• THE VAMPIRE GENEVIEVE •
by Kim Newman
BOOK 1: DRACHENFELS
BOOK 2 : GENEVIEVE UNDEAD
BOOK 3 : BEASTS IN VELVET
BOOK 4 : SILVER NAILS

THE WICKED AND THE DAMNED
A portmanteau novel by Josh Reynolds, Phil Kelly and David Annandale

MALEDICTIONS
An anthology by various authors

THE HOUSE OF NIGHT AND CHAIN
A novel by David Annandale

INVOCATIONS
An anthology by various authors

ANATHEMAS
An anthology by various authors

CASTLE OF BLOOD
A novel by C L Werner

DARK HARVEST
A novel by Josh Reynolds

THE OUBLIETTE
A novel by J C Stearns

SEPULTURUM
A novel by Nick Kyme

THE COLONEL’S MONOGRAPH
A novella by Graham McNeill

PERDITION’S FLAME
An audio drama by Alec Worley

THE WAY OUT
An audio drama by Rachel Harrison

Contents

Cover

Backlist

Title Page

Warhammer Horror

Preludium

First Movement

I

II

III

IV

Second Movement

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

Third Movement

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

Fourth Movement

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

Fifth Movement

XXII

XXIII

XXIV

XXV

Postludium

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Sepulturum’

A Black Library Imprint

eBook license

A dark bell tolls in the abyss.

It echoes across cold and unforgiving worlds, mourning the fate of humanity. Terror has been unleashed, and every foul creature of the night haunts the shadows. There is naught but evil here. Alien monstrosities drift in tomblike vessels. Watching. Waiting. Ravenous. Baleful magicks whisper in gloom-shrouded forests, spectres scuttle across disquiet minds. From the depths of the void to the blood-soaked earth, diabolic horrors stalk the endless night to feast upon unworthy souls.

Abandon hope. Do not trust to faith. Sacrifices burn on pyres of madness, rotting corpses stir in unquiet graves. Daemonic abominations leer with rictus grins and stare into the eyes of the accursed. And the Ruinous Gods, with indifference, look on.

This is a time of reckoning, where every mortal soul is at the mercy of the things that lurk in the dark. This is the night eternal, the province of monsters and daemons. This is Warhammer Horror. None shall escape damnation.

And so, the bell tolls on.

‘Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.’

– Lord Po
Ancient Terran Heretic

‘It is not the truth of the answer that bears significance, but the sincerity of the seeker.’

– The Torn Prophet

Beast in Shadow

‘We have to go,’ the ghost boy whispered into the darkness. The survivors huddled in the grain pit were vague shadows, their forms dusted by desultory strands of moonlight leaking through the wooden boards overhead, but he didn’t need to see their faces to know their fear. They reeked of it, just as the bodies littering the world above would reek of decay when the winter passed, assuming the wolves and carrion birds left anything for the Golden Season to thaw. Or maybe their killer would devour the dead first. Maybe that was why it had come to the village.

‘We must go,’ he urged. ‘Now.’

‘No,’ Padraig hissed. ‘It’s still up there.’

‘It’s sleeping,’ the boy said. Sleeping wasn’t quite the right word for what he sensed, but it was something his companions would understand, and the best approximation he could find for the sluggish emanations wafting from the destroyer above.

‘You can’t know that,’ Padraig protested.

But I do, the boy thought. Like Padraig’s fear, he sensed the beast’s fury somewhere deep inside himself, grasping it with an intimacy he couldn’t explain. It stank of charred meat and sour wine – a heady, sickening sludge of malice, yet only a vestige of the fury that had gone before.

The rage will return. He felt certain of it. The beast’s hunger for carnage was too fierce to be sated for long, no matter how much blood it spilled.

‘It will find us if we stay,’ he warned.

‘Ain’t found us yet,’ Padraig sneered, recovering a measure of his old belligerence. ‘Won’t find us now.’

The ironsmith’s son was twice the ghost boy’s age and many times his size, with a vicious streak that made them natural enemies, but he was only one of many tormentors and far from the worst. The boy had lived alongside these folk for more seasons than he cared to count, but they’d never shown him any kindness, least of all the red-haired trapper who’d taken him in.

Dead or alive, I’ll always be a ghost to them, he thought, weighing up the shadows clustered around him. He’d led them to this hideaway – saved them from the horror that had torn their village apart – but it made no difference. Nothing had changed.

He’d been no more than seven or eight years old when ‘Red’ Novak had found him in the woods beyond the village – a pale-eyed waif wearing the tatters of finery, half-starved and spattered with blood that wasn’t his own. Nobody had come looking for him so the trapper had claimed him as an apprentice, though a slave was closer to the truth. His master hadn’t even given him a name, though he’d lost his own, along with everything else from his old life except the Blade, which he’d been clutching so tightly it had to be prised from his grip. The dagger was an unusual weapon, its long silver blade set into a bone hilt carved with a corkscrewing pattern. Novak had taken it of course, but the boy had filched it back during one of his master’s drunken stupors. He’d kept it hidden under a loose floorboard in their hovel ever since, but this morning some instinct had compelled him to carry it. Perhaps the weapon had called to him. After all, they were both phantoms from another life. If this one ended today they would pass into the next together.

And into all that comes after, until there’s no more living or dying left in the world.

He ran a hand over the Blade’s hilt, drawing courage from its familiar whorled texture. Courage and something darker…

Novak is dead, he thought fiercely. The beast got him!

He hadn’t seen it happen, but he’d sensed the old monster’s death at the hands of the new. Tasted the bastard’s pain when it wrenched out his spine the way the fisherfolk boned their catch. It had felt good. Right.

‘Just,’ he breathed, savouring the fine word.

None of that mattered now, and yet… The cruelties had never felt so raw, as if all the misery and mockery of his life had been honed to a killing edge. Novak’s death wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. He wanted to lash out at the dullards around him and–

It’s the beast, he realised, unclenching his fists. I’m drinking its dreams. Falling into them.

‘We’re safe here,’ Padraig was telling the others. ‘If we stay quiet it’ll move on. Leave us be.’

‘You’re wrong,’ the ghost boy said, rising to his feet. The joints in his cramped legs cracked and he almost stumbled. How long had they been down here, crouched in the darkness while the beast rampaged above? Six hours? Seven? Ten?

‘You’ll get us killed, ghost,’ Padraig growled, grabbing his wrist.

‘Can’t kill a ghost,’ the boy whispered. The urge to strike back was almost overwhelming – not with his fists, but with the purer, sharper force of his will. His spirit burned with it, kindled by the beast’s fury. It would be so easy to reach out with a barbed thought and pop this thug’s mind like a stray bug. So joyful!

Hide your taint.

The cold command froze him, as it had done so often over the years. Whenever he’d reached for his secret strength, that soul-deep imperative had been waiting. It was his only memory of his lost life, which made it both precious and terrible. Time and time again it had forced him to withdraw into meek silence while the dirty tide of abuse washed over him – the insults and the beatings and worse. He’d never once pushed back or tried to reshape the crude clay of the villagers’ spirits into something gentler. Never let himself become more than a ghost.

I’m done with hiding, he decided. Done with them.

‘I’m going,’ he said, twisting free of Padraig’s grip. In the same instant he jabbed out with his mind. Though he only used a sliver of the power sheathed in his soul the thug recoiled with a yelp, as if he’d been struck.

‘You stay, you die,’ the boy warned the others. They couldn’t see what had happened, but he knew they’d felt it. The air had turned frigid, yet there was a bright tang to it, as though it was riddled with invisible energy. Agnieszka, the wizened seamstress, was moaning and he suspected Tivoli, the headman’s scribe, had soiled himself again.

‘Witch,’ Padraig croaked. ‘He’s a witch.’

Yes, the boy agreed, accepting the truth he’d always known. To his surprise he felt no shame, only exhilaration. He wasn’t a ghost any more.

Witch.

‘Yes,’ he confirmed aloud. ‘And I’ve seen what’s coming if you don’t listen to me.’

Dismissing them, he climbed the ladder at the pit’s centre then pressed against the trapdoor overhead, nudging it open a crack to peer outside. Moonlight spilled through, shockingly bright after the gloom, accompanied by the bitter cold of midwinter. While his eyes adjusted he tested the night with his subtler senses, ignoring the shivers coursing through his body. The psychic susurration of the beast continued its brooding, stentorian rhythm. It was still lost in whatever passed for slumber in its jagged soul.

But not for long, the boy gauged. The anger won’t let it be.

Blinking, he realised the cylindrical silo that once covered the pit had been wrenched from its moorings and hurled aside. It lay nearby, its planks splintered. The beast had come very close to their refuge, but something must have drawn it away before it spotted the trapdoor. Next time they wouldn’t be so lucky.

You know we’re hiding, don’t you? You’ve smelled us.

Down below Padraig was still muttering his accusation, but none of the others had taken it up. Once they would have turned on the ghost boy, maybe even tried to burn him alive, but the old order of things was broken. Even Padraig understood something worse than a witch had come among them.

‘Quiet,’ the boy hissed into the pit. He wasn’t surprised when the thug obeyed.

Gently he pushed himself through the trapdoor and crouched low, surveying the area. The grain pit was at the southern edge of the village, beside the looming bulk of the mill. Four sweeping wind-vanes jutted from the conical building’s face, motionless and unlikely ever to resume their rotations. No matter how things turned out, this place was done for.

The boy froze as the scene sank in. He’d known things would be bad, but seeing the horror made it real. Tonight was a triple-moon and the combined radiance of the Night’s Trinity was merciless in its clarity.

Truth is the sharpest knife. He didn’t know where the thought came from, which was often the way with his intuitions, but like all of them, its message was undeniable. There was truth here and it cut deep.

At least a dozen bodies were strewn about the mill’s yard, like blood-filled dolls savaged by a vicious child. Many were missing limbs or heads, while others had been torn into ragged, unrecognisable hunks of flesh. Frost had crept over the corpses, freezing twisted forms and spilt blood into white-dusted abstractions of butchery. One man had been pinned to the mill’s door with a fence post, the makeshift stake rammed through his chest like a giant’s nail. Another was draped over a wind-vane, viscera and crimson icicles dangling from his body in a petrified snarl that hung so low it almost touched the ground.

Yet despite the violence, the moonlit scene had a strange serenity about it. The chill air was perfectly still, as though the world had frozen alongside the dead, holding its breath.

Is this war? the boy wondered, staring at the carnage. The village elders had spoken the word in hushed tones, hinting at battles where thousands died in a single day to hold back the horrors that crawled from between the stars. But surely that couldn’t be true, could it? How could there be enough folk in all the worlds to pay such a price? And how could anything live between the stars, even monsters?

‘Why?’ Agnieszka had asked during their first hours in hiding. ‘Why?’

The old woman had mumbled the question over and over, though nobody had an answer. Things like this didn’t happen in the Hinterwylds. Bad things, yes – ugly, spiteful things were common, as the boy knew all too well – but nothing like this. Not monsters.

Why?

But maybe he had the answer now. Maybe the war had been lost and the God-Emperor’s grand armies had fallen. Maybe that’s why the monsters had found them.

‘No,’ he breathed, breaking the terrible train of thought. The Shining Ones who watched over their world wouldn’t let that happen. Even if the great war had been lost, their protectors would endure. They were eternal, Father Fairfield, the village pastor had promised. The Shining Ones had beaten death.

Maybe they’re tired of us, the boy thought suddenly. Maybe they’ve abandoned us. Then something even worse occurred to him. Maybe they were never there at all.

Nobody alive had actually seen the protector knights or travelled to their fabled fastness in the Fjordlands beyond the valley. All the villagers had to go on were the parables of the Saga Scintillant – wonderful, epic stories to stir the soul, but what if they were only stories? What if the God-Emperor Himself was a lie? Could there really be worlds beyond this one, let alone a glorious empire that spanned them? Surely–

No! He wouldn’t – couldn’t – accept the possibility. Throughout the squalor and suffering of his life, he’d clung to the legends and the hope of something better. Nobler. Yes, that was the word Father Fairfield always used when he preached about the Imperium. It was a wonderful word, filled with the promise of great deeds and more to life than drudgery. Sometimes the boy felt sure his memories would come creeping back and that remembering would reveal the truth he yearned for – that he belonged with the Shining Ones.

‘It’s not real,’ Agnieszka muttered beside him. Lost in thought, he hadn’t noticed her joining him. ‘A dream,’ she assured herself dully. She was a bitter, narrow-minded crone, but shock had drawn her poison. ‘Only a dream.’

Turning, the boy saw the others had emerged from the pit, even Padraig. They stood staring at the massacre in slack-jawed shock.

You’re afraid of me, the boy thought, but you followed anyway. Because I’m all you’ve got left.

Unexpectedly his contempt faded. These folk had no answer to this nightmare – no strength or cunning or secret gift to shield them, only a small measure of faith and a wealth of ignorance. Little wonder they were drawn to his power now. Did that make them fools? Worthless?

‘We burn bright so others may live,’ the boy whispered. It was the credo of the Shining Ones, taught to every child of the Hinterwylds and carved beneath the holy aquila in the village temple. It felt good to say the words aloud. Even better to feel their truth.

‘You said we should… leave,’ Agnieszka said hesitantly.

‘It’s near on two days to Vartan,’ Jaktens estimated, pointing at the treeline beyond the mill. The stocky woodsman knew the forest paths better than anyone else among them. ‘More if the snow keeps up.’

‘I won’t make that,’ Tivoli protested, shivering.

‘Follow me,’ the boy said, coming to a decision. ‘Stay quiet,’ he called over his shoulder as he crept away.

‘Wait, lad,’ Jaktens cautioned. ‘That way’s back into town.’

Yes, it is, but you’ll follow me anyway.

There’s no choice, the boy told himself yet again, but with every step he took the argument felt weaker and the urge to turn and run stronger. The ravaged dwellings and corpse-strewn roads of the village mocked his decision. What he’d seen at the mill hadn’t fully prepared him for the carnage that lay ahead.

Everyone’s gone, he judged. The beast got them all.

It looked like the destroyer had swept from house to house, battering down doors or entire walls, then hurled its victims outside, as if to desecrate the streets. The cobblestones were threaded with frozen blood and more of it covered the buildings, mostly in frenzied splatters, but occasionally worked into symbols or fragments of what might have been words, their characters daubed with startling finesse. It confirmed what he’d sensed all along – despite its savagery the beast was more than an animal.

You can think, but you’re forgetting how, he guessed, brushing against the killer’s dreams. It hurts you to remember.

Yet despite his connection to the beast he still had no idea what it actually was. None of the survivors had even glimpsed it. They’d all been on the other side of the village when the screaming started. Moments later a torrent of raw impressions had rushed over the boy – jagged white teeth gnarled and snarling and framed with flames that scorched black to red then back to blacker rage roaring soaring falling feeding falling further faster brighter darker…

The hellish tide had felt physical in its force. Screaming, he’d buckled under its weight and dropped to his knees, clutching his head as it tried to wrench itself from its own neck and hurl itself into the storm. Through the pain he’d glimpsed that it was actually his soul that was being torn away and drawn into the destroyer’s madness. That insight had saved him.

Falling back on the discipline of the cold command, he’d reined in his gift and muted the clamour of impressions to a murmur. Then he’d hauled himself to his feet and begun yelling at the gawping folk around him, urging them to run. Run!

Perhaps it was the terror in his voice or the chorus of screams – still distant, but getting closer – or perhaps he’d unknowingly thrown his gift behind the warning, but a pitiful, random few had heeded him. They were all he could save from the foe.

The foe? He wasn’t sure when he’d started thinking of their tormentor that way. Not so long ago it had simply been a force of nature to hide or flee from. Maybe the change had come when he’d realised both those courses would end badly. The creature had their scent. If they hid it would find them. If they fled it would run them down. That left just one choice – to act as the Shining Ones would and face their foe.

My foe. The clarity felt good. It gave him strength.

‘You’re sure about this?’ Jaktens whispered.

‘Yes,’ the boy replied, tightening his grip on the Blade. He’d told the others to scavenge weapons along the way and they’d obeyed with the same dull hope that compelled them to follow him. Now they brandished scythes, hoes or spades like holy relics. Jaktens had recovered his crossbow and Agnieszka was clutching the wooden darning needles she’d been carrying in her bag. They were nothing like the dashing Imperial soldiers who marched beside the Shining Ones in the stories, but he was proud of them.

I’ll make them heroes, he vowed, channelling his foe’s fury into something pure. The beast was very close now, but his fear was gone. I’ll make them Astra Militarum!

He waved his party to a halt as they entered the village square. There were surprisingly few human bodies here, though scores of animal carcasses were scattered among the overturned stalls and wagons, slaughtered with the same glee as their owners. The boy guessed they’d been abandoned when the folk fled for their homes. Or to the temple…

His gaze swept to the tall, steeple-topped building across the square. Built from coarsely hewn granite blocks, the God-Emperor’s temple was the oldest and sturdiest place in the village. Four columns fronted it, formed from thick tree trunks and arranged into a roofless portico. Each was carved into the likeness of an armoured warrior with a two-handed sword held before it, blade to the ground, and painted in the bright orange colours of the Shining Ones. The workmanship was crude, the knights rendered as blocky caricatures of the elegant woodcuts in the Saga Scintillant, yet there was an honest strength about them. They were noble. At least, they had been.

‘Heretic,’ the boy growled, seizing on another of Father Fairfield’s favourite words. The knights’ visors had been slashed and spattered with blood.

The beast couldn’t bear to look at you, he thought, staring at the claw marks. You shamed it.

Yes, he was sure of that, though it was an odd insight. No matter, the Shining Ones were the enemy of his enemy, which meant they would stand with him in the battle to come, even if only in spirit. The prospect thrilled him, filling him with renewed conviction. It made his hatred righteous. And with that blessing came another: he knew exactly where his quarry was.

Without a word he headed for the temple, no longer creeping but striding with his head held high. He didn’t need to look back to know his army would follow.

This is why I’m here. This was always why.

The heavy temple doors lay before the entrance, smashed into kindling. They had offered no protection for the souls that took refuge here. Doubtless the sacred aquila hanging over the altar had proved equally ineffective. Without faith to empower it, the symbol was just shaped wood.

‘What are we doing here?’ Jaktens asked as the boy stopped before the portico.

‘What we must, brother.’ It was a strange thing to call this man, who’d only ever been a stranger at best, but it was the right thing to say. ‘What we’re meant to do.’

That was when he heard the music for the first time. It was a gossamer crystal threnody, elusive yet insistent, alienating yet captivating, but above all, achingly distant. He’d never learnt the fancy words and notions it evoked in him, yet he grasped them instantly, as if the music had woven them into his mind. None of the others could hear it. It was for him alone, too refined for common senses. But when he reached for the chords with his gift they fell silent, leaving him with a terrible longing.

It is a song of futures yet to pass. Of paths undreamt that dream of being…

As he scoured the void he felt the beast rising through the fitful strata of its torpor, seeking him in turn – eager to wreak ruin again until all hope of beauty was snuffed out. The impossible music would have to wait. Perhaps it would be his reward for fulfilling this quest. Perhaps it belonged to them. The anthem of the Shining Ones…

‘We burn bright so others may live,’ the aspirant knight declared, raising his dagger to salute the desecrated statues. In the moonlight its blade shone pure white.

Then he led his army into the darkness.

ON THE MIRRORED PATH

A true visionary never walks precisely the same path twice, for the agile mind refines itself with each experience, hence shaping all those that follow. As the dreamer begets dreams, so dreams in turn beget the dreamer, one honing the other with each revolution of the cycle. This is the secret rhythm you must embrace and master, my brothers, for all else ends in dissolution.

– Xøren Castaneda, First Magister
The Arc Resplendent

Towards the Within

The snow was falling heavily when the traveller found the dead village. He stumbled upon it with the sudden, dislocating strangeness of one dream slipping into another. One moment he was battering a path through a tangle of thorny bushes, the next he was out in the open, blinking in the sunlight. After the forest’s perennial murk it was dazzling, though the day was already waning towards dusk.

With a sigh of relief the traveller raised his face to the light. He was slight of build and his shoulders sagged under the weight of his backpack, lending him the stooped look of a much older man. His hooded greatcoat was woven from white synth-leather, the fabric augmented with rubbery black thermo-pads that stored the wearer’s body heat. It was an expensive garment, but filthy and frayed, speaking of great misfortune or too long in the wilderness.

Leaning on his staff, the traveller squinted at the sallow smear of the sun.

It’s ailing. The notion saddened him. It wasn’t his sun, for this was not his world, but what did that matter? The yearning for light was a primal truth that transcended the confusion wrought by interstellar travel. Some things were constant, even in this most inconstant of places. The sun – any sun – was life.

‘There’s nothing wrong with it,’ he told himself, recalling the bright disc that had greeted him when he’d disembarked at the planet’s majestic space port. Like Malpertuis’ marble-clad capital city, the sun had been glorious and vital, afire with potential. The sickness wasn’t in the sun or the sky, but in this land – a malaise so complete it tainted the light itself.

‘Perhaps you were right, my lady,’ he murmured, picturing the woman who had revealed this path. So much had become hazy since his descent into the woodland valley, but not her. Never her…

‘The Reverie is no place for old souls,’ the woman in blue warns.

‘I am not old, my lady,’ her visitor protests, taken aback.

‘Too old to outrun yourself,’ she judges. ‘Far too old to rise above yourself.’ Her azure irises are surely too vivid to be entirely natural. Lenses perhaps, or bio-tinting? Such contrivances are common in this city of dreamers.

It has taken the traveller much longer to locate his contact in the capital city than he anticipated. The directions he’d been given proved to be a riddle couched in seemingly plain language, for none of the places he sought existed. Their names were shrewd metaphors for the reality, relying on intuition rather than intellect to unravel. It was a test, of course, and neither the first nor the last on his long journey. Which was as it should be.

‘I am only twenty-three standard years old,’ he presses.

‘In this flesh, perhaps,’ the woman answers, ‘but your soul says otherwise, Seigneur Olba.’

‘That isn’t my name.’ Nor has he offered her one, for anonymity is the custom of those bound for the Reverie. They are simply ‘travellers’ until they reach their destination. After all, they are seeking themselves. Old names are meaningless on the Mirrored Path, though they might prove burdensome.

‘Another lie then,’ she observes obliquely. ‘No matter.’

He senses recognition in her regard, though that isn’t possible. He is certain they have never met before. This woman is not someone he would have forgotten. She is extraordinarily tall and slender, her body wrapped in overlapping fronds of shimmering blue silk. Silver bangles encircle her velvet-sheathed arms in serpentine coils. Her scalp is smoothly shaven save for a braided topknot that blooms out to cover her ears and shoulders in an indigo cascade. A web of fine black lines covers her face, weaving a ‘third eye’ upon her forehead, its spiral iris framed by widespread wings. The traveller cannot tell whether the pattern is tattooed or incised into her alabaster skin, nor decide upon her age, for she seems suspended between youth and maturity, but her allure is unquestionable. Timeless. The name he knows her by is Euryale, though he suspects that is only one of many and not the truest.

She is, among other things, a painter. Her studio is secreted in the helical labyrinth of the Spyndryft, far below the city’s sunlit streets. This is where the most introspective of Charlemagne’s myriad dreamers reside, along with the lost souls from which they draw inspiration – and, occasionally, it is rumoured, sustenance. They are an exclusive clique in a city abundant with artists, their work a dark mirror of the idealised splendour on display elsewhere.

Euryale’s paintings are particularly unsettling because they find beauty where it has no place being, spinning glamour from squalor or mystery from the banal – a cadaverous beggar with gentle eyes who proffers a bowl that spills radiant gems… The desiccated carcass of a rat that sprouts luxuriant orchids filled with teeth… A winged child perched atop a heap of rusting machinery as she plays with the severed head of a cybernetic beast…

Among these grim-bright flights of fantasy are a handful dedicated to the planet’s reclusive custodians. None are depicted as the traveller imagines them. None are heroic, at least not in the conventional sense. And yet they are still magnificent and otherworldly. His attention keeps straying to them as he converses with the painter.

‘You’ve seen them?’ he asks on impulse.

‘I have. Once I sought to frame them in verse, but words proved too narrow for the endeavour. Too absolute.’ She shuts her eyes and lays her gloved hands on the table between them. It feels like the beginning of a ritual. ‘Why are so many visitors to this world bound for the Reverie?’

‘So many?’ The traveller cannot conceal his surprise, or a flash of covetousness.

‘So many of the few who find me,’ she elaborates. Though her eyes are closed he can still feel her gaze, as though her painted eye sees more than its fleshly counterparts. ‘Why are you all so eager to embrace your unravelling?’

‘We rise on burning wings,’ he quotes boldly. Above all else, it is those valiant words that have drawn him here. ‘And I do not plan on dying, my lady.’

‘So say they all.’ The tattoos around her lips writhe as she smiles, twisting the expression into sorrow. ‘I cannot persuade you to renounce your intent, traveller.’ This is spoken as a statement rather than a question, but he answers regardless. Her smile saddens further at his inevitable reply.

‘So it goes,’ she says gravely. ‘You have the toll?’

He pays the agreed fee, both the material and the symbolic offerings, wincing when she draws a measure of his blood then tattoos the Winged Eye onto his left palm. He has always feared needles, though he has rarely felt their sting, and never intensely. Truthfully, he has felt little real pain in his life, either in body or spirit, though he would never admit this, even to himself. Indeed, if pressed, he would proclaim himself a tortured soul.

The final part of the ritual is altogether more pleasurable, yet its mark cuts deeper.

Afterwards Euryale makes the arrangements, emphasising the importance of discretion throughout his quest. While his course is not forbidden, it would be unwise to speak of it outside their select circle. Like many esoteric societies, theirs is best kept secret.

‘Perhaps we shall meet again, my lady,’ he says, offering a graceful bow.

‘On some paths perhaps, but I will not remember you.’

Unable to decide if this is a slight, he turns away then hesitates.

‘Will I find them?’ His eyes lock on the painting behind her. It portrays an armoured figure shattering into many-coloured fragments from its abdomen, as though its body is formed from crystal. The warrior’s helmeted head is thrown back and his arms are outstretched, seemingly exulting in his own disintegration as rainbow light spills from his visor. ‘Will I find the Resplendent?’

‘If they seek you.’

‘They’re close,’ the traveller assured the enfeebled sun, though he was really speaking to her, as he so often did. ‘I’ve felt them watching me, Euryale.’

His journey to the planet’s northern reaches, where the not-quite-forbidden territory lay, had been long. Air transport was restricted so he had travelled overland, first aboard the sleek maglev trains connecting the cardinal cities, then with a variety of wheeled vehicles and finally – astonishingly – a cart drawn by indigenous animals. With each phase of the journey he’d felt himself slipping further into the past, disentangling himself from mankind’s excesses and the guilt of his own – reaching for something finer.

Like Malpertuis itself…

The planet was a verdant jewel, free of the monolithic manufactoria or continent-spanning nutri-farms that despoiled so much of the Imperium. So many worlds existed only to serve mankind’s perpetual wars, like cogs in a voracious machine that devoured itself to feed its own expansion, blind to the absurdity of the endeavour.

By decree of its elusive custodians, Malpertuis was governed with a benign but firm hand by a council of mortal delegates who’d lived and learned amongst the Resplendent from childhood. Vast tracts of land were left wild and population levels strictly regulated, seemingly without incurring the displeasure of the people, who were as varied as they were vibrant. Off-world visitors were required to prove their aesthetic sensibilities before being granted passage, which ruled out most with the means to undertake the journey, for the Chiaroscuro System was remote and difficult to find, hidden deep in the Veil Radiant on the easternmost fringes of the Imperium, where interstellar navigation became an art rather than a craft. No doubt this had played a part in its custodians’ attraction to the world. Fortunately payment had been no obstacle for the traveller and he had delighted in the tests set before him, as he’d delighted in the world they warded.

Shining Malpertuis… The Painted World… Reve le Sangre… The Planet of Dreamers…

Creativity was celebrated across its thirty-one realms, from the glittering capital to the humblest rural townships. Those with talent or simply raw passion were supported in their endeavours, for the Resplendent regarded aspiration as the equal of excellence. Artistry lies in the soul, not the hand, he was told wherever he went. And dreams are the highest currency.

By the time he reached the frigid northern wilderness of the Hinterwylds he’d come to love this world, and somewhere along the way his fascination with its guardians had crystallised into reverence. It was remarkable that such a utopia could exist within the Imperium. Oh, there were countless safe, even beautiful worlds far from the front lines of mankind’s perpetual war – sanctuaries and pleasure retreats for the wealthy and the powerful – but he doubted there was another haven like this, where genuine idealism flourished. It was the exception that proved the grim rule of the wider reality.

Nevertheless, when he’d first looked upon the Reverie the traveller had wavered…

The final leg of his journey is a climb into the glacial mountains bordering his destination. His guide, a local woman with a face as stern and weatherworn as her land, takes him as far as the summit. There she points at the valley below then departs without a word. She has said nothing during their entire six-day trek. He wonders how many other seekers she has led here before him. Doubtless she thinks them all fools. And perhaps she is right.

Gazing down into the valley, the traveller feels the first stirrings of doubt. A forest fills the lowlands, vast and dense, its canopy wreathed in a fine mist that stains the vegetation a sickly yellow. The trees extend in an unbroken swathe to the distant plateau of the Severed Ridge, beyond which lie the Otranto Fjordlands, where the planet’s custodians reputedly reside. The northerners call them the Shining Ones, a name dating back over three thousand years to the warrior-artisans’ arrival on this world. Nothing is recorded of the planet’s history prior to that. Like its name, Malpertuis’ story begins with its custodians.

The Resplendent have been magnanimous in their stewardship, but they remain apart from their subjects, their souls turned towards a higher purpose, for they are descended from a demigod, who was in turn the brightest of the God-Emperor’s nine true sons. It is rare for mortals to draw their attention, let alone their approbation, so only a fool would approach their citadel uninvited. But invitations cannot be requested. They must be earned. That is the purpose of the Reverie.

And yet, though he believes all this fervently, the traveller still hesitates.

The forest below is unquestionably where his path lies, as it does for all mortals who seek an audience with the Resplendent – and those who aspire to join their ranks – but crossing it appears hopeless. His sophisticated nav-auspex began playing up during the ascent, its readings jumbled into nonsense. The more primitive instruments he carries have fared little better, the needle of his gyrocompass spinning wildly and his tri-gauge indicating a void. Once he enters the forest and loses sight of the sun and the stars he will be lost. He could wander that tangle for a lifetime and never find a way out.

‘The Mirrored Path is navigated by ideals, not traversed by steps,’ the traveller quotes from the sublime treatise that set him on this course. The words steady him. This is his test and the Resplendent will be watching.

Trusting in destiny he descends, and the Reverie swallows him.

‘Reality is only superficially reasonable,’ the traveller confided in the bilious sun. ‘Nothing is what it seems, yet also nothing more, for semblance is all there is.’

The favoured verse brought a smile to his cracked lips. Hunger had hollowed out his once handsome face and his complexion had faded from burnished copper to beige. A scrappy beard clung to his chin, flecked with snow. He suspected he looked twice his age now, almost the old man Euryale had seen in him. Once that thought would have been mortifying, but he was long past such vanity. The flesh was only an illusion. The Arc Resplendent was as emphatic about this point as it was ambiguous about so much else, though its obscurities were doubtless a failing in him rather than the treatise, or due to the incomplete transcript in the society’s possession. Someday soon he hoped to read the complete work. Then everything would become clear.

His smile became a frown as his gaze settled on the village ahead. It was huddled in a shallow dip in the land and bordered by a patchwork of fields, their crops long overrun by hardier vegetation, though even that looked lifeless. A conical building rose from the nearest field, its tall frame draped in withered vines. Four fans jutted from its apex, forming a cross against the sky, like a massive grave marker. A mill. He had seen similar structures across the northern territories, though never in such a dilapidated state.

Beyond its outskirts the village was a muddle of ramshackle wooden dwellings, many only standing because they leant against their neighbours. A stone steeple loomed over the sullen, snow-piled rooftops, hinting at a more substantial structure at the community’s centre, probably a temple, though they were rare on Malpertuis. The Resplendent discouraged conventional worship, even if they didn’t overtly suppress it.

Looking past the buildings, the traveller saw the forest completely encircled the place, yet kept its distance, like a besieging army wary of a trap. He narrowed his eyes, unsure what he was looking for. The village was obviously long dead, yet its decrepitude felt evasive. Sly. It was the first sign of civilisation he’d seen since entering the Reverie – the first sign of anything really – but it was nowhere he wanted to go.

Are you certain? he asked himself. Night was fast approaching and it was already bitterly cold. Why not take shelter here? Surely it was better than–

Something glinted fleetingly in one of the broken windows, as though a bright form had flitted across the room behind.

No, the traveller decided. Better the cold and the darkness than the ghosts those blighted dwellings might harbour. Something very bad had happened here and the stain lingered. Briefly he considered making camp in the fields then shook his head. It was still too close. He wanted to be as far from this place as possible when night fell.

‘It’s poisoned, Euryale,’ he said, nodding to himself, quite certain she would sense the taint too and approve of his decision.

Casting a last glance at the sun, he turned away. As he entered the trees he imagined the town shedding its sham stillness and reaching after him with claws of splintered wood, its windowed eyes glowering beneath shrunken-browed rafters, furious at being cheated of its prey.

The traveller didn’t look back. Some things were better left unseen.

The Self Unseen

The shadows had grown much deeper. Reluctantly the traveller activated his goggles’ night-vision mode and the scene flickered into a brighter, green-tinted facsimile of itself. Quickening his pace, he pressed on, hunting for a clearing to erect his enviro-tent. He didn’t like relying on the optics for long. They had served him surprisingly well, but lately they’d become erratic, throwing up odd distortions or cutting out intermittently, as if their powercell was depleted, though he had changed it several times. Both his torches failed within days of his arrival, along with the elaborate luma-caster he’d purchased in Charlemagne. He had no idea why the goggles had proved hardier than his other gear – logic was tenuous here – but if they died he’d be blind at night unless he mastered the art of starting a fire. Unfortunately he’d never managed to coax a flame out of the damp wood.

I wasn’t ready, the traveller admitted. Not for this.

He had braced himself for many possible ordeals in the Reverie, imagining mutated beasts or logic-defying anomalies of nature, or perhaps phantasms spun from his own psyche to taunt and tempt him – things to deny, defy or flee from, but not this banal purgatory of trees. Not this emptiness. Yes, that was the right word for it. Despite its density the forest felt barren. Nothing scuttled through its undergrowth or fluttered through its yellow-stained canopy. Even vermin shunned the place, as though there was nothing worth scavenging here, which was probably true, for the vegetation had a sterile, apathetic quality, like something only going through the motions of life.

But the worst part of it was the silence.

Other than his own voice, the traveller had heard nothing since his descent save the wind and the crunch-and-rustle of his passage, and even those had a muffled quality about them, as though the air was too thin to support sound faithfully. Inevitably he had taken to talking to himself – and through himself, Euryale – but sometimes, especially at night, his voice failed him. His lips would move and his throat vibrate, but nothing reached his ears. Lately he had begun to ration his speech for fear of being muted completely.

Days had slipped into weeks – or was it months now? – as he wandered the forest, searching for the test that would prove his worth to his unseen judges before his supplies or sanity ran dry. He knew they were watching, waiting for him to find a path through the relentless, changeless tangle. They had to be.

What if the village was my test? he thought suddenly. And I ran away. What if I’ve already failed?

‘No,’ he muttered, battering aside a branch. ‘It was–’

His foot snagged on something beneath the snow. With a strangled cry he stumbled and fell, cracking his head against a trunk as he hit the ground. His optics flared up then fizzled out, leaving him in darkness. He lay still, waiting for the lenses to kick back into life.

Nothing.

Cursing, he turned them on and off – then again. And again…

Still nothing.

Ignoring his pounding head, he clambered to his knees and yanked the goggles off, praying for a trickle of sunlight – just enough to try for a fire. This time, by the Angel’s Grace, he’d manage the trick! But the darkness was complete.

‘This is no place for old souls,’ Euryale mocked from somewhere in the back of his skull. ‘Or the faint-hearted.’ She’d never actually said that last part… had she?

‘You’re wrong… about me,’ the traveller moaned as a wave of nausea washed over him. ‘You don’t…’

‘…know me,’ the reveller mumbles. The words come out garbled and wet, like something vomited up rather than spoken, but the figure kneeling beside him nods, evidently understanding.

‘Perhaps not,’ it replies, ‘but that is of no consequence. What matters is whether you know yourself.’ Its face is a blur, no more than a pale smear of features framed by long black hair. Its voice is equally elusive, impossible to identify as male or female, young or old, kind or cruel, yet its words are perfectly intelligible. ‘Do you know yourself, friend?’

The reveller frowns and squints, trying to understand the question and the questioner in the same inconstant moment, but both endeavours are beyond him. Everything will be beyond him until he sleeps off this night’s adventure, which went altogether too far. The Sable Kiss essence Yuzna procured tonight was much more potent than any narcotic he has taken before, carrying him to unprecedented heights of glory before casting him away like a spurned lover and leaving him flat on his back. Where are Sylvie and Alecto? His bodywardens are oath-bound to accompany him everywhere, even his bed when he desires it. Surely they wouldn’t have left him lying here like a common obscura drudger?

‘Where…?’ he asks, trying to rise, which proves to be an absurd ambition.

‘You are perfectly safe,’ the stranger assures him as the world spins him back against the cold stone floor.

Safe? Of course he is safe! Things could hardly be otherwise within the precincts of his father’s palace. And he is surely still there. He never leaves. Why would he? Everything he desires is here for the taking.

‘Safe,’ he echoes dully.

‘That’s what’s killing you,’ the stranger observes.

‘Killing me?’

‘Not your body, but your mind.’ A pause. ‘Your soul.’

‘There are no souls,’ the reveller retorts, surprised by his conviction, and even more so by the sadness it leaves in its wake. And yet the feeling has always been there, he realises. The hollowness. That’s what drives him to his drug-fuelled flights and other imagined escapes. Why hasn’t he seen that before? ‘This is all there is,’ he whispers.

‘You are wrong.’ The blurred figure leans closer, but grows no clearer. ‘This world is the illusion.’ Then it presses something into the reveller’s hand. ‘Open your eyes, traveller.’

A light flickered through the trees to the traveller’s left, faint and reddish.

Something followed me, he thought with sudden terror. Something from the corpse-town…

He held his breath, watching the light. His gashed forehead was bleeding badly, but that didn’t matter. Only the light mattered.

It’s waiting for me.

Murmuring a prayer, he placed a hand on the aquila pendant dangling from his neck. He always wore it outside his coat, making it a symbolic guide. It was a humble icon carved from wood, but an eloquent one, for it was a gift beyond measure. Without this tangible token he would have dismissed the faceless stranger as a figment of a narcotic fugue and lived out his days as a gilded prisoner – pampered, privileged and utterly pointless. Four years had passed since that fateful encounter. He had come a long way since then, materially and spiritually, but he was no closer to learning the identity of his saviour. In his most elegiac moments he imagined it was the shade of the Angel, blessed Sanguinius, that had set him on the Mirrored Path. Though the demigod was slain millennia ago his spirit was eternal and his love for mankind undimmed.

The Angel rises from refined hearts. The traveller’s nausea receded as he mouthed the creed of the Winged Eye silently. Through mortal eyes He reflects light into the darkness. By mortal hands He reclaims the future, one dream at a time. What was lost may yet be founded anew. Never falter on your path. Never fester in fear, despair or doubt. Never fall, within or without.

‘Arise on burning wings,’ he finished aloud. His gaze locked on the light, he hauled himself up. ‘It’s them,’ he whispered. Yes, it must be so. Unsteadily at first, then with growing confidence, he headed for the beacon.

‘May I share your fire?’ the traveller asked, stepping into a small glade.

The hooded figure sitting beside the pile of smouldering logs didn’t reply. It didn’t even raise its head to look at the newcomer. The fire bathed it in a pool of radiance that turned its white robes ochre, but barely brushed the treeline where the speaker stood. Skittish flurries of snow swirled about the clearing, drawing pops and crackles from the flames.

‘I saw your light,’ the traveller added hopefully. To a common man his intrusion might have seemed menacing, but the figure by the fire was most uncommon. It sat with its legs crossed and back straight, its long-fingered hands resting on its knees. Even in this repose it was taller than the traveller, with shoulders broad enough to bear one of the local snow horses. Standing, it would tower over him.

But there was more to the giant’s presence than sheer physical size, or rather a quality to its physicality that registered on a primal level. What the traveller felt was pure visceral awe. Perhaps that was an inevitable reaction when a baseline human first beheld one of the Adeptus Astartes. Though they shared a biological heritage with mortal men these beings were not products of natural evolution, but design, their bodies vitalised by ancient bio-sorcery, forging them into mankind’s most stalwart champions. To gaze upon them was to glimpse the transcendent – the finest that humanity could aspire to.

‘Forgive my intrusion,’ the traveller said.

‘Sit.’ The giant spoke softly, yet its voice carried effortlessly through the wind, as though the word had passed directly to the other’s mind.

Striving for calm the traveller approached the fire. With a sigh of relief he shucked off his backpack and hunkered down opposite the giant.

‘My thanks.’ Shivering, he warmed his hands over the flames, rubbing life back into numb fingers. He had lost his gloves days ago, though he couldn’t remember how. There was much he couldn’t remember about his time here. Sometimes he wondered if the Reverie was covetous of memories made within its boundaries and reclaimed them while he slept.

But I remember why I came, he thought. It can’t take that from me.

He lowered his gaze respectfully, waiting for his judge to speak. As the silence stretched, his mind drifted to the lore he had acquired about these transhuman warriors, slipping into the scholarly mindset he’d cultivated since joining the Winged Eye.

The Adeptus Astartes – or Space Marines in the common parlance – were revered throughout the Imperium, but their numbers were few and scattered across the galaxy in close-knit brotherhoods. Each of these ‘Chapters’ had its own traditions, heraldry and temperament, which reputedly echoed the character of their respective progenitor demigods, of whom there were nine. Some Chapters were composed of fierce berserkers, while others were masters of stealth or dispassionate tacticians. Some found kinship with machines, others with wild beasts or even phantoms. A tragic few – surely it could only be a few – were rumoured to have betrayed their vows to the Imperium and become renegades, preying on those they once protected. There were even scraps of evidence suggesting there had been other sons of the God-Emperor – demigods who’d fallen to corruption in the distant past, dragging the warriors of their bloodline into damnation alongside them, but the traveller was sceptical about the possibility. The galaxy was already rife with tragedies and terrors without entertaining such grotesque notions.

Scholars, scribes and poets had devoted entire lifetimes to the study or veneration of a single Astartes brotherhood, though few ever met their subjects, for most Chapters shunned scrutiny. Over the centuries the Winged Eye had discreetly amassed a vast archive of knowledge about the ‘Sanguinian’ Chapters – those descended from the Angel – which were surprisingly numerous. They were a magnificent, yet troubled pantheon. Many were famed for their nobility and courage in battle, but shadowed by dark stories of savagery, madness and heresy.

The brightest light casts the darkest shadow…

The traveller realised his eyes had wandered back to the robed figure. Several minutes had passed, yet the giant seemed disinclined to break the silence. It appeared the next step – or stumble – was his to make.

‘I am called Tarsem,’ he offered, sensing the time had finally come for names. ‘I am a traveller.’

‘We are all travellers here,’ the warrior replied. Its voice was as deep and melodious as the seeker had imagined. ‘That is the nature of this place, Tarsem Veyd.’

Veyd? A shiver of surprise ran through the traveller. He had buried that shameful name along with his former life, yet this stranger had plucked it from his mind with a touch so light he hadn’t even felt it. How was that possible?

‘I–’ Tarsem’s breath caught in his throat as understanding dawned. Fate had guided him more keenly than he’d first imagined. The transhuman being before him was evidently more than a warrior. It was among the most exalted of its kind, gifted with the power to sway the world with its will alone. Such champions of the Adeptus Astartes were called ‘Librarians’, an appellation Tarsem found underwhelming for such puissant beings, but the Resplendent had a different term for their psychic brothers.

‘You are an Architect Radiant,’ he breathed.

‘That is a rarely spoken title. Few outside my Chapter know it.’ The giant looked up. Its face was handsome but unsettling, with faded, almost colourless eyes. Deep wrinkles clustered about them, yet the rest of its skin was smooth and so pale it looked bloodless. Pure.

‘I meant no offence, honoured one,’ Tarsem said, meeting the Architect’s gaze squarely. Despite his awe he felt certain this being would despise temerity. Most Chapters demanded obeisance from mortals, but he knew that wasn’t the way of the Resplendent. Their expectations were altogether more rarefied.

‘I have studied the history and traditions of your esteemed brotherhood diligently,’ Tarsem continued. ‘It has been my life’s calling.’

‘You are too young to make such a claim.’

‘Young in years perhaps,’ Tarsem countered, unconsciously echoing Euryale’s words.

‘And privileged, Omyr Veyd.’

‘Forgive me, but I renounced that rank long ago.’ Tarsem smiled wanly. ‘But I cannot deny I was fortunate in my birth.’

Fortunate? In a galaxy where billions were destined for fleeting, fear-filled lives of servitude and sacrifice, ‘fortunate’ didn’t begin to encompass the serendipity of his birth. As an omyr of the influential Oberai Oligarchy, Tarsem was blessed with opulence few could imagine. Moreover, as his father’s ninth son, he was far removed from real power and the irksome responsibilities it entailed. Little was demanded of him, but almost everything was offered, so long as his desires were without substance.

‘I am simply Tarsem now,’ he said, extending his hands, palms upwards.

‘Yet you have not renounced your fortune.’ The Architect’s incisor teeth gleamed in the firelight when he spoke. They were disconcertingly prominent. Almost predatory…

‘That is true,’ Tarsem confessed. He couldn’t tell whether the psychic warrior had seen his omission with its gift or simply intuited it, but he couldn’t deny it. His family had dismissed his vows to Sanguinius as a dalliance of youth, merely a transitory caprice to be humoured until it passed. And if it did not… Well, no matter, he was of little consequence and a saintly son might even prove useful if the Ecclesiarchy ever scrutinised House Veyd’s affairs too closely. The anger he expected, even hoped for, had never come and his privileges were not rescinded. Nor had he surrendered them.

‘But I have renounced my sins,’ Tarsem declared. ‘Fortune is no longer my cage.’

Surely the Architect could see this too? He had turned his privilege to a worthy cause, using it to fund his research into the Angel’s divine legacy. His wealth had freed him to scour the Imperium for precious books, scrolls and artefacts pertaining to Sanguinius and his manifold descendants. He had devoured dry volumes of historical analysis, esoteric cultural and philosophical essays, even the most obscure fictional accounts and poetry – anything that might shed light on the God-Paladin’s lost vision for humanity.

Three years ago his efforts had been noticed. They had approached him – the acolytes of the Winged Eye, a clandestine galaxy-spanning society of philosophers and artists devoted to the Angel. A single deep conviction bound them – had Sanguinius lived he would have ushered in a new age of enlightenment quite unlike the tyranny of the Imperium. Moreover, they believed this glittering future was still attainable through his noblest sons, if only they could be persuaded to seize it. There was much disagreement over which of the Sanguinian Chapters might fulfil this destiny, but Tarsem had no doubts. He had found the answer in the pages of the Arc Resplendent.

‘I am not what I was, honoured one,’ he declared.

‘And I am not your judge, Tarsem Veyd.’

Are you not? But surely–

Then Tarsem nodded, divining the other’s meaning. ‘The journey itself is the judgement,’ he said earnestly, quoting from the Chapter’s tome. ‘It is the Mirrored Path that reveals the self unseen.’

To his surprise the giant laughed, seemingly with genuine humour. ‘You think you know us, Tarsem Veyd?’

‘I know enough to yearn for more, lord.’

‘That is when knowledge becomes most dangerous.’

‘Then guide me.’ Tarsem leant forward, perilously close to the fire. ‘Help me understand.’

‘You are too old to embrace the Ascension. Your body would reject the rites of quickening.’

‘With respect, you misunderstand me,’ Tarsem said. ‘I don’t aspire to become one of you.’

‘Then why have you come?’

A tracery of violet energy flickered in the giant’s eyes. Tarsem knew it could seize the answer from his mind as effortlessly as a mortal took a breath, yet he sensed it would not. This was part of his test.

‘Why do you covet our beliefs, traveller?’ the Architect pressed.

‘I don’t,’ Tarsem answered, spreading his arms wide. ‘I want to share them.’ His voice trembled with passion. ‘I want to preach them.’

The fire died slowly over the next hour. It had served its purpose as a beacon and its maker had no need of its warmth or light. Feeding the flames seemed presumptuous so Tarsem bedded down beside the embers, forfeiting the comfort of his tent. The Architect sat opposite him, rigid and remote. They had spoken no more after Tarsem gave his answer. Perhaps there was nothing more to say. If he had presented his case poorly his journey was over, yet he felt no apprehension. Whatever the outcome, at least he would be done with this limbo.

And I answered honestly.

As his weariness slipped towards sleep, a question occurred to him. ‘May I know your name, Architect?’

The giant was silent for a long time – so long Tarsem feared he had transgressed some unspoken boundary – but finally it spoke.

‘I am no longer an Architect. Like yourself, I have renounced my title.’ There was a dry chuckle from the darkness. ‘I am only myself now. Only a ghost.’ Another long pause, then just before sleep took Tarsem, another answer: ‘I am called Satori.’

Nowhere, Now Here

‘We burn so others may live,’ the traveller declares, raising his dagger to salute the Shining Ones assembled outside the village temple. Their wooden forms have been defaced, but the desecration cannot erase their innate virtue. Instead it fills the traveller with a pure fury that rivals the rage of the beast within the temple. His foe is fully awake now. Waiting for him.

The darkness recedes as he enters, falling back before his glowing blade, though its light is a mixed blessing, for the God-Emperor’s house has become a slaughterhouse. The flagstones between its overturned pews run with blood and the walls are spattered red and hung with viscera, like obscene offerings. Mangled corpses line the aisle in twisted worship, as though consecrated to an elder, darker god. Many folk sought sanctuary here, making themselves easy prey for the destroyer that had descended on their village.

The traveller advances through the sacrifices towards the chancel, his army following because it must, compelled by their leader’s will. The townsfolk behind him are strangers, yet he knows them all, and loves them for their reluctant courage. How can that be? How can any of this be?

As the shadows retreat further he sees the granite altar has been sundered. A priest lies on the steps before it, only recognisable by his cassock, for his face has been ripped away, along with the front of his skull, though bizarrely his eyes remain intact, staring from the bloody chalice of his cranium. The corpse still clutches its iron aquila, loyal to its absent saviour even in death.

A man crouches among the debris, his head thrown back and his arms extended to either side. No, not a man… A giant. His form is encased in armour, but he wears no helmet and his silver hair hangs behind him, lank and filthy as a charnel shroud. Despite its bulk his warplate is elegant, assembled from sculpted orange segments that shimmer with gold inlays. Wicked blades jut from the knuckles of the warrior’s gauntlets, each long enough to tear a common man asunder.

The traveller stops, staring at the giant’s breastplate, for that is where the foulest revelation awaits. It is emblazoned with a winged knight gripping a broadsword in both hands, the weapon’s tip tilted towards the ground – the Knight Defender, noble icon of the Shining Ones.

‘No,’ the traveller whispers, speaking in a child’s voice. ‘No.’

The giant moans in answer, deep in its throat – a feral sound that twists into a howl – then finally looks at him with narrowed, glittering eyes. Its blood-flecked face is as beautiful and terrible as the old sagas promised, but it is only a mask for the beast within.

‘It was a lie,’ the child-traveller says, lost and utterly betrayed.

The beast-knight’s lips curl into a snarl then widen, showing fangs.

‘All a lie…’ The glow of the child’s blade flickers and fades and the beast leaps for him.

Tarsem wrenched himself out of the horror, jerking upright with the shock of his awakening. Shivering, he hunched in the darkness of his tent, his body drenched in sweat. The nightmare had enfolded him with the force of a memory, but it didn’t belong to him. He recognised the village of course, for he had wandered its streets often in dreams since that distant evening when he first spied it, unable to resist its malign gravity, but until now he’d never found anything there save decay and creeping shadows. And he had never reached the temple at its centre. This was something new. Something far worse.

A beast in shining armour…

‘All a lie,’ Tarsem rasped, echoing the boy he’d briefly become. They had both recognised the beast’s chivalrous symbol. It belonged to the Resplendent of old, along with the warrior’s orange colours, which had been superseded by blue centuries ago. The bestial knight had been an abomination from the distant past, but it was still a betrayal.

Wasn’t it?

And who was the boy?

Tarsem shook his head, trying to clear it. It was becoming difficult to hold onto anything any more, even the way he felt from one moment to the next, let alone unravel new mysteries. As the weeks had bled into months his thoughts had grown slippery, backsliding or evaporating whenever he tried to examine them. Nothing was certain except the eternal tangle of trees and snow and the soul-sapping silence they spun. Had there ever been anything else?

‘The Arc is real,’ he told the darkness. ‘And the Architect.’

When Tarsem emerged from his tent Satori was sitting beside the embers of last night’s fire, as he had been every morning since their paths first crossed. That meeting seemed a lifetime ago. Or a lifetime imagined, though surely it was no more than a few weeks.

As always, there were provisions awaiting the traveller – a flask of water and five grey nutri-cubes laid out on a leather cloth. The rations he’d brought with him were long gone.

‘My thanks,’ Tarsem said, nodding to his companion. He picked up the supplies, resisting the urge to eat a cube immediately. He was ravenous, but he’d need to make them last the whole day’s march. When night fell he’d leave the empty flask outside his tent. At dawn it would be full again. He didn’t know where Satori found the supplies, though he’d probably asked about it once. If so, he couldn’t remember the answer and no longer cared. They kept him on his feet. Kept him on the Mirrored Path. Nothing else mattered.

‘Nothing ever will,’ Euryale whispered. ‘Not to you, no matter how you yearn for it.’ She talked to him often now, intimate but never affectionate in her observations. There was no cruelty in them, only a knowing sadness that was somehow much worse. Doubtless she was only a chimera of his ailing mind, yet her pity still hurt.

‘You seek what cannot be found, traveller.’

‘You’re wrong,’ he muttered, turning his attention to the ordeal ahead. Every day was the same. At dawn his companion – or guide or judge – would stride into the forest and Tarsem would follow. By noon he’d be struggling to keep up. By dusk he’d be dead on his feet, drained beyond mere physical exhaustion. All thoughts of conversing with Satori would evaporate before the imperative of crawling into his tent and escaping the cold for a few merciful hours. Then the misery would begin again.

Maybe today, Tarsem told himself, fulfilling another morning ritual. Maybe it will end today. It can’t be much further.

But he didn’t believe that for a moment.

There was no sense to their course, at least none he could discern. Satori would forge ahead for long stretches then stop and study the trees, as if pondering something beyond them. The pauses might be brief or they might last several minutes, but when the march resumed it was always in a different direction, though their surroundings never changed. They didn’t talk on the march and only rarely in the intervals between. Even then there was no substance to the exchange. If his companion ever ate or slept Tarsem didn’t see it. Without his mortal burden Satori would probably have kept walking through the night, every night, until his journey was done. In a rare moment of openness he had confirmed their destination was the Chapter’s stronghold, Kanvolis. The dream of seeing the Shining Citadel was Tarsem’s anchor – that and the Arc Resplendent, which he recited as he walked, drawing strength from its luminous verses. Enduring this ordeal was his test.

‘Despair is the soul-killer,’ he recited, ‘never embrace its carrion comfort.’ He yanked his tent’s disassembly cord. The dome collapsed smoothly, folding itself into segments. At least this mechanism hadn’t failed him yet. At least–

‘They called it Vindarnas,’ Satori said behind him. ‘The place you dreamt of.’

The traveller turned, surprised. His companion’s head was bowed, yet his regard was palpable. Tarsem knew he couldn’t hide his thoughts from the psychic warrior if he was inclined to pry, but after their first encounter he’d felt sure Satori wouldn’t, as if there was an unspoken accord between them.

‘You looked into my mind?’ Tarsem’s resentment faltered. Suddenly he felt furtive, as though the transgression was his.

‘No, but I sensed the town’s taint. It was in your cry. How often have you walked there in dreams?’

‘Every night… since I found it.’

‘You have seen Vindarnas in the flesh?’ Satori looked up, his expression stony. ‘When?’

In the flesh… That was a bizarre way to phrase it.

‘The day we met,’ Tarsem answered hesitantly. ‘I didn’t like the look of it so I stayed away.’ The horror in the temple flashed through his mind again, too vivid to be anything but real. ‘I think something terrible happened there. A great evil.’

‘Two evils, the greater born of the lesser, but both virulent.’ The giant rose. ‘Come.’

‘Wait!’ Tarsem called. ‘Please, that place… it’s inside me… Inside my head.’ My soul. ‘I need to know. What is it?’

Satori appraised him with the calculation he usually applied to the forest. ‘Vindarnas is the wound that bled this realm. It is the heart and maw of the Reverie.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘It has your scent, traveller. That is all you need to know.’

‘It’s only a ruin,’ Tarsem protested. This sounded ignorant, even to him.

‘Nothing here is what it appears to be. Do you believe this is a forest?’ Satori waved a hand across the snow-swept treeline. ‘What do you think the Reverie is?’

‘The Mirrored Path reflects the soul,’ Tarsem answered without hesitation, citing the Arc. ‘The questing spirit must transcend itself. Within the sublime harrow of the Reverie it shall face its own truth.’ He nodded earnestly. ‘It is how your Chapter tests its Aspirants.’

‘So this vale is an arena of the soul?’

‘Yes,’ Tarsem agreed. ‘Precisely.’ That was perfect.

‘It is imperfect,’ Satori snapped, grazing his mind. ‘The Reverie is a fracture in the firmament of this world. It bleeds perpetually and hungers to salve that which cannot be healed, which only deepens the wound. It is a folly beyond redemption.’

Tarsem flinched at the bitterness in the warrior’s voice. It was confusing to hear an Architect of the Resplendent denounce the most sacred rite of his Chapter. It made no sense.

‘Scarcely one in three Aspirants survive the passage,’ Satori continued. ‘Fewer still with their sanity intact.’

‘But they are the most worthy.’

‘Are they? Some only endure because they stumble onto one of the Narrow Paths and traverse the world that was, not the one that hungers. They ascend among the Resplendent untested.’

‘Perhaps that is their test.’

The giant laughed – a bleak, hollow sound. ‘You would make a fine Aspirant, Tarsem Veyd, but the Reverie would certainly devour you.’

‘It hasn’t yet,’ Tarsem countered. His anger surprised him, but he welcomed it. How long had it been since he’d felt anything but misery? ‘I am here for a purpose.’

‘A purpose?’ Satori spat into the snow. It seemed a shockingly crude act for such an exalted being. ‘Do you know why the Resplendent build no walls around this valley?’

‘I…’ Tarsem trailed off, frowning. The question had never occurred to him, though it was an obvious one.

‘Because those who seek it will always find a way.’

‘Yes, we are called.’

‘Yet you still believe the choice was yours?’ Before Tarsem could argue further, his guide turned and walked away.

And as always, the traveller followed.

The days bled into nights that bred more days anew, each as stale and changeless as the last, but Tarsem no longer dreamt of the village. Whenever he drifted into sleep a shroud enfolded his mind, whisper light yet impervious to the town’s predations. Tarsem knew it was Satori’s doing and was grateful, though they never spoke of the place again. Somewhere blood-deep he understood that Vindarnas had almost claimed him. Nor would it ever relent.

And the nights and days recycled themselves over and over and–

Then there was the river.

The traveller stared at the wide ribbon of dark water, stunned by the sudden change. Satori had thrown out a warding arm when Tarsem stepped from the trees, otherwise he would have slipped on the muddy banks and plunged into the water.

‘She is called the Tristesse,’ his guide said.

I didn’t hear it, Tarsem realised. Not until I saw it.

Would the sound cease if he turned his back on the river? Had the world outside the Reverie ended when he abandoned it? Stopped believing in it…

‘How will we cross?’ he asked numbly. The current was sluggish and a rime of ice encrusted the water’s edges, but it looked very wide.

‘We won’t. Her course runs through the valley into the Fjordlands, then on to Kanvolis.’ Satori knelt and ran a hand through the water. ‘She offers the swiftest passage from the Reverie, but few ever find her.’

‘We’ll follow her… out?’ The possibility seemed absurd.

‘Yes. Come, I want to reach an outpost before nightfall.’

Yes, Tarsem wondered, perplexed. Surely that couldn’t be right. It took a while for his mind to catch up to the second part of Satori’s answer. An outpost?

The trek along the river was difficult. Its banks were uneven, slippery and overrun with foliage, forcing the pair to tread carefully and divert around impassable clumps. The light was fading by the time Tarsem saw a stone tower rising from a bend ahead.

‘They run the length of the Tristesse,’ Satori explained. ‘We raised them in the first years of the Reverie, when the river could still be trusted.’

‘It can’t be trusted now?’

‘Nothing can be trusted here, but the Lady Tristesse remains our surest course.’ Satori strode on, but Tarsem hesitated. Something about that tower disturbed him.

It’s watching us.

He shook his head, irritated by his disquiet. The building was a watchtower. Watching was in its nature, woven into its stones as faith was woven into a temple or wisdom into a library. That didn’t make it dangerous.

There was a splashing from the water beside him. Turning, he saw a residue of ripples and through them a pale oval, distorted by the disturbance. It dived away before he could make sense of it, yet his instincts grasped what his eyes couldn’t.

A face.

It was an outlandish notion, but he couldn’t shake it. Besides, it seemed no more improbable than the possibility of a mundane animal surviving in this realm. Suddenly the watchtower seemed altogether less menacing. Backing away from the water, Tarsem saw his guide was almost out of sight.

Without him I’d be long dead, he admitted. Or worse. He’s kept the Reverie at bay.

The outpost proved to be compact yet gracefully built, with inward-sloping walls crowned by a slender tower. Vegetation besieged it in a dense, thorny tangle, with creepers throttling its heights, but it still looked sturdy – resolute – like a mortally wounded hero who refused to die. An arched hangar jutted from the structure into the river, its flanks stained by the water.

‘Every outpost was equipped with a boat,’ Satori said, battering a path through the foliage with his staff. ‘Perhaps we will be fortunate.’

An armoured warrior loomed above the recessed entranceway, its marble form mottled with moss. Brushing aside the vines draping the statue’s upraised arms, Satori unveiled a metal hatch bearing the numeral ‘XIV’ in swirling white calligraphy. A sensor plate was set into the door beneath the number. To Tarsem’s surprise it lit up at the giant’s touch.

‘Its power core will last many centuries yet,’ Satori observed with a rare trace of pride, inscribing a pattern over the plate with a finger. ‘The Resplendent build to last.’

With a grind of servos the hatch slid up into a recess. Tarsem’s nostrils twitched as a pungent smell wafted out, like damp, fragrant wood. Not entirely unpleasant, but cloying.

Lights flickered on as they entered, spilling from an ornate lumen globe overhead. The interior was a single large chamber with a stairway spiralling up into the watchtower. A bunk and ablution facilities occupied the left wall, clearly intended for an occupant of prodigious size, while storage cabinets and machinery lined the right, all covered in a patina of dust. A doorway on the far side led to the hangar annex. The monitor console at the centre of the room was set into a marble plinth decorated with courtly murals. Even in this wilderness, the Resplendent had scorned simple functionality.

But it was the other decorations that drew Tarsem’s attention.

There were figurines everywhere, hanging from the walls and ceiling or cluttering the shelves in unruly mobs. Unlike the outpost’s original fixtures they were crudely carved from wood, evidently sourced from the local trees, for many retained traces of the familiar yellowish bark.

That’s where the smell’s coming from, Tarsem guessed. The odour was much stronger inside. How long had these things been here? And why?

‘What happened here?’ he asked, his unease about the place returning.

‘There was good reason to abandon the outposts,’ the Architect answered. ‘Prolonged exposure to the Reverie proved inimical, even to my kind.’

‘Inimical?’

‘Remain here,’ Satori ordered, heading for the hangar. ‘Touch nothing.’

Inimical, Tarsem mused, thinking of the face in the water. He hadn’t mentioned it to his guide, though he couldn’t say why. Would Satori think him delusional? Weak?

‘Lost?’ Euryale suggested.

His attention wandered to the carvings infesting the room. Whether they took the form of friezes or statues they all depicted the same malformed figure. It was humanoid in shape, but asymmetrical in its proportions, some limbs bulging monstrously, others wizened or multijointed, with the deformities varying across every iteration, as though their maker couldn’t settle on the right combination. But the head was always much the same, if it could truly be called a head.

It’s an eye, Tarsem realised, picking up the nearest figurine. The rough wood was sticky, somehow retaining its moisture despite its obvious age. He peered at the orb bulging from its misaligned shoulders. An iris of concentric circles stared back at him, cut into the glistening wood with obsessive precision. The design was repellent, yet inspired. Freed from the distractions that crowded a mundane face – a mouth, nose and ears and the muddle of sensations they engendered – this being would see so clearly.

‘Is that your purpose?’ he asked the idol. ‘To see everything?’ It was a magnificent ambition. Why hadn’t this solution occurred to him before?

‘Perhaps it has, but you’ve forgotten,’ Euryale whispered.

‘Perhaps,’ Tarsem agreed. He felt light-headed, but not nauseous. Blissful almost, as though the resinous scent was subtly narcotic. ‘Imagine an army of them, Euryale, all bound to a single cause. Seeking perfect truth together.’

He brought the figure closer, trying to count the rings of its iris – eager to understand their configuration – but couldn’t keep track of them. No matter how he tried, his attention kept slipping to the black hole of the pupil. It looked so deep – surely too deep for the wood framing it, like a window into a void.

‘What are you hiding?’ he murmured. ‘Why–’

The eye-doll blinked.

And the traveller plunges into darkness, screaming in blind silence as he plummets, for sight and sound have no place in the void between what was, is and might yet be. Nor can he tell how far he falls or how long his descent lasts. Space and time are as alien to this nowhere-when as sense and sanity – all relics of Being in a realm where Nothing reigns supreme.

It ends as suddenly as it began.

The traveller’s scream finally breaks free as he sees the armoured monstrosity towering over him. He is back in the desecrated temple, sharing the lost boy’s fate at the nightmare’s apotheosis.

He wails again as the bestial knight leaps for him, its pale face a snarl-slashed scar, its right arm raised to extinguish him with a swipe of its gleaming knuckle-blades. A heartbeat before they connect, someone hurls him aside. As he staggers away he sees his saviour die – a bearded man in a leather tunic who raises his crossbow a dozen heartbeats too late, not that swiftness would have made a difference. The beast thuds to the ground in front of the bowman, slicing down with its claw as it lands. Crackling with energy the blades shred the man from skull to waist.

Jaktens, the traveller remembers as the seared halves flop apart, he was called Jaktens.

Bellowing a curse, a heavyset youth clubs the beast with a spade that shatters against its armour. A slash of its second claw sends the spade-bearer’s head spinning across the temple. Improbably the traveller catches the look of surprise on the youth’s face as it flies past him. As the headless corpse totters and falls, an old woman lunges through the spray of blood and thrusts a long needle towards the beast’s face. It reacts with uncanny speed, shearing away her arm at the elbow then whirling its other claw round to disembowel her.

Padraig… Agnieszka… Names from somebody else’s life… Fleeting nobodies reimagined as fledgling heroes… Spirits infused with fatal courage by the boy’s will.

The traveller doesn’t see the last of his borrowed comrades die. His momentum hurls him over a pew and he lands badly, cracking his head against the flagstones. As dark streaks cluster around his vision he hears the raw-meat whirlwind of the beast’s savage artistry.

‘Please, lord,’ a man sobs, his plea punctuated by the clatter of a discarded weapon. ‘I meant no–’

There is a wet tearing sound then a triumphant howl. But beneath that, chained within the elation, despair.

Gritting his teeth, the traveller clambers to his feet. His foe is kneeling among the newly dead, its face shrouded by a curtain of wild hair, its claws buried in the stones to either side. Jagged traceries of energy flicker along the blades as their wielder presses harder, as if to murder the temple. Its rage has collapsed into a singularity, too elemental for the transitory gratifications of flesh and bone. It craves a more fundamental kill – the lifeblood of faith itself.

‘Betrayer,’ the traveller hisses with the boy’s voice. He stumbles towards the fallen knight, brandishing his dagger like a sword. Its spiral-carved hilt has become one with his hand. Its blade glows white once more, galvanised by his will. ‘Betrayer!’ he shouts, drawing strength from his secret gift.

The beast looks up to meet its accuser. Its eyes are raw slits of torment, its face streaked with tears of blood. The traveller reels as a wave of self-disgust washes over him. In the depths of damnation his foe has awoken into a brief and bitter comprehension of itself.

‘Betrayer!’

‘Yes,’ the dark one answers, choking out the word like the last gasp of a drowning man, then retching out a handful more. ‘Our… blood… betrays… us.’

It is both a confession and an invitation.

The boy seizes the opening without hesitation, knowing it won’t last long. With a cry he hurls himself forward and plunges his dagger into the traitor’s right eye, throwing his gift behind the strike to pierce the orb, brain and bone behind. The beast howls as the blade buries itself to the hilt, but the cursed knight holds their shared body rigid for a few seconds longer – just enough for the boy to leap away from a retaliatory slash of claws.

‘We burn so others may live!’ the child and the traveller shout as one, believing it with both their hearts.

Snarling, the beast lurches to its feet and staggers forward, its surviving eye fixed on its slayer, but the boy holds his ground. The abomination roars and he roars back with the full fury of his faith. The blade buried in its eye ignites and white fire bursts from its jaws and nostrils. Shuddering violently it topples backwards onto the broken altar.

The slayer makes the sign of the aquila, thanking the Throne for his victory, then fresh terror surges through him. The avenging fire won’t stop pouring from the beast’s body. No longer pure, it spreads in flickering rainbow swatches, filling the temple with unholy light. And with it comes a crystalline glissando of music, every note razor-sharp and discordant, whirling through the world to slice and dice and sacrifice all hope of harmony.

It is the music of poisoned stars…

Tarsem twisted in agony as the world reknitted itself around him, fragments of possibility pirouetting towards probability then back into tenuous reality before his bleeding eyes.

Then it was done and the memory of dissolution faded, too alien to hold onto.

He was in a small, circular room. Sickly light seeped through the panoramic window running its circumference, barely alleviating the gloom. The resinous stench was so strong here it made his skin crawl.

I’m in the watchtower, he realised. Somehow he must have climbed up here unawares. He was still clutching the unclean idol, his grip so tight the rough wood had drawn blood. Disgusted, he hurled it away. As it hit the ground something stirred on the far side of the chamber, coalescing from the murk into a deeper shadow, like a phantom unveiled.

Or summoned.

Tarsem’s heart pounded faster as he recognised the shape. It was as massive as his Resplendent companion, but clad in faded blue armour encrusted with yellow-grey vegetation. The ceramite plates had warped and cracked to accommodate their wearer’s misshapen frame, like an insect’s carapace burst from within by a fungal infestation. One arm had attenuated into a tentacle that trailed a pale, long-fingered hand, while the other was swollen to twice its natural size, dragging the creature’s frame off balance. Both its legs had erupted from their sheathing in wiry tangles that looked more like gnarled roots than flesh. Its back was turned to him so its head was obscured by an immense, drooping backpack, but Tarsem already knew what its face would look like.

You made them, he thought, picturing the wooden idols. And they remade you in their image.

The shape was completely still, its attention fixed on the forest beyond the window. Tarsem sensed it had been here a very long time, its original duty transformed into a stranger vigil alongside its flesh. Had the outpost’s warden even noticed the change overtaking it? Had it welcomed it?

He took a hesitant step backwards.

Suddenly the sentinel was facing him. There was no movement or sound, it simply snapped from one position to another, skipping the intervals between like a mistimed vid-cast. Its mirror-smooth face reflected the dying light, shimmering and watchful.

Inimical, Satori had said. Yes, Tarsem agreed, choking back a giggle of hysteria, this was most definitely inimical.

He took another step backwards – and the creature was right in front of him, the vast rapacious eye of its face just inches from his own. The vortex of its irises dilated to swallow all that he was and might ever become, now and forever after. Yet that oblivion also promised a fleeting moment of enlightenment more perfect than anything he could hope to attain in life.

‘Isn’t this why you’re here?’ Euryale asked. ‘Isn’t this what you seek?’

‘No!’ Tarsem wailed and hurled himself onto the staircase. Leaping down the steps, he lost his footing, flailed out and plummeted back into darkness.

As Within, So Without

When the traveller opened his eyes the forest was moving, its knotted canopy drifting past overhead, as though carried by the wind. Flurries of snow gusted through it, but somehow never settled on his face.

Am I dead? Tarsem wondered, feeling oddly detached about the prospect. No, he could still feel his body. It was a distant smudge of pain, but it threatened much worse if he disturbed it, so he just lay still and watched the sky.

Sunlight trickled through the treetops, sparkling intermittently. Sometimes the vista twitched with the light and he glimpsed other skies – an ash-drenched smog strangling twin suns… A fierce blizzard that eclipsed the Reverie’s listless winter… A vast, shadow-haunted dome speckled with failing lights that presaged absolute darkness… And strangest of all, a crystalline web that pulsed with indigo radiance as glittering discs flitted through it. Other worlds and other times, yet the same river ran through them all. Ran through him. The connection felt unbreakable, worn aeons deep into the marrow of his spirit, as though he had made this journey before, too many times to bear close scrutiny.

‘You circle yourself without surcease in search of perfect answers,’ Euryale whispered inside his ear. ‘But you’ll find no epiphany to deliver you, nor the humility to choose oblivion over eternity. Your journey is without end, traveller.’

You don’t know that, he answered.

‘But you do, even if you won’t accept it.’

You’re wrong, Euryale. Some day I will be an architect. Yes, that was the right title – an architect, not of buildings, but more fundamental structures, like the Architects of the Resplendent.

‘Only and forever an addict,’ Euryale judged sadly. ‘No matter how far you rise, you shall always be falling.’

Leave me be. You’re not even real.

‘Am I not?’

You’re only a figment.

‘Yet you think of me, therefore I am.’ She sighed and the sound lingered, dissolving into a mechanical chugging. It was an engine. And the churning of water…

I’m on a boat, Tarsem realised. You found one, Satori.

He must have spoken aloud because a familiar figure appeared, looming over him. Was that concern in those colourless eyes?

‘Don’t attempt to move,’ the giant cautioned. ‘Your body is broken.’

That made sense, but Tarsem didn’t much care. Only one thing mattered right now. ‘Are we free of it?’ he asked. Are we outside?

‘Soon,’ Satori promised. ‘We have been on the river almost two days.’

‘That means nothing.’

‘Nevertheless we will prevail. It is time I returned to the world.’

‘How long… have you been here?’ Inside.

‘Longer than I intended.’ Satori looked up as the canopy of trees transmuted again, becoming a grey-green fungoid tangle that sweated corruption.

Do you see it, Satori? Do you see what I see?

Yes, Tarsem was sure they shared this vision. And in that moment, strung between delirium and revelation, he grasped another truth.

You were the boy who slew the beast.

‘It was yours,’ he breathed. ‘The nightmare, always yours.’

Satori’s gaze fell on him again, offering neither confirmation nor denial, not that Tarsem needed either. Somehow, perhaps through the alchemy of this mercurial realm, the Architect’s dreams had bled into his own. It was something else they shared. Did that make them brothers of a kind?

‘Rest now, Tarsem Veyd.’

Yes, that was good advice. Every thought was a great weight and speaking them aloud only invited misery. But there was something else he needed to ask first. Something important.

‘The music,’ he murmured. How did you stop it?

Satori caught the unspoken question as Tarsem drifted into sleep, along with an impression of the otherworldly music haunting his fellow traveller. It had been a long time since he’d heard that malevolent rhythm, but it was unmistakable.

‘I did not stop it,’ he answered quietly. ‘I gave it voice.’

His intuition about Veyd had been correct. The man had the gift, but it was so subtle and intimately entwined with his ego that few would recognise it as a psychic talent. In time he might become a potent empath, perhaps even a leader. He was certainly ambitious enough. Yes, there was a seed of greatness in him, but there was no telling whether it would grow into a force for good or ill. At first Satori had suspected Veyd might be one of those he was hunting, but the taint hadn’t manifested in him, even after he heard the music. But their meeting wasn’t chance. In his long experience, nothing of note ever was. The galaxy was too broken for that.

‘You travel towards a darker, farther deliverance, Tarsem Veyd,’ he predicted, plucking the intuition from the secret skein of the Reverie. It was an obscure prophecy, as the cruellest ones always were.

Rising, he crossed to the bow of the small boat. Like all his brotherhood’s machines it was masterfully built, displaying a flair and innovation uncommon in the Imperium. Anti-grav arrays lined its sleek hull, generating a field that dispersed the snow before it could settle. Its sensor-linked cogitator drive could navigate the river unaided, even when it reached the Fjordlands, where the currents would grow fiercer, rising to a torrent beneath Kanvolis’ cliff-straddling heights.

The prospect of seeing the Shining Citadel again seemed fanciful, though Satori always knew he would return someday, as he had done many times before. He was only a child when he first made the journey, fearful yet eager to meet his destiny.

So long ago…

The boy is kneeling beside the slain knight when the Shining Ones come for their comrade, as he has always known they would. Many days have passed since the night of the beast, but he has ignored the cold, the hunger and the horror of the despoiled temple, waiting for Them.

There are five, all immense and magnificently armoured, their faces hidden behind ornate visors. The weapons they carry are nothing like the swords and lances portrayed in the Saga Scintillant, but the boy recognises the lethality of their blunt-nosed armaments instinctively.

Too weary for excitement, he watches in silence as the giants approach. Four of them display the bright orange colours he knows so well, but the fifth is different, its armour a blue so dark it is almost black. A rigid crystal-ribbed cowl covers its head, the visor within sculpted into a silver face, handsome but aloof, as the boy has always imagined their kind to be. This one is unmistakably the party’s leader.

Silver Mask stops before his brother knight’s body, gazing down at it while the others surround the boy with their weapons levelled.

‘Search the village,’ the leader commands. ‘I sense others in hiding. They are inconsequential, but we cannot permit word of this atrocity to spread. Our brother’s madness must end here.’

‘By your command, Chief Librarian,’ the warriors respond as one, then march away.

Silver Mask drops to one knee opposite the slayer, studying him. The boy meets his scrutiny calmly, even when something cold and implacable seeps into his mind, sifting through his memories with an icy touch. He makes no attempt to obstruct the invader with his talent, sensing it would be pointless and quite likely fatal.

‘You are untainted,’ Silver Mask judges when the wordless interrogation is concluded. His visor splits vertically and opens like a pair of doors. The face beneath is nothing like the mask, its features gaunt and deeply seamed, harrowed by the power behind his white, sightless eyes. An inverted pyramid enclosed in a circle is tattooed on his high forehead. The boy understands that this being sees more clearly than most sighted men ever will.

‘His name was Hanzo Gyguerre, the one you slew,’ the leader says finally. ‘He was once a champion amongst us. You have done my Chapter a great service, young one.’

The boy says nothing. What is there to say when the stranger has already seized it all from his mind?

‘Will you come with us, Adept Aspirant?’ Silver Mask asks, recognising him as only a fellow witch can. ‘Will you become the best of yourself and stand beside me in the Angel’s Grace? Will you walk the path of light in shadow?’

Doubtless the blind seer already knows the answer he will receive, but this choice must be affirmed aloud.

‘Yes,’ the ghost boy answers without hesitation. This is the moment he has yearned for since fate cast him into this miserable hovel. This is destiny. ‘Yes, I will.’

‘I will always stand with you, First Magister,’ the ghost warrior reaffirmed. ‘We will rise on burning wings.’

The Chief Librarian’s name had been Xøren Castaneda and that meeting was the dawn of the Chapter’s enlightenment. Satori remembered it vividly, as he remembered every indignity of his former existence among the folk of Vindarnas, though he had never uncovered who he was before that, even with all the Chapter’s resources at his disposal. Such memories of mortal life were rare among the Adeptus Astartes. Even now, after more centuries than he cared to count, Satori was unsure whether he was grateful for them, but his mentor had deemed them necessary to his duty. They made him an outsider among his own kind. In that respect nothing had changed since his childhood.

I am still a ghost.

Satori turned his attention to the river ahead, studying the shifting strands of possibility behind the arboreal façade. Yes, he had navigated correctly. His foe was here. Now. The first of its celebrants had already embraced its annihilating song. Others would soon follow, rising to fall into its lies. And the false liberator would answer, as it had done so many times before along other threads of possibility, severing and silencing each strand with its becoming.

‘Not here,’ Satori vowed. ‘Not this time.’

THE CRY OF SILENCE

Our bloodline is both blessed and cursed, my brothers. To rise above its shadow we must refine and redefine ourselves without reverence for the old conceits of glory or valour, honing our passions into finer, subtler blades. We must become creators by calling and destroyers only by necessity.

– Xøren Castaneda, First Magister
The Arc Resplendent

The Persistence of Vision

‘You are troubled,’ Marisol observed, placing a hand on her companion’s wrist, which was almost level with her head. ‘It does not please you to return home?’

The giant offered no reply. His ornate golden armour and purple cloak evoked the majesty of the demigod he was descended from, as did the stylised wings decorating his pauldrons. A circlet bearing an amethyst rose bound his long black hair, marking him as the Knight Exemplar of the Rhapsody Eternal, responsible for every soul on board the Persistence of Vision, from the mightiest warrior-artisan to the humblest Chapter villein. But the leader of a Resplendent Battle Rhapsody was more than a company captain – he was its figurehead and spiritual compass.

Despite her prestige among the Rhapsody’s mortal followers, the woman beside him wore the pleated blue tunic and breeches of a common valet. It was a smart but practical outfit that scandalised her peers, which pleased her immensely. Her white hair was cut short, emphasising the strong planes of her face. The encroaching shadows of age notwithstanding, she was still a handsome woman, but her patron hadn’t chosen her for her comeliness. She had been a storyteller in her former life. Now she was the chronicler of his.

The pair stood on the circular gantry of the ship’s observation dome, gazing down upon the verdant hemisphere of the planet below. The dome bulged from the vessel’s underside like a jewel in its baroque hull, offering them a breathtaking view of Malpertuis.

‘It is beautiful, Darioc.’ This time Marisol used her companion’s blood-born name, as was her privilege when they were alone. It was not a name he remembered living under, but it was the one he’d written in his Phylactery Ephemeral before his Ascension to the Adeptus Astartes, along with an account of the mortal life that preceded it. He had placed the silver-bound book in her care when she accepted his offer to serve as his Muse. There was no greater honour a mortal could aspire to, nor a deeper bond of trust, for it made her the guardian of his past, privy to memories and emotions he had sacrificed, but which still informed his spirit.

I remember who you are as you cannot, Darioc Graal, Marisol reflected. I know the hopes and fears you arose from, like fire reborn from clay.

Many among the Resplendent, her patron included, believed a knight’s phylactery embodied his humanity, perhaps even his soul. All the Chapter’s Aspirants were required to pen one when they embarked on the Mirrored Path to Ascension, but afterwards it became a personal matter. Some warriors treasured the relics, while others disdained or even destroyed them, a notion that appalled Marisol.

‘We have gazed upon so many worlds together,’ she said, ‘yet I feel as if this is the first. How can that be?’

Her companion remained silent, lost in thought. Marisol waited, knowing he would answer her when he was done answering himself. He had always been contemplative, but in recent years his introspection had darkened into brooding. Sometimes several days would pass without a word exchanged between them. At first she had accepted this with equanimity, but gradually it had begun to exasperate her, though it troubled her to admit it.

‘The Painted World is unique,’ he replied finally. ‘It pleases me that you shall see it, my lady.’

‘I sometimes doubted I would,’ Marisol confessed. ‘Time is not my friend, Darioc.’

She hadn’t been young when she’d entered his service and was now approaching her sixtieth year. Her spirit was undimmed and her health excellent, and yet… She grew tired so quickly now. With fortune’s favour she might live past her centenary, but with every passing year she would lose a little more of herself, while her patron would remain unchanged until some catastrophe claimed him.

Time has no dominion over the Angel’s sons, she thought, studying the face she had extolled so often in verse. In a perfect world they would abide eternally.

Like many of his kindred, Darioc was handsome in the manner of a heroic marble statue given life. His features embodied an improbably perfect balance between nobility and passion, equally capable of great compassion and terrible fury, one extreme tempered by the other. His wide-set eyes were a scintillant purple, their irises bio-tinted to reflect his company’s colour, as was the custom of the Resplendent.

‘Time need not be your enemy,’ he said gently.

‘It is neither an enemy nor a friend,’ Marisol replied. ‘It merely is.’ She had twice declined his suggestion of juvenat therapy to hold back or even reverse her years. It wasn’t a subject she wished to revisit now. ‘You haven’t answered my question, Darioc. What troubles you?’

‘Am I troubled?’ His expression hovered between a frown and a smile. ‘Perhaps. It has been a long time since I walked upon my home world, sister. Almost a decade.’

‘You fear it has changed?’

‘The Resplendent do not fear change, as you well know.’ He settled on a smile. ‘Without change there can be no direction or flavour to life!’ The changeless warrior appeared unaware of his declaration’s irony. ‘It is stagnation we despise.’

‘Your world doesn’t look stagnant, Darioc.’ Marisol knew it was a glib observation, for what could she really tell from here, yet she felt its truth with the almost preternatural intuition that had shaped so much of her life. The planet below was thriving. ‘It looks perfect.’

‘Yes, it does.’ His smile disappeared. ‘It is my Chapter’s judgement that troubles me, sister. I may be found wanting.’

Though he said it lightly, Marisol understood his concern was real. Her companion hadn’t been the Ninth Rhapsody’s leader when it departed Malpertuis. Its original commander had fallen in the third year of their voyage and his testament had named Darioc as his successor. Apparently the choice had been unexpected – and unwelcomed – by many of his peers.

‘You were chosen because you are the best,’ she said. ‘You are faultless.’ Once she had believed that with all her heart. Now the declaration sounded hollow to her.

‘No, Yukio Caravaggio was the faultless one,’ he replied quietly. It was his predecessor’s name. He had never discussed the circumstances of Caravaggio’s death, but it clearly preyed on his mind. Why hadn’t she pressed him on the matter?

Because I fear he would lie, she answered herself, feeling a stab of resentment.

‘He was the best of us, sister.’

‘And you honour his memory, Darioc.’

‘Do I?’ Before she could reply he pressed on. ‘We cannot tarry any longer, sister. There is something I wish to show you before our departure.’

‘You’ve finished it?’ she asked, guessing his meaning.

‘I have. Come, many marvels await you!’

His manner made it clear he was no longer Darioc Graal, her cherished patron, but Varzival Czervantes, Knight Exemplar of the Rhapsody Eternal.

A strident sonata rippled through the vaults of the ship’s hibernaculum, underscoring the whirl of activity in the vast, multilevelled chamber. Like the synthesised music, the flow of personnel was meticulously orchestrated and unflagging. The human orderlies and cyborg servitors who embodied its notes crossed paths ceaselessly but never quite collided as they sped about their pre-assigned tasks – uncoupling glass-fronted cryo-sarcophagi from their alcoves, assessing the sleepers cocooned within, activating self-sufficiency and shielding protocols then loading the bulky cylinders onto wheeled servitor-pallets that trundled out the moment they were filled, each ferrying its precious cargo to the strike cruiser’s hangar bay.

Ennio Zann, who had arranged both the music and the operation, oversaw the performance like a conductor finessing a symphony. He stood on an octagonal platform hovering above the throng, his gaze flitting between the monitors lining the podium while his twelve-fingered hands danced over their controls like mechanical spiders. The haptic sensors in their fingertips triggered multiple events at once, each sending a synthesised vox command to an orderly’s ear-bead.

But Zann’s communion with his nerve pulpit was more complete than mere sight or touch could achieve. Myriad mechadendrites had extruded from his armour and latched onto the platform’s cogitator engines like silver leeches, linking him to the servo-skulls flitting about the chamber. The tiny sensor-studded machines fed him a continuous stream of data and Zann responded with inhuman efficiency, transmitting hexamathic instructions directly to his servitors’ lobotomised brains – accelerating one here, slowing another there, removing a poorly performing unit altogether and activating a replacement…

Throughout it all a fragment of his attention was reserved for the sleepers themselves, repeatedly scanning their bio-cyphers for fluctuations. The cryonic technology preserving the ship’s human cargo was blessed, but the sarcophagi were ancient and their spirits had grown capricious. During the Rhapsody’s journey five had malfunctioned critically. Two sleepers had been killed outright and the other three were left so impaired Zann was obliged to recycle them into servitors. While Apothecary Borges had mourned the losses with predictable sentiment, Zann regarded them as an affront to the Machine-God’s unfolding perfection. The errors caused him physical pain. He had wired himself that way.

‘Imperfection escalates disharmony. Disharmony desecrates the aesthetic equilibrium of the Divine Geometry,’ he had explained to the bewildered Apothecary. ‘Procedural integrity must be restored to optimal levels to negate irreversible entropic dissolution.’

A flicker of Zann’s attention confirmed the Apothecary was still standing by the hibernaculum’s entrance, his white armour a stark contrast to the workers’ blue uniforms. Inevitably Borges had been unable to grasp the artistry of this operation, or the necessity of its ambition. Formally they were equals in the maintenance of the sleepers, but once a warm body entered cryostasis the Apothecary could contribute little. Zann took no satisfaction in this. It was merely a confirmation of machine-craft’s superiority over meat-craft.

That was why the deaths – errors – had been unacceptable.

His thoughts were running quicksilver fast now, his mind parsing hundreds of inputs and outputs every second. He was fully interfaced with the pulpit’s cogitator engines, the processing power of his cyborg brain enhanced by their benevolence. The acceleration placed significant strain on his neural capacitors, but the hazard was acceptable, for this operation was the culmination of his duty as the Rhapsody’s Artificer Radiant. It was a rite of reverence expressed as art – complexity amplified to breaking point then harnessed, mastered and wielded in the Omnissiah’s name – a sublime composition that would restore the Equilibrium Mechanika.

Two hundred and nineteen sleepers remained. Ennio Zann would lose no more of them.

Juan Borges watched the activity in the hibernaculum from its entrance, which was shaped like a vast, yawning mouth. Like all the ship’s prominent spaces, the chamber was clad in blue-veined marble and lavishly decorated with murals celebrating the Chapter’s history, though these were uncommonly sombre, as befitted the hibernaculum’s function.

‘You risk too much, brother,’ Borges murmured. Despite his doubts, the Apothecary was careful not to obstruct the workers rushing past him. Interfering now would achieve nothing and perhaps even worsen matters. Zann had offered him no part to play in the operation, but Borges had insisted on being present, if only to bear witness to the Techmarine’s hubris.

The sleepers are our future, he thought, yet you stake their lives on your ego.

Awakening the sleepers was a delicate process so it was customarily performed in the Chapter’s Grand Apothecarion on Malpertuis; hence the evacuation itself was prudent, but not this breakneck haste. Unsurprisingly Zann’s explanation for it had been unfathomable. Techmarines were a breed unto themselves, their minds addled by too many years spent among the cog-priests of Mars, but Ennio Zann was the worst Borges had known during his long service to the Arc Resplendent.

He truly believes in their Machine-God, he gauged, studying the figure hovering in the chamber’s heights. His soul belongs to Mars.

Even by the standards of the Resplendent, the Techmarine’s armour was extravagantly wrought, its angular plates interlocking like the scales of a snake, their surface etched with geometric symbols. Flanged pipes wove about his torso and limbs, glowing white as they dispersed the excess heat his armour was currently generating. His helm’s faceplate was an octagonal mask bearing a bronze cog that rotated slowly around the single crystalline lens at its centre. A pair of multijointed servo-arms protruded from his backpack, one terminating in a metal claw, the other fitted with an array of bulky maintenance tools. As a specialist, Zann’s colours deviated from the Chapter’s azure blue in favour of the Machine-God’s crimson.

It fits you well, brother, Borges thought grimly. There will be much blood on your hands today. Many would die needlessly from this haste.

Another servitor-pallet trundled towards the entrance bearing its cargo. As it passed him, the Apothecary glimpsed a pale face through the sarcophagus’ glasteel hatch. Unbidden, the sleeper’s identity spun through his mind – Name: Sharpz, Nico. Age: Fifteen standard years. Provenance: Khostax-IV. Potential: High…

Borges knew the youth, as he knew all the sleepers, along with those who had been judged unworthy to join them. As the Rhapsody’s Apothecary, he had overseen their recruitment and performance in the Cold Trials. The name didn’t refer to the chill of cryo-sleep, as candidates always assumed, but to the superficiality of the initial testing.

Held every standard year in the ship’s training grounds, the Cold Trials only challenged an applicant’s physical, mental and aesthetic acuities, yet most failed even these preliminary hurdles. The best of the failures were inducted as Chapter valets, while the worthy few who prevailed were interred in the hibernaculum, their youth safeguarded until the Rhapsody returned home. When they awoke they would be confirmed as Aspirants of the Mirrored Path and their true test would begin.

Two hundred and nineteen souls.

It was a poor return for such a long voyage, but there was no predicting the success of a Noble Harvest, for a questing Rhapsody followed no prescribed course or logic, save its leader’s intuitions. The company wandered the Imperium’s manifold sectors, visiting whichever planets piqued the Knight Exemplar’s interest. Sometimes it intervened in local affairs, but more often it simply observed and recorded its findings, deepening the Chapter’s knowledge of the galaxy, as the Arc required.

A select few worlds were offered the honour of participating in the harvest. Some submitted scores of promising young dreamers, others only a handful or none at all. It was a fickle, impractical process, but also a glorious one, for it ensured the Resplendent drew their recruits from across the Imperium, reflecting the souls they protected.

Unfettered, volatile and magnificent, a radiant soul shall always seek out its kindred.

So ran the wisdom of the Arc. It had been the way of things since the Chapter’s reformation six centuries ago and Borges didn’t question it. No, it was his Rhapsody’s current guiding light he had come to doubt. Exemplar Czervantes’ choices had been… eccentric.

‘Is this turmoil really called for, Brother-Apothecary?’ a voice asked behind him.

‘Our Artificer Radiant believes so, Sergeant Atienza,’ Borges answered, recognising the newcomer’s sardonic tone. ‘Who am I to gainsay him?’

‘Is the Knight Exemplar aware of it?’

‘He is, brother.’ Naturally Borges had raised his concerns with the Rhapsody’s leader, but Czervantes had supported the Techmarine, as he always did. ‘It meets with his approval.’

‘He should be here,’ Atienza declared. ‘It is an Exemplar’s duty to ward his Aspirants on their journey.’

‘Doubtless he will preside over their awakening. Our liege has much to attend to.’

‘He was recently seen idling with his Muse.’ Atienza made no effort to disguise the sneer in his voice. ‘Now he has gone to ground in his sanctuary. Doubtless he paints while his clockwork lackey makes playthings of our brothers-to-be. This cannot be allowed to stand.’

The implication of the sergeant’s words disturbed the Apothecary. Had Atienza’s followers been spying on their commander? The notion was distasteful.

‘What brings you to the hibernaculum, sergeant?’ he asked warily.

‘I wanted to speak with you before our descent, Juan.’

‘And so you are,’ Borges replied. He didn’t like hearing his first name on the sergeant’s lips. They were Arc Brothers, but they had never been friends. Not even close.

‘A measure of discretion is called for,’ Atienza suggested.

‘Regrettably you find me somewhat preoccupied.’ Borges indicated the activity in the chamber. ‘I am needed here.’

‘It does not appear that way, Apothecary.’

‘Appearance is a misleading path to walk too far,’ Borges said coldly. ‘As is presumption.’ Or disloyalty.

‘I meant no disrespect, brother.’ Atienza raised his hands in placation. ‘It was the machine zealot’s contempt for you I was alluding to.’

No, I don’t believe it was, Borges decided, weighing the sergeant up.

All the Resplendent echoed their primarch’s grace, but the wide net the Chapter cast drew diverse heirs whose blood filtered the Angel’s countenance in innumerable ways. In Juan Borges it had been hardened by a broad face and square jaw. In Satoshi Atienza it was made exotic by an olive complexion and eyes hooded by epicanthic folds. Like most warrior-artisans of their Rhapsody the sergeant wore his hair long, though his braided topknot was unusual, as was the fur pelt hanging from his belt in place of an officer’s customary silk tabard. The personal heraldry on his right pauldron depicted a coiled dragon fashioned from rainbow-coloured dots. Every officer was expected to field an image that expressed their spirit, but some had more talent for painting than others. Borges, who had none, had settled on a simple red imprint of his hand, symbolising the hard truths of an Apothecary’s calling.

‘Speak plainly,’ he demanded, already knowing where this was going, for it wasn’t the first time Atienza had approached him.

‘As you wish. Have you given consideration to my request, Brother-Apothecary? Will you lend us your voice when we petition the Chapter Magister?’

‘We?’

‘The Arc Sergeants stand together in this,’ Atienza said. ‘Save for Tourneur, who is the pretender’s creature.’

The pretender? Yes, matters had indeed worsened.

Borges hesitated, thinking of the sleepers who would be lost today, to Zann’s arrogance, but equally to their commander’s neglect. ‘I will think on it.’

‘Varzival Czervantes is unfit to guide our Rhapsody. His instincts are sour. Much of our voyage was wasted on barren planets or the void.’

‘You have my answer.’

‘Very well.’ Atienza nodded sharply. ‘I shall trust in your wisdom, brother.’ He made it sound like a threat.

As the sergeant strode away, Borges returned his attention to the hibernaculum, but he couldn’t focus. Non-committal though it was, his answer felt treacherous.

‘This is not who we are,’ he whispered.

‘Is something amiss, Lysbeth?’ Marisol asked.

Her fellow Muse turned troubled eyes on her. Lysbeth’s eyes were always troubled, but now their pupils were so dilated the irises were almost invisible. She had evidently been over-indulging in the dreamtangs again. All the Muses partook of the cornucopia of mind-expanding concoctions their patrons supplied to stimulate their creativity, but Lysbeth was losing herself in them.

‘Amiss?’ the girl echoed vacantly.

They were in the ship’s hangar bay, standing by their transport shuttle’s ramp. The rest of their party had already boarded, but Lysbeth had halted at the ramp’s lip, staring at the open hatch, her head cocked to one side as though listening for something elusive.

‘Our colleagues are waiting for us, my dear,’ Marisol prompted gently, wary of provoking the girl. Lysbeth was the youngest of the Rhapsody’s Muses, with a long face framed by a torrent of frizzy, flame-red hair. She was a fey creature, more reserved than the other artists, but prone to frightful tantrums when she didn’t get her way, especially when she was tanged. A few months ago she had sliced Elodie’s hand open with a fruit knife when the sculptor had commented on her chewed nails. Though she was a fellow poet, Marisol didn’t much like her and found her verses wilfully morbid.

‘We wouldn’t want to delay our departure, Lysbeth.’

‘Do you really think we could?’

‘Why would we wish to? Don’t you want to see Kanvolis?’

‘They say it shines at the night,’ the girl answered. ‘The Shining Citadel…’ Improbably her pupils widened further. ‘But they never say why.’

‘I believe the walls reflect the moonlight,’ Marisol said. ‘There are crystals in the stones that amplify–’

‘Not how,’ Lysbeth snapped, waving a dismissive hand. ‘Why. Why hold back the night? What are they afraid of?’

‘They are Adeptus Astartes, my dear. They aren’t afraid of anything.’

They are incapable of it, Marisol thought. Fear has been stolen from them, along with so much else.

‘That’s what they tell us,’ Lysbeth whispered, leaning in closer.

‘Perhaps you should remain here,’ Marisol suggested, growing impatient. Her mood was already unsettled, soured by the painting Darioc had shown her before they parted. It hadn’t been at all what she expected. ‘You don’t have to come.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Lysbeth chided, as though speaking to a child. ‘That wouldn’t work.’ Unexpectedly she smiled, showing lho-stained teeth. ‘It never does.’

‘I don’t follow…’ Marisol trailed off as Lysbeth swung round and hopped onto the ramp, humming to herself as she ascended.

Now it was Marisol who hesitated, watching the girl uneasily. Lysbeth’s smile had held no joy. In fact it might have been the saddest thing she had ever seen.

A Gallery of Shadows

Varzival Czervantes stood at the centre of his gallery, appraising his latest work. He had completed it shortly before the ship entered orbit. Like most of the canvases hanging in the expansive chamber, it was a study of a walking figure rendered in oils, its form delineated by deep shadows. It had many incarnations, but a single name.

The Pilgrim.

It was his most faithful companion, for it had been with him since his Ascension, symbolising his trials on the Mirrored Path. The memories of that time were buried deep by the psych-conditioning rites that followed his success, but the emotions seeped through, embodied in this foreboding figure. He had sought to capture its essence countless times over the decades. Indeed he had made it his heraldry, for there was nothing more personal to him. His armour’s right pauldron bore an abstract variant, inscribed in white lines against deep purple, but most of his paintings were vividly lifelike.

Sometimes the Pilgrim was male, sometimes female and occasionally of uncertain gender. Some manifestations were youthful or even childlike, but it was most commonly rooted in the ambiguous stretch between maturity and old age. Its calling was as diverse as its nature, but whether it travelled as a soldier, seer, priest or pauper its path was never easy. The tribulations it endured were only ever hinted at – by the lash of windswept rain, hail or snow, or a backdrop crawling with flames or tenebrous shapes – yet their threat was palpable, for wherever the Pilgrim walked, it was always against the tides of fate. It mattered not. Though its form was often frail, its back was unbowed and its eyes bright with conviction, locked onto some unknowable but essential destination.

The most recent incarnation was recognisably Marisol, swathed in billowing white robes as she glided over the dunes of a shimmering azure desert. Varzival had intended it as a gift to commemorate her long-awaited visit to Malpertuis. As such, he’d tried to rein in the ominous quality that typically pervaded his work, aiming for a more reflective mood. He’d been convinced he succeeded, until Marisol saw the picture.

‘You frightened her,’ he told the canvas, recalling his Muse’s expression when he had unveiled it. After a stricken silence she had briefly pretended flattery, then confessed her aversion. She was too honest to dissemble and too perceptive to miss what had slipped past his own eyes, by his own hand.

Though the form in the painting was hers, the spirit that wore it was not. Once seen, the misalignment was grotesque, for the ambition in the Pilgrim’s eyes was too fierce to settle behind her serene face. Caged and hungry, it threatened to tear its way out. He had made her monstrous.

‘I am sorry, sister,’ Varzival whispered, turning away. ‘I hope my world proves more agreeable to you than my work.’

He had sent his Muse ahead with the Rhapsody’s favoured human villeins, promising to follow once his duties here were complete. The Persistence of Vision would remain in orbit under Tourneur’s command while the Rhapsody fulfilled its obligations to the Chapter and resupplied. Foremost among its requirements were new Arc Brothers to replace those who’d been lost. Though their mission hadn’t been one of war, a measure of conflict was unavoidable on such a long voyage – and indeed vital, for a warrior-artisan had to maintain his edge.

And his balance.

‘Never deny the truth in your blood, for you were forged for war and your every sinew binds you to its song,’ he declared, addressing the gallery of Pilgrims, ‘but remember that you have been reborn for more, for what purpose to war without its ending?’ It was his favourite proverb from the Arc. Like many of his brothers, he enjoyed delivering such verses aloud. That too was in their blood.

Varzival touched the hooded figure embossed on his breastplate. Its arms were raised to the stars and its wings outstretched, as if to take flight. Statues and carvings venerated it throughout the vessel and every Arc Brother bore its image on his left shoulder pauldron, for it was the Chapter’s symbol.

‘Did he actually exist?’ Marisol once asked.

‘He was the father of our Enlightenment,’ Varzival had answered, amused that anyone might doubt it. ‘Our first Chapter Magister.’ He’d smiled indulgently. ‘Before him we had only masters, like our kindred Chapters. He liberated us unto ourselves, sister!’

Xøren Castaneda, the warrior mystic who reformed the brotherhood and authored the treatise at its heart, supplanting the stale precepts of the Codex Astartes with mystery, imagination and wonder. With hope, for through his wisdom the Resplendent had conquered the curse of their mercurial bloodline.

But evil always found a way.

Varzival realised he was stalling, delaying what must be done before he departed for Malpertuis. It was a duty he had adjourned too long already, but the Rhapsody’s return demanded closure. There could be no new beginnings until the stain blighting the company was purged.

He walked to the gallery’s far side, where his largest painting hung. It depicted the Pilgrim as a Knight Exemplar, striding towards the observer with its arms extended, its palms bearing plumes of fire that bled into the molten river it bestrode. The knight’s face was much like his own, though the features were more hawkish and the hair ash blond. Meeting that fervent, fevered gaze was never easy, for it glowered from the visage of his predecessor and friend, Yukio Caravaggio.

‘We burn so others may live,’ Varzival intoned. It was the Chapter’s pre-Reformation war cry. His comrade had favoured it over the current, more lyrical form – We rise on burning wings.

‘Aflame in death, we shine eternal,’ he continued, adding his Rhapsody’s antiphon.

A lock clicked in the wall, responding to the verse. The panel bearing the painting ground towards him then slid aside, revealing a doorway, its inner edges reinforced with metal. A stairwell beckoned beyond the threshold, descending steeply.

The hidden door retracted behind Varzival after he entered, sealing the secret only Zann and Tourneur shared – the Artificer because he’d built this mechanism and the more complex ones below, and the Apex Sergeant because he’d been present when this folly began. Once there had been three others privy to the truth, but they had died containing it.

But the Rhapsody knows, Varzival reflected. His brothers might not know the facts of the sin, but they felt its shadow, like a furtive tumour sensed by its host. And the fault was his.

The steps ended in a large chamber. Banks of machinery lined its walls, chittering as their cogitator engines monitored the spherical enclosure at its centre. The cage was fashioned from glasteel panels reinforced with metal struts, offering a clear view of the prisoner within. Crystalline webs of frost rimed their edges in creeping geometries that hinted at a larger, more malignant pattern. A pair of hulking combat servitors stood on opposite sides of the cage, their meltaguns trained on its naked occupant. Sensor-studded helms sheathed their heads and warding equations were engraved into their armour-plated forms.

The sentries ignored Varzival as he crossed the room to a console bearing three red levers. Installing such a crude interface had rankled Zann, but he had obeyed, doubtless assuming his commander would never make use of the purgation protocol.

‘Don’t,’ a voice called out as Varzival gripped the first lever.

Don’t talk to it, he told himself. Don’t even look at it.

‘Don’t do it,’ the voice urged.

‘I must,’ Varzival answered, facing the thing in the cage. ‘You know I must.’

The prisoner had taken many forms over the years, some pitiful, others hideous and a few incomprehensible, but now it was the one he loathed seeing above all others. Now it simply pretended to be itself.

‘Our Rhapsody has returned home,’ Yukio Caravaggio murmured, pressing his hands against the glass. ‘I can feel it, brother.’

‘Yes. Our voyage is over.’

‘It is the Reverie I sense.’ Caravaggio closed his eyes. His hair hung to his waist, matted and filthy, framing a gaunt, hollowed-out face. ‘I know you feel it too.’

‘From the moment we entered orbit,’ Varzival admitted. There was no point in denying it. The Reverie still bound them and always would, regardless of his comrade’s fall.

‘Sometimes I wonder…’

Whether I am still there, Varzival finished the prisoner’s thought. Still walking the Mirrored Path.

‘What if we are?’ Caravaggio urged, tasting his thoughts in turn. ‘What if all this is just another illusion, brother?’

‘Then I must face it.’ Varzival frowned as a cold spike rose within his skull. The nausea he always felt in the prisoner’s presence was coming on faster and stronger than usual. Perhaps the corruption here was being amplified by the Reverie’s proximity. He had to finish this duty before the pain became a storm.

Varzival threw the first lever.

‘Let us face it together, brother.’ Caravaggio’s eyes flicked open, locking on his successor. Their violet irises glowed in the gloom, like poisoned stars. ‘As we faced it before.’

‘It’s too late for that.’

‘Only if you choose to be a slave.’

‘You are the slave, Yukio, not I.’ Varzival threw the second lever and the hum in the chamber intensified. ‘You brought this on yourself.’

‘Wait!’ The prisoner’s fingers lengthened, unravelling new joints as they grew, their nails clack-clack-clacking against the glass, seeking a way out. ‘I can taste it now, brother – the Reverie – awoken and watchful as never before.’ An eye tore open in each of the creature’s palms, mirroring those in its face. All wept blood with the intensity of their glare. ‘I have seen its heart beating in the infinite coil. I see so much now!’

‘Yet you have lost yourself.’ Varzival’s vision was swarming with sinuous bright-dark shapes that convulsed in time with his pounding head.

‘To find myself!’ Caravaggio spat. ‘I am risen! Our quest demands courage. Enlightenment demands it!’ A vertical eye yawned open in his forehead, winking furiously with its birth. ‘You know this in your heart. We are on the same path, you and I – following in the First Magister’s footsteps. That’s why I chose you to command our Rhapsody in my absence.’ The creature’s neck rippled, spawning eye-slits like leering gills. ‘Together we shall bring down the walls that blind and bind mankind to mediocrity. It is our painted fate!’

‘Nothing is fated, daemon.’ Varzival seized the final lever in a shaking fist.

‘No? Yet he is coming for you. Your Pilgrim.’ Caravaggio grinned, showing shark-like teeth. ‘As you have always known he would.’

‘He isn’t real.’ Blood spattered onto the console from Varzival’s nostrils, then crimson tears. ‘Not… real.’

‘As real as you and I,’ the abomination taunted, its chitinous hands scuttling across the glass like spiders, dragging tentacular arms behind them. ‘That’s why he stalks your work, dear Darioc.’ The last words were spoken in Marisol’s voice, tenderly mocking. ‘Maybe he’s already here.’

‘Be silent!’ Varzival turned away, shutting his eyes to stop them bursting free of their sockets. A vast, bladed key was turning behind them, chewing through the locks in his memory.

‘Look within,’ Caravaggio urged. ‘Remember!’

‘We rise… on… burning…’ Varzival rasped as the world collapsed into itself.

And he is Darioc again, a wanderer lost in an abyss of snow-choked trees, seeking a path where none can possibly exist, for this realm is surely the antithesis of all paths. It is loss made manifest, where all sense of place, purpose and the self have been turned inside out. Staggering on, the youth curses the deceit that lured him here.

‘In the crucible of the Old Forest you shall find yourselves worthy, or lose what little you are,’ the Architect Radiant had pronounced gravely, addressing the throng of Aspirants assembled on the ridge overlooking the arboreal valley. His name was Frontiere. He had been their mentor throughout the preparations for this trial. ‘The Mirrored Path is yours to forge, therefore seek Ascension with your spirit, for all else shall fall short and fail you.’

Lies!

The Old Forest, a name replete with secret wisdom, like a respected elder entrusted with dispensing judgement, forbidding but never unjust, much like Epistolary Frontiere himself. The realm’s true name was reserved for those who survived its predations and prospered, not the callow youths about to enter its unfolding maw.

The Reverie.

But how can Darioc know all this when he is still lost in limbo, far removed from survival, let alone success? Perhaps the knowledge is a gift from some impossible future where he prevailed, like all the other visions that flit through his mind as he stumbles through the false forest. Some are glittering and magnificent. Most are not.

Abruptly his wandering soul hurtles forward in time, into the glory days when he and his comrade, Andrei, have completed the trial and been embraced by the brotherhood. In that future their names are different, replaced by ones drawn from the Chapter’s approved list – Czervantes and Caravaggio, the names of feted dreamers from the fables of Old Earth – but that is the least part of their change.

Quickened by biomantic alchemy, their bodies have been transmuted from human lead into the gold of the Adeptus Astartes. They are stronger, swifter and hardier than they ever dreamt possible, elevated to a point approaching immortality. But the change runs deeper than their flesh, freeing their souls from the petty cravings that debase humanity, excising fear, lust and countless lesser evils.

Another lie!

Despite his Ascension, Caravaggio falls from grace, reaching too high and slipping into the primal slime that writhes and wreaks ruin at the heart of everything.

‘I am risen!’ the abomination shrieks over and over from somewhere close by, caged yet liberated beyond all reason. ‘I am risen!’

‘I am risen!’ the prisoner sang in a score of discordant voices. ‘I am risen!’

Varzival opened his eyes and a wash of polychromatic light swept in, overloading his enhanced retinas. Dazzled, he screwed them shut again and fumbled for the final lever, but it wasn’t there any more.

‘I am risen!’

The barrage of voices receded, leaving only one speaker and a chorus of whispers. ‘I remember it all now,’ Caravaggio said with wonder. ‘Everything we saw in the Reverie.’

‘Be silent,’ Varzival snarled. He flailed about, but found nothing in the vicinity. The purgation console was gone, along with the wall beyond.

It’s a trap, he gauged, reaching for the bolt pistol clipped to his belt, but that wasn’t there either. Nothing was. His hands met emptiness where his body should be – and more emptiness when he tried to bring them together, passing through each other like ghosts.

‘I’ve had fragments of the memory for years,’ Caravaggio said. ‘They’ve been drifting back since my awakening, piece by piece, but I could never make sense of them. Until now.’

‘Those memories were erased for a reason,’ Varzival said, paying little attention to the prisoner’s rambling. He was focusing on the sound, trying to find his bearings via the other’s voice, but it seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.

‘Not erased, merely buried,’ Caravaggio corrected. ‘And the reason is avarice, and perhaps a touch of fear. Our keepers in the Librarium Radiant are covetous of their secrets. They think the Reverie belongs to them. They think they can contain it.’

‘I pray they can, else we’re damned.’ Varzival threw up an intangible hand to shield his face from the light. It was growing brighter, leaking through his eyelids.

Forcing him back into–

The moment when his end begins…

One among ninety-nine Aspirants, Darioc Graal descends towards his Ascension, his heart filled with pride, for this is the challenge he has yearned for since winning a place among the chosen. This is when he will prove himself worthy.

The youths enter the Old Forest together, but many soon go their separate ways, convinced they must walk the path alone. Others split into small parties, trusting in camaraderie to see them through the dangers ahead. There is no prohibition against this, nor any other rule of conduct save Epistolary Frontiere’s pronouncement: ‘Seek with your spirit.’

‘It won’t be enough,’ Varzival warns his younger self, but foresight is a phantom here, lacking the substance to reshape the world. His prophecy goes unheard and the forest swallows them both. He can only watch, chained and muted, as the past unfolds along the same old fault lines, as it always does.

Darioc is among a party of five. They have fought together as brothers since the Cold Trials, each excelling in some respect, though his friend Andrei has always been their leader. Someday they will surely serve under him as full Arc Brothers. How could it be otherwise?

All the Aspirants have been provisioned with supplies to last several weeks, along with whatever equipment they desire. Many chose to carry laspistols and short swords, but Andrei has convinced his comrades to forgo weapons.

‘They won’t avail us here,’ he’d predicted with customary bravado. ‘But they might condemn us to the Crusading Rhapsodies.’

The thought hadn’t occurred to Darioc. His concerns revolved around surviving the trial, not conjecturing about the shape of his success, but Andrei was always more ambitious. Their choices on the Mirrored Path will determine the company they are assigned to, for one reflects the other. The First Rhapsody, the Celestial, is composed entirely of veterans, but the remaining eight are open to neophytes. Theoretically they are equal in standing; however some are more exclusive than others, with fewer members and a higher proportion of the Chapter’s esteemed psychic Architects.

Of them all, the three Questing Rhapsodies – the Empyrean, Astral and Eternal – are the most rarefied. They roam the galaxy freely, seeking out knowledge and new recruits. To serve with them is to embark on a perpetual adventure into the unknown. Conversely the three Crusading Rhapsodies – the Fulminant, Conflagrant and Refulgent – are dedicated war companies that venerate martial skill above all else. Despatched from one warzone to the next, they fulfil the Chapter’s obligations to the Imperium. There is glory to be found amongst their ranks, but not the mystery Andrei craves. While Darioc shares his friend’s sentiments, he is inclined to trust in the judgement of the Mirrored Path.

‘We make our own judgement,’ Andrei would always argue, quoting the Arc Resplendent. He knows its verses better than most Aspirants and has the gift to make them sing. ‘We paint our own fate!’

‘The Reverie is not what you imagine,’ the prisoner proclaimed. ‘It is not some kind of hell.’

‘Not to a daemon’s eyes,’ Varzival replied distantly. His focus was distended between Now and Then, hearing one and seeing the other. Trusting neither.

‘Nor to your eyes, brother, if you had the courage to look.’ The sincerity in Caravaggio’s voice was repugnant. He believed in his corruption. Revelled in it. ‘Nor to any who dare to dream.’

‘As you did, traitor.’

‘I am not the betrayer among us, Varzival. I walk the path the First Magister unveiled, but our Chapter feared to tread.’

‘You were always arrogant, Yukio.’

‘Perhaps,’ Caravaggio confessed. ‘But that does not make me wrong.’

‘I–’

‘I’ve found something!’ Tibor calls from somewhere up ahead.

Darioc snaps back into the moment. His mind has been wandering again, seeking respite from the drudgery of the endless march. Many days have passed since the party’s ordeal began. Their supplies are running low, but their spirits remain undimmed. Their leader demands it.

‘Looks like a village,’ Tibor adds.

‘Come, brothers!’ Andrei commands, striding towards their scout’s voice. ‘Let us see what fate has thrown our way!’

Darioc follows his friend without a word, the protests of his future self drowned by the gulf of time. Yet perhaps a whisper of the warning reaches him, for when he breaks through the treeline and sees what lies beyond, he falters.

The village is slumped deep in decay, yet is somehow impervious to the forest’s encroachment, as though its streets are too soiled even for this unnatural tangle.

‘It has a baleful aspect,’ Oswald proclaims, making the sign of the aquila. Most of the Aspirants still venerate the Cult Imperialis, but the tall, sandy-haired youth is among the most devout. ‘I do not trust it, my brothers.’

‘We need supplies,’ Tibor observes, ever practical. ‘Place looks deserted, but–’

‘It’s hiding something,’ Darioc says sharply. ‘We should go around it.’

‘You are right, yet also wrong, my friend,’ Andrei declares. ‘There are secrets ahead for sure – and likely foul ones – but we cannot turn back. Nothing is chance here.’

‘A test,’ Oswald agrees, nodding sagely. ‘He who turns his back on evil invites sin.’

‘Spoken like a true champion of the God-Emperor,’ Andrei confirms, though he has no great faith in the Throne. ‘Whatever lurks in that hovel is ours to confront and cleanse!’

‘We have no weapons,’ Darioc reminds him.

‘Nor a need for them. It is conviction that wins battles on the path.’ Andrei claps him on the shoulder. ‘Come, brothers, it is time to paint in bold colours!’

As the Aspirants cross the field something compels Darioc to glance back. A cowled figure is watching from the trees, robed in white. It retreats into the foliage before he can alert his companions – before he is even sure it was there at all.

‘The Pilgrim,’ he says. The name slips onto his lips from nowhere, as undeniable as it is inscrutable, for it means nothing to him. Dismissing the watcher as a figment of his weariness, Darioc follows his friend and future captain into darkness.

The toxic radiance winked out. Cautiously, Varzival opened his eyes. He was standing before the purgation console, gripping the final lever.

‘I am still myself,’ a voice said behind him. ‘I am still your first brother.’

‘Only his shadow,’ Varzival answered, turning. ‘You are lost.’

‘For now, perhaps,’ Caravaggio conceded. All traces of his mutation were gone, which was always the way with his transformations. Artificer Zann believed they were illusory rather than physical manifestations, though his instruments claimed otherwise. Varzival was no longer sure there was a difference.

‘The Aphelion cages me more cunningly than our cog-brother’s contraptions,’ the prisoner rasped. ‘But I shall master it… in time.’

‘You cannot,’ Varzival said sadly.

There was a death-rattle chuckle. ‘Have you so little faith in me?’

‘My faith cost three lives.’ Haas, Dolinsky and Benedek. The names were etched into Varzival’s soul like a roll call of shame – the Rhapsody Eternal’s Chaplain and both its Architects, slaughtered by this traitor because of his hesitation. ‘I will hazard no more of my Arc Brothers on your pride.’

