*It's all the Dragon remembers of it, yes,' said Semyon. *Or at least a version of its memories. It's hard to tell what's real and what's not sometimes. I listen to its impotent roars of hatred as it watches from its gaol on Mars and write what comes out, the Emperor *slaying' the Dragon of Mars... the grand lie of the red planet and the truth that would shake the galaxy if it were known. But truth, as are all things, is a moving target. What of this is real and what is fantasy... well, who can tell?'

Dalia looked towards the horizon over which the knight had vanished. *Then that was?'

*The Emperor? Yes,' said Semyon, turning and walking away as the reality of the desert landscape began to unweave. *He brought the defeated Dragon to Mars and bound it beneath the Noctis Labyrinthus.'

*But why?'

*The Emperor sees things we do not,' said Semyon. *He knows the future and he guides us towards it. A nudge here, seeding a prepared prophecy of his coming there, the beginnings of the transhumanist movement, the push from humanity's understanding of science to its mastery... all of it by his design, working towards one glorious union in the future where the forges of Mars would perceive the Emperor as the divinity for whom they had been waiting for centuries.'

*You mean the Emperor orchestrated the evolution of the Mechanic.u.m?'

*Of course,' said Semyon. *He knew that one day he would need such a mighty organisation to serve him, and from the Dragon's dreams came the first machines of the priests of Mars. Without the Dragon there would have been no Mechanic.u.m, and without the Mechanic.u.m, the Emperor's grand dream of a united galaxy for Humanity would have withered on the vine.'

Dalia tried to grasp the unimaginable scale of the Emperor's designs, the clarity of a vision that could set schemes in motion that would not come to fruition for over twenty thousand years. It was simply staggering that anyone, even the Emperor, could have so carefully and precisely orchestrated the destiny of so many with such skill and cold ruthlessness.

The scale of the deception was beyond measure and the callousness of it took her breath away. To lie to so many people, to twist the destiny of a planet to suit one man's aