*Of course,' said Zouche. *Children's stories.' Dalia shook her head. *Maybe, but I think there's more to Jonas' words than that. Some of it, anyway. I mean, yes, I found lots of stories of heroic knights in shining armour slaying dragons and rescuing maidens in return for their hands in marriage.'

*Typical,' said Severine. *You never read of a maiden rescuing a man from a dragon.'

*I guess not,' agreed Dalia. *I suppose it didn't fit with the times when they were written.'

*Carry on, Dalia,' said Mellicin. *What else did you learn?'

*There wasn't much that could be called fact, but I remember several tracts that purported to be historical works, but which I think were probably mythology, since they dealt with monsters like dragons and daemons as well as describing the rise of warlords and tyrants.'

*Do you remember the names of these books?' asked Zouche.

Dalia nodded. *Yes. The main ones were The Chronicles of Ursh, Revelati Draconis and The Obyte Fortis. They all spoke of dragons, serpentine monsters that breathed fire and carried away fair maidens to devour.'

*I know those stories,' said Caxton. *I read them as a child. b.l.o.o.d.y stuff, but stirring.'

*I know them too,' cut in Zouche. *But for my people they're more than just stories, Caxton. The Scholars of Nusa Kambangan taught that they were allegorical representations of the coming of the Emperor, symbolic representations of the forces of light overcoming darkness.'

*That's right,' said Dalia, excitedly. *The slayer represents some all-powerful G.o.dhead and the dragon represents dangerous forces of chaos and disorder. The dragon-slaying hero was a symbol of increasing consciousness and individuation a the journey into maturity.'

*Can't they just be stories?' asked Caxton. *Why does everything have to mean something?'

Dalia ignored him and pressed on. *The one thing a lot of these stories have in common is that the dragon, even though it's beaten, isn't destroyed, but is somehow sublimated into a form where goodness and sentient life can flow into the world from its defeat.'

*What does that even mean?' asked Severine.

*All right, put it this way,' said Dalia, using her hands as much as her words to communicate her increasing pa.s.sions. *In Revelati Draconis, the writer describes a dragon slain by a sky G.o.d with a thunder weapon to free the waters needed to nourish the world. Another tale speaks of a murdered serpent G.o.ddess who held mysterious tablets and whose body was used to create the heavens and earth.'

*Yes,' said Caxton. *That's right. And there was a story in The Chronicles of Ursh about these creatures... the Unkerhi I think they were called, who were destroyed by the *Thunder Warrior'. Supposedly their remains became a range of mountains somewhere on the Merican continent.'

*Exactly,' said Dalia. *There's a footnote towards the end of the Chronicles where the writer describes a race of creatures known as Fomorians that were said to control the fertility of the earth.'

*Let me guess,' said Zouche. *They were defeated, but not destroyed, because their continued existence was necessary for the good of the world.'

*Got it in one,' said Dalia.

*So what does all this mean?' asked Severine. *It's all very interesting, but why does talking about dragons need a vox-blocker?'

*Isn't it obvious?' asked Dalia, before remembering that her friends didn't possess the innate faculties for data recall that she did. *It's clear that these defeated forces, these dragons, were still considered valuable, and it follows that these early writers understood that the conflict between dragon and dragonslayer wasn't a contest of genocide for one or the other, but an eternal struggle. For the good of the world, both sides needed to have their powers expressed and the balance maintained. Even these ancient enemies needed one another.'

*Your logic being that it is the struggle, not the victory, that supplies the needful conditions for the world,' said Mellicin.

Dalia beamed at Mellicin. *Yes, it's like summer and winter,' she said. *Eternal summer would burn the world up, but eternal winter would freeze it to death. It's the fact that they alternate that allows life to grow and flourish.'

*So I ask again, what's the point of all this?' said Severine.