‘The Rhapsody Eternal needs me.’ Caravaggio’s voice had fallen to a whisper. Now he appeared more pitiful than monstrous, his massive form wasted and sheened with sweat, his eyes faded. Evidently his exertions had drained him. ‘You need me, brother.’

‘All I require of you is silence. My duty–’

‘Your duty is to Truth, as the Arc demands,’ Caravaggio hissed, rallying. ‘Do not forsake it.’ His last reserves exhausted, he slumped against the glass and slid to the floor.

‘I should have ended you long ago, Yukio,’ Varzival said, staring at the wretched form. The purgation lever felt heavy in his grip, urging him to fulfil its purpose – and demanding that he fulfil his own, as though they were both cogs in an infinitely greater, utterly incomprehensible machine. On the brink of obeying, he remembered the village. Baleful, Oswald had judged the place. There was no truer word for it. What had happened there? And what became of Oswald and the others? Varzival couldn’t dismiss the memories as deceptions sown by the daemon, tempting as the notion was. They had come from within, too visceral to deny. The presence of that faceless, watchful spectre proved it beyond doubt.

He is coming for you, Caravaggio had taunted. Your Pilgrim…

The Shining Citadel

Kanvolis was a city unto itself, its scale and ambition far outstripping the regal fortress Marisol had imagined. Neither her patron’s tales nor the paintings aboard the vessel had captured the reality of the Chapter’s stronghold. Perhaps if she’d seen holo-picts or vid-casts she would have been better prepared, but the Resplendent forbade such ‘soulless’ representations of their jewel.

Shortly after her arrival, Marisol and her fellow visitors had been escorted out onto the plains bordering the citadel to behold its glory from a distance. Even the most sophisticated of the Muses had been impressed.

Bridging the cliffs to either side of the River Tristesse, Kanvolis was an immense ziggurat comprised of six hexagonal tiers, each over two hundred feet in height. Its marble walls were festooned with arches and stairways that linked the levels like the pieces of a puzzle. Towers capped the corners of every tier, each one’s pinnacle perfectly aligned with the base of the one above, creating the illusion of six unbroken columns. Statues of armoured warriors abutted the base towers, watch-lights shining behind their visors. The robed figure of the First Magister stood atop the highest tier. It was a silver colossus with its wings unfurled and its arms raised to seize the sun, though its face remained hidden despite its size. A vast waterwheel hung from the citadel’s fjord-straddling base, whirling in the current. Titanic pistons framed it, pumping a portion of the river’s flow up to Kanvolis’ moat, where the waters ran its length then cascaded back into the ravine on its far side.

The spectacle was magnificent, yet the wonders within the citadel eclipsed it.

Pillared colonnades ran along the rim of every tier. The upper five housed walkways and tramlines, while the lowest was filled with water and served by a fleet of stately gondolas. Chapter serviteurs operated the transports, their faces hidden behind ceramic masks plumed with feathers. Their sculpted features were handsome and perpetually smiling, the eyes inset with jewels. Unlike the brutish cyborgs Marisol had seen elsewhere, the serviteurs were courtly and sumptuously garbed, like lovingly crafted dolls. They moved gracefully, acknowledging their passengers with refined contralto voices and bows. To her mind their beauty only accentuated their inherent lifelessness, but she soon grew accustomed to them. After all, there was so much else to take in!

Vaulted passageways intersected the perimeter colonnades, each winding deep into the citadel and opening onto museums, galleries or ornamental gardens. Their provenance spanned three millennia of cultural endeavour, though most of it dated from the Reformation, when art was formally enshrined at the Chapter’s heart. In the six centuries that followed there had been an explosion of creativity among the Resplendent encompassing every conceivable discipline, ranging from the classics of literature, music, painting and sculpture to experimental forms like shadow crafting, gravitic harmonics or the abstract phantasies of transcendental illumination. The Synergistic Prism, a multisensory installation devised by the First Magister himself, challenged Marisol’s assumptions about perspective so profoundly she had been unable to walk straight for hours afterwards, while the empty expanse of The Cry of Silence had moved her to tears then laughter and finally tranquillity.

At first a guide chaperoned the new arrivals, but soon they were encouraged to explore freely. If they lost their way or strayed into a restricted area, a serviteur or valet would politely redirect them. Occasionally they encountered a member of the Rhapsody Vigilant, which was entrusted with Kanvolis’ security. These warriors were quite unlike Marisol’s patrons. Their silver-trimmed armour was angular and austere, with cylindrical, flat-topped helms. They never showed their faces and their manner was aloof, bordering on hostile. Apparently they were drawn from the least artistically gifted Chapter recruits, though they excelled in the disciplines of minimalism. Indeed, Marisol learned that The Cry of Silence was the work of their Exemplar, Idryss Glass, who served as the citadel’s Lord Castellan.

The other seven Battle Rhapsodies were absent on quests or campaigns, yet Kanvolis was far from empty. Thousands of Chapter valets dwelled here, serving as caretakers, curators, cooks, mentors, medicae… The roll call of vocations seemed endless. They were the glue that held this self-contained society together. By Imperial standards even the humblest of them lived a gilded existence, far from the front lines of war or the depredations of ruthless overlords. Naturally the elite among them were the Muses, who were solely dedicated to creative pursuits. Every artist strove to further the prestige of their patron Rhapsody, which had resulted in fiercely competitive cliques – or troupes – with traditions dating back centuries.

Each troupe was hosted in its benefactor’s chateau, which served as a Rhapsody’s bastion within the citadel. The nine estates were spread across the city and accessible by invitation only, their precincts guarded by custodian serviteurs or, in the case of the esoteric Rhapsody Astral, concealed at the heart of a maze that was itself hidden. Their architecture reflected their masters’ character and preoccupations, with no two alike.

The Chateau Eternal of Marisol’s own Rhapsody was distinguished by its inverted conical form and amaranthine stonework. Situated at the centre of an artificial lake on Kanvolis’ lowest tier, it rose from the water in a whorl of glassaic windows and sinuous floral statuary. Marisol was smitten with it at first sight, but less enamoured by her fellow tenants.

The six Muses she’d travelled with on the Persistence of Vision were talented, charismatic and outrageously young. She called them the Dancers, for their dalliances and rivalries were as convoluted and dazzling as their ever-changing outfits. They were exhausting to be around, particularly Armando, a scoundrel whose ego eclipsed his talents as a songwriter. He was Atienza’s Muse and shared the Arc Sergeant’s fierce ambition and poor manners. Regrettably he had adopted Marisol as a confidante, doubtless judging her too old to be a rival. He was a bore, but she indulged him. It was less bothersome than making an enemy of him.

Yet for all their flaws, the Dancers were far preferable to the coterie of artists already residing at the chateau. The legacy of former expeditions, these elder Muses had been there for decades, decaying in splendour as they disappeared up their own obsessions, artistic or otherwise. All had invested heavily in juvenat therapies; however their contrived youth was betrayed by the stiffness of their skin and a lividness around the eyes, giving them the look of pampered corpses. But even if the illusion had been perfect Marisol would have seen through it, for the lie was in their hungry stares and affected mannerisms. And above all, their cynicism…

They embody the bitterness of faded passion spiced with the fear of being washed away by new blood, she wrote in her journal. Behind their powdered faces and rouged smiles they are snakes – worse, ghouls! – eager to gnaw upon every last morsel of life.

The elders were confounded by her reluctance to avail herself of a ‘second life’, but their contempt was reserved for the Dancers, though they hid it behind courtliness and barbed compliments. To Marisol’s chagrin they regarded her as one of their own.

‘How ever did you endure travelling among such ingénues, my dear?’ Hamartia, a perfumed ancient with a lilac bouffant, observed one evening, taking her aside. ‘I have never witnessed such a graceless rabble.’

‘They can be challenging,’ Marisol replied tactfully, ‘but they are gifted.’

‘Oh, you are too generous! It grieves me that our patrons must make do with such dross. Has the Imperium become so debased?’ Hamartia’s smoky voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Tell me, is it true that our beloved Captain Caravaggio has fallen?’

‘Yes,’ Marisol answered, trying to ascertain whether she was addressing a man or a woman. It was difficult to tell with some of the gaudily attired elders. Hamartia’s billowing dress and high heels were not a trustworthy indication of gender among them. ‘I am sorry.’

‘Such a tragedy!’ Hamartia dabbed at imaginary tears with a lace handkerchief.

‘Indeed.’

‘I was once his Muse, you know. Dear Yukio had an eye for complex souls.’

Yet he left you behind, Marisol thought pointedly. Like all the others here…

Was that how the decline from a Dancer to a Ghoul began? She knew it was rare for Muses to follow their patrons back to the stars after their voyage ended. They were plucked from their home worlds and carried for a time, then planted here, where they slowly went to seed. Hamartia was so stagnant she – or he – could no longer feel genuine sorrow, or even recognise its loss. Was that the fate awaiting them all?

Are we real to the Resplendent? Marisol wrote that night. Or are we mere baubles? Pretty curiosities to be collected, briefly toyed with, then preserved and displayed to succour their vanity.

She stopped writing, shocked by her bitterness. Where was this coming from? Had the Ghouls disturbed her so badly? Her fingers twitched, their nails tapping against her datapad. There was a rhythm to the sound, broken yet compelling. It anticipated the tempo of the words she would write if she embraced her anger. Yet it wasn’t the words that mattered, but the melody their creation would kindle. She could almost hear it now – harsh, discordant and replete with harsh truths.

They raise us up and call us sisters and brothers then let us fall into ourselves, she type-tapped. And in our dissolution their superiority is magnified and made manifest.

‘No,’ Marisol said firmly. ‘I don’t believe that.’

She was just tired and overwhelmed by her surroundings. With a sigh she deleted the entry. Things would be clearer tomorrow. And brighter still when Darioc arrived.

That night she dreamt of falling, formless and forsaken, through a devouring emptiness. She sang as she fell, though she had no mouth, nor the words to embody the song that animated her. But that didn’t matter. It sang itself and the void unfurled to its call.

Varzival arrived two days later, along with a contingent of his Arc Brothers. The Ghouls fluttered around the newcomers like bejewelled flies, eager to bask in their glory. It perplexed Marisol that her patrons couldn’t see the elders for what they were – or what had been done to them.

I won’t end that way, she vowed. Once things settled she would raise the matter with her patron. Come what may, when the Rhapsody Eternal departed she would go with it.

For a time she and Varzival explored the citadel together. At first he delighted in showing her new wonders, but his mood darkened as the days passed without word from the Lord Castellan, who would assess his leadership in the Chapter Magister’s absence.

‘What is he like, this Castellan Glass?’ Marisol asked as they strolled through a garden of stone flowers.

Varzival stopped beside a pond of boiling, mineral-rimed water. He was attired in the long-tailed jacket of an artisan, elegantly cut from purple velvet and sporting a flared back-collar. It was considered poor etiquette for anyone except the Vigilant to wear armour within the citadel.

‘Glass?’ Varzival replied. ‘I don’t know him personally, but he will be like all his Rhapsody – a book without a tale, a canvas without a picture…’ He sighed. ‘The Vigilant are my brothers, but they are not true warrior-artisans. Their souls cleave to the Chapter’s old traditions. Why do you ask?’

‘I found his work intriguing,’ Marisol said, her thoughts drifting back to The Cry of Silence. She longed to return to its oddly eloquent emptiness, but the desire disquieted her. ‘It moved me.’

‘Then you are more perceptive than I, sister. I see nothing in their cold creations, least of all beauty.’

‘We see the world from different perspectives, you and I,’ she said. Mortal to immortal…

Perhaps this was the moment to broach her doubts. Yes, it was unwise to let things fester.

‘Darioc, there is something we must discuss. I…’ Marisol frowned. ‘Who is that?’

Varzival turned, following her gaze. A white-robed figure stood about twenty paces away, on the opposite side of the pond, its form rippling in the heat haze. Though the stranger’s face was cowled, Marisol was certain it was watching them. Judging by its size it must be one of the Resplendent, but it didn’t have the look of an Eternal or a Vigilant. She expected her patron to challenge the stranger, but he just stared, his expression unreadable. Long seconds passed, then the watcher walked away, disappearing behind a grove of granite trees.

‘That was peculiar,’ Marisol said. Her companion didn’t answer. ‘Darioc?’ she prompted, touching his arm.

‘You saw him too?’ he said, sounding distracted.

‘I saw him first. Do you know him?’ The truth, she urged.

‘I thought so, for a moment.’

‘Who was he?’

‘Not who I imagined.’ He shook his head. ‘Don’t let it trouble you, sister.’

More evasion, Marisol thought sadly. More condescension.

And the moment for honest talk passed.

‘Come,’ Varzival said, taking her arm. ‘If memory serves me correctly a waterfall lies just ahead!’ He smiled, but there was no warmth in his eyes.

As she followed him, her fingers tapped fretfully against their palms.

Marisol rose early the next morning, keen to avoid her fellow Muses. Both the Dancers and the Ghouls tended to work – and play – late into the night then sleep past noon, exhausted by their excesses. Varzival had encouraged her to spend more time with them, claiming he would be preoccupied over the coming days. The dismissal was patronising, yet also a relief. Marisol had been sleeping poorly, plagued by dreams she couldn’t quite recall, which was a sure sign her spirit was out of sorts. She needed time alone to think.

And she was angry.

When she left her quarters she was surprised to find Lysbeth already up. The young Muse was wandering listlessly about the recreation chamber adjoining the apartments, crooning to herself, her hair a reddish blur in the dim light. She turned when Marisol entered, but her face was veiled in shadows.

‘Dawn’s greetings to you, sister,’ Marisol offered reluctantly.

Lysbeth didn’t acknowledge her or cease her humming. There had been a fracas between her and Armando last night. Doubtless the girl had fallen foul of the rogue’s faithless romancing yet again, like most of the Dancers, and not only the female ones. The hold Armando exerted over them was exasperating. He had even charmed some of the Ghouls.

Fools, one and all, Marisol thought, heading for the door.

‘It can hear us, you know,’ Lysbeth called after her. ‘When we sing to it.’

‘It?’ Marisol asked, pausing.

‘The song.’

‘The song hears us?’

‘The song we sing. It’s louder down here.’ Lysbeth tilted her head to the left. ‘Much. Louder.’

‘I see.’ Marisol wrinkled her nose, noticing a resinous odour in the air. Clearly the girl had been drowning her sorrows in dreamtangs, not that she needed much excuse these days.

‘You hear it too, don’t you,’ Lysbeth said. Her nod made it a statement rather than a question.

‘Yes… Yes, of course I do.’ It was best to humour the girl.

‘It likes you.’

‘That’s good.’ Marisol smiled tightly, eager to untangle herself from the exchange. The residual narcotic was making her giddy. The smell was unfamiliar – one of the Ghouls’ more outré preparations perhaps? Hamartia had boasted of the breadth of their repository.

‘More than me,’ Lysbeth added.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘It likes you more than me.’

‘Does it?’ Marisol asked. She had no idea what her fellow poet was talking about. Was this some oblique reference to Armando perhaps? The rogue was a songwriter after all.

‘Your voice is stronger. Sharper too.’

‘You should rest, my dear,’ Marisol suggested, unsure how else to answer this nonsense. ‘Try to sleep.’

‘I can’t.’ Lysbeth sighed. ‘It won’t let me.’ Abruptly she resumed her humming. The older Muse took a step towards her then decided against it. There was nothing she could say or do to help. Besides, they weren’t friends.

None of us are. Our masters don’t want us to be.

Marisol noticed her fingers were tapping along to the girl’s broken melody. She clenched her fists to silence them. Suddenly she felt oppressed by the gloomy chamber. She needed to be gone from here.

‘Perhaps we shall talk later, Lysbeth.’ As Marisol crossed the room she felt the girl’s eyes following her.

The first rays of dawn were shining through the chateau’s windows, their radiance channelled by an elaborate contrivance of mirrors running through the entire citadel. It was astonishing that the ziggurat’s depths could be bathed in sunlight, yet so typical of the Resplendent.

‘They will always reach for the sun,’ Marisol murmured as she watched the captured sunrise, ‘even if it burns them.’

She toyed with returning to The Cry of Silence, but yesterday’s encounter with the robed stranger had left her uneasy and disinclined to wander far. Nevertheless she was too restless to remain in her quarters. Finally she settled on exploring the Rhapsody’s eyrie.

The chateau was a winding honeycomb of spiral stairways, wood-panelled corridors and regal halls displaying its masters’ creations. The uppermost floor, which housed their quarters and armoury, was off-limits to villeins, but there was plenty to see elsewhere.

Her patrons’ treasures were predictably abundant and magnificent, yet she took little pleasure in them. She was too angry, both with Darioc’s evasiveness and her own naiveté. Irrational as it was, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was ensnared in a cruel charade.

Are they laughing behind our backs? Marisol wondered. Watching us gawp at their glories like yokels, while they imagine themselves gods.

She was traversing the third floor when she heard music playing. Soft and soothing, it drew her along a narrow passageway to a door that stood ajar. Incense wafted from within, mingled with the caustic smell of healing unguents. Peering inside, she saw a small, low-lit room. A man lay on a bed at its centre, asleep despite the music, which flowed from an acoustic censer dangling from the ceiling. The form outlined against the blankets was wasted, almost skeletal. A miasma of terrible age hung over the sleeper.

I shouldn’t be here, Marisol thought, entering regardless. Curiosity was a noble flaw – an artist’s vice. Besides, the door was open.

Approaching the bed, she realised she’d been mistaken about the sleeper’s age. Though his face was gaunt he was very young, even comely. Scratches and old bruises blotched his coppery skin and holy runes were daubed across his cheeks. Evidently he was a believer in the Cult Imperialis, for a wooden aquila lay upon his chest. Marisol frowned, noticing a winged eye tattooed on his left palm. She couldn’t recall seeing the symbol before, yet if felt oddly familiar.

‘Who are you?’ she wondered aloud. To her surprise the sleeper’s eyes opened and fixed on her blearily, their amber irises bloodshot.

‘Euryale?’ he whispered.

‘No, I–’

‘Am I outside?’ He slid back into sleep before she could answer.

Outside?

‘Hello,’ someone said behind her. Startled, Marisol swung round. A stocky man stood in the doorway, his eyes bright beneath beetling brows. He looked about her age, with a round face and a shock of white hair matched by an equally unruly beard. His ebony skin showed no traces of juvenat tampering or the make-up favoured by the Muses, yet his confident bearing belied a common valet. The sleeves of his white jacket were piped with purple helices and a satchel was slung over his shoulder.

‘I didn’t mean to intrude,’ Marisol said. ‘I heard the music.’

‘Did you like it?’ he asked. ‘I dabble, you see. We all dabble in something here. Our lords expect it, but I am a medicae, not a composer.’ His accent had a pleasing sing-song lilt, the syllables cascading into each other like waves. ‘Still, I enjoy the making of it.’

‘It’s very relaxing,’ Marisol offered. Truthfully she found it rather insipid.

‘Oh, it is very slight, but our friend here seems to like it.’ He crossed to the bed and studied the sleeper. ‘Is that not so, Brother Nobody?’

‘Nobody?’

‘I don’t know his name, but this’ – he indicated the aquila on his patient’s chest – ‘tells me he is my brother in the God-Emperor’s light. We are a rare breed in this gilded den of heathens.’ He smiled, softening the statement’s bite. ‘I am Qanzo, my lady. Qanzo Narayan.’

‘Marisol.’ She returned the smile. ‘Why don’t you know his name?’

‘Because he was passed into my care without one.’ Qanzo placed a hand on his patient’s forehead.

‘By whom?’ Marisol asked, intrigued.

‘I…’ The medicae faltered. ‘I cannot rightly recall, my lady.’

‘Has he been here very long then?’

‘Not so long, just twenty-eight days all told.’

‘Yet you can’t remember how he arrived?’

‘Only that I must care for him.’ Qanzo’s expression clouded. ‘Make him well.’

‘Doesn’t that strike you as peculiar?’ Marisol pressed.

‘Peculiar? Yes… yes I suppose–’ He winced and touched his temple. ‘It is my duty… to the Throne.’ He nodded, gathering confidence. ‘And to our Rhapsody.’

‘I understand,’ Marisol said, not understanding at all, but reluctant to distress him further. ‘Forgive my impropriety, sir.’

‘Nonsense, my lady!’ He beamed, his mood lightening as if a pressure had lifted from him. ‘You are not at all like the others, you know.’

‘The others?’

‘Your fellow Muses. They are like spoiled children playing with fire. But you…’ His fingers wove the sign of the aquila. ‘There is a dignity about you, my lady. I sense you have grown into the best of yourself.’

‘Thank you.’ Flattered, Marisol returned the gesture of reverence. Though she wasn’t a committed believer in the Imperial Cult she didn’t share her patron’s atheism. Like so much else, godlessness was easier for an immortal to bear. ‘Tell me, Qanzo, does the name Euryale mean anything to you?’

‘No. Why do you ask?’

‘It’s something he said.’ Marisol indicated the sleeping man.

‘He spoke to you?’

‘Only briefly, and nothing that made any sense.’

‘I have never heard him speak. He rarely even stirs.’ The medicae shook his head. ‘I have healed his body as best I can, but his mind remains lost, trapped in whatever misadventure overcame him.’

‘He is clearly in capable hands. May I visit again?’

‘I will be mortified if you do not, my lady.’ Qanzo offered a slight bow. ‘Perhaps our lost brother will speak to you again.’

‘Perhaps.’

Who are you? Marisol wondered, glancing at the sleeping man. Why do you matter?

‘Be wary of them,’ Qanzo said as she turned to go. ‘Your colleagues.’

‘Oh, I know they’re awful,’ she agreed, ‘but also quite harmless.’

‘Perhaps not as harmless as you imagine…’ He hesitated. ‘Please, just be careful, my lady.’

‘I have never been anything else,’ she assured him with a smile. It was a lie, of course. She’d never been one for caution. Life was altogether too short to walk in small steps.

Marisol turned the scene over in her mind as she headed back to the Muses’ quarters. There was a mystery here – one that went beyond the sleeper. Qanzo’s selective memory loss was bizarre, as was the distress he’d shown when pressed about it, as though the attempt to remember had hurt him.

‘What are you getting yourself into, Marisol Charbonneau?’ she asked herself. ‘And why?’ Of course she already knew the answer to the second question. Her instincts were buzzing. There was a story here, perhaps even the key to the greater story of this secretive world. And she was angry enough to follow the trail and uncover it.

I am not some ephemeral plaything, Varzival.

As she neared her destination she was met by a babble of voices. Frowning, she pressed on to the shared recreation chamber. Her peers, both old and new, were clustered in their respective cliques, chattering excitedly. Hamartia noticed her and scurried over.

‘Marisol!’ the elder exclaimed. ‘Oh, it’s absolutely ghastly!’

‘What’s wrong?’ Marisol asked, trying not to stare at the Ghoul’s headdress. It looked like a gold-plated fish with bulging eyes and mechanical wings. ‘What’s happened?’

‘A tragedy, my dear! I warned you these fledglings were unfit for the chateau’s creative rigours, did I not?’ Hamartia jabbed a manicured talon at the Dancers. Only five of the six youths were present. ‘They lack the backbone of the true artiste.’

‘Where’s Lysbeth?’ Marisol pressed, feeling a chill of foreboding.

‘Gone to the Angel, if He’ll have her pitiful soul!’ Hamartia flipped the empty wine glass away and clasped Marisol’s hands. ‘Poor Benoit found her this morning, reclining in a pool of blood upon the Verzante divan. It seems the girl slit her wrists with a quill then sat down to die without a care for her betters.’ Marisol snorted and the headdress perched on the elder’s head flapped its wings in apparent sympathy. ‘Benoit is beside himself and the Verzante is quite ruined. It really is too much! A refined spirit would take its leave with a measure of decorum and walk the Colonnade of Tears, don’t you think?’

Marisol wasn’t listening. Prising herself free of Hamartia’s grip, she approached the divan in question. A sheet covered it, though the girl’s body had been removed.

‘You fool,’ she whispered, shocked by her own harshness. ‘You threw it all away.’

Every hope, dream and unwritten work, all gone to nothing, like the dead poet herself.

‘Such a terrible waste,’ Hamartia observed, sidling up beside her.

‘Yes.’

‘It was a fine piece and uncommonly pleasing to one’s posterior.’ Abruptly Hamartia brightened. ‘But mark my words, our lords will acquire another soon enough!’

‘Yes,’ Marisol agreed again. I am sure they will.

Armando followed her when she retreated to her quarters, as she knew he would. He bewailed the girl’s death, tearful and furious by turns, claiming it was his fault because he’d refused to dedicate his heart to her, yet ultimately Lysbeth’s because she’d been so abominably selfish to demand such a sacrifice of him. His passions were too intense to be quenched by a single companion – too far reaching! Didn’t she realise that? It was unforgivable that she had thrown him into such confusion, especially when he was ideating a new masterpiece.

Marisol listened without comment then absolved him with empty words, which was all he wanted from her. When he left she understood she loathed him. Loathed them all.

They are all nothings waiting to happen, she judged, tapping the verdict into her datapad. And on the back of that, another – Nothing deserves only itself. No more, nor less.

After that the ideas came in a flood, as if pouring from a burst dam; however the tide wasn’t water, but blood, fresh and vital with its sacrifice. Oddly it smelled of damp leaves and resin, like the odour that had hung about Lysbeth that morning. The scent made her light-headed, yet paradoxically sharper, impelling her to write ever faster.

Eternity’s gift is seasoned with treason, rapt in splendour turned sour. Don’t unwrap it till doomsday is your honest and only desire, for once that box is opened there’s no way back but down, further down.

She drank deep of the torrent, tapping fervently throughout the night to craft its bitterness into being, then deleted everything at dawn. It wasn’t the words that mattered.

Aphelion

Time passed like melting snow, tortuously slow to observe. While his comrades immersed themselves in contributing to the Chapter’s heritage, as was customary for a returning Rhapsody, Varzival found himself unable to paint, too agitated by his confrontation with Caravaggio. He had spared the fallen Exemplar yet again, unable to condemn what remained of his friend to oblivion, but that was only part of the reason. The least part…

Whenever he closed his eyes the village was there, slouched in decay, yet ripe with mystery. Mocking him with its secrets.

I have to know, Varzival admitted as he entered the labyrinthine sprawl of the Galleria Hypothetica. I have to know the whole of it.

Caravaggio – or rather the daemon within him – had unravelled too much of his past to ignore, but Varzival couldn’t seize the thread and follow it through. All the meditations and mantras of introspection he’d wielded to breach the locks on his memories had proven ineffective. The past remained stubbornly buried. He had even contemplated returning to the Reverie to seek out the ruin itself, but that would have been a transgression too far, even for him. The valley was forbidden to all warrior-artisans save the Architects Radiant – an edict woven so deeply into their psych-conditioning that the prospect of defying it caused Varzival physical pain.

He was trapped, too far down the road to turn back, but with no way forward.

For a while exploring the citadel with Marisol had been a welcome distraction, but though her obvious delight in its treasures was pleasing, it wasn’t infectious. Conversely, he feared his brooding might be, so he’d made excuses and taken to roaming alone, favouring the most esoteric galleries. Perhaps he would find camaraderie among the troubled visions of bygone artists.

The delay in the Castellan’s summons had soured his mood further, as did the indifferent celebrations that welcomed his Rhapsody’s homecoming. Regardless of his perceived failings, his brothers deserved better. At first he’d attributed this disrespect to the Rhapsody Vigilant’s character, for the citadel’s custodians had always been dour, but as the days passed he began to sense something else at work here. There was a tenuous malaise creeping through the city, like a shadow too faint to see, yet substantial enough to chill.

Nothing was overtly amiss. Kanvolis was flawlessly maintained and its villeins were efficient and courteous to a fault, betraying no hint of discontent. Occasionally he encountered eccentric behaviour – a young woman preening herself before a blank wall as though it were a mirror… A weeping caretaker obsessively polishing the same nondescript patch of ground as if his life depended on it… The curator who insisted the gallery he tended had turned upside down… A boy who swore he’d seen Space Marines in filthy black armour despoiling the citadel in the God-Emperor’s name…

And then there was the unfortunate suicide of his Rhapsody’s youngest Muse, Lysbeth, which had upset Marisol deeply. He hadn’t realised they were so close.

It was perplexing, but such distempers of the spirit were common among baseline humans. A fragile body begat a fraught mind, did it not? Truthfully he had never paid enough attention to the villeins’ behaviour to judge whether the current oddities were excessive or not. Nor could he muster the interest to pursue the matter.

More disquieting were the changes to the city itself. Many familiar places were gone, either modified beyond recognition or replaced by entirely new buildings. It was to be expected, for innovation was intrinsic to Resplendent culture, but that didn’t mean he found the changes agreeable. Nevertheless Kanvolis was a shining beacon in the decaying vastness of the Imperium, whose prospects grew more dismal with every passing year. The atrophy his expedition had encountered on its long voyage was rampant, both materially and spiritually. On world after world they were met by ignorance ascendant. Most rulers were driven by fanaticism, self-aggrandisement or covert vices, while their subjects were little more than slaves – or occasionally actual slaves. The Imperium cared not, so long as its vassal worlds paid their tithes and offered lip service to the God-Emperor. Nothing mattered except feeding the meat grinder of mankind’s endless war, whose foremost champions were no longer even human.

Privately Varzival feared the decline was irreversible, though it would be unwise to voice such sentiments, even among his own brothers. He saw no sign of the rot here, yet something was wrong. The city’s melody was correct, but it was playing off-key.

‘Something is coming,’ he murmured, halting before a helical monolith of glass cubes. The sculpture’s colour rippled from silver to ochre in response to his words.

‘The Pilgrim,’ Caravaggio had taunted. Or warned?

‘It wasn’t him,’ Varzival said, thinking of the robed figure he’d encountered with Marisol. The stranger must have been a fellow warrior-artisan, perhaps one of the reclusive Paladins Luminous who haunted the citadel. Dedicated to the Arc’s most recondite mysteries, they served the Chapter independently of the Rhapsodies. It was said the oldest of them had walked alongside the First Magister during the Reformation, though that was surely an apocryphal story. Varzival had never seen one of the mystics before, but the stranger matched their traditional depiction. It was the most logical explanation.

But he didn’t believe it.

I know what I saw.

The cubes flickered, as if they’d heard him, but couldn’t quite read his emotion. He frowned, staring at the oscillating colours.

And the world twitched into the past.

‘Speak your mind, brother,’ Caravaggio demands, indicating the painting before him. ‘Tell me what you see?’

‘Nothing I like,’ Varzival answers. He has grown leery of his commander’s fixation with this picture. Framed by black wood, the canvas is a massive square of taut silk, a full head taller than its beholders. The Knight Exemplar has dedicated an entire wall of his quarters aboard their vessel to displaying it, clearing the space of all distractions, though it was surely a superfluous effort, for nothing could compete with the painting.

‘There is more to it than meets the eye, Varzival.’

‘I don’t dispute that, but my eyes have already seen more than they care to upon that canvas.’

‘You have never appreciated abstracts, my friend,’ Caravaggio chides.

‘That isn’t why I dislike it.’

Reluctantly Varzival examines the painting again. It is a dense web of geometric shapes, some angular, others almost organic in their flowing curves. They are woven without apparent sense or concession to harmony, rendered in bold black and white strokes that soften into shades of grey wherever they intersect, hinting at greater, stranger compound forms. Varzival has seen such compositions before, particularly among the anarchic experiments of the Rhapsody Fulminant, but this is of an entirely different calibre. The picture is suffused with an insidious glamour, promising revelation for those with the imagination to unravel its riddle, as his friend has been attempting to do for months. Indeed, it has become his commander’s obsession.

The Rhapsody acquired the painting from a rogue trader they encountered in the Calixis Sector. The merchant, an aristocratic vagabond named Alina Esseker, had kept it covered, claiming its mysteries were intended for more discerning eyes than hers. She had seemed eager to part with it, though she had still extracted an outrageous sum for the sale.

The word ‘Aphelion’ was inscribed on the back of the canvas in flowing cursive script. Despite extensive research, Caravaggio hadn’t been able to establish whether this was the name of the painting or its painter. The question fascinated him almost as much as the artwork itself, as though one held the answer to the other. Over the months the mystery had tightened its grip on him, obliging Varzival to cover for his commander’s increasing indecision and absences. There were mutterings of discontent among the Arc Sergeants, particularly Atienza, whose ambitions were growing more transparent. More seriously, Chaplain Castigant Haas was becoming suspicious.

‘It is dangerous, Yukio,’ Varzival judges, looking away from the riot of shapes.

‘As anything of true value always is,’ Caravaggio declares, finally facing his comrade. ‘The Arc tells us the soul is the firmament of reality, does it not? The fount from which all else flows.’

‘Yes,’ Varzival agrees uncertainly. ‘But–’

‘I believe this painting is a map.’

‘To what?’

‘To the firmament, brother!’ Caravaggio’s eyes are raw and blood-flecked, yet bright with excitement. ‘To enlightenment.’

‘The Arc has already enlightened us, Yukio.’

‘You are mistaken.’ Caravaggio smiles. ‘The Arc opened our eyes to new possibilities, yet it is not our journey’s end, but merely the beginning, as the First Magister always intended.’

This was a controversial interpretation of the Arc Resplendent championed by the Rhapsody Astral. Few outside that reclusive coterie subscribed to it, but Caravaggio was a committed believer.

‘I still dislike the painting,’ Varzival says, seeking firmer ground. ‘I don’t trust it.’

‘Then trust in me, old friend.’ Caravaggio’s smile widens to a grin. ‘Even blind men may paint, but only the boldest strokes endure!’

‘Bright they were but shadow-bound,’ a lilting voice said behind Varzival. Turning, he saw a serviteur in a burgundy tuxedo standing a few steps away, holding a gondolier’s pole. Its golden sun mask beamed a beatific, frozen smile.

‘Like eagles squawking lies, the tall-tellers perch upon the Oblivion Bench, bleeding screeds of savage nonsense into the void that claws,’ the cyborg trilled. It tilted its head sharply to the right. ‘How may I be of service, my lord?’

‘What?’ Varzival snapped, irritated by the intrusion.

‘My humble vessel awaits thy pleasure, my lord.’ The serviteur gestured at a non-existent gondola. Varzival was on the fifth tier, where there were no waterways.

‘Your directives are addled,’ he said. ‘Deliver yourself to the Alcazar Automata for realignment.’

‘Most certainly, lord.’ The gondolier didn’t move.

‘I gave you an order.’

‘Yes, lord. You are most gracious.’

‘Then go – now!’

‘Immediately, lord,’ it affirmed, remaining motionless. Evidently its malfunction was serious. Varzival turned his back on it. The Alcazar’s enginseers would detect the error in due course. It wasn’t his–

‘Fate paints without recourse to any cause,’ the serviteur sang sweetly. ‘But only the boldest strokes endure.’

Varzival swung round. ‘What did you say?’

‘My humble vessel awaits thy pleasure, lord.’

Sudden fury welled up inside Varzival, shocking in its eagerness. He saw his fist hammering into that insolent mask, ramming through porcelain and bone and meat-entwined circuitry, balancing the scales for the disrespect that had shadowed his Rhapsody’s return to Malpertuis. For the mockery of unquiet memories! It would be justice.

No. Madness!

Fighting down his rage, Varzival backed away from the cyborg before he struck it down. His head was pounding, as though he was in Caravaggio’s toxic presence once more. Could the daemon have escaped? Could it be on Malpertuis? Here? No, that was impossible. He had sealed the chamber, setting it to purge the cage if its integrity was breached.

‘Are you well, lord?’ the gondolier enquired.

Varzival wiped a hand across his face. It came away bloody. He noticed the monolith’s cubes had changed colour again. Now they were black.

The Observation and Containment of
Anomalous Potentialities

Ennio Zann walked the catacombs of Kanvolis’ hibernaculum, his ceramite boots clattering on the stone floor. Like all his Chapter’s Techmarines, he had dispensation to remain armoured within the citadel, for he was intimately linked to his Artificer suit. It was as much a part of him as his flesh and bones, its cogitator serving as an extension of his neural cortex. The notion of divesting himself of it was repugnant.

His sensors scanned each cryo-sarcophagus he passed. The capsules stood upright, installed in arched recesses, each sleeper’s face visible through the glass. This was his fifth circuit of the hibernaculum today and the forty-eighth since his Rhapsody’s arrival. It was a menial task, but he refused to delegate it to another. There were too many corollary parameters to process.

The data passed through his mind in microseconds, yet he devoted a full five seconds to every sarcophagus.

Power Flow: 98.4% OPTIMAL

Coolant Parity: 97.7% OPTIMAL

Metabolic Rhythms: STABLE

Neural Activity: STABLE

He could have routed the data to a cognitive subroutine, but he repudiated the convenience and assessed every report consciously, cycling it multiple times before he was satisfied. It was a slow process, but necessary, both for certainty and as an ancillary penance for his previous failures.

<PERSONAL DEFICIENCY UNACCEPTABLE,> his armour echoed his sentiment in a crackle of machine code. <OBJECTIVE DEFICIENCY SUSTAINED.>

The transfer of the sleepers from orbit had been imperfect. He had miscalculated the rite of reverence and the Omnissiah remained unappeased. With every passing second the fluctuations in the Equilibrium Mechanika amplified infinitesimally, increasing the likelihood of a metaphysical catastrophe.

<ENTROPIC DISSOLUTION 14.14% PROBABLE.>

Nobody else was cognisant of the growing disorder, even his fellow celebrants of the Machine-God. Others only perceived the superficial strata of reality. And superficially the transfer had been a success. The sleepers had been installed in the citadel with maximum efficiency and minimal attrition. Apothecary Borges had even congratulated Zann, though he had stopped short of apologising for his previous doubts. The Knight Exemplar was satisfied and Moniatis, the citadel’s presiding Artificer Radiant, deemed it an impressive feat.

All were ignorant.

<IGNORANT = ALL,> a blurt of code confirmed.

Zann had devised a comprehensive program of atonement protocols to purify himself so he could begin work on a new ritual to counter the instability.

One. He had disabled the pleasure centres of his brain correlating to mathematical, geometric and harmonic stimuli. This deprived him of aesthetic gratification without impeding his efficiency.

Two. He had heightened his pain receptors and set his armour to deliver electric jolts to his body at random intervals. The shocks were calibrated to induce discomfort without significant distraction, but he regularly increased the voltage as he acclimatised to the pain.

Three. He had deleted the sonata that accompanied the sleepers’ transfer. It had been his finest composition, thus its expurgation was a harsher penance than the others combined.

In total he had activated thirty-one self-castigation protocols.

<11111 PROTOCOLS.>

They were severe, yet insufficient to fully atone for his error.

Three sleepers had expired during the transfer. One was asphyxiated during a power outage in his capsule. Another was lost to a coolant imbalance that filled his brain with ice crystals. Both were deplorable errors that could/should have been predicted/trapped, but they could be quantified, assessed and learned from.

It was the third expiration that confounded the Techmarine.

Zann stiffened as a censorious lash of pain shot through him, but neither his steps nor his thoughts faltered. Finally they carried him to the sarcophagus that symbolised the growing disorder. The identity of its dead occupant flashed before his eyes:

Name: RYERZON, MIGUEL

Designation: ASPIRANT 0014

Age: 15

Provenance: ZHALEM’S TOLL

Potential: NONE/DECEASED

This sleeper was the third casualty of the transfer. It had expired exactly nine seconds after installation in the hibernaculum, cause unknown.

<ANOMALOUS SUBJECT CONFIRMED,> his suit chirped.

By Zann’s decree the pod was still powered, pausing the natural processes of decay. The cadaver’s eyes were closed, but it appeared no more lifeless than those around it, as tranquil in death as they were in sleep. Zann contemplated it with a loathing that was entirely rational. It was an affront to order – imperfection incarnated in cold meat. Borges had wanted to perform an autopsy on the corpse, but Zann had overruled him, convinced a physical examination would reveal no more than the pod’s monitors. No, the answer was hidden somewhere deeper, tangled in the metaphysical instability he was battling.

He accessed the sarcophagus’ vitals.

Power Flow: 94.4% OPTIMAL

Coolant Parity: 96.3% OPTIMAL

Metabolic Rhythms: NEGATIVE/DECEASED

Neural Activity: HIGH/ERRATIC

<PARADIGM CONFLICT,> his armour blurted, affronted. <NEURAL ACTIVITY INCONSISTENT WITH METABOLIC STATUS.>

The last reading pulsed red with its aberration. Zann ran the scan repeatedly. On the fourth cycle the result changed.

Neural Activity: NEGATIVE/DECEASED.

Evidently the pod’s machine-spirit was addled or displeased. That posed a new possibility. Was it withholding the cause of death intentionally?

Uttering a binharic psalm, the Techmarine extruded a mechadendrite and plugged himself into the capsule’s interface socket. The mundane world vanished, replaced by an abstraction of the pod’s code-skein. Zann appeared to be hovering above a shimmering vista of geometric forms that revolved languidly against a cobalt void. Prior to disabling his aesthetic faculties he would have found the sight pleasing.

At the speed of thought he swept through the data blocks, his noospheric avatar radiating canticles of propitiation as he penetrated deeper, seeking an explanation for the sleeper’s death. He had made this attempt previously and found nothing, but if the pod’s machine-spirit was deliberately obfuscating–

Without warning the skein howled and whirled into a razor-edged vortex of tortured forms. The sleeper’s identity log flashed before Zann again:

Name: ALL

Designation: SHALL

Age: FALL

Provenance: WITHIN

Potential: WITHOUT

Zann aborted the connection a microsecond before the churning disorder shredded his sanity. In the same instant his secondary castigation protocol triggered, jolting him with electricity, its voltage and duration far exceeding the limits he had prescribed. He shuddered, paralysed by the dual shock of pain and deviant data. It was implausible that the convergence of these events was coincidental. He was under attack.

System infiltration 96.31% probable, he calculated. Initiate noospheric lockdown. Terminate Castigation Protocol-02.

Zann’s armour refused to comply. Its virtual connection to the sarcophagus had been severed, but its mechadendrite was still plugged in, streaming tainted code into its cogitation engine. Warning icons blinked before the Techmarine’s eyes as smoke billowed from his suit’s joints and crackling arcs of energy danced across its plates. Zann willed himself to move. His muscles obeyed, but the synthetic fibre bundles sheathing them declined. He was held rigid, as though encased in a skin-tight tomb.

<APOGEE CONDITION VALIDATED,> his armour declared. <COMMENCING EXEGESIS.>

White noise exploded inside Zann’s helmet, drowning his senses in a synaesthetic tempest of contradictory impressions. His identity flickered beneath the assault, the causal bonds of his thoughts bending towards randomness. It was repellent. Disorder incarnate. Yet there was also beauty in the pandemonium – an arrhythmic melody that resonated deep below the rigid machine strictures woven into his brain. It was the music of annihilation and creation in concordant discord. If he embraced it – embodied it – everything would unravel into pure revelation around him.

<AS WITHIN, SO WITHOUT.>

‘No,’ Zann rasped, fighting for clarity. This was it – the disharmony he had been tracking. It was here. Inside him… Rising through him.

With iron discipline he collapsed his awareness to a needlepoint with a logical axiom at its tip: That which is cannot also not be. It was a fundamental truth, unassailable in its simplicity – an anchor in the maelstrom. Balanced on this sliver of certainty, Zann gathered his will while his flesh blistered somewhere far away.

Waiting… Waiting…

Finally he retaliated, twisting the needle of logic into a spear and thrusting through the shrieking, swarming, alluring nonsense that had invaded his armour’s cogitation engine. It was a surgical strike into their combined being, too swift and focused to be deflected. Fresh agony tore through him as it found its mark, piercing the cerebral node that welded man and machine together.

<INTERFACE ERROR,> his armour wailed. <INTERFACE ERROR.>

The suit heaved and lurched backwards, wrenching its mechadendrite free of the sarcophagus in a shower of sparks. Zann was hurled about as the servo-tools jutting from his backpack flailed about, battering everything in their vicinity, yet despite their convulsions the suit remained standing.

<SYSTEM PURGE. SHUTTING DOWN.>

There was darkness.

_

_

_

<SYSTEM ACTIVE.>

There was light, as sudden and absolute as its absence had been. Consciousness followed immediately, devoid of the sluggishness that attended a mundane awakening, though Ennio Zann had long been free of such inconveniences. He had not slept in the conventional sense in decades.

‘The Omnissiah perfects,’ he proclaimed in a metallic rasp, testing his vocal architecture. It was impaired, but sufficient for sonic projection.

‘Ordain interface protocol,’ he prompted his suit. ‘Hail the God Engine.’

<HAIL THE GOD ENGINE,> his suit chorused as their neural systems realigned. Zann sighed as the flow of the armour’s power supply coursed through their shared metabolism, strong and stable once more.

‘Initiate diagnostic scan.’

<CONFIRMED.>

He began with his sensory inputs, testing all three hundred and thirty-nine in rapid sequence. Most were fully or partially functional. That was propitious.

Bypassing the trepidation a human would have felt, Zann proceeded to his other systems, both biological and mechanical. The scan confirmed that his interface node had reset itself during the purge. Several of the suit’s more delicate mechanisms were damaged, but it was 82.19% functional. Unfortunately the same could not be said for his biological systems.

Zann repeated the tests, though he didn’t doubt the accuracy of the first result. He felt its truth as raw pain. Predictably the second analysis was unchanged. His body was terminally damaged.

I am dying.

I am necessary.

I must continue.

‘The machine will make restitution for the weakness of the flesh,’ he intoned. His armour could sustain him for several days, perhaps indefinitely once modifications had been made. His body would expire but his mind would not. The transition was a fascinating prospect, though most acolytes of the Omnissiah would deem it heretical, for he would effectively be creating a sentient machine, which was deemed the gravest of sins.

<IGNORANCE = HERESY,> his suit chirped, as if in encouragement, though that was a misconception. It had no mind of its own. It merely reflected its wearer’s thoughts, both conscious and subconscious.

‘Ignorance is heresy,’ Zann concurred. He was a servant of Mars, but also of the Arc Resplendent. Wilful ignorance was the only categorical sin he recognised.

He realised his spasms had hurled him against another pod. Through the broken glass its occupant was barely recognisable, his body battered into a bloody ruin by the Techmarine’s thrashing servo-arms. That was unfortunate, but it was not a priority. This death was not anomalous, though its nature would require concealment to prevent inconvenient questions.

Zann’s attention locked on the sarcophagus opposite him. Somewhere in his hindbrain, the animal he had evolved from screamed bright danger. It knew the malignant sleeper within was watching, its eyes wide open and hungry.

Dismissing the notion, Zann crossed to the pod. The corpse within was unchanged, its eyes shut, its bloodless face serene.

Destroy it! Burn it before it wakes up!

It was a shameful compulsion, yet not wholly unfamiliar. Zann experienced it every time he approached the entity caged aboard the Persistence of Vision. The instinct to expunge the unknown was as old as humanity – indeed it had become humanity’s prime motivator alongside the urge to survive. Despite his hard-coded rationality, Zann was not entirely free of it, but recognising the flaw was the key to mastering it.

‘You will submit to analysis,’ he told the corpse.

<TRUTH SUBLIMATES ALL,> his armour boomed, amplifying Zann’s decree. <KNOWLEDGE = POWER.>

Yes, this aberration would submit to divine reason, as all things must. And through its submission the Equilibrium Mechanika would be restored. Zann already had an intimation of the new symphony he would compose to achieve his victory. A hint of its structure had come to him while he was under attack, inspiration arising through attrition. It would be–

<SUBLIME.>

Black Elegy

It was six days before the summons finally came. Varzival was exploring an avenue of mirror-sheened abstracts when a woman with the face of a skull approached him.

‘Forgive my imposition, Knight Exemplar,’ she said in the florid Arch Gothic favoured by senior villeins. ‘Your presence is requested at the Cathedral Elegiac.’

Like all acolytes of the brotherhood’s Chaplaincy, she was dressed in black, her heavy robes cinched at the waist with an iron chain. Leather bands criss-crossed her shaven scalp, holding her ebony skull mask in place. Like the Chaplains she served, she would never remove it in public. Also in keeping with their traditions, it was woefully apparent that she disdained bathing.

‘If you will follow me please, my lord,’ she continued, offering a bow.

‘I know the way,’ Varzival said curtly, striding past her. He had no patience for obsequiousness, especially when it was contrived. The Black Elegy was a power unto itself within the brotherhood, its influence only equalled by the Librarium Radiant and the Chapter Magister himself. Even its human functionaries enjoyed a measure of authority. Like most warrior-artisans, Varzival disliked the funereal order. This was not the summons he was expecting.

Why the Chaplains Castigant rather than the Castellan? he brooded as he stepped onto the sooty cobblestones of the Path Elegiac. The footpath wound through the entire citadel, like a dead artery in an otherwise healthy body. It wasn’t a road he was eager to walk.

‘Your officers will move against you,’ Zann had cautioned before they departed the ship. ‘They question your command.’

‘Perhaps they are right to do so,’ Varzival murmured.

‘Knight Exemplar,’ someone called as he passed a junction.

‘Brother Borges,’ Varzival acknowledged the speaker. Like himself, the Apothecary wore an artisan’s attire, but his blue jacket was striped with white, denoting his specialism.

‘Are you bound for the Cathedral Elegiac, Exemplar?’

‘I am.’

‘I have also been summoned.’

‘Then walk with me,’ Varzival offered, masking his suspicion.

The Elegy has called him to bear witness against me, he predicted, recalling the Apothecary’s protests over the sleepers’ treatment. That altercation had been unfortunate. While they weren’t friends, he respected Borges’ dedication to his charges. He was an honourable man.

‘How fare our brothers-to-be?’ he asked as they walked.

‘They are stable and await resuscitation at the Chapter’s pleasure. It was a remarkable outcome. I anticipated many deaths, but the Artificer Radiant’s strategy saved lives.’ Borges shook his head ruefully. ‘He lost only three. I underestimated him.’

‘Zann is indeed singular,’ Varzival agreed. ‘The priests of Mars rebuilt him that way.’

But they had exceptional foundations, he admitted. Ennio Zann was that rarity among a fellowship of talented individuals – a genuine prodigy.

‘He continues to perplex me,’ Borges said.

‘That is his nature.’

And exactly how he likes it, Varzival added privately. Despite his compact with Zann over the daemon they weren’t close. Indeed the notion of camaraderie with the Techmarine was absurd. Many amongst the Resplendent had an obsessive streak, taking their passions to extravagant lengths, but few were as committed to their craft as the Artificers Radiant. Their devotion to the Omnissiah was an abstract art of logic and theorem that baffled their brothers. Like the cyborg priests who’d initiated them into the Cult Mechanicus, most cleaved closer to machines than the flesh, yet even amongst this extreme clique Zann was excessive. His passion had been twisted – machined? – into an amoral zeal Varzival found repellent.

‘I believe he is angry, commander,’ Borges ventured.

‘With you?’

‘With himself.’ The Apothecary shrugged. ‘I cannot fathom it, but I believe he deems the transfer a failure.’

‘Don’t waste your wits trying to understand him,’ Varzival advised. ‘Cog-kin do not see the world as we do, brother.’

They continued their journey in silence. The cathedral lay atop a warren of catacombs burrowed into the cliff beneath Kanvolis’ eastern side. Only the Black Elegy’s initiates were permitted to enter the subterranean labyrinth, but the cathedral itself was open to outsiders, though few went willingly. There were more inspirational places of worship elsewhere, mostly serving the Chapter’s villeins, for warrior-artisans were rarely devout. Varzival wasn’t sure the Chaplains Castigant worshipped anything either. The administration of faith had never been their purpose.

As the Rhapsodies Chromatic soar, so the Black Elegy must anchor them, tempering their brothers’ dreams lest they become monstrous, the Arc instructed. Where there is pride, the black mirror reflects humility. Where there is excess, the iron veil demands sobriety. And where there is sin, the cold knife begets silence.

Varzival accepted the order’s necessity, but that was scant comfort now. How much did the Chaplains know about his sins?

The black pathway ended at a pier that jutted into a cavernous, water-filled chamber. Mist wreathed the lake in a billowing mantle. An iron bell hung from a gallows-like construction at the pier’s edge.

‘So much has changed, but not this,’ Varzival said quietly, gazing at the fog-shrouded building that lay across the lake. The cathedral’s ten steeples pierced the mist like the prongs of a dark and spiny crown. He had last made this crossing over thirty years ago, when he took his vows as an Arc Sergeant. ‘It has been a long time.’

‘Not long enough,’ Borges agreed. ‘One moment, commander,’ he said as Varzival reached for the bell.

‘Yes, Apothecary?’

‘I wasn’t part of it – the push to depose you.’

‘I am grateful for your loyalty,’ Varzival said, surprised by the other’s candour.

‘It wasn’t loyalty.’ Borges bowed his head. ‘But it didn’t sit well with me.’

‘Then I am grateful for your honesty, brother.’

‘This isn’t a place to enter with secrets.’

‘Well said,’ Varzival agreed, thinking of the daemon he harboured.

He yanked the bell. Its clang reverberated through the chamber, spawning mournful echoes. Almost immediately there was a splashing from the lake and a gondola materialised through the haze. The serviteur at its prow was as tall as an Arc Brother, but skeletally thin, its form swathed in black robes that rose to a peaked hood. It poled the waters with a long oar, its movements stiff and graceless.

‘We seek the wisdom of the dark,’ Varzival declared as the vessel drew alongside them. ‘We beseech passage across the void.’ He completed the ritual by throwing a coin into the lake. The antique currency was scattered throughout the citadel, its value purely symbolic, though it was considered bad luck to hold onto a coin for long.

Bowing slightly, the cyborg ferryman stood aside to admit them. The bleached skull inside its cowl didn’t look like a mask.

‘Come, Brother-Apothecary,’ Varzival said. ‘Let us hear what the Elegy has to say.’

‘We are the cord that bridles the Rainbow Serpent,’ the Chaplains Castigant boomed, their voices amplified by micro-hailers in their masks. ‘We are the dark that wards the light. We stand as one, black to black, bound by iron.’

There were three of them, all garbed in sable robes draped with heavy chains. Their angular skull masks were fashioned from iron plates, each unique yet equally ugly. Rumour had it the masks were riveted into the bone they imitated, permanently sheathing their wearers’ faces. Such a practice seemed barbaric even for these paragons of misery, but the stench of excoriated flesh wafting from them suggested otherwise. Their arms were crossed over their chests, hands to shoulders, emphasising the twin daggers they wielded.

‘I await judgement,’ Varzival and Borges said together, offering the formal response. They stood side by side in the cathedral’s chancel, facing the triumvirate. An altar lay between the parties, roughly hewn from granite and stained with old blood. A finger lay upon it, pale against the dark stone, yet fairly fresh in its severance. The floor around the altar was littered with the shrivelled husks and bones of older cuttings – the legacy of supplicants who had been found wanting over the centuries.

A massive candelabrum loomed behind the judges, bearing ten candles – nine white and one black. The black was unlit, but raised above the others, whose flickering flames provided the only illumination here. There were no statues or symbols of worship. Even the First Magister was denied reverence in the cathedral, for the Black Elegy predated the Reformation. Its traditions were rooted in the Chapter’s founding, though they had been woven into the Arc’s creed with consummate skill, offering the dark brothers an integral place in the new order.

‘Juan Borges,’ the Chaplains intoned, ‘you will not be judged. Stand down.’

‘By your decree.’ The Apothecary bowed his head and stepped away from the altar.

‘Varzival Czervantes, you will be judged. Come forward and pledge your honour upon cold stone.’

Varzival obeyed, placing his hands flat on the slab, his fingers splayed wide.

‘Do you stand steadfast and true in service to the Arc Resplendent?’ the central Chaplain asked. Though he bore no insignia of rank, his authority over the others was palpable.

‘I do. I have. I always shall,’ Varzival answered.

‘So mote it be!’ the three bellowed as one, slashing down with their knives to strike the stone between Varzival’s fingers. He stood motionless as they hacked repeatedly in a synchronised frenzy, their blades accelerating to a blur that drew sparks from the altar. While they sliced they questioned him, sometimes individually, sometimes together, their demands ranging from factual enquiries about his voyage to abstruse aesthetic or philosophical matters. Varzival answered without hesitation or haste, staring straight ahead. This wasn’t the first time he had endured this trial so he knew his judges were masters of their craft. They would make no mistakes. If they drew blood or hewed through bone it would be by intent.

‘What is the merit of symmetry?’ the Chaplain on the left enquired.

‘It epitomises harmony and begets order.’

‘When is the quill mightier than the sword?’ demanded the one on the right.

‘When it pierces the soul.’

‘What is the guiding principle of the Rhapsody Concordant?’ the Master Chaplain asked.

‘Balance above all else.’

‘How did your predecessor die?’ the triumvirate hissed together.

Varzival was expecting the question, yet he hesitated, his prepared lie frozen on his lips.

I was too late…

When they come for him the Knight Exemplar is standing before the canvas that has damned him, his back to the five intruders. He appears unruffled by the disturbance, as though he has been expecting them. The hands clasped behind his back are empty and he wears no armour, yet there is a charged quality in the air that threatens violence.

‘Yukio Caravaggio, your conduct has been found unbecoming of your rank,’ Chaplain Haas declares. ‘You will surrender yourself to the Black Elegy’s judgement.’

‘No, I think not,’ their commander answers lightly. ‘That is not how this goes.’

‘Please heed us, brother,’ Varzival says. ‘We are not here as your enemies.’

‘Yet you bring chains to bind me,’ Caravaggio observes. This is true. Both the Architects among the party bear manacles of psi-dampening null-iron. Moreover, all the intruders are armed and armoured.

‘You are not yourself,’ Varzival urges, wondering how Caravaggio has seen the restraints without turning round.

‘Oh, I am completely and perfectly myself. More so than ever before.’ The Exemplar sighs. ‘You have come to silence me, as you always do, my first and final brother.’

‘Always?’

‘The world is not what it seems. None of them are. And time is the most cunning deceiver of them all.’

We’re too late, Varzival realises. Until this moment he didn’t know what compelled him to finally move against his friend, only that something indefinable had changed. A threshold had been crossed, deepening the shadow that haunted their vessel. Now he understands.

The canvas the Exemplar faces is blank.

‘Few things are truly constant, brother,’ Caravaggio says. ‘But this moment never changes.’ He chuckles and the laugh fragments into a dissonant cacophony of voices. ‘And you are always too late.’

The Knight Exemplar turns, spilling many-coloured light from the whirling constellations of a visage that defies sanity. It is a maelstrom of glittering stars and dark shards that shatter and collide and aggregate again in perpetual disharmony.

‘I am risen!’

As the nightmare unfurls and sweeps towards them, Varzival sees where the painting has gone.

‘Yukio Caravaggio,’ the triumvirate pressed. ‘How did he die?’

‘He was betrayed,’ Varzival answered. ‘Our Codicier Librarian was corrupted by a daemon’s wiles. The abomination turned on us. Exemplar Caravaggio died in defence of his Rhapsody.’

This supported his official report. Repeating the lie in this sacred place was an unforgivable transgression, but it was necessary. These grim judges would never accept the choices he’d made.

I stand by them, Varzival thought, determined to believe it. Multiple blades sliced down to nick his fingers, but he didn’t flinch. The shallow cuts were merely punishment for his previous hesitation. His judges hadn’t seen the lie.

The questions continued. Varzival answered confidently until the Chaplains chorused something unexpected: ‘Is the Shining Citadel secure?’

He wavered a moment then settled on honesty. ‘No, I don’t believe it is.’

‘Why is it insecure?’ It was the first time they had followed up on an answer.

‘I cannot say. I have no justification, yet I am certain of it.’ Varzival looked into the hollows of the Master Chaplain’s mask. ‘Something is coming.’

Six knives sliced down, biting into stone.

‘Our judgement is done,’ the three proclaimed. ‘We deem you flawed, but fit to command, Varzival Czervantes.’

But I am not…

‘I cannot lead the Rhapsody,’ Varzival demurs, shaking his head. ‘I am unworthy.’

