the Immaterium seething behind die clouds.

'You keep saying "they".' said Horus. 'Who are "they" and why are they interested in me?'

'Great intelligences dwell in the warp,' explained Sejanus, casting wary glances at the dissolution of die sky. 'They do not communicate as we do and this is the only way they could reach you.'

'I don't like the sound of this, Hastur,' warned Horus.

'There is no malice in this place. There is power and potential, yes, but no malice, simply the desire to exist. Events in our galaxy are destroying this realm and these powers have chosen you to be their emissary in their dealings with the material world.'

'And what if I don't want to be their emissary?'

'Then you will die,' said Sejanus. 'Only they are powerful enough to save your life now.'

'If they're so powerful, what do they need me for?'

'They are powerful, but they cannot exist in the material universe and must work through emissaries,' replied Sejanus. 'You are a man of strength and ambition and they know there is no other being in the galaxy powerful enough or worthy enough to do what must be done.'

Despite his satisfaction at being so described, Horus did not like what he was hearing. He sensed no deceit in Sejanus, though a warning voice in his head reminded him that the silver-eyed warrior standing before him could not truly be Sejanus.

'They have no interest in the material universe, it is anathema to them, they simply wish to preserve their own realm from destruction,' continued Sejanus as the chemical reek of the world beyond the illusion returned, and a stinking wind arose. 'In return for your aid, they can give you a measure of their power and the means to realise your every ambition.'

Horus saw the lurking world of brazen iron become more substantial as the warp and weft of reality began to buckle beneath his feet. Cracks of dark light shimmered through the splitting earth and Horus could hear the sound of howling wolves drawing near.

'We have to move!' shouted Sejanus as the wolf pack loped from a disintegrating copse of trees. To Horus, it sounded as though their howls desperately called his name.

Sejanus ran back to the river and a shimmering flat oblong of light rose from the boiling water. Horus heard whispers and strange mutterings issuing from beyond it, and a sense of dark premonition seized him as he switched his gaze between this strange light and the wolves.

'I'm not sure about this,' said Horus as the sky shed fat droplets of acid rain.

'Come on, the gateway is our only way out!' cried Sejanus, heading towards the light. 'As a great man once said, "Towering genius disdains the beaten path, it seeks regions hitherto unexplored".'

'You're quoting me back to myself?' said Horus as the wind blew in howling gusts.

'Why not? Your words will be quoted for centuries to come.'

Horus smiled, liking the idea of being quotable, and set off after Sejanus.

'Where does this gate lead?' shouted Horus over the wind and the howling of wolves.

'To the truth,' replied Sejanus.

The crater began to fill as the sun finally set, hundreds of vehicles of all descriptions finally completing their journey from the Imperial deployment zone to this place of pilgrimage. The Davinites watched the arrival of these convoys with a mixture of surprise and confusion, incredulous as each vehicle was abandoned, and its passengers made their way towards the Delphos.

Within the hour, thousands of people had gathered, and more were arriving every minute. Most of these new arrivals milled about in an undirected mass until the Davinites began circulating amongst them, helping to find somewhere that belongings could be set down and arranging shelter as a hard rain began to fall.

Headlights stretched all the way along the forgotten causeway and through the valley to the plains below. As night closed in on Davin, songs in praise of the Warmaster filled the air, and the flickering glow of thousands of candles joined the light of the torches ringing the gold-skinned Delphos.

FOURTEEN The forgotten Living mythology Primogenesis

Passing through the gate of light was akin to stepping from one room to another. Where once had been a world, on the verge of dissolution, now Horus found himself standing amid a heaving mass of people, in a huge circular plaza surrounded by soaring towers and magnificently appointed buildings of marble. Thousands of people filled the square, and since he was half again as tall as the tallest, Horus could see that thousands more waited to enter from nine arterial boulevards.

Strangely, none of these people remarked on the sudden arrival of two giant warriors in their midst. A cluster of statues stood at the centre of the plaza, and droning chants drifted from corroded speakers set on the buildings, as the mass of humanity marched in mindless procession around them. A pealing clangour of bells tolled from each building.

'Where are we?' asked Horus, looking up at the great eagle-fronted buildings, their golden spires and their colossal stained glass rosary windows. Each structure vied with its neighbour for supremacy of height and ostentation, and Horus's eye for architectural proportion and elegance saw them as vulgar expressions of devotion.

'I do not know the name of this palace,' said Sejanus. 'I know only what I have seen here, but I believe it to be some kind of shrine world.'

'A shrine world? A shrine to what?'

'Not what,' said Sejanus, pointing to the statues in the centre of the plaza. 'Who.'

Horus looked more closely at the enormous statues, encircled by the thronged masses. The outer ring of statues was carved from white marble, and each gleaming warrior was clad in full Astartes battle plate. They surrounded the central figure, which was likewise armoured in a magnificent suit of gold armour that gleamed and sparkled with precious gems. This figure carried a flaming torch high, the light of it illuminating everything around him. The symbolism was clear - this central figure was bringing his light to the people, and his warriors were there to protect him.

The gold warrior was clearly a king or hero of some kind, his features regal and patrician, though the sculptor had exaggerated them to ludicrous proportions. The proportions of the statues surrounding the central figure were similarly grotesque.

'Who is the gold statue meant to be?' asked Horus.

'You don't recognise him?' asked Sejanus.

'No. Should I?'

'Let's take a closer look.'

Horus followed as Sejanus set off into the crowd, making his way towards the centre of the plaza, and the crowds parted before them without so much as a raised eyebrow.

'Can't these people see us?' he asked.

'No,' said Sejanus. 'Or if they can, they will forget us in an instant. We move amongst them as ghosts and none here will remember us.'

Horus stopped in front of a man dressed in a threadbare scapular, who shuffled around the statues on bloodied feet. His hair was tonsured and he clutched a handful of carved bones tied together with twine. A bloody bandage covered one eye and a long strip of parchment pinned to his scapular dangled to the ground.

With barely a pause, the man stepped around him, but Horus put out his arm and prevented his progress. Again, the man attempted to pass Horus, but again he was prevented.

'Please, sir,' said the man without looking up. 'I must get by.'

'Why?' asked Horus. 'What are you doing?'

The man looked puzzled, as though struggling to recall what he had been asked.

'I must get by,' he said again.

Exasperated by the man's unhelpful answers, Horus stepped aside to let him pass. The man bowed his head and said, 'The Emperor watch over you, sir.'

Horus felt a clammy sensation crawl along his spine at the words. He pushed through the unresisting crowds towards the centre of the plaza as a terrible suspicion began forming in his gut. He caught up to Sejanus, who stood atop a stepped plinth at the foot of the statues, where a huge pair of bronze eagles formed the backdrop to a tall lectern.

A hugely fat official in a gold chasuble and tall mitre of silk and gold read aloud from a thick, leather-bound book, his words carried over the crowd via silver trumpets held aloft by what looked like winged infants that floated above him.

As Horus approached, he saw that the official was human only from the waist up, a complex series of hissing pistons and brass rods making up his lower half and fusing him with the lectern, which he now saw was mounted on a wheeled base.

Horus ignored him, looking up at the statues, finally seeing them for what they were.

Though their faces were unrecognisable to one who knew them as Horus did, their identities were unmistakable.

The nearest was Sanguinius, his outstretched wings like the pinions of the eagles that adorned every structure surrounding the plaza. To one side of the Lord of the Angels was Rogal Dorn, the unfurled wings haloing his head, unmistakable, on the other, was someone who could only be Leman Russ, his hair carved to resemble a wild mane, and wearing a cloak of wolf pelts draped around his massive shoulders.

Horus circled the statues, seeing other familiar images: Guilliman, Corax, the Lion, Ferrus Mannus, Vulkan and finally Jaghatai Khan.

There could be no doubting the identity of the central figure now, and Horus looked up into the carved face of the Emperor. No doubt the inhabitants of this world thought it magnificent, but Horus knew this was a poor thing, failing spectacularly to capture the sheer dynamism and force of the Emperor's personality.

With the additional height offered by the statues' plinth, Horus looked out over the slowly circling mass of people and wondered what they thought they did in this place.

Pilgrims, thought Horus, the word leaping, unbidden, to his mind.

Coupled with the ostentation and vulgar adornments he saw on the surrounding buildings, Horus knew that this was not simply a place of devotion, but something much more.

'This is a place of worship,' he said as Sejanus joined him at the foot of Corax's statue, the cool marble perfectly capturing the pallid complexion of his taciturn brother.

Sejanus nodded and said, 'It is an entire world given over to the praise of the Emperor.'

'But why? The Emperor is no god. He spent centuries freeing humanity from the shackles of religion.'

'This makes no sense.'

'Not from where you stand in time, but this is the Imperium that will come to pass if events continue on their present course,' said Sejanus. 'The Emperor has the gift of foresight and he has seen this future time.'

'For what purpose?'

'To destroy the old faiths so that one day his cult would more easily supplant them all.'

'No,' said Horus, 'I won't believe that. My father always refuted any notion of divinity. He once said of ancient Earth that there were torches, who were the teachers, but also extinguishers, who were the priests. He would never have condoned this.'

'Yet this entire world is his temple,' Sejanus said, 'and it is not the only one.'

'There are more worlds like this?'

'Hundreds,' nodded Sejanus, 'probably even thousands.'

'But the Emperor shamed Lorgar for behaviour such as this,' protested Horus.

'The Word Bearers Legion raised great monuments to the Emperor and persecuted entire populations for their lack of faith, but the Emperor would not stand for it and said that Lorgar shamed him with such displays.'

'He wasn't ready for worship then: he didn't have control of the galaxy. That's why he needed you.'

Horus turned away from Sejanus and looked up into the golden face of his father, desperate to refute the words he was hearing. At any other time, he would have struck Sejanus down for such a suggestion, but the evidence was here before him.

He turned to face Sejanus. 'These are some of my brothers, but where are the others? Where am I?'

'I do not know,' replied Sejanus. 'I have walked this place many times, but have never yet seen your likeness.'

'I am his chosen regent!' cried Horus. 'I fought on a thousand battlefields for him. The blood of my warriors is on his hands, and he ignores me like I don't exist?'

'The Emperor has forsaken you, Warmaster,' urged Sejanus. 'Soon he will turn his back on his people to win his place amongst the gods. He cares only for himself and his power and glory. We were all deceived. We have no place in his grand scheme, and when the time comes, he will spurn us all and ascend to godhood. While we were fighting war after war in his name, he was secretly building his power in the warp.'

The droning chant of the official - a priest, realised Horus - continued as the pilgrims maintained the slow procession around their god, and Sejanus's words hammered against his skull.

'This can't be true,' whispered Horus.

'What does a being of the Emperor's magnitude do after he has conquered the galaxy? What is left for him but godhood? What use has he for those whom he leaves behind?'

'No!' shouted Horus, stepping from the plinth and smashing the droning priest to the ground. The augmented preacher hybrid was torn from the pulpit and lay screaming in a pool of blood and oil. His cries were carried across the plaza by the trumpets of the floating infants, though none of the crowd seemed inclined to help him.

Horus set off into the crowded plaza in a blind fury, leaving Sejanus behind on the plinth of statues. Once again, the crowd parted before his headlong dash, as unresponsive to his leaving as they had been to his arrival. Within moments he reached the edge of the plaza and made his way down the nearest of the arterial boulevards. People filled the street, but they ignored him as he pushed his way through them, each face turned in rapture to an image of the Emperor.

Without Sejanus beside him, Horus realised that he was completely alone. He heard the howl of a distant wolf, its cry once again sounding as though it called out to him. He stopped in the centre of a crowded street, listening for the wolf howl again, but it was silenced as suddenly as it had come.

The crowds flowed around him as he listened, and Horus saw that once again, no one paid him the slightest bit of attention. Not since Horus had parted from his father and brothers had he felt so isolated. Suddenly he felt the pain of being confronted with the scale of his own vanity and pride as he realised how much he thrived on the adoration of those around him.

On every face, he saw the same blind devotion as he had witnessed in those that circled the statues, a beloved reverence for a man he called father. Didn't these people realise the victories that had won their freedom had been won with Horus's blood?

It should be Horus's statue surrounded by his brother primarchs, not the Emperor's!

Horus seized the nearest devotee and shook him violently by the shoulders, shouting, 'He is not a god! He is not a god!'

The pilgrim's neck snapped with an audible crack and Horus felt the bones of the man's shoulders splinter beneath his iron grip. Horrified, he dropped the dead man and ran deeper into the labyrinth of the shrine world, taking turns at random, as he sought to lose himself in its crowded streets.

Each fevered change of direction took him along thronged avenues of worshippers and marvels dedicated to the glory of the God-Emperor: thoroughfares where every cobblestone was inscribed with prayer, kilometre high ossuaries of gold plated bones, and forests of marble columns, with unnumbered saints depicted upon them.

Random demagogues roamed the streets, one fanatically mortifying his flesh with prayer whips while another held up two squares of orange cloth by the corners and screamed that he would not wear them. Horus could make no sense of any of it.

