"Be silent," ordered Ankhu Anen. "We are the architects of fate, not you."

"So what happens when you turn those machines off?" asked Camille, taking Lemuel's hand as they realised the futility of resisting the Astartes physically.

"We will listen to what she has to say and we will learn of the future."

"No, I won't let you," said Lemuel.

"No?" sneered Ankhu Anen. "Who are you to bark orders at us, little man? You think because Ahriman has taught you a few parlour tricks that you are one of us? You are mortals, your abilities and intellect are beneath our notice."

"Ahriman, please!" begged Lemuel. "Don't do this!"

"I'm sorry, Lemuel, but they are right. Kallista is dying anyway. At least this way her death will mean something."

"That's a lie!" shouted Lemuel. "If you do this, you'll be killing her. You might as well put a bullet in her brain and be honest about it."

Amon removed some of the contact points on Kallista's skull and consulted the readouts on the aetheric blocker. He nodded to Ankhu Anen and said, "It is done. I have kept some of the blocks in place, but her mind is open to the aether now. Just a fraction, but it should be enough to generate divinatory activity."

Kallista's eyes fluttered open and she drew in a panicked breath as awareness was forced back to the surface of her consciousness. Her lips moved and breaths of hoa.r.s.e air gusted from somewhere deep inside her. The temperature in the room fell sharply.

"A million shards of gla.s.s, a million times a million. All broken, all shattered gla.s.s. The eye in the gla.s.s. It sees and it knows, but it does nothing..."

Her eyes drifted shut and her breathing deepened. No more words were forthcoming, and Ankhu Anen leaned over her, prising the lids of her eyes open.

"Increase the flow of aetheric energy," he ordered. "We can get more out of her."

"Please," begged Camille. "Don't do this."

"Ahriman, she's an innocent, she doesn't deserve this," cried Lemuel.

The Thousand Sons ignored them, and Amon again adjusted the dials on the machine. The needles dipped even farther, and Kallista's body jerked on the bed, her legs kicking the covers from her feet. Lemuel didn't want to watch, but couldn't tear his eyes from the dreadful sight.

She screamed, and the words poured from her in a flood as the temperature continued to plummet.

"It's too late... the Wolf is at the door and it hungers for blood. Oh, Throne... no, the blood! The Ravens, I see them too. The lost sons and a Raven of blood. They cry out for salvation and knowledge, but it is denied! A brother betrayed, a brother murdered. The worst mistake for the n.o.blest reason! It cannot happen, but it must!"

Sweat poured from Kallista's face. Her eyes bulged in their sockets and every muscle and sinew of her body stretched to breaking point. The effort of speaking was too much, and she fell back, her frame wracked with agonising convulsions.

Lemuel felt Ahriman's grip slacken, and he looked up to see regret written across his face. He extended his aura, projecting his disgust and sadness at Kallista's treatment by the Thousand Sons into Ahriman's. The effect was subtle, but Ahriman looked down at him with an expression that was part admiration and part remorse.

"That will not work on me," said Ahriman. "You have learned much, but you don't have the strength to influence me with the little power you have."

"Then you're just going to let this happen?"

"I have no choice," said Ahriman. "The primarch has demanded it be so."

"Lem, they're going to kill her," pleaded Camille.

Ahriman turned to face her saying, "She is already dead, Mistress Shivani."

He nodded to Amon. "Allow the aether free reign within her. We must know everything."

Magnus' equerry turned back to the machine and turned all the dials to zero. The needles fell slack and the lights winking on its surface extinguished. The gla.s.s readouts on the machine cracked with frost and the globes misted over. Lemuel felt cold like the chill at the end of the world.

The effect on Kallista was instantaneous. Her back arched and her eyes snapped open. Blazing light streamed out, like the furnace breath of an incinerator. It illuminated the room with a sickly blue-green light, throwing shadows of things that didn't exist across every wall. The ghostly howls of a million monsters ripped from her throat, and Lemuel smelled the awful stench of roasted human flesh.

Smoke poured from Kallista's body, and even the Astartes were horrified at what was happening to her. The flesh bubbled and smoked on her bones, peeling away in blackened flakes as though the target of an invisible flamethrower. Her body hissed and spat as it was reduced to jellied runnels of boiling fat and meat.

Yet through it all, she still screamed.

Long after her heart and lungs and brain were blackened husks, she kept screaming. The sound cut through Lemuel like a hot knife, twisting in his guts with treacherous force. He dropped to his knees as a screeching whine, like a host of fingernails dragged down a slate-board, bit into his head. Camille was screaming, her grip on his hand as powerful as a clamping vice.

Then, with a terrible ripping, tearing sound, it was over.

Lemuel blinked away bright sunbursts, feeling his stomach lurch at the stench of burned meat that hung like a miasma in the air. He pulled himself to his feet, dreading what he would see as much as he needed to see what had become of Kallista Eris.

Nothing remained of the beautiful remembrancer save a blackened outline seared onto the sheets, and smoking pools of rendered flesh that drooled from the bed in long, rubbery ropes.

"What did you do?" he whispered, tears streaming down his face. "Oh, Kallista, you poor, poor girl."