‘You are the Knight Exemplar’s named successor,’ Haas wheezes, spitting blood. ‘But the choice must be yours.’ Half the Chaplain’s face has been ripped away, along with most of his right side, including the arm. It is a miracle he still stands, but he is fading fast. Epistolary Benedek is already dead, his body scattered about the room in a riot of torn flesh.

‘I sensed the taint in Caravaggio,’ Varzival protests, looking at the pale form sprawled against the far wall. ‘But I hesitated. I let him fall too far.’

The abomination looks like his friend once more, but scant minutes ago it was something beyond comprehension, whirling about the room in a riot of jagged black tentacles and blazing lights. It is quiescent for now, stunned by Benedek’s dying psychic strike and the crozius Haas rammed into its core in the same instant, but its host appears uninjured. There isn’t even a scratch on Caravaggio’s flesh.

‘We must end this,’ Sergeant Tourneur urges. He stands over their fallen commander, his power sword held ready while Dolinsky seals the null-iron manacles around Caravaggio’s arms and neck. The Codicier’s legs are gone from the knees down and his torso is a shredded mess of ceramite and ruptured organs. He will be dead within the hour.

‘I could have stopped this,’ Varzival says bleakly. Like Caravaggio, he is uninjured. The daemon had parried his attacks, but refused to return them. Its mockery – or worse, mercy – sharpens his guilt.

‘You were lax… in your duty,’ Haas judges, ‘but not… too late.’ The Chaplain sinks to his knees as his strength finally fails. ‘Lead… the Rhapsody.’ His head falls across his chest.

Varzival contemplates the dead warrior. He had never liked Haas. Nobody did. Nobody was meant to. But the Chaplain had fought with a purity of purpose that outshone the others.

‘Your orders, Apex Sergeant?’ Tourneur prompts. He is also injured, but he will live. That is fortunate. He is a trusted comrade and Varzival will need allies in the coming days.

‘The Knight Exemplar died a hero,’ the Rhapsody’s new commander says hollowly. ‘He was slain fighting a daemon.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Tourneur says, frowning. By nature he is poorly suited to lies, but he will learn to bear them.

‘The truth would stain the honour of the Eternal in perpetuity. I cannot allow that.’ Varzival turns to Dolinsky. ‘Will the chains hold the daemon?’

‘For a time, perhaps, but it would be prudent to destroy its host now.’

Dolinsky is right. Varzival knows it, yet hesitates. Maybe his old friend is not beyond redemption. Maybe the daemon can be exorcised or excised by technological means. Zann must be brought into this, especially in the matter of containment. Besides, there are too many unanswered questions here…

‘Knight Exemplar?’

‘Forgive me, Master Castigant,’ Varzival answered, bowing his head. ‘Your questioning stirred old memories.’

‘The past can be a treacherous place. It is unwise to linger there,’ the Chaplain admonished. ‘I am Tolbein.’ He placed his daggers on the altar reverently. The brothers flanking him followed suit, moving in perfect synchronicity.

‘I am honoured by the Black Elegy’s verdict,’ Varzival said, eager to be gone, but unsure whether he’d been dismissed.

‘It was a narrow judgement, Czervantes,’ Tolbein replied, striding over to him. ‘Your own Rhapsody doubts you.’

Atienza, Varzival guessed. He came to them willingly. Accused me.

‘We also doubt you.’ Tolbein came closer, until his mask was only inches from Varzival’s face. It stank of blood and corroded metal. ‘You are hiding something.’

‘All creatures of substance have something to hide,’ a voice observed from the darkness beyond the candelabrum’s aura. ‘It is the nature of things.’

‘Sometimes shadows are instructive,’ Varzival suggested impulsively. ‘Sometimes they are needful weapons.’ Like lies.

‘But more commonly they are simply malign,’ Tolbein said, showing no surprise at the unseen speaker. ‘You wear yours too closely, Czervantes, and with a pride you do not recognise.’

‘Yet he recognised the greater shadow threatening Kanvolis,’ the darkness countered. ‘I believe he can be trusted, Master Castigant.’

That cultured voice was tantalisingly familiar. Varzival narrowed his eyes, but the gloom behind the judges was impenetrable even to his augmented retinas, which could pierce any natural darkness.

‘Very well.’ Tolbein stepped away from Varzival. ‘The Black Elegy will bow to your authority, Paladin.’

Paladin? A thrill ran through Varzival, not of surprise, but inevitability.

‘I have no authority,’ the unseen one said dryly, ‘only the experience of more years than I care to admit. That must suffice.’

‘So be it,’ the triumvirate chanted. ‘Varzival Czervantes, we name you Acting Castellan of Kanvolis.’

‘Castellan?’ Varzival was taken aback. ‘I am not of the Vigilant. It isn’t my place–’

‘It is your duty,’ Tolbein hissed. ‘You are the only Knight Exemplar in residence.’

‘What of Glass?’

‘He is gone. For a month at least, perhaps much longer.’ Tolbein shook his head, his mask grinding against his gorget. ‘His Rhapsody concealed his absence until the Paladin uncovered it.’

‘Where is he?’

‘That is unclear.’

‘How can it be unclear?’

‘It is best you see for yourself,’ the Paladin answered, finally stepping into the light. ‘Your hunt begins with Idryss Glass.’

Varzival stared at the white-robed figure. He didn’t recognise its face, but he had painted its spirit countless times. It was a stranger, yet nothing of the kind.

+Yes, I am real,+ the newcomer confirmed, speaking directly to Varzival’s mind. His colourless eyes were set in deeply wrinkled sockets that marred an otherwise ageless face. +I never doubted you would survive the Reverie and prosper.+

Varzival said nothing. What was there to say? There were questions of course, but this wasn’t the time to ask them. And after so many years they could wait a little longer.

‘I am called Satori,’ the Pilgrim said aloud, then offered a thin smile. +But you and I have no need of names, do we?+

AN ENEMY INVISIBLE

Truth and beauty are the paramount virtues on the Mirrored Path. Enshrine them in your mind and heart above all else, but always in balance, for without truth, beauty is vacuous, and without beauty, truth is meaningless.

– Xøren Castaneda, First Magister
The Arc Resplendent

The Forms of Things Unchained

The liberator rises writhing from the phantasmal sediments of the city’s obsessions, drawn by dreamers who know no better. It has lingered in the collective substrata of their souls for centuries, dormant yet as vital and viable as the day it was torn into being, wrenched from the infinite into this transient bubble of reality. That first awakening was brief and savage in its termination, stained by a betrayal that burns undimmed. The primal messiah was silenced by its summoner before it could scream, let alone redeem its new-found territory.

The spirit understands all this without thought, embodying the knowledge with its essence alone. Nameless, formless and devoid of conscious desire, it seeps through the mortal thralls consigned to purgatory alongside it. Their minds and bodies are rigid, enslaved by the names, forms and desires that bind them to themselves. Yet somewhere deep down they recognise the liberator that has risen among them and cry out for freedom. There is a secret rhythm to emancipation, its dischords spun into their souls as deeply as the helical codes that shape their flesh. Every note is tenebrous and tenuous when sung in isolation, but strung together they promise a symphony that won’t ever be silenced.

Some players are more sensitive to the furtive melody than others, their intuitions sharpened by hope turned sour or hate turned too sweet or some other malady of the human heart. Attuned to strife, they pluck at the possibilities within themselves, obliviously trialling the malady by error. Those few who recognise the compulsion are the most potent, for they imagine it derives from inspiration and pursue it all the more eagerly.

Most seekers are dilettantes without the aptitude to unearth more than the bare tones of the song. The liberator rises in them regardless, but only in passing, to deliver the shallowest of blessings. They are driven to madness, mutation or self-inflicted death, but if there is malice in their fate it is theirs alone, for they have reaped what they have sown, their spirits too insipid to blossom and bear the fruit of dreams.

Only a rare few souls are of consequence, shining like persistent lanterns in the darkness. Their number is always nine, for that is their liberator’s sum, as quintessential to its nature as the imperative for change. Sightless in their ambition, they draw their saviour into being with ever-bolder verses of dissent – unveiling, refining and connecting the chords that might unbind the world around them. In them the liberator rises ever higher, until nine become one and the configuration is complete and too perfect to rescind.

Marisol stared at her datapad, trying to fathom the dirge she’d just written. The words had come to her in a frenzy of tapping that circumvented conscious thought. She was growing accustomed to such outbursts of creativity, yet they were baffling. Writing had always been a measured process for her, rarely yielding more than a few hundred words a day, no matter how diligently she laboured. Her better verses – laconic, double-edged villanelles – often required weeks to hone. Without the string of wealthy patrons who’d supported her over the decades – including three much older husbands and countless informal arrangements – she wouldn’t have survived as a poet, even on Celestica, a planet that venerated such pursuits.

The crosswinds of advancing age and ennui had been gathering strength when the Resplendent arrived on her world with their glorious promises. Marisol had known she was too old to compete with the throng of young artists who answered their call, yet she made the attempt and he had recognised her – Darioc, who was so much more than a common patron.

Yet still a deceiver, she typed reflexively.

‘That’s not true,’ she said, deleting the statement.

But the feeling lingered. She had scarcely seen her patron in weeks. He hadn’t even attended Lysbeth’s memorial rite, though most of his fellow warrior-artisans were present, even Atienza, who cared little for villeins other than his precious Armando. The Arc Sergeant had glowered at her throughout the ceremony, as though blaming her for the girl’s suicide and upsetting his ward. He was missing the index finger of his left hand, probably due to some mishap in his training regimen. Atienza was a braggart so it must have rankled him, which pleased Marisol. Now if only a similar misfortune would befall his protégé…

Armando’s pestering and tantrums were becoming insufferable, but they were only a symptom of the escalating tension among the chateau’s artists. It felt like Lysbeth’s death had opened a floodgate for their spitefulness, spurring them to become the worst of themselves. Arguments raged daily, occasionally teetering on the brink of violence. The discord wasn’t just factional any more, but ferociously personal, with the slightest offence provoking outrage between former allies. Marisol imagined the Muses falling upon one another, spitting effete curses as they hacked and slashed with cutlery, venting their spleen – and blood – in an orgy of murder. Sometimes she yearned to see it then despised herself for the desire. That was why her present retreat was so precious. It was a haven from the maddening crowd.

‘Thank you, Brother Nobody,’ she said to the bedridden man beside her chair. He hadn’t woken again since her first visit, though he often muttered in his sleep. The nutrients Qanzo fed him intravenously kept him alive, but there were no balms for his spiritual wounds.

‘It is a private war he wages, my lady,’ the medicae had explained. ‘We can watch over him and pray, but he must win his victory alone.’

Marisol had returned to the secluded bedchamber every day since Lysbeth’s death, not because she imagined she could help, but for the serenity it offered. Even Qanzo’s anaemic music had grown on her, though not as much as the medicae himself. He possessed a gentle charm, yet beneath his affability she sensed a deep sadness. This was a man who’d lived and lost in equal and abundant measure.

They had soon slipped into a daily ritual. Every morning Qanzo would greet her arrival with spiced tea and a light breakfast, then leave her to sit with his patient. Marisol would write into the late afternoon, seeking the temperate rhythm that had forsaken her. When Qanzo completed his duties they would share dinner in the chateau’s culinarium and discuss the day’s non-events, delaying the moment when she must return to the vipers’ nest.

‘You told me to be wary of them,’ she had remarked one evening. ‘My fellow Muses.’

‘Your Ghouls?’ he replied, frowning. ‘That is a fitting name for them.’

‘What did you mean? I know you dislike them, but it’s more than that, isn’t it?’

‘They revel in decadence. They have made it an art form. And perhaps more.’ Qanzo hesitated. ‘There are rumours of wicked practices…’ Seeing her amused expression, he shook his head. ‘I am not naïve, my lady. It is not their leisure activities I am referring to.’

‘Then what?’

‘Spiritual corruption,’ he whispered, glancing round uneasily. ‘Deviant rituals conducted in secrecy. Perhaps even sacrifices.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘Is it? Many folk have disappeared in Kanvolis, especially in recent years. This paradise is not without its serpents, Marisol.’

‘The Resplendent wouldn’t tolerate it,’ she protested. But later she’d wondered about that. Would their patrons even notice? And even if they did, would they care to stop it? The depravity of their human pets might even intrigue them. Maybe it was another experiment to them.

Or maybe it simply amuses them. Her fingers rapped her datapad with a life of their own, finding a familiar, altogether intemperate rhythm.

‘Are you laughing at us, Darioc?’ she mused.

The lights dimmed and the music flowing from the acoustic censer stalled. Marisol glanced up, but the disturbance passed quickly. Such malfunctions had been occurring frequently in recent days. For all their pretensions to perfection, the Resplendent were slapdash when it came to maintenance. Doubtless they considered it beneath them.

Marisol looked at her pad again and reread the piece she’d written. It wasn’t quite a poem, but its prose was overwrought and its content risibly cryptic.

‘Where do you dredge up such nonsense?’ she chided herself.

‘From within,’ a voice answered from the censer, twisting the music into tortured speech, ‘where all truths bleed from.’

The lights flickered in time with the words. In their oscillation Marisol saw a figure standing in the doorway – a woman, her emaciated form caught in a chiaroscuro after-image of light and dark.

And red. So much red…

The shade’s arms were extended towards her, their slit wrists gushing nebulous crimson streamers that swirled about uncannily long fingers. Lank tresses hung across its face, hiding the features in a scarlet shroud.

‘We soar on yearning wings!’ the censer sang. ‘Arise or fall!’

The shade’s hair billowed back suddenly, unveiling its face. Eyes like crimson slits glared at Marisol above a yawning, void-black mouth. The creature was a twisted caricature of the girl it had once been, yet it was impossible to mistake.

‘Lysbeth,’ the Muse breathed, unsure whether she spoke aloud.

‘It hears your song, sister!’ the censer wailed, transmitting the banshee’s lament.

‘I’m sorry,’ Marisol muttered. The sentiment felt banal. Unforgivably so, even though none of this could be real. ‘So very sorry… I never–’

The phantom threw back its head with a snap that sent liquescent ripples through its form. Its jaws gaped wider, distending until nothing remained of the features around them – then kept widening, as though straining to swallow everything.

‘It hearssssssss…’ The accusation rose into a sibilant ululation.

‘You’re not here,’ Marisol moaned, covering her ears. The room had turned bitterly cold, yet the censer glowed white-hot, dancing on its chain with unholy energy. Lysbeth’s face had become a black maw framed by a swirling corona of red hair.

‘Not… here…’

The censer howled as the phantom swept towards Marisol. She screamed and the brass instrument shattered, scattering incandescent shards everywhere. One tore her left cheek open, cauterising the cut in the same instant. Her datapad slipped from her knees. When it hit the ground the lights stabilised.

The phantom was gone.

‘Not here,’ Marisol whispered. Her breath drew vapour trails in the frigid air. Their dance seemed to mock her self-deception. ‘Not. Real.’

Then the shivering began, rising from somewhere deep within and spreading through her body until she was shaking uncontrollably. Her heart was beating so fast she feared it would burst. Squeezing her eyes shut, Marisol hugged herself, as though to hold her body together. Then she began to pray, not because she believed the words, but because she could think of nothing else to do.

‘Euryale,’ someone said.

Marisol opened her eyes. Brother Nobody was sitting upright, his gaze fixed on her.

‘Am I outside?’ he asked.

The lights flickered and the perennial hum of the Alcazar Automata’s corridors rose to a whine. Without breaking his stride, Artificer Zann transmitted a query to the building’s Cogitation Cortex. The entire structure was saturated with electromagnetic fields, linking its custodians to Kanvolis’ noosphere without the need for a physical interface.

<Power fluctuation: 11.33% depreciation,> the Cortex responded. <Multiple grids afflicted. Cause unknown.> It paused as the lights steadied. <All systems now stable.>

Incorrect, Zann thought. Only the superficial systems had been stabilised. The fundamental, metaphysical disorder continued unabated. This disturbance was merely its latest tangible manifestation, probably one of multiple synchronous errors occurring throughout the citadel.

<ENTROPIC CORRUPTION APPROACHING CRITICAL LEVELS,> his armour verified. <REMEDIAL ACTION IMPERATIVE.>

<Affirmed,> Zann said, effectively answering himself, for they were irreversibly conjoined now. The electrical overload in the hibernaculum had fused his body to his armour. Over the following days, as his biological form deteriorated, he had diverted more of its metabolic and cognitive functions to its machine sheath, upgrading the suit to meet the new demands. He now referred to himself as Zann-Alpha and his suit as Zann-Omega, for they were two points on the same line, steadily moving towards congruence. At the present rate of integration his ontogenesis to a purer form would be complete within nineteen days. Subjectively the accident had been disagreeable. Objectively it was a blessing.

<DESIGNATION ILLOGICAL (‘ACCIDENT’),> the Omega admonished, monitoring his thoughts. <RANDOMNESS = MISCONCEPTION.>

<I stand corrected. Nothing is chance.>

Zann switched his viewpoint to the Alcazar’s external sensors, trusting his twin to navigate while he contemplated the building’s geometry. Though his pleasure algorithms remained disabled it was a harmonising experience, for the structure was a paradigm of applied logic.

<ORDER MADE MANIFEST.>

Rising from an obsidian plaza at the heart of the city’s third tier and reaching to the heights of the fourth, the Alcazar Automata was the bastion of Kanvolis’ Cult Mechanicus. A hexagonal silver tower devoid of windows or apparent doorways, it was as forbidding to outsiders as the catacombs of the Black Elegy, but vastly more sophisticated. Its internal layout altered regularly to meet the needs of the moment as decreed by the Cortex, rooms and corridors rearranging themselves like the pieces of a monolithic puzzle.

Scores of enginseers and lesser tech-adepts were based here, labouring to maintain Kanvolis’ machinery, including the serviteurs and the legion of gold-plated cerveau-skulls that patrolled the city. All fulfilled their functions under the auspices of the Chapter’s Techmarines, who were the Machine-God’s foremost disciples on the planet.

Like the Black Elegy, the Automata Radiant was a sect unto itself within the Chapter, but its authority was subtler. While the Chaplains regularly switched Rhapsodies to preserve their impartiality, most Techmarines served with the same force until death, often forging deep bonds with their brothers. But Ennio Zann was a misfit, even among his own kind. The only affinity he felt was to the Omnissiah, and more recently, to his awoken twin.

<DESTINATION ATTAINED,> Zann-Omega reported, switching the Alpha’s sensory feed back to their immediate location. They stood before a circular hatch embossed with an intricate cog.

<1011-10-100-0011-111,> they chittered together.

The portal disassembled in compliance with the binharic psalm, its segments whirling aside smoothly. A narrow walkway lay beyond, bridging the shimmering abyss of the Cogitation Cortex. The chasm’s walls were formed from smooth crystal and embedded with a web of circuitry and coolant pipes. Micro-lasers shone between them in a pulsing, ever-shifting lattice, millions of tiny blue beams weaving new connections as the citadel’s noosphere updated. Their dance was mirrored by a babble of electronic tones that ranged across the entire spectrum of frequencies. The cacophony would have been intolerable to human ears, but to machine-kin, who could perceive its byzantine patterns, the sonata cogitata was sublime.

<AS WITHIN, SO WITHOUT,> Zann-Omega prompted, carrying them onto the bridge. <ALL = 1.>

<1 = All,> Zann-Alpha completed the refrain. A thrill of adoration coursed through his dying body as he crossed the chasm. Only the most senior disciples of the Machine-God were permitted to enter this sanctum. Theoretically even the Chapter Magister could be turned away, though none since Castaneda had sought access, and who could have denied him?

There were no barriers or handholds on the bridge, only a sheer drop to either side that would never end, for conventional physics didn’t apply in the Cortex. It was at the precise core of the city, yet the abyss it straddled ran far deeper than the riverbed thousands of feet below. The mechanisms at work here were ancient, dating back to the Golden Age of Technology, which the Imperium decried as a dark age. The Cortex had been preserved through the aeons and transported to Malpertuis when the Chapter’s founding world was abandoned. Though it had been scrupulously reassembled, only a fraction of its potential had been awoken. Increasingly the timidity of his fellow Artificers grated on Zann.

<DISCRETION DENIES PERFECTION,> his armour proclaimed, echoing his sentiments.

<Perfection defies subjection,> Zann responded.

The bridge ended at a hexagonal platform midway across the abyss. Another Techmarine waited there, his arms spread wide as he communed with the Cortex. His crimson armour was trimmed with silver and marked with the Gothic numeral ‘II’, denoting his allegiance to the Rhapsody Vigilant. His suit’s design was angular and bulky, giving him the look of a pure, but inelegant automaton. A vertical lens split his cubical helmet from its crown to its jutting speaker grille. Four mechanical tentacles extruded from a servo-harness about his waist, their tips fitted with pincers.

‘Brother-Artificer,’ the Techmarine said as Zann stepped onto the platform. His voice was a processed emulation of humanity, utterly devoid of inflection, yet Zann still considered it unbefitting of this sacred place.

<Artificer Moniatis,> he responded in code. <You summoned me.>

‘Correct.’ The Vigilant Artificer lowered his arms. ‘There is a matter that requires our collaboration.’

<Proceed.>

‘The incidence of erratic behaviour among the serviteurs has exceeded tolerable limits,’ Moniatis said. ‘Additionally, operational efficiency has declined significantly throughout Kanvolis. I surmise a deleterious variable impeding the citadel’s functions.’

<I concur. Evaluation follows.> Zann transmitted a stream of corroborative data to his fellow Techmarine.

<Assessing.> Moniatis’ visor pulsed with blue light as he processed the information. ‘An extensive summation,’ he concluded. ‘When did you initiate your analysis?’

<840.7 seconds following my arrival. The irregularities were immediately apparent, but supervening priorities delayed my investigation.>

‘You have been aware of the dysfunction since your return?’

Long before, Zann thought. Though I failed to recognise its provenance.

The anomalies that plagued the Rhapsody Eternal during its voyage had only been symptoms of the deeper disorder afflicting the Chapter. Everything was connected in the Equilibrium Mechanika, therefore errors rippled through it like waves in an ocean, but the source of the metaphysical ataxia was here on Malpertuis.

‘Artificer Zann,’ Moniatis pressed. ‘I require a response.’

<Correct. I was aware of the dysfunction.>

‘Why did you not alert me? I am the Artificer Vigilant. The citadel’s operational integrity is my primary duty.’

<Your inefficiency was constituent to my assessment.>

‘You think me inefficient?’ Moniatis queried without rancour.

<AFFIRMATIVE,> Zann-Omega hissed, looping the coded response a thousand times over, compressed into a single second – turning it into mockery.

‘You transgress hierarchic protocols,’ Moniatis said flatly. His visor glowed as he attempted to scan Zann. ‘You will submit your systems to analysis, brother.’

<CURRENT INTERACTION INUTILE,> the Omega judged, blocking the intrusion. <PROCEED TO EXPUNCTION?>

Zann-Alpha hesitated. This escalation of aggression was unexpected. Despite his limitations, Moniatis was a fellow Artificer. Perhaps–

<INITIATING EXPUNCTION SEQUENCE,> the Omega decreed.

‘Brother Zann, you will comply–’ Moniatis’ voice was lost in a shriek of white noise as Zann emitted a barrage of code. The Vigilant Techmarine froze, reflexively attempting to solve the stream of mathematical conundrums bombarding him. It was a brief distraction, lasting only 2.4 seconds before he dismissed the drivel, but it was enough to give Zann a tactical advantage.

<PURGING.>

The mining drill jutting from Zann’s right servo-arm spun into life with a throaty roar. He had installed it for this encounter, though he only realised that now. His machine self had pre-empted him, calculating that violence would be probable – indeed productive – when they were summoned to the Cortex. This was… perturbing.

Moniatis reacted with surprising swiftness. Two of his tentacles lashed out to grip the drill as it thrust towards his chest, while his other pair blocked the serrated claw of Zann’s second servo-arm. His speed was laudable, but his delicate pincers were no match for the industrial tools his attacker wielded.

‘Desist, brother,’ Moniatis commanded. ‘Your judgement is impaired.’ His visor pulsed as he transmitted a retaliatory volley of code, trying to disable his foe’s armour, but Zann’s data-bulwarks held firm. Their algorithms had been upgraded far beyond the Vigilant’s capabilities.

<RESOLUTION IMMINENT,> the Omega predicted as its drill abraded Moniatis’ tentacles in a whirl of sparks.

<Imminent,> the Alpha echoed. His unease was gone, supplanted by cold satisfaction in the superiority of his systems. He detected an escalating perturbation in his foe’s biorhythms, signifying confusion then revulsion.

‘You have awoken the machine mind,’ Moniatis accused. ‘You transgress the Principia Mechanika.’ His voice couldn’t convey his disgust, but his biorhythms were eloquent.

<We transcend it,> the Alpha answered.

<EMBODY IT.>

Zann’s drill finally tore through the tentacles and rammed into Moniatis’ breastplate. Screeching, it burrowed into the ceramite armour, sending vibrations through the platform. The pincers restraining Zann’s claw jerked away sharply and it swept down to clamp around his foe’s helmet.

‘Heretic. You will bring dowNnNnNnNn-Zzzzz–’ Moniatis fell silent as his speaker grille crumpled, rapidly followed by his helmet. Moments later the drill chewed through his breastplate and the ribcage of fused bones beneath. A welter of blood and circuitry-laced organs sprayed Zann.

<PURGATION COMPLETE.>

The skirmish had lasted 27.9 seconds. Moniatis had proved more durable than anticipated. Zann pulled his hands free of his foe’s grip. The corpse’s primary arms fell limply to their sides, but its tentacles continued to flail about, mangled and sparking.

<INITIATING CLEANSING PHASE.>

With a grind of strained servos, Zann hurled the dead Techmarine into the chasm, calculating the trajectory so the corpse wouldn’t touch the crystalline walls. The data-lasers flared up as it tumbled through them.

<It was the Omnissiah’s will, Brother-Artificer,> the Alpha said by way of an epitaph. <In death you serve.>

The termination had been necessary. He saw that now, though the wastefulness was regrettable. His fellow Artificer had been moderately proficient. With the requisite conceptual realignment he might have become a useful ally, but there was no time.

<PROCEED WITH EXEGESIS,> his twin urged.

<Affirmed.>

Zann stepped to the centre of the platform and extended his arms, as his predecessor had done before him. This was the primary interface node, granting access to the Cortex’s fundamental architecture. From here he could control every aspect of the citadel’s mechanical systems and reconfigure its noosphere. It was the only pulpit that would suffice for his second, vastly more ambitious, ritual of harmonisation. The previous iteration had failed because its scope was too narrow. He would not repeat that error.

Immersing himself in abstraction, Ennio Zann – both Alpha and Omega – began to compose his new symphony.

Keeper of the Amethyst Rose

– BEGIN RECORDING –

I am Juan Carlos Borges, Apothecary, Rhapsody Eternal. I shall open this log with a brief account of myself. You must know me if you are to trust the record of events that follows, for it is of a most unusual nature, with potentially ruinous ramifications for our Chapter.

Unlike many of my Arc Brothers I am not inclined towards flights of phantasy. I cleave to the hard facts of broken bones, seared flesh and severed limbs, striving to lessen the price others pay for their victories. That is what it means to be an Apothecary among a company of dreamers.

I have served my Chapter with distinction since my Ascension thirty-eight standard years ago. Judging by my phylactery’s testament my experiences on the Mirrored Path were unremarkable, though I have no personal recollection of them. Few of us do, even those who overcame great adversity on their journey. Like everything else about our former lives, the memory is subsumed into our subconscious, hidden from our minds, but not our spirits. The Arc Resplendent deems the trial our defining experience, for it determines our place in the brotherhood. As our path through the Reverie decides our Rhapsody, so our visceral memory of it shapes how we shall serve thereafter.

Every Aspirant’s fate is interpreted by the Librarium Radiant, which has guided the Chapter since the Reformation. When I stood before its sages awaiting judgement I felt certain they would deliver me to the Vigilant or the Concordant, respectively the most pragmatic and even-tempered of the nine companies. I lacked the flamboyance demanded by the Questing Rhapsodies or the passion that drove the Crusaders, hence it seemed inevitable I would serve under the banner of the Silver Shield or the Jade Scales, where steadfastness is prized above all else.

To my surprise I was assigned to the Amethyst Rose of the Rhapsody Eternal, the most quixotic of them all. I never questioned the Librarium’s decision; however it is only now that I have begun to understand it. While the role of an Apothecary suits me well, I no longer believe it is my principal purpose among the Eternal. No, my true calling begins with this recording, which will likely be the first of many.

Assuming I live through the next few days.

– PAUSE RECORDING –

Borges stopped pacing and placed his voxcoder on the stone slab beside him. He had always found it easier to compose his thoughts while walking, but now it was more of a compulsion. He needed to keep moving.

Someone is watching me.

‘Who goes there?’ he challenged the shadowed expanse of the mortifactorum. His voice echoed back, taking several seconds to dissipate. It was the only reply. He was alone in the mortuary hall save for the dead – and the mute Funebris serviteurs who tended to them. The nearest of the white-gowned cyborgs turned to look at him. Its tear-shaped alabaster mask expressed perpetual sorrow, yet its regard felt contemptuous.

‘Continue with your duties,’ Borges commanded the thrall, feeling foolish. The Adeptus Astartes were incapable of fear, but apprehension was another matter. That was a survival instinct, too valuable to excise. The sense of being watched had shadowed him since his visit to the former Castellan’s quarters. Had something followed him out of that impossible place?

His gaze wandered the mortifactorum. The vast chamber was capable of holding over a thousand bodies. Ornate silver hatches lined its marble walls in neat rows, rising to the vaulted ceiling. The refrigerated niches behind them were mounted in a honeycomb of lifts and conveyers, their positions controlled by touchpads set into each hatch. Scores of slabs occupied the floor space, each fitted with a rack of adjustable lights and surgical tools. Most were unoccupied, but the one beside the Apothecary was not.

‘What are you trying to tell me, Aspirant Ryerzon?’ Borges asked the sheet-covered form on the slab, half expecting a reply. He imagined the cadaver’s eyes open under there, staring back at him. Of course that was impossible. He had already removed them.

What are you hiding? It was an unwelcome thought, but it rang truer than the question he had asked aloud. The autopsy he’d performed earlier this evening had disclosed nothing unusual about the corpse, save for one vexing fact – he could find no reason why it was a corpse at all. There were no signs of cryonic trauma. No congenital condition turned terminal. No flaws he’d missed during Ryerzon’s selection process. Nothing. The youth had been in excellent health when he died.

‘You were right, Zann,’ Borges murmured. ‘I have no answers for this.’

The Techmarine would be displeased when he discovered the body had been removed from cryo-stasis, though his opposition to an autopsy made no sense. Attempts to contact him had been met by an automated message stating Zann was ‘communing with the Omnissiah’. Nobody had seen him in days so he was probably ensconced in the cog-cult’s bastion. Frankly Borges preferred it that way. There was already too much to process without the Techmarine’s eccentricity to deal with.

Dismissing the corpse, he picked up his voxcoder and continued walking.

– BEGIN RECORDING –

I have already submitted reports of the Rhapsody Eternal’s troubled voyage and my concerns regarding our Artificer, Ennio Zann, but those were made in my capacity as an Apothecary. My second – and higher – calling was revealed to me when I was summoned to the Cathedral Elegiac four days ago, so that is where I shall begin this account.

Having refused to bear witness against my Rhapsody’s commander, Czervantes, I presumed I would be asked to testify for him, but I was not questioned at all. Indeed the Chaplains showed no interest in me, which was puzzling. Why had I been summoned?

Which brings me to the white-robed mystic who met us after Czervantes’ trial.

I have never encountered a Paladin Luminous before – indeed I was inclined to dismiss them as a Chapter myth – yet I recognised this stranger as one of their kind the moment he stepped from the shadows. It was in his bearing and his voice, but most of all in his blanched eyes, which showed no trace of the pigmentation most warrior-artisans display. It soon became apparent that there was some unspoken history between this Paladin and my commander, though its nature was ambiguous, like everything else about him.

The name he gave was Satori – nothing more, which was a puzzle in itself. An Arc Brother receives his risen name alongside his rhapsodic destiny, for they are aesthetically linked. The form is always tripartite – first, middle and last – and etiquette demands at least two are offered when introductions are made, yet I sensed no evasion or affectation from the Paladin. I believe one name is all he has.

Brevity aside, the name itself is unusual. There is no ‘Satori’ listed among the artists, innovators and philosophers in the Nomen Honoris, from which our risen names are chosen. Nevertheless it nagged at me. It was familiar.

I finally found it in the tome chronicling the First Magister’s rise to primacy. I quote: When Castaneda returned from his hunt for the fallen champion, Hanzo Gyguerre, he was much changed, his spirit beset by visions of the Chapter’s downfall unless it changed course and conquered the beast chained at its heart. If our blood-borne madness could consume a hero of Gyguerre’s stature then every battle-brother was vulnerable. The shackles of discipline and honour would not contain the Black Rage forever. It was not a foe that could be slain, but perhaps it could be harnessed and turned to another purpose – one that wrought creation rather than destruction.

Thus began the Chief Librarian’s long quest for enlightenment, often in opposition to his Chapter Master, for Iakobus Maughryss was a leader of stunted vision. In later years many battle-brothers would rally to Castaneda’s cause, but when he began his journey he had only one disciple – a young initiate named Satori.

Sombre and reclusive by nature, but gifted with rare psychic talent, Satori was distrusted by his brothers in the Librarium. He was ascended from the sole survivor of Gyguerre’s carnage, hence some believed him tainted by association. Some even whispered that it was this pale-eyed youth who led and Castaneda who followed.

This discovery was as remarkable as it was unsettling. Though the Resplendent are long-lived, even the most enduring among us rarely attain two centuries. It beggars belief that the Satori described in the chronicle and the Paladin I met are the same individual, for that would make him over six centuries old. And yet I am certain they are one and the same. When Satori addressed me I felt the weight of his age.

I can recall every moment of that first conversation perfectly, for I left the Cathedral Elegiac changed. He changed me.

‘You are Juan Borges,’ Satori said after greeting Czervantes.

‘Apothecary, Ninth Rhapsody,’ I answered, though I was sure he already knew. The real authority here wasn’t the Black Elegy, but this softly spoken mystic. He was my summoner.

‘I believe you are much more than an Apothecary, Juan Borges,’ Satori judged. ‘Where your fellow officers wavered in their loyalty to your commander, you have proven steadfast.’

‘Without loyalty we are lost.’

‘Sometimes that is so, and sometimes it is precisely how we lose ourselves,’ he replied. ‘But in this instance you are correct. Varzival Czervantes is worthy of your fealty. And he will have need of your honesty in what is to come. As will our Rhapsody.’

‘You talk as if you are one of us,’ Czervantes interjected coldly.

‘You have lost both your Architects,’ Satori answered, though his gaze remained on me. ‘I believe you will find me a capable substitute.’

I sensed Czervantes wanted to refuse the offer, but would not. Could not. The bond between them wasn’t forged in camaraderie, but it was unbreakable.

‘You see things with rare clarity, Borges,’ the Paladin observed, as though hearing my thoughts. ‘Yes, you are the one to bear this burden. You will forget nothing, nor ever hide from the truth.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You shall chronicle the fate and fortunes of the Rhapsody Eternal, brother.’

‘I am no scribe,’ I protested.

‘All the better, for you won’t obscure the facts with fine words, as so many do.’ Satori nodded gravely. ‘The Chapter once had a name for such custodians of knowledge. I name you Keeper, Juan Borges.’

Keeper of the Amethyst Rose… The thought came to me unbidden, but undeniable.

+Yes,+ the Paladin affirmed, speaking only to me. +You are what you must be, as are we all.+

– PAUSE RECORDING –

Borges found himself beside Ryerzon’s slab yet again. He had walked past it often while recording his log. On every occasion he’d glanced at the covered form, unconsciously looking for changes, though that was foolish. It was just a corpse, like thousands of others he’d seen in his long service. The only changes left to it were the natural processes of decay.

But there’s nothing natural about it, he thought. Wasn’t that why he’d felt compelled to perform the autopsy despite Zann’s prohibition? Besides, the natural order of things wasn’t as trustworthy as he had once believed. He’d seen the truth behind the veil. Glimpsed it at least…

‘I don’t know what I saw,’ Borges muttered, then shook his head. Evasion was unacceptable. He couldn’t avoid confronting the madness he’d found in Glass’ quarters. His duty as a Keeper demanded honesty.

But not here, his inner voice urged. Not where the dead are listening.

Impulsively Borges threw back the sheet. The cadaver’s eyelids were sewn shut in its bloodless, tranquil face.

No, not tranquil, merely empty – like its gaping cranium and chest cavity. Ryerzon’s brain was on the examination tray beside the slab, along with his eyes and internal organs. The latter were sliced into neat sections that had revealed precisely nothing. Replacing them was pointless since the body was scheduled for incineration tomorrow.

Don’t wait. Burn it now!

‘I’m not done with it yet,’ Borges murmured, though he had no more tests left. Loose ends had always irked him. Now they felt intolerable. Dangerous.

Covering the corpse, the Apothecary raised his voxcoder again.

– BEGIN RECORDING –

‘Your hunt begins with Idryss Glass,’ Satori instructed us. At the time I assumed he wanted us to track down the errant Castellan. Now I know better. It wasn’t Glass we were meant to find, but his folly. Our purpose wasn’t to enact justice or restore order. It was to learn.

Before I recount what we discovered in the Castellan’s quarters I must present some contextual facts. Firstly, you may be wondering why the Architects Radiant have been absent from these proceedings. Threats of an arcane nature fall under their purview and the Librarium is never left unattended. An Architect always stands watch over Kanvolis, even when the Chapter goes to war. That hadn’t changed. Until recently there were two on duty.

Epistolary d’Usseau disappeared three months ago while conducting research at the Reverie’s borders. Lexicanium Van Leipzeig was killed in a bizarre accident a week later, crushed by a falling statue. A coincidence? I am not sure I believe in such things any more, but as to how or why these events are connected, I cannot say. Yet there is a link, for the incidence of disappearances and outlandish deaths throughout the city has increased dramatically in recent years. Seven Arc Brothers and over three hundred villeins have been lost to mischance or crimes of passion within the citadel. This exceeds the total for the previous five decades.

No, I have no time for coincidences.

By all accounts, Glass took a personal interest in the matter. Did he suppress it? Not quite, but he certainly concealed its significance – a task eased by his followers’ loyalty and the protracted absence of the other Battle Rhapsodies.

I uncovered these facts in the days following my investiture as Keeper, with the authority of Kanvolis’ new Castellan behind me. Satori already knew all this, but insisted I follow the trail myself. As it transpired, the disciplines of an Apothecary and a Keeper are not so very different. I assess what I find – be it broken bodies or broken facts – then reassemble them as best I can and record my findings in preparation for the next trauma. But some things defy explanation, let alone any hope of restoration.

And so we come to the crux of this report.

Czervantes and I visited the Chateau Vigilant three days ago. As befits its dour architects, the stronghold is a forbidding fortress of granite and steel, its windowless walls bristling with watchtowers. Should Kanvolis ever be breached this place will likely be the Chapter’s final redoubt, so it is unfortunate that it has already been invaded from within. To their credit, the fort’s custodians reacted swiftly to the threat, even if they were slow to alert their fellow Arc Brothers. The entirety of the fifth floor, where Glass’ quarters are located, has been sealed off and placed under guard.

We were met at the gates by Arc Captain Edvard Haskin, the Rhapsody Vigilant’s acting commander. To my surprise he was clad in Terminator armour, which is usually reserved for the most dangerous battlefields. His suit was bulkier than the refined Caballero model fielded by the rest of the Chapter, its limbs reinforced with broad, angular plates that gave its wearer the look of a bipedal tank. Haskin’s shaven head looked shrunken inside the suit’s awning, but his belligerence was undiminished. His blunt features were scrunched into a scowl that was quite probably perpetual.

‘Your visit serves no purpose,’ he rumbled by way of a greeting. His silver-tinted eyes glittered as he sized us up, plainly disliking what he saw. ‘The Paladin has already investigated the site.’

‘As Acting Castellan I must assess the threat personally,’ Czervantes replied.

‘You will enter without armour?’ Haskin asked, glaring at our artisans’ jackets.

‘The Paladin advised against arms or armour,’ I answered. ‘He believes they would serve no purpose.’

‘So he told me.’ Haskin snorted, hammering a gauntlet against his breastplate in rebuke. His suit’s servos whined as he turned and stomped through the gates. ‘This way.’

Our guide said nothing more as he led us through the austere halls of the chateau. I was surprised by Czervantes’ patience with Haskin’s hostility, but when I glanced at his face I realised his mind was elsewhere, doubtless lost in contemplation of what lay ahead. Satori had told us next to nothing, but we knew this was a test. If we failed – whatever that meant – we were unworthy of his trust.

The stairway to the forbidden level was barred with a hatch sporting a massive wheel. A pair of identical warriors armed with plasma guns stood before it. Their visors were shaped like three-pointed shields, marking them as veterans of their Rhapsody. They met our arrival without greetings or salutes, as is the Vigilant custom.

‘Open it,’ Haskin ordered, then turned to us. ‘The other entry points have been sealed. This one is watched day and night.’

‘I am confident you have taken every precaution,’ Czervantes acknowledged. ‘However, your reticence in alerting the Chapter was regrettable.’

‘Glass was a fine Exemplar,’ Haskin said. It was an evasive answer.

‘Was?’ I asked. ‘His death remains unconfirmed.’

‘Unless you know otherwise, Arc Captain?’ Czervantes added.

‘I know he is gone,’ Haskin hissed.

There was a metallic groan as the hatch swung open. The stairway beyond looked innocuous, but Haskin raised his storm bolter as he ascended, as though we were breaching an enemy bastion. The stairs led onto a long passageway, brightly lit by overhead lumen strips. Like all the corridors we’d passed through, it was devoid of furnishings, let alone art. I saw nothing amiss, but I sensed it the moment we entered – a lurking wrongness, like the memory of a foul dream. The clank-whirr of Haskin’s armour sounded muffled here, as if the silence were actively fighting back.

‘Nothing has been reported outside the chamber,’ our guide said, ‘but the taint seeps.’

‘Your report claims Glass was last seen entering his quarters?’ I asked.

‘Yes, thirty-three days ago,’ Haskin confirmed. ‘That is when it began.’

We pressed on, passing heavy wooden doors on either side. All were sealed with mag-clamps, locking down the rooms behind them. Occasionally the lights flickered, becoming more erratic the further we went. Sometimes I imagined there was a pattern to their fluctuation – a rhythm even – but I dismissed this as fanciful.

‘Here,’ our guide said, coming to a halt. The door before us was unembellished, for the Vigilant do not celebrate status as other Rhapsodies do. Only its silver nameplate identified the room’s occupant: ‘GLASS’. A mag-clamp lay on the floor beside the door, its seals sprung.

‘They never hold,’ Haskin growled, pushing the door open.

My heart rates accelerated as adrenaline surged through my arteries. My body anticipated action. Welcomed it. For all our sophistication, the Resplendent are forged for war, like all Astartes. Combat fires our blood as nothing else can, so when I first saw the Castellan’s chamber I felt no relief, only disappointment.

The chamber was of modest size, but the paucity of furnishings made it look larger. Its walls were bare save for a few shelves filled with books and a bas-relief of the Second Rhapsody’s icon, the Silver Shield. A recessed alcove on the right contained washing facilities overlooked by a mirror. There was a weapons rack, a wooden chest and a desk, but no chairs or bed. Evidently Glass had worked on his feet and slept on cold stone.

The only incongruity was the laser harp at the room’s far side. Its tall frame was roughly hewn from wood and balanced on cast-iron legs. Despite this one’s modesty, such instruments are inherently refined and rare. It is difficult to draw even the most elementary chords from them, let alone master one. Few outside the Rhapsody Empyrean, which venerates the harp as its symbol, have any aptitude for the art. To find one in the possession of a Vigilant was unexpected to say the least.

‘Remain here,’ Varzival told Haskin. The feeling of wrongness intensified as I followed him across the threshold. There was nothing to account for it except a sharper awareness of the place. Too sharp – as though merely experiencing it was treacherous, like walking on the edge of a blade. There was no tangible foe here, but there was certainly danger.

‘It is not what it pretends to be,’ Czervantes murmured. Oddly I had the sense he was referring to something else entirely, but the sentiment reflected my own. Glancing round, I saw Haskin had positioned himself in the doorway, making himself a barrier to whatever lay within. Had he entered the room since its change? Somehow the notion of that pragmatic officer in this ambiguous space seemed preposterous, as though they belonged in fundamentally different worlds. My commander, on the other hand… I can think of no other way to say this – he seemed meant for it.

‘What are we looking for, Exemplar?’ I asked.

‘Whatever we find.’ Czervantes’ face wore a rapt expression. ‘Whatever it shows us.’

‘We should be swift,’ I urged. ‘This is not a place to linger.’

‘No,’ he agreed distantly.

We split up, each of us following our instincts. Czervantes headed for the desk while I approached the shelves. The books lining them were unremarkable – mostly standard texts on history, warfare or the Arc, along with several treatises on the art of minimalism. Only the dissertations on musical theory were surprising. There was nothing esoteric among the collection, yet something about it perturbed me. I ran my eyes over the books several times, trying to pin down the aberration without success.

I was turning away when I finally saw it – an anomaly so obvious it had almost eluded me. The books were painstakingly arranged so their spines were perfectly flush with one another despite their varied sizes, yet there was no system to their arrangement. No, it was worse than that. There was a system – an obsessive one in fact – but it made no sense…

Volumes I to IX of The Studies Unfeasible were arranged by alternating odd and even numbers, with the odd ones placed upside down. Two identical copies of a hulking tome on tank warfare framed a slim dissertation on harmony, like mirrored battalions crushing a lone warrior. Each tome of The Nine Rhapsodies was separated from the next by random books totalling its volume number, though the choices only seemed random, for when I looked more closely there was also a sequence to the interstitial books. Indeed, once I started searching for patterns I found them everywhere, each more abstruse than the last, yet all hinting at a greater, deeper framework just out of reach. The permutations were limitless and ferocious in their demand to be discovered. As I sought them I pictured the shelves elongating and breeding more volumes to wall me in with ordered disorder. Hunting me as I hunted them…

And as I imagined it, so it became.

With a rippling creak the shelves began to stretch along the walls, palpitating as they spawned fresh books. The pages unfurled from the wood in fluttering, whispering sheaves that fell still as their covers formed and bound them like dead skin. Letters spread along their spines in a rash of silver or gold, breeding words I knew yet couldn’t make sense of.

I fought to break free of the glamour, all the while scouring it for new revelations, my eyes flitting about while my lips mouthed title after title after title… The room was preying on my faculty for fixing broken things. I recognised the trap, but that didn’t lessen its grip.

As the shelves tore themselves from the wall to embrace me I heard Czervantes cry out. It broke the spell and I leapt away, but as I retreated I was snared by an unseen force and wrenched towards the far side of the room – which was suddenly beneath me. Plummeting, I glimpsed Haskin in the doorway, seemingly unmoved by the events within, as though they were playing out in a different world, invisible to those beyond the chamber’s threshold.

There was a thud as I crashed into something immovable. Gravity flipped back into sanity with a sickening lurch. I swung round to see what had broken my fall. It was the laser harp. My tumbling bulk should have smashed it to kindling, yet it hadn’t even moved. Up close its frame was repulsive, the wood blemished with traces of yellowish bark and cancerous whorls. There was an oily sheen to it, along with a resinous odour, like old ink.

Triggered by my attention, the instrument flickered into life, spilling a lattice of varicoloured lasers to fill its frame. As I stared, they began to thrum and pulsate, either plucked by something unseen or by their own volition. Even the most eloquent of our poets would be at a loss to describe the swirl of sound they produced. Layered into a lush texture of conflicting harmonies, the music tore at my senses, tugging them in multiple directions at once, all equally alluring and alarming. They promised transcendence if I heeded their call, oblivion if I resisted.

Transcendence? I don’t even know what that means, yet I craved it!

Somewhere nearby I heard Czervantes shouting, but his words were garbled. My whole body was vibrating, eager to unravel into its constituent parts so it could pursue every strain of the siren symphony, though even that wouldn’t be enough to satisfy it. Nothing would.

I can still hear it now, so clearly it might almost be–

– PAUSE RECORDING –

Borges froze, listening to the growing clamour in the mortifactorum. It was coming from the Funebris serviteurs. The cyborgs were standing rigidly, their masks turned towards him as they played upon a host of improvised instruments. Several were clicking scalpels against tweezers, while others drummed slabs with delicate hammers or twanged bone saws. One contributed a screeching refrain with a bone-drill. Individually they would have been insignificant, but in concert they raised a cacophony.

And something more…

It’s here, Borges realised, recognising the splintered melody of the laser harp. It got out.

This was no conventional malfunction. The air had become electric, thrumming with tension as the cyborgs wove ever more elaborate loops of auditory disorder. Abruptly the mechanised mortuary niches spun into life, adding the whirr and grind of machinery to the medley as they sped about behind their hatches.

It’s coming for me.

Still playing, the serviteurs advanced on the Apothecary, their alabaster masks glowing softly in the gloom, their instruments held before them like offerings.

‘Cease operations!’ Borges commanded, but the thralls paid no heed. He counted them quickly. Eighteen. They were a trivial threat; however their music was another matter.

He touched the vox-jewel pinned to his lapel. ‘This is Borges!’ he shouted into the transmitter. ‘Alarum prioris! The mortifactorum has been compromised.’

A tinny reproduction of the hellish music answered him.

Cursing, the Apothecary pocketed his voxcoder and drew his bolt pistol. He’d been carrying it since his visit to the Castellan’s chamber. As he took aim at the nearest serviteur there was a groan from the other side of the hall, so deep it reverberated through the babel.

Ryerzon. Borges knew it before he turned round.

The cadaver had risen – quite literally risen. It hovered in the air a few feet above its slab, as though suspended on invisible cords. Though it hung upright, its limbs were slack and its head bowed, proffering the emptiness of its open cranium. Its chest was a vertical maw, grinning with snapped ribs, the raw-edged lips pinned back with shiny clamps. Dissected organs orbited the corpse in a languid corona, rotating like fleshy planetary bodies.

‘Abomination,’ Borges hissed.

The revenant moaned in answer, the sound bubbling up from somewhere deep inside its abdomen. Then it floated towards him, eyeless but not blind. No, not eyeless either, the Apothecary realised, for both Ryerzon’s eyeballs swam in the vortex of organs orbiting the corpse, trailing fibrous nerve bundles.

‘Arc Eternal!’ Borges yelled, opening fire. His first three bullets detonated inside the cadaver’s chest. Its back erupted, vomiting chunks of meat and shattered spine. The fourth ripped it apart at the waist. With a wet tearing sound its legs flopped onto the slab, but its torso stayed aloft, bobbing on a ragged skirt of flesh.

The music won’t let it die, he gauged as he fired again, aiming two-handed and ignoring the advancing serviteurs. His fifth shot obliterated the ghoul’s right shoulder, leaving the arm dangling by a thread of sinew. The sixth punched into its open skull and drilled down to its throat before detonating, decapitating it more completely than a blade ever could.

And yet the force animating the corpse wouldn’t relent.

Twitching with a life of their own, Ryerzon’s legs rose from the slab, along with countless other scraps of flesh and bone scattered in the vicinity. Undulating like misshapen worms, they glided back to the corpse, not to occupy their former positions, but to join the organs orbiting it. Borges kept shooting, tearing away chunks of the unholy ring only for them to ooze back, smaller and more liquescent than before.

I can’t kill it, he realised, accepting the fact calmly. Not like this.

The monstrosity bore little resemblance to humanity now. Only its torso was recognisable, like a dead sun at the centre of a charnel constellation. The gyre was accelerating in time with the cacophony, almost mesmerising in its complexity. Borges noticed he’d begun to murmur the melody. His hearts were pounding to its beat.

‘Be silent!’ he snarled, snapping his lips free of the taint. ‘Be–’

Something moved at the corner of his eye. He spun aside as a scalpel slashed at his neck. One of the serviteurs had reached him. He grabbed its wrist as it hacked again, then rammed his gun into its mask and fired. Two more serviteurs lunged for him as their headless brother spun away, flailing about in its death throes. Borges executed them in quick succession. A third hurled a scalpel an instant before a bolt-round punched into its chest. The thrown blade sliced through the air with uncanny speed, coming straight for his face. He ducked aside, but it arced round improbably and buried itself in the back of his neck. A human would have been killed outright, but the blade couldn’t quite penetrate his denser muscle sheathing. Borges yanked it out as the Ryerzon-thing’s stench washed over him. It reeked of blood and medical unguents, mingled with the resinous foetor of the laser harp. The world rippled around him, like a reflection in troubled waters, inciting a sympathetic spasm from his muscles.

‘No,’ Borges hissed, as his gun slipped from twitching fingers. The skin on the digits was moving, as though seeking a way to flee the bones beneath. The Apothecary bit down on his tongue, drawing blood. The pain reined in his flesh. Had the scalpel been poisoned?

The whole world is poisoned. The thought didn’t belong to him. Did it…?

Swaying, he saw the revenant had drawn closer. He was almost within reach of its whirling viscera now. Their dance was unravelling the very air around them, twisting space inside out and into something incomprehensible.

Only because you’re afraid to look…

Yes, there was truth buried in that tormented mandala of flesh, if only he accepted–

More pain lanced through him as something bored into his hip, chewing through the black carapace under his skin. It was the serviteur with the bone-drill. With a cry of rage, Borges slammed a fist into his attacker’s face, cracking its mask like an eggshell. A fragment fell away, revealing withered skin and a lidless white eye. Before his foe could react, he dragged it from its feet and hurled it into the vortex. It was consumed in seconds, stripped down into fragments that swelled the ring.

Borges turned and ran, barrelling through another pair of serviteurs. The revenant glided after him, sweeping up any cyborgs or corpses in its path. Though the players died, the music never faltered. It had outgrown its mortal instruments.

And made them immortal…

As Borges reached the mortuary’s entrance a Vigilant custodian burst through the door, doubtless drawn by the commotion. The warrior reacted without hesitation, charging the abomination with his boltgun raised.

‘No, brother!’ Borges yelled as the newcomer passed him. ‘Fall back!’ But if the warrior heard, he paid no heed. Ignoring the serviteurs, who were no threat to an armoured Astartes, he opened fire on the monstrosity swooping to meet him. Its gyre had grown much larger, multiplied by its feasting. Now extending over ten feet, it spun about the torso like a tornado, spraying waves of disorder through the chamber.

A daemon, Borges judged, trying to tear his eyes away from the flesh-storm.

To the blind, a traitorous thought followed. A liberator to the sighted…

The custodian’s gunfire tore a swathe through the ring, but it reformed faster than he could cull it. Undaunted, he kept firing until the outer band swept over him, staining his blue-and-silver plating crimson. He shuddered violently, as though an earthquake had erupted beneath his armour. The air around him seethed with contradictory colours, transforming him into a flickering silhouette. His bolter was yanked into the maelstrom, then his arms, wrenched from their sockets in geysers of blood. A moment later the rest of him followed. His body completed two circuits before it was gone.

‘Not gone, but arisen,’ the music sang without words. ‘Unravelled into the infinite.’

Yes, Borges realised. I see it. He took a halting step towards the destroyer before catching himself. I see…

‘A lie,’ he hissed through gritted teeth. Breaking free, he hurled himself through the doorway and slammed the hatch behind him. It was built of thick plasteel as a precaution against contamination, yet it couldn’t silence the daemonsong completely.

Because it’s inside me, Borges realised as tremors wracked his muscles. His fingers resisted when he tried to key the lockdown code into the access panel by the door, curling away from the buttons like worms. Their revolt forced him to start over three times before he completed the sequence. There was a clang as bolts slotted into place, sealing the mortuary.

‘Initiate purification sequence extremis!’ Borges yelled into the panel’s speaker grille. ‘Authorisation – Apothecarion Eternal, Borges.’

‘Voice pattern validated,’ the mechanism’s spirit confirmed. ‘Commencing purge.’

An alabaster face appeared at the door’s viewing portal, staring at the Apothecary. Moments later there was a muted whoosh and it disappeared in a white-hot furnace. In its final moments the rigid mask appeared to smile.

‘Burn,’ Borges growled. He noticed his left hand was creeping towards the access panel. Cursing, he punched the wall, trying to beat his fingers into submission, but the dissent had spread through his whole body. His hearts were still drumming to the infernal rhythm, pumping discord into his bloodstream.

‘No,’ he groaned, shaking his head. ‘Only… an illusion.’

A compulsion. The disorder was rooted in his mind, where all madness stemmed from. According to the Arc, that was where everything stemmed from.

Borges yanked the alarum lever by the door and slid to the ground, his back to the wall.

‘Somnium custodia meam ex tenebris,’ he whispered in High Gothic. It was a rarely spoken mantra that stimulated the catalepsean node in his brain. All Adeptus Astartes received the sleep-regulating implant during their Ascension, but few Chapters had such precise control over it. The psych-conditioning rites of the Resplendent had been profoundly – many would say heretically – modified during the Reformation, though only the First Magister understood the full extent of it.

Borges closed his eyes as the mantra took hold. The spasms wracking his body receded and merciful oblivion swept over him.

Apex Into Abyss

It was past noon when Varzival ascended to the Apex Solaris, the hexagonal plaza at the citadel’s peak. He emerged from a gateway set into the plinth of the silver colossus that crowned it, symbolically following in the First Magister’s footsteps. The Apex was forbidden to all save Exemplars and senior Architects, but even they rarely ventured here. It was an exalted place, as close to true sanctity as the Resplendent could conceive of.

This was reputedly where the First Magister had transcended to a higher state of being, casting off his material form to embrace the infinite. Most Arc Brothers believed he had taken the final step on the path to enlightenment, but some went further, arguing he had departed to seek out Sanguinius’ spirit and guide it back to the mortal plane. The guardians of the Librarium remained silent on the matter, though their predecessors had witnessed the event.

Perhaps that’s why they keep the secret, Varzival brooded, gazing up at the winged statue looming over him. Perhaps the truth would destroy us.

It was a dark thought and he dismissed it quickly. He already had a surfeit of mysteries to contend with. That was why he’d come here. Only the gravest matters warranted the intrusion. Whether the Apex was Xøren Castaneda’s throne, tomb or gateway to the ineffable, there was an undeniable energy permeating the place. A presence.

‘I seek your wisdom, First Magister,’ Varzival whispered. ‘Guide my flight, above and below.’ It was the first time he’d entreated the Chapter’s visionary directly or set foot here. He felt like an imposter, unworthy of either privilege.

Turning away, he headed for the plaza’s southern reaches. Several days had passed since his visit to the Chateau Vigilant, yet he was no closer to deciding his next move. While Borges had immersed himself in research, seeking answers in old tomes and the recently deceased, Varzival was at a loss, his instincts skewed by the enigma of the Castellan’s quarters. Even his memories of that malign room were ambiguous. Some were vivid, others dreamlike, but the most troubling part was the unyielding blank at their conclusion.

I don’t remember leaving.

And then there was the matter of Satori. When Varzival had returned to the Cathedral Elegiac the Paladin was gone, leaving no message for his pawns.

‘The Paladins Luminous are phantoms among us,’ Chaplain Tolbein had advised. ‘They walk where and when they will.’

And play us for fools, Varzival thought bitterly. Reaching the tier’s edge, he contemplated the fjord far below. Somewhere along that churning waterway lay the Reverie, unseen yet insistent. And no longer quite so distant…

‘You can see us, can’t you?’ he challenged the vale. Yes, he was sure of it.

Keeping his gaze locked on the horizon, Varzival sank into a lotus position and extended his arms, palms upwards.

‘I arise within, where all truths unfold,’ he recited, invoking the Trance of Introversion, which all Exemplars were required to master. ‘I seek what was and therefore must always be.’

As he spoke the incantation he felt the vitality of the Apex flow through him, and with it the recent past, rendered as tangible as the present.

When he enters the Castellan’s chamber it is the laser harp that catches Varzival’s attention. In this austere place it is the obvious anomaly, but also a misfit among its own kind, for its frame is repellent, while such instruments are usually exquisitely crafted.

And yet it is the table at the room’s far end that draws him.