Dalia looked into the faces of her friends, unsure of how to phrase the next part of her confession. Would they believe her or would they think her proximity to the flaring energies of the Astronomican had unhinged her? She took a deep breath and decided she had come too far to back out now.

*When I was in the coma after the accident I think... I think I became part of something, some other, much larger, consciousness. It felt like my mind had detached from my body.'

*An out of body hallucination,' said Zouche. *Quite common in near death experiences.'

*No,' said Dalia. *It was more than that. I don't know how else to explain it, but it was as if the Akashic reader had allowed my mind to... link with something old. I mean, really old, older than this planet or anything else we can possibly imagine.'

*What do you think it was?' asked Mellicin.

*I think it was the dragon that Jonas was talking about.'

*The dragon he said the Emperor slew.'

*That's just it,' said Dalia. *I don't think it's dead at all. I think that's what Jonas was trying to tell me. The Dragon of Mars is still alive beneath the Noctis Labyrinthus... and I need your help to find it.'

HE OPENED HIS eyes and tried to scream, feeling the heartsick spike of agonising pain in his chest once more. He thrashed his limbs, palms beating on slick gla.s.s surfaces, his movements glutinous. His world was a blur of pink, and he blinked in an effort to clear his vision. He reached up to wipe his eyes clean, the sensation of movement like swimming through thick, gluey water.

A shape swam at the edge of his vision, humanoid, but he couldn't focus on it yet.

His head ached and his body felt unutterably heavy, despite its apparent suspension in buoyancy fluids. He felt weightless pain from every portion of his body, but that was nothing in comparison to the crushing weight of sorrow in his heart.

He remembered sleeping, or at least periods of darkness where the pain was lessened, but nothing that truly eased the abominable, unfocused sadness he felt. He knew he had woken here before, having heard fragments of distant conversations where words like *miracle', *brain-death' and *infarction' were used. Without context, the words were meaningless, but he knew they were being applied to his condition.

He blinked as he heard yet more words, and fought to get the sense of them.

Forcing himself to focus on the voice, he swam through the jelly-like fluid of his world.

The shape spoke again, or at least he thought he heard its voice, the words soft and boneless, as though filtered through faulty augmitters.

He pulled himself forward until his face was pressed to a pane of thick gla.s.s. His vision swam into focus, and he saw an antiseptic chamber of polished ceramic tiles and metal gurneys beyond the gla.s.s. Spider-like devices hung from the ceiling and a number of fluid-filled gla.s.s tanks were fitted into bra.s.s sockets on the far wall.

Standing before him was a young woman robed in blue and silver. Her form wavered through the liquid, but she smiled at him and the sight was pathetically welcome.

*Princeps Cavalerio, can you hear me?' she asked, the words snapping into sudden clarity.

He tried to reply, but his mouth was full of liquid, bubbles forming on his lips as they worked to form sounds.

*Princeps?'

*Yes,' he said, his facility for language returning to him at last.

*He's awake,' said the young woman, the words said to an unseen occupant of the chamber. He heard the relief in her voice and wondered why she was so pleased to hear him speak.

*Where am I?' he asked.

*You are in the medicae facility, princeps.'

*Medicae? Where?'

*In Ascraeus Mons,' said the woman. *You are home.'

Ascraeus Mons... the fortress mountain of Legio Tempestus.

Yes, this was his home. This was where he had formally been awarded his princepture nearly two centuries ago. This was where he had first ascended the groaning elevator to the c.o.c.kpit of...

Pain surged in his chest and he gasped, drawing in a lungful of oxygenated fluids. His conscious mind rebelled at the idea of breathing liquid, but his body knew better than he that it could survive the experience and gradually his panic eased, though not his pain.

*Who are you?' he asked as his breathing normalised.

*My name is Agathe, I am to be your famulous.'

*Famulous?'

*An aide, if you will. Someone to minister to your needs.'

*Why do I need a famulous?' he demanded. *I am no cripple!'