"We did what we needed to," hissed Ankhu Anen. "I make no apologies."

"No," said Lemuel, turning to help Camille to her feet. "You didn't need to do this. This was murder, plain and simple."

Camille wept with him, burying her head in his shoulder and clawing at his back with heaving sobs of grief.

Ahriman reached out to him.

"I am truly sorry, my friend," he said.

Lemuel shrugged off his hand, moving past Ahriman towards the door with his arms wrapped tightly around Camille.

"Don't touch me," he said. "We are no longer friends. I don't know if we ever were."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

The Warning/You were Right/Too Close to the Sun MAGNUS SAT IN the centre of the Reflecting Cave, allowing the resonant harmonies of the silent crystals to fill him with calm. His meditations had lasted two nights and he had finally achieved the calm he needed to make his journey He was not alone, for nine hundred Thralls stood in their appointed positions around the chamber, each holding a glimmering crystal into which they had bound their lifeforce.

No more Thralls could be spared, for all those that had taken part in the last ritual had since perished. Nine hundred was fewer than Magnus would have liked, but nine hundred would have to do. What other choice was there?

The spell he had crafted required sacrifice. Its power was beyond anything he had ever conjured, even within the secrecy of his Sanctum or in the days when he had struggled to cure his Legion of their terrible mutations.

The Thralls' lives were forfeit, but it was a sacrifice each made willingly. Their brothers had died in vain as Magnus had tried to save Horus. They would die to allow Magnus to take warning of that treachery to the Emperor, and none begrudged their lord and master the light of their lives.

Magnus opened his eye as Ahriman approached.

"Is everything prepared?" he asked.

Ahriman was robed in white, and he bore the Book of Magnus before him like an offering. Magnus read his favoured son's concern, but he alone of all his warriors could be entrusted with this spell, for only Ahriman had the clarity of thinking and detached command of the Enumerations necessary to intone the incantation with the required precision.

"It is, my lord," said Ahriman, "but again I ask you, is this the only way?"

"Why do you doubt me, my son?" asked Magnus.

"It is not that I doubt you," said Ahriman hurriedly, "but I have studied this evocation and its power is unlike anything we have ever attempted. The consequences-"

"The consequences will be mine alone to bear," interrupted Magnus. "Now do as I ask."

"My lord, I will always obey, but the spell to break into the alien lattice-way calls for bargains to be struck with the most terrible creatures of the Great Ocean, beings whose names translate as... daemons."

"There is little beyond your knowledge, Ahriman, but there are yet things you cannot know. You of all men should know that *daemon' is a meaningless word conjured by fools who knew not what they beheld. Long ago, I encountered powers in the Great Ocean I thought to be sunken, conceptual landma.s.ses, but over time I came to know them as vast intelligences, beings of such enormous power that they dwarf even the brightest stars of our own world. Such beings can be bargained with."

"What could such powerful beings possibly want?" asked Ahriman. "And can you ever really be sure that you have the best of such a bargain?"

"I can," Magnus a.s.sured him. "I have bargained with them before. This will be no different. If we could have saved the gateway into the lattice on Aghoru, this spell would be unnecessary. I could simply have stepped into it and emerged on Terra."

"a.s.suming a gateway exists on Terra," cautioned Ahriman.

"Of course a gateway exists on Terra. Why else would my father have retreated there to pursue his researches?"

Ahriman nodded, though Magnus saw he was far from convinced.

"There can be no other way, my son," said Magnus. "We talked about this before."

"I remember, but it frightens me that we must wield powers forbidden to us to warn the Emperor. Why should he trust any warning sent by such means?"

"You would have me trust the vagaries of Astrotelepathy? You know how fickle such interpretations can be. I dare not trust a matter of such dreadful importance to mere mortals. Only I have the power to project my being into this alien labyrinth and navigate my way to Terra with news of Horus' treachery. For my father to believe me I must speak to him directly. He must bear witness to the acuity of my visions, and he must know what I know with the totality of my truth. Heard third-, fourth- or fifth hand through a succession of intermediaries will only dilute any warning until it is too late to do anything. That is why it must be this way."

"Then it must be done," said Ahriman.

"Yes, it must," agreed Magnus, rising from the floor of the chamber and walking with Ahriman to the point beneath the bronze mechanism that lay below Occullum Square. Magnus looked up through the green gem at its base, as though looking to Terra itself.

"It will be dangerous," admitted Magnus, "but if there is anyone who can do it..."

"It is you," finished Ahriman.

Magnus smiled and said, "Watch over me, my son?"

"Always," said Ahriman.

MAGNUS FELT THE world fall away from him, shedding his corporeal body as a serpent sheds its skin and rises renewed. Ancients watching such creatures believed they knew the secrets of immortality and named their houses of healing in their honour. To this day, the symbol of the Apothecary, the caduceus, bore serpents entwined in a double helix.

Chains of flesh were shrugged off, and Magnus distilled his molten core into a seething arrow aimed from Prospero to distant Terra. With a thought, he shot up through the Occullum and into the heavens. His body of light was a beautiful thing, existence as it was meant to be experienced, not the mundane solidity endured by mortals.