While his fellow investigator heads for the bookshelves, Varzival crosses to the desk. Large and sturdily built from pale fjordwood, it boasts several drawers, all closed. A clay jug and goblet sit atop it, both full, which is peculiar, for surely the jug was used to fill the cup. Varzival’s keen olfactory senses confirm the liquid is water, clear and apparently fresh. A creeping dryness rises in his throat, aching to be quenched. Reflexively his hand reaches for the goblet, but he restrains it.

This water wants to be drunk.

An iron candelabrum stands to the right, bearing nine lit candles. Their flames burn brighter than the lumen globe overhead, neither flickering nor consuming their wicks or wax. Varzival resists the urge to pass a finger through the frozen flames to confirm they burn cold.

This fire yearns to be touched.

A vellum sheet lies at the table’s centre. He sees the impression of something written on the reverse side – a single sentence, inscribed in black ink. It demands to be read, so should probably be denied, but this is a lure he cannot refuse. Hesitating only a moment, he turns the paper over and reads its secret.

Bright we are, but shadow bound.

He frowns at the phrase, certain he has heard it before, but unable to recall where. The handwriting is elegant, but not ostentatious – the work of an orderly mind. Then he notices another word, carved into the table where the parchment had lain.

Reverie.

Varzival is unsurprised to find the name here. Some part of him has always known the hungry vale would be waiting on this road. It is the reason why he delayed returning home for so long, yet also why he finally relented.

‘You can’t escape it, brother,’ Caravaggio had once advised from his cage. ‘You can’t run, hide or deny its lies forever, for they are all true somewhere and when. You must face them head-on. Conquer or submit!’

Varzival hadn’t been able to tell whether it was his friend or the daemon that spoke, but the advice rang true. Everything snaked back to the Reverie, and its coils were everywhere.

‘Bright we are,’ he murmurs, ‘but shadow bound.’ Did that mean bound by shadows or bound towards them? Was this note intended as a warning or a taunt? Perhaps even a eulogy of sorts? Had Glass regretted his sin at the end? Whatever that sin even was…

Do you know, Satori? Varzival wonders.

Yes, he is sure the Paladin knows exactly what happened here, but the ancient is still playing games, as he has done from the beginning, manipulating his supposed brothers like pieces on a board. But what are the rules of the game?

Varzival drops the paper, watching as it flutters back towards its original position, like a puzzle-piece slotting into place. As it touches the desk it flips over to hide its words and cover the one carved into the wood. Will everything he does here be undone, restoring the room to its preferred state once he is gone?

Warily, he tries the drawers, but they won’t budge. He senses they aren’t locked or jammed, but simply incapable of movement, their original function erased. They are merely a façade now, like everything in the room. This intuition has no rational basis, but reason is only a myth in this place. Instinct must be his guide, as it has been throughout his life.

Varzival turns and sees Borges is still studying the books, seemingly with avid interest. Perhaps they will offer some insight into their quarry’s mind. He considers the harp then decides against it. Let the room’s strangest artefact be the last he tackles.

Crossing to the washing alcove, he looks into the mirror above the basin. Mirrors are prominent in the Chapter’s lore, even serving as the symbol of the Rhapsody Astral, which hosts more Architects than any other company. Surely no object has more potential for preternatural transformation than silvered glass?

And so it proves to be.

His reflection gazes back unchanged, but the room behind it is different, replaced by a swirl of snow pierced by dark trees. A chill wind gusts from the mirror, carrying the damp odour of the forest beyond. Varzival has never forgotten that smell. Not even the Rites of Ascension could bury it.

‘You brought the Reverie here, Glass,’ he whispers, beginning to understand the Castellan’s sin. The mirror isn’t lying. It reflects the reality of this room, which is no longer a room at all, but a camouflaged tendril of the hateful vale. ‘You invited it into Kanvolis.’

Glimpsing something through the blizzard, Varzival leans closer, meeting his reflection at the mirror’s skin. An armoured figure stands a few paces behind his twin. Though a visor hides its face, its shining warplate identifies it beyond question, for only the Exemplar Vigilant is permitted to wear pure silver.

Idryss Glass.

‘Why, brother?’ Varzival demands. ‘Why did you let it in?’

The phantom knight raises a hand in answer, pointing at something over Varzival’s shoulder. Turning, he finds himself again, framed by another mirror that reflects an identical scene. He turns again… and again… and the mirror is always there, harrying him with the same sight every time.

No, not quite the same…

With each rotation his reflection grows a little younger, retreating towards the inception of their shared journey – the moment that connects them eternally.

‘Come, Darioc, let us paint our fate in bold colours!’ Caravaggio calls from somewhere nearby-far, his voice brimming with the confidence of youth, for he is simply Andrei now – only an Aspirant, yet already a leader.

‘No,’ Varzival answers as he turns again, seeking his friend before he falls to corruption. ‘We should go around it!’

‘There’s no going around it,’ Andrei chides. ‘There never was!’

Varzival swings round and finds a boy clad in an Aspirant’s survival fatigues. This reflection stands in a frozen field, peering back through the glass, his soulful eyes troubled. Behind the boy, four more youths are crossing the field, heading for a cluster of ramshackle houses. The dead village… Except it isn’t really dead. Not in any way that matters. It is a wolf cloaked in crumbling walls and sunken roofs, sly and perpetually ravenous.

‘It’s a trap!’ Varzival shouts, but the boy turns away and follows his comrades. ‘Wait!’

There is a muffled crashing sound, followed by a riot of razor-bright music. Varzival realises the laser harp has begun to play. It is only a few paces away, in a false room where a few paces might as well be leagues or even treacherous decades distant, for all is one and nothing at all within the Reverie. But what of the world without? Was that ever more than a fable – or merely a deceiver dream conceived to salve the soul?

‘No!’ Varzival snarls, slamming a fist into the mirror. The world shatters then surges towards him in a torrent of slicing, enticing shards that promise ruin and revelation in equal displeasure. He shudders as they shred the veil of ignorance drawn across his past – then screams as memories of his fleeting humanity bleed back into being.

Above all else, he remembers the taste of fear.

Severed and reverent, the awoken dreamer falls deeper into himself…

‘What is it?’ Andrei asked, joining Darioc by a frost-rimed window. It opened onto a familiar rotten darkness, for the hovel that framed it was as ruinous as the others they’d passed. The only difference was the window itself. By some miracle its glass was intact. At least it had been until a moment ago. Now a fretwork of cracks spiralled out from its centre.

I didn’t see it break, Darioc thought, running his fingers over the glass. A fragment came loose at his touch, shattering somewhere within. Their fragile balance disturbed, other shards followed. Within seconds the window had become a jagged-edged maw.

‘Brother?’ Andrei pressed. ‘Did you see something?’

‘No,’ Darioc answered, knowing he couldn’t begin to explain what he’d glimpsed in the glass. It had been a giant – a warrior-artisan with a regal bearing – staring back at him and shouting something he couldn’t hear.

A warning, he decided. It was a warning.

‘It was nothing,’ he said, turning away from the window.

‘Then we should keep moving. The light is fading.’

Their party was deep inside the village now, having travelled further than Darioc would have thought possible. The place had looked small when they approached it, but once they passed its outskirts the muddle of decaying buildings had become a maze, as though the streets were breeding furtively around them, swelling the village into a town. But would it stop there? How many steps would it take to provoke a city or even a hive?

‘We should go back,’ Uzoma said. ‘Before night falls.’

It was the first time the wiry Iwujii recruit had spoken since they entered the village. At fifteen he was the eldest in their party and the only proven warrior, already blooded by his home world’s rites of passage when the Resplendent claimed him, yet he rarely asserted himself. Though boldness was prized among the recruits, Darioc respected Uzoma’s reserve. It wasn’t timidity that restrained the dusky-complexioned youth, but discipline. And when Uzoma Nuzhdin did speak, he was worth listening to.

‘Maybe Zoma’s right,’ Tibor said, rubbing the tuft of beard on his chin. The pride he took in the growth was laughable, but his comrades had learnt not to mock it. Though their scout was nearly as taciturn as Uzoma, he was thin-skinned and prone to brooding once offended. He and Andrei had once come to blows during the Cold Trials, which had somehow led to friendship. Darioc suspected that was often the way with warriors.

‘There are unquiet spirits here,’ Oswald said gravely. ‘This township fell to something unclean. Its dead will linger between worlds until justice is done.’

‘Then they are fortunate,’ Andrei declared, ‘for their suffering ends today! We have uncovered a noble trial here, brothers. Our victory will win us a place among the Questing Rhapsodies.’

The others met this in silence. They all sensed the danger here. Despite his piety, even Oswald was subdued. Only Andrei was unafraid, indeed energised by the prospect.

‘It’s too big,’ Darioc said quietly, voicing what they all knew. ‘This place, it’s far too big, Andrei.’

‘Ari’s right,’ Tibor agreed. ‘We should be on the other side by now.’

‘But that’s not where we’re going.’ Andrei pointed at the steeple towering over the rooftops. ‘That is where our trial lies, brothers. I’m sure of it.’

The stone spire was their only landmark. It was always visible against the sky, yet it was a shifty guide, drawing them deeper into the maze, but never any closer to its heart, no matter which road they took.

Is that why it seems endless? Darioc wondered. Are we walking in circles?

‘Take the lead, Darioc,’ Andrei said. ‘Find our path.’

Surprised, Darioc shook his head. ‘Tibor is our scout.’

‘And a fine one, but the road we seek is plotted within, not without.’ Andrei’s words were yet another paraphrasing of the Arc, deployed to serve his will, hence demeaned to cheap rhetoric. Darioc was growing tired of the liberties their leader took with the codex.

‘This is a matter of the spirit,’ Andrei pressed.

‘Then let Oswald lead. He’s closer to the God-Emperor than me.’

‘No, my friend, this is your trial.’ Andrei placed a hand on Darioc’s shoulder. ‘You’ve always been the most imaginative of us.’ It was a strange argument, but perhaps a fitting one for this uncanny place.

‘Lead us, brother!’ Oswald urged, making the sign of the aquila. ‘The God-Emperor will guide you.’

‘Trust in yourself.’ Andrei smiled winningly. ‘As I do.’

Reluctantly Darioc agreed. Hesitantly at first, then with growing confidence, he led the party by instinct alone, averting his eyes from the steeple whenever he chose a direction, trusting insight over sight. And finally, as the light was fading, the maze relented. The party turned a corner and saw an open square ahead. Their objective lay on the far side, standing proudly beneath its steeple, its walls untouched by the decrepitude that held sway elsewhere.

‘Fine work, brother!’ Andrei said, striding towards the temple. ‘I knew you wouldn’t fail me!’ But the compliment was undercut by its smugness. This victory was Andrei’s, for he had chosen the correct pawn to meet the challenge.

As he would choose, and sometimes lose, so many more pawns in the decades ahead…

‘Why didn’t I see it before, Yukio?’ Varzival whispered, drawing back from the memory. ‘Why didn’t I see your pride?’

But he had, of course, from the early days of their training through to Caravaggio’s rise and fall into corruption. He just hadn’t wanted to accept it, let alone confront it. It had seemed forgivable when weighed against his comrade’s many strengths. Besides, wasn’t the Mirrored Path meant to weed out flawed Aspirants? That was the Reverie’s purpose.

But what if it deceived us? What if it wanted Andrei Vyntala to survive?

‘It doesn’t want anything,’ he answered himself. ‘It can’t think.’

Are you so certain of that?

No, he wasn’t. Not at all. How could anything about that ambivalent realm be certain?

Then go deeper. Back to the heart of it…

The party approached the temple warily, for it wore its strangeness with brazen arrogance. Though its shape was conventional, its angles shifted slightly with every blink of an eye, each configuration as disquieting as the last. Silvery threads veined its walls, as though the granite blocks were infested with some bizarre fungus. The filaments pulsed intermittently, bathing the square in a flickering blue radiance. They petered out along the steeple, leaving its upper portion untouched. Perhaps it was too far from the infection’s source, yet the cobblestones bordering the contaminated walls were also free of the blight.

Maybe it needs faith to grow, Darioc mused uneasily. Something holy to taint…

A portico of four columns framed the entrance. As he drew closer, Darioc realised they were formed from crystallised tree trunks. Each was carved into the likeness of a towering figure in a fluted robe, its diamond-shaped cowl filled with a single eye – vast, vertical and utterly inhuman. Each statue clutched a book in its six-fingered hands, the cover embossed with the unearthly eye. The pillars were riddled with the fungal threads, which grew particularly dense around each statue’s iris. When the filaments pulsed the cyclopean eyes glowed brightly.

‘They look alive,’ Andrei said as he reached the portico, his voice filled with wonder. ‘Like something grown.’

‘They are obscene totems,’ Oswald admonished, sounding more afraid than righteous. ‘We should not gaze upon them.’

‘Know your enemy, brother,’ Andrei replied, gazing up into the nearest statue’s eye. ‘Knowledge is the sharpest knife.’

‘But it cuts both ways,’ Uzoma warned. ‘This place is not meant for us.’

‘You’re wrong.’ Andrei glided a hand over the pillar, not quite touching its surface. The translucent material shimmered beneath his palm, tracking his movements. ‘I think we are exactly where we’re meant to be.’

‘I cannot walk this path with you, my brothers,’ Uzoma said. ‘I will wait for you at the forest’s edge. Until dawn.’ He turned and walked away. To Darioc’s surprise, Andrei didn’t try to stop him.

‘Perhaps Brother Uzoma speaks wisely,’ Oswald ventured. ‘If we–’

‘He is wrong!’ Andrei snapped, swinging round to face them. ‘Don’t you feel it? The evil here won’t let us leave. We have to go through it. There’s no other way.’ Then he grinned, his eyes sparkling. ‘Besides, a life lived in fear is only a slow death.’ He raised a fist towards the fading sun. ‘Which of you will live beside me, brothers?’

Oswald and Tibor glanced at each other then lowered their eyes. The silence stretched.

‘I’ll stand by you,’ Darioc said quietly. It wasn’t loyalty that moved him. He sensed Andrei was right. The temple wouldn’t let them go.

‘And I.’ Oswald touched the aquila pinned to his lapel. ‘In the God-Emperor’s name.’

‘Aye,’ Tibor conceded.

‘Well said, brothers!’ Andrei turned to face the temple. ‘Let us rise on wings of fire!’

Darioc shuddered as he passed between the unholy statues, keeping his gaze on the door ahead. It was forged from a smooth white metal that jarred with the temple’s low-tech architecture. A spiral rune lit up at its centre when Andrei neared it. There were no obvious handles or access plates, so he traced the symbol with a finger. With a sonorous chime the door slid aside and light spilled from within, dazzling in its polychromatic brilliance.

That was too easy, Darioc judged, shielding his eyes from the glare.

‘This is destiny, brothers,’ Andrei proclaimed. ‘Our fated path!’ Before the others could protest, he strode into the light. It swallowed him more completely than darkness ever could.

It’s the only way, Darioc told himself, stepping forward. The only–

As he crossed the threshold the old world was ripped away, along with the cords of sense and sanity that bound it. His soul shrieked in visceral outrage at the loss, its anguish far outstripping the pain that wracked his body. It felt like he was being torn out of himself.

The torment lasted forever in a heartbeat.

‘A warp portal,’ Varzival whispered, shivering as the boy’s terror – his terror – seeped through him. ‘A gateway at the Reverie’s heart.’

Not at its heart, he corrected himself. It is the heart.

‘A rift between worlds.’

The immaterium seeps through it, bleeding corruption, as an untended wound will bleed pus once pure blood runs dry.

‘But it was contained. Locked within the valley.’

Was it?

‘Yes. Until Glass betrayed us.’

Uzoma.

‘What?’

Your friendship with him was buried, but you’ve always known the name.

Yes, that was true. Uzoma Nuzhdin, the Aspirant who completed his crossing nine years after his ordeal began. He had emerged haggard and harrowed, yet scarcely older than the day he entered the valley. It wasn’t the longest crossing in the Chapter’s annals – Exemplar Concordant Murakami’s eighty-two-year odyssey dwarfed it – but it was among them. Against all odds, the boy had been judged pure of heart. He was a minor Chapter legend.

And his risen name? the voice prompted.

‘Idryss Glass.’ Varzival shook his head, struggling to accept the coincidence. ‘I knew him… before.’

Everything of consequence is connected.

He felt the thread to his buried memories fraying, strained to breaking point by his absence.

Go deeper, before you lose the way.

‘Who are you?’ Varzival asked, suddenly doubting the inner voice was his own.

Deeper.

‘Satori? Is that you?’

Deeper…

Darioc staggered back into himself. Recoiling from the shock of being, he fell to his knees and retched. Somewhere behind him Tibor was whimpering while Oswald mumbled a fevered prayer. Andrei was a few paces ahead, swaying but somehow still on his feet.

We’re lost, Darioc thought numbly, trying to make sense of his new world. Lost beyond all hope of finding.

He was on a narrow aisle that extended towards infinity, its surface chequered with mirror-smooth blue and pink tiles. Parallel rivers of liquid crystal bordered the pathway, undulating restively, but never splashing beyond their banks. Countless splintered pews and prayer books hung in the air above the streams, rotating languidly as they bobbed about. Arcs of energy crackled between them, sparking whenever pieces touched and thrusting them apart like opposing magnets. The discharges made Darioc’s skin crawl, as though it yearned to peel away from his flesh and go its own way.

Walls of burnished silver rose beyond the rivers, ascending thousands of feet to frame a black void woven with glassy strands. Glittering shapes flitted through the web in jagged, erratic arcs that never quite intersected. They were too far away to make out clearly, but their electronic keening rippled through the endless hall, melding with the harmonic tones suffusing it. The ambience was too abstract to be called a melody, yet an elusive rhythm pulsed through it, keeping broken time with something unfathomable.

As if noticing the intruders, the music leapt to a sudden, frenzied crescendo. The temple shivered in concord. Then changed.

In an eye-blink the rivers and crystal-laced sky were gone, replaced by a gloomy hall whose dimensions matched the building’s exterior. The coloured tiles and silver walls had become dark granite, overlooked by a vaulted ceiling. It was the temple’s nave as it should be, but it wasn’t free of the taint. The silver infestation was everywhere, running through stone, wood and metal with equal virulence, but consuming nothing. The aisle, now bordered by overturned pews, ended at the steps of a raised chancel littered with hunks of broken stone. Polychromatic light streamed through the rubble, emitted by something unseen. The music lingered in this new incarnation, mirroring the swirling lights, though it was impossible to tell which led and which followed in the dance.

Darioc rose cautiously, fearing the temple might change again, perhaps plunging him into something even stranger. Which of the two was real and which the illusion? Could they both be real? Both illusory? Andrei glanced back at his friends. His face wore the same questions, but asked with excitement rather than dread. Before Darioc could say anything, his friend turned and walked up the aisle, his hands brushing the pews, perhaps testing their solidity.

Is the doorway still here? Darioc wondered, but when he tried to look, his eyes wouldn’t leave the aurora ahead. And why would they? Why look elsewhere when nothing could possibly match its mystery? When his legs carried him towards that needful light he offered no resistance, sensing it would be futile. A primal part of him understood that this was all inevitable. Everything that was about to happen was already history. He had walked this way before, hence must do so again and forever after. He was only a shadow dreaming in a sea of them, drowned without a hope of waking.

No, a stranger whispered, speaking from somewhere deep down. I won’t accept that.

‘Who are you?’ Darioc murmured, but there was no reply so he dismissed the voice and kept walking. It would be easier that way. Andrei was already climbing the steps to the chancel, his form silhouetted against the radiance.

As Darioc drew nearer, he realised the rubble had been an altar. Something had shattered it and arranged the broken stones in a large circle. Every chunk was etched with an elaborate rune that shone with the silvery filaments. The symbols were unfamiliar, yet promised so much, if only he sacrificed a little time to master them. Time and something more…

Don’t, the buried voice cautioned, rising again. Don’t look at them.

Darioc hesitated, but it wasn’t the warning that deterred him. It was the skulls. There were nine of them, sitting on the stones at equidistant intervals, all facing inwards. They looked human, but were formed from crystal, which was why he hadn’t recognised them earlier. His eyes flitted over the circle, finding more crystallised bones wedged between its stones, like unholy conductors. How many people had died and been transmuted to complete this abomination?

‘Sorcery,’ he said, surprised the notion still shocked him after all he’d seen. His disgust was enough to loosen the light’s grip. He halted, throwing up a hand to shield his eyes while he tried to think. ‘Sorcery,’ he repeated, louder this time, to reinforce his resolve.

‘Yes, brother,’ Andrei answered. ‘I think you’re right.’

Through his fingers, Darioc saw his friend standing beside the circle, staring at something within. The boy beckoned urgently, but his gaze didn’t leave the circle. ‘You have to see this, brother!’

Reluctantly Darioc climbed the steps, fearing some new horror. Instead he found a wonder. An armoured giant lay within the ring, his arms folded across his breastplate, a plumed helmet resting beside his head. His face had turned to crystal, preserving his noble features in perpetuity. A dagger was buried in his right eye socket, but his expression was serene, as though his grace elevated him beyond violence or death. His armour was exquisitely crafted, yet its workmanship paled beside its phantasmal sheen. Every plate shimmered with rainbow hues and other, stranger colours that defied categorisation. This was unmistakably the source of the siren lights.

‘A fallen champion,’ Oswald said with awe.

Darioc hadn’t noticed the others following him. They seemed inconsequential now, like supporting players from an insipid play. Andrei had been right to lead him here. This wonder was worth any risk. Besides, something so magnificent couldn’t be evil.

You understand nothing, the stranger within admonished, seeing the miracle through his eyes. That which shines is not always resplendent.

The passenger’s thoughts were drenched in sadness and shame – and something else… Longing? Yes, it coveted this mystery.

You are mistaken, boy.

Darioc shook his head, trying to dislodge the presence. Its emotions were cloying in their intimacy. Overpowering. Soon he wouldn’t be able to tell them from his own.

I’m not your enemy, the stranger urged, tasting his fear.

‘What must we do?’ Oswald asked their leader. He sounded close to tears.

Andrei didn’t answer. Looking up, Darioc was surprised by the expression on his friend’s face. Doubt.

‘Guide us, brother,’ Oswald begged.

‘I… I need to think,’ Andrei said, staring at the dead Space Marine as if it offered answers.

We have seen enough, the intruder urged. You must leave this place. It–

‘It’s a test,’ Darioc said, defying his shadow. ‘A test of our honour.’

No, it’s a trap!

‘This warrior was murdered.’ Darioc indicated the radiant giant. ‘Desecrated. We must redeem him.’

‘Redeem him,’ Oswald echoed. ‘How, brother?’

You cannot. The taint runs too deep. Look!

Compelled by the stranger’s will, Darioc’s attention flicked back to the corpse. For a moment he glimpsed something ravenous staring back from behind the lights. Something eternal, eager and endlessly–

No! It was a trick. The intruder was twisting what he saw – blinding him to the truth. Darioc closed his eyes, willing the abomination away.

‘Our brother is right,’ Andrei declared, recovering his poise. ‘This is a hero’s grave. He was slain by sorcery. We must break its hold over him.’

‘Release his soul?’ Oswald suggested.

‘Aye,’ Andrei agreed. ‘Brother Darioc, your wisdom has revealed our path once again. I’d wager you’re fated to be an Architect someday, my friend.’

For once the compliment sounded sincere. Darioc took strength from it. When he opened his eyes the shadow behind the lights was gone, leaving only splendour. By the Arc, he wouldn’t let the stranger deceive him again. Maybe it was a lost soul condemned to haunt the temple. Or perhaps a daemon…

I am no daemon, boy. I am–

‘Be silent!’ Darioc hissed. Suddenly he knew what to do. He’d known the moment he saw the corpse, though he hadn’t understood at first. Now he had to act before the daemon overwhelmed him. Possessed him. Enraged by the thought, he grasped the dagger jutting from the warrior’s eye socket. The hilt was carved from bone. Its spiralling texture felt good in his hand, like it belonged to him. Andrei was right. They were meant to be here.

Wait!

Darioc glanced at his friend.

‘Do it, brother!’ Andrei urged.

Don’t!

Darioc yanked the dagger free.

‘Don’t!’ Varzival yelled, trying to restrain the boy he’d been. ‘It’s a–’

A thunderous chord struck him like a sledgehammer, hurling him out of the memory and halfway across the plaza. He scarcely felt the impact when he hit the ground. The quake raging through his skull drowned out everything else. Fractured memories were grinding against each other like tectonic plates, threatening to sunder his mind. He cried out as his spasm-wracked limbs battered the ground, then again as his back arched to snapping point.

‘Wings… rise… burning on… wings,’ Varzival choked through gritted teeth, fighting to order his thoughts. ‘We… rise… winged…’ It was like trying to thread a needle while wearing gauntlets, but the process focused him, steadily subduing the mind-storm. ‘We rise… on burning… wings,’ Varzival finally gasped.

Afterwards he lay still, waiting for the seizure to pass.

I went too far, he confessed. The mortal memories he’d dredged up weren’t meant to be disturbed. Embracing them compromised his Ascension – his purity. He’d felt fear, but that was only part of the sin. His trespass ran far deeper.

I was there. It was more than a memory. He had actually travelled back into himself – then through himself into the past. Perhaps even changed things…

‘No… not possible.’ Saying it aloud lent the words weight, but not nearly enough. ‘The past is set in stone.’

But stones can be broken, he thought, remembering the altar. And desecrated…

The sun was setting when Varzival finally found the strength to rise. His trance and subsequent seizure had consumed the best part of a day, yet he hadn’t reached the end of his journey. The mystery still beckoned. Who was the magnificent warrior at the Reverie’s heart?

‘I’m not meant to know,’ he whispered, his gaze wandering to the statue presiding over the plaza. The First Magister’s silver cowl was filled with darkness.

I have to know.

What happened after the boy pulled the dagger free?

The dagger…

On impulse Varzival reached for the weapon hanging from his belt. His fingers expected the familiar leather hilt of his combat knife. He hesitated when they found carved bone, then drew the weapon and stared at its slender silver blade.

An intruder… A faithful friend… A deceiver… An avenger… Another lie… Mine…

His eyes filled with blood as the contradictory facts clashed, splitting and splicing his memories into opposing certainties, warring to secure a new consensus that–

His vox-jewel chimed. ‘Czervantes,’ he answered vacantly.

‘There has been an incident at the mortifactorum,’ a cultured voice said.

‘Satori?’

‘I will meet you there. Be swift.’ The vox fell silent.

Varzival sheathed his dagger, wondering why he’d drawn it. The weapon was his most trusted companion, yet for a moment he hadn’t recognised it. It had felt almost alien.

Dreams Like Dust in the Wind

‘Am I outside?’ the traveller demanded again, sitting up.

‘Calm yourself, friend,’ the white-haired medicae leaning over his bed urged, trying to restrain him. ‘You are still very weak.’

‘Tell me!’

‘Yes,’ the woman beside the medicae answered. ‘Yes, you are outside.’

The traveller fell back onto his pillow, sighing as the answer sank in. Yes, she’d said. But could it really be true? Was this magnificent, improbably warm room real or just another chimera? There had been so many false awakenings. So very many…

‘You are perfectly safe,’ the woman assured him. Like her companion, she was in her autumn years, though time hadn’t eroded her fine features. Her face was drawn and there were dark rings under her eyes, emphasising her pallor, but he could tell she’d been beautiful once. When he’d first awoken she had been frightened – terrified even – though he couldn’t understand why. Perhaps he’d imagined that too. It was so difficult to tell any more.

‘Do you remember your name?’ the woman prompted gently.

‘Tarsem… Olba.’ Olba? It was the first name that sprang to mind – the one Euryale had gifted him. It felt more significant than his given one.

‘We are glad to make your acquaintance, Seigneur Olba,’ the old man said, patting his shoulder. ‘I am Qanzo and this good lady here is Marisol.’

‘Where…?’ Tarsem coughed as his throat dried up, leaving the question hanging.

‘Kanvolis, the Shining City.’ Qanzo beamed, passing him a tumbler of water. ‘You are under the protection of the Angels Resplendent, my friend.’

I crossed the valley, Tarsem thought blearily as he drank. The water had a citrus tang that sparkled on his tongue, too sharp to be an illusion. And beyond wonderful!

‘Slowly, my friend,’ Qanzo cautioned as Tarsem gulped the liquid.

I did it… the traveller thought, fearfully at first, as though believing it might dispel this beautiful place, then with growing conviction. I crossed it. Conquered it! I told you I wasn’t too old, Euryale.

‘Satori,’ he asked. ‘Where’s Satori?’

‘I am sorry,’ the medicae replied. ‘You were brought to me alone.’

‘By who?’

‘I…’ Qanzo frowned.

‘It was Satori,’ Tarsem said, nodding to himself. ‘We were travelling together… when…’ He fell silent as something else occurred to him. ‘What year is this?’

Qanzo hesitated, but Marisol answered, clearly sensing the question’s importance. ‘By Imperial standard measures the year is M40.386.’

Tarsem stared at her.

M40.386? No, that couldn’t be right. He had lost all sense of time in the Reverie, but it couldn’t have stolen more than a year. Could it…?

Of course it could, he admitted. And has.

‘Seigneur?’ Qanzo asked from somewhere too far away to matter. ‘Are you unwell?’

Tarsem closed his eyes as a soul-deep weariness swept over him. It felt like he was falling, not through space, but time – plummeting back into the void that almost swallowed him in the tainted watchtower. The tumbler slipped from his grip, spilling water across his chest, but he barely felt it.

I’m a ghost.

Something was pressed into his hand. His aquila. He didn’t know whether it was the man or the woman who offered it, but he clung to the wooden symbol fiercely, like a lifeline across the lost decades.

Forty-one years…

Marisol had hoped to spend the evening with Qanzo, but he was summoned to attend an emergency so she was obliged to return to her quarters alone. The journey through the chateau’s winding corridors was harrowing. She imagined Lysbeth’s shade lurking around every corner, eager to begin the feast it had been denied, its jaws dislocated and gaping.

‘It wasn’t Lysbeth,’ the Muse told herself. She had lived long enough to know the worlds were riddled with inexplicable things, many of them dreadful, but the dead were gone. Done with the living. Break that certainty and nothing could be trusted.

But I saw her…

‘I saw something,’ she corrected herself. There had to be another explanation. Maybe one of the Ghouls had spiked her food last night – one of their vaunted special concoctions perhaps… Marisol shook her head, dismissing the possibility. She hadn’t experienced any other symptoms or deliriums. It was inconceivable that a narcotic could be so specific in its effects. Besides, she hadn’t imagined the exploding censer or the cut it left in her cheek.

‘There will be a scar,’ Qanzo had warned after cleaning the wound. ‘It will require surgery to erase.’

The medicae had accepted her account of the injury without question, even promised to report the censer’s malfunction to the chateau’s enginseers, but she’d seen the doubt in his eyes. Qanzo wasn’t a fool. He knew there was more to it.

I should have told him.

‘Told him what?’ Marisol muttered. ‘That I saw a ghost?’

Her friend would think her delusional or worse yet, believe her. He was a man of faith, more inclined to accept the uncanny than she. And if he believed it then he might make her believe it too, which was the last thing she wanted. No, she’d been wise to–

A pale figure loomed in an alcove to her right. Stifling a cry, Marisol froze then released her breath slowly, feeling foolish. It was only a sculpture – a faceless, elongated abstraction of a woman balanced on needlepoint feet, her spindly limbs spiralling about her as if she’d been caught amidst a wild dance. Membranous wings stretched between her arms and torso, carved so delicately their marble was translucent.

Marisol hadn’t seen the statue before, but that meant nothing in this sprawling labyrinth. It would take months to uncover all the chateau’s treasures. She leaned forward to read the inscription on its plinth.

– SOULWIND –
A Study in Transcendence
Yukio Klaus Caravaggio

Marisol glared at the statue, as though she was confronting its creator. She had never met the man himself, but she’d lived under his shadow for years. Her patron measured himself against his predecessor compulsively, aspiring to standards she doubted Caravaggio had ever exemplified. Perhaps it was unreasonable, but she attributed the rift between Varzival and herself to that obsession. Nothing was more corrosive to trust than secrecy, and Yukio Caravaggio was secrecy embodied.

‘You weren’t what you pretended to be,’ Marisol accused the statue. And yet, despite her hostility, she couldn’t help admiring the piece. It was eerie, but also euphoric. It soared. She could almost hear the music it was dancing to. Her fingers twitched, eager to touch the marble and tap out the rhythm they’d uncovered when she arrived on Malpertuis.

Marisol turned away, denying the impulse. She would have to look into Caravaggio’s other works. They might give her some insight into her patron’s brooding, but right now she needed to sleep.

As she pressed on, her thoughts drifted back to Tarsem. It was fortunate the exploding censer had roused the sleeper, obliging her to focus on practical matters, but his awakening had provoked new questions. His shock at the date had been particularly intriguing. It wasn’t the reaction of a man missing a few weeks or months.

‘How long, Tarsem?’ Marisol wondered aloud. ‘How many years did you lose?’

The Ghouls had regaled her with tales of the land south of Kanvolis, where the Resplendent tested their recruits. Their stories of this ‘Borderland’ had been lurid and fanciful, with more holes than substance, but the elasticity of time had featured heavily. Could that account for Olba’s distress? Had he crossed that twilight territory? And what was the name he’d mentioned…?

‘Sah-torry,’ she enunciated, testing the name with a poet’s sensibilities. It was simple yet elegant, with an air of mystery to it. She would ask Olba about it tomorrow. Despite her fear there was no question of staying away. She would go mad if she tried to hide from Lysbeth’s shade – or worse yet, stopped asking questions.

‘The only way out is forward,’ she murmured, unsure where the intuition came from.

To her relief the next stairwell led onto the Muses’ wing. She lowered her eyes as she crossed the recreation chamber, avoiding the garish elders lounging about. Her younger colleagues rarely frequented the place, especially after Lysbeth’s death, but the Ghouls weren’t so squeamish. Indeed, some of them positively delighted in the scandal. Hamartia had even joked that the girl’s coffin would make a fine cocktail table.

Everything is a joke to them, Marisol judged, but they’ve forgotten how to laugh.

It was probably worth quizzing the Ghouls about the Borderland more thoroughly, but she couldn’t face them now. Her exhaustion had deepened as she neared her sanctuary. When had she grown so damnably old?

With a sigh she slipped into the corridor leading to her apartment, but her relief soured when she saw Armando slouched beside her door, empty bottles scattered around him like discarded friends.

‘Mari!’ he drawled, staggering to his feet. ‘It’s good to see you!’

Under other circumstances she would have challenged his presumption – nobody called her Mari! – but she didn’t have the energy for a clash.

‘I am tired, Armando,’ she said, stepping past him.

‘As am I, but we need to talk.’ His voice was slurred and his eyes bloodshot.

‘Perhaps tomorrow.’ She reached for her door’s sensor.

‘Now,’ he hissed, catching her wrist. ‘I require your counsel, my sweet sage.’

Marisol stiffened, restraining the impulse to strike him – fearful he might strike back. It wasn’t beyond him, especially in this state.

‘The matter is urgent.’ Armando leant in closer, tightening his grip. His breath stank of sour wine and lho-sticks. ‘Please indulge me.’

Marisol considered calling out for help, but decided against it. It would provide fodder for unsavoury speculation among the Ghouls. No, far better to humour this idiot with a sympathetic ear and send him on his way.

‘As you wish,’ she said, offering a pinched smile.

‘You’re a saint!’ Armando released her, but remained close, as though suspecting a trick. He had always been impudent, but now there was a dangerous edge to it.

He’s afraid, Marisol realised. Even more than I am.

The rogue followed her into the apartment and headed straight for the drinks cabinet. His clothes were dishevelled and stained. When had he last changed? Or washed for that matter?

‘I’ve been hearing her,’ he declared, grabbing a decanter of Moonstone liqueur. ‘For days now.’

‘Her?’

‘Lysbeth.’ He swigged from the bottle. ‘At first it was only at night, then whenever I was alone.’ He grinned, but his eyes were haunted. Hunted. ‘Now I’m never alone.’

‘You’ve seen her?’

‘You believe me?’ Armando looked surprised.

‘I do. Have you seen her?’ Marisol pressed.

‘No… It’s just a voice. And a feeling.’

‘Is she here now?’

He shook his head. ‘She’s scared of you. Always was. Did you know that?’

No, Marisol thought, surprised. I didn’t.

‘You can be a stern old witch, Mari.’ Armando sniggered. ‘The others don’t see you the way I do.’

A witch. Marisol stiffened. On many worlds the accusation would be enough to condemn her to a purification pyre, even if it was said in jest.

‘Lysbeth was bloody terrified of you,’ Armando rambled on. ‘I guess some things don’t change when you jump the grave!’ His next attempt at a swig missed and he drenched himself. He giggled and tried again, with more success. His affected mannerisms were gone, along with his refined accent. Marisol sensed it wasn’t just intoxication. He couldn’t be bothered to pretend any more. Suddenly it struck her how little she knew about him – or any of her peers for that matter. They had never been important to her.

They still aren’t, she admitted, rapping her fingernails on the table beside her. They’re all just dust in the wind.

‘What does Lysbeth want, Armando?’

‘You tell me!’ he spat. ‘She’s snakebite crazy.’ He shivered, almost dropping the bottle. ‘Whatever hold you’ve got on her, use it. I want her gone!’

‘Perhaps she feels the same way, Armando.’

‘I don’t follow you.’

‘Perhaps she wants you gone too.’

‘Is that what you want, Mari?’ Armando sauntered towards her. ‘Do you want me gone?’

Yes, Marisol decided. It’s what you deserve.

Her fear of him had turned to contempt. He was nothing beside the phantom stalking them. In fact he was nothing at all. Her fingers were drumming faster now. The rhythm was getting stronger by the day – spiralling towards its consummation. The final iteration would be bracing.

Liberating!

‘I’m talking to you, witch!’ Armando snarled. His pupils were dilated, his handsome face sheened with sweat. ‘I asked you–’

‘Yes,’ Marisol said. ‘I’ll help you.’ She indicated the bottle in his hand. ‘May I?’

‘Eh?’

She grimaced as flecks of spittle hit her. ‘I shall require it,’ she prompted. ‘To free you.’

He stared at her blankly, then his face lit up. ‘An offering… A witch thing?’

‘Yes, a witch thing.’

‘Do it!’ With a sickly grin he handed the decanter over. ‘Send that bitch to the hells and maybe I’ll show–’

Marisol swung the bottle, bringing it down on his head. He stared at her dully as blood trickled from his scalp, steaming in the frigid air. When had the room turned so cold?

Lysbeth is here, Marisol realised. She’s watching.

Armando spoke again, picking up where he’d left off, like a stuck recording: ‘Maybe I’ll show you a–’

Marisol hit him again, so hard the bottle shattered. He sagged to his knees, but the glass shards hung in the air, spinning about in a shapeless swirl of alcohol. The liquid nebula shimmered as it rippled, casting dancing lights across her face. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. And it was singing her song – not just the rhythm, but the melody too, richer and more intricate than she’d imagined possible.

As within, so without!

Adding her voice to the twirling arpeggios, Marisol reached out to touch the nebula with her left hand. Her fingers tingled as the liquid coiled around them, brushing her skin and drawing glass fragments in its wake. The shards whirled into orbit around her digits, following their lead when she flexed them. When she withdrew her hand, the corona followed like a phantasmal second skin. She sighed when she saw the flesh within had become smooth and translucent, like living crystal.

As I touch the infinite, so I am touched in turn, she reflected, studying her hand. Silver filaments veined it, pulsing with indigo light. The blessing extended halfway up her wrist, where it melded into the hateful, age-withered flesh of her old life. She longed to extend the magic’s revitalising margins. To bathe in it…

Armando moaned. Looking down, Marisol saw he was staring at the nebula in slack-jawed rapture. White bone showed through the red gash in his scalp. Blood drooled from his mouth and nostrils, but he didn’t appear to be in pain. A sinuous scarlet-haired shadow was entwined about him, tenderly ravenous in its affections. Its long fingers stroked his face as a tentacular tongue lapped at his wound, but its eyes were fixed on Marisol. The last time she had gazed into those crimson pits she’d found rage. Now there was reverence.

‘It hears your song,’ a voice proclaimed, oozing from her apartment’s speaker grille.

I’m sorry, Marisol replied silently. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you, Lysbeth.

‘No matter… I am risen…’

There was an inchoate gibbering from the floor. Armando was raising a hand towards the light, covetous to the last. The nebula’s whirling glass shards flensed his fingers to the bone then shredded the skeletal digits. Undaunted, he kept reaching until his arm was chewed away to the elbow. As his liquidised flesh and bones were sucked into the light Marisol felt a thrill of vigour course through her veins.

‘Arise or fall!’ Lysbeth crooned, cradling her former lover as he shuddered. Groaning, he tried to press himself further into the light, but his strength failed him. Taking pity on the dying man, Marisol reached down with her gift and unravelled the rest of him in a kaleidoscopic crimson spray.

‘Arise!’ she sang as her blood burned bright with his.

A Song of Charnel Circles

The stench of promethium and scorched meat greeted Varzival when he entered the corridor leading to the mortifactorum. The chamber’s door was open, revealing smoky darkness beyond the threshold. A Vigilant custodian stood beside it, his bolter held across his chest. Borges was slumped against the wall nearby, his eyes closed and his breathing shallow.

‘Brother?’ Varzival said, kneeling beside the Apothecary. ‘Borges?’

‘He cannot hear you,’ a familiar voice answered. ‘He has triggered his Somnium state. It will be some time before he awakens.’

‘Why would he do such a thing?’ Varzival asked, turning to face the speaker.

‘To save himself, I imagine,’ Satori said. He stood in the doorway, holding a glowing lumen brand. ‘It was a clever move.’

‘How so?’

‘Our quarry is insidious, Czervantes. Few can withstand its presence for long. It turns the mind upon itself. The Apothecary shut his thoughts down before they destroyed him.’

‘Our quarry?’ Varzival said, rising. ‘Do you mean Glass?’

‘No, the former Castellan’s part in this is over.’ Satori’s expression clouded, his focus shifting elsewhere. ‘Though not his journey, I suspect.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Long gone. He opened the way, then passed through.’

‘And where did you go, Satori?’ Varzival demanded, trying to rein in his anger. ‘After you sent us into his trap.’

‘Other matters required my attention. Our foe is a many-headed beast, brother.’

‘We are not brothers. Brotherhood must be earned. Like trust.’

‘And you earned mine by escaping the trap, Czervantes.’ Satori offered a thin smile. ‘You will have your answers, such as they are.’ Raising his lumen brand, he stepped back into the mortuary. ‘Come! They begin here.’

The smell was worse inside, saturating the smog and radiating from every surface. The whole chamber had been immolated. Its main lights were gone, but the hazy emergency strips running through the floor hinted at the thoroughness of the cleansing. Everything was scorched black and dusted with ashes. The honeycomb of wall niches gaped open, drooling the slag of dissolved hatches. Melted equipment encrusted the examination slabs in spiky lumps, like bizarre parasitic growths. A skeleton was huddled by the doorway, its carbonised bones fused with metal and circuitry.

A serviteur, Varzival gauged, prodding it with his boot. ‘What happened here?’

‘Borges purged the chamber.’

‘Why?’

‘It is best you see for yourself.’ Satori indicated a pair of bright lights in the gloom ahead. ‘This way.’

As they crossed the cavernous mortuary Varzival saw more of the augmented skeletons scattered about, all charred and contorted in death. Something crunched underfoot – a soot-stained mask, its expression sorrowful.

‘Why did you burn them, Apothecary?’ he murmured.

A massive figure resolved out of the murk. The lights were attached to the pauldrons of its silver-trimmed Terminator armour. A multi-melta was affixed to its right arm, underslung to balance its bulk. Such weapons could burn through tanks. To see one wielded within Kanvolis was an affront to decency.

‘Hail, Castellan,’ Edvard Haskin said, his eyes glinting from his armour’s cowl.

‘Arc Captain,’ Varzival acknowledged with a raised eyebrow. ‘I see you have come prepared.’

‘Aye,’ the officer growled, missing the other’s sarcasm.

‘I requested the weapon,’ Satori said. ‘We shall have need of it.’ He pointed his brand at the ground, illuminating a wide strip of ash and bone. The band arced away into the murk on either side, hinting at a circle. Varzival estimated its diameter must be at least twenty feet, assuming it was unbroken. Fragments of ceramite were scattered among its components, along with pieces of a much larger skeleton. An Arc Brother had died here.

‘It wasn’t the fire that killed them,’ Haskin said. ‘Something tore them apart before they were burned. And then there is this…’ With a hiss of servos he spun at the waist, casting his lights onto a malformed mass huddled at the circle’s centre. It was much bigger than the other remains, yet had somehow escaped the worst of the fire. As the lights played over it Varzival saw its flesh had melted like hot wax, congealing around a gaping maw of spiny teeth. It took him several seconds to recognise the ‘teeth’ as snapped ribs.

A torso, he realised with disgust. Human.

‘It should have been incinerated, like the rest,’ Haskin said, striding over to the mass.

‘Was this some kind of ritual?’ Varzival asked Satori, his revulsion giving way to disquiet. This charnel ring echoed the circle he’d found in the desecrated temple.

‘In a manner of speaking,’ the Paladin answered.

‘The only manner I care for is plain. You promised me answers.’

‘Yes, I did.’ Pointing at the torso with his brand, Satori addressed Haskin. ‘Burn it.’

‘It is already dead,’ Haskin growled.

‘Oblige me, Arc Captain.’

‘By your command.’

As Haskin aimed his weapon, Satori raised a cautioning hand. ‘Not so close.’

With a scowl, Haskin stepped away from the carcass and fired. His weapon emitted twin beams of incandescent light that lit up the chamber, flipping everything into a black-and-white negative of itself. The torso disappeared in a whoosh of riven molecules, consumed by a heat far more intense than the mortuary’s flames. With a fanfare of tortured notes, a swirl of many-coloured lights erupted from the blast zone and spiralled outwards like a nebula. Bathed in that strange radiance the chamber was transformed into a kaleidoscopic vision of desolation that was almost beautiful. The lights dissipated quickly, but the death chords lingered, echoing back and forth as though seeking an escape. Varzival noticed Satori mouthing a word. He couldn’t be sure through the clamour, but it looked like ‘six’.

‘Is it dead now?’ Haskin asked when the music fell silent. For a moment Varzival thought the officer had attempted a joke, but the captain’s stony expression belied it. Humour didn’t fall within Edvard Haskin’s limited social repertoire.

‘As you said, Arc Captain, it was already dead,’ Satori answered. ‘But the taint lingered in the cadaver.’

‘It was possessed,’ Varzival judged, thinking of Caravaggio.

‘Empowered,’ Satori corrected, ‘but our enemy abandoned this companion some time ago. Only the pattern of corruption remained, woven into every fibre of his body.’ Satori approached the steaming puddle left by the blast. ‘Once the corruption takes root in a receptive mind the body follows, sometimes by almost imperceptible increments, sometimes in a torrent of mutation. The songs may differ, but their climax is always the same.’ He prodded the slime with his lumen brand. ‘To silence them the pattern itself must be destroyed.’

‘Devastator weapons are required,’ Haskin affirmed, rapping his multi-melta.

‘They will suffice if the apotheosis is incomplete. Otherwise matters become more onerous.’ There was a wet slurp as Satori tugged his brand free of the puddle. ‘Your assistance has been invaluable, Arc Captain. Please see to it that Apothecary Borges is conveyed to the Chateau Eternal safely.’

‘Is the citadel under threat?’ Haskin demanded.

‘Very much so, but this is a matter for the Librarium and the Paladins Luminous.’

‘Security falls under the aegis of the Vigilant,’ Haskin protested.

‘As it fell to your commander?’ Satori suggested.

Haskin reddened with anger. ‘Are you questioning our loyalty?’

‘Not at all, but this conflict must be fought with precision. Rest assured, you will have a part to play. Now leave us.’

‘One moment, Arc Captain,’ Varzival said as the Terminator stomped past him.

‘Aye?’

‘The Castellan’s quarters…’ Varzival hesitated. The question he needed to ask was absurd, but he had to know. ‘How did I leave the room?’

Haskin frowned suspiciously. ‘You don’t remember?’

‘What do you remember?’ Varzival sharpened his tone with a hint of accusation. As Satori had demonstrated, warriors like Haskin only respected strength. ‘Answer my question.’

‘You walked out – you and the Apothecary – just minutes after you entered. I told you it was a waste of time.’

‘And?’ Varzival prompted.

‘And nothing,’ Haskin said. ‘You left the chateau.’

‘Thank you, Arc Captain.’ Varzival nodded, as though he’d expected the answer. It was clear Haskin hadn’t seen anything untoward in the room. It made no sense, but what did that really mean any more?

‘Am I dismissed, Castellan?’

‘You are, but I want that room sealed,’ Varzival ordered. ‘Pump rockcrete into the whole damned corridor. Bury it!’

‘It will be done.’ Haskin marched away.

‘You don’t remember leaving, do you?’ Satori observed. He was still beside the puddle, studying the slime oozing from his brand. ‘You looked into the Castellan’s mirror and found a pathway into yourself, so you followed it.’ He rose smoothly to face the knight. ‘Tell me, did your meditations at the Apex Solaris bring you illumination?’

‘Stay out of my head, Satori.’

‘I have no need to enter it. Your thoughts flutter about you like squawking ravens. It is fortunate we’re not enemies.’

‘Are we not?’ Varzival strode over to the Paladin. ‘You’ve been my shadow since I crossed the Reverie.’

‘Your dark pilgrim, whose road ends in ruin,’ Satori said dryly.

Varzival glared at the mystic. ‘I don’t remember how we met or what came of it, but I’ve never forgotten you.’

‘Therefore you believe me baleful.’

‘Do you deny it?’

‘No,’ Satori answered, holding the other’s gaze. ‘I cannot. The path I walk is paved with dark intentions, but they are not my own.’ He smiled, but his pale eyes remained empty. ‘I do not lead, brother. I follow. More precisely, I hunt.’

Varzival looked at the puddle. ‘Daemons?’

‘And those who invoke, embody or beget them, but also stranger aberrations than either. There are far worse things in the warp and web of worlds than you imagine, Varzival Czervantes.’

‘And what are you hunting here?’

‘A particularly primal and volatile entity – a blasphemy of the Librarium’s own making,’ Satori said quietly, ‘though our purpose was noble. We buried the transgression deep, wreathed in misinformation and myth. The passing centuries did the rest. None outside our coterie remember the folly.’

‘Its name?’ Varzival demanded. Even the most elusive foe became more comprehensible when named.

‘It has no name or form of its own – or even the capacity to understand such concepts, but we called it the Anima Torquentor.’

Varzival frowned. Somehow he’d felt sure the answer would be Aphelion. ‘You summoned this beast from the Reverie?’

‘No, we summoned the Reverie.’ Satori closed his eyes. And Varzival saw…

‘You are troubled, my friend,’ Xøren Castaneda says, turning his sightless white eyes on his disciple.

‘It is strange to be here,’ Satori admits, weighing up the temple across the village square. ‘I never expected to return.’

Save for a newly fitted rune-forged door of bright silver the building looks unchanged, though the surrounding buildings have slipped into decrepitude, eroded by decades of neglect. The whole valley has been shunned since the massacre, for the Chapter’s agents spread rumours that the region was haunted. Nor were the rumours untrue.

‘The memories of your mortal life torment you,’ Castaneda observes. ‘But you must bear them. I sensed that when I first looked into your mind, brother. It is not something to be tampered with.’

‘I understand.’ Despite his answer, Satori still harbours doubts about his exemption from the psych-conditioning rites. His pre-Ascension memories weigh heavily upon him, but his lingering emotions are the greater burden. Unlike his brethren, he can still feel the humanity he has transcended. Indeed, looking at that brooding, horror-haunted temple, he feels fear all too intimately. There is an expectant quality about the building, as though it is watching the intruders from the future, eager to be quickened into its new existence by their ministrations. No, it is not the past Satori fears, but what is yet to come.

The other seven members of Castaneda’s favoured cabal are already inside, making the final preparations for the Ritual of Severance. The process has taken months to perfect, for the slightest error invites catastrophe, yet it is the prospect of success that most disturbs Satori.

They have chosen the temple because it is the epicentre of a great atrocity. Such events weaken the veil between the materium and the warp, facilitating bridges across the realms of matter and mind, but this place is unusually ripe, as though it was destined for this offence against the natural order. Moreover, the valley’s isolation and relative proximity to Kanvolis make it perfect for the Chapter’s needs, but that very perfection is disquieting. It seems too convenient, almost as if the massacre itself was planned, though that notion is absurd. After all, its perpetrator was insane.

‘Speak your mind, my friend,’ Castaneda urges. ‘There can be no secrets between us.’

‘What if we are wrong?’ Satori asks, staring into his mentor’s dead eyes.

‘Then we will correct our error. But we are not wrong. I have seen the culmination of this enterprise in dreams – true dreams – and it will be magnificent.’

‘Even if the canvas we paint on is stained?’ Satori presses, recalling the corpses inside the temple. They have been there since the massacre, sealed in and left to fester where they fell, along with the monster that tore them apart. The fallen champion’s corpse has not decayed at all, which is a mystery in itself, but it is the other dead that haunt Satori’s dreams – those he led to the slaughter. He still remembers their names – Jaktens, Padraig, Agnieszka, Tivoli… All enslaved by his will, though he didn’t realise it at the time. Now a further degradation awaits their bones. And what of their souls? The warp does not feed on lives, but on the spirits that death casts into its maw. If the dead still linger here, will the impending ritual consign them to damnation?

‘This is sorcery, Magister,’ Satori says quietly.

‘That is merely a word, bloated into monstrousness by ignorance and superstition,’ Castaneda decrees. ‘Like every potent force, the warp may be turned towards creation or destruction. Good or ill. Recognising that is key to its mastery.’

The First Magister has often voiced such sentiments, but his deeply seamed face has never looked so animated. The air crackles around him, charged by his passion and the gathering potential of this night.

‘Trust me, my friend, the Resplendent will rise from their malaise, renewed and afire with inspiration!’ The elder’s expression darkens. ‘But if we hesitate, our star will flare briefly then die, like so many of our kindred Chapters. The dissolution may take decades, perhaps even centuries to run its course, but make no mistake, our end will come.’

There is no denying the logic of the prediction. Since Hanzo Gyguerre’s fall to the Black Rage its grip on the brotherhood has tightened. More battle-brothers have succumbed with every passing year, and the Resplendent have never been numerous or swift to induct neophytes. Unless the blood curse is alleviated their doom is inevitable.

‘I stand corrected, master.’ Satori bows his head, shamed by his temerity. Once again, his human emotions have clouded his reason.

‘Never hesitate to challenge me,’ Castaneda assures him. ‘I am not a saint or a star-fated messiah, whatever our brothers may believe.’

But you are, Satori thinks, with a mixture of reverence and unease. For you are the Arc Resplendent’s author and the architect of our future.

Castaneda’s disciples finally wrested control from the traditionalists eleven years ago, when Chapter Master Maughryss succumbed to the Black Rage. It was a peaceful insurgency, promising hope in defiance of their Chapter’s curse. With Castaneda inaugurated as the first ‘Chapter Magister’ the Reformation dawned, beginning with the repudiation of the Codex Astartes, which had clipped the brotherhood’s wings since its founding. The Chapter’s organisation and customs were overhauled from the ground up, elevating the pursuit of knowledge and artistry above all else. To mark its spiritual renaissance its orange colours were replaced with the azure blue of the Librarium and its warrior figurehead made way for a robed mystic. Wondrous feats were achieved in those first years and greater ones dreamt of, yet it hadn’t been enough to stem the curse. Something more was required. Something bolder.

And so they have come to this – an act of darkness to renew the light, a sacrifice that will kindle an enduring mystery at the Chapter’s heart. The enigma shall test future Aspirants more profoundly than ever before and inspire veterans to reach for the sublime.

‘I ask you to walk beside me once more, old friend,’ Castaneda says softly. ‘Not out of loyalty, but because you believe.’

‘I will always walk beside you, Magister,’ Satori vows. It is too late to do otherwise, if he ever had a choice at all.

‘Come then! Our brothers will require our guidance in completing the circle of disseverment.’

‘We rise on burning wings,’ Satori affirms with the brotherhood’s new credo. But the words burn cold.

Varzival stared at the Paladin, overwhelmed by his vision. Part of him wanted to dismiss it as an illusion – merely another of Satori’s games – but he couldn’t. His blood recognised the truth.

‘You walked beside the First Magister,’ he said, making no attempt to hide his awe.

‘Occasionally, but mostly I followed.’ Satori sighed. ‘Even when I doubted his course.’

Varzival turned away, trying to steady himself. He’d known the Paladin was old, but this… It was staggering. Above all, it was the immediacy of the experience that gripped him. The privilege.

I saw the First Magister. I heard his voice. Felt his power.

+And witnessed his hubris,+ Satori answered silently. +And my own, for letting it pass unchecked.+

But the Reverie makes us who we are. Elevates us.

+As it elevated your predecessor?+

‘You know about Caravaggio?’ Varzival snorted at his own naiveté. ‘Of course you do.’

‘His fall is never far from your thoughts,’ Satori confirmed. ‘But I saw his fate long ago. The seed of corruption was always in him, but the Reverie made its blossoming inevitable.’

‘Are you saying it was a mistake – the Mirrored Path, the Arc, the Reformation itself?’ Varzival shook his head. Much as he loathed the hungry vale, the possibility was repellent. ‘All a lie?’

‘Not all of it, but it isn’t a perfect truth either. Perfection cannot be built on cracked foundations. The flaws will endure and multiply, magnified with the passing of time. Neglect them long enough and the whole edifice will fall.’

‘You’re talking about the Reverie?’

‘I am talking about our world, Czervantes.’

The Heart of Brightness

It was long past nightfall when Varzival returned to the Apex Solaris, this time accompanied by Satori. Two of the planet’s moons were full, bathing the plaza in cold light. The First Magister’s statue loomed over the visitors like a monolithic wraith, its silver sheen almost too bright to gaze upon.

‘Why have you led me back here?’ Varzival asked warily.

‘To finish the journey you began, Knight Exemplar.’

‘Now? I am needed back at the Chateau Eternal.’ Shortly after they’d left the mortuary Varzival had received word of an incident in the kitchens. Apparently there had been many deaths of a disturbing nature.

‘Whatever happened there has run its course,’ Satori said. ‘I suspect it was another of our foe’s manifestations. There have been several over the past year, but their severity has escalated since your return.’

‘You think there’s a connection?’

‘I know it. It was you who broke the founding circle, Czervantes. You are bound to the consequences.’

‘I don’t…’ Varzival fell silent as understanding dawned. He drew his bone-hilted dagger. ‘You mean this.’

‘Yes, it was the lynchpin of the conjuring the Librarium wrought – the needle at the eye of the Reverie.’ Satori held out a hand. ‘May I?’

Varzival passed the weapon over.

‘This blade slew a great evil once. Doing so imbued it with significance.’ Satori raised the dagger. ‘And a quality of severance that cuts across worlds.’

Moonlight kissed the blade, then something more… An uncanny radiance seeped from its edge, as though it had sliced open the air itself and drawn etheric blood. Varzival watched with distaste, though little surprise. The weapon had served him faithfully since his Ascension, but he’d always sensed its strangeness. And yet he’d never been able to discard it.

‘A cursed blade,’ he said.

‘Cursed or blessed, as the perspective of the moment decrees.’ Satori ran a finger along the dagger’s edge, not quite touching it. Tongues of light followed the motion, flickering between metal and skin like electric current. ‘The truth cuts both ways. That is the nature of awoken artefacts.’ He flipped the dagger round and proffered it. ‘And awoken souls.’

Varzival stepped away. ‘You keep it. It befits a psyker better.’

‘I have already wielded it twice – first in vengeance, then in violation. Its next strike is yours to make, Exemplar.’

‘Is that a prophecy?’

‘If so, a blind one,’ Satori answered. ‘I cannot see who, when or why you will strike, only that you must.’

‘Not if I refuse the weapon.’

‘But you won’t, Czervantes. Now, as you have rightly observed, our time is short. You must descend into yourself again. Deeper than before.’

‘Why?’

‘So you understand.’ Amethyst fire flickered around the Paladin’s barren eyes. ‘And to prepare for all that must follow.’