Vast prayer ships drifted over this part of the shrine city, monstrously bloated zeppelins with sweeping brass sails and enormous prop-driven motors. Long prayer banners hung from their fat silver hulls, and hymns blared from hanging loudspeakers shaped like ebony skulls.

Horus passed a great mausoleum where flocks of ivory-skinned angels with brass-feathered wings flew from dark archways and descended into the crowds gathered in front of the building. The solemn angels swooped over the wailing masses, occasionally gathering to pluck some ecstatic soul from the pilgrims, and cries of adoration and praise followed each supplicant as he was carried through the dread portals of the mausoleum.

Horus saw death venerated in the coloured glass of every window, celebrated in the carvings on every door, and revered in the funereal dirges that echoed from the trumpets of winged children who giggled as they circled like birds of prey. Flapping banners of bone clattered, and the wind whistled through the eye sockets of skulls set into shrine caskets on bronze poles. Morbidity hung like a shroud upon this world, and Horus could not reconcile the dark, gothic solemnity of this new religion with the dynamic force of truth, reason and confidence that had driven the Great Crusade into the stars.

High temples and grim shrines passed him in a blur: cenobites and preachers haranguing the pilgrims from every street corner to the peal of doomsayers' bells. Everywhere Horus looked, he saw walls adorned with frescoes, paintings and bas relief works of familiar faces - his brothers and the Emperor himself.

Why was there no representation of Horus?

It was as if he had never existed. He sank to his knees, raising his fists to the sky.

'Father, why have you forsaken me?'

The Vengeful Spirit felt empty to Loken, and he knew it was more than simply the absence of people. The solid, reassuring presence of the Warmaster, so long taken for granted, was achingly absent without him on board. The halls of the ship were emptier, more hollow, as though it were a weapon stripped of its ammunition - once powerful, but now simply inert metal.

Though portions of the ship were still filled with people, huddled in small groups and holding hands around groups of candles, there was an emptiness to the place that left Loken feeling similarly hollowed out.

Each group he passed swarmed around him, the normal respect for an Astartes warrior forgotten in their desperation to know the fate of the Warmaster. Was he dead? Was he alive? Had the Emperor reached out from Terra to save his beloved son?

Loken angrily brushed each group off, pushing through them without answering their questions as he made his way to Archive Chamber Three. He knew Sindermann would be there - he was always there these days - researching and poring over his books like a man possessed. Loken needed answers about the serpent lodge, and he needed them now.

Time was of the essence and he'd already made one stop at the medical deck in order to hand over the anathame to Apothecary Vaddon.

'Be very careful, apothecary,' warned Loken, reverently placing the wooden casket on the steel operating slab between them. 'This is a kinebrach weapon called an anathame. It was forged from a sentient xeno metal and is utterly lethal. I believe it to be the source of the Warmaster's malady. Do what you need to do to find out what happened, but do it quickly.'

Vaddon had nodded, dumbfounded that Loken had returned with something he could actually use. He lifted the anathame by its golden studded pommel and placed it within a spectrographic chamber.

'I can't promise anything, Captain Loken,' said Vaddon, 'but I will do whatever is in my power to find you an answer.'

'That's all I ask, but the sooner the better, and tell no one that you have this weapon.'

Vaddon nodded and turned to his work, leaving Loken to find Kyril Sindermann in the archives of the mighty ship. The helplessness that had seized him earlier vanished now that he had a purpose. He was actively trying to save the Warmaster, and that knowledge gave him fresh hope that there might yet be a way to bring him back unharmed in body and spirit.

As always, the archives were quiet, but now there was a deeper sense of desolation. Loken strained to hear anything at all, finally catching the scratching of a quill-pen from deeper in the stacks of books. Swiftly he made his way towards the sound, knowing before he reached the source that it was his old mentor. Only Kyril Sindermann scratched at the page with such intense pen strokes.

Sure enough, Loken found Sindermann sitting at his usual table and upon seeing him, Loken knew with absolute certainty that he had not left this place since last they had spoken. Bottles of water and discarded food packs lay scattered around the table, and the haggard Sindermann now sported a growth of fine white hair on his cheeks and chin.

'Garviel,' said Sindermann without looking up. 'You came back. Is the Warmaster dead?'

'No,' replied Loken. 'At least I don't think so. Not yet anyway.'

Sindermann looked up from his books, the haphazard piles of which were now threatening to topple onto the floor.

'You don't think so?'

'I haven't seen him since I saw him on the apothecaries' slab,' confessed Loken.

'Then why are you here? It surely can't be for a lesson on the principles and ethics of civilisation. What's happening?'

'I don't know,' admitted Loken. 'Something bad I think. I need your knowledge of… things esoteric, Kyril.'

'Things esoteric?' repeated Sindermann, putting down his quill. 'Now I am intrigued.'

'The Legion's quiet order has taken the Warmaster to the Temple of the Serpent Lodge on Davin. They've placed him in a temple they call the Delphos and say that the "eternal spirits of dead things" will heal him.'

'Serpent Lodge you say?' asked Sindermann, plucking books seemingly at random from the cluttered piles on his desk. 'Serpents… now that is interesting.'

'What is?'

'Serpents,' repeated Sindermann. 'Since the very beginnings of time, on every continent where humanity worshipped divinity, the serpent has been recognised and accepted as a god. From the steaming jungles of the Afrique islands to the icy wastes of Alba, serpents have been worshipped, feared and adored in equal measure. I believe that serpent mythology is probably the most widespread mythology known to mankind.'

'Then how did it get to Davin?' asked Loken.

'It's not difficult to understand,' explained Sindermann. 'You see, myths weren't originally expressed in verbal or written form because language was deemed inadequate to convey the truth expressed in the stories. Myths move not with words, Garviel, but with storytellers and wherever you find people, no matter how primitive or how far they've been separated from the cradle of humanity, you'll always find storytellers. Most of these myths were probably enacted, chanted, danced or sung, more often than not in hypnotic or hallucinatory states. It must have been quite a sight, but anyway, this method of retelling was said to allow the creative energies and relationships behind and beneath the natural world to be brought into the conscious realm. Ancient peoples believed that myths created a bridge from the metaphysical world to the physical one.'

Sindermann flicked through the pages of what looked like a new book encased in fresh red leather and turned the book so Loken could see.

'Here, you see it here quite clearly.'

Loken looked at the pictures, seeing images of naked tribesmen dancing with long snake-topped poles as well as snakes and spirals painted onto primitive pottery. Other pictures showed vases with gigantic snakes winding over suns, moons and stars, while still more showed snakes appearing below growing plants or coiled above the bellies of pregnant women.

'What am I looking at?' he asked.

'Artefacts recovered from a dozen different worlds during the Great Crusade,' said Sindermann, jabbing his finger at the pictures. 'Don't you see? We carry our myths with us, Garviel, we don't reinvent them.'

Sindermann turned the page to show yet more images of snakes and said, 'Here the snake is the symbol of energy, spontaneous, creative energy… and of immortality.'

'Immortality?'

'Yes, in ancient times, men believed that the serpent's ability to shed its skin and thus renew its youth made it privy to the secrets of death and rebirth. They saw the moon, waxing and waning, as the celestial body capable of diis same ability, and of course, the lunar cycle has long associations with the life-creating rhythm of the female. The moon became the lord of the twin mysteries of birth and death, and the serpent was its earthly counterpart.'

'The moon…' said Loken.

'Yes,' continued Sindermann, now well into his flow. 'In early rites of initiation where the aspirant was seen to die and be reborn, the moon was the goddess mother and the serpent the divine father. It's not hard to see why the connection between the serpent and healing becomes a permanent facet of serpent worship.'

'Is that what this is,' breathed Loken. 'A rite of initiation?'

Sindermann shrugged. 'I couldn't say, Garviel. I'd need to see more of it.'

'Tell me,' snarled Loken. 'I need to hear all you know.'

Startled by the power of Loken's urging, Sindermann reached for several more books, leafing through them as the 10th Company captain loomed over him.

'Yes, yes…' he muttered, flipping back and forth through the well-thumbed pages. 'Yes, here it is. Ah… yes, a word for serpent in one of the lost languages of old Earth was "nahash", which apparently means, "to guess". It appears that it was then translated to mean a number of different things, depending on which etymological root you believe.'

'Translated to mean what?' asked Loken. 'Its first rendition is as either "enemy" or "adversary", but it seems to be more popularly transliterated as "Seytan".'

'Seytan,' said Loken. 'I've heard that name before.'

'We… ah, spoke of it at the Whisperheads,' said Sindermann in a low voice, looking about him as though someone might be listening. 'It was said to be a nightmarish force of deviltry cast down by a golden hero on Terra. As we now know, the Samus spirit was probably the local equivalent for the inhabitants of Sixty-Three Nineteen.'

'Do you believe that?' asked Loken. 'That Samus was a spirit?'

'Of some form, yes,' said Sindermann honestly. 'I believe that what I saw beneath the mountains was more than simply a xenos of some kind, no matter what the Warmaster says.'

'And what about this serpent as Seytan?'

Sindermann, pleased to have a subject upon which he could illuminate, shook his head and said, 'No. If you look closer, you see the word "serpent" has its origination in the Olympian root languages as "drakon", the cosmic serpent that was seen as a symbol of Chaos.'

'Chaos?' cried Loken. 'No!'

'Yes,' went on Sindermann, hesitantly pointing out a passage of text in yet another of his books. 'It is this "chaos", or "serpent", which must be overcome to create order and maintain life in any meaningful way. This serpentine dragon was a creature of great power and its sacred years were times of great ambition and incredible risk. It's said that events occurring in a year of the dragon are magnified threefold in intensity.'

Loken tried to hide his horror at Sindermann's words, the ritual significance of the serpent and its place in mythology cementing his conviction that what was happening on Davin was horribly wrong. He looked down at the book before him and said, 'What's this?'

'A passage from the Book of Atum,' said Sindermann, as though afraid to tell him. 'I only found it quite recently, I swear. I didn't think anything of it, I still don't really… After all, it's just nonsense isn't it?'

Loken forced himself to look at the book, feeling his heart grow heavy with each word he read from its yellowed pages.

I am Horus, forged of the Oldest Gods,

I am he who gave way to Khaos

I am that great destroyer of all.

I am he who did what seemed good to him,

And set doom in the palace of my will.

Mine is the fate of those who move along

This serpentine path.

'I'm no student of poetry,' snapped Loken. 'What does it mean?'

'It's a prophecy,' said Sindermann hesitantly. 'It speaks of a time when the world returns to its original chaos and the hidden aspects of the supreme gods become the new serpent.'

'I don't have time for metaphors, Kyril,' warned Loken.

'At its most basic level,' said Sindermann, 'it speaks about the death of the universe.'

Sejanus found him on the steps of a vaulted basilica, its wide doorway flanked by tall skeletons wrapped in funeral robes and holding flaming censers out before them. Though darkness had fallen, the streets of the city still thronged with worshippers, each carrying a lit taper or lantern to light the way.

Horus looked up as Sejanus approached, thinking that the processions of light through the city would have seemed beautiful at any other time. The pageantry and pomp of the palanquins and altars being carried along the streets would previously have irritated him, were the procession in his honour, but now he craved them.

'Have you seen all you need to see?' asked Sejanus, sitting beside him on the steps.

'Yes,' replied Horus. 'I wish to leave this place.'

'We can leave whenever you want, just say the word,' said Sejanus. 'There is more you need to see anyway, and our time is not infinite. Your body is dying and you must make your choice before you are beyond the help of even the powers that dwell in the warp.'

'This choice,' asked Horus, 'Does it involve what I think it does?'

'Only you can decide that,' said Sejanus as the doors to the basilica opened behind them.

Horus looked over his shoulder, seeing a familiar oblong of light where he would have expected to see a darkened vestibule.

'Very well,' he said, standing and turning towards the light. 'So where are we going now?'

'To the beginning,' answered Sejanus.

Stepping through the light, Horus found himself standing in what appeared to be a colossal laboratory, its cavernous walls formed of white steel and silver panels. The air tasted sterile, and Horus could tell that the temperature of the air was close to freezing. Hundreds of figures encased in fully enclosed white oversuits with reflective gold visors filled the laboratory, working at row upon row of humming gold machines that sat atop long, steel benches.

Hissing puffs of vapour feathered the air above each worker's head, and long tubes coiled around the. legs and arms of the white suits before hooking into cumbersome looking backpacks. Though no words were spoken, a sense of the implementation of grand designs was palpable. Horus wandered through the facility, its inhabitants ignoring him as completely as those of the shrine world had. Instinctively, he knew that he and Sejanus were far beneath the surface of whatever world they had travelled to.

'Where are we now?' he asked. 'When are we?'

'Terra,' said Sejanus, 'at the dawn of a new age.'

'What does that mean?'

In answer to his question, Sejanus pointed to the far wall of the laboratory where a shimmering energy field protected a huge silver steel door. The sign of the aquila was etched into the metal, along with strange, mystical looking symbols that were out of place in a laboratory dedicated to the pursuit of science. Just looking at the door made Horus uneasy, as though whatever lay beyond was somehow a threat to him.

