*Then the Astartes do not come to aid us at all,' protested Maximal. *They seek to secure their own supplies of weapons and armour! Intolerable!'

*Agreed,' said Zeth. *We need the Astartes if we are to defeat Kelbor-Hal's minions.'

*Captain Sigismund has a.s.sured me that once the armour and weapon production facilities are secured, his warriors will come to your aid.'

*Then let us hope they are swift in their conquests,' said Zeth.

*Indeed,' said Kane, either missing or ignoring her caustic tone. *In the meantime, do all you can to hold on. Help is on the way and I will exload information to you both as I receive it. Good luck and may the Machine-G.o.d guide you.'

The image of Kane faded from the gla.s.s, and Zeth returned her attention to the scenes of war and death inloading from all across Mars.

Adept Maximal remained as a ghostly presence flickering from the burnished plate above her, and Zeth regarded him quizzically.

*You have something to add, Maximal?'

*Ts there any word from your wayward protege?'

Beneath her mask, Koriel Zeth smiled. Even with his forge besieged and facing destruction, Ipluvien Maximal still hungered for knowledge.

Zeth shook her head. *No. Rho-mu 31's biometrics ceased transmitting somewhere in the Noctis Labyrinthus and I can find no trace of them. I fear he may be dead.'

*So Dalia Cythera is probably dead as well?' asked Kane.

*That is probable, yes.'

Maximal's sigh of disappointment matched her own.

THE INTERIOR OF the tunnel was not dark as Dalia had feared, but alive with a soft illumination. The rock itself glowed, as though carrying some form of bioluminescent current. The air was cold and their breath misted before them as Rho-mu 31 led the way. The tunnel was narrow, its cross-section like that of a leaf-shaped arch, and they were forced to travel in single file as it sloped ever deeper into the planet's surface.

Dalia reached out and touched the walls to either side of her; they were warm and though they looked smooth, she felt minute imperfections in the surface, as though a million tiny picks had chipped away at them.

They walked for what felt like an age, winding through serpentine pa.s.sages and multi-coloured galleries of translucent stalagmites, and across glittering bridges of smooth crystal. Dalia wondered what manner of internal geological transformation could alter so great a portion of the subterranean landscape.

*What could cause something like this?' she asked, making the question sound light.

*Geological metamorphosis I'd imagine,' said Zouche. *Aeons of pressure and heat can cause some rock types to change their state. Looks like that's what's happened here.'

No, realised Dalia, that's not it at all. It's something buried here that's leaching outwards.

She said nothing and continued to follow Rho-mu 31 as the internal illumination of the rock began to recede behind them and their little group bunched up around the solitary light from the Protector's weapon stave.

At length, Rho-mu 31 held up his hand, halting their group.

*Do you hear that?'

Dalia could hear nothing at first, but as they all came to a halt and slowed their breathing, she could make out the faint sound of movement.

*What do you think it is?' asked Caxton.

Rho-mu 31 shrugged. *I don't know. I didn't think anything remained here.'

*Well we didn't come this far to turn back,' said Dalia, easing past Rho-mu 31 and heading towards the sound with more confidence than she felt. Her heart beat loudly in her chest and she squinted as she saw a bright light from up ahead.

Dalia emerged into a wide laboratory chamber, carved from the rock of the cliffs and roughly rectangular in shape. One wall was festooned with thousands of colourful sheets of parchment like a children's collage, and at the far end of the chamber was a darkened pa.s.sageway. Bare girders of red iron supported the ceiling, from which dangled a host of gently swaying cables, some inert, some twisting with fizzing sparks.

Against one wall was a surgical table, surrounded by banks of respirators, intravenous drips and a number of steel tables laden with unpleasant-looking machinery. Next to this was a complex device that resembled a giant rock drill, with mechanisms formed from stained bra.s.s and tarnished steel. Rust plated its sides and gla.s.s generator globes sat atop looping coils of rigid golden wire. A silver wheel-like apparatus sat on a conical mount at the front of the device, each of its four spokes fitted with a small emitter dish.

Each of the dishes was aimed at an upright slab on the far wall with the imprinted shadow of a human body upon it and leather straps at the wrists, ankles and neck.

*Now this just can't be good,' said Caxton.

Dalia paid the device no mind, walking over to examine the parchment sc.r.a.ps on the wall.