*With respect, my princeps, you have just awoken from what must have been a traumatic severance. You will need a.s.sistance to adjust. I am to provide that for you.'

*I don't understand,' said Cavalerio. *How did I come to be here?'

Agathe hesitated, clearly reluctant to provide an answer to his question. Eventually she said, *Perhaps we might discuss that at a later date, my princeps? After you have had time to adjust to your new surroundings.'

*Answer me, d.a.m.n you,' yelled Cavalerio, beating a fist against the gla.s.s.

Agathe glanced over towards the unseen occupant of the chamber, her prevarication only serving to enrage Cavalerio even more.

*Don't look away from me, girl,' he snarled. *I am the Stormlord and you will answer me.'

*Very well, my princeps,' said Agathe. *How much do you remember?'

He frowned, bubbles drifting upwards past his face as he sought to recall the last memory he had before waking.

The towering monster of Legio Mortis bearing down on him.

The furious beat of Victorix Magna's heart as it ruptured under the strain.

The death scream of Magos Argyre as he perished with it.

A yawning black abyss that pulled him down into darkness.

Hot, agonising pain surged in his chest as Princeps Cavalerio relived the death of his engine, weeping invisible tears in the blood-flecked suspension fluid of his amniotic tank.

2.03.

MONDUS OCCULUM, THE jewel of the northern forges, most valued and most industrious of weapon shops. Greater even than the Olympica Fossae a.s.sembly yards, only Lukas Chrom's Mondus Gamma facilities replicated the work of the fabricator loc.u.m's mighty forge, but even his great forge could not match its output.

Covering hundreds of thousands of square kilometres between the domed mountains of Tharsis Tholus and Ceraunius Tholus, Kane's forge complex was a magnificent, monstrous hinterland of hive-smelteries, weapon shops, armouries, refineries, ore silos, fabrication hangars and industrial stacks.

Numerous sub-hives, Uranius, Rhabon and Labeatis being the greatest, towered over the production facilities, the sinks and towering hab blocks home to the millions of adepts, menials, labourers and muscle that drove the machines of the northern forge.

Like most forges of Mars, the iron-skinned manufactora of Mondus Gamma were geared for war. The conquest of the galaxy demanded weapons and ammunition in quant.i.ties unknown in earlier ages of the galaxy, and the hammer of beating iron and the milling of copper jackets was unceasing.

In the collapsed caldera of Uranius Patera, gigantic Tsiolkovsky towers lifted thousands of cargo containers from the supply yards into fat-bellied ma.s.s conveyers in geosynchronous...o...b..t, ready to be transported to war zones flung out across the Imperium. Each tower was like an impossibly thick, pollarded tree, yet rendered slender by their height as they vanished into the poisonous, striated clouds that pressed down on the forge.

Both Mondus Occulum and Mondus Gamma in the south were facilities geared for war, but it was a specific branch of warriors to whom the industry of these forges was dedicated: the Astartes.

Crafted within these forges were the guns and blades wielded by the Emperor's most terrifying warriors in the prosecution of his grand dream, fabricated by the most skilled adepts and warranted never to fail by the fabricator loc.u.m himself. The battle plate of the Astartes was painstakingly wrought upon the anvils of master metal-smiths augmented with the highest specifications of manual dexterity and tolerances.

Boltguns, lascannons, missile launchers and every other weapon in the Astartes inventory was produced here, the martial power of the Legions first taking shape in the sweating, red-lit halls of Mondus Occulum. Armoured vehicles rumbled from a.s.sembly lines housed in vast, vaulted hangars and entire city-sized regions were dedicated to the production of unimaginable quant.i.ties of bolter ammunition.

But Mondus Occulum did not simply gird the Astartes for war with weapons and armour; it was also a place where minds were honed. Astartes warriors deemed to have an affinity with the mysteries of technology were permitted to study the ways of the machine under the tutelage of its master adepts. Fabricator Loc.u.m Kane himself had trained the finest of them: T'Kell of the Salamanders, Gebren of the Iron Hands and Polonin of the Ultramarines, warriors who would take what they had learned back to their Legions and instruct their neophytes.