'What lies beyond that door?' asked Horus, backing away from the silver portal.

'Truths you will not want to see,' replied Sejanus, 'and answers you will not want to hear.'

Horus felt a strange, previously unknown sensation stir in his belly and fought to quell it as he realised that, despite all the cunning wrought into his creation, the sensation was fear. Nothing good could live behind that door. Its secrets were best forgotten, and whatever knowledge lay beyond should be left hidden.

'I don't want to know,' said Horus, turning from the door. 'It's too much.'

'You fear to seek answers?' asked Sejanus angrily. 'This is not the Horus I followed into battle for two centuries. The Horus I knew would not shirk from uncomfortable truths.'

'Maybe not, but I still don't want to see it,' said Horus.

'I'm afraid you don't have a choice, my friend,' said Sejanus. Horus looked up to see that he now stood in front of the door, wisps of freezing air gusting from its base as it slowly raised and the energy field dissipated. Flashing yellow lights swirled to either side of the door, but no one in the laboratory paid any attention as the door slid up into the panelled wall.

Dark knowledge lay beyond, of that Horus was certain, just as certainly as he knew that he could not ignore the temptation of discovering the secrets it kept hidden. He had to know what it concealed. Sejanus was right; it wasn't in his nature to back away from anything, no matter what it was. He had faced all the terrors the galaxy had to show him and had not flinched. This would be no different. Very well,' he said. 'Show me.'

Sejanus smiled and slapped his palm against Horus's shoulder guard, saying, 'I knew we could count on you, my friend. This will not be easy for you, but know that we would not show you this unless it was necessary.'

'Do what you must,' said Horus, shaking off the hand. For the briefest instant, Sejanus's reflection blurred like a shimmering mask in the gleaming metal of the door, and Horus fancied he saw a reptilian grin on his friend's face. 'Let's just get it done.'

They walked through the icy mist together, passing along a wide, steel-walled corridor that led to an identical door, which also slid into the ceiling as they approached.

The chamber beyond was perhaps half the size of the laboratory. Its walls were pristine and sterile, and it was empty of technicians and scientists. The floor was smooth concrete and the temperature cool rather than cold.

A raised central walkway ran the length of the chamber with ten large cylindrical tanks the size of boarding torpedoes lying flat to either side of it, long serial numbers stencilled on their flanks. Steam gusted from the top of each tank like breath. Beneath the serial numbers were the same mystical symbols he had seen on the door leading to this place.

Each tank was connected to a collection of strange machines, whose purpose Horus could not even begin to guess at. Their technologies were unlike anything he had ever seen, their construction beyond even his incredible intellect.

He climbed the metal stairs that led to the walkway, hearing strange sounds like fists on metal as he reached the top. Now atop the walkway, he could see that each tank had a wide hatchway at its end, with a wheel handle in its centre and a thick sheet of armoured glass above it.

Brilliant light flickered behind each block of glass and the very air thrummed with potential. Something about all this seemed dreadfully familiar to Horus and he felt an irresistible urge to know what lay within the tanks while simultaneously dreading what he might see.

'What are these?' he asked as he heard Sejanus climbing up behind him.

'I'm not surprised you don't remember. It's been over two hundred years.'

Horus leaned forward and wiped his gauntlet across the fogged glass of the first tank's hatch. He squinted against the brightness, straining to see what lay within. The light was blinding, a motion blurred shape within twisting like dark smoke in the wind.

Something saw him. Something moved closer.

'What do you mean?' asked Horus, fascinated by the strange, formless being that swam through the light of the tank. Its motion slowed, and it became a silhouette as it moved closer to the glass, its form settling into something more solid.

The tank hummed with power, as though the metal were barely able to contain the energy generated by the creature contained within it.

'These are the Emperor's most secret geno-vaults beneath the Himalayan peaks,' said Sejanus. 'This is where you were created.'

Horus wasn't listening. He was staring through the glass in amazement at a pair of liquid eyes that were the mirror of his own.

FIFTEEN Revelations Dissent Scattering

In the two days since the Warmaster's departure, the Vengeful Spirit had become a ghost ship, the mighty vessel having haemorrhaged landers, carriers, skiffs and any other craft capable of making it to the surface to follow Horus to Davin.

This suited Ignace Karkasy fine as he marched with newfound purpose and practiced insouciance through the decks of the ship, a canvas satchel slung over one shoulder. Each time he passed a public area of the ship he would check for anyone watching and liberally spread a number of sheets of paper around on desks, tables and couches.

The ache in his shoulder was lessening the more copies of The Truth is All We Have he distributed from the satchel, each sheet bearing three of what he considered to be his most powerful works to date. Uncaring Gods was his personal favourite, unfavourably comparing the Astartes warriors to the ancient Titans of myth, a powerful piece that he knew was worthy of a wider audience.

He knew he had to be careful with such works, but the passion burned in him too brightly to be contained.

He'd managed to get his hands on a cheap bulk printer with ridiculous ease, acquiring one from the first junkyard dog he'd approached with no more than a few moments' effort. It was not a good quality machine, or even one he would have looked twice at on Terra, but even so it had cost him the bulk of his winnings at merci merci. It was a poor thing, but it did the job, even though his billet now stank of printers' ink.

Humming quietly to himself, Karkasy continued through the civilian decks, coming at last to the Retreat, careful now that he was entering areas where he was known, and where there might be others around.

His fears were unfounded as the Retreat was empty, making it even more depressing and rundown-looking. One should never see a drinking establishment well lit, he thought, it just makes it look even sadder. He made his way through the Retreat, placing a couple of sheets on each table.

Karkasy froze as he heard the clink of a bottle on a glass, his hand outstretched to another table.

'What are you doing?' asked a cultured, but clearly drunk, female voice.

Karkasy turned and saw a bedraggled woman slumped in one of the booths at the far end of the Retreat, which explained why he hadn't seen her. She was in shadow, but he instantly recognised her as Petronella Vivar, the Warmaster's documentarist, though her appearance was a far cry from when he had last seen her on Davin.

No, that wasn't right, he remembered. He had seen her on the embarkation deck as the Astartes had returned with the Warmaster.

Obviously, the experience hadn't failed to leave its mark on her.

'Those papers,' she said. 'What are they?'

Karkasy guiltily dropped the sheets he had been holding onto the tabletop and shifted the satchel so that it rested at his back.

'Nothing really,' he said, moving down the row of booths towards her. 'Just some poems I'd like people to read.'

'Poetry? Is it any good? I could use something uplifting.' He knew he should leave her to her maudlin solitude, but the egotist in him couldn't help but respond.

'Yes, I think they're some of my best'

'Can I read them?'

'I wouldn't right now, my dear,' he said. 'Not if you're looking for something light. They're a bit dark.'

'A bit dark,' she laughed, the sound harsh and ugly. 'You have no idea.'

'It's Vivar isn't it?' asked Karkasy, approaching her booth. 'That's your name isn't it?'

She looked up, and Karkasy, an expert in gauging levels of inebriation in others, saw that she was drunk to the point of insensibility. Three bottles sat drained on the table and a fourth lay in pieces on the floor.

'Yes, that's me, Petronella Vivar,' she said. 'Palatina Majoria of House Carpinus, writer and fraud… and, I think, very drunk'

'I can see that, but what do you mean by fraud?'

'Fraud,' she slurred, taking another drink. 'I came here to tell the glory of Horus and the splendid brotherhood of the primarchs, you know? Told Horus when I met him that if he didn't let me do it he could go to hell. Thought I'd lost my chance right there and then, but he laughed!'

'He laughed?'

She nodded. 'Yes, laughed, but he let me do it anyway. Think he might have thought I'd be amusing to keep around or something. I thought I was ready for anything.'

'And has it proved to be all you hoped it would be, my dear Petronella?'

'No, not really if I'm honest. Want a drink? I'll tell you about it.'

Karkasy nodded and fetched himself a glass from the bar before sitting across from her. She poured him some wine, getting more on the table than in the glass.

'Thank you,' he said. 'So why is it not what you thought it would be? There's many a remembrancer would think such a position would be a documentarist's dream. Mersadie Oliton would have killed to land such a role.'

'Who?'

'A friend of mine,' explained Karkasy. 'She's also a documentarist.'

'She wouldn't want it, trust me,' said Petronella, and Karkasy could see that the puffiness around her eyes was due as much to tears as to alcohol. 'Some illusions are best kept. Everything I thought I knew… upside down, just like that! Trust me, she doesn't want this.'

'Oh, I think she might,' said Karkasy, taking a drink.

She shook her head and took a closer look at him, as though seeing him for the first time.

'Who are you?' she asked suddenly. 'I don't know you.'

'My name is Ignace Karkasy,' he said, puffing out his chest. 'Winner of the Ethiopic Laureate and—'

'Karkasy? I know that name…' she said, rubbing the heel of her palm against her temple as she sought to recall him. 'Wait, you're a poet aren't you?'

'I am indeed,' he said. 'Do you know my work?'

She nodded. 'You write poetry. Bad poetry I think, I don't remember.'

Stung by her casual dismissal of his work, he resorted to petulance and said, 'Well what have you written that's so bloody great? Can't say I remember reading anything you've written.'

'Ha! You'll remember what I'm going to write, I'll tell you that for nothing!'

'Really?' quipped Karkasy, gesturing at the empty bottles on the table. 'And what might that be? Memoirs of an Inebriated Socialite? Vengeful Spirits of the Vengeful Spirit?'

'You think you're so clever, don't you?'

'I have my moments,' said Karkasy, knowing that there wasn't much challenge in scoring points over a drunken woman, but enjoying it nonetheless. Anyway, it would be pleasant to take this spoiled rich girl - who was complaining about the biggest break of her life - down a peg or two.

'You don't know anything,' she snapped.

'Don't I?' he asked. 'Why don't you illuminate me then?'

'Fine! I will.'

And she told Ignace Karkasy the most incredible tale he'd ever heard in his life.

'Why did you bring me here?' asked Horus, backing away from the silver tank. The eyes on the other side of the glass watched him curiously, clearly aware of him in a way that everyone else they had encountered on this strange odyssey was not. Though he knew with utter certainty who those eyes belonged to, he couldn't accept that this sterile chamber far beneath the earth was where the glory of his life had begun.

Raised on Cthonia under the black smog of the smelteries - that had been his home, his earliest memories a blur of confusing images and feelings. Nothing in his memory recalled this place or the awareness that must have grown within…

'You have seen the ultimate goal of the Emperor, my friend,' said Sejanus. 'Now it is time for you see how he began his quest for godhood.'

'With the primarchs?' said Horus. 'That makes no sense.'

'It makes perfect sense. You were to be his generals. Like unto gods, you would bestride planets and claim back the galaxy for him. You were a weapon, Horus, a weapon to be cast aside once blunted and past all usefulness.'

Horus turned from Sejanus and marched along the walkway, stopping periodically to peer through the glass of the tanks. He saw something different in each one, light and form indistinguishable, organisms like architecture, eyes and wheels turning in circles of fire. Power like nothing he had known was at work, and he could feel die potent energies surrounding and protecting the tanks, rippling across his skin like waves in the air.

He stopped by the tank with XI stencilled upon it and placed his hand against the smooth steel, feeling the untapped glories diat might have lain ahead for what grew within, but knowing that they would never come to pass. He leaned forward to look within.

'You know what happens here, Horus,' said Sejanus. 'You are not long for this place.'

'Yes,' said Horus. 'There was an accident. We were lost, scattered across the stars until the Emperor discovered us.'

'No,' said Sejanus. There was no accident.'

Horus turned from the glass, confused. 'What are you talking about? Of course there was. We were hurled from Terra like leaves in a storm. I came to Cthonia, Russ to Fenris, Sanguineus to Baal and the odiers to die worlds they were raised on.'

'No, you misunderstand me. I meant that it wasn't an accident,' said Sejanus. 'Look around you. You know how far beneath the earth we are and you saw the protective wards carved on the doors diat led here. What manner of accident do you think could reach into this facility and scatter you so far across the galaxy? And what were the chances of you all coming to rest on ancient homeworlds of humanity?'

Horus had no answer for him and leaned on the walkway's railing taking deep breaths as Sejanus approached him. 'What are you suggesting?'

'I am suggesting nothing. I am telling you what happened.'

'You are telling me nothing!' roared Horus. 'You fill my head with speculation and conjecture, but you tell me nothing concrete. Maybe I'm being stupid, I don't know, so explain what you mean in plain words.'

'Very well,' nodded Sejanus. 'I will tell you of your creation.'

Thunderheads rumbled over the summit of the Delphos, and Euphrati Keeler snapped off a couple of quick picts of the structure's immensity, silhouetted against sheets of purple lighting. She knew die picts were nothing special, the composition banal and pedestrian, but she took them anyway knowing that every moment of this historic time had to be recorded for future generations.

'Are you done?' asked Titus Cassar, who stood a little way behind her. 'The prayer meeting's in a few moments and you don't want to be late.'

'I know, Titus, stop fussing.'

She had met Titus Cassar the day after she had arrived in the valley of the Delphos, following the secret Lectitio Divinitatus symbols to a clandestine prayer meeting he had organised in the shadow of the mighty building. She had been surprised by how many people were part of his congregation, nearly sixty souls, all with their heads bowed and reciting prayers to the Divine Emperor of Mankind.

Cassar had welcomed her into his flock, but people had quickly gravitated to her daily prayers and sermons, preferring them to his. For all his faith, Cassar was no orator and his awkward, spiky delivery left a lot to be desired. He had faith, but he was no iterator, that was for sure. She had worried that he might resent her usurping his group, but he had welcomed it, knowing that he was a follower, not a leader.

In truth, she was no leader either. Like Cassar, she had faith, but felt uncomfortable standing in front of large groups of people. The crowds of the faithful didn't seem to notice, staring at her in rapturous adoration as she delivered the word of the Emperor.

'I'm not fussing, Euphrati.'

'Yes you are.'

'Well, maybe I am, but I have to get back to the Dies Irae before I'm missed. Princeps Tumet will have my hide if he finds out what I've been doing here.'

The mighty war engines of the Legio Mortis stood sentinel over the Warmaster at the mouth of the valley, their bulk too enormous to allow them to enter. The crater looked more like the site of a military muster than a gathering of pilgrims and supplicants: tanks, trucks, flatbeds and mobile command vehicles having carried tens of thousands of people to this place over the past seven days.

Together with the bizarre-looking locals, a huge portion of the Expeditionary fleet filled the crater with makeshift camps all around the Delphos. People had, in a wondrous outpouring of spontaneous feeling, made their way to where the Warmaster lay, and the scale of it still had the power to take Euphrati's breath away. The steps of the temple were thick with offerings to the Warmaster, and she knew that many of the people here had given all they had in the hope that it might speed his recovery in some way.

Keeler had a new passion in her life, but she was still an imagist at heart, and some of the picts she had taken here were amongst her finest work.

'Yes, you're right, we should go,' she said, folding up her picter and hanging it around her neck. She ran her hand through her hair, still not used to how short it was now, but liking how it made her feel.

'Have you thought about what you're going to say tonight?' asked Cassar as they made their way through the thronged site to the prayer meeting.

'No, not really,' she answered. 'I never plan that far ahead. I just let the Emperor's light fill me and then I speak from the heart.'

Cassar nodded, hanging on her every word. She smiled.

'You know, six months ago, I'd have laughed if anyone had said things like that around me.'

'What things?' asked Cassar.

'About the Emperor,' she said, fingering the silver eagle on a chain she kept tucked beneath her remembrancer's robes. 'But I guess a lot can happen to a person in that time.'

'I guess so,' agreed Cassar, making way for a group of Army soldiers. 'The Emperor's light is a powerful force, Euphrati.'

As Keeler and Cassar drew level with the soldiers, a thick-necked bull of a man with a shaved head, slammed his shoulder into Cassar and pitched him to the ground.

'Hey, watch where you're going,' snarled the soldier, looming over Cassar.

Keeler stood over the fallen Cassar and shouted, 'Piss off, you cretin, you hit him!'

The soldier turned, backhanding his fist into Euphrati's jaw, and she dropped to the ground, more shocked than hurt. She struggled to rise as blood filled her mouth, but a pair of hands gripped her shoulders and held her firm to the ground. Two soldiers held her down as the others started kicking the fallen Cassar.

'Get off me!' she yelled.

'Shut up, bitch!' said the first soldier. 'You think we don't know what you're doing? Prayers and stuff to the Emperor? Horus is the one you should be giving thanks to.'

Cassar rolled to his knees, blocking the kicks as best he could, but he was facing three trained soldiers and couldn't block them all. He punched one in the groin and swayed away from a thick-soled boot aimed at his head, finally gaining his feet as a chopping hand struck him on the side of the neck.

Keeler struggled in her captors' grip, but they were too strong. One man reached down to tear the picter from around her neck and she bit his wrist as it came into range of her teeth. He yelped and ripped the picter from her as the other wrenched her head back by the roots of her hair.

'Don't you dare!' she screamed, struggling even harder as the soldier swung the picter by its strap and smashed it to pieces on the ground. Cassar was down on one knee, his face bloody and angry. He freed his pistol from its holster, but a knee connected widi his face and knocked him insensible, die pistol clattering to die ground beside him.

'Titus!' shouted Keeler, fighting like a wildcat and finally managing to free one arm. She reached back and clawed her nails down the face of the man who held her. He screamed and released his grip on her, and she scrambled on her knees to the fallen pistol.

'Get her!' someone shouted. 'Emperor loving bitch!'

She reached the pistol, hearing the thud of heavy impacts, and rolled onto her back. She held the gun out in front of her, ready to kill the next bastard that came near her.

Then she saw that she wouldn't have to kill anyone.

Three of die soldiers were down, one was running for his life through the campsite and the last was held in the iron grip of an Astartes warrior. The soldier's feet flailed-a metre off the ground as the Astartes held him round the neck with one hand.

'Five to one doesn't seem very sporting now does it?' asked the warrior, and Keeler saw that it was Captain Torgaddon, one of the Mournival. She remembered snapping some fine images of Torgaddon on the Vengeful Spirit and thinking that he was the handsomest of the Sons of Horus.

Torgaddon ripped the name and unit badge from the struggling soldier's uniform, before dropping him and saying, 'You'll be hearing from the Discipline Masters. Now get out of my sight before I kill you.'

Keeler dropped the pistol and scooted over to her picter, cursing as she saw that it and the images contained within it were probably ruined. She pawed through the remains and lifted out the memory coil. If she could get this into the edit engine she kept in her billet quickly enough then perhaps she could save some of the images.

Cassar groaned in pain and she felt a momentary pang of guilt that she'd gone for her smashed picter before him, but it soon passed.

'Are you Keeler?' asked Torgaddon as she slipped the memory coil into her robes.

She looked up, surprised that he knew her name, and said, 'Yes.'

'Good,' he said, offering his hand to help her to her feet.

'You want to tell me what that was all about?' he asked.

She hesitated, not wanting to tell an Astartes warrior the real reason for the assault. 'I don't think they liked the images I was taking,' she said.

'Everyone's a critic, eh?' chuckled Torgaddon, but she could see that he didn't believe her.

'Yeah, but I need to get back to the ship to recover them.'

'Well that's a happy coincidence,' said Torgaddon.

'What do you mean?'

'I've been asked to take you back to the Vengeful Spirit.'

'You have? Why?'

'Does it matter?' asked Torgaddon. 'You're coming back with me.'

'You can at least tell me who wants me back, can't you?'

'No, it's top secret.'

'Really?'

'No, not really, it's Kyril Sindermann.'

The idea of Sindermann sending an Astartes warrior to do his bidding seemed ludicrous to Keeler, and there could only be one reason why the venerable iterator wanted to speak to her. Ignace or Mersadie must have blabbed to him about her new faith, and she felt her anger grow at their unwillingness to understand her newfound truth.

'So the Astartes are at the beck and call of the iterators now?' she snapped.

'Hardly,' said Torgaddon. 'It's a favour to a friend and I think it might be in your own best interests to go back.'

'Why?'

'You ask a lot of questions, Miss Keeler,' said Torgaddon, 'and while that's a trait that probably stands you in good stead as a remembrancer, it might be best for you to be quiet and listen for a change.'

'Am I in trouble?'

Torgaddon stirred the smashed remnants of her picter with his boot and said, 'Let's just say that someone wants to give you some lessons in pictography.'

'The Emperor knew he would need the greatest warriors to lead his armies,' began Sejanus. 'To lead such warriors as the Astartes needed commanders like gods. Commanders who were virtually indestructible and could command superhuman warriors in the blink of an eye. They would be engineered to be leaders of men, mighty warlords whose martial prowess was only matched by the Emperor's, each with his own particular skills.'

'The primarchs.'

'Indeed. Only beings of such magnitude could even think of conquering the galaxy. Can you imagine the hubris and will required even to contemplate such an endeavour? What manner of man could even consider it? Who but a primarch could be trusted with such a monumental task? No man, not even the Emperor, could achieve such a god-like undertaking alone. Hence you were created.'

'To conquer the galaxy for humanity,' said Horus.

'No, not for humanity, for the Emperor,' said Sejanus. 'You already know in your heart what awaits you when the Great Crusade is over. You will become a gaoler who polices the Emperor's regime while he ascends to godhood and abandons you all. What sort of reward is that for someone who conquered the galaxy?'

'It is no reward at all,' snarled Horus, hammering his hand into the side of the silver tank before him. The metal buckled and a hairline crack split the toughened glass under his assault. He could hear a desperate drumming from inside, and a hiss of escaping gas whined from the frosted panel of the tank.

'Look around you, Horus,' said Sejanus. 'Do you think that the science of man alone could have created a being such as a primarch? If such technology existed, why not create a hundred Horuses, a thousand? No, a bargain was made that saw you emerge from its forging. I know, for the masters of the warp are as much your father as the Emperor.'

'No!' shouted Horus. 'I won't believe you. The primarchs are my brothers, the Emperor's sons created from his own flesh and blood and each a part of him.'

'Each a part of him, yes, but where did such power come from? He bargained with the gods of the warp for a measure of their power. That is what he invested in you, not his paltry human power.'

'The gods of the warp? What are you talking about, Sejanus?'

'The entities whose realm is being destroyed by the Emperor,' said Sejanus. 'Intelligences, xenos creatures, gods? Does it matter what terminology we use for them? They have such incredible power that they might as well be gods by your reckoning. They command the secrets of life and death and all that lies between. Experience, change, war and decay, they are all are part of the endless cycle of existence, and the gods of the warp hold dominion over them all. Their power flows through your veins and bestows incredible abilities upon you. The Emperor has long known of them and he came to them many centuries ago, offering friendship and devotion.'

'He would never do such a thing!' denied Horus.

'You underestimate his lust for power, my friend,' said Sejanus as they made their way back towards the steps that led down to the laboratory floor. 'The gods of the warp are powerful, but they do not understand this material universe, and the Emperor was able to betray them, stealing away their power for himself. In creating you, he passed on but a tiny measure of that power.'

Horus felt his breath come in short, painful bursts. He wanted to deny Sejanus's words, but part of him knew that this was no lie. Like any man, his future was uncertain, but his past had always been his own. His glories and life had been forged with his own two hands, but even now, they were being stripped away from him by the Emperor's treachery.

'So we are tainted,' whispered Horus. 'All of us.'

'Tainted, no,' said Sejanus, shaking his head. 'The power of the warp simply is. Used wisely and by a man of power it can be a weapon like no other. It can be mastered and it can be a powerful tool for one with the will to use it.'

'Then why did the Emperor not use it well?'

'Because he was weak,' said Sejanus, leaning in close to Horus. 'Unlike you, he lacked the will to master it, and the gods of the warp do not take kindly to those who betray them. The Emperor had taken a measure of their power for himself, but they struck back at him.'

'How?'

'You will see. With the power he stole from them, he was too powerful for them to attack directly, but they had foreseen a measure of his plans and they struck at what he needed most to realise those plans.'

'The primarchs?'

'The primarchs,' agreed Sejanus, walking back down the length of walkway. Horus heard distant sirens blare and felt the air within the chamber become more agitated, as if a cold electric current whipped from molecule to molecule.

'What's going on?' he asked, as the sirens grew louder.

'Justice,' said Sejanus.

The reflective surfaces of the tanks lit up as an actinic blue light appeared above them, and Horus looked up to see a blob of dirty light swirling into existence just below the ceiling. Like a miniature galaxy, it hung suspended above the silver incubation tanks, growing larger with every passing second. A powerful wind tugged at Horus and he hung onto the railing as a shrieking howl issued from the spreading vortex above him.

'What is that?' he shouted, working his way along the railing towards the stairs. 'You know what it is, Horus,' said Sejanus.

'We have to get out of here.'

'It's too late for that,' said Sejanus, taking his arm in an iron grip.

'Take your hand off me, Sejanus,' warned Horus, 'or whatever your name is. I know you're not Sejanus, so you might as well stop pretending.'

Even as he spoke, he saw a group of armoured warriors rushing through the chamber's doorway towards them. There were six of them, each with the build of an Astartes, but without a suit of battle plate, they were less bulked out and gigantic. They wore fabulously ornate gold breastplates decorated with eagles and lightning bolts, and each wore a tall, peaked helm of bronze with a red, horsehair plume. Scarlet cloaks billowed behind them in the cyclone that swept through the chamber. Long spears with boltguns slung beneath long, crackling blades were aimed at him, and he instantly recognised the warriors for what they were - the Custodian Guard, the Praetorians of the Emperor himself.

'Halt, fiends and face thy judgement!' shouted the lead warrior, aiming his guardian spear at Horus's heart. Though the warrior wore an enclosing helm, Horus would have recognised his eyes and that voice anywhere.