*What are these?' wondered Severine, plucking one from the wall and handing it to Dalia.

The parchment was glossy and depicted a human silhouette limned with a rainbow of colours. Reds, greens and blues danced around the subject's body, but Dalia saw that on the right arm, the colours faded from the elbow down, as though the strength of whatever was producing the colours had faded.

*I'm not sure,' replied Dalia. *Some kind of electrography?'

She made her way along the length of the wall, seeing hundreds of pictures, all displaying elements of human bodies with glowing, colourful auras surrounding them. Like the first picture, each silhouette showed a loss in colour at one extremity, be it a leg, arm or a head.

*I don't like this,' said Zouche as he examined the machine. *Reeks of dark technology. Forgotten science. Like the kind that almost destroyed mankind before Old Night.'

*You don't even know what this does,' said Caxton, stepping in front of the silver wheel.

*Don't stand there!' shouted Dalia, dropping the image she held.

*What? Why not?' asked Caxton. *I don't think this machine's worked in centuries. There's nothing to worry about.'

*Ha!' said Severine. *The last time you said that we almost died when that battle robot attacked the mag-lev.'

Caxton shook his head, but moved away from the strange machine, smiling at Zouche as the machinist examined what looked like a steel control panel with a number of gem-like b.u.t.tons, a bra.s.s radial dial and a long lever.

*I think you're wrong about that, Caxton,' said Zouche. *This panel hasn't got a spot of rust or dust on it. I think someone's used this machine quite recently.'

*And you would be right,' said a cracked voice, ancient and thick with age.

Dalia spun to see Rho-mu 31 with his weapon stave aimed at a hooded adept in dark robes emerging from the pa.s.sageway at the far end of the chamber.

*Oh yes, you would be right,' continued the adept. *Happy day that you come to me! I had all but given up hope of anyone ever arriving!'

*Who are you?' demanded the Protector, igniting the tip of his weapon stave as a hulking servitor emerged from the shadows to stand beside the adept. The servitor was bulky with augmetics, one arm replaced with a hissing, wheezing power claw, the other with an oversized chainblade.

The adept drew back his hood and Dalia gasped as she saw his gaunt features, wild eyes and thin sc.r.a.ps of bone-white hair. His flesh shone with mercurial light, as though glittering fire filled his veins instead of blood, and upon his forehead she saw a shining electoo of a diminishing spiral with a stylised set of wings to either side.

The mark of the Dragon.

*I know you,' she said. *I dreamed of you.'

*The hooded man?' gasped Caxton. *He's real?'

*Am I real?' asked the adept. *Well, as real as any of you, though what const.i.tutes reality in this polluted cesspool of psi-spoor we call a universe... well, a matter for some debate, yes?'

*Who are you?' repeated Rho-mu 31, taking a step towards the man.

*Who am I? Now there's a question. One might as well ask how many stars there are in the heavens, though that would have a definite answer. Or would it? Ah, it's been so long since I have seen them. Are they still there or have the others devoured them?'

*The stars?' asked Dalia.

*Of course the stars,' snapped the adept. *Are they still there?'

*Yes, they're still there.'

*How many?'

*I don't know,' said Dalia. *Millions, I think.'

*Millions she says,' laughed the adept. *And not a second after she says she knows not.'

Rho-mu 31 stepped between Dalia and the cackling adept.

*I won't ask again,' said Rho-mu 31. *Tell me your name.'

*My name,' said the adept, looking confused. *Ah, but it's been so long since I needed one and it gets so hard to remember. I need no name, for my name is insignificant against the vast, echoing emptiness of the darkness, but men once called me Semyon.'

*And what are you doing here?' asked Dalia.

*Here?' cried Semyon, throwing his arms wide and spinning around like a lunatic. *You have such a limited understanding of the material world, girl. Words like here and there have no meaning. The myriad dimensions of this material universe cannot be defined by so limited a thing as human language!'

Semyon stopped with his back to Dalia and looked over his shoulder, his face alight with the fire she had seen in Jonas Milus' eyes before his body had disintegrated.

*I am the Guardian of the Dragon!' said Semyon.

THE SUB-HIVES AND manufacturing regions to the northwest of the Magma City lay in ruins. Kilometre-high hab blocks lay scattered across the burning container port like toppled anthills and smashed war engines burned where they had fallen. Bodies littered the ground and tanks lay on their backs or twisted onto their sides without turrets.