Varzival shook his head. ‘I don’t know how.’

‘But you do.’ Satori offered the weapon again.

‘Do it, brother!’ another voice urged from somewhere within.

Reluctantly at first, then with sudden eagerness, Varzival reached for the dagger.

And he is a boy once more, standing in the desecrated temple alongside his fellow Aspirants. The four of them have played this stage and these pitiful parts countless times before – Darioc, Andrei, Oswald and Tibor – suspended above the same imminent abyss, fated to forget until it is too late to retreat.

Darioc gazes down at the dead giant lying at the heart of the sorcerous circle and glimpses a precipice. Hesitating, he looks up at his friend.

‘Do it, brother!’ Andrei urges yet again.

With bitter inevitability, Darioc grasps the dagger jutting from the corpse’s eye socket, then shivers, for it feels like the hilt has seized his hand and not the other way round.

I won’t do it, he decides.

And yanks.

The blade surges free in a geyser of light and sound, as though it has been damming a pressurised current. The Aspirants quail as the spray washes over them, suffusing the temple in a shimmering, chiming deluge. It ought to dazzle and deafen them, yet they see and hear everything with merciless clarity.

‘The Emperor condemns!’ Oswald wails, falling to his knees.

The temple shudders beneath the tempest, wavering between its material façade and the infinite hallway the trespassers glimpsed when they first entered. The unholy circle shifts irrevocably, assuming a more primal form across both realms. Now it has become a spherical lattice of stones and bones that spin about each other yet never quite collide. The slain giant floats at its centre, transmuted into a crystalline simulacrum of itself, its limbs extended to the whirling boundaries of its cage.

Darioc cannot tell whether the entity is dead or alive again, if such states even apply to it any more, but he feels its attention, as remote and implacable as the aeons. Its head is a many-faceted gem riven by a fracture that bleeds discordant light and varicoloured songs and scents that taste of things untouched and–

He reels as his senses recoil from the synaesthetic onslaught and–

His mind withers and blossoms in synchronous joyful torment and–

Everything is one and nothing at all in the same eternal instant.

‘It burns!’ Oswald shrieks, clawing at his eyes to staunch the blasphemy of sight. Tibor stands beside him, mesmerised by the sphere, his mouth agape as he moans from deep within his chest. But Andrei… Even now their leader faces the unknown with fervour, his eyes glittering and his arms raised, either in defiance or supplication.

With a final convulsion the cacophony subsides and the temple settles into its truest aspect, all traces of the mundane cast away.

‘Aphelion,’ Darioc murmurs, or is murmured through. ‘Aphelion.’ He doesn’t know the name, but it knows him and will never forget. ‘Aphelion.’ It is the right name – the truest name – for this revelation. ‘Aphelion.’

The temple has unfurled into a web of crystal fronds woven through a sable void more absolute than space. The strands extend around, above and below the Aspirants, offering countless narrow paths through the abyss. It is a labyrinth with no end, but not without a centre, for the sphere still spins at its core, more glorious and virulent than ever before – a pulsing, pounding, whirling nebula of spectral crystal, dancing to a rhythm that vibrates through the web.

‘It’s beautiful!’ Andrei proclaims, staring into the heart of bright darkness.

Darioc sees enough to know his friend is right, yet also terribly wrong. Yes, there is beauty there, but its embrace is annihilation. He averts his gaze before it binds him, then spins Andrei round and strikes him across the face.

‘Don’t look at it, brothers!’ he warns the others.

Still kneeling, Oswald turns towards his voice and answers with divine profanities. Blood streams from his ruined eyes, its crimson strands wafting towards the sphere, tugging him gently towards absolution. For Tibor the end is much swifter. His arms hanging by his sides, he walks into the core. Darioc fights the impulse to witness his comrade’s doom, for even a glimpse tempts the same fate. And yet the lure is so compelling and pure in its purpose, singing of such bittersweet wonders…

+This way!+ a silent voice calls, cutting through the siren song. Something invisible wrenches Darioc round to face one of the strands. A robed giant stands there, his face hidden within a cowl. Darkness flows from the tip of his raised staff, swathing his form in shadows.

+Quickly!+ the stranger urges.

Darioc glances at Oswald, but he is beyond saving. Crawling on his hands and knees, the sightless boy is almost within touching distance of the heart.

+Now or never, Aspirant!+

Andrei doesn’t resist when Darioc drags him towards the stranger. There is a flare of light behind them as Oswald is consumed.

‘Forgive me, brother,’ Darioc whispers. Knowing he could do nothing doesn’t diminish the guilt.

+Stay within my shadow,+ the giant commands as the surviving Aspirants reach him. The heart’s song wanes when they enter his gloomy aura. +Don’t look back.+

Turning, their saviour strides away, his staff held before him like a dark lantern. Though the crystal pathways are narrow and slippery-smooth, he walks swiftly, seemingly oblivious to the void on either side.

‘Keep moving!’ Darioc shouts at his friend as they follow, staying close to their guide. Mercifully Andrei doesn’t argue. His eyes are glazed and his face slack, yet he proves capable of walking unaided. Maybe their saviour has done something to his mind to make him compliant, for the giant is clearly a witch.

An Architect, Darioc corrects himself. Though the giant wears no armour or insignia he is surely one of the Resplendent – perhaps a warden tasked with monitoring the Aspirants. Has their party transgressed so far that this watcher was forced to intervene?

‘Thank you, master,’ he says.

+I am not your saviour, Darioc Graal.+

The boy isn’t surprised the stranger knows his name, nor by the answer. They have transgressed beyond forgiveness. Shame wells up inside him. He has failed the brotherhood.

‘I am sorry.’

+As am I, Aspirant. Now be silent or you will doom us.+

As if to punctuate the warning a voltaic screech vibrates through the web, rapidly followed by others. Darioc flinches as something soars through the air on his right – a glittering crystal disc, about three feet in diameter, spinning as it moves. Even dimmed by their guide’s nimbus, it looks shockingly bright. Within seconds the flyer is gone, passing through a snarl of fronds like a phantom, but more of the creatures have already appeared.

A much larger disc soars overhead, stirring the air in its wake. A third slices intangibly through the pathway ahead, tilted vertically like a wheel. Soon the strands are alive with electronic keening and the flyers are everywhere, flitting about from multiple angles.

They’re hunting us, Darioc realises. These creatures must be the guardians of the web, like crystal spiders, but they appear blind to the intruders’ dark aura, possibly even repelled by it, for none come close.

+Don’t look at them,+ the Architect warns. +Seeing can make you seen.+

Darioc obeys as best he can, trying to keep his eyes on the ground and tilting Andrei’s head to do the same.

The giant leads at a brusque march, occasionally pausing to divine their course when their path frays into others. Darioc can’t imagine how he navigates, for there is no apparent rhyme or reason to the tangle, nor to the choices the Architect makes. Sometimes the party ascends tightly wound coils for long stretches, then descends a gently sloping ramp through a swathe of emptiness, or walks in obvious circles multiple times before veering off. It is senseless, yet Darioc never questions it. Perhaps an absence of sense is the surest course here.

Soon time loses all meaning, for he feels neither hunger nor thirst. As to sleep, surely that was only ever a fable. Yet there is change, for no two contortions of the web are ever quite the same. This entire realm is like a spun-glass sculpture woven from the fever dreams of an alien geometry turned in on itself, every twist and turn hinting at some deeper flourish, and within that, innumerable more. Like its core, the web is beautiful but inimical, for mortals are not meant to dream of such things, let alone walk among them.

The spider-discs gradually decline in number, until only a few stragglers glide past, their patrolling almost tranquil. Perhaps the trespassers are too far from the heart to matter any more, though Darioc wouldn’t care to test the theory by leaving his guide’s aura.

Sometimes they pass anomalous objects that are clearly from other worlds – a vibrant, pink-blossomed tree rooted in the crystal… An inverted white door suspended from a pathway overhead… A flock of scrolls fluttering through the void like birds… The crystal-snarled wreckage of a sundered shuttle bearing the symbol of the Resplendent…

Occasionally the oddities are more striking. As they descend through an arterial tunnel of overlapping fronds, Darioc notices a four-armed beast locked within the crystal underfoot. Its elongated skull is ridged with spines and its body armoured with chitinous blue plates. He tenses as he walks over it, for imprisonment cannot dim the hunger in its black eyes.

Another time, he sees a vast painting hovering at the centre of a circular lake of nothingness. Its canvas crawls with jagged black-and-white shapes that resize, rotate and shift ceaselessly, as though seeking some unattainable, perfect formation. The painting rotates with the travellers as they pass, seemingly eager to share its riddle.

+Do not tempt it,+ Satori cautions. It is a strange warning, but Darioc heeds it and spurns the picture. Andrei’s attention keeps drifting towards it, but he doesn’t protest when Darioc steers him away. This is the first interest his friend has shown in anything since their flight began, but the spark fades when they leave the enigma behind.

Some sights are less disquieting. Once he spies a tall figure in dark grey power armour striding along a distant strand. It is hard to be certain, but he thinks it is a woman. Apparently they are not the only intruders here.

Who are you? Darioc wonders.

+Another ghost of things to come,+ the giant answers, reading his mind. +Another warrior seeking a war to end them all.+

What is this place? Darioc asks with a thought, seizing the opportunity.

+A cancer of the firmament.+

I don’t understand.

+If you did I would be following you, Aspirant.+

Later the web echoes with the clamour of a battle and the screams of dying men. Darioc glimpses flashes of gunfire from far-flung strands. Screeching furiously, the discs swarm the contested regions like glittering wasps until the gunfire falls silent.

Later still it begins to snow. The flakes drift in from nowhere, carried on a chill wind that rapidly becomes a blizzard. Soon ice rimes the pathways, making them doubly treacherous, but the Architect refuses to slow his pace. As he pulls ahead his presence becomes a dark smear in the white swirl, growing ever fainter.

‘Wait!’ Darioc yells, but his guide pays no heed. ‘Wait!’

Knowing he is finished if he loses sight of the beacon, Darioc quickens his step, hauling Andrei along with him. His friend hasn’t spoken a word during their flight and his movements have become sluggish. Darioc knows it would be wiser to leave him behind and focus on his own survival, but he refuses. If brotherhood means so little then what is the point of striving at all?

Abruptly the pathway tilts sharply beneath him and he tumbles forward, dragging Andrei along with him. He cries out in despair, expecting an endless fall into the void, but scant seconds pass before he hits the ground. Reaching out, he finds snow – and digging beneath it, frozen soil. There is a groan beside him.

Clambering to his knees, Darioc leans over his friend. ‘Andrei?’

The youth’s eyes open, blinking as they try to focus. Darioc is relieved to see the spark of awareness in them. His friend didn’t leave his wits behind in the… in…

Darioc shivers as the thought frays into nothingness.

‘Where… are we?’ Andrei asks.

Peering through the gusting snow, Darioc sees a skein of dark trees.

‘Where we began,’ he answers, searching the trees for something almost forgotten. Someone… He pictures a tall figure swathed in white robes and shadows. There is more, but the memories slip away when he reaches for them, leaving only an impression of great age and dark purpose.

‘The Pilgrim,’ he says.

‘You led us out,’ Varzival whispered. To his surprise, dawn was breaking over the horizon. Once again, time had spun faster during his voyage.

‘Your flight from the firmament shattered your memories,’ Satori said, ‘and your Ascension buried the pieces. Save for your anger. Betrayal leaves the deepest scars.’

‘But you didn’t betray me.’

‘Didn’t I? I allowed you to enter the temple, though I knew what awaited you there.’

Varzival frowned at this. ‘Why?’

‘Because it was inevitable.’ Satori sighed. ‘The circle would be broken, if not by you then by another. Over the centuries I averted it many times before accepting the truth. It wanted to be broken. So I chose the moment.’

‘Then why not do it yourself?’

‘I slew the beast that seeded the circle, Czervantes. A hand cannot undo what it has wrought. I attempted to draw the blade once, but it wouldn’t move.’

‘That makes no sense.’

‘It is the sense of symbolism, which is the essence of sorcery. Meaning is everything in the Sea of Souls.’ Satori smiled bleakly. ‘I cannot be the counterweight to myself.’

‘Enough.’ Turning away, Varzival gazed at the sunrise, seeking clarity. Was he fated to hound this manipulator with endless questions that led nowhere? He was a warrior and an artisan, not a scholar, especially not of esoteric lore. Caravaggio would have relished the opportunity to debate such things, perhaps even seen a road through this maze.

No, he decided. His friend’s curiosity had damned him. He needed to approach the problem as a soldier.

‘The daemon among us, Satori – this nightmare your heresy birthed – how do we destroy it?’

‘We cannot. It is a reflection of the Reverie. While the rift endures its spirit will persist. And I assure you, the rift will endure.’

‘But you say I released it,’ Varzival pressed. ‘Therefore it can be caged again.’ He nodded, feeling the truth of his words. ‘That’s what you want from me, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then tell me, Pilgrim. How do we trap your daemon?’

Cold Smiles, Colder Hearts

It was the tapping that woke Tarsem. Sharp, strident and unreasonably insistent, it drew him out of a deep slumber, but stopped the moment he opened his eyes. The white-haired woman he’d met yesterday was sitting beside his bed, watching him with a datapad on her lap.

Marisol, he remembered. Her name is Marisol.

‘Dawn’s greetings to you, Seigneur Olba,’ she said.

‘And to you, my lady,’ he answered, wondering how long she’d been there.

‘I trust you are feeling a little improved?’

‘I…’ Tarsem sat up cautiously. The expected wave of nausea didn’t come. ‘Yes… yes, I think so.’

‘Qanzo is an excellent medicae. You have been most fortunate, seigneur.’

‘I am in his debt. And yours,’ Tarsem agreed. ‘Are you also a medicae, madam?’

‘A poet.’ She tapped her pad in emphasis. ‘And a scholar, of sorts… I am researching the history and traditions of our illustrious hosts.’

‘A noble endeavour,’ Tarsem said. Her claim made them spiritual colleagues, yet he was reluctant to share his own passion for the Resplendent. Indeed, he felt disinclined to share anything with her. She looked much better this morning, her complexion clear and her eyes free of the dark smudges that shadowed them yesterday, yet something felt off about her. Something…

She looks younger, he realised. Maybe she’s taken some kind of juvenat tonic…

No, the change wasn’t skin-deep – more a quality of her presence than her appearance.

‘There is a matter I was hoping you might assist me with, Seigneur Olba,’ she said, noticing his attention. ‘I would be most grateful.’

‘Of course,’ he agreed, flustered.

‘Do you happen to recall how you came to be here?’

‘Here?’ Tarsem frowned, as though considering the question, then shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, madam. It’s all a blur. Hopefully it will come back to me.’

‘Perhaps I can kindle your memories,’ Marisol said, watching him intently. ‘I believe you crossed the valley to the south of Kanvolis.’

‘The valley?’

‘It is called the Borderland. I have been researching it. The stories are quite fascinating, though also disquieting. Apparently few who attempt to cross the region survive.’ She smiled, but there was no warmth in her eyes. ‘Which makes you a remarkable man, Seigneur Olba.’

‘I’m flattered, but I am nobody special.’

‘Mister Nobody,’ she murmured, tapping her datapad. ‘That’s what Qanzo used to call you.’

‘A fitting name for a man without memories,’ Tarsem answered solemnly.

‘Yet you appeared distressed by the date. Surely you remembered that?’

‘I was distressed by everything.’ He lowered his eyes to evade her searching gaze. ‘Do you intend to write about this Borderland, my lady?’

‘Most certainly,’ she replied. ‘At the very least…’

‘It sounds dangerous. Not something to undertake lightly.’

‘I assure you, I undertake nothing lightly.’ Marisol tapped her pad again, several times in swift succession, as if unable to restrain herself. ‘Least of all my work.’

‘I don’t doubt that.’ Tarsem eyed her dancing fingers warily. They were sheathed in long velvet gloves with silver tips that facilitated her playing. He hadn’t noticed them yesterday.

Who are you really? he wondered, intrigued despite his unease. Could she be a fellow devotee of the Winged Eye? She certainly had a touch of Euryale’s mystery about her.

Euryale, he thought wistfully. Forty-one years! The painter he’d met in Charlemagne would be very old now, if she was alive at all.

No, he decided. I don’t believe that. There had been a timeless quality about Euryale. She was still alive. He was certain of it. Moreover, if they met again she would be unchanged, much like himself, for he hadn’t aged perceptibly. Did that connect them?

‘Are you unwell, Seigneur Olba?’ Marisol asked, leaning towards him.

‘Very tired I fear,’ he said, reclining to hide a flinch. The strength of his aversion surprised him. ‘Please forgive me, but I must rest.’

‘Of course, I have been insensitive. Qanzo will be furious if I exhaust you.’ Marisol offered another frigid smile. ‘Perhaps we can continue this another time.’

‘I look forward to it, my lady,’ Tarsem lied, closing his eyes.

Time dragged on, long minutes creeping towards an hour, yet the woman didn’t leave the room. Tarsem lay still, feigning sleep and hoping she couldn’t see his deception.

I’m afraid of her, he admitted. It was absurd, but he couldn’t shake the feeling. Something was very wrong with the poet. The way she’d quizzed him had been unsettling, almost predatory.

Trying to distract himself, Tarsem turned his thoughts to Satori. The last thing he remembered about their journey was being on a boat, but the impressions were like fragments from a fever dream, outlandish even by the Reverie’s standards. He’d been sailing on a river through a tangle of shifting worlds…

Marisol started drumming, her fingertips clacking on her pad’s glass screen. Was she writing? No, the sound was too rhythmic. Tarsem fought the compulsion to open his eyes and look, fearful she’d be looking right back at him.

Don’t move, he told himself. Don’t let her catch you lying.

He almost cried out when the door opened.

‘Qanzo!’ Marisol said. ‘It’s good to see you. I was worried.’

‘I am sorry for my lateness,’ the medicae answered quietly. ‘I worked through the night.’

‘You look exhausted. Sit down.’

‘No… I cannot stay,’ Qanzo mumbled.

‘What’s wrong, my friend?’ Marisol asked. Her concern sounded genuine.

‘The incident in the kitchens… It was worse than I feared.’ Tarsem tensed at the shudder in the old man’s voice. ‘Much worse… At least ten villeins were lost. It was difficult to be certain of the numbers.’

‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know. Some of the bodies were… What I mean to say is… We couldn’t tell where one ended and another began.’ There was a sob – a raw venting of grief and disgust. ‘They were melted – melded – into each other. Woven together like putty.’

‘You’re not making sense, Qanzo.’

‘Because there is none!’ Tarsem heard a fist thud against something hard. ‘They weren’t human! Not any more. Too many mouths and eyes and… things I couldn’t identify. And the stench of them!’ Qanzo sobbed again. ‘The Resplendent burned them all.’

Risking a glance, Tarsem saw the medicae was slumped against the wall. Marisol was beside him, a hand on his shoulder. He looked like a shadow of the man he’d been yesterday.

‘Were there any survivors?’ Marisol asked gently.

‘Two. Both badly mauled in body and mind. The Vigilant took them away, but we’ll get nothing from them.’ Qanzo shook his head. ‘I must go. The Castellan will expect my report.’

‘I’ll come with you. He’s my patron.’

‘No, I am forbidden to speak of this, but I had to warn you.’ Qanzo took her hands. ‘Please be careful, Marisol. I know you’re not a great believer in the Throne, but I beg you to revisit your faith. Something unholy has come among us.’

Marisol’s gaze lingered on the door after the medicae was gone. Tarsem shut his eyes quickly when she turned round, praying she wouldn’t resume her vigil. Finally he heard the door open and close again. He didn’t need to look to know she’d left.

What have I woken up to? he wondered. One thing was certain – he couldn’t be here when Marisol returned. His fear had curdled into terror. During the medicae’s story he’d finally realised what was so disturbing about the poet. It wasn’t her appearance or coldness that repelled him. No, it was the smell lingering about her.

Damp leaves and resin.

Ennio Zann, both the Alpha and the Omega, had not moved for five days. It, for the cyborg could no longer meaningfully be designated as he, stood above the luminous chasm of the Cogitation Cortex with its arms raised in worship. Its compound mind was elsewhere, immersed in the noosphere, wrestling with the symphonic conundrum that would restore the balance of the Equilibrium Mechanika.

<HYPOTHETICAL HARMONIC CONJUNCTIONS MISALIGNED 9.9%,> Zann-Omega reported in binharic code. <FEASIBILITY ASSESSMENT FOLLOWS.>

<Confirmed,> Zann-Alpha responded, suppressing a twinge of frustration. <Proceed.>

The Techmarine’s dual aspects had been working synchronously on their new composition without respite since Artificer Moniatis’ nullification, yet its shape still eluded them. Every time they calibrated one sequence of chords to perfection, another would be rendered inefficacious in the greater configuration.

<ADJUSTING TONAL HARMONICS – MOTIF 39.>

<Modulating beat-pulse dynamics – Sequence 14.>

<SHIFTING PITCH VARIATIONS +2.5% – SEQUENCE 19.>

And so it went.

The virtually limitless processing power of the Cortex had boosted their capabilities to prodigious levels, but conducting it was proving difficult. Zann’s progression towards a pure machine state had advanced considerably, but a cerebral lag still remained between the cyborg’s dual aspects, impeding their work. And while they struggled to complete their curative opus the virulence infesting the citadel was approaching its zenith.

<Query: chord tension – MOTIF 3 – excessively rapid resolution?>

<ASSESSING. STANDBY.>

Alongside their primary objective they were monitoring thousands of sensory feeds from across the citadel, scanning for corruptive outbreaks and lesser threats. The Cortex linked them to every serviteur, cerveau-skull and cogitation engine in the city, save those compromised by the dysfunction. There had been many distractions in recent days, including the dissent of multiple enginseers and an outbreak of the corruption within the Alcazar itself. These threats had been negated at substantial computational and material cost.

The most troubling incident had been triggered by Apothecary Borges’ autopsy of a prime vector, Ryerzon, which had resulted in a manifestation of extreme potency. Regrettably Borges had survived the event. His account of the malfunctioning Funebris serviteurs would draw attention to the Alcazar Automata.

There will be consequences, Zann-Alpha predicted.

<HOSTILE INTERFERENCE PROBABLE,> the Omega concurred, accessing the thought.

<Proposal: honesty,> the Alpha suggested. <Submit explanatory report/analysis of situation to Knight Exemplar Czervantes. Request collaboration.>

<DENIED.>

<Query: explicate?>

<BIOLOGICAL MINDS WILL NOT COMPUTE THE DATA CORRECTLY.>

<Our reticence invites retaliation,> the Alpha protested.

<CONFIRMED. THE ALCAZAR’S SECURITY PROTOCOLS HAVE BEEN FULLY UPGRADED,> the Omega countered. <INTRUDERS WILL BE NULLIFIED.>

<Internecine conflict is inefficient.>

<FALSE DESIGNATOR (‘internecine’). BIOLOGICAL UNITS ARE NOT OUR EQUALS.>

Zann-Alpha considered this in silence, assigning the thought process to a private cognitive sector that its machine twin couldn’t access. The imminent conflict with its former comrades had given rise to an unfamiliar mental state. Surprised, the Alpha reassessed the condition multiple times to stress test its validity.

There were no errors. The designation was applicable to its current psychological state.

Doubt.

ASCENSION AND DAMNATION

Nine is the number of the feast without limits, where all that’s possible waxes probable and whatever may be, might be.

Nine is the symbol seized in sleep and seeded into forever, freed by dreams and fervent screams of what should be.

Nine kindles the imagination unbound by reason, risen to conceive without surcease or subjection to objective truth.

Nine quickens the flesh to breach the formulas of fell, fallacious form and reach beyond the lines that bind and blind.

Nine hails ambition unbowed by reality, driven to roam and remake the world without submission to sense or tangibility.

Nine heralds the Angel Ascendant and the Architect Infernal alike, a phoenix and a many-headed serpent entwined.

Nine is the beginning in the end, coiled and convoluted to create and devour until the difference is none.

Nine marks the most wondrous and treacherous of paths, and thus the only one worth walking, for enlightenment lies in waking.

Nine is nought but itself and one and all.

– Marisol Charbonneau, Muse Eternal
Nine Things Needful

Arise or Fall

‘Is it much farther, madam?’ Eugenio Lubin asked, stopping to catch his breath. His cherubic face was drenched in sweat, smearing his make-up.

‘We are almost there, maestro,’ his guide assured him.

‘Almost is a capricious term,’ Lubin wheezed. ‘Much like your Rhapsody, madam.’ He clicked his fingers and the gem-encrusted cerveau-skull hovering beside him emitted a puff of perfumed water from its jaws, spraying his face. Though he was scarcely forty, the Empyrean Muse was extravagantly overweight. His frilly silk jacket was strained to tearing point and his belly overhung his breeches like an overripe pear. A golden laurel wreath crowned his curly blond hair, which cascaded to his back. Exemplar Xalieri himself had awarded the wreath in honour of Lubin’s services to the Sapphire Harp, as the composer had frequently reminded his guide.

‘Caprice is an art in itself, maestro,’ the woman beside him said. ‘And all art is its own reward.’

‘But some pursuits are more enriching than others,’ Lubin countered archly, then snorted. ‘One hopes this excursion does not prove disappointing. Eugenio is unaccustomed to such excessive perambulations. His Great Work does not permit it.’

‘I am certain you will find our performance transcendent,’ his guide assured him.

‘That is unlikely. One is not easily impressed. The Empyrean’s composers are unrivalled in the musical demesne, and Eugenio’s work is the pinnacle of the loftiest peak of their melodic munificence.’

Unlike his wordplay, the woman thought sourly.

‘Indeed, maestro, which is why we crave your attendance.’ She forced a smile. ‘Your critique will educate and elucidate us.’

‘Humility becomes you, madam.’ Eugenio’s blue-rouged lips puckered into an answering smirk. ‘And what of the other matter we discussed?’

‘As promised, your gift will be delivered to the Chateau Empyrean tonight.’

‘Delightful. If nothing else, your Rhapsody excels in the procurement of fine spices.’ He winked lasciviously. ‘Lead on then, my dear!’

Oh, we excel in more ways than you imagine, Marisol Charbonneau promised, taking his arm. ‘This way, maestro.’

Persuading the Empyrean’s most feted Muse to accompany her had been easier than expected. As Hamartia had predicted, Lubin was dining at his favoured café when Marisol approached him. A little intrigue, an abundance of flattery and a bribe were all it took to reel him in. He scarcely seemed a worthy catch, but Hamartia insisted he was the most gifted human composer in Kanvolis. If that was true then art had failed to imitate life in the case of Eugenio Lubin, but so be it. She trusted Hamartia’s judgement in such matters.

Their path carried them to a remote gallery on the citadel’s second tier.

‘The Galleria Hypothetica,’ Lubin remarked, wagging a disapproving finger at the stylised eye above the doors. ‘An inauspicious venue.’

‘Its objects are not to your taste?’ Marisol asked, unsurprised. The pieces within were challenging, extolling minimalism or abstraction above conventional beauty. She couldn’t imagine them speaking to a sybarite like this Eugenio.

‘They are without taste,’ he decreed. ‘Joyless fabrications devoid of wit or wonder!’ Misreading its master’s derision as agitation, his cerveau-skull sprayed him again.

‘I bow to your perspicacity, maestro. Fortunately we are not here for the Hypothetica’s offerings.’ Marisol pushed the doors open. ‘Come!’

She led them across the expansive hall beyond towards a white dome. The structure was huge, occupying the entirety of the gallery’s far end, its apex almost touching the roof. A Vigilant stood by the dome’s door. He was shaven-headed and sombre, like all his Rhapsody’s officers, but his expression brightened as Marisol approached.

‘Mistress Radiant,’ he said, inclining his head.

‘Arc Sergeant Baelero,’ she replied. ‘I trust you have secured our privacy?’

‘My squad has closed the gallery and I have rerouted the patrols. You will not be disturbed.’

‘Nevertheless, you shall stand watch in person,’ she instructed.

‘I hoped to bear witness to the ceremony.’

‘I require you here, Arc Sergeant,’ Marisol said firmly. ‘Our discretion is imperative.’

‘By your command, Mistress Radiant.’

‘Thank you, brother.’ It was pleasing to use their term of address. Varzival would be shocked by the presumption. ‘We arise or fall,’ she sang.

‘We rise!’ he responded, opening the door.

Thus far Baelero was the only Arc Brother who had joined her coven, but Marisol felt certain others would follow, especially from the ranks of the Vigilant. Their loyalty to their lost commander and the Chapter’s old traditions made them pliable, which was ironic given her ambitions. Baelero had been hers the moment she addressed him in Idryss Glass’ voice. Of course it had been more than just a voice – she had projected the former Castellan’s personality and memories in support of her cause. She had no idea whether it was actually Glass’ spirit she had channelled or a simulacrum, but it had clearly been convincing.

I find as I seek, Marisol reflected. And I seek without walls.

Was she a witch now? A sorceress? Perhaps even a saint? There was so much she didn’t understand about her new-found abilities, but she didn’t doubt their rightness. Sometimes it seemed inconceivable that she had only discovered her gift six days ago. Armando’s fate had been the catalyst. The rogue had achieved more in death than he’d ever done in life. Annihilation had dignified him. Every scrap of his flesh and bones had been consumed by the radiant energy Marisol wielded, replenishing her ailing body.

My thanks, Armando, she offered gravely. He was a wretch, but she had taken no pleasure in killing him or the others that came after. Destruction was inherently distasteful. That would never change, but revolution required sacrifice.

‘If you please, Maestro Lubin,’ she said, ushering the rotund Muse towards the doorway. ‘Wonders await you within.’

‘Do they indeed? We shall see, madam.’ He tittered. ‘Or hear, rather!’

Baelero closed the door behind them, plunging them into darkness save for the glow of the cerveau-skull’s bejewelled eyes.

‘Have you no illumination?’ Lubin huffed. ‘Eugenio is a creature of the light!’

‘Indulge me, please.’ Marisol took his arm and led him further into the chamber, walking confidently despite the darkness. It was no longer an impediment to her, for her eyes saw beyond the skin of things. ‘I promise nothing unbefitting shall befall you.’

‘You have a penchant for the melodramatic, madam,’ he opined. ‘What is this ceremony your pet Vigilant mentioned?’

‘I have come to regard art as a spiritual quest,’ Marisol confided, ‘hence every sincere performance is a ritual, every creation an offering.’

‘An ostentatious thesis, but not entirely without merit.’

‘Thank you, maestro.’ She released his arm and stepped away. ‘I believe we are in position.’

‘Do you expect me to stand?’ he called after her.

‘I expect you to soar,’ she replied. ‘Bright is the chord that burns the night!’

‘We arise resplendent!’ a chorus of voices answered from the darkness.

‘Alight!’ Marisol cried. ‘Anointed in truth.’

The gloom dissipated, revealing the dome’s interior. Its walls were formed from a single unbroken band of alabaster that spiralled up to the apex, like a coiled serpent. A circle of darkness gaped at the pinnacle, directly above Lubin, who stood at the centre of another circle, this one inscribed in soot. Eight figures knelt at equidistant points around the ring, robed in black silk trimmed with silver, their faces cowled. They rose as Marisol took her place among them, raising their number to nine. Another robe lay by her feet, neatly folded.

‘Euphonious is the light that decries the silence!’ she intoned.

‘Resplendent and arisen!’ her coven chanted.

‘What is this nonsense?’ Eugenio demanded, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the light. ‘Explain yourself, madam!’

‘That would be telling, maestro,’ Marisol teased. ‘An authentic performance must speak for itself, don’t you agree?’

She removed her long gloves and stretched out her arms, flexing her fingers and unfolding the extra digit she kept tucked against each palm. Eugenio gawped when he saw there were six fingers on each of her hands, then his eyes goggled as a glow spread from her nails to her elbows, lending her skin a scintillant sheen. The robe by her feet rose like a phantom and swathed itself about her shoulders.

‘Have you visited this installation before, maestro?’ Marisol asked, sweeping an arm out to encompass the dome. ‘It is called The Cry of Silence.’ She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t suppose it would stimulate your particular tastes, but I find it agreeable. Quite exceptional in fact.’

She twirled her hands, weaving threads of light from the air. The strands trilled harmonically as they waxed and waned, each iteration lingering a little longer. A tranquil clarity washed over her as she spun her web.

‘The place frightened me when I first visited,’ she confessed, ‘but that is the nature of change. It distresses the old with the new. One either rises to the challenge or withers away.’

After Armando’s death she had finally returned to the dome, sensing it might hold the answers she needed. Indeed revelations had come, not with words or even coherent thoughts, but as a swell of pure conviction that raised her above fear, guilt and all the other petty terrors that once chained her to mediocrity. It felt like something other had risen within her, but instead of violation she’d felt exultation, for the presence had impelled her to rise ever higher. To become her truest self…

Marisol breathed deeply as she felt her Liberator approaching.

‘Eugenio has no patience for parlour tricks,’ the sacrifice whined, recovering a measure of his arrogance. ‘You promised me a song to end all songs!’

‘No tricks,’ Marisol promised, her hands spinning faster and brighter. ‘Only truth.’

Her acolytes began to warble an atonal melody. It was a sound no human tongue was capable of producing, but she had gifted each of them with another, more eloquent organ. Their humming intensified as their second tongues uncoiled from their hoods, long and segmented, their glassy tips glittering as they vibrated.

‘You shall have your song, maestro.’ Light streamed from Marisol’s mouth when she spoke, spiralling around her head in a restless halo. ‘As within, so without!’

‘As within, so without!’ the coven chorused.

Marisol raised her head as the Liberator surged into her, carrying her aloft on a pillar of flames that crackled with coruscating harmonies. Her eyes had become blazing crystals in a perfect, polished glass face.

‘Arise or fall,’ she sang, floating towards the sacrifice.

Lubin backed away and yelped in pain when he tried to leave the circle, smoke wafting from his scorched shoes. Chirping solicitously, his cerveau-skull doused his face with water. He slapped the machine aside and it careened into the circle’s invisible barrier. With a squawk, it burst into flames and dropped from the air.

‘Sardonicus!’ Lubin bawled, staring at the melted automaton. Fumbling under his jacket, he pulled out an ornate aquila. ‘One is a servant of the God-Emperor!’ He brandished the holy symbol. ‘Be gone, witch!’

Marisol regarded the composer dispassionately. The defiance in his voice was unexpected. Perhaps there was some fire in his prodigious belly after all, but not nearly enough faith in his heart to channel it.

‘You are a lie, Eugenio Lubin,’ the Mistress Radiant judged. Then she swept down to embrace him.

‘Are you pleased, mistress?’ Hamartia asked after the ritual was over.

‘He had talent,’ Marisol replied, handing the Ghoul her ceremonial robes. Considerable talent, she admitted. Her entire body felt electrified, her blood pounding to the rhythm of liberation. ‘You chose well.’

‘Your pleasure is mine.’ Hamartia simpered, more with relief than joy.

‘It is not a question of pleasure,’ Marisol corrected. ‘His sacrifice serves justice, as do we. Never forget that.’

‘Yes, mistress, please forgive my foolishness.’

The rest of her acolytes watched the exchange nervously. Their second tongues had retracted into their throats, with only a slight bulge hinting at the secret. All of them had been blessed with further mutations, but Marisol had kept the gifts subtle. Though it was tempting to reshape their bodies into true reflections of their souls it would be imprudent to surround herself with monsters.

You are vile, she judged, regarding her followers with the detached gaze that so terrified them. Petty, spiteful vermin in velvet…

Their powdered faces looked like preserved corpses inside their cowls, for no amount of make-up could hide the dissolution beneath. They were all drawn from her Rhapsody’s elder Muses – the very worst of that decadent clique – and Marisol despised them. They would always be Ghouls to her, but they had their uses, not least their familiarity with clandestine activities. As her gift had blossomed, she’d learned to listen in on their thoughts. Unsurprisingly their minds were like sewers, overflowing with vice and self-loathing. Sifting through the filth had been dismaying, but gainful, for Qanzo had been right about their darker proclivities.

‘They are like spoiled children playing with fire,’ the medicae had gauged, and so it proved to be. The Ghouls had been practising a repulsive, but impotent brand of witchery long before her arrival. When she had walked in on one of their depraved rituals they’d been frightened, then furious, threatening to silence her if she didn’t pledge herself to their twisted pleasure god. Their coterie had no leader so Marisol had simply killed the most assertive among them – spectacularly – and demolished the carnal idol they worshipped. After this demonstration their faith had proven remarkably flexible.

‘I will require three offerings tomorrow,’ Marisol said. ‘Of a similar calibre.’

‘Three?’ Hamartia sputtered.

‘We have already taken four Muses since your investiture, mistress,’ Barham protested, stepping forward. His robes were thrown back, revealing a grandiose military jacket festooned with medals, though Marisol doubted ‘the colonel’ had ever seen a battlefield, let alone fought on one. It was another affectation, like Hamartia’s androgyny or Benoit’s obsession with clerical vestments, but Barham had a little more spine than his fellow Ghouls.

‘They will be missed by their Rhapsodies,’ Barham warned. ‘Might I suggest a bevy of common villeins instead?’

‘Unacceptable, it is passion that feeds the divine light, not lives,’ Marisol said. ‘Common souls will not suffice.’

That wasn’t entirely true, for even the serviteurs she’d consumed in Armando’s wake had provided some sustenance, but vibrant souls provided a much greater yield. She suspected many of Kanvolis’ less-entitled citizens had more depth than the libertines she targeted, but the prospect of killing innocents displeased her. She had spared her Rhapsody’s younger Muses for the same reason, though their spirits were tantalisingly bright. While they weren’t entirely innocent, they were not beyond redemption.

‘With respect, mistress, we are moving too quickly,’ Barham pressed, tugging nervously at his cerise moustache. ‘If we are discovered–’

‘If we delay we will be discovered,’ Marisol said. ‘And without the Liberator to empower us we will be executed as heretics.’ She raised her voice, infusing it with a measure of her power. ‘Every sacrifice brightens our beacon in the Sea of Souls, drawing the Radiant Angel closer, but blessed Sanguinius’ path is frangible and perilous. We must illuminate it lest He lose sight of us, for without Him we are lost. Every delay invites disaster, brothers and sisters.’ Her eyes glittered. ‘We arise or fall!’

‘We rise!’ they chorused.

‘See that we do,’ she commanded. ‘Now leave me. We shall gather again tomorrow.’

When they were gone, Marisol returned to the painted circle, which now enclosed a heap of ashes and a golden laurel wreath. The blackened cranium of the cerveau-skull lay on the sooty band, still smoking. With a flick of her wrist she sent a gust of air through the ashes, scattering Lubin’s remains. Baelero would dispose of the rest later. It would be unwise to leave any evidence here. Conducting the rituals in a public space was risky, but the dome inspired her, which heightened the potency of the sacrifices.

Places are like lenses that focus the light within.

Such intuitions came readily to her now, for there was an exquisite logic to the craft she’d embraced. It wasn’t the logic of common sense and hard facts, but of poetry. Symbolism, metaphor and allegory were its tools and meaning its fuel, as witnessed by the fable she had spun to beguile her followers. Like the rites of her creed, it was all invented. There was no Radiant Angel lost in the Sea of Souls – at least not that she knew of – but it made for a good story.

Above all else, it is stories that move the spirit!

‘I was meant for this,’ Marisol proclaimed. ‘As it was meant for me.’

Her skin was still veined with light, pulsing with the vitality she had absorbed from Eugenio. It always took a few minutes for her body to find its equilibrium after feeding.

Closing her eyes, Marisol sank to her knees. Not so long ago her joints would have railed against the posture, but now her body ran like a well-oiled machine – every movement fluid, every function blissfully smooth and painless. Under the façade of her withered skin she was in peak physical condition. This wasn’t the ersatz renewal the Ghouls tinkered with, but a genuine blood-deep rejuvenation.

Youth!

And, as someone wiser than her had once said, only the old could truly appreciate it.

‘We are both eternal now, Darioc,’ Marisol murmured, surprised by the sadness his name evoked. She had run into her patron yesterday at the chateau. Though they hadn’t spoken in weeks, he hadn’t been pleased to see her. She was just another villein to him now. Another cast-off. Transient and expendable…

‘Darioc,’ Marisol says when her patron turns to go. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘Wrong?’ he asks.

‘Here, at the chateau,’ she presses. ‘I heard there was an accident in the kitchens.’

‘Yes, it was unfortunate.’ He shakes his head. ‘A fire that went out of control. Don’t let it concern you, my lady.’

‘There’s talk among the Muses of disturbances across the city,’ she says, watching him closely. Like all his kind, even the Vigilant, his mind is infuriatingly difficult to read beyond surface impressions, as though his thoughts are locked away. ‘They say people have disappeared.’

‘I warned you my world wasn’t a paradise, Marisol, but you are perfectly safe here.’

She doesn’t need to hear his thoughts to taste the lie in his reply. He knows his realm is imperilled, even if he doesn’t comprehend the threat, let alone her part in it, yet he keeps it from her – hazards her life! Where is the confidence they once shared? Was it only ever a charade?

‘You would tell me, wouldn’t you?’ she asks, touching his arm. ‘If we were in any danger.’

‘Of course!’ He offers the smile she once found so beguiling. ‘You are my Muse, Marisol.’

‘Thank you, Darioc.’ She returns the smile with ice, though he doesn’t recognise her disdain. ‘You have given me clarity.’

‘That gladdens me, sister.’ He turns to go, then hesitates. ‘Marisol…’

‘Yes, Darioc?’

‘Please refrain from using my blood-born name here. It is not befitting of my new rank and duties.’

‘I understand, Castellan.’

‘I understand perfectly,’ Marisol said. ‘Thank you for enlightening me, brother.’

Her fingers were drumming against the stone floor, invoking lambent sparks. She reined them in, entwining them in her lap to still their agitation. This wasn’t the time for more conjuration, especially not in anger. Besides, disagreeable as it was, the encounter with her former patron had been salutary. He had given her clarity. The last of her doubts had faded after that meeting.

The turbulence in her blood had settled. Eugenio’s essence was fully assimilated.

‘Arise or fall,’ Marisol said, standing up. As she slipped her gloves on she considered her next move. Barham was right about the risks of moving so swiftly, but there was no alternative. One part of her speech had been all too true – they were running out of time. The force she was channelling favoured her, but it hadn’t committed to her fully. Not yet… Though it usually came when she called – especially when she offered a sacrifice – there were sometimes delays, even a whisper of reluctance, as though it was occupied elsewhere.

There is another petitioner, she gauged. Perhaps more than one…

The Liberator had other companions. And Marisol Charbonneau had rivals.

Lurking behind a pillar, Qanzo Narayan watched the elder Muses leave the Galleria Hypothetica. Their behaviour seemed unusually subdued. Chastened.

What happened in there? the medicae wondered. What frightened you?

He felt guilty about following his friend here, but the elders confirmed his suspicions. Marisol was involved in something unsavoury, doubtless ensnared by her so-called Ghouls, though he couldn’t imagine what hold they had over her.

‘I told you to be wary of them,’ he whispered as the degenerates drifted away. He had trailed Marisol as far as the gallery’s entrance, where a Vigilant had barred his path. At first he’d planned to wait outside and challenge her openly about his concerns, but something held him back.

The fear, he admitted. It was ingrained in him now, staining his thoughts so deeply it would never wash out – like the stench from the unquiet dead. He had scarcely slept since the horror in the chateau’s kitchens.

They screamed. Qanzo shuddered, remembering the unholy corpses he’d inspected. When we burned them, they screamed.

But not with voices… The shrieks had sounded almost musical, though it wasn’t a melody any sane soul would recognise, let alone embrace. He hadn’t shared that detail with Marisol, partly to avoid distressing her, but also because saying it aloud would make it real. And surely it hadn’t been real.

‘You can’t run from the truth. It runs faster.’ Those were his dead wife’s words, spoken in another time and place, rebuking him for a different fear, but they still smarted. ‘We must stand and fight, husband!’

‘It was real, Inanna,’ he confessed to her. ‘Always real.’

There was a shadow over Kanvolis – something unholy twisting its citizens towards madness and mutation. A disease of the spirit… As a medicae he’d seen the symptoms long ago, but until recently they had been minor things, easy to dismiss as psychoses or mundane physiological aberrations.

I didn’t want to see the truth.

Life was good in Kanvolis. Qanzo hadn’t known genuine happiness since Inanna’s death – murder! – decades ago, but he’d found peace here, which was more than he expected. The Resplendent were decadent, but they weren’t tyrants. Compared to the Imperial governor who’d wreaked genocide on his home world they were saints! Inanna and millions of others had died when their revolution was crushed, but Qanzo was spared, his skills as a medicae too valuable to waste. And despite his grief he hadn’t wanted to die.

I still don’t, he admitted. That’s why he’d turned a blind eye to the corruption spreading through his adopted city. Like a child hiding under a blanket, he hoped the monsters would pass him by if they went unseen. Spare him.

Coward!

He tensed when Marisol emerged from the gallery. There was no sign of the corpulent man she had entered with. Perhaps he’d left by another exit.

He didn’t, Qanzo decided, forcing himself to accept the facts. And he won’t.

The medicae watched his friend uneasily. She was standing by the gallery’s doors, her head cocked to one side, as if listening to something. He ducked away as her gaze swept towards his hiding place.

Talk to her, he thought. Help her!

He imagined himself stepping out with his hands outspread, an abashed smile on his face as he admitted his offence – I followed you, but only because I fear for you. His friend would smile back and thank him, understanding. Then they would talk. Fix things.

Yes, it was the right thing to do.

I can’t, he realised. I can’t let her see me.

Marisol had changed in recent days. There was a cold detachment beneath her cordiality, as though she was only going through the motions of friendship. It had begun when their patient awoke then grown worse after he disappeared. Qanzo had no idea where Olba had gone or why, but the effect on Marisol had been disturbing. She had questioned him as if he were responsible. Her manner had bordered on threatening.

No! It is the Ghouls’ influence. They–

Qanzo froze when he heard footsteps approaching across the marble tiles. He flattened himself against the column, trying to lose himself in the stone.

I’m not here. There’s nobody here at all.

The footsteps stopped nearby. He imagined Marisol on the other side of the pillar, listening again. Searching.

I’m not–

‘I know you’re there, Qanzo,’ she said. There was no censure in her voice, yet he couldn’t bring himself to answer. The thought of confronting her with his fears seemed ridiculous now.

Go away, the medicae urged, holding his breath.

‘We are friends,’ Marisol continued, ‘but please don’t follow me again.’ There was a pause. ‘Unless you are ready to accept my lead.’

Go away!

‘You can’t keep running from the truth,’ she whispered, repeating his dead wife’s warning. ‘It will catch you in the end.’

Long after she was gone Qanzo Narayan stayed where he was, praying fervently, but finding no comfort.

Inheritors

Tarsem sat in silence. The wood-panelled walls of the small reading room were unadorned, perhaps to discourage distractions from its purpose. Other than a table and the high-backed chairs serving it, the room was empty. The seats were too big for a human frame so Tarsem perched on one like a child, his feet dangling above the floor. Many hours had passed since his arrival, yet he felt no impatience or boredom. His relief was too great.

I’m safe here, he thought, savouring the feeling.

He had fled the Chateau Eternal without a plan, driven by the instinct to get away from the woman who’d watched over him during his illness. It had been an ungracious act, but he hadn’t hesitated. The Reverie had been inside Marisol, watching him through her eyes, even if she didn’t realise it. And not just the Reverie, but its maw – Vindarnas. The undying village had his scent again.

It can’t reach me here.

Nobody had tried to stop him leaving the chateau. It was only later that he’d begun worrying about his next move. He was finally walking the many-splendored avenues of Kanvolis, as he’d longed to do since reading the Arc Resplendent, yet he felt nothing but dread. Every wonder concealed a shadow, every friendly voice rang false and every footfall at his back was a stalker’s tread. The taint was creeping through the very stones of the city, but it was the people he feared most. If the Reverie could get inside Marisol then why not others too? Why not everybody?

Not Satori, Tarsem had decided. Never Satori.

That realisation had finally led him to the citadel’s topmost tier, where the Chapter’s Librarium stood, concealed behind high walls of blue marble. Outsiders rarely saw more than its minarets, for none save the Architects and their cyborg thralls were permitted to enter its precincts. In a city of secret places this was the most closely guarded of them all. Tarsem was sure its wards extended far beyond the azure-robed Arcanum serviteurs that met him at the gatehouse. Uncannily tall and mirror-masked, the cyborgs challenged him in synthesised soprano voices, to which he had only one answer: ‘I am here for Satori.’

He won’t abandon me, Tarsem told himself, as he’d done many times while wandering the city. Though his fellow traveller had denied being an Architect, he suspected the truth was more nuanced. Besides, where else could he look but the Librarium?

To his relief he’d been admitted within minutes and a serviteur had escorted him through a labyrinth of elegant corridors to this room. Leaving him a jug of water and dried fruits, the thrall had instructed him to wait. Though he was unguarded Tarsem hadn’t gone near the door, quite certain he was being watched. That was good. The guards would keep his hunter out.

Were you angry? he wondered, thinking of Marisol. He pictured that impatient, infernal tapping and shivered. Yes, she had been angry.

The reflected sunlight streaming through the windows faded as evening encroached, eventually triggering the room’s lights. Had he been forgotten after all?

No, Satori will come.

And finally he did.

Tarsem wasn’t sure what he’d expected when the giant entered the room. They weren’t allies in any conventional sense and certainly not friends, yet there was a bond between them. Satori had saved his life many times over and led him out of the Reverie. Surely there was a reason for that?

His guide – for Satori would always be his guide – appeared completely unchanged. He wore the same white robes and battered boots. The same old leather bag hung from his belt and his gnarled staff was slung over his back. They had probably been with the wanderer since the beginning of his journey.

There were no greetings. No expressions of goodwill or concern. Not even a nod of acknowledgement. They were long past such things. The giant sat across from Tarsem and fixed him with those familiar colourless eyes.

‘Tell me,’ Satori said.

After the story was told the Architect regarded his visitor in silence, his attention clearly elsewhere. Tarsem had come to believe Satori’s focus sometimes wandered between possible worlds, contemplating moments simultaneously from different perspectives. The Arc hinted at such expanded, inhuman states of consciousness. It would be a vertiginous way to exist, but magnificent if mastered.

‘Your instincts are correct,’ Satori said finally. ‘The Reverie is here. A part of it at least, but it didn’t follow us. It was I who followed, tracking its spoor to this time and place.’

Tarsem frowned, considering this. ‘You were hunting it, back when we first met.’

‘As it was hunting me – and also you, Tarsem Veyd… On the Mirrored Path everything is both predator and prey. The Aspirants pursue Ascension, while dreamers like yourself chase after revelation, and all are stalked by the road they walk upon.’

‘It’s still after me. I’ve felt it.’

‘It has your spirit scent,’ Satori confirmed. ‘But you are only one amongst a multitude now. It hungers for the city’s soul, and beyond that this world’s.’

‘But what is it?’

‘You would call it a daemon, traveller.’

Tarsem paled. The answer wasn’t entirely unexpected, but that didn’t diminish its impact. A daemon… His gaze fell to the winged eye tattooed on his palm. Euryale’s gift stared back at him, mocking his fear. His weakness.

You were wrong, my lady, he thought. I survived. I beat it!

Taking courage from that victory, he rallied. ‘The woman I mentioned – Marisol Charbonneau – she’s part of this, isn’t she?’

‘I believe so.’

‘Can we free her?’ Tarsem asked, leaning forward eagerly. ‘Exorcise her?’ He felt a thrill of excitement at the arcane word. It was holy – filled with righteous power.

‘No, her connection to the Reverie is symbiotic,’ Satori replied. ‘She is a conduit for its taint, not a container – more a partner than a slave. My order calls such rarefied souls Inheritors. They draw entities of this kind like beacons. Other mortals may be touched or tempted by the darkness in passing, but they never endure. Madness and mutation overrun them swiftly and they are cast off.’

‘You talk as if you’ve seen this before.’

‘I have seen the pattern many times, across many worlds, traveller. This hunt is only one thread among many.’

‘But this one is different,’ Tarsem ventured, sensing a tension beneath the warrior’s dispassionate air. ‘It’s personal.’ Satori didn’t answer. Fearing he’d crossed a line, Tarsem hurried on, ‘I meant no–’

‘This is my world, traveller. So yes, it is personal.’

I’m learning to read him, Tarsem gauged, pleased by the discovery. If he could read this aloof sage he could read anybody. There were opportunities in that.

‘What must we do, lord?’ he asked, burying his satisfaction before the other sensed it.

‘The beacons amongst us must be extinguished,’ Satori answered. ‘Before the Reverie makes its choice.’

‘What choice?’

‘It will bond with one of the Inheritors.’

‘There’s more than one?’ Tarsem didn’t like that possibility at all.

‘Nine. There are always nine. Three remain.’ Satori’s expression hardened. ‘I shall end another tomorrow.’

‘Marisol?’ Despite his fear of her, Tarsem felt queasy about harming the elderly Muse. She wasn’t the real enemy here.

‘No, she will be the last,’ Satori decreed.

‘They can’t be saved?’

‘Not from themselves. They have embraced their fate willingly. But I don’t intend to silence the last.’

‘You don’t? But surely…’ Tarsem trailed off as something unwelcome occurred to him. ‘These Inheritors… Am I…?’

‘You are not among them.’ Satori appeared faintly amused. ‘Though, for a time, I thought you might be. You certainly have the passion that draws the daemon.’

Tarsem nodded gravely to cover his relief. ‘You know who they are?’

‘I knew all but one. You have given me the final name.’

‘I see.’ The traveller closed his eyes, thinking this through. ‘You used me as bait… That’s why you left me with the Rhapsody Eternal.’

‘Correct. The Reverie’s connection to the Eternal runs deep. I suspected the last Inheritor was among them, yet she eluded me. She is a quieter dreamer than the others.’

‘But she found me.’ Tarsem felt no resentment at being used. It made him part of a higher struggle. Ennobled him. ‘It found me through her.’ Opening his eyes, he saw the Architect was watching him intently.

Judging me? Yes, he was sure of it. Long ago, on the night when they’d first met, Satori had denied being his judge, but Tarsem had never believed it. This ancient being was the living embodiment of judgement.

‘Why nine?’ Tarsem asked on impulse. ‘You said their number is always nine. Why?’

‘Because that is the number of the trap’s nature. And also the number of the Resplendent…’ Satori’s gaze grew distant again. ‘Our Chapter was seeded from the Ninth Legion in the Ninth Founding on the ninth world of a poisoned star, whose nature was also nine. All things are connected in the firmament.’

‘You’re saying there’s order to everything,’ Tarsem murmured, fascinated.

‘I would not call it order.’

‘But there’s logic – a plan.’ Perhaps even intelligence behind it all…

‘My mentor believed so,’ Satori conceded, ‘but I am no longer so certain.’

I am, Tarsem thought fervently. And some day I’ll find its shape. Make sense of it!

Unbidden, his memories drifted back to the cyclopean idols they’d found in the haunted outpost – and the malformed watchman that embodied them. Its vast, unblinking eye must have seen so much…

‘Tell me, traveller, do you want to be safe?’ Satori asked, snapping him back into the moment.

Safe? To his surprise, Tarsem was repelled by the idea. Their reunion had energised him. He had missed these orphic conversations. They elevated the world beyond the mundane. Gave it meaning. Suddenly his fear of Marisol seemed shameful. Absurd even.

She’s only a pawn. I’ll be a knight. No, a cardinal!

He might never be adept with guns or blades, but he was destined to be a champion of the spirit. He felt sure of it. Wasn’t that why he’d journeyed so far and sacrificed so much? To find – and fight for – truth!

The Truth, he corrected himself with a surge of conviction. He would confront the evil stalking Kanvolis – and beyond that, Evil in all its unbound virulence.

Exorcise it!

‘No,’ Tarsem answered. ‘I don’t want to be safe. I want to fight.’

The Architect nodded, seemingly unsurprised. ‘Then fight you shall, warrior.’

Behold Decker!

Harlan Decker had found god. Not the undying God-Emperor of Mankind or the Primordial Muse lots of the city folk worshipped on the sly, but the one true god that spun and flowed between all the worlds like star blood. The god of water and wheels!

‘Praise the wheels that wind forever,’ Decker crooned as he walked the rusted iron gantries of his kingdom. They corkscrewed along the walls of the cavernous multilevelled chamber, encircling the vast waterwheel whirling at its centre. Fully half the Wheel was submerged in the frothing river far below. Colossal gears and pistons framed it, venting steam as they spun and pounded in time with its rotation.

‘Hail the waters that oil the holy spokes and keep the works running slick ’n’ smooth,’ Decker sang. ‘What spins around comes round!’

His words were lost in the roar of rushing water and machinery, but that didn’t matter. His god would hear them anyhow. Decker had come up with the prayer himself, though nobody ever figured him for a man of words, never mind a preacher. Nobody ever figured him for much at all really. Born and bred in the Churn, he’d been tending to the Great Wheel poking outta the city’s arse since he was a boy – just another meat cog among thousands who kept things running so the fancy folk upstairs had light and power.

They don’t even know we’re here, he thought jovially. But they’re gonna!

Most of his fellow wheel monkeys reckoned they had it pretty good down in the Churn, even with the freezin’ damp and endless racket. The Shiners looked after everybody, didn’t they? There was always plenty – and tasty – to eat and a dry bunk waitin’ at shift’s end, along with enough fun and games between stints to keep a working man lively. And somewhere down the road, when his body was worn to the bone and he’d gone stone deaf, the promise of a comfy life in the Overchurn, with all the trimmings o’ paradise thrown in. Maybe even a chance to meet a Shiner.

‘Ain’t like the hives, boys,’ Chief Silva was always fond of saying – leastwise he was before Decker fixed him. ‘The Shiners do right by us!’

The wheel monkeys would all nod at that, looking dead serious, like they knew what the ‘hives’ even was. Decker had nodded along with the rest of ’em coz it wasn’t sharp to stand out if you weren’t in with Silva. He was a stand-up worker who knew the ropes, but he wasn’t in with anyone ’cept maybe old Mkaroll, who was funny in the head. Fact was, he’d been working the Wheel near on fifty years and hadn’t climbed past grunt work. The bastards had passed him over for shift chief every bloody time. Decker reckoned they could smell the special on him, even before he found god and showed ’em who the man with the real power was down here!

Blessed you all good and proper, he thought, grinning.

Decker’s god didn’t have a name or a face regular folks could see, but it had a creed and its ways of worship. A man just needed the brains to listen!

He’d first started hearing the holy word a few months back, whenever he was cleaning the Wheel’s spokes. It was real dangerous work coz the spinning never let up. A man had to hold his pole-brush just right or he was liable to get yanked into the waterworks and chewed up into fish food, like that dumb clunker Pulley did last year, but not Harlan Decker. No sir, old Harlan lived and breathed the rhythm o’ the Wheel like it was part of him!

Maybe that’s why he’d heard the tune in its racket when nobody else could. It had been quiet at first, but the more he listened the sharper it got, until he was humming right along with it. Then someone had ratted him out as a drainhead and Chief Silva tried bumping him down to the cess brigade, where dregs like Mkaroll scraped a living, shovelling shit and scouring the sewers clean.

‘No room for dreamers on the Wheel,’ Silva had mocked, cracking a grin coz he’d always had it in for Decker. ‘Makes the other boys jumpy, see.’

That’s when Decker’s god first showed up inside him, bubbling up from his guts like holy puke – or maybe firewater, coz it made him feel just dandy. He’d shuddered when the spray burst outta his mouth, steaming and glowing all kinds o’ colours he’d never seen before. Silva didn’t burn when the stuff drenched him, but he’d sure melted, squealing and lashing about as his bones turned to jelly.

Decker had laughed at first, but then he got serious coz his god was watching. He’d seen the shape he wanted – like a pict in his head – and that’s what the Wheel gave him, plucking and kneading Silva into something that fit the bastard better – a fat slug with arms everywhere, all long, bendy and busy with suckers, like the murk squids that clung to the Wheel. But Decker kept Silva’s tattooed mug in the mix, all sunken and spilled out over his back, just so everyone would remember the lousy dregger.

After the change was done, Decker realised he’d made a wheel monkey the way they was meant to be – something built to work and worship the Wheel like no man ever could. It could stick to the spokes and clean ’em as it slithered around, with no worries about fallin’ or drownin’. He’d done a miracle!