'Valdor!' cried Horus. 'Constantin Valdor. It's me, it's Horus.'

'Be silent!' shouted Valdor. 'End this foul conjuration now!'

Horus looked up at the ceiling, feeling the power contained within that swirling maelstrom tugging at him like the call of a long lost friend. He forced its siren song from his mind, dropped to the floor of the chamber and took a step forward.

Pdpping blasts of light erupted from the Custodians' spears, and Horus was forced to his knees by the hammering impacts of their shells. The howling gale swallowed the noise of the shots, and Horus cried out, not with pain, but with the knowledge that fellow warriors of the Imperium had fired upon him.

More blasts struck him, tearing great chunks from his armour, but none was able to defeat its protection. The Custodians advanced in disciplined ranks, pouring their fire into him and keeping him pinned beneath its weight. Sejanus ducked behind the stairs, sparks and smoking chunks ripping from the metal as the explosive bolts tore through it.

Horus roared in anger and surged to his feet, all thoughts of restraint forgotten as he found himself at the centre of the deafening storm. A bolt clipped his gorget and almost spun him around, but it was not enough to stop him. He ripped the guardian spear from the nearest Custodian and smashed his skull to splinters with a single blow from his fist.

He reversed his grip on the spear and slashed the next Custodian from collarbone to groin, the two shorn halves swept up by the howling winds and vanishing into the crackling vortex. Another Custodian died as Horus rammed the spear through his chest and split him in two.

A blade lanced for his head, but he shattered it with a swipe of his fist and ripped the arm from his attacker with casual ease. Another Custodian died as Horus tore his head off in his mighty fist, blood gushing from the neck, as if from a geyser, as he tossed the severed head aside.

Only Valdor remained, and Horus snarled as he rounded on the Chief Custodian. A blaze of light erupted from the barrel of Valdor's guardian spear. Horus granted at the impacts and raised his fist to strike Valdor down, hearing metal squeal and tear as the force of the hurricane reaching from the vortex above finally achieved its goal.

Horus paused in his attack, suddenly terrified for the fate of those inside the tanks. He turned and saw one tank spewing gasses and screams as it was ripped from the ground, following others as they were torn from their moorings and swept upwards.

Then time stopped and a blinding light filled the chamber.

Horus felt warm honey flow through him, and he turned towards the source of the light: a shimmering golden giant of unimaginable majesty and beauty.

Horus dropped to his knees in rapture at the sight. Who would not strive to worship so perfect a being? Power and certainty flowed from the figure, the secret mystery of creation at his fingertips, the answers to any question that could be asked there for the knowing, and the wisdom to know how to use them.

He wore armour that gleamed a perfect gold, his features impossible to know, and his glory and power unmatched by any being in creation.

The golden warrior moved as though in slow motion, raising his hand to halt the madness of the vortex with a gesture. The maelstrom was silenced, the tumbling incubation tanks suspended in mid air.

The golden figure turned a puzzled gaze upon Horus.

'I know you?' he said, and Horus wept to hear such a perfect symphony of sound.

'Yes,' said Horus, unable to raise his voice above a whisper.

The giant cocked his head to one side and said, 'You would destroy my great works, but you will not succeed. I beg you, turn from this path or all will be lost.'

Horus reached out towards the golden warrior as he turned his sad gaze to the incubation tanks held motionless above him, weighing the consequences of future events in the blink of an eye.

Horus could see the decision in the figure's wondrous eyes and shouted, 'No!'

The figure turned from him and time snapped back into its prescribed stream.

The deafening howl of the warp-spawned wind returned with the force of a hurricane and Horus heard the screams of his brothers amid the metallic clanging of their incubation tanks.

'Father, no!' he yelled. 'You can't let this happen!'

The golden giant was walking away, leaving the carnage in his wake, uncaring of the lives he had wrought. Horus felt his hate swell bright and strong within his breast.

The power of the wind seized him in its grip and he let it take him, spinning him up into the air and Horus opened his arms as he was reunited once again with his brothers.

The abyss of the warp vortex yawned above him like a great eye of terror and madness.

He surrendered to its power and let it take him into its embrace.

SIXTEEN The truth is all we have Arch prophet Home

For once Loken was inclined to agree with Iacton Qruze when he said, 'Not like it used to be, boy. Not like it used to be.'

They stood on the strategium deck, looking out over the ghostly glow of Davin as it hung in space like a faded jewel. 'I remember the first time we came here, seems like yesterday.'

'More like a lifetime,' said Loken.

'Nonsense, young man,' said Qruze. 'When you've been around as long as I have you learn a thing or two. Live to my age and we'll see how you perceive the passage of years.'

Loken sighed, not in the mood for another of Qraze's rambling, faintly patronising stories of ''the good old days''.

'Yes, Iacton, we'll see.'

'Don't dismiss me, boy,' said Qruze. 'I may be old, but I'm not stupid.'

'I never meant to say you were,' said Loken.

'Then take heed of me now, Garviel,' said Qruze, leaning in close. 'You think I don't know, but I do.'

'Don't know about what?'

'About the "half-heard" thing,' hissed Qruze, quietly so that none of the deck crew could hear. 'I know fine well why you call me that, and it's not because I speak softly, it's because no one pays a blind bit of notice to what I say.'

Loken looked into Qruze's long, tanned face, his skin deeply lined with creases and folds. His eyes, normally hooded and half-closed were now intense and penetrating.

'Iacton—' began Loken, but Qruze cut him off.

'Don't apologise, it doesn't become you.'

'I don't know what to say,' said Loken.

'Ach… don't say anything. What do I have to say that anyone would want to listen to anyway?' sighed Qruze. 'I know what I am, boy, a relic of a time long passed for our beloved Legion. You know that I remember when we fought without the Warmaster, can you imagine such a thing?'

'We may not have to soon, Iacton. It's nearly time for the Delphos to open and there's been no word. Apothecary Vaddon is no nearer to finding out what happened to the Warmaster, even with the anathame.'

'The what?'

'The weapon that wounded the Warmaster,' said Loken, wishing he hadn't mentioned the kinebrach weapon in front of Qruze.

'Oh, must be a powerful weapon that,' said Qruze sagely.

'I wanted to go back down to Davin with Torgaddon,' said Loken, changing the subject, 'but I was afraid of what I might do if I saw Little Horus or Ezekyle.'

'They are your brothers, boy,' said Qruze. 'Whatever happens, never forget that. We break such bonds at our peril. When we turn from one brother, we turn from them all.'

'Even when they have made a terrible mistake?'

'Even then,' agreed Qruze. 'We all make mistakes, lad. We need to appreciate them for what they are - lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, of course, but at least someone else can learn from that.'

'I don't know what to do,' said Loken, leaning on the strategium rail. 'I don't know what's happening with the Warmaster and there's nothing I can do about it.'

'Aye, it's a thorny one, my boy,' agreed Qruze. 'Still, as we used to say back in my day, "When there's nothing you can do about it, don't worry about it" '

'Things must have been simpler back in your day, Iacton,' said Loken.

'They were, boy, that's for sure,' replied Qruze, missing Loken's sarcasm. 'There was none of this quiet order nonsense, and do you think we'd have that upstart Varvaras baying for blood back in the day? Or that we'd have had remembrancers on our own bloody ship, writing treasonous poetry about us and claiming that it's the unvarnished truth? I ask you, where's the damn respect the Astartes used to be held in? Changed days, young man, changed days.'

Loken's eyes narrowed as Qruze spoke. 'What are you talking about?'

'I said it's changed days since—'

'No,' said Loken, 'about Varvaras and the remembrancers.'

'Haven't you heard? No, I suppose you haven't,' said Qruze. 'Well, it seems Varvarus wasn't too pleased about you and the Mournival's return to the Vengeful Spirit with the Warmaster. The fool thinks heads should roll for the deaths you caused. He's been on the vox daily to Maloghurst demanding we tell the fleet what happened, make reparations to the families of the dead, and then punish you all'

'Punish us?'

'That's what he's saying,' nodded Qruze. 'Claims he's already had Ing Mae Sing despatch communiques back to the Council of Terra about the mess you caused. Bloody nuisance if you ask me. We didn't have to put up with this when we first set out, you fought and bled, and if people got in the way then that was their tough luck.'

Loken was aghast at Qruze's words, once again feeling the shame of his actions on the embarkation deck. The innocent deaths he'd been part of would remain with him until his dying day, but what was done was done and he wouldn't waste time on regret. For mere mortals to decree the death of an Astartes was unthinkable, however unfortunate the events had been.

As troublesome a problem as Varvarus was, he was a problem for Maloghurst to deal with, but something in Qruze's words struck a familiar chord.

'You said something about remembrancers?'

'Yes, as if we didn't have enough to worry about.'

'Iacton, don't draw this out. Tell me what's going on.'

'Very well, though I don't know what your hurry is,' replied Qruze. 'It seems there's some anonymous remembrancer going about the ship, dishing out anti-Astartes propaganda, poetry or some such drivel. Crewmen have been finding pamphlets all over the ship. Called the "truth is all we have" or something pretentious like that.'

'The truth is all we have,' repeated Loken.

'Yes, I think so.'

Loken spun on his heel and made his way from the strategium without another word.

'Not like it was, back in my day,' sighed Qruze after Loken's departing back.

It was late and he was tired, but Ignace Karkasy was pleased with the last week's work. Each time he'd made a clandestine journey through the ship distributing his radical poetry, he'd returned hours later to find every copy gone. Though the ship's crew was no doubt confiscating some, he knew that others must have found their way into the hands of those who needed to hear what he had to say.

The companion way was quiet, but then it always was these days. Most of those who held vigils for the fallen Warmaster did so either on Davin or in the larger spaces of the ship. An air of neglect hung over the Vengeful Spirit, as though even the servitors who cleaned and maintained it had paused in their duties to await the outcome of events on the planet below.

As he walked back to his billet, Karkasy saw the symbol of the Lectitio Divinitatus scratched into bulkheads and passageways time and time again, and he had the distinct impression that if he were to follow them, they would lead him to a group of the faithful.

The faithful: it still sounded strange to think of such a term in these enlightened times. He remembered standing in the fane on Sixty-Three Nineteen and wondering if belief in the divine was some immutable flaw in the character of mankind. Did man need to believe in something to fill some terrible emptiness within him?

A wise man of Old Earth had once claimed that science would destroy mankind, not through its weapons of mass destruction, but through finally proving that there was no god. Such knowledge, he claimed, would sear the mind of man and leave him gibbering and insane with the realisation that he was utterly alone in an uncaring universe.

Karkasy smiled and wondered what that old man would have said if he could see the truth of the Imperium taking its secular light to the far corners of the galaxy. On the other hand, perhaps this Lectitio Divinitatus cult was vindication of his words: proof that, in the face of that emptiness, man had chosen to invent new gods to replace the ones that had passed out of memory.

Karkasy wasn't aware of the Emperor having transubstantiated from man to god, but the cult's literature, which was appearing with the same regularity as his own publications, claimed that he had already risen beyond mortal concerns.

He shook his head at such foolishness, already working out how to incorporate this weighty pontificating into his new poems. His billet was just ahead, and as he reached towards the recessed handle, he immediately knew that something was wrong.

The door was slightly ajar and the reek of ammonia filled the corridor, but even over that powerful smell, Karkasy detected a familiar, pervasive aroma that could mean only one thing. The impertinent ditty he had composed for Euphrati Keeler concerning the stink of the Astartes leapt to mind, and he knew who would be behind the door, even before he opened it.

He briefly considered simply walking away, but realised that there would be no point.

He took a deep breath and pushed open the door.

Inside, his cabin was a mess, though it was a mess of his own making rather than that of any intruder. Standing with his back to him and seeming to fill the small space with his bulk was, as he'd expected, Captain Loken.

'Hello, Ignace,' said Loken, putting down one of the Bondsman number 7's. Karkasy had filled two of them with random jottings and thoughts, and he knew that Loken wouldn't be best pleased with what he must have read. You didn't need to be a student of literature to understand the vitriol written there.

'Captain Loken,' replied Karkasy. 'I'd ask to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, but we both know why you're here, don't we?'

Loken nodded, and Karkasy, feeling his heart pounding in his chest, saw that the Astartes was holding his anger in check by the finest of threads. This was not the raging fury of Abaddon, but a cold steel rage that could destroy him without a moment's pause or regret. Suddenly Karkasy realised how dangerous his newly rediscovered muse was and how foolish he'd been in thinking he would remain undiscovered for long. Strangely, now that he was unmasked, he felt his defiance smother the fire of his fear, and knew that he had done the right thing.

'Why?' hissed Loken. 'I vouched for you, remembrancer. I put my good name on the line for you and this is how I am repaid?'

'Yes, captain,' said Karkasy. 'You did vouch for me. You made me swear to tell the truth and that is what I have been doing.'

'The truth?' roared Loken, and Karkasy quailed before his anger, remembering how easily the captain's fists had bludgeoned people to death. 'This is not the truth, this is libellous trash! Your lies are already spreading to the rest of the fleet. I should kill you for this, Ignace.'

