of knowledge being systematically destroyed to keep the masses ignorant of their truths. The shelves held nothing but flames and ash, the heat battering against Loken as he tried to save the dying books. His hands blistered and blackened as he fought to save the wisdom of ancient times, the flesh peeling back from his bones.
The music of the spheres. The mechanisms of reality, invisible and all around…
Loken could see it where the flames burned through, the endless churning mass of the warp at the heart of everything and the eyes of dark forces seething with malevolence. Grotesque creatures cavorted obscenely among heaps of corpses, horned heads and braying, goat-like faces twisted by the mindless artifice of the warp. Bloated monsters, their bodies heaving with maggots and filth, devoured dead stars as a brass-clad giant bellowed an endless war cry from its throne of skulls and soulless magicians sacrificed billions in a silver city built of lies.
Loken fought to tear his sight from this madness. Remembering the words he had thrown in Horus Aximand’s face at the Delphos Gate, he screamed them aloud once more:
‘I will not bow to any fane or acknowledge any spirit. I own only the empirical clarity of Imperial Truth!’
In an instant, the walls of the dark temple slammed back into place around him, the air thick with incense, and he gasped for breath. Loken’s heart pumped wildly and his head spun, sick with the effort of casting out what he had seen.
This was not fear. This was anger.
Those who came to this fane were selling out the entire human race to dark forces that lurked unseen in the depths of the warp. Were these the same forces that had infected Xavyer Jubal? The same forces that had nearly killed Sindermann in the ship’s archive?
Loken felt sick as he realized that everything he knew about the warp was wrong.
He had been told that there were no such things as gods.
He had been told that there was nothing in the warp but insensate, elemental power.
He had been told that the galaxy was too sterile for melodrama.
Everything he had been told was a lie.
Feeding on the strength his anger gave him, Loken lurched towards the altar and slammed the ancient book closed, snapping the brass hasp over the lock. Even shut, he could feel the terrible purpose locked within its pages. The idea that a book could have some sort of power would have sounded ludicrous to Loken only a few months ago, but he could not doubt the evidence of his own senses, despite the incredible, terrifying, unimaginable things he had seen and heard. He gathered up the book and clutching it under one arm, turned and made his way from the fane.
He closed the door and eased past the banner of the Seventh, emerging once more into the secluded darkness of the strategium.
Sindermann had been right. Loken was hearing the music of the spheres, and it was a terrible sound that spoke of corruption, blood and the death of the universe.
Loken knew with utter certainty that it was up to him to silence it.
T HE INTERIOR OF the Isstvan Extremis facility was dominated by a wide, stepped pyramid, its huge stone blocks fashioned from a material that clearly had no place on such a world. Each block came from some other building, many of them still bearing architectural carvings, sections of friezes, gargoyles or even statues jutting crazily from the structure
Isstvanian soldiers swarmed around the base of the pyramid, fighting in desperate close quarters battle with the steel-armoured figures of the Death Guard. The battle had no shape, the art of war having given way to the grinding brutality of simple killing.
Tarvitz’s gaze was drawn from the slaughter to the very top of the pyramid, where a bright light spun and twisted around a half-glimpsed figure surrounded by keening harmonics.
‘Attack!’ bellowed Eidolon, charging forwards as the tip of the spear, assault units the killing edges around him. Tarvitz forgot about the strange figure and
The music of the spheres. The mechanisms of reality, invisible and all around…
Loken could see it where the flames burned through, the endless churning mass of the warp at the heart of everything and the eyes of dark forces seething with malevolence. Grotesque creatures cavorted obscenely among heaps of corpses, horned heads and braying, goat-like faces twisted by the mindless artifice of the warp. Bloated monsters, their bodies heaving with maggots and filth, devoured dead stars as a brass-clad giant bellowed an endless war cry from its throne of skulls and soulless magicians sacrificed billions in a silver city built of lies.
Loken fought to tear his sight from this madness. Remembering the words he had thrown in Horus Aximand’s face at the Delphos Gate, he screamed them aloud once more:
‘I will not bow to any fane or acknowledge any spirit. I own only the empirical clarity of Imperial Truth!’
In an instant, the walls of the dark temple slammed back into place around him, the air thick with incense, and he gasped for breath. Loken’s heart pumped wildly and his head spun, sick with the effort of casting out what he had seen.
This was not fear. This was anger.
Those who came to this fane were selling out the entire human race to dark forces that lurked unseen in the depths of the warp. Were these the same forces that had infected Xavyer Jubal? The same forces that had nearly killed Sindermann in the ship’s archive?
Loken felt sick as he realized that everything he knew about the warp was wrong.
He had been told that there were no such things as gods.
He had been told that there was nothing in the warp but insensate, elemental power.
He had been told that the galaxy was too sterile for melodrama.
Everything he had been told was a lie.
Feeding on the strength his anger gave him, Loken lurched towards the altar and slammed the ancient book closed, snapping the brass hasp over the lock. Even shut, he could feel the terrible purpose locked within its pages. The idea that a book could have some sort of power would have sounded ludicrous to Loken only a few months ago, but he could not doubt the evidence of his own senses, despite the incredible, terrifying, unimaginable things he had seen and heard. He gathered up the book and clutching it under one arm, turned and made his way from the fane.
He closed the door and eased past the banner of the Seventh, emerging once more into the secluded darkness of the strategium.
Sindermann had been right. Loken was hearing the music of the spheres, and it was a terrible sound that spoke of corruption, blood and the death of the universe.
Loken knew with utter certainty that it was up to him to silence it.
T HE INTERIOR OF the Isstvan Extremis facility was dominated by a wide, stepped pyramid, its huge stone blocks fashioned from a material that clearly had no place on such a world. Each block came from some other building, many of them still bearing architectural carvings, sections of friezes, gargoyles or even statues jutting crazily from the structure
Isstvanian soldiers swarmed around the base of the pyramid, fighting in desperate close quarters battle with the steel-armoured figures of the Death Guard. The battle had no shape, the art of war having given way to the grinding brutality of simple killing.
Tarvitz’s gaze was drawn from the slaughter to the very top of the pyramid, where a bright light spun and twisted around a half-glimpsed figure surrounded by keening harmonics.
‘Attack!’ bellowed Eidolon, charging forwards as the tip of the spear, assault units the killing edges around him. Tarvitz forgot about the strange figure and
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