With the destruction of their scouting engines, the t.i.tans of Legio Mortis had pulled back, unwilling to advance through such dense terrain and into the teeth of an unknown number of enemy engines.

Instead, they had settled for an intense bombardment from afar, each engine bracing itself with internal gyros and gravitational stabilisers as they locked out their weapon limbs and began to systematically pound the outer habs and work precincts of Koriel Zeth's domain, careful not to damage the forge.

That was to be captured intact.

Princeps Cavalerio withdrew his forces within the walls of the Magma City as the punishing fire brought the thunder of the G.o.ds to earth. Fire sheeted from the sky like the end of days, and the planet was lost in a mist of dust and fire and smoke as the city in the shadow of the volcano shuddered with the fury of the bombardment.

Within the walls, hundreds of thousands of refugees packed the thoroughfares, boulevards and sinks of the city. With nowhere to run, the servants of Adept Zeth huddled in terrified misery as the deafening roar of explosions and the seismic shocks of detonations shook the city from the peak of the forge to its void-shielded foundations.

The Knights of Taranis broke two more attacks on the gate, each time without loss, but Preceptor Stator's mount, Fortis Metallum, took a grievous wound to the chest.

Further west, sealed up in his forge between Biblis Patera and Ulysses Patera, Ipluvien Maximal watched as a screaming host, conservatively estimated to be in the region of half a million soldiers, hurled itself at his shielded walls with power mauls and vortex mines.

Servitor-slaved guns sawed through mob after mob of enemy warriors, but such was the force arrayed against them they might as well have ceased firing for all the difference they made.

Ipluvien Maximal greatly feared that the life of his forge could now be measured in hours instead of days.

In the north-eastern reaches of Tharsis, only Mondus Occulum had been spared the ravages of the enemy, though for what purpose, Fabricator Loc.u.m Kane could not fathom.

Perhaps Kelbor-Hal thought he might yet lure Kane to his cause, or maybe the Fabricator General did not wish to risk losing the Astartes production facilities for the Warmaster.

Whatever the reason, Kane gave thanks to the Omnissiah as he stood in the howling winds that swirled around the gigantic Tsiolkovsky towers and landing fields of Uranius Patera, watching as squadron after squadron of Imperial Fists Stormbirds descended like a golden flock of avenging angels.

3.03.

AFTER HIS DRAMATIC p.r.o.nouncement, Adept Semyon lowered his arms and moved past Rho-mu 31 to shoo Zouche and Caxton away from the machine. He adjusted the dials and pressed a number of the b.u.t.tons, though nothing appeared to happen. Looking disappointed, but not entirely surprised, he shrugged.

*What kind of machine is that?' asked Zouche. *Some kind of conversion beam engine?'

*Pah, it's too complex for the likes of you to comprehend,' snapped Semyon. *But, for the record, this is my very own gas discharge machine of the perturbation variety, which creates pulsed electrical field excitations and thus measures electro-photonic glow. What the less sophisticated might call auras.'

*These images,' said Dalia. *That machine created them?'

*It did indeed,' nodded the adept without looking up. *It did indeed, though it takes a great deal of effort to convince the subjects of the images to willingly submit to the process.'

*And why's that?' asked Zouche.

Semyon pointed to the imprinted shadow on the upright slab. *You see that? That's all that's left of someone once the device has been activated.'

*It kills them?' asked Dalia, horrified at the number of deaths that must have taken place in this grim laboratory to satisfy Semyon's research.

*It does,' agreed Semyon with a giggle. *But such things are sometimes necessary to keep the Dragon quiescent.'

*You know where the Dragon is?' demanded Dalia. *Can you take us to it?'

Semyon laughed, a high-pitched skirling sound of hysteria. *Take you to it? Doesn't she know it's all around her, that she walks in the throat of the Dragon even now? Ha!'

*This fellow's mad,' declared Zouche. *Too much time alone has broken his brain.'

*No,' said Dalia with steely conviction. *This isn't the Dragon. Take us to it. Now!'

Her friends turned at the commanding tone of her voice and even Semyon blinked in surprise. His eyes narrowed and he peered more closely at Dalia, as if seeing her for the first time.

Semyon grinned and nodded, pulling the hood of his robes over the wispy strands of his hair. *Very well,' he said, all hint of his former mania vanished. *Follow me and I will show you the Dragon.'