'Kill me? just like you killed all those innocent people on the embarkation deck?' shouted Karkasy. 'Is that what Astartes justice means now? Someone gets in your way or says something you don't agree with and you kill them? If that's what our glorious Imperium has come to then I want nothing to do with it.'

He saw the anger drain from Loken and felt a momentary pang of sorrow for him, but quashed it as he remembered the blood and screams of the dying. He lifted a collection of poems and held them out to Loken. 'Anyway, this is want you wanted.'

'You think I wanted this?' said Loken, hurting the pamphlets across the billet and looming over him. 'Are you insane?'

'Not at all, my dear captain,' said Karkasy, affecting a calm he didn't feel. 'I have you to thank for this.'

'Me? What are you talking about?' asked Loken, obviously confused. Karkasy could see the chink of doubt in Loken's bluster. He offered the bottle of wine to Loken, but the giant warrior shook his head.

'You told me to keep telling the truth, ugly and unpalatable as it might be,' said Karkasy, pouring some wine into a cracked and dirty tin mug. 'The truth is all we have, remember?'

'I remember,' sighed Loken, sitting down on Karkasy's creaking cot bed.

Karkasy let out a breath as he realised the immediate danger had passed, and took a long, gulping drink of the wine. It was poor a vintage and had been open for too long, but it helped to calm his jangling nerves. He pulled a high backed chair from his writing desk and sat before Loken, who held his hand out for the bottle.

'You're right, Ignace, I did tell you to do this, but I never imagined it would lead us to this place,' said Loken, taking a swig from the bottle.

'Nor I, but it has,' replied Karkasy. 'The question now becomes what are you going to do about it?'

'I don't really know, Ignace,' admitted Loken. 'I think you are being unfair to the Mournival, given the circumstances we found ourselves in. All we—'

'No,' interrupted Karkasy, 'I'm not. You Astartes stand above us mortals in all regards and you demand our respect, but that respect has to be earned. It requires your ethics to be without question. You not only have to stay above the line between right and wrong, you also have to stay well clear of the grey areas in-between.'

Loken laughed humourlessly. 'I thought it was Sindermann's job to be a teacher of ethics.'

'Well, our dear Kyril has not been around much lately, has he?' said Karkasy. 'I admit I'm somewhat of a latecomer to the ranks of the righteous, but I know that what I am doing is right. More than that, I know it's necessary!

'You feel that strongly about this?'

'I do, captain. More strongly than I have felt about anything in my life.'

'And you'll keep publishing this?' asked Loken, lifting a pile of scribbled notes.

'Is there a right answer to that question, captain?' asked Karkasy.

'Yes, so answer honestly'

'If I can,' said Karkasy, 'then I will.'

'You will bring trouble down on us both, Ignace Karkasy,' said Loken, 'but if we have no truth, then we are nothing, and if I stop you speaking out then I am no better than a tyrant.'

'So you're not going to stop me writing, or send me back to Terra?'

'I should, but I won't. You should be aware that your poems have made you powerful enemies, Ignace, enemies who will demand your dismissal, or worse. As of this moment however, you are under my protection,' said Loken.

'You think I'll need protection?' asked Karkasy.

'Definitely,' said Loken.

'I'm told you wanted to see me,' said Euphrati Keeler. 'Care to tell me why?'

'Ah, my dear, Euphrati,' said Kyril Sindermann, looking up from his food. 'Do come in.'

She'd found him in the sub-deck dining area after scouring the dusty passages of Archive Chamber Three for him for over an hour. According to the iterators left on the ship, the old man had been spending almost all of his time there, missing his lectures - not that there were any students to lecture just now - and ignoring the requests of his peers to join them for meals or drinks.

Torgaddon had left her to find Sindermann on her own, his duty discharged simply by bringing her back to the Vengeful Spirit. Then he had gone in search of Captain Loken, to travel back down to Davin with him. Keeler didn't doubt that he'd pass on what he'd seen on the planet to Loken, but she no longer cared who knew of her beliefs. Sindermann looked terrible, his eyes haggard and grey, his features sallow and gaunt. 'You don't look good, Sindermann,' she said.

'I could say the same for you, Euphrati,' said Sindermann. 'You've lost weight. It doesn't suit you.'

'Most women would be grateful for that, but you didn't have one of the Astartes fetch me back here to comment on my eating habits, did you?'

Sindermann laughed, pushing aside the book, he'd been poring over, and said, 'No, you're right, I didn't.'

'Then why did you?' she asked, sitting opposite him. 'If it's because of something Ignace has told you, then save your breath.'

'Ignace? No, I haven't spoken to him for some time,' replied Sindermann.

'It was Mersadie Oliton who came to see me. She tells me that you've become quite the agitator for this Lectitio Divinitatus cult.'

'It's not a cult.'

'No? Then what would you call it?'

She thought about it for a moment and then answered, 'A new faith.'

'A shrewd answer,' said Sindermann.

'If you'll indulge me, I'd like to know more about it.'

'You would? I thought you'd brought me back to try and teach me the error of my ways, to use your iterator's wiles to try and talk me out of my beliefs.'

'Not at all, my dear,' said Sindermann. 'You may think your tribute is paid in secret in the recesses of your heart, but it will out. We are a curious species when it comes to worship. The things that dominate our imagination determine our lives and our character. Therefore it behoves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.'

'And what do you think we worship?'

Sindermann looked furtively around the sub-deck and produced a sheet of paper that she recognised immediately as one of the Lectitio Divinitatus pamphlets. 'That's what I want you to help me with. I have read this several times and I must admit that I am intrigued by the things it posits. You see, ever since the… events beneath the Whisperheads, I… I haven't been sleeping too well and I thought to bury myself in my books. I thought that if I could understand what happened to us, then I could rationalise it.'

'And did you?'

He smiled, but she could see the weariness and despair behind the gesture. 'Honestly? No, not really, the more I read, the more I saw how far we'd come since the days of religious hectoring from an autocratic priesthood. By the same token, the more I read the more I realised there was a pattern emerging.'

'A pattern? What kind of pattern?'

'Look,' said Sindermann, coming round the table to sit next to her, and flattening out the pamphlet before her. 'Your Lectitio Divinitatus talks about how the Emperor has moved amongst us for thousands of year, yes?'

'Yes.'

'Well in the old texts, rubbish mostly - ancient histories and lurid tales of barbarism and bloodshed - I found some recurring themes. A being of golden light appears in several of the texts and, much as I hate to admit it, it sounds a lot like what this paper describes. I don't know what truth may lie in this avenue of investigation, but I would know more of it, Euphrati.' She didn't know what to say.

'Look,' he said, pulling the book around and turning it towards her. 'This book is written in a derivation of an ancient human language, but one I haven't seen before. I can make out certain passages, I think, but it's a very complex structure and without some of the root words to make the right grammatical connections, it's proving very difficult to translate.'

'What book is it?'

'I believe it to be the Book of Lorgar, although I haven't been able to speak with First Chaplain Erebus to verify that fact. If it is, it may be a copy given to the Warmaster by Lorgar himself.'

'So why does that make it so important?'

'Don't you remember the rumours about Lorgar?' asked Sindermann urgently. 'That he too worshipped the Emperor as a god? It's said that his Legion devastated world after world for not showing the proper devotion to the Emperor, and then raised up great monuments to him.'

'I remember the tales, yes, but that's all they are, surely?'

'Probably, but what if they aren't?' said Sindermann, his eyes alight with the possibility of uncovering such knowledge. 'What if a primarch, one of the Emperor's sons no less, was privy to something we as mere mortals are not yet ready for? If my work so far is correct, then this book talks about bringing forth the essence of god. I must know what that means!'

Despite herself, Euphrati felt her pulse race with this potential knowledge. Undeniable proof of the Emperor's divinity coming from Kyril Sindermann would raise the Lectitio Divinitatus far above its humble status and into the realm of a phenomenon that could spread from one side of the galaxy to the other.

Sindermann saw that realisation in her face and said, 'Miss Keeler, I have spent my entire adult life promulgating the truth of the Imperium and I am proud of the work I have done, but what if we are teaching the wrong message? If you are right and the Emperor is a god, then what we saw beneath the mountains of Sixty-Three Nineteen represents a danger more horrifying than we can possibly imagine. If it truly was a spirit of evil then we need a divine being such as the Emperor, more than ever. I know that words cannot move mountains, but they can move the multitude - we've proven that time and time again. People are more ready to fight and die for a word than for anything else. Words shape thought, stir feeling, and force action. They kill and revive, corrupt and cure. If being an iterator has taught me anything, it's that men of words - priests, prophets and intellectuals - have played a more decisive role in history than any military leaders or statesmen. If we can prove the existence of god, then I promise you the iterators will shout that truth from the highest towers of the land.'

Euphrati stared, open mouthed, as Kyril Sindermann turned her world upside down: this arch prophet of secular truth speaking of gods and faith? Looking into his eyes, she saw the wracking self-doubt and crisis of identity that he had undergone since she had last seen him, understanding how much of him had been lost these last few days, and how much had been gained.

'Let me see,' she said, and Sindermann pushed the book in front of her.

The writing was an angular cuneiform, running up and down the page rather than along it, and right away she could see that she would be no help in its translation, although elements of the script looked somehow familiar.

'I can't read it,' she said. 'What does it say?'

'Well, that's the problem, I can't tell exactly,' said Sindermann. 'I can make out the odd word, but it's difficult without die grammatical key.'

'I've seen this before,' she said, suddenly remembering why the writing looked familiar.

'I hardly think so, Euphrati,' said Sindermann. 'This book has been in the archive chamber for decades. I don't think anyone's read it since it was put there.'

'Don't patronise me, Sindermann, I've definitely seen this before,' she insisted.

'Where?'

Keeler reached into her pocket and gripped the memory coil of her smashed picter. She rose from her seat and said, 'Gather your notes and I'll meet you in the archive chamber in thirty minutes.'

'Where are you going?' asked Sindermann, gathering up the book.

'To get something you're going to want to see.'

Horus opened his eyes to see a sky thick with polluted clouds, the taste in the air chemical and stagnant.

It smelled familiar. It smelled of home.

He lay on an uneven plateau of dusty black powder in front of a long-exhausted mining tunnel, and felt the hollow ache of homesickness as he realised this was Cthonia.

The smog of the distant foundries and the relentless hammering of deep core mining filled the sky with particulate matter, and he felt an ache of loneliness for the simpler times he had spent here.

Horus looked around for Sejanus, but whatever the swirling vortex beneath Terra had been, it had evidently not swept up his old comrade in its fury.

His journey here had not been as silent and instant as his previous journeys through this strange and unknown realm. The powers that dwelled in the warp had shown him a glimpse of the future, and it was a desolate place indeed. Foul xeno breeds held sway over huge swathes of the galaxy and a pall of hopelessness gripped the sons of man.

The power of humanity's glorious armies was broken, the Legions shattered and reduced to fragments of what they had once been: bureaucrats, scriveners and officialdom ruling in a hellish regime where men lived inglorious lives of no consequence or ambition.

In this dark future, mankind had not the strength to challenge the overlords, to fight against the terrors the Emperor had left them to. His father had become a carrion god who neither felt his subjects' pain nor cared for their fate.

In truth, the solitude of Cthonia was welcome, his thoughts tumbling through his head in a mad whirl of anger and resentment. The Emperor tinkered with powers far beyond his means to master - and had already failed to control once before. He had bargained away his sons for the promise of power, and now returned to Terra to try once again.

'I will not let this happen,' Horus said quietiy.

As he spoke, he heard the plaintive howl of a wolf and pushed himself to his feet. Nothing like a wolf lived on Cthonia, and Horus was sick of this constant pursuit through the warp.

'Show yourselves!' he shouted, punching the air and bellowing an ululating war cry.

His cry was answered as the howling came again, drawing nearer, and Horus felt his battle lust swim to the surface. He had the taste of blood after the slaughter of the Custodian Guards and welcomed the chance to spill yet more.

Shadows moved around him and he shouted, 'Lupercal! Lupercal!'

Shapes resolved from the shadows and he saw a red-furred wolf pack detach from the darkness.Theysurrounded him, and Horus recognised the pack leader as the beast that had spoken to him when he had first awoken in the warp.

'What are you?' asked Horus, 'and no lies.'

'A friend,' said the wolf, its form blurring and running with rippling lines of golden light. The wolf reared up on its hind legs, its form elongating and widening as it became more humanoid, its proportions swelling and changing until it stood as tall as Horus himself.

Copper skin replaced fur and its eyes ran like liquid as they formed one, golden orb. Thick red hair sprouted from the figure's head and bronze coloured armour shimmered into existence upon his breast and arms. He wore a billowing cloak of feathers and Horus knew him as well he knew his own reflection.

'Magnus,' said Horus. 'Is it really you?'

'Yes, my brother, it is,' said Magnus, and the two warriors embraced in a clatter of plate.

'How?' asked Horus. 'Are you dying too?'