Magnus shook off his revelries, for the energy of the spell was propelling him ever onwards. He felt Ahriman's words, the words of ancient sorcerers of Terra, wrapping his incandescent body in purpose, the life energies of the Thralls empowering him with their vitality.

This was a dangerous spell, and no other being would dare wield it.

The blackness of s.p.a.ce dissolved, and the raging torrents of the Great Ocean surrounded him. Magnus laughed with the pleasure of it, rejoicing in the familiar energies and currents that welcomed him like a long lost friend.

He was a bright star amid a constellation of supernovas, each a flickering ember next to his beatific glory.

Here in the Great Ocean, he could be whatever he wanted to be; nothing was forbidden and anything was possible.

Worlds flashed past him as he hurtled through the swelling tides of colour, light and dimensions without name. The roiling chaos of the aether was a playground for t.i.tanic forces, where entire universes could be created and destroyed with a random thought. How many trillions of potential lives were birthed and snuffed out just by thinking such things?

Predators avoided him as he sped towards his destination like the most incredible comet ever set loose in the stars. They recognised him and were fearful of his brilliance in a realm where the light of creation blazed in every breath. Stagnation was anathema to Magnus. All life needed to progress through a series of evolved stages to prosper, and change was part of the natural cycle of all living things, from the smallest single-celled organism to the radiant creature encased within the crude matter of humanity.

The n.o.bility of his cause threw off sparks of potency that created phantom worlds and concepts in his wake. Entire philosophies and bodies of thought would be born in the minds of those lucky enough to have his leavings descend upon their dreaming minds.

His course altered, a roving thought steering him around a monstrously dark shadow, the heaving bulk of something enormous shifting in the depths of the Great Ocean. Magnus felt a glimmer of familiarity in the stirred-up memories, but suppressed it with a shudder that sent a torrent of nightmares into the dreams of the tribal warriors of a feral world soon to encounter the 392nd Expeditionary Fleet.

There were no landmarks in the Great Ocean, its topography ever-mutable, yet this landscape of streaming colour and light was familiar by its very changeability. He had flown this shoal before, and he recoiled from it, concentrating on keeping his course true.

A shudder pa.s.sed along his bright essence, and Magnus felt the first clutch of his Thralls die. Their soul lights winked out and a measure of his incredible, ferocious speed bled away.

"Hold on, my sons," he whispered, "just a little longer."

What he sought was close, he could feel it: the same subtle vibration in the fabric of the Great Ocean that had drawn him to Aghoru. It was faint, like a distant heartbeat hidden within a rousing drum chorus.

Its creators had selfishly sought to keep it for themselves, little realising their time as masters of the galaxy was over. Even with their empire in decline, they kept their secret jealously close to their hearts.

Magnus sensed one of their hidden pathways nearby and opened his inner eye, seeing the glittering fabric of the Great Ocean in all its revealed glory. The hidden capillaries of the alien network were visible as radiant lines of molten gold, and Magnus angled his course towards the nearest.

Distance was a similarly meaningless concept here, and with a thought he spiralled around the golden pa.s.sageway. He focussed his energy and unleashed it at the lattice in a blaze of silver lightning. Scores of his Thralls died in an instant, but the shimmer-sheen of the golden pa.s.sage remained unbroken. Magnus hurled his fists against the impervious walls, snuffing out his Thralls by the dozen with every blow, but it was useless.

It had all been for nothing. He couldn't get in.

Magnus felt his glorious ascent slowing, and howled his frustration to the furthest corners of the Great Ocean.

Then he felt it, the familiar sense of something t.i.tanic moving in the swells around him, a continent adrift in the ocean with ancient sentience buried in its aetheric heart. Infinite spectra of light danced before him, more magnificent than the most radiant Mechanic.u.m Borealis. Even to one as mighty as Magnus, the flaring eruption of light and power was incredible.

Its communication was sibilant, like sand pouring through the neck of an hourgla.s.s. It had breadth and depth, yet no beginning and no end, as though it had always existed around him and always would.

It spoke, not with words, but with power. It surrounded him, offering itself freely and without ulterior motive. The Great Ocean was truly a place of contradictions, its roiling, infinite nature allowing for the presence of all things, good and bad. Just as some ent.i.ties within its depths were malicious and predatory, others were benevolent and altruistic.

Contrary to what most people believed, there was uncorrupted power here that could be wielded by those with the knowledge and skill to do so. Such gifted individuals were few and far between, but through the work of adepts like Magnus, it might yet be possible to lift humanity to a golden age of exploration and the acquisition of knowledge.

Magnus drank deep of the offered power and tore his way into the golden lattice. He felt its shrieking wail of unmaking as a scream of pain. Without a second thought, he flew into the shimmering pa.s.sageway, following a route he knew would lead to Terra.

FAR BENEATH THE birthrock of the race that currently bestrode the galaxy as its would-be masters, a pulsing chamber throbbed with activity. Hundreds of metres high and many hundreds more wide, it hummed with machinery and reeked of blistering ozone. Once it had served as the Imperial Dungeon, but that purpose had long been subverted to another.