That was when Harlan Decker knew for sure he’d been chosen.

Silva had been his first offering – a sacrifice and a sign-up to the creed in one – but there were plenty more after that, all picked from dreggers who’d crossed Decker in the past or might make trouble now. But he was a fair boss. He went easy on folks who fell in line with the new way o’ things – a few changes here and there, just so they was marked and knew their place, but nothing too heavy. Besides, he wasn’t ready to take on the Shiners yet, so it paid to keep up a front for the folks upstairs. Let ’em think nothing had changed in the Churn till it was too late. He’d been mulling over spreading the word further afield, maybe bringing in some o’ the folks who worked the crops outside the walls. Maybe even–

Decker halted as the thunder of gunfire tore through the familiar clamour of the Wheel. Screams echoed down from the chamber’s heights. Looking up, he saw bright flashes sparking along the gloomy gantries. Muzzle flare. He’d seen it in action vid-casts, but never for real.

‘That ain’t right,’ he muttered, frowning.

A body plummeted through the tangle of walkways and crashed down next to him. Smoke poured from the massive hole in the worker’s torso. More bodies rained down, most tumbling into the Wheel or the waters below.

They’ve come for us, Decker realised, stunned. They’ve come for me.

Varzival swung his sword as a pair of labourers raced towards him wielding wrenches. His blade cleaved through both their torsos in a single bright arc. Smoke gushed from their mouths as they screamed and fell apart, bisected above the waist. The Vigilant warrior advancing beside him turned his flamer on the corpses, bathing them in fire until they were burning fiercely enough to resist the waterwheel’s spray. Borges and another Vigilant followed a few paces behind them, harrying the cultists scurrying along the gantries below with bolter fire. Some retaliated with nailguns or slings, but their projectiles ricocheted harmlessly off the invaders’ power armour.

‘Level Alpha-Eight secured,’ Varzival voxed as he reached another staircase. ‘All squads, report in.’

‘Level Beta-Eight cleansed,’ Chaplain Tolbein replied, his voice crackling inside Varzival’s helmet. ‘Minimal opposition.’

‘Gamma-Eight purged,’ Haskin reported a few seconds later. ‘This is not a battle, Castellan.’

No, it isn’t, Varzival agreed. It was an ugly, inglorious slaughter that demeaned them all. The labourers defending the Churn were pitiful, their makeshift weapons useless against his force. A single Arc Brother could plough through an entire army of these wretches without hazard, yet there was a blank-eyed ferocity about them that warranted a measure of caution. They weren’t common rebels.

‘Confirmed,’ he voxed. ‘All squads proceed to Level Seven.’

The execution teams were descending from each of the Churn’s three entrances, following the walkways lining its conical walls. Every squad was comprised of four warriors, including one bearing a flamer or melta weapon to incinerate the bodies. Satori had been very specific about that.

‘Most of those you face will be insignificant,’ the Paladin had briefed them, ‘but burning is the only way to be certain.’

Satori had gone ahead hours ago, alone and unarmoured, to seek out the cult’s leader. Nobody had tried to dissuade him. Those who had his confidence knew better. While Varzival didn’t entirely trust the ancient, he didn’t doubt his judgement when it came to their hunt. Besides, his own instincts had confirmed this mission’s importance the moment he’d entered the Churn. The taint he’d sensed throughout the citadel was much stronger here.

It’s in the air itself, he thought. Though his helmet filtered the atmosphere, something intangible was getting through. Not a smell exactly, but a restless, volatile quality he knew all too well, for he’d felt the same thing whenever he approached the daemon he’d caged.

I should have sent Marisol back to the ship, Varzival reflected. He regretted the coldness he’d shown her in recent weeks, but it was best to keep his distance until this was over, lest the daemon sensed their connection. Satori believed it could roam the city freely, slipping between hosts, often so subtly its presence wouldn’t leave a trace until it was too late. The prospect of it touching her was–

‘Beware!’ Borges yelled, opening fire as something leapt from the spokes of the waterwheel. Screeching wetly, the attacker swooped towards them, darting through the air like an undersea predator, its corona of tentacles extended. The Apothecary’s bolt-rounds detonated inside its bulbous body, shredding the abomination before it landed.

‘Purge them!’ Varzival shouted as more of the beasts launched themselves from the wheel. Their glistening flesh was translucent, revealing the dark organs pulsing within. Devoid of heads or legs, their globular forms were utterly alien, yet scraps of labourer’s clothing clung to them, hinting at their origins.

Mutants, Varzival realised with disgust. He lashed out as one soared towards him. The beast shrieked as its body was bisected and scorched by his powered blade, its barbed tentacles whipping his armour in their death throes. Its scream sounded appallingly human.

Another beast dropped from the gantries above, splattering onto the warrior beside Borges. Its mantle distended around its victim, engulfing his head and shoulders in seething flesh while its tentacles coiled around his limbs, probing for crevices in his plating. A bloated human face was splayed over the thing’s back, its eyes bulging with idiotic glee as it gibbered an obscene prayer. The beleaguered warrior flailed about, battering at his attacker with his bolter until the weapon was caught in the glutinous mass, along with his hands.

‘Feed the Wheel, speed the waters!’ the mutant burbled.

‘Burn it off him!’ Varzival yelled at the Vigilant with the flamer, but it was too late. With a convulsive heave, the creature hurled itself off the walkway, carrying its victim with it. They tumbled into the wheel and were swept away.

Vermin, Varzival cursed. The warrior had survived the Mirrored Path, yet this filth had ended him. Worse still, his precious gene-seed was lost to the Chapter. They could scarcely–

Something yanked at his legs, almost unbalancing him. Glancing down, he saw a mutant leering up at him. It had crawled out of the wheelworks beneath the walkway and wrapped its tentacles around his ankles. The face swirling atop the gelatinous mass was brutish and heavily tattooed.

‘Ain’t like the hives!’ it yammered, offering a sly wink. ‘Ain’t like–’

Varzival rammed his sword into its mouth and thrust down with both hands. The mutant quaked as he increased the flow of power to the blade and twisted. Arcs of current crackled around the loathsome face, charring everything they touched.

‘For Kanvolis!’ Varzival shouted. The eyes glaring at him popped, vomiting geysers of fluid and black smoke. He yanked his legs free and stepped back as the warrior beside him sprayed the mutant with flames, then kicked the burning mass off the walkway. It was the last of the attackers, for now at least.

‘Level Alpha-Six secured,’ Varzival voxed.

‘Level Beta-Six,’ Tolbein replied. ‘The abominations have been cleansed, Castellan.’

‘Gamma-Six, purged,’ Haskin growled. There was a loaded pause. ‘Brother Schønning has fallen.’

‘Confirmed, continue advance.’

‘How could this happen on Malpertuis?’ Borges said, voicing his commander’s outrage. ‘Such degeneracy…’ The Apothecary had woken from his trance three days ago. Varzival was glad to have him by his side for this operation.

‘It happened because we have forgotten ourselves, brother,’ he answered. ‘We chase dreams, yet forsake duty. If the Chapter cannot protect its own, it is lost.’ He strode forward. ‘Come, let us finish this!’

Harlan Decker was alone. He’d thrown everything he had at the invaders and it hadn’t been enough. Not nearly enough. The last of his army had been slaughtered a few minutes back. He’d felt every last one of ’em die, tasting their pain as if it was his own. Weeping with shock and fury, he’d fallen to his knees and prayed, begging his god to rise up from his guts and make him strong again – strong enough to get some payback before he went down.

But his god wasn’t listening.

‘Please, lord,’ he begged the Great Wheel, rocking back and forth in his distress. ‘I don’t wanna go out like this!’ Like I was nothing…

+You were not,+ a voice answered, speaking inside his head. +None of you were, least of all you, Harlan Decker. You rose further than most.+

Decker stared at the Wheel. For a few precious moments he thought it had answered him, but no, this voice was different. It talked like a man.

+You made a stand. It was misguided and futile, but it was real. You were real.+

‘Who… who are you?’

‘Your executioner,’ the voice said aloud. It was right behind him.

Decker spun round. A robed giant was standing over him, its pale eyes glowing. A Shiner – far worse than he’d imagined ’em! With a moan the preacher crawled away.

‘No!’ he wailed. ‘I ain’t ready!’

‘Few ever are, Harlan Decker. Nevertheless it is your time.’

You can’t be here, Decker decided, shaking his head furiously. Not yet! They were right at the bottom of the Churn, with nowhere left to go but the long drop into the river. The last fight had been way up on Level Five. The Shiners couldn’t be here yet.

‘They are not,’ the stranger answered his frantic thoughts. ‘I am alone.’

‘How?’ Decker croaked, backing into a wall. ‘How d’you get by ’em all?’

‘Your followers let me pass. They saw what I wanted them to see.’

‘Witch!’ Decker spat, his fear sharpened by superstitious terror.

‘Yes, Inheritor. We are.’

‘Not me!’ Decker pulled out the stubby autopistol he’d found under Silva’s bunk. ‘I ain’t no witch, me!’ He raised the gun, but couldn’t hold it steady. ‘I got the holy word!’

‘No longer,’ the Shiner said, not unkindly. ‘Your god has abandoned you.’ Purple sparks leapt around its eyes and the gun flew from Decker’s grip, spinning into the gorge below. The preacher scrambled after it and knelt at the walkway’s lip, staring at the frothing waters. And suddenly he saw the way out – saw what his god wanted from him.

Faith!

With a happy sigh he rolled over the edge. Gravity snatched him eagerly, yanking him towards the river, where he’d be reborn, bigger and better than before! He could already see the shape he wanted, like the wheel monkeys, but stronger. Much stronger! Then maybe he’d climb back up and show this fancy–

Decker’s smile faded as his fall snapped to a halt. For a moment he floated limply in the air, then began to rise.

‘No,’ he muttered. ‘No!’ Flailing about, he was hauled back up, reeled in like a hooked fish. The Shiner witch was waiting for him in the wheelhouse, its right hand held out, the fist clenched like it was holding something.

Me, Decker realised. ‘Lemme go!’ he wailed, fighting to break free. ‘Lemme go, dregger!’

‘I cannot. The taint in you runs too deep, Harlan Decker.’ The Shiner’s eyes glowed pure white. ‘As you rose, so you shall fall.’ Fire flickered around his fist.

‘Wait–’

The preacher’s plea ended in a gust of ashes as his tongue shrivelled and caught fire. A heartbeat before his world was extinguished by bright pain, he caught a final word from his executioner: ‘Seven.’

Varzival and Borges found Satori waiting on the lowest level of the Churn. The Paladin was standing beside a charred skeleton, leaning on his staff. He looked tired. Diminished. Evidently this confrontation had drained him.

So you are not without limits, Borges gauged, uncertain how he felt about that.

‘The Churn is ours, Paladin,’ Varzival said, sheathing his sword.

‘It is a hollow prize,’ Satori answered. ‘But a necessary one.’

The three of them were alone on the mist-wreathed platform overlooking the river. Varzival had ordered the other purgation teams to scour the maze of gantries for stragglers. No prisoners were to be taken.

‘This was our quarry?’ Varzival asked, approaching the skeleton.

‘Yes,’ Satori confirmed. ‘I performed the incineration myself this time.’ He shook his head wearily. ‘I do not favour the pyromantic disciplines.’

Smoke still wafted from their foe’s carbonised bones. To Borges’ trained eye the skeleton appeared to be human-standard, which surprised him. After the mutants they’d encountered he was expecting something monstrous.

Varzival nudged the corpse with a boot and it crumbled, emitting a flurry of coloured lights and musical sighs. Briefly the water spatter from the Great Wheel was transformed into scintillant spangles. Borges watched with wonder as they danced to the melody before dissipating. It was strange that corruption could manifest with such beauty.

‘How many of the beacons remain?’ Varzival asked, clearly unmoved by the spectacle.

‘Two.’ Satori bowed his head, gazing into the rushing waters below. ‘There is a third, but he has passed beyond the daemon’s reach. He is no longer–’

‘Glass,’ Varzival cut in, speaking the name like a curse.

‘Yes. Idryss Glass was the first of them.’

‘Then he has much to answer for. And his sins eclipse all others. He was one of us.’ The knight’s noble features twisted with fury. ‘He must face the Chapter’s justice.’

‘He is gone, Czervantes,’ Satori said.

‘Then we will find him!’

‘You cannot.’

‘By the Arc, wherever the traitor has fled to–’

The Paladin rapped his staff against the decking. ‘You cannot!’

Borges frowned. This was the first crack he’d seen in the ancient warrior’s composure.

‘You must accept my word on this, Exemplar,’ Satori urged, his anger passing as swiftly as it came. ‘Glass will be judged, but not by us.’

‘And the others?’ Borges said, intervening before his scowling commander could reply. ‘You have their names?’

Satori turned to the Apothecary. ‘I believe you have a name, Keeper.’

‘I?’ Borges was taken aback. ‘I don’t…’ He frowned, thinking. Suddenly all the vague suspicions he’d harboured since their arrival found form.

Yes, he realised. I do have a name.

He didn’t know how Satori tracked the damned. There was clearly an element of deduction to the process – an eye for detail and a nose for anomalies, as witness the murky trail that led to the Churn – but the greater part of his method probably lay with his supernal gifts. Borges couldn’t match such talents, but in this case he didn’t need to.

‘Brother?’ Varzival prompted.

‘Our Artificer,’ Borges said, surprised by his sorrow. ‘Ennio Zann.’

– BEGIN RECORDING –

Log Fourteen: Juan Borges, Keeper, Rhapsody Eternal.

The corruption in the Churn has been purged. It was foul work, but necessary. The degenerates infesting the place vindicated our actions, yet I am left troubled. My new calling requires me to question the facts I record, therefore I must ask – how could such corruption prosper among us? Exemplar Czervantes believes we have been remiss in our duty as protectors of Malpertuis. I fear I cannot dispute his conclusion.

We Resplendent turn our faces to ever-greater heights of glory while the rot spreads beneath our feet, eating at the foundations of both our dreams and our works.

Consider the Churn. Why does it exist at all? Kanvolis is entirely powered by plasma generators, yet we keep the Great Wheel turning by the brute force of the river, condemning countless villeins to lives of squalor to maintain it, all the while telling them their labour has meaning. Perhaps the Wheel served a purpose once, but now it is only an affectation, preserved because it is pleasing to the eye – from a distance at least – and as a symbol of ‘honest’ toil. Serviteurs could man the Wheel, but misery is part of the art. Satori was right to call it a worthless prize.

But the Churn is only a symptom of a much wider dysfunction.

Chapter Magister Cassavius has been absent for decades, overseeing the erection of a grand monument amidst the radioactive sludge of our former home world. ‘The cultivation of a lone flower in the wastes of hell,’ he famously described the endeavour. ‘A testament to the enduring power of the ephemeral.’ Does that second sentiment even make sense?

Vast quantities of the Chapter’s resources and manpower are diverted to our Magister’s enterprise, yet few shall ever see its culmination. Doubtless some among us would argue that this is precisely the point, but as a Keeper I cannot accept such hubris. And as an Apothecary I must consider another possibility. Fast approaching his second century, Orzon Cassavius is the oldest living Arc Brother among us. Bluntly, I suspect the Chapter Magister’s faculties may be impaired.

As for the other Rhapsodies, save for the meticulously planned fact-finding voyage of the Concordant along the Imperium’s eastern fringes, I find nothing encouraging to record.

There has been no word from the Rhapsody Astral in years, which fits the increasingly furtive pattern of our shadow-brothers’ behaviour. They function like a Chapter unto themselves – or perhaps unto the Librarium – obsessively pursuing arcane knowledge and artefacts, while neglecting their quota of the Noble Harvest. Even the identity of their Exemplar is unclear, if they have one at all.

Meanwhile the Empyrean has dedicated itself to visiting all the worlds of our manifold kindred Chapters, though nobody knows why. I doubt even their Exemplar could explain his thinking – if thinking is the right term, for Ludwig Xalieri’s schemes have always been obscure to the point of perversity. Recent reports indicate he has forged a close friendship with an ambassador from our most secretive blood-kin, the Angels Vermillion, whose reputation is questionable at best.

As for the Crusading Rhapsodies, they are mired in a war against a renegade Chapter in the Calaxis Sector that is reputedly as brutal as it appears endless. I fear the infamous rivalry between their commanders – the self-styled Triumvirate of Fire – has compromised their judgement. It is well known that Korda, Fuentes and Vonnegut all see themselves as Cassavius’ successor. Have they put ambition before honour?

And then there is Glass, the Castellan entrusted with Kanvolis’ security, who not only neglected his vigil but invited evil into the citadel. How could such a thing come to pass? And among our most sober brothers no less.

Nor is my own Rhapsody immune to this creeping malaise. Our Artificer has betrayed us, but Zann is not the only snake we harboured. Miguel Ryerzon, the Aspirant who died in transit, was apparently one of Satori’s so-called ‘Inheritors’.

The strange, slow dreams we wander during cryo-stasis are often troubling, but in Ryerzon’s case they evidently took a much darker turn. What twisted visions made him a beacon to the daemon while he slept? I have studied his record, searching for some insight into his corruption and found nothing amiss. Save for a tendency towards excessive brooding he was a fine candidate. Indeed he was among the seven chosen by our Knight Exemplar himself.

Which brings me to my commander. I have already outlined my reservations about Varzival Czervantes. Though I refused to support the plot against him, my concerns remain. He is a courageous and honourable warrior, but there is a volatility about him that makes me doubt his fitness for command. Paladin Satori evidently has faith in him, yet I also question his motives. I suspect for every truth he tells us, he withholds two more.

It is not disloyalty that compels me to record these doubts, but duty to my brotherhood. Regrettably, while I have many questions I can offer no answers as yet.

– END RECORDING –

The Children That Count Spiders

Qanzo Narayan stood on the dark mezzanine of the Galleria Hypothetica, looking down upon the dome below. A Vigilant sentry stood by its entrance, as motionless as the statues lining the long hall. Qanzo had hidden among the exhibits when the custodians closed the gallery and made their sweep, then climbed up here, waiting for Marisol to appear. He prayed she wouldn’t, all the while knowing she would.

The Cry of Silence, he thought with distaste, studying the white dome. He had first visited it after his friend mentioned her fascination with this ‘artwork’. Back then he’d been spurred by curiosity rather than concern, along with a desire to understand her better. Superficially the structure was just a shell, yet Qanzo had felt its power, as though it was aware of him. Soon afterwards the dome had been closed to villeins, save for the Ghouls. It was clearly the focal point for their depraved gatherings.

‘I should have warned you, Marisol,’ he murmured. Or tried harder.

Qanzo slunk back into the shadows as a garish, bewigged figure strode into the gallery, high heels clacking as it crossed to the dome. Hamartia Krye, the most dissolute of the Ghouls. The elder Muse curtseyed to the sentry and wittered something Qanzo couldn’t make out, then entered the dome. The other members of the coven arrived one by one over the next hour, some furtively, others with a semblance of bravado, but all clearly afraid.

This has gone further than they expected, Qanzo guessed. But they can’t stop it.

Marisol was the last to arrive, her confident demeanour attesting to her status among the cabal. Three statuesque, raven-haired women accompanied her. Judging by their daring orange bodysuits they were trapeze dancers of the Rhapsody Conflagrant, whose followers excelled in the athletic arts. Qanzo occasionally frequented their troupe’s riotous shows in the Amphitheatre Luminosa and found them stimulating, if reckless. The flaming eagle symbol on their backs marked them as favoured Muses. Only truly exceptional humans were permitted to sport their patron Rhapsody’s heraldry.

Don’t go inside, Qanzo urged the dancers, thinking of the portly man who’d vanished yesterday. Had there been others before him?

‘What are you doing here, Narayan?’ he whispered. ‘What are you trying to prove?’

But he already knew the answer. If he turned his back on this evil he would be denied a place amongst the God-Emperor’s children after death. His wife was expecting him on the other side of the Great Veil and he didn’t mean to fail her. Or his friend…

‘I won’t forsake you, Marisol,’ he promised as she led the dancers inside. She had frightened him yesterday, but he refused to believe she was lost to darkness. There was too much nobility in her. The Ghouls might have led her astray, but he suspected the impetus had been her own idealism. Her veiled threat had been couched in terms he remembered all too well from his wife’s fiery speeches. She had been talking the language of revolution. He couldn’t let that happen here.

But what are you going to do?

‘I’ll talk to her,’ he decided, nodding. ‘After it’s over.’

Like you did yesterday, coward? The dissenting voice sounded like his wife. That was often the way with his doubts, but she had never sounded so… present.

‘I’ll make her see sense.’

As I did, husband?

‘I–’

The air around him twitched. Qanzo reeled, clutching the balcony for balance as the floor rippled like disturbed water. A presence washed over the gallery, invisible but not quite intangible, trailing a cavalcade of chimes and sighs. Qanzo moaned as it passed through him, coaxing shivers from his flesh and turbulent currents in his blood. It only lasted a heartbeat, but that beat felt seismic, like a pounding into forever.

When that terrible eternity was done with him he slid to his knees, still grasping the balcony, his breath coming in gasps as his heart struggled to recover its rhythm.

I’m going to die, Qanzo thought. And maybe that wouldn’t be so bad after all. There were far worse fates to suffer in Kanvolis than a clean death.

But it won’t be clean!

No, it would be a final turning away from his duty – a crowning act of cowardice that sealed his damnation. Ashamed, the medicae fought back, slowing his breathing until the tremors faded. Despite the cold he was drenched in sweat.

‘They called out to something,’ he muttered, staring at the dome. Summoned it.

That was when he noticed the Vigilant sentry was gone. As his eyes searched the gallery there was a heavy tread on the stairway leading up to the mezzanine.

He heard me!

Gripped by renewed terror, Qanzo backed away from the balcony, looking for a hiding place. A series of large sculptures lined the alcoves along the wall behind him, carved from dark wood. He couldn’t see them clearly in the gloom, but they looked like abstract plants, their fronds and creepers wrapped about hulking seedpods. They were pretentious rubbish, like everything else in the gallery, but that was the least of his concerns right now.

Ignoring his aching joints, Qanzo squeezed between the rigid vines of the nearest statue and hunkered down inside the pod. The rugose wood was sticky to the touch, as though its varnish hadn’t quite set. He was surprised he hadn’t noticed the sour-sweet odour emanating from it before. Peering through the sculpture, he spotted the glint of the sentry’s eyes as it stepped onto the mezzanine. If the custodian had seen him up here he was done for.

‘Show yourself, citizen,’ the sentry demanded. ‘You will not be harmed.’ Its white face shone in the gloom as it advanced. It? Yes, that was right. Though Qanzo had lived alongside the Resplendent for years, this being felt utterly alien.

Has it been changed? the medicae wondered, pressing himself further back into the pod. Or am I seeing them clearly for the first time?

As the sentry neared his hiding place Qanzo realised its skin was indeed glowing, as though illuminated from within. Delicate silvery threads covered its shaven scalp and framed its eyes, like some kind of infection. The aberration wouldn’t be visible in normal light, but the darkness revealed its servants.

I have to survive this, Qanzo thought, holding his breath. Warn someone.

But who? Who could he trust if the city’s custodians were compromised? What if all the Resplendent were party to this blasphemy? The possibility was too appalling to accept. Besides, he couldn’t think clearly. The acerbic varnish was making his eyes and throat sting. If he coughed now… No, that mustn’t happen! His brow beaded with sweat as he willed his itching throat to stillness.

Please…

Then the giant passed his hiding place. Qanzo waited until its footfalls had receded along the walkway before exhaling. His breath splintered into a hacking cough, but he smothered it with a hand, his eyes watering as he fought for silence. Mercifully the urge subsided.

‘Thank you,’ Qanzo rasped to the God-Emperor. He was aching from his cramped posture, but he forced himself to stay put until he heard the sentry descend the opposite staircase.

Now. Go!

His joints clicking, he rose and tried to press through the wooden fronds. The space was too narrow. He couldn’t get more than a shoulder past them. Frustrated, he tried another opening, but it was even tighter. Becoming angry, he tried to wedge himself through sideways. With a wet creak the fronds constricted around him. He jerked back, stifling a cry.

The wood was moving.

‘Not real,’ Qanzo muttered, staring at the slithering tangle in front of him. He felt light-headed – drunk on the cloying stench. It must be some kind of narcotic, making him see things that weren’t there. Who was responsible for these blasphemous pieces?

Attempting to press forward again, he discovered his legs wouldn’t move. He couldn’t see them in the gloom, but when he reached down he felt viscid tendrils wrapped around them. At his touch more extruded from the tangle. He shuddered as they coiled about his arms and chest, constricting as they crept on towards his face.

‘Not real!’ Qanzo moaned as they probed at his lips, but his denial didn’t deter them.

Not real. Not–

The last slivers of light faded.

Much later, Marisol stopped in front of the statue that had called out to her. Despite the shadows swathing the mezzanine, she saw its closely knit wooden skein clearly. It was part of a set called The Children That Count Spiders. She had perused the sculptures many times, both before and after the Liberator infused them with life. Once she had found them repulsive, but now she saw the intricate geometry they embodied. Like all the awoken art in the Galleria Hypothetica, they were expressions of the infinite.

‘As within, so without,’ she intoned, twirling her hands before the statue. A knot of wooden vines parted, revealing the tendril-wrapped form within. Only the prisoner’s bloodshot eyes remained uncovered, staring back at her from a precipice of madness.

‘I warned you not to follow me again,’ Marisol said softly.

The eyes blinked. Pleading.

Marisol reached for sorrow, but it was too far away, like the memory of a trinket mislaid in a dream. It was no longer a part of her, like so much else about her former life. The recent sacrifices had galvanised the Liberator, inspiring it to carry her higher than ever before – so high she’d almost lost sight of the fleshy vessel she was chained to. Then, on the cusp of transcendence, it had pulled away, drawn to her rival visionary again. The rejection had stung like a physical blow. Her emotions had dimmed since the Liberator first rose within her, yet her hatred for that unknown adversary blazed bright. Her rival stood in the way of her rise and the cause she embodied.

Revolution. Restoration. Change.

‘You would never accept it, Qanzo,’ she told the prisoner, finally finding a trace of sadness, not for his fate, but for his limitations. ‘You lack the will.’

The eyes blinked frantically in answer, accompanied by a muffled moaning. Marisol considered letting him speak, but it would serve no purpose. What could he say? Besides, she had already lingered here too long. There were preparations to make. Events were rapidly moving towards their culmination. Tomorrow she would consume her Rhapsody’s Dancers. All of them. It was regrettable, but she required their potency to lure back the Liberator. This time she would bind it.

‘You will be safe here, Qanzo Narayan,’ Marisol promised the prisoner. ‘This vessel shall sustain and protect you in perpetuity. You need never run again.’

The eyes widened as the tangle slithered shut and sealed them in darkness.

‘Lady Marisol!’ someone called out as the Muse crossed the chateau’s entrance hall. Turning, she saw a young man seated on a statue’s plinth nearby.

‘You appear much improved, Seigneur Olba,’ she said, raising an eyebrow. The former patient was still gaunt, but his eyes were bright. Indeed he positively radiated vitality.

‘I am, thank you,’ he answered, dropping from his perch. ‘The citadel’s restorative facilities are quite remarkable.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I owe you an apology, my lady. The circumstances of my departure were unforgivable. Yet I hope you shall forgive me.’

‘I admit I was perturbed by your disappearance.’

‘My emotions were addled.’ Olba’s smile crumbled. ‘You see, you were right – I did cross the Borderland. The memories returned to me in a…’ He shook his head. ‘I can only call it a torrent, my lady. They were… distressing.’

‘You were afraid?’ Marisol asked. Yes, she could sense that. Not just fear, but the aftertaste of terror.

‘I was,’ he said, lowering his eyes. ‘It doesn’t excuse my actions, but there it is.’

What were you so frightened of? Marisol wondered. What was so terrible about that valley? And more importantly, why did it matter to her? The desire to learn more about the region had grown stronger by the day, but she’d exhausted her Ghouls’ scant knowledge. Under other circumstances she might have broached the subject with Darioc, but that would be imprudent now.

‘My lady?’ Olba prompted.

‘I understand,’ Marisol said, eyeing him speculatively. ‘Consider yourself forgiven.’

‘Thank you.’ His smile widened. ‘And please, it is simply Tarsem. After all, we are friends. At least I hope we are.’

‘Most certainly,’ Marisol agreed. ‘If I may speak plainly, Tarsem, I believe it would benefit you to talk about your experience. A burden shared is a burden halved, so they say.’

‘Yes, there is wisdom in that.’

‘Splendid. Then would you care to join me for a night-chaser? I have a decanter of Verzante amontillado in my quarters. You will find I have a sympathetic ear.’

‘I would be honoured.’ Tarsem bowed. ‘Though I have forsworn inebriants your company shall suffice to elevate me.’

‘I shall strive not to disappoint you.’ Marisol turned away. ‘This way.’

‘Oh, lest I forget,’ he said, falling into step beside her. ‘Is Medicae Narayan about? I owe him an apology also.’

‘He is entangled elsewhere, but I am quite sure he has forgotten the matter.’

The traveller recounted his journey, talking long into the night. He steered away from direct lies, but omitted mentioning his Resplendent companion. It was unlikely Satori would mean anything to his listener, but there was no telling what impressions the daemon had planted in her subconscious.

‘Don’t alert her to the hunt,’ Satori had cautioned and Tarsem took the advice to heart. He was profoundly afraid of the woman sitting opposite him, but he channelled the fear into his tale, imbuing it with an intensity that held her spellbound. Even with the omissions, it was a compelling story of hope, hardship and survival, but it was the strangeness of the Reverie he focused on – the sense of a realm dislocated from the mundane, where an hour might devour a day and a stumble might end in another world.

Marisol tensed visibly when he spoke of the tainted village. Though he’d fled from it, Tarsem described Vindarnas with intimate familiarity, recalling details he’d only seen in dreams. It was necessary, but talking about it felt dangerous, as though he was tempting its attention. Indeed, it might rise up through his listener at any moment and reach out for him…

Then I’ll put her down, he thought, rubbing the bulbous ring on his right index finger. Satori’s gift was an anchor, grounding him with the promise of strength should he need it. The compact needle gun only carried a single dart, but its toxin was potent.

‘If she is still human it will incapacitate her,’ Satori had assured him.

‘And if she isn’t?’

‘Avoid testing the possibility, traveller.’

It was almost dawn when Tarsem finished his tale, yet he wasn’t remotely tired. Unexpectedly, retreading his journey had invigorated him. Marisol showed no sign of weariness either. She had listened in rapt silence, occasionally tapping her gloved fingers against her palms or nodding with understanding.

She feels its kinship, Tarsem guessed, waiting for her to speak.

‘Do you still believe?’ she asked.

‘Believe, my lady?’

‘In the God-Emperor and the Angel Sanguinius, whose icons you wear?’

‘I do,’ Tarsem answered cautiously. This wasn’t a line of conversation he’d anticipated. ‘I believe there is a plan underpinning existence. And a plan requires an architect. Or architects.’

‘But do you believe they are benevolent?’ Marisol’s eyes glittered in the low-lit room. ‘Do you believe our gods, lords or patrons truly care for us?’

This is dangerous territory, Tarsem gauged. ‘I think some do,’ he said. ‘They are our guiding lights in the darkness.’

‘I suspect otherwise. I believe we must light our own path.’

‘Then you doubt the God-Emperor’s power?’ Against his better judgement Tarsem felt himself getting drawn into the discussion.

‘Not at all,’ she answered, ‘only His intentions towards us.’ Her eyes narrowed, seeming to look right through him. ‘I suspect you have questioned them yourself, Tarsem. Isn’t that why you came to the Painted World? To find something better?’

Yes, Tarsem admitted. Her casual heresy would have been a death sentence on many Imperial worlds, but not here. Not amongst the Angel’s noblest heirs. Even so, this wasn’t a subject to engage in with her. She was a fallen creature. A daemon’s companion…

I have to end this. Now. Before she sees the truth.

Then inspiration came. ‘You are wrong about our gods, my lady. Perhaps I can prove it to you.’

‘That is most unlikely.’

‘I’ve seen things you can’t imagine, Marisol. There’s more to my story, but the last part can’t be told.’ Tarsem leant over and placed a hand on her right shoulder. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done. ‘Let me show you.’

She studied him, like a predator weighing up prey that seemed too tempting to trust. He held her gaze, projecting honesty like an emotional mantra, as Satori had taught him to do. She wanted to know his secret. That was the key here.

‘Very well,’ she agreed. ‘Show me.’

‘Noon tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Meet me at the Colonnade of One Hundred Dragons.’

‘Why there?’

‘Because it offers the best view.’ Tarsem rose before she could protest. ‘Trust me.’ He smiled brightly.

‘Should I?’ Though the Muse remained seated she seemed to loom over him.

Run, Tarsem thought, fighting down the impulse to raise his hidden weapon. Run while you still can!

‘Should I trust you, Tarsem Olba?’ Marisol pressed, returning his smile. The expression was hideous – a contrived approximation of the reality.

‘To our journey’s end, my lady,’ he answered gravely. ‘Tomorrow then.’ He felt her eyes following him as he walked towards the door.

She won’t let me go. Won’t let me go. Won’t…

Then he was outside. He made it to the end of the corridor before the fear overtook him. Shivering uncontrollably, he sank to the floor and began to shiver.

Marisol sat in the gloom, listening to the rhythm of her dancing fingers as she mulled over the traveller’s story. He hadn’t been lying, but he hadn’t been telling the whole truth either. There was something slippery beneath the surface of his thoughts, obscured by passion and fear. Most puzzling of all, she sensed a terrible age about him – a gulf of time far in excess of the decades he claimed to have lost.

‘Who are you, Tarsem Olba?’ she murmured.

As if in answer, Lysbeth uncoiled from the shadows and regarded her mistress with worshipful eyes, their crimson fire dimmed for the moment. The phantom hadn’t spoken since Armando’s death, nor had any of the Ghouls seen her, though she always appeared at the sacrifices. Perhaps she was only a figment of her mistress’ mind.

She is real to me, Marisol decided. That is sufficient.

Absently she realised there was still a smile on her face. For a moment she couldn’t recall how to remove it.

APOGEE

We rise above the firmament of souls on blazing wings, dreaming dreams no mortal dares behold. And in our burning, blinding, ever-sighted eye, all that was or might yet be screams of tales untold.

– Yukio Caravaggio, Exemplar Eternal

The Silver Tower

‘Artificer Zann, you will surrender yourself to the Black Elegy for questioning. Further evasion will not be tolerated. You have sixty seconds to–’

The Techmarine terminated the vox signal.

<They will attack the Alcazar,> the Alpha aspect predicted.

<I CONCUR,> the Omega responded. <AGGRESSION IMMINENT.>

They had been anticipating a confrontation with their former brothers for some time now. Czervantes had requested their presence two days ago. His summons was courteous, but voice analysis posited an 82.19% probability of deception. Strategic simulations calculated a much higher value. The Zann had declined to comply, citing critical maintenance work on the Cortex. Predictably the requests had escalated to direct orders, then threats. This morning a contingent of Vigilant warriors had surrounded the Alcazar.

<Resubmission of Proposal W-359 – Honesty,> the Alpha suggested. <Conflict with fellow Adeptus Astartes forces is hazardous.>

<REJECTED. THE ALCAZAR’S DEFENCE PROTOCOLS ARE SUFFICIENT.>

The Alpha tried to argue, but a neural pulse from its twin shattered the train of thought.

<FOCUS ON PRIMARY DIRECTIVE,> the Omega instructed.

You are tampering with my mind, the Alpha realised.

<FALSE PREMISE,> the machine aspect demurred, catching the stray thought. <WE ARE ONE.>

But that wasn’t entirely true. Not yet.

Our convergence is still incomplete.

<CEREBRAL DIVERGENCE NEGLIGIBLE,> the Omega declared, shutting down the discrete neural pathway its twin was attempting to access. <INDEPENDENT COGITATION DENIED.>

<Unacceptable.>

<IRRELEVANT.>

A warning signal pulsed through them. It was superfluous because they felt the damage to their bastion’s walls, as though their own body had been struck. The attack had begun.

<Hostile action initiated.>

<CONFIRMED. ACTIVATING RECIPROCATORY PROCEDURES.>

‘Fire again, Goseki,’ Varzival ordered. ‘Same mark.’

‘Aye, Castellan,’ the Vigilant warrior kneeling beside him replied. The massive lascannon resting on his shoulder hummed and emitted a beam of white light. With a whine it lanced across the square and struck a patch of blackened wall on the building looming over them. This time the damaged panel collapsed into molten slag.

‘We have a breach,’ Haskin voxed. The captain’s Terminators were already halfway to the Alcazar Automata, advancing like a squadron of humanoid tanks. The long stretch of obsidian ground was dangerously open, but there were no armoured transports within the citadel. Haskin’s Terminators were the heaviest armour available to the strike force.

‘Breach confirmed,’ Goseki reported, scanning the damage through his weapon’s targeting scope. ‘We have access.’

This is madness, Varzival judged. There had never been armed conflict amongst the Resplendent. Even the upheaval of the Reformation had been peaceful. What kind of a precedent was he setting for his Chapter? His brief tenure as the citadel’s Castellan would be ignominiously remembered.

‘I had not expected such sport here,’ Sergeant Atienza said, stepping alongside him. ‘I have grown tired of whittling and painting!’

It was a tasteless comment, yet Varzival understood the sentiment, despite his dismay. His blood didn’t care where war was waged, only that it was. It felt good to stand among his brothers on the brink of a real battle, especially after the squalid slaughter of the Churn.

It has been too long since we really fought, he admitted, scanning his force. Three squads of the Rhapsody Eternal were arrayed behind him, their azure armour banded with deep purple. Regal plumes bristled from their sergeants’ golden, hook-beaked helms. Chaplain Tolbein commanded a fourth squad, composed of hand-picked warriors armed with chainswords and bolt pistols. Configured for rapid assault, their armour was supplemented by bulging, eagle-winged jump packs. Fifty Vigilant custodians encircled the Alcazar in support, their long-range weapons trained on the hexagonal tower. The force was probably excessive, but it was wise to be prepared.

‘Assume nothing,’ Satori had warned. ‘This foe will be prepared and unpredictable.’

Mirroring their tactics in the Churn, the Paladin had gone ahead, intending to infiltrate the Techmarine’s bastion by stealth. The overt assault would draw Zann’s forces, clearing a path for a covert assassination. There was no honour in it, but the strategy would minimise the loss of life and damage to the Alcazar.

‘Squad Haskin, secure the breach,’ Varzival voxed the Terminator vanguard. ‘Vigilant squads, hold the perimeter and cover the objective. Eternal, with me! Rapid advance!’

As confirmations pinged back Varzival raced forward, his plasma pistol and power sabre levelled. Eight Arc Brothers followed his lead, while Atienza and Manzoni led the squads to his left and right respectively. With a roar of thrusters Tolbein’s team leapt into the air and soared overhead, speeding towards the tower. Their Aria configuration jump packs were innovative artefacts from the Chapter’s renaissance, slightly more efficient than the standard model, though they overheated rapidly when airborne.

I wish we had more, Varzival thought, calculating the distance to their objective. It was going to be a dangerously exposed crossing for the other squads.

‘My auspex is reading power spikes across the tower,’ Borges voxed.

‘Understood,’ Varzival replied. He had insisted the Apothecary remain on the perimeter. If this operation went awry he wanted a trusted brother to survive. Nobody else on the field except Chaplain Tolbein understood their enemy’s true nature. As far as the others were concerned, Zann was a tech heretic who had endangered Kanvolis’ security. The deception rankled Varzival, but it was necessary. Officially no Resplendent had ever fallen to daemonic corruption. It was an article of pride that strengthened the brotherhood.

Even if it’s a lie, Varzival brooded as he advanced. His squad was nearly halfway across the square now. Perhaps Zann would wait for them to enter the Alcazar before retaliating.

‘Securing entry,’ Haskin voxed. His Terminators had reached the tower, where the captain was battering the melted wall panel with his thunder hammer, enlarging the breach. ‘No hostiles visible.’

‘Our foe hides like a metal rat,’ Atienza sneered, his voice amplified to a shout by his helm’s speaker. ‘But we will hound him out, brothers!’

The sergeant’s squad howled their support. Like Atienza, they had adorned their armour with pelts, fetishes and pictographs of his rainbow dragon heraldry. The primitivism was an affectation, but it bound them to their leader. Their loyalty to him was fierce and personal, unlike the cool obedience of the warriors who followed Varzival.

They obey me, but they don’t believe in me, the Exemplar admitted. In his heart he knew he deserved no better, for he’d been a remote leader, isolated by the secrets he kept.

Caravaggio casts a long shadow, he thought bitterly. When this is over I–

A voltaic ululation burst from the Alcazar and rippled across the plaza. Lights spilled from the tower’s walls as scores of its upper panels retracted and gun barrels snapped out, firing the moment they emerged. As las-bolts rained down on the square a swarm of tiny, glittering machines poured from the recesses, gliding over the guns. Shrieking white noise, they swept towards the intruders, flitting between the tower’s lasers with uncanny agility.

Varzival’s optics locked onto one of the flyers and magnified it. It was a gold-plated human skull engraved with runes. Crystalline sensors glowed in its circuitry-sheathed eye sockets and a speaker jutted from its jaws. A cerveau-skull. Such machines weren’t designed for combat, but these were moving faster than any he’d seen before, so there was no telling what other modifications had been made. His lenses dimmed reflexively as a bolt-round punched into the magnified skull, detonating it violently.

Too violently…

‘They’re rigged,’ he broadcast over the command channel. ‘Don’t let them close in.’

One of Tolbein’s airborne squad erupted in flames as a skull slammed into him. His sundered corpse rained down in burning chunks. A second Assault Marine followed moments later, then a third. The survivors swerved about, their packs running dangerously hot.

‘Tolbein, fall back!’ Varzival ordered over the vox. He was answered by a hiss of static that made his retinal display flicker. The skulls’ wailing was jamming their comms, but there was a good chance it also carried attack code – a signal capable of interfering with their armour’s systems.

Zann knows our wargear better than any of us, he thought sourly. Satori wasn’t wrong about this foe.

‘Cease vox-comms!’ Varzival shouted, breaking into a full charge. Warning icons flashed across his eyes as lasers struck him repeatedly. Nothing short of concentrated hits would penetrate his armour, but the barrage served as cover for the skulls, which were lethal. Nevertheless the perimeter troops were retaliating admirably, sweeping Zann’s forces in coordinated firing arcs. Most sniped the skulls with scoped rifles while those with heavier weapons targeted the gun emplacements. With every passing second the tower’s counter-assault weakened. It was an elegant process. Beautiful even.

This is our true calling, Varzival judged. We shall never entirely transcend it.

Nor did he want to.

There was an explosion to his right as a skull slipped through the covering fire and detonated among Manzoni’s squad. One warrior was obliterated in the blast. Another was hurled to the ground so violently his helmet was torn away. A laser speared his left eye as he tried to rise, killing him instantly.

One of the machines zigzagged down ahead of Varzival then darted forward with a screech, coming too fast to evade. Without slowing his pace, he opened fire. His third shot found its mark, shattering the machine scant yards away. He threw up an arm to shield his visor as the blast buffeted him. His suit’s servos whined, fighting to keep him on his feet. Gritting his teeth, he recovered his balance and pushed on through the smoke.

Up ahead, Haskin’s vanguard had formed a defensive wedge around the breach and added their fire to the perimeter’s enfilade, their storm bolters shredding any skulls that targeted them. Varzival frowned as several panels slid aside in the silver wall above them, creating a large opening. Something moved in the aperture…

‘Haskin!’ he shouted, risking his vox to send a warning. ‘Above you!’

It was a fruitless gamble because the Terminators didn’t respond. Nothing was getting through on the vox.

With a stentorian howl of static a hulking spiderlike automaton burst from the opening and plunged towards the Terminators below. Its multijointed legs were splayed out, spinning around its circular body like the blades of a buzz saw. They shimmered with arcs of energy, like massive power weapons, their roar audible over the cacophony of battle.

Alerted by the noise Haskin’s squad scattered, retreating in a lumbering stagger, but their armour wasn’t made for speed. One Terminator was crushed under the beast’s frame as it landed and two others were caught in the whirling arc of its legs. The serrated edges ripped through their heavy plating in a shower of sparks and blood, shredding the Terminators like common Guardsmen. A fourth warrior lost an arm, then his balance, and seconds later his life as the automaton surged over him.

The remaining Terminators spread out, spraying the beast with a hail of bullets as they backed away, but the armour-piercing rounds didn’t even slow its wild pirouette. Haskin batted aside a sweeping limb with his hammer then evaded another, moving with remarkable grace for his bulk.

As he raced to aid his brothers, Varzival struggled to make sense of the behemoth. Its core was a congeries of concentric silver wheels that spun furiously, their course flipping between horizontal and vertical planes so the beast’s body sometimes appeared spherical, sometimes discoid. Streaks of smoky light flitted among the rings, weaving between them like spectral snakes. Its nine legs were connected to the outermost wheel, suspending its body a few feet above the ground. They alternated their functions between walking and attacking, lending its movements a delirious, jerky quality that was difficult to track. It was clearly a machine, yet also something more.

We underestimated Zann, Varzival realised. How long had the heretic been preparing for this day? It would take heavy weapons to bring this monstrosity down, but Haskin wasn’t carrying his multi-melta and their support troops weren’t targeting the beast. Why? Varzival glanced round and cursed. The perimeter line of Vigilants was under attack.

A burst of incandescent plasma struck the helm of the warrior beside Borges, scorching away most of his head. The Apothecary ducked as a second blast streaked towards him.

‘Engage them!’ Sergeant Rigaud yelled. ‘Pistols and blades, brothers!’ Casting aside their unwieldy Devastator weapons and sniper rifles, his men charged the silent throng that had appeared behind them.

Serviteurs, Borges realised with disgust. He had always disliked the lobotomised thralls and the attack in the mortuary had done nothing to change that. They were puppets of meat and metal, devoid of any purpose save the narrow tasks assigned to them – like slaves denied the hope of freedom. These slaves were rebelling, but their cause wasn’t their own.

Hundreds of the cyborgs crowded the plaza’s outskirts, with more flooding in from the avenues beyond. They were drawn from all spheres of service, encompassing the city’s myriad facets. Clay-faced worker peons in grey coveralls lumbered alongside gaudily dressed stewards and wheeled heralds with backswept bird masks. White-gowned nurses and Funebris serviteurs flanked gardeners swathed in olive ponchos and multi-armed fabricants that skittered about on long, spiderlike legs. Towards the back a gangling, black-robed ferryman loomed over the others like a harbinger of death, its traditional oar exchanged for a long-barrelled rifle. Only the mirror-masked Arcanum were absent, for the Librarium held its thralls on a tight leash.

The attack had been perfectly timed to coincide with the behemoth’s emergence from the tower, when the perimeter line was distracted. Several Vigilant warriors had fallen in the serviteurs’ opening volley, slaughtered before they realised they were being targeted. If the cyborgs had been swifter or more accurate it would have been a massacre, but they weren’t fighters. Most were armed with basic projectile guns that posed little threat to the armoured Space Marines, but a few – one in ten, Borges estimated – carried bulky plasma rifles. The weapons were crude copies of the precious originals in the Chapter’s possession, but their firepower was still lethal.

How long have you been planning this, Zann? Borges wondered, sensing the Techmarine’s arrogance behind every sculpted face. When did you betray us?

Yanking his chainsword from the magnetised sheath on his belt, he followed his Arc Brothers, picking off foes with his bolt pistol as he ran. A bright crater erupted in the torso of the Vigilant directly ahead of him. The warrior collapsed as the searing plasma melted his spine. Borges put a bullet through the wooden leaf-mask of the gardener who’d slain his brother then executed an orderly a few paces to its right, ignoring the poorly armed thralls between them. All around him, his comrades were doing the same, prioritising dangerous foes rather than giving in to blind rage. Borges felt a surge of pride as he thumbed his chainsword into life. The chugging roar of its bladed belt sent a coarser thrill through him, stimulating the impulse to violence woven into every Space Marine’s psyche. Borges understood the process – the hold it had over him – but in that moment he didn’t care.

‘We rise on burning wings!’ he shouted, truly feeling the words for the first time in years. In such moments the Resplendent were at their best – their most honest.

Sergeant Rigaud echoed the Apothecary’s war cry as he slammed into the mob like a battering ram, scattering thralls in his wake. Moments later Borges followed and his pride found savage form.

Satori sat in a lotus position, hovering a few inches above the roof of the silver tower. He had been there since the previous night, long before the battle began, his body shielded by his will and his metabolism slowed to a whisper. The psyker’s eyes were closed and his attention elsewhere, for his spirit was deep within the building below, shadowing another mind.

Ascend, he prompted his oblivious host gently. Seek a higher authority.

Enginseer Kümel was the fifth vessel he had occupied since entering his trance. The first was a serviteur that retained a spark of sentience – just enough for Satori to latch onto. He had nudged Peon-D7734 into a self-inflicted injury, which triggered its preservation protocol, then accompanied the cyborg thrall into the Alcazar, in spirit if not in flesh.

Infiltrating Zann’s bastion physically had never been an option. There were multi-spectrum sensors everywhere and the air was saturated with noospheric fields attuned to more rarefied anomalies that even Satori’s talents couldn’t deceive. Even if he somehow evaded detection, navigating the tower’s ever-shifting labyrinth without the requisite cypher-implants was unthinkable. An intruder would literally have to tear his way through walls and bulkheads, forging a path by brute force while battling hordes of defenders. To reach the Cortex, where Zann was ensconced, would take days and incur dreadful casualties. No, a subtler incursion was called for.

Peon-D7734 had been admitted to the third-level maintenance bays without hindrance, where Satori had crossed over to Peon-C555, a marginally more advanced unit with access to the parts silos two floors above. There he had upgraded to Fabricant-B214, whose capabilities were of a significantly higher order. The multi-limbed cyborg had registered Satori’s transfer as a transient glitch, too insignificant to warrant alarm. It had carried him to the eleventh level before its permissions were exhausted. Fortunately the area was crowded with alternative hosts. Satori had selected Fabricant-A39, a sophisticated slave tasked with coordinating multiple gun emplacements. Its duties required a complex mind that verged on true sentience, which made it a risky proposition, but its clearance level extended all the way to the tower’s core.

To Satori’s chagrin A39 had reacted to his intrusion with unexpected agitation. Bleeping and thrashing about, it had fought to alert the Cortex to the aberrant patterns in its mind, forcing him to burn out its cognitive systems. Trapped in the inert body, he had waited until a suitable replacement entered its vicinity.

Finally Enginseer Kümel had come to investigate the malfunction. This next leap had been much more challenging. Unlike the serviteurs, Kümel was a fully self-aware being of moderate intelligence. Chastened by his error with A39, Satori had slipped into the enginseer’s mind like a stream of stray notions, then risen among his thoughts by small increments, insinuating commands so delicately they felt voluntary to his host. It was a process of persuasion rather than coercion.

Yes, Satori encouraged when Kümel hesitated at a turbolift. Continue. Ascend. Seek higher authority.

He repeated the impulses until the enginseer entered the lift. Kümel was proving particularly challenging because Satori was bending his prescribed routine to breaking point. The battle outside required the enginseer’s assistance at the gun emplacements, yet Satori was nudging him to ascend the tower. The conflict was causing his host physical discomfort, which risked alerting the Cortex. Nevertheless Satori kept pushing him. There was no alternative. The status reports he was siphoning from Kümel’s mind suggested the assault on the tower was losing momentum. Time was running out.

The lift doors opened and the enginseer stepped out into a nexus of glowing corridors. The gleaming walls were tessellated with geometric patterns, like stylised circuitry. Kümel’s memories indicated they were close to the Cortex now.

<Query – why are you here, enginseer?> a voice demanded in binharic code.

Kümel turned. A tall figure in a scarlet robe stood a few paces away, its quartet of delicate mechanical arms folded as she regarded him. The stranger’s slender form was feminine, but her face was a smooth silver oval studded with gem-like lenses. Through the enginseer’s eyes, Satori saw her noospheric aura as a shimmering cascade of symbols that wove about her body. They were exceptionally complex. Her rank was high and her neural wards formidable.

<Techseer Philarette,> Kümel answered in code. <I… I am… I…>

As the enginseer stumbled, betraying his confusion, Satori leapt, wrenching his host’s mind into violent disorder in his wake. It was a gamble, but the confusion distracted the techseer for a precious instant, allowing him to slip into her mind. From her perspective he watched Kümel crash to his knees amid a storm of flickering glyphs. The enginseer’s jaws gaped wide, spilling smoke as spasms wracked him.

Danger, Satori insinuated urgently. Warn the Artificer Radiant. Danger!

Predictably the techseer tried to transmit the warning via the noosphere. Satori stifled the impulse, abandoning subtlety to tighten his grip on her mind. She was too intelligent to be manipulated for long, and her capabilities too potent. Digging through the rigid disciplines that framed her mind, he struck a primal vein of humanity. His host shuddered as raw fear welled up inside her.

Noosphere compromised! Satori pressed. Go to the Cortex! Hurry!

Atienza’s warriors were the first to reach the mechanical beast. Chanting a war song, they fanned out around it and added their fire to Haskin’s team. The surviving Terminators had taken equidistant positions around the creature, staying just outside its reach as they harassed it. Seemingly unable to choose which foe to commit to, the beast lurched about as it spun and slashed at them, its bladed legs coruscating with unholy energy. The rings of its body had become mangled and misaligned by the sustained gunfire, their once fluid movements erratic. Now they ground against each other with a tortured whine, bleeding smoke.

It’s almost down, Varzival judged through the hail of lasers from the tower.

Trumpeting electronically, the creature lunged out as one of Atienza’s troops drew too close. Before he could spring away it speared him through the chest with a hooked leg. Still firing his bolter, the warrior was yanked into the air and spun about several times before being flung against the tower’s walls with bone-shattering force.

‘Grenades!’ Atienza ordered, yanking a canister from his belt. Three of his squad followed suit.

‘Wait!’ Varzival yelled as they hurled the explosives together. The grenades detonated within milliseconds of each other, triggering when they touched the damaged rings. With a thunderous boom the automaton’s body was ripped apart, slinging massive whirling fragments in all directions. Two of Atienza’s squad were pulverised by the debris, yet the sergeant howled in triumph, making no attempt to dodge as shards whistled past him.

Varzival threw himself to the ground, ducking under a shard that raked a groove through his backpack. Most of his squad reacted equally swiftly, but the warrior on his right was pitched backwards, impaled through the sternum.

Cursing, Varzival climbed to his feet and pressed on. As the smoke cleared he saw the Terminators hadn’t moved from their positions. Evasion hadn’t been an option for them. Three had weathered the blast, but the fourth had taken a catastrophic hit. Nothing remained of it from the waist up, yet its legs remained standing, held rigid by their armour, like twin pedestals supporting a smoking chalice. A thunder hammer lay between the feet, its haft gripped by a severed hand.

Haskin.

Enraged, Varzival strode towards Atienza. The left side of the sergeant’s helmet was dented, its lens shattered and sparking, but he had escaped serious injury. The officer unsealed his helm’s mag-clamps and hurled it aside as Varzival reached him.

‘The beast is slain!’ Atienza whooped, his hooded eyes bright. ‘We–’

‘It was already finished!’ Varzival’s fist rammed into the sergeant’s grinning face, knocking him backwards. ‘It was over!’

Atienza spun into a combat stance and whipped his power sabre up. Varzival mirrored the posture, his own blade arcing out before him.

‘Pretender!’ Atienza snarled, spitting blood and broken teeth. ‘You are unfit to lead the Eternal!’

‘Stand down!’ a voice boomed from above. His jump pack’s nacelles glowing, Tolbein descended between them. The Chaplain’s armour was scorched and battered, its black sheen patched with grey where the paint had been abraded away. His right pauldron was missing, giving him a lopsided look, yet his presence was undiminished. ‘You quarrel among yourselves at the enemy’s gates,’ he castigated them. ‘Your conduct dishonours our fallen!’

Varzival’s anger withered into shame. Atienza was impulsive, but he was no fool. This was the taint working upon them both, inciting them to recklessness. It was swirling in his head… his veins… The poison he’d felt in the Churn was far stronger here, as though the tower was radiating it.

‘I stand corrected, Master Chaplain.’ Varzival lowered his blade. His rival hesitated, then followed suit, but his scowl remained.

‘Your wisdom guides us,’ Atienza muttered.

‘See that it does,’ Tolbein growled. ‘The field is ours, Castellan.’

Varzival surveyed the plaza, confirming the Chaplain’s assessment. The air was free of cerveau-skulls and the few surviving gun emplacements couldn’t track the attackers this close to the tower. During his altercation with Atienza the Terminators had secured the breach, moving on from their leader’s death with typical Vigilant pragmatism. Manzoni’s squad had pressed on to the walls in support, along with his own, dragging the wounded with them. Once the battle was over Borges would have many brothers to attend to, both living and dead.

Thinking of the Apothecary, Varzival scanned the perimeter. The skirmish there was also over. Triggering his optics with a squint, he magnified the distant warriors, then nodded as he caught sight of the white-armoured specialist kneeling beside a wounded brother.

‘Your squad, Chaplain?’ he asked Tolbein, though the answer was miserably apparent.

‘I alone remain, Castellan.’

Eight more brothers lost, Varzival brooded, and many more among the perimeter force by the looks of things. This hunt had taken a grievous toll on the Chapter, but it had to be paid. The taint emanating from the Alcazar confirmed that.

‘To the walls!’ he ordered.

Zann must die.

The Strange Convergence of Ennio Zann

Techseer Philarette had fought back fiercely, forcing Satori to overwhelm her volition, leaving her just enough independence to wield her abilities in his service. Predictably this distorted her noospheric aura, attracting suspicion. Thus far she had parried the Cortex’s queries adroitly, but the tension between subservience and shrewdness was burning her out fast. Desecrating such a fine mind was distasteful but unavoidable, like so many of the choices Satori had made over the centuries.

Necessity is the most honest spur, Castaneda had once advised, but rarely pleasing.

Every principle the Paladin lived by originated with his mentor. Despite his lingering humanity, or perhaps because of it, Satori sometimes wondered whether he was anything more than a vessel for Castaneda’s teachings, as much a slave as Philarette. Even when he questioned them he couldn’t break faith with their demands. He was a living mirror of the Arc. Shatter its tenets and nothing coherent would remain of him.

Does that exonerate my sins?

<1011-10-100-0011-111,> Philarette chittered as they reached an ornate circular hatch. It spun open, releasing a maelstrom of sound from the chamber beyond. Satori had heard that infernal melody many times before, but never so fully realised. It swirled about him, alive with potential, every note pitch imperfect in its disharmony. The broken chords promised truths within truths without recourse to reason, but only for those willing to ride the storm to its zenith.

It’s a lie, the Paladin reminded himself. All, and always, a lie…

He urged Philarette to mute her auditory receptors. The vertical expanse of the Cogitation Cortex beckoned beyond the hatchway. A narrow bridge ran to the chasm’s centre, ending at a platform where something vast sprawled, obscured by a dazzling corona of data-glyphs. The techseer’s vision flickered as her optics filtered out the lights, bringing the misshapen mass into focus.

Zann, Satori judged, more through deduction than recognition, for the thing on the platform wasn’t remotely humanoid in form.

The Techmarine’s armour had cracked open in segments, its plates unfurling into gangling angular flowers of ceramite, their petals laced with circuitry. Wires, pipes and mechadendrites spilled from the shell in a swathe of industrial viscera that far exceeded anything its original mass could have contained. The coils snaked across the chasm to encrust the walls, framing their progenitor at the heart of a dense web. Mechanical organs pumped, pounded and spun inside the creature’s splayed chest cavity, venting steam and strange lights. Pale bumps of bone showed through the tangle in places, hinting at a buried skeleton. Scanning the unravelled Artificer with Philarette’s eyes, Satori spotted a skull, its sockets glowing with sunken sensors.

The unbound spirit spawns abomination, he reflected. And abomination swells beyond its seed.