'No,' said Magnus. 'I am not. You must listen to me, my brother. It has taken me too long to reach you, and I do not have much time here. The spells and wards placed around you are powerful and every second I am here a dozen of my thralls die to keep them open.'

'Don't listen to him, Warmaster,' said another voice, and Horus turned to see Hastur Sejanus emerge from the darkness of the mining tunnel. 'This is who we have been trying to avoid. It is a shape-changing creature of the warp that feasts on human souls. It seeks to devour yours so that you cannot return to your body. All that was Horus would be no more.'

'He lies,' spat Magnus. 'You know me, Horus. I am your brother, but who is he? Hastur? Hastur is dead.'

'I know, but here, in this place, death is not the end.'

'There is truth in that,' agreed Magnus, 'but you would place your trust in the dead over your own brother? We mourn Hastur, but he is gone from us. This impostor does not even wear his own true face!'

Magnus thrust his fist forward and closed his fingers on the air, as though gripping something invisible. Then he wrenched his hand back. Hastur screamed and a silver light blazed like a magnesium flare from his eyes.

Horus squinted through the blinding light, still seeing an Astartes warrior, but one now armoured in the livery of the Word Bearers.

'Erebus?' asked Horus.

'Yes, Warmaster,' agreed First Chaplain Erebus; the long red scar across his throat had already begun to heal. 'I came to you in the guise of Sejanus to ease your understanding of what must be done, but I have spoken nothing but the truth since we travelled this realm.'

'Do not listen to him, Horus,' warned Magnus. 'The future of the galaxy is in your hands.'

'Indeed it is,' said Erebus, 'for the Emperor will abandon the galaxy in his quest for apotheosis. Horus must save the Imperium, for it is evident that the Emperor will not.'

SEVENTEEN Horror Angels and daemons Blood pact

With the compact edit engine tucked under one arm and a sense of limitless possibilities filling her heart, Euphrati Keeler made her way through the stacks of Archive Chamber Three towards Sindermann's table. The white haired iterator sat hunched over the book he had shown her earlier, his breath misting in the chill air. She sat down beside him and placed the edit engine on the desk, slotting a memory coil into the imager slot.

'It's cold in here, Sindermann,' she said. 'How you haven't caught a fever I'll never know.'

He nodded. 'Yes, it is rather cold, isn't it. It's been like this for days now, ever since the Warmaster was taken to Davin in fact.'

The screen of the edit engine flickered to life, its white screen bathing them both in its washed-out light as Keeler flicked through the images she had captured. She zipped through those she had taken while on Davin's surface and those of Captain Loken and the Mournival prior to their departure for the Whisperheads.

'What are you looking for exactly?' asked Sindermann.

'This,' she said triumphantly, angling the screen so he could see the image it displayed.

The file contained eight pictures, all taken at the war council held on Davin where Eugan Temba's treachery had been revealed. Each shot included First Chaplain Erebus, and she used the engine's trackball to zoom in on his tattooed skull. Sindermann gasped as he recognised the symbols on Erebus's head. They were identical to the ones in the book that he had shown Keeler on the sub-deck.

'That's it then,' he breathed. 'It must be the Book of Lorgar. Can you get any closer to get the symbols from all sides of Erebus's head? Is that possible?'

'Please, it's me,' she replied, her hands dancing across the keys of the edit engine.

Using all the various images, and shots of the Word Bearer from different angles, Euphrati was able to create a composite image of the symbols tattooed onto his skull and project it onto a flat pane. Sindermann watched her skill with admiration, and it took her less than ten minutes to resolve a high-gain image of the symbols on Erebus's head.

With a grunt of satisfaction, she made a final keystroke, and a glossy hard copy of the screen's image slid from the side of the machine with a whirring sigh. Keeler lifted it by the corners and waved it for a second or two to dry it, before handing it to Sindermann.

'There,' she said. 'Does that help you translate what this book says?'

Sindermann slid the image across the table and held it close to the book, his head bobbing back and forth between the book and his notes as his finger traced down the trails of cuneiforms.

'Yes, yes…' he said excitedly. 'Here, you see, this word is laden with vowel transliterations and this one is clearly a personal argot, though of a much denser polysyllabic construction.'

Keeler tuned out of what Sindermann was saying after a while, unable to make sense of the jargon he was using. Karkasy or Oliton might be able to understand the iterator, but images were her thing, not words.

'How long will it take you to get any sense out of it?' she asked.

'What? Oh, not long I shouldn't wonder,' he said. 'Once you know the grammatical logic of a language, it is a relatively simple matter to unlock the rest of its meaning.'

'So how long?'

'Give me an hour and we'll read this together, yes?'

She nodded and pushed her chair back, saying, 'Fine, I'll take a look around if that's alright.'

'Yes, feel free to have a look at whatever catches your eye, my dear, though I fear much of this collection is more suited to dusty academics like myself.'

Keeler smiled as she got up from the table. 'I may not be a documentarist, but I know which end of a book to read, Kyril.'

'Of course you do, I didn't mean to suggest—'

'Too easy,' she said and wandered off into the stacks to browse while Sindermann returned to his books.

Despite her quip, she soon realised that Sindermann was exactly right. She spent the next hour wandering up and down shelves packed with scrolls, books and musty, loose-leaf manuscripts. Most of the books had unfathomable titles like Reading Astrologies and Astrotelepathic Auguries, Malefic Abjurations and the Multifarious Horrores Associated with Such Workes or The Book of Atum.

As she passed this last book, she felt a shiver travel the length her spine and reached up to slide the book from the shelf. The smell of its worn leather binding was strong, and though she had no real wish to read the book, she couldn't deny the strange attraction it held for her.

The book creaked open in her grip, and the dust of centuries wafted from its pages as she opened them. She coughed, hearing Sindermann reading aloud from the Book of Lorgar as he translated more of the text.

Surprisingly, the words before her were written in a language she could understand, and her eyes quickly scanned the page. Sindermann's words came again, and it took Euphrati a moment to register that the words she was hearing echoed the words she was seeing on the page, the letters blurring and rearranging themselves before her very eyes. The faded script seemed to illuminate from within, and as she read what they said, the book's pages burst into flames. She dropped the book with a cry of alarm.

She turned and ran back towards where she had left Sindermann, turning the corner to see him reading aloud from the book with a terrified expression on his face. He gripped the edges of the book as though unable to let go, the words pouring from him in a flood of voices.

A crackling, electric sensation set Euphrati's teeth on edge and she cried out in terror as she saw a swirling cloud of bluish light hovering above the desk. The image twisted and jerked in the air, moving as though out of sync with the world around it.

'Kyril! What's happening?' she screamed as the terror of the Whisperheads returned to her with paralysing force and she dropped to her knees. Sindermann didn't answer, the words streaming from his unwilling mouth and his eyes fixed in terror on the unnatural sight above him. She could tell the same fear that she felt was also running hot in his veins.

The light bulged and stretched as though something was pushing through from beyond, and an iridescent, questing limb oozed from its depths. Keeler felt the anger that had consumed her in the months following her attack break through the fear and she surged to her feet.

Keeler ran towards Sindermann and gripped his skinny wrists, as the suggestion of a rippling body of undulating, glowing flesh began tearing through the light.

His hands were locked on the book, the knuckles white, and she couldn't prise them loose as he continued to give voice to the terrible words within its pages.

'Kyril! Let go of the damn book!' she cried as an awful ripping sound came from above. She risked a look upwards, and saw yet more tentacled limbs pushing through the light in an obscene parody of birth.

'I'm sorry Kyril!' she shouted and punched the iterator across the jaw. He pitched backwards out of his chair, and the torrent of words was cut off as the book fell from his hands. She quickly circled the table and lifted Sindermann to his feet. As she did so, she heard a grotesque sucking sound and a hard, wet thud of something heavy landing on the table.

Euphrati didn't waste time looking back, but took off as fast as she could towards the stacks, supporting the lurching Sindermann as she went. The pair of them staggered away from the table as a glittering light behind them threw their shadows out before them, and a cackling shriek like laughter washed over them.

Keeler heard a whoosh of air and something bright and hot flashed past her, exploding against the shelves with a hot bang like a firework. The wood hissed and spat where it had been struck, and she looked over her shoulder to see a horror of flailing limbs and glowing, twisting flesh leap after them. It moved with a rippling motion, lunatic faces, eyes and cackling mouths forming and reforming from the liquid matter of its body. Blue and red light flared from within it, strobing in dazzling beams through the archive.

Another bolt of phosphorescent brightness streaked towards them, and Keeler threw herself and Sindermann flat as it blasted the shelf beside them, sending flaming books and splintered chunks of wood flying. The horrifying monster loped through the stacks on long, elastic limbs, its speed and agility incredible, and Keeler could see that it was circling around to get behind them.

She dragged Sindermann to his feet as she heard the monster's maddening laughter cackling behind her. The iterator seemed to have regained some measure of his senses after her punch, and once again, they ran between the twisting, narrow rows of shelves towards the chamber's exit. Behind her, she could hear the whoosh of flames as the horror squeezed its body into the row and books erupted into geysers of pink fire.

The end of the row was just ahead of her and she almost laughed as she heard the claxons that warned of a fire screech in alarm. Surely, someone would come to help them now?

They burst from the end of the row and Sindermann stumbled, again carrying her to the floor with him. They fell in a tangle of limbs, scrambling desperately to put some distance between them and the loathsome monster.

Keeler rolled onto her back as it pushed itself from the row of shelves, its rippling bulk undulating with roiling internal motion. Leering eyes and wide, fang-filled mouths erupted across its amorphous body, and she screamed as it vomited a breath of searing blue fire towards her.

Though she knew it would do no good, she closed her eyes and threw her arms up to ward off the flames, but a sudden silence enveloped her and the expected burning agony never hit.

'Hurry!' said a trembling voice. 'I cannot hold it much longer.'

Keeler turned and saw the white robed form of the Vengeful Spirit's Mistress of Astropaths, Ing Mae Sing, standing in the archive chamber's doorway with her hands outstretched before her.

'Horus, my brother,' said Magnus. 'You must not believe whatever he has told you. It is lies, all of it. Lies that disguise his sinister purpose.'

'Those with courage and character to speak the truth always seem sinister to the ignorant,' snarled Erebus. 'You dare speak of lies while you stand before us in the warp? How can this be without the use of sorcery? Sorcery you were expressly forbidden to practise by the Emperor himself.'

'Do not presume to judge me, whelp!' shouted Magnus, hurling a glittering ball of fire towards the first chaplain. Horus watched as the flame streaked towards Erebus and enveloped him, but as the fire died, he saw that Erebus was unharmed, his armour not so much as scratched, and his skin unblemished.

Erebus laughed. 'You are too far away, Magnus. Your powers cannot reach me here.'

Horus watched as Magnus hurled bolt after bolt of lightning from his fingertips, amazed and horrified to see his brother employing such powers. Though all the Legions had once had Librarius divisions that trained warriors to tap into the power of the warp, they had been disbanded after the Emperor's decree at the Council of Nikaea.

Clearly, Magnus had paid that order no mind, and such conceit staggered Horus.

Eventually his cyclopean brother recognised that his powers were having no effect on Erebus and he dropped his hands to his side.

'You see,' said Erebus, turning to Horus, 'he cannot be trusted.'

'Nor can you, Erebus,' said Horus. 'You come to me cloaked in the identity of another, you claim my brother Magnus is naught but some warp beast set upon devouring me, and then you speak to him as though he is exactly as he seems. If he is here by sorcery, then how else can you be here?'

Erebus paused, caught in his lie and said, 'You are right, my lord. The sorcery of the Serpent Lodge has sent me to you to help you, and to offer you this chance of life. The serpent priestess had to cut my throat to do it and once I return to the world of flesh I will kill the bitch for that, but know that everything I have shown you is real. You saw it yourself and you know the truth.'

Magnus towered over the figure of Erebus. His crimson mane shook with fury, but Horus saw that he kept tight rein on his anger as he spoke.

'The future is not set, Horus. Erebus may have shown you a future, but that is only one possible future. It is not absolute. Have faith in that.'

'Pah!' sneered Erebus. 'Faith is just another way of not wanting to know what is true.'

'You think I don't know that, Magnus?' snapped Horus. 'I know of the warp and the tricks it can play with the mind. I am not stupid. I knew that this was not Sejanus just as I know that without a context, everything I have seen here is meaningless.'

Horus saw the crestfallen look on Erebus's face and laughed. 'You must take me for a fool, Erebus, if you thought that such simple parlour tricks would bewitch me to your cause.'

'My brother,' smiled Magnus. 'You are a wonder to me.'

'Be quiet,' snarled Horus. 'You are no better than Erebus. You will not manipulate me like this, for I am Horus. I am the Warmaster!'

Horus relished their confusion.

One was his brother, the other a warrior he had counted as a valued counsellor and devoted follower. He had sorely misjudged them both.

'I can trust neither of you,' he said. 'I am Horus and I make my own fate.'