Mondus Occulum, beloved of Mars, the jewel of the northern forges. Most valued and most industrious of weapon shops. Domain of the fabricator loc.u.m of Mars, the man second only to the ruler of Mars himself. And correctly one of the few forges of Mars to have avoided outright collapse.

Flanked by a chittering retinue of noospherically-modified servitors with blank, golden facemasks, harried calculus-logi and a number of specialised data scrubbers whose fear was evident in the harsh binary blurts of cant pa.s.sing between them, Fabricator Loc.u.m Kane sought to stay calm by immersing himself in thoughts of the mundane as he pa.s.sed beneath the gilded archway that led to the armourium.

Beyond his forge, events of a great and terrible nature were unfolding, but for now, for this moment, he concentrated on keeping the processes of his own forge working as normally as possible in the face of the devastation.

The cavernous chamber beyond the arch was brightly lit, its roof hundreds of metres above him and its far end lost to perspective. Loader servitors and whining elevators carried racks of Astartes battle plate, stacking them in metal-skinned containers arranged along the height of the walls and in long rows that stretched off into the distance.

Hundreds of quality-checking adepts moved through the chamber, hard-plugging in to each container and checking the measured readings of each suit of armour with previously inloaded specifications. Only rarely would armour produced at Mondus Occulum fail to meet Kane's necessarily high tolerances, an occasion that would result in a thorough investigation as to the cause of the defect. Such defects would not be replicated, and those whose laxity had allowed it in the first place would be punished.

Only once every suit had been checked and certified battle-ready would it be shipped to Uranius Patera and the orbital elevators. Warranted never to fail was a promise Fabricator Loc.u.m Kane took seriously, even now.

Especially now.

Kane took a deep breath, inhaling and sorting the chemical scent of the air before turning to his magos-apprenta. *Can you smell that, Lachine?'

*Indeed, my lord,' replied Lachine, using his fleshvoice in emulation of his master. The boy's voice was nasal and unpleasant, and the sooner he was augmented with a vocaliser the better, thought Kane. *Calcined aluminium oxide, a lapping powder that can reduce lapping and polishing time of armour by at least twenty per cent and which is particularly effective on hard materials, such as silicon and hardened steel. Also, microcrystalline wax and dilute acetic acid.'

Kane shook his head and placed a hand on Lachine's shoulder. The boy was much shorter than Kane and his demeanour entirely literal, a useful trait in an apprenta in terms of efficiency and work, but a frustrating one for conversation.

*No, Lachine, I mean what the smells represent.'

*Represent? Query: I do not understand your contention that odour is a signifier.'

*No? Then you are missing out, Lachine,' said Kane. *You register the chemical components. I, on the other hand, register the emotional ones. To me, the gentle, rea.s.suring smell of lapping powder, polish and oil represents stability and order, the certainty that we have played our part in ensuring that the Emperor's warriors are equipped for battle with the best armour and weapons we can provide.'

*I see, my lord,' said Lachine but Kane knew he did not.

*At times such as this, I find such things a comfort,' explained Kane. *A great factory with the machinery all working and revolving with absolute and rhythmic regularity, and with its workers all driven by one impulse, and moving in unison as though a const.i.tuent part of the mighty machine, is one of the most inspiring examples of directed force the galaxy knows. I have rarely seen the face of an adept in the action of creation that was not fine, never one which was not earnest and impressive.'

Kane paused as a lifter-servitor pa.s.sed, carrying a rack of gleaming, freshly-dipped suits of battle plate. The brutish monster was all muscles, pistons and gene-bulked torso, and it effortlessly bore the heavy weight of the armour in its hydraulically clawed fists. Each suit shone silver, the metal and ceramite unpainted and left for each Legion to adorn with its own colours.