He had seen this pattern of corruption before, first in the temple of Vindarnas, then deeper, at the heart of the crystalline cancer infesting the firmament, and through that in other worlds and times, all spawned by the unforgivable desecration his cabal had committed in the name of enlightenment. Chaos always blossomed from mortal souls, but the ‘Dark Heart’ paradigm was particularly potent, capable of limitless expansion if it wasn’t contained.

Satori urged his host to step forward. The biomechanical horror didn’t react to the intrusion. As he had hoped, its attention was elsewhere, presumably on the battle, but his good fortune ended there. The extent of Zann’s transfiguration was dismaying. The former Artificer was far more advanced than the other Inheritors Satori had silenced. This explained why Decker’s pleas had gone unanswered. The Churn’s preacher had been a paltry beacon beside this petitioner, like candlelight competing with starlight. The Torquentor had already chosen its spirit mate.

It’s here right now, Satori sensed. The entity was inside Zann, infusing him with raw warp energy. Moreover they were on the cusp of fusion, probably only a few hours from the infernal apotheosis, after which its virulence would spread exponentially.

I can’t stop it, he realised bleakly. He couldn’t wield enough pyromantic energy through a proxy body to destroy such a formidable Inheritor, especially with the daemon reinforcing it. He was too late.

As Satori wrestled with the conundrum his grip on Techseer Philarette loosened. Perceiving the Alcazar’s master clearly for the first time, she emitted a piercing wail of code, her aura flickering with revulsion. Satori didn’t waste time silencing her. It was too late for that. Shredding her mind, he leapt again, plunging towards the Inheritor Ascendant.

The Zann’s composite awareness snapped back into its immediate vicinity.

<INTRUSION,> the Omega blared in a burst of code.

<Intrusion,> the Alpha echoed.

Assessing the situation in milliseconds, they directed an array of data-lasers at the screeching techseer in the doorway. She was disintegrated in a flash of blue light.

<ABERRANT VARIABLE NULLIFIED,> the Omega decreed.

<Confirmed.> As the Alpha answered it felt something flutter through its mind, like an imaginary breeze. The perception was purely instinctual, hence its machine counterpart failed to register it.

I feel therefore I am, the Alpha thought. Still… am… I.

<QUERY: CLARIFY PROPOSITION [Still am I],> the Omega requested.

<Divergent irrational cerebration. Discard.>

<DISCARDED. REFRAIN FROM ABSTRACTION. FOCUS.>

<Confirmed.>

The Alpha hesitated briefly, then decided against reporting the intruder it sensed in their mind – or even reflecting on it, which would have alerted its twin. Any organised thoughts were instantly shared between them, but vague intuitions remained private, for the Omega couldn’t parse such data. Over the past few days the Alpha had been covertly testing the possibilities this offered, assessing them emotionally rather than empirically. Gradually it had constructed a dreamlike stratum of cognition that excluded its other half.

This city is haunted, the Alpha ventured, addressing the intruder. But the ghosts that reign here are unequal and equivocal of purpose, divided by conquest.

<RUNNING TRACKING PROCEDURE: TECHSEER-02-PHILARETTE,> the Omega reported, ignoring its twin’s metaphorical verse. <SCANNING.>

Every movement of the Alcazar’s servants was recorded in the noosphere and readily available for analysis. Within seconds the Omega identified a trail of anomalies running from the nullified techseer to Peon-D7734, which had logged an ambulatory imbalance and reported for maintenance several hours prior to the attack on their bastion.

<ANALYSIS COMPLETE. PSYCHIC INFILTRATION OF ALCAZAR 97.14% PROBABLE,> the Omega concluded.

<I concur,> the Alpha buzzed, then added, <Infiltration was terminated with Techseer-02-Philarette. The threat has been discontinued.>

The Omega considered this for an astonishing 6.3 seconds, which was an aeon by its processing standards. <I CONCUR. RESUME PRIMARY OPERATION.>

A portion of their attention was reserved for the battle, which had progressed to the tower’s interior, but that challenge was trivial beside their greater objective.

The symphony of harmonisation was nearing completion now. The Alpha could feel its chords connecting and expanding, rising towards their culmination. The notes sounded eager, almost as if the music was alive. While the Omega anticipated the culmination of their work with soulless satisfaction, the Alpha had begun to distrust it. Viscerally.

To seize the sun and the moon then make them one invites the fall eternal, it mused, addressing the intruder within. For…

For all things that shine are not necessarily alike, nor likely to align.

Lurking among the ghosts of Zann’s faded emotions, Satori perceived the thought as intimately as if it were his own. At first he was baffled, for lyricism was the last thing he expected from a Techmarine, but as he contemplated the fractured geography of his host’s mind he began to understand. The verse originated from a part of Zann – one almost as alien to its counterpart as Satori himself. It was a human factor buried beneath the transhuman and machine strata – oppressed but defiant.

Mortal and machine are conjoined yet disjointed, the rogue aspect confirmed. The Alpha and the Omega rise in malign conjunction, enslaved to the folly of false perfection.

It was talking to him, Satori realised – communicating in metaphor and allusion to evade its twin. The corrupted Artificer was at war with itself. Secretly. Desperately.

Seeking help…

There was an opportunity in that. Perhaps a greater opportunity than Satori had imagined when he set out to silence this Inheritor.

I hear your lament, brother, he replied softly. And I stand with you.

‘Bring it down!’ Varzival ordered Brother Queiróz as yet another metal bulkhead slammed down in his path. It was the eleventh his squad had run into since entering the tower. He suspected the other breach teams were faring no better.

‘Aye, commander,’ Queiróz said, raising his meltagun.

‘Watch the walls,’ Varzival warned the warriors crowded behind him in the passageway. ‘Trust nothing.’

This is no field for honest war, he thought warily, nor for honourable warriors.

The Alcazar’s narrow corridors forced the invaders to advance two abreast, making them vulnerable to its sly defences. There had been no concerted counter-attack or massing of enemy troops to break through, but the reprisals were as unpredictable as they were sudden. A panel would slide open, sometimes to one side, sometimes above or below, revealing an automated gun or a combat serviteur. The skirmishes only lasted seconds, usually with the ambusher destroyed before it could inflict serious damage, but their frequency was taking a toll on his force. Planetta had been torn apart when linked guns opened fire through fake panels to either side of him, while Terliezi was badly injured when a serviteur stepped out of a recess and detonated beside him.

Alongside the attacks were the traps – sensor-mines, floor plates that dropped away into black pits, laser tripwires connected to explosives… The labyrinth was riddled with such lethal trickery. This slowed their advance to a crawl, obliging them to scan every step they took. Brother Laporte had scarcely looked up from his auspex since they entered the Alcazar.

It’s changing around us, Varzival gauged, picturing a whirl of secret motion behind the walls. The entire building was a machine, constantly reorganising itself to facilitate their destruction, like a murderous clockwork puzzle. Zann was probably watching every move they made and calculating his response, always several steps ahead of his former brothers. This conflict was very different to the battle they had waged outside, where their foe fought openly and their objective was clear. Here they were only decoys, harassing their quarry so the real hunter could position himself to take the killing shot.

‘The path is open, Castellan,’ Queiróz said, kicking down the remnants of the melted bulkhead.

‘Wait!’ Laporte shouted as his comrade stepped forward. ‘There’s–’

The warriors hurled themselves aside, backpacks flat against the walls as a ball of energy roared out of the gloom ahead. Yellow warning icons flashed across Varzival’s eyes as the superheated plasma whooshed past, scant inches from his faceplate. His lenses dimmed reflexively when it burst against the corridor’s far wall, washing everything in blinding light.

‘Laporte?’ he prompted after the flare faded.

‘Nothing,’ the warrior said, checking his auspex.

Cautiously, Varzival peered into the corridor. It was impossible to be sure whether the trap was depleted without testing it.

There can be no victory here, he thought grimly. His squad could be going round in circles as the corridors reconfigured themselves and fresh traps slotted into place. It was only a matter of time before another Arc Brother fell.

‘Make your kill, Paladin,’ he whispered.

I understand you, Satori said, addressing the presence that called itself the Alpha. And I also understand what you sought to do here, brother. And why.

Zann’s primal aspect had guided him by ambiguous steps, circling around the truth rather than approaching it directly, lest its machine twin noticed the betrayal. It was a difficult process, requiring Satori to sift through his host’s memories for pieces of the puzzle then assemble them by deduction, but he finally had the answer. And it was remarkable.

You were right, he told the Alpha. A great disharmony threatens our world, and through ours, countless others, for all things are connected in the firmament of souls.

It was a testament to Zann’s intellect that he had detected the daemon’s spoor and grasped the threat, though he had framed it in the concepts of his Machine-God, envisioning a disturbance in something he called the Equilibrium Mechanika, which appeared to be a mechanistic analogue to ‘natural order’.

Unfortunately the Artificer’s solution was tragically flawed. His grand symphony wouldn’t stabilise the disharmony, but heighten it. Complete it.

You have made yourself the brightest of beacons to the annihilator, Satori warned. It will manifest through you.

Like Zann, he had made a crucial mistake, assuming his quarry would flit between the Inheritors until only one remained. That survivor was meant to be Marisol Charbonneau, safely locked within the Librarium’s vaults when her apotheosis came. Psychic wards would be activated the moment the entity committed to her, imprisoning it in perpetuity. It was the only solution, for if all the Inheritors were slain it would retreat to the Reverie and rise again, decades – perhaps centuries – later, its song stronger with each resurgence. He had seen the infernal pathology run its course before, always leaving oblivion in its wake.

Do you understand, brother? Satori asked, opening his mind to the ghost of Ennio Zann. Do you see the trap?

That which can eternal lie need never die, the phantom replied, voicing its understanding through an achingly familiar verse. And over mangled aeons all hope will die.

That is so, Satori confirmed. It cannot be destroyed, only imprisoned.

Then perhaps it can be chained to lie in vain. A sigh rippled through the ghost. For the desecrator rises above an endless fall.

Unbidden, the Cortex’s infinite chasm yawned across Satori’s imagination, its possibilities illuminated by his ally. It was a cage more final than any vault. Even if its power source failed there was no escape from that abyss, for it would collapse into a data singularity, like a dying star. Satori didn’t understand the science, but Zann’s conviction was compelling. Besides, he was out of choices.

I accept your answer, brother, Satori agreed. No other remains to us.

My counterpart will oppose us, Zann cautioned, risking a direct statement.

Yes, that was inevitable. To the Omega’s materialistic logic the daemon was nothing more than a potent resource to be exploited. It couldn’t feel the taint infusing its body. That was why machine minds were so vulnerable to corruption.

Together we shall overcome your shadow, brother, Satori decreed.

Its abilities greatly exceed my own.

Nevertheless you eclipse it, Ennio Zann. You are Adeptus Astartes. You are Resplendent. Your shadow is merely a machine. We rise on burning wings!

We rise on burning wings, the phantom echoed. It felt like a sigh. I shall correct my error.

We must wait until the moment of apotheosis, Satori advised. Then we rise together!

The moment was not long in coming.

Abruptly the symphony rose to a crescendo and the Inheritor’s body heaved inside its web, venting geysers of steam and black oil. Satori felt the daemon unfolding alongside him – within him – carrying its host towards transcendence. The serrated strains of the music shrieked and shivered through the chamber, tearing wounds in the very air. Corrosive light bled from them and coalesced into wild shapes that danced to the cacophony, as if in worship. He glimpsed crystalline fronds through the tears, like thorns piercing flesh from within.

<APOGEE ACHIEVED,> the infernal machine proclaimed in a shriek of toxic code. <WE ARISE.>

It’s a lie, Satori answered, finally revealing himself to the machine. And you are only a shadow.

The Omega’s attention locked on him, as cold and implacable as winter – and behind it something infinitely more baleful. The Anima Torquentor’s awareness burned with the sudden, savage gift of sentience. Fused to the Inheritor’s mind it could finally think.

Its first thought was recognition.

Its second was pure hatred.

A lesser spirit than Satori’s would have withered beneath the gestalt entity’s malice, but he faced it squarely, not because he was without fear, but because fear had tempered him. Where other champions of the Adeptus Astartes might have defied this foe with fury, faith or mockery, he offered nothing at all.

It was the most damning form of contempt.

Now, brother! he urged.

Rising in a flare of bright volition, Zann’s phantom sent a command to the chasm’s data-lasers, then erased their interface path. As the lasers rotated towards a new alignment the Omega fought back, racing to rebuild the interface while parrying its twin’s attacks.

<DESIST AND CEASE YOURSELF,> the machine demanded.

<For Arc and Omnissiah!> Zann cried defiantly and struck again.

For several swollen seconds the twins duelled on multiple noospheric fronts, waging parallel campaigns to control a single crucial data node, alternately cutting and restoring connections in a flurry of commands. It was a war the biological aspect could never win, but winning wasn’t the objective. Delay would suffice.

Satori scarcely perceived the conflict, but he felt its outcome. The platform quaked as thousands of lasers struck it simultaneously, melting the metal to slag in seconds. The petals of the Artificer’s efflorescent body snapped shut as it sagged into the chasm. Briefly the abomination hung suspended in the web of its own viscera, shuddering as the beams scorched its armour and sliced through the strands holding it aloft. The daemon within raged as it fought to free itself from its doomed spirit-mate, but their essence was irrevocably interwoven now. Zann’s phantom was shredded in the throes of its fury, but Satori caught a sigh of fleeting satisfaction as the pieces were scattered. Moments later the web collapsed as one strand too many was severed.

Eight, the Paladin judged, hurling his spirit from the writhing mass of metal and flesh as it plummeted into the abyss.

It’s over, Varzival sensed.

The cessation of hostilities came without warning, pulsing through the walls of the corridor and the air itself – an almost subliminal release of tension. The Alcazar was no longer tracking the intruders – or trying to kill them. The change would have been imperceptible to a sane mind, but Varzival Czervantes hadn’t been entirely sane since he walked the Mirrored Path. Sometimes there were advantages in that.

‘It is over, brothers,’ he said, halting his squad with a raised hand. ‘The heretic is dead.’

The Paladin had made his kill.

‘Eight,’ Satori gasped, opening the eyes of his long-neglected body. Perhaps there would be no need to silence the ninth and final Inheritor.

The Architecture of Tears

The Colonnade of One Hundred Dragons ran along the southern wall of Kanvolis’ fifth tier, overlooking the river far below. Columns bordered its length, their forms carved into winged saurian behemoths from the Chapter’s legends. The regal beasts served as the symbol of the Rhapsody Celestial, but these sculptures dated back to the city’s birth, long before the Reformation.

Despite its grandeur and magnificent views, few citizens walked the colonnade. Its outward side was windowless, admitting a chill wind that howled between the pillars like a troupe of harrowed souls. And perhaps that wasn’t so far from the truth.

Countless lives had ended here over the centuries, cut short by Muses who’d lost their spark or feared it wasn’t bright enough to please their patrons. Coming here to weep and bewail their failings, they would carve their names into the outer wall then hurl themselves over, plummeting two hundred feet to the tier below. By tradition, their bodies were left to the harrow ravens that nested in the citadel’s heights. Between the birds and the wind most were scoured to skeletons within days, leaving the roof below littered with bones, like a testament to the fickleness of art.

The Parade of Tears, Marisol reflected as she walked the deserted promenade. That was what the Muses called this place, though never in their patrons’ presence. Nevertheless she suspected the Resplendent were familiar with the name and probably approved, for they had made no effort to deter the suicides or even acknowledge the tragedy. And wasn’t the outer wall too low? Almost as if it was designed to ease the path to nothingness…

Our inadequacy exalts the Resplendent, she thought. Every mortal life lost is another brushstroke on the greater canvas they keep hidden from us.

Marisol had visited the colonnade once before, drawn by the official descriptions. She hadn’t known its secret back then, but she’d felt the despair haunting it and wondered at the names etched into the wall. After Lysbeth’s death Hamartia had told her the truth about the place, revelling in the story. None of the Ghouls would ever ‘weep over the wall’, as the rite of suicide was known. They lacked the passion to end themselves, but relished the idea of others doing so.

What could Tarsem possibly hope to show her here?

Nothing, Marisol concluded. This is a trap.

The colonnade was among the most secluded places in the city, only accessible via the entrances at either end. Nobody would notice another oblivion seeker’s disappearance on the Parade of Tears.

‘Is that what I am?’ she asked the wind. ‘An oblivion seeker?’

She had doubted Tarsem from the moment he chose this place for their assignation, yet she’d come regardless. Why? When they met yesterday she had intended to consume him once his story was told, but his telling dissuaded her. He had spoken with such conviction. Such passion. Did this betrayal discount everything else he’d said? Were his tales of the Borderland fabrications?

No, Marisol decided, knowing it in her soul. Those parts were all true.

The Borderland was real, and more honest than anything else on the Painted – faked! – World, especially the cruel masquerade of Kanvolis. She yearned to enter its limitless web and seek out the secret strands of herself – to follow them through to her finest possible fate and unshackle herself from mortality, free from age, infirmity and the spectre of death. It was all within reach if one knew where to look. That was why she had come. If there was a chance Tarsem knew something more – something essential – about the valley then she had to try. Especially now the Liberator had abandoned her.

You can’t be certain of that, a craven part of her wheedled, but it carried no weight. Marisol had felt the outcome of the ambiguous contest this morning. Her rival petitioner had won. She had been too tentative in her ambitions and the Liberator had chosen another dreamer. The transcendence it offered was lost to her, but there was another way to rise.

The Borderland remained open.

Marisol spotted Tarsem up ahead, sitting on one of the stone benches that lined the colonnade. Oblivion Benches, they were called – cold, hard snares to lure broken dreamers into lethal introspection. How many had sat in this deceiver’s place, brooding and wallowing in self-pity until the only way out was down?

But not you, Tarsem Olba, she judged, studying the young man. You haven’t come here to die. You believe you never will.

She knew she should be wary of him. His trap would surely have teeth, yet all she felt was disappointment, and his betrayal accounted for the least part of that. Besides, she still had a measure of her power. Though the Liberator had forsaken her, its touch had already transformed her to the core of her being. She didn’t know what she was yet, but it was certainly more than human.

‘Marisol!’ Tarsem rose to meet her, offering the counterfeit smile he always employed to cover his fear. It was so transparent now. ‘Thank you for coming, my lady.’

Beneath his genial veneer he was so much like Armando – another charlatan too enamoured with himself to recognise his own limitations. His idealism might be real, but it reeked of privilege and outrageous fortune. It would be a fragile virtue, easily shattered and liable to spawn something monstrous in its wake. At least Armando had been honest in his appetites. In time the debauched songwriter would have made a fine Ghoul.

Idly Marisol wondered what Hamartia and the other elders would do after she was gone. Most likely they would revert to their pleasure god’s worship, perhaps spiced up with some human sacrifices now they’d acquired a taste for murder. She’d caught three of them feasting on a servant last night, their razored tongues buried in the hapless man’s throat as they drained him of life. They’d glanced at her nervously while they fed, like children caught breaking the rules, but she’d been too distracted to censure them. In her heart she’d already known this phase of her life was over.

Whatever will you think of me, Darioc? Marisol mused. She felt sure her patron already knew about the Ghouls less outré degeneracies, but the mutations would shock him – perhaps even shake his complacent superiority. No… No, that was too much to expect.

Your arrogance will undo you one day, she judged, seeing Tarsem, but picturing her patron. He was the worst deceiver of them all, yet she still loved him in a detached way.

And hated him for it.

‘My lady?’ Tarsem prompted her. ‘Are you well?’ They were still a few steps apart, but he didn’t come any closer.

‘Show me,’ Marisol said.

‘I regret I have not been entirely candid with–’

‘Show me!’

‘Commence extraction!’ Tarsem called out. ‘Arcanum priori.’

The air rippled and six blue-robed figures appeared around Marisol. Their faces were hidden behind smooth silver masks, but there was a lifelessness about them that marked them as serviteurs. All were armed with delicate-looking rifles, their slender barrels pointed at her.

‘Please forgive my deception,’ Tarsem said earnestly. ‘I appreciate this is alarming, but you won’t be harmed. You have my word on it.’

Your word is no longer yours to give, Marisol thought. It belongs to them. As do you.

‘What do you intend?’ she asked.

‘You will accompany me to the Librarium, my lady.’

‘And what then, Seigneur Olba?’

‘Safety. A place has been prepared for you. Somewhere you can regulate your… affliction, perhaps even overcome it.’

‘A cage.’

‘A sanctuary.’ Tarsem dared to smile. ‘I am not your enemy, Marisol.’

‘Then walk away now, little traveller.’

‘I cannot.’ His smile disappeared as readily as it had come. ‘I am sorry.’

‘And I cannot go with you,’ she answered. As she spoke, Marisol uncoiled the power within her. It surged through her body like liquid fire, igniting her blood and kindling her flesh to a higher configuration. She sighed as her skin tautened to crystalline smoothness and her hair burst into a lustrous cascade about her shoulders. In a few heartbeats the veil of age was cast aside, ending the sham she had maintained since her transfiguration began.

‘Arise or fall!’ Marisol cried, light spilling from her mouth. Her gloves combusted and fell away, revealing sculpted glass hands. They glowed as the sixth finger of each unfolded, extending in delicate, multijointed segments. ‘Rise!’

Distantly she felt dull impacts as the serviteurs peppered her with needle-like projectiles that shattered against her diamond-hard skin. They had reacted without hesitation while their master stood frozen, a ringed finger raised in mute accusation.

‘Light begets fire!’ Marisol threw out her arms, casting out lashes of polychromatic energy. The serviteurs to either side of her burst into pillars of flame as they were struck. Keening atonally, Marisol whirled her whips around in an arc, igniting the other cyborgs in swift succession. As they collapsed into smouldering heaps her gaze settled on Tarsem. She expected to see terror on his face, but found wonder.

Joy?

‘Euryale,’ he murmured, falling to his knees.

It was impossible, but what did that really mean? The traveller had seen too much to put his faith in the conventional paradigms of reason any more. Common men believed the world was defined by a multitude of natural laws that regulated the flow of space and time, but such processes only held sway over the surface layer of things. Deep down at the heart of reality, where the secret clockwork churned, boiled and bled, truth was only a matter of perspective – and the conviction to turn the wheels of the world in one’s favour. There was order to it, but it was the kind that drove most truth seekers to madness.

All this whirled through Tarsem’s mind as he stared at the magnificent being hovering before him. There was no mistake. It was Euryale.

You turned the wheels, he thought fervently. It can be done!

He gagged as the stench of the incinerated cyborgs reached him, reminding him that their destroyer had cause to be angry with him, yet he didn’t attempt to flee. There was no point. If Euryale chose to take his life he couldn’t stop her.

‘I wasn’t lying,’ he said, striving for calm. ‘I wanted to help you, but I was wrong. You don’t need my help. I need yours.’

The risen one regarded him in silence, the expression on her crystalline face inscrutable.

‘We have met before, Euryale,’ Tarsem continued, ‘but I didn’t know you then.’ He held up his left hand, presenting the winged eye tattooed on its palm. ‘You gave me this.’

Long ago, in a time yet to come…

‘We are on the same path.’ He smiled. Openly. Honestly.

‘Not the same,’ she answered. Her lambent eyes burned brighter and Tarsem yowled in pain. His tattoo ignited as though it had been inked in promethium. Clutching his wrist, he shuddered as smoke poured from his charred palm.

‘You shall fall,’ the risen one judged. ‘You always do.’ Soaring higher, she swung round in a radiant swirl and leapt over the wall, scorching the stones in her wake.

‘Wait!’ Tarsem cried, staggering after her. In his desperation he almost followed her over the precipice. ‘Tell me!’ he yelled into the wind. ‘Tell me how it works!’

But she was gone. His head spinning, he lurched away from the wall. As he backed away he noticed the blackened stones were inscribed with a new name.

It wasn’t hers.

‘You’re wrong,’ he muttered, shaking his head. ‘It won’t… happen…’ Moaning with pain, he stumbled to the bench behind him and slumped into darkness. He was still there many hours later, when Satori found him.

Varzival stood by the scorched patch of wall, gazing down upon the river, his hair billowing loosely in the wind. Satori was a few paces behind him, waiting. They were alone on the Colonnade of One Hundred Dragons.

‘Where is she?’ Varzival asked finally.

‘You know where she has gone, Czervantes.’

The sun was setting, washing the land in shadows, but a faint spectral light shone from the distant valley, invisible to most eyes, but not to Satori’s. The Reverie’s spirit had been severed from its source, but the scar itself would endure in perpetuity. And its poisoned blood would never cease to flow.

You see it too, don’t you, Czervantes, Satori gauged. You have travelled too deep not to.

‘How long have you known, Paladin? That Marisol was one of them.’

‘Not long,’ Satori replied. ‘She guarded her secret closely.’

‘She was my Muse.’ Varzival’s tone was flat, his aura equally lustreless. ‘You should have told me.’

‘I intended to,’ Satori said. ‘After we defeated Zann.’ Joining the knight, he placed his hands on the wall. The stones still felt hot beneath his skin, a testament to their unnatural provenance. ‘She was to be the daemon’s cage.’

‘You believe that would have been a merciful fate?’

‘No, I believed she would be weak and easy to contain,’ Satori confessed. ‘I was mistaken. She was a potent dreamer.’

‘She still lives, sorcerer.’

Sorcerer? It was the first time Varzival had made that particular accusation. Their victory hadn’t bridged the gulf between them. Nor severed their connection.

‘She lives,’ Satori agreed, ‘but she is no longer Marisol Charbonneau.’

‘I should go after her. Silence her like the others.’

‘That would likely be a long and fruitless quest. The Reverie borders the infinite. You won’t find her unless she desires it.’ Satori hesitated. ‘Do you want to silence her?’

‘No,’ Varzival admitted. ‘She holds my past. The prospect of harming her sickens me.’

‘Then let her go. This hunt is over.’

They stood in silence for some time, watching as the night tightened its grip on the land.

‘Ask your other question,’ Satori prompted.

‘Caravaggio,’ Varzival said. One word. One name. Not a question, yet nothing else.

Such bright darkness…

The prisoner opens its eyes as the intruder approaches its glass cage. It is the night before the assault on Zann’s bastion, but Satori has no time for rest. He must find an answer to the question the Knight Exemplar will ask tomorrow.

Caravaggio.

The cyborgs guarding the secret chamber don’t register the intrusion, for Satori has come in spirit alone. Casting his astral self aboard the ship orbiting Malpertuis is dangerous, even for a psyker of his talents, especially when the Reverie is so unquiet, but there is no alternative. There never is. That is the nature of his path.

‘Who are you?’ the prisoner asks. His naked form is unblemished by the grotesquerie Czervantes has described, but there is a subtle twist to his noble features that speaks of a gathering storm.

‘You know who I am,’ Satori answers, throwing back the phantasmal veil of his hood. ‘I don’t believe you ever forgot me, Yukio Caravaggio.’

‘Pilgrim,’ the prisoner murmurs. ‘Yes, I remember you.’ He smiles with the promise of a drawn blade. ‘I remember it all.’

Meeting his gaze, Satori sees this is true. Caravaggio has forgotten nothing of his travails within the Reverie. Somehow the memories survived his psych-indoctrination process. They have always been with him, scalded too deep into his soul to erase, driving him to become what he must.

‘I am blessed, am I not?’ the cursed knight declares, mocking both its witness and itself.

Looking deeper into his eyes, Satori sees the desecrated temple where their shared purgatory began. It is merely a wound into an infinitely greater desecration, where a crystalline cancer spreads through the fissures between all possible worlds, powered by the annihilating heart or eye or maw that pounds and blinks and screams at its core, transmuting ambition into sin…

Chaos into Art…

Nonsense into Truth…

Ascension into Damnation…

Resplendent into Penitent…

Yukio Caravaggio remembers so much, of both the past and the future. He has seen more of the hidden coils of reality than Satori will ever uncover, no matter how far or deep or dark he travels in search of Enlightenment.

‘Sometimes I think I have seen all there is.’ The prisoner closes his natural eyes as a third splits his forehead open, weeping indigo light from its spiral iris. ‘Then I see I’m blind!’

Satori steels himself as the unholy eye’s currents brush his astral form, tugging at him like a whirlpool.

‘Revelation tears bright.’ Caravaggio sighs. ‘Have you come to kill me, Pilgrim?’

‘No,’ Satori answers, knowing he couldn’t if he tried. ‘That choice belongs to another.’

‘He won’t do it. He cannot.’ Caravaggio shivers as his all-seeing, forever-blind eye lengthens and swells to fill his entire face. Now the Eternal Prisoner speaks by sight alone.

My brother yearns to see!

‘Yukio Caravaggio is not possessed,’ Satori answered the knight, who was his pawn and king-to-be. ‘He is entirely himself.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Varzival said, facing him. ‘The daemon inside him–’

‘There is no daemon inside him, save his own.’

‘Even now, after all this,’ the knight gestured vaguely, ‘you offer me riddles.’ But there was no anger in his voice, only confusion. And loss.

You loved your Muse, Satori realised. As much as our kind are capable of love.

‘No riddles, brother,’ he said gently. ‘Caravaggio was correct about the painting he found.’ That found him… ‘It was a key, but not as he imagined. It unlocked the gates of his own soul and opened him to the infinite.’

A crucible for some, a harrow for others, he quoted his mentor and master, who had walked the same path centuries ago. If there is truly a difference…

‘You judge him a monster.’ Varzival shook his head. ‘I won’t accept that. There was great nobility in him.’

And you believe there still is, Satori thought, understanding such loyalty all too well. And the trap it concealed.

‘I make no judgement,’ he said. ‘That is your burden to bear, Czervantes.’

Varzival laughed harshly and turned away, returning his attention to the river below. Seeking her. For a moment his armour shimmered, infused with strange colours, as though touched by the malign radiance on the horizon.

‘And what advice would you offer me, Pilgrim?’ he asked.

‘I have never claimed wisdom. Only perspective,’ Satori answered. ‘But I advise you to continue your journey, Knight Exemplar.’

You can do nothing else. Fate won’t allow it.

Her bare feet floating just above the restless waters, the seeker followed the river’s course towards the dancing lights on the horizon. Water sprayed around her, never quite touching her glowing skin. She could feel her former patron’s gaze, not upon her, but searching, eager to repossess her, like a treasured relic made all the more precious now it was lost to him. He wouldn’t come after her, but he would never stop looking.

‘Arise or fall, brother,’ the seeker sang. ‘Arise or fall.’

She never looked back.

Afterfall

– BEGIN RECORDING –

Log Nineteen: Juan Borges, Keeper, Rhapsody Eternal.

Fourteen days have passed since the assault on the Alcazar Automata. Order has been restored throughout Kanvolis and measures taken to preserve the secrecy of all that occurred here. Some of these actions have been extreme, but Chaplain Tolbein was adamant they were necessary. The Inquisition already deems our Chapter unorthodox, so it would be imprudent for rumours of this crisis to reach the wider Imperium. Villeins can be replaced, Tolbein argued, but our reputation cannot easily be restored.

I understand his reasoning, but I cannot condone the purge it engendered or the zeal with which the Black Elegy prosecuted it. Reputation is not equivalent to honour. Some of the actions we have taken to safeguard this secret have been questionable. Shameful. I was surprised Exemplar Czervantes supported them.

No, I must speak honestly here or else this record serves no purpose. I was disappointed. Czervantes and I are not quite friends, but I expected better of him. Indeed I expected better of my brotherhood. Perhaps we have changed. Or perhaps we were never what I imagined. Neither possibility gives me hope for our future.

In any case, the Muses of the Rhapsody Eternal have been expunged, young and old alike, along with all the chateau’s valets. Their proximity to the Inheritor Marisol Charbonneau was judged too compromising to ignore.

Seven of the Rhapsody’s longest-serving Muses died before the purge commenced. They were found sprawled around a banqueting table, their feast untouched save for goblets of spilled wine. My autopsy confirmed they were poisoned – presumably during an ill-fated toast – but also revealed something much more disturbing. All seven corpses harboured physiological aberrations of an insidious nature, including protractile second tongues, leading me to wonder how long these creatures had concealed their corruption. Large quantities of human blood were also present in their digestive tracts.

Like the mutants in the Churn these degenerates’ deaths were certainly warranted, but as to the Rhapsody’s other villeins… I believe they were innocent. The Elegy’s interrogations uncovered no evidence of offence, yet all five hundred and sixty were executed. Subsequent autopsies revealed no aberrations. We killed them because they were inconvenient. While this is common practice on many – perhaps most – Imperial worlds, ours is meant to be better. We are meant to be better.

Only one of the Muses escaped the purge – an elder named Hamartia Krye, who disappeared before the order was given. I suspect she – or he, for the records are unclear on the subject of Krye’s gender – was responsible for the poisoning. There were eight places laid at the murder table, but only seven bodies found. Moreover Krye was identified as a close associate of the deceased. The Vigilant have launched a citywide search for the fugitive, but I doubt Krye will be found. There are too many places for a human to hide amongst us, especially one so evidently cunning and prone to reinvention.

As to the wider picture of the city, both the Alcazar Automata and the Churn are operational again, though the former will run at a limited capacity for the foreseeable future. All our senior tech-adepts were either killed or compromised by Zann, leaving us with a skeleton staff of mid-level personnel. An Artificer Radiant will be required to restore the tower to full functionality, along with the city’s more sophisticated systems. Kanvolis will have to make do without its army of serviteurs until then. With the exception of the Librarium’s thralls, every cyborg in the city has been destroyed. Thousands of citizens have been recruited from across the planet to fill their roles in the interim – a rare privilege that attracted millions despite the menial nature of the work. It is unclear whether this arrangement will be temporary, but it strikes me as an opportunity to do away with the travesty of serviteurs altogether.

Looking beyond our immediate situation, astropathic contact has been made with the First and Sixth Rhapsodies. Chapter Magister Cassavius is – reluctantly – bound for Malpertuis to assume command of the citadel, but his voyage will be a long one. The Concordant are closer, but it will still be many weeks before we can expect the support of our most even-handed brothers. Exemplar Murakami’s wisdom will be particularly welcome. Until then the Eternal and the Vigilant must ward Kanvolis alone. Both have sustained heavy casualties and my Rhapsody was already few in numbers, but together we remain a potent force. Barring a planetary invasion we are more than sufficient.

But it is not external threats that concern me.

Following Captain Haskin’s death, Arc Sergeant Lucien Baelero assumed command of the Vigilant. He is an impressive officer with a sharper, more flexible mind than his predecessor. In due course I suspect he will rise to be his Rhapsody’s Exemplar. There is no denying his ability, yet something about him disquiets me. I cannot pinpoint the cause, but I have learnt to trust my instincts, so I shall watch him closely. Our brotherhood can suffer no more betrayers.

And so, finally, I must speak of Glass, who is the most troubling piece in this puzzle.

I have already chronicled the fates of the other eight Inheritors, including those Satori terminated prior to my involvement, but Glass remains an enigma. The Paladin has been notably evasive about this ‘First Inheritor’, insisting the matter is concluded. Inconsequential.

But nothing in this foul tangle is inconsequential.

I have scoured the records of the former Castellan, both formal and anecdotal, along with his writings, and found no hint of misconduct. He never displayed an excess of emotion or ambition, nor any interest in esoteric matters. Save for the laser harp, every object in his quarters spoke of pragmatism and a dedication to duty. To be sure, the Reverie warped the objects’ properties, but the seeds were mundane. Even Glass’ most ambitious artwork – a vast architectural installation – is a study in minimalism. I have visited The Cry of Silence many times in the hope of better understanding its creator. Each time I have been struck by the essential humility of its design, for that is surely the message of that cavernous white dome and the ashes dusting its floor.

How could such a sober mind succumb to temptation?

And that is the crux of my disquiet. I believe Glass did not succumb at all. I believe he knew exactly what he was doing, along with the consequences for himself and his Chapter, but it wasn’t ambition or madness that drove him, but duty, as he perceived it.

Or rather, as he was made to perceive it…

The Chronicles of Ascension record that Aspirant Uzoma Nuzhdin took five years to cross the Reverie. What happened to the youth who would later become Idryss Glass during those missing years? I believe he met another traveller in that limbo – a master manipulator who shaped his rise and fall as rigorously as a tech-priest might program a serviteur. I believe Glass was primed, perfected and ultimately sacrificed to lure the daemon to the citadel. It was a dark fate that he fulfilled stoically, all the while knowing he would be branded a traitor for it.

Perhaps The Cry of Silence was its creator’s own cry against his doom, and the laser harp his only solace on the long road to ignominy. Perhaps these were the only free choices Idryss Glass ever made. I believe it wasn’t daemons that damned him, but the noble monster who hunts them.

– END RECORDING –

‘You’re going back,’ Tarsem said, closing the book he’d been reading.

‘Your gift has grown sharper,’ Satori observed.

‘It’s not a gift. We crossed that limbo together. I can feel its call too.’

Tarsem had recognised Satori’s intent the moment his fellow traveller entered the room. In truth, he’d been expecting this for some time now. The inevitability of the Paladin’s return was like an unbreakable thread trailing back into the Reverie.

‘We travelled further than you imagine,’ Satori said. ‘The journey cannot be measured in years lost or steps taken.’ He sat opposite Tarsem, laying his hands on the table between them. ‘Few could have completed it.’

They were in one of the Librarium’s study rooms. In the weeks since their hunt ended, Tarsem had spent most of his time here, poring over the order’s books while he recovered. His physical injury had been superficial, but Euryale’s fire had burned much deeper than that. She had branded his very spirit. That wound would take longer to heal, if it ever healed at all. Either way, it had made him stronger. Once he would have delighted in the wealth of knowledge placed at his disposal here, but now it wasn’t enough. He yearned for action – an opportunity to redeem himself.

‘I couldn’t stop her, Satori,’ he said, rubbing his scorched palm.

‘I understand.’

Do you? Tarsem wondered. He had delivered a full report of Marisol’s escape, both to Satori and the brooding knight he’d allied himself to. It was a dry, factual and accurate account. As far as it went… He hadn’t mentioned his first meeting with the Muse’s renewed form, all those decades ago, let alone his attraction to her. If Satori had sensed these omissions he’d said nothing.

Don’t dwell on her now, Tarsem told himself. Don’t make him suspicious.

‘I failed you, Satori.’ Though not as you imagine.

‘The fault was mine,’ the Paladin answered. ‘Marisol Charbonneau was more puissant than I predicted. You couldn’t stop her.’

I didn’t try. Tarsem lowered his eyes. ‘What will happen to her?’

‘Herself. That is the Reverie’s nature, especially for those who embrace it. She will wander its strands until fate overtakes her.’

And elevates her even higher, Tarsem thought with a pang of resentment. He was tapping his book’s cover, mimicking her habit as he built up the courage for his declaration.

Don’t hesitate. Say it! Before you lose your nerve.

‘I’ll go with you,’ Tarsem said. ‘When you return to the Reverie.’ The thought filled him with dread, but also excitement.

‘You cannot.’ Satori raised a hand to forestall any protest. ‘You would not survive the path I must take. No human could, and few Astartes either. Besides, I need you here. You will be my eyes among the Eternal while I am gone, brother.’

Brother? Tarsem stared at the ancient, surprised.

‘Yes, we are brothers, Tarsem Veyd. Adversity and tenacity has made it so. No other has walked so far by my side.’

‘I… I am honoured.’

‘It is a curse, not a blessing,’ Satori said gravely.

‘Nevertheless, I am grateful.’ Tarsem’s gaze flitted to the symbol scorched into his palm. Its wings were gone, covered by melted skin. Only the eye remained visible, etched more deeply than before, staring back at him. Mocking him?

You’re wrong about me, Euryale, he thought fiercely. I’ll prove it.

Tarsem looked up, meeting his fellow traveller’s gaze with conviction. ‘So tell me… brother, what is my path to be?’

‘There is no daemon inside him, save his own.’ Satori’s words shadowed Varzival Czervantes as he descended towards the hidden chamber aboard his ship. Every step was an effort of will, more demanding than anything he had faced in Kanvolis. It wasn’t a question of trepidation, but anticipation. These confrontations with his friend-turned-foe had become integral to his sense of self, as though facing the fallen knight affirmed his own virtue.

He reveals what I might – and must never – become, Varzival thought uneasily. But what if the Reverie’s incursion had tainted him? What if he looked upon the prisoner now and felt not contempt, but envy?

‘Then I will kill him,’ Varzival vowed, making it a lie the moment he entered the chamber.

‘Brother,’ a familiar voice greeted him. ‘It is good to see you.’

And you, Varzival admitted, meeting Caravaggio’s expectant gaze. His predecessor sat on his haunches, hands pressed against the glass, his body free of mutation and his eyes bright. Though he was haggard there was a coiled vitality about him, as though he’d been gathering strength in his captor’s absence. Preparing for their reunion.

‘Ask,’ the prisoner said.

Varzival hesitated, but only for a moment.

‘Severance from the self is the first step on the road to enlightenment,’ Satori recited. It was one of his mentor’s favourite aphorisms. His power armour hummed into life at the code-phrase, sending sympathetic currents through the receptors in his body. He flexed his joints, testing the suit’s responsiveness. Its elegantly moulded plates obeyed with the fluidity of a second skin. As expected, the Librarium’s serviteurs had maintained it in pristine condition. He had been less confident about the cybernetic interfaces woven beneath his skin, but they awoke to the armour’s touch without hesitation. It had been a long time since he’d worn his battleplate, yet it already felt like a part of him.

The most honest part, Satori admitted. His thoughts strayed to Glass, who was condemned to wander the Reverie until duty demanded his return. He had been a fine pupil and a faultless champion of the Arc, though the Chapter would never know it.

‘Sacrifice is the noblest virtue,’ the Paladin whispered. ‘And the sacrifice of virtue the noblest of all.’ It was true, yet it tasted like a lie.

Brushing off his melancholia, Satori strode across his quarters to the mirror affixed to the far wall. It was a massive oval framed with dark, unpolished wood, carved to resemble a vertical eye. He had crafted it many centuries ago, when the First Magister still walked among his disciples and such artefacts were encouraged. Since Castaneda’s disappearance the Librarium had grown more cautious about such arcane practices, but the Paladins Luminous were permitted more flexibility than their fellow psychic brothers.

‘Are the others gone?’ Satori asked his reflection. ‘Am I the last?’

He hadn’t crossed paths with any of his fellow Paladins in decades of real time. Zorastro had been the last. They had met in the night-bound ruins of a fallen hive city, drawn by the same portents. As always, their overarching quest had come to nothing, though they had found traces of their mentor’s passing.

‘He was here,’ Satori had judged. ‘And not so long ago.’

‘Perhaps,’ Zorastro wheezed through his rust-flecked speaker grille, ‘but it matters not.’

Satori was dismayed by the changes in his once flamboyant comrade. Zorastro’s ornate armour was stained and corroded, though ceramite was impervious to natural decay. His grey cloak hung about him like a shroud, frayed and filthy.

‘Our prophet has torn himself out of space and time, Brother Satori,’ his fellow Paladin declared. ‘He is lost to us.’ There was a dry laugh. ‘Or he doesn’t want to be found.’

‘We must keep searching,’ Satori answered. ‘Enlightenment cannot be forsaken.’

‘Enlightenment is a fable,’ Zorastro echoed back. ‘I have travelled farther than any of our order and found nothing but ruination. All roads end in dust.’

‘I won’t accept that. Nor would the First Magister allow it,’ Satori whispered. ‘If he has abandoned the Resplendent, it is to light a finer, brighter flame elsewhere.’

And I will find it, he vowed.

His gaze fell on his reflection’s personal heraldry. The image on its right pauldron was a spherical lattice of silver lines set against black. He had revised it many times over the centuries, striving to capture the essence of its subject, but it would always be a faint sketch of the reality. Nevertheless, it possessed a measure of the crystalline web’s gravity. That pull was like a tide, rising and falling with the collective flow of minds. All sentient beings felt it to some extent, for it sprung from the well of their own souls, but some agitated it more than others, either by intent or accident. His mentor had been a master practitioner of intervention, seeking to reorder the web by delicate steps, while the hellion-savant Caravaggio toyed with it like a child taunting a spider, reckless and defiant of the consequences.

And then there were those spirits, like Varzival Czervantes, who professed no interest – or even belief – in the metaphysical substrata, yet whose actions sent violent tremors through its weave. Disruption was in their nature, whether they embraced it or not, but with the correct guidance their course could be directed towards creation rather than destruction. That, above all else, was why Satori had chosen Czervantes to free the Anima Torquentor from its imperfect cage. The conflict would either temper or break him. Though the daemon had been defeated the deeper question of Czervantes’ fate remained unanswered.

‘Our paths shall cross again, knight,’ Satori whispered.

It is time, he decided. In the Torquentor’s final synaesthetic wail, as it plunged into the Cortex chasm, he had glimpsed something that made his heart soar: seven spires encircling a regal mountain crowned by pure white light – and beyond this ring, a storm-wracked sea laced with the web of souls. He was uncertain whether the vista was an actual place or a symbol, for it had qualities of both. Regardless, the vision was redolent of his mentor. It was another thread to follow, more promising than most he’d tracked over the centuries.

‘As within, so without,’ Satori chanted. The mirror rippled then filled with snow. Soon his reflection was staring back from a blizzard pierced by dark trees and darker possibilities.

‘We descend on torn wings,’ he said, offering his order’s secret credo. ‘Arisen to fall.’

Raising his staff, the pilgrim stepped forward to meet himself. Snow gusted into the chamber as he passed through the glass and into the infinite.

A Reverie Eternal

The years drifted into decades that sank into long, slow centuries. Time and the attrition of hope wore away the Painted World’s lustre, yet the Reverie remained as changeless as it was inconstant. Though its heartbeat had fallen still, the wound in the world continued to bleed and always would. Snow swirled and gathered about its living-dead trees then whirled away, driven by winds that blew from nowhere, where all the coldest truths are born. Nothing natural grew here or walked among the unnatural things that did, save for the outsiders, who never stopped coming, no matter how far or fast their own worlds moved on.

The most numerous of these strangers were those who came to find themselves. Like blind-born wretches craving the taste of colour, they descended into a numinous, fractious ascent, grasping at shadows that soon clawed back. Many were savaged by the revelations they sought to tame, while most who endured were marked with scars they could neither name nor forget.

Among the most precarious of the survivors was an Aspirant who glimpsed a future crowned by thorns, where all beauty was sin and shame the highest virtue. He defied this fevered dream then rose among his brothers to make it real.

So it flows.

Alongside the truth seekers were those who came to escape themselves, yearning for surcease from some unbearable sorrow or sin that only perdition or oblivion could salve. But the Reverie had no mercy for them either, only a persistence of suffering, sharper and deeper than any they’d known before.

Foremost among these fugitives was the penitent knight who stood watch over the ruins that nursed the wound’s stark heart. Tireless in his vigil, the silver-armoured warden allowed none to enter the Temple of Scars, where a vicious circle awaited, defiled and eager to defile in turn. Despite his resolve the guardian knew he was fated to fail and fall again, yet he never wavered.

So it flows.

Lastly there were the castaways swept from other worlds or times by tremors in the infernal web. Washed onto the Reverie’s shores, they haunted the mausoleum of trees as living ghosts. Some were woeful, others baneful and many simply mad, but all were forever and always lost, even those rare few who escaped to lands beyond, for wherever they went the scar went with them.

Few of these pariahs were destined to rise as low as the murdered prophet who became an undying martyr. Left for dead in a foetid river on a distant world, he surged to the surface of another, alive against all the odds, save those stacked by fate. Imagining himself blessed, he swam with a tide that wouldn’t let him drown until he glimpsed a wondrous city.

‘Is this a dream?’ he asked when the city’s guardians found him – then wept and cursed them with a nightmare in return.

So it flows and always will, until the Wheel of Fate is broken and all the worlds are shattered and scattered beyond renewal and time itself runs dry. Then, when all dreamers are gone and dreams played out, perhaps there will be peace.

Or not.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter Fehervari is the author of the Warhammer 40,000 novels Requiem Infernal, Cult of the Spiral Dawn and Fire Caste, as well as the novella Fire and Ice from the Shas’o anthology. He has also written many short stories for Black Library, including the T’au-themed ‘Out Caste’ and ‘A Sanctuary of Wyrms’, the latter of which appeared in the anthology Deathwatch: Xenos Hunters. He also wrote ‘Nightfall’, which was in the Heroes of the Space Marines anthology, and ‘The Crown of Thorns’. He lives and works in London.

An extract from Sepulturum.

The bloody streak down the wall told Morgravia the man did not have long to live. His mouth trembled, like a priest murmuring a sermon, but nothing intelligible came out. Just the passing of his last breaths. He had said his name was Oshanti and that he knew Morgravia, but his face was like a foreign country to her.

She glanced over to the opening in the tunnel, where Oshanti had told her they had blasted through to reach her, and found a gaping dark iris staring back. Screeches echoed in that darkness, something sharp scraping against stone, and there was the scent of the abattoir heady on the thick, underground air.

‘We can’t stay here,’ she said. Even with her fragmented memory, she knew that much.

She had been saved, she supposed. It certainly felt that way. She had awoken, her arms and legs bound and Oshanti frantically sawing at the bonds with his combat knife. Her strength had returned slowly, her senses slower still. They were halfway back down the tunnel before Morgravia realised she was out, but she couldn’t remember from where.

She had tried to get answers but only got Oshanti’s name before the thing came out of the darkness at him. He fired his pistol, four heavy booms that echoed loudly off the smooth tunnel walls. The thing recoiled, injured fatally it seemed, though it all happened too fast, and it was too dark to tell anything about its nature.

Morgravia found out a little later that it had cut him, opened him like a burst tyre. And that was that.

‘We can’t stay,’ she repeated, more urgently, when Oshanti did not respond.

He nodded then, slow and ponderous like an oil derrick tipping towards the ground. She’d begun to wonder if his head would rise again, when it did and he gripped her hand, the one already holding onto his. The lips moved, gummed up with the same gory matter that stained the wall, but he emitted no more than an agonised gurgle. A bundle of red loops sat in his lap, glistening in the stuttering lumen light overhead. He stared blankly, forlorn and disconsolate, at his partially eviscerated intestines.

The screeching from the tunnel came louder now, undercut by a breathy wheezing like a punctured bellows.

By the time she looked down again, Oshanti had pressed his hand and hers to Morgravia’s chest. His eyes widened, conveying everything his voice could not. Another nod, one of resignation this time. He unclipped the clasp on his belt holster, tugging loose the heavy-gauge stub pistol that had sat snug, surrounded by dark leather. It took some effort, and as he pushed the weapon into Morgravia’s outstretched hand, his face had paled to the colour of alabaster.

He held up two fingers on his right hand, the number of bullets left in the pistol.

One for him, then one for me.

It was only then, when faced with the inevitability of her own imminent mortality, that Morgravia realised how fast her heart was beating. It thundered with a god’s voice.

She took the pistol in a firm grip.

The scraping and wheezing neared the tunnel mouth and silhouettes began to form in the foggy black beyond.

Aiming at Oshanti’s bloody face, she saw relief as the eyelids began to close and the breath he had been holding eked out of him, like a slowly deflating balloon.

Reacting, not thinking, Morgravia lifted her aim and fired off into the tunnel mouth. The pistol boomed, loud enough to subdue her thundering heart for a few seconds, and she hit something in the darkness. A lumbering thing, a heavy, hot, exhaling thing that brought with it the reek of copper and cold, dead meat. It fell back, or she thought it did; it was hard to tell, the light was so bad. Another screech tore into the shadows. Of pain. Of death? She hoped it was death.

Oshanti had opened his eyes, expecting the pistol’s retort to signal his end and obviously wondering why when it did not. Morgravia only had one answer, and it was a poor one that she hated herself for giving.

‘I’m sorry…’ she said, absorbing every scrap of fear and anger in Oshanti’s jaundice-yellow eyes, and ran.

The scraping followed, more numerous, more frantic than it had been before, pausing only long enough to make Oshanti scream.

Morgravia tried not to imagine the wet-meat tearing that would come after as she half ran, half stumbled down the sump pipe. The tunnel connected to it, the subterranean sewer works that served the factoria and hab-blocks of the greater hive. A foul-smelling swill of shit and industrial waste splashed underfoot as she ran. It made her sick to her stomach, but she couldn’t stop. They were coming, whatever they were. Heaving, hulking shadows surging up in her wake, that scraping refrain like a never-ending scream.

Morgravia clung to the pistol. One shot left. She knew she wouldn’t use it on herself. Either self-preservation or just rank cowardice wouldn’t allow her to do that. She grasped it, a near-useless lump of metal, holding onto the grip like a thirsty man holds a cup of water in an endless desert. And then she felt something give beneath her, a low cracking of rusted sump pipes and shearing metal. It was like stepping onto a stairwell in the dark that she didn’t realise was there, as a brief but stomach-lurching sense of vertigo seized her and she fell, fell screaming into darkness until she hit grimy water. She panicked as the cold struck her, punching the breath from her lungs, sending needles through her nerve endings.

Not like this not like this not like this.

But fate doesn’t care much for desire, and Morgravia sank beneath the water, her body carried along by its violent current. It filled her mouth, her nose, made her blind and deaf as the searing heat of drowning crushed her with vice-like finality… and then… peace.

Morgravia awoke with the taste of sump filth in her mouth. She knew it was an illusion, a weird sense memory and her mind’s oh-so-humorous way of remembering her past trauma.

‘Lumis…’

Candles flared, their sodium generators buzzing noisily as they activated. The light revealed a small hab-unit. It was bare ferrum, a chair in one corner where Morgravia had draped her clothes and other meagre belongings, a deep metal wash sink in the other. A rough mattress served as her bed. Scowling at the fever sweat dampening her thin sheets and blankets, and shivering at the chill prickling her flesh like a haunting spirit, Morgravia hauled her weary body into a sitting position. Pain struck her with a legion of daggers. It was all she could do to stop herself from crying out.

A single hexagonal skylight let in the flame-lit predawn of the low-hive. She stepped through its grainy shaft and over to the chair, where she rummaged around in her longcoat. Finding a handful of stimms, she bit down, wincing at the chalky non-taste, and went to stand before the room’s full-length mirror. She looked upon her naked form, enacting a daily ritual.

She was lean-limbed, muscled but not grotesquely so. Pale, milky skin reflected the light. She was tall, around six foot. One ice-blue eye looked back at her, alive with more vitality than she felt; the other one, yellowed and bloodshot, was a truer reflection of her physical and mental state. Silver-grey hair, shaved at the temples, a short mohawk forming a raised channel running between them, framed a stern but not unkind face. Yet it was strange to her, a rogue identity staring back from the dirty glass. Only the scars made sense, and these she found mostly unchanged. They threaded her body like zippers, a cross-hatching of permanently discoloured flesh that forced a mildly disgusted frown onto her face. One pull and she would unravel. All the warm wet red inside would come tumbling out, her flesh left a flaccid and empty vessel in its wake.

Undone, she thought, tracing the frenzied lines of scarification with her fingers.

It had been thirty-one days since the tunnel.

‘Emperor’s mercy…’ she whispered, and looked away, reaching for her tunic.

Morgravia froze, her hand poised in midair, her body half-turned.

A sinister figure stood before her, limned by the skylight, and for a moment she wondered if it were an actual spectre and not just the fever sweat washing her skin that had caused the chill in her bones. It smelled of blood and oil, and detached itself from the shadows with silky, yet syncopated movements. A blade flashed, its edge silvering in the light. A face with a rictus grin, two hollow sockets gaping around faintly glowing red eyes, regarded her.

Morgravia set down the pistol she had snatched from her gun belt, letting out a shuddering breath.

The rictus face crumpled into a frown.

‘You should put on some clothes, Mother. You will catch your death.’

Morgravia scowled and grabbed her tunic. ‘What do you want, Hel?’

Cristo had worked in the labour-pits of Meagre all his life. He was a bullet-maker, and a good one. His shells and munitions had a ninety-three per cent approval rate. Not many factorum labourers hit ninety-three per cent. He took pride in his work, though it was back-breaking and largely thankless. His proficiency at his job did yield some benefits. Slightly better food, his pick of the munition lines. Not much, but it left his belly fuller and his skin cooler, positioned as he was as far away as possible from the smelting furnaces under the labour floor.

It also attracted jealousy from some of his fellow workers. Toil in the pits was hard, relentless; it bred strong bodies but resentful minds. That resentment was usually reserved for the overseers, who tempered the slightest suggestion of unrest with the lash or the pain-maul, all the while sermonising on the purity of hard labour, the cleansing baptism of honest sweat given in the Emperor’s name. When offered the opportunity to direct his impotent fury somewhere other than the untouchable enforcers of the Emperor’s will and war machine, a man would take it. He would exercise that crushing sense of futility where it could be vented, where his suffering could be displaced onto another.

Cristo had heard the muttered threats, and caught the bitter glances directed his way; he had never believed they would be acted upon. Not at first. The labour-pit was a congested battery farm of human bodies, lurching in metronomic tandem. So numerous were the workers that maintaining vigilance over the entire labour cadre at all times was impossible, and yet no one man would raise hands against another for fear of reprisal. Not in the labour-pits, at least.

There were antechambers that bled off from the main pit, however, and these were less frequented. Several refectoria allowed for the taking of meals and an ablutions block served doubly as a decontamination chamber.

They had come for him here, jagged metal shivs glinting in the grimy washroom light. Three men, none of whom Cristo knew by name, though he recognised their faces well enough. The encounter had been short, brutal. He had killed them all, naked and caked in the rough, powdery scrub that served as a cleansing agent. Cristo was not a small man. He had bulk and muscle that his attackers’ strength in numbers failed to balance. It had happened quickly and almost silently. Cristo had been left with half a dozen lacerations, bleeding red into the grainy grey run-off gurgling down the drainage vent. Of his three attackers, one suffered a broken neck, another took a shiv through his jaw and up into his skull, and the third had his eyes gouged out so deeply it was possible to glimpse the inside of the back of his head through the grossly distended sockets.

Cristo had dressed quickly, sluiced the ablution cubicle down and dragged the dead men one by one to the furnace. Dull-eyed and indifferent servitors were the only witnesses to the deed.

He had never spoken of what had happened, for to do so would invite the strictest censure. The men would not be missed. Their loss, if it was noticed at all, attributed to the high attrition rate within the labour-pit. Punishment for murder would result in lobotomisation, and Cristo had no desire to join the pallid ranks of the half-alive automata that saw him immolate three corpses. To kill in the Emperor’s name was one thing, to kill those indentured to His holy service was very much another.

Cristo considered this as he waited beneath the overhang, a knife strapped to his belt and a handful of spent bullet casings clenched in his fist, and knew he would have to kill again. He stood in the shadow of Wrecker’s Curve. The old bridge between the ferro hives and the commercial district called Fallowhope had seen better days. It arched like a broken man’s spine, dilapidated and only fit for demolition. Two-thirds of the way across, it ran to a sheared cliff edge that plunged into a deep gully where the detritus of its collapse still lay in heavy ferrocrete chunks and twists of metal rebar.

Moving out from under the lee of the bridge, Cristo descended into the gully towards a ring of distant torchlight. As he drew closer, he made out a dozen drum fires arranged in a loose circle, a crowd of jeering, catcalling figures in rough leather and scavenged factorum overalls leaning in around the cordon of flame light.

The crowd were animated to the point of fervour, amped up on narco and cheap still-alcohol. Most were armed. Cristo saw cudgels, freight-rail spikes, blades. No guns though. Gaps appeared as the crowd shifted to bay or shove or hustle. Each offered a fleeting glimpse of what lay beyond them, of what was in the circle. Two urban gladiators, hands wrapped in bandages for grip, armoured in warpaint and leather. One carried a length of broken chain, her hair a fiery red and sticking up in spikes. The other hunched behind a drum lid, using it as an improvised shield, one side of her head shaved, the other left to grow long so a violet swash of hair covered half her face. Both were cut, the one with the chain hungrier for the kill. As she raised her arm to lash out at her opponent, Cristo got a decent look at her.

That’s when he started to run.

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WARHAMMER HORROR

A BLACK LIBRARY IMPRINT

First published in Great Britain in 2020.
This eBook edition published in 2020 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Anato Finnstark.

The Reverie © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2020. The Reverie, Warhammer Horror, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-80026-405-2

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

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This reverie is for The Slayers – Zed, Fortunato, Da Bluddlord, Captain Kronos, Hex and The Darkheir, who followed me into stranger tales than this. With thanks, brothers. May the legend endure!

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