Erebus stepped towards him with his hands outstretched in supplication. 'You should know that I came to you at the behest of my lord and master, Lorgar. He already has knowledge of the Emperor's quest to ascend to godhood, and has sworn himself to the powers of the warp. When the Emperor rejected Lorgar's worship, he found other gods all too willing to accept his devotion. My primarch's power has grown tenfold and it is but a fraction of the power that could be yours were you to pledge yourself to their cause.'

'He lies!' cried Magnus. 'Lorgar is loyal. He would never turn against the Emperor.'

Horus listened to Erebus's words and knew with utter certainty that he spoke the truth.

Lorgar, his most beloved. brother had already embraced the power of the warp? Warring emotions vied for supremacy within him, disappointment, anger and, if he was honest, a spark of jealousy that Lorgar should have been chosen first.

If wise Lorgar would choose such powers as patrons, was there not some merit in that?

'Horus,' said Magnus, 'I am running out of time. Please be strong, my brother. Think of what this mongrel dog is asking you to do. He would have you spit on your oaths of loyalty. He is forcing you to betray the Emperor and turn on your brother Astartes! You must trust the Emperor to do what is right.'

'The Emperor plays dice with the fate of the galaxy,' countered Erebus, 'and he throws them where they cannot be seen.'

'Horus, please!' cried Magnus, his voice taking on a ghostly quality as his image began to fade. 'You must not do this or all we have fought for will be cast to ruin forever! You cannot do this terrible thing!'

'Is it so terrible?' asked Erebus. 'It is but a small thing really. Deliver the Emperor to the gods of the warp, and unlimited power can be yours. I told you before that they have no interest in the realms of men, and that promise still holds true. The galaxy will be yours to rule over as the new Master of Mankind.'

'Enough!' roared Horus and the world was silence. 'I have made my choice.'

Keeler helped Kyril Sindermann to his feet, and together they fled through the archive chamber's door. Ing Mae Sing's trembling arms were still outstretched, and Keeler could feel waves of psychic cold radiating from her with the effort of holding the horror within the chamber at bay.

'Close… the… door,' said Ing Mae Sing through gritted teeth. Veins stood out on her neck and forehead, and her porcelain features were lined with pain. Keeler didn't need to be told twice, and she dropped Sindermann to get the door, as Ing Mae Sing backed away with slow, shuffling steps.

'Now!' shouted the astropath, dropping her arms. Keeler hauled on the door as the roaring, seething laughter of the beast swelled once again. Alarm claxons and its shrieks of insanity filled her ears as the door swung shut.

Something heavy impacted on the other side, and she could feel its raw heat through the metal. Ing Mae Sing helped her, but the astropath was too frail to be of much use and Keeler knew they couldn't hold the door for long.

'What did you do?' demanded Ing Mae Sing.

'I don't know,' gasped Keeler. 'The iterator was reading from a book and that… thing just appeared from nowhere. What in the name of the Emperor is it?'

'A beast from beyond the gates of the Empyrean,' said Ing Mae Sing as the door shook with another burning impact. 'I felt the build-up of warp energy and got here as quickly as I could.'

'Shame you weren't quicker, eh?' said Keeler. 'Can you send it back?'

Ing Mae Sing shook her head as a thrashing pseudo-pod of pinkish light flicked through the door and grazed Keeler's arm. Its touch seared through her robes and burned her skin. She screamed, flinching from the door, and gripped her arm in agony. The horror slammed into the door once more, and the impact sent her and the astropath flying.

Blinding light filed the passageway and Keeler shielded her eyes as she felt hands upon her shoulders, seeing that Kyril Sindermann was on his feet once more. He dragged her to her feet and said, 'I think I may have mistranslated part of the book…'

'You think,' snapped Keeler as they backed away from the abomination.

'Or maybe you translated it just perfectly,' said Ing Mae Sing, desperately scrambling away from the archive chamber's door. The beast of light oozed outwards in a slithering loop of limbs, each one thrashing in blind hunger. Multitudinous eyes rippled and popped like swollen boils across its rubbery skin as it came towards them once more.

'Oh Emperor protect us,' whispered Keeler as she turned to run.

The beast shuddered at her words, and Ing Mae Sing tugged on her sleeve, crying, 'Come on. We can't fight it.'

Euphrati Keeler suddenly realised that wasn't true and shrugged off the astropath's grip, reaching beneath her robes to pull out the Imperial eagle she kept on the end of her necklace. Its silver surfaces shone in the creature's dazzling light, brighter than it had any reason to be, and feeling hot in her palm. She smiled beatifically as she understood with complete clarity that everything since the Whisperheads had been preparing her for this moment.

'Euphrati! Come on!' shouted Sindermann in terror.

A whipping limb formed from the horror's body and another gout of blue fire roared towards her. Keeler stood firm before it and held the symbol of her faith out in front of her.

'The Emperor protects!' she screamed as the flames washed over her.

Rain fell in heavy sheets, and Loken could feel a tangible charge to the night air as dark thunderheads pressed down on the tens of thousands of people gathered around the Delphos. Lightning bolts fenced above him, and the sense of anticipation was almost unbearable.

Nine days had passed since the Warmaster had been interred within the Temple of the Serpent Lodge and with each passing day the weather had worsened. Rain fell in an unending downpour that threatened to wash away the makeshift camps of the pilgrims, and booming peals of thunder shook the sky like ringing hammer blows.

The Warmaster had once told Loken that the cosmos was too large and sterile for melodrama, but the skies above Davin seemed determined to prove him wrong.

Torgaddon and Vipus stood with him at the top of the steps and hundreds of the Sons of Horus followed behind the three of them. Company captains, squad leaders, file officers and warriors had come to Davin to witness what would be either their salvation or their undoing. They had marched through the singing crowds, the dirty beige robes of remembrancers mixed in with army uniforms and civilian dress.

'Looks like the entire bloody Expedition's here.' Torgaddon had said as they marched up the steps, trampling trinkets and baubles left as offerings to the Warmaster beneath their armoured boots.

From the top of the processional steps, Loken could see the same group he had faced nine days previously, with the exception of Maloghurst who had returned to the ship some days before. Rain ran down Loken's face as a flash of lightning lit up the surface of the great bronze gateway, making it shine like a great wall of fire. The gathered Astartes warriors stood sentinel before it in the rain: Abaddon, Aximand, Targost, Sedirae, Ekaddon and Kibre.

None of them had abandoned their vigil before the gates of the Delphos, and Loken wondered if they had bothered to eat, drink or sleep since he had last laid eyes upon them.

'What do we do now, Garvi?' asked Vipus.

'We join our brothers and wait.'

'Wait for what?'

'We'll know that when it happens,' said Torgaddon. 'Won't we, Garvi?'

'I certainly hope so, Tarik,' replied Loken. 'Come on.'

The three of them set off towards the gateway, the thunder echoing from the massive structure's sides and the snakes atop each pillar slithering with each flashing bolt of lightning.

Loken watched as his brothers in front of the gate came to stand in line at the edge of the rippling pool of water, the full moon reflected in its black surface. Horus Aximand had once called it an omen. Was it again? Loken didn't know whether to hope that it was or not.

The Sons of Horus followed their captains down the wide processional in their hundreds, and Loken kept a grip on his temper, knowing that if things went ill here, there would almost certainly be bloodshed.

The thought horrified him and he hoped with all his heart that such a tragedy could be averted, but he would be ready if it came to war…

'Are you battle-ready?' hissed Loken to Torgaddon and Vipus on a discrete vox channel.

'Always,' nodded Torgaddon. 'Full load on every man.'

'Yes,' said Vipus. 'You really think…'

'No,' said Loken, 'but be ready in case we need to fight. Keep your humours balanced and it will not come to that.'

'You too, Garvi,' warned Torgaddon. The long column of Astartes warriors reached the pool, the Warmaster's bearers standing on its opposite side, stoic and unrepentant.

'Loken,' said Serghar Targost. 'Are you here to fight us?'

'No,' said Loken, seeing that, like them, the others were locked and loaded.

'We've come to see what happens. It's been nine days, Serghar.'

'It has indeed,' nodded Targost.

'Where is Erebus? Have you seen him since you put the Warmaster in this place?'

'No,' growled Abaddon, his long hair unbound and his eyes hostile. 'We have not. What does that have to do with anything?'

'Calm yourself, Ezekyle,' said Torgaddon. 'We're all here for the same thing.'

'Loken,' said Aximand, 'there has been bad blood between us all, but that must end now. For us to turn on one another would dishonour the Warmaster's memory.'

'You speak as though he's already dead, Horus.'

'We will see,' said Aximand. 'This was always a forlorn hope, but it was all we had.'

Loken looked into the haunted eyes of Horus Aximand, seeing the despair and doubt that plagued him, and felt his anger towards his brother diminish.

Would he have acted any differently had he been present when the decision to inter the Warmaster had been taken? Could he in all honesty say that he would not have accepted the decision of his friends and peers if the situation had been reversed? He and Horus Aximand might even now be standing on different sides of the moon shimmered pool.

'Then let us wait as brothers united in hope,' said Loken, and Aximand smiled gratefully.

The palpable tension lifted from the confrontation and Loken, Torgaddon and Vipus marched around the pool to stand with their brothers before the vast gate.

A dazzling bolt of lightning reflected from the gate as the Mournival stood shoulder to shoulder with one another, and a thunderous boom, that had nothing to do with the storm, split the night.

Loken saw a dark line appear in the centre of the gate as the thunder was suddenly silenced and the lightning stilled in the space of a heartbeat. The sky was mystify-ingly calm, as though the storm had blown out and the heavens had paused in their revelries better to witness the unfolding drama on the planet below.

Slowly, the gate began to open.

The flames bathed Euphrati Keeler, but they were cold and she felt no pain from them. The silver eagle blazed in her hand, thrust before her like a talisman, and she felt a wondrous energy fill her, rushing through her from the tips of her toes to the shorn ends of her hair.

'The power of the Emperor commands you, abomination!' she yelled, the words unfamiliar, but feeling right.

Ing Mae Sing and Kyril Sindermann watched her in amazement as she took one step, and then another, towards the horror. The monster was transfixed, whether by her courage or her faith, she didn't know, but whatever the reason, she was thankful for it.

Its limbs flailed as though some invisible force attacked it, its screeching laughter turning into the pitiful wails of a child.

'In the name of the Emperor, go back to the warp, you bastard!' said Keeler, her confidence growing as the substance of the monster diminished, skins of light shearing away from its body. The silver eagle grew hotter in her hand and she could feel the skin of her palms blistering under its heat.

Ing Mae Sing joined her, adding her own powers to Keeler's assault on the monster. The air around the astropath grew colder and Keeler moved her hand close to the psyker in the hopes of cooling the blazing eagle.

The monster's internal light was fading and flickering, its nebulous oudine spitting embers of light as though it fought to hold onto existence. The light from Keeler's eagle outshone its hellish illumination tenfold and the entire corridor was bleached shadowless with its brilliance.

'Whatever you're doing, keep doing it!' cried Ing Mae Sing. 'It's weakening.'

Keeler tried to answer, but found that she had no voice left. The wondrous energy that had filled her was now streaming from her through the eagle, taking her own strength with it.

She tried to drop the eagle, but it was stuck fast to her hand, the red hot metal fusing itself to her skin.

From behind her, Keeler heard the clatter of armoured ship's crew and their cries of astonishment at the scene before them.

'Please…' she whispered as her legs gave out and she collapsed to the floor.

The blazing light faded from her hand and the last things she saw were the disintegrating mass of the horror and Sindermann's rapturous face staring down at her in wonder.

The only sound was that of the gate. Loken's entire existence shrank to the growing darkness between its two halves, as he held his breath and waited to see what might lie beyond. The gates swung fully open and he risked a glance at his fellow Sons of Horus, seeing the same desperate hope in every face.

Not a single sound disturbed the night, and Loken felt melancholy rise in him as he realised that this must simply be the automated opening of the temple doors.

The Warmaster was dead.

A sick dread settled on Loken and his head sank to his chest.

Then he heard the sound of footsteps, and looked up to see the gleam of white and gold plate emerge from the darkness.

Horus strode from the Delphos with his cloak of royal purple billowing behind him and his golden sword held high above him.

The eye in the centre of his breastplate blazed a fiery red and the laurels at his forehead framed features that were beautiful and terrible in their magnificence.

The Warmaster stood before them, unbowed and more vital than ever, the sheer physicality of his presence robbing every one of them of speech.

Horus smiled and said, 'You are a sight for sore eyes, my sons.'

Torgaddon punched the air in elation and shouted, 'Lupercal!'

He laughed and ran towards the Warmaster, breaking the spell that had fallen on the rest of them.

The Mournival rushed to this reunion with their lord and master, joyous cries of ''Lupercal!'' erupting from the throat of every Astartes warrior as word spread back through the files and into the crowd surrounding the temple.

The pilgrims around the Delphos took up the chant and ten thousand throats were soon crying the Warmaster's name.

'Lupercal! Lupercal! Lupercal!'

The walls of the crater shook to deafening cheers that went on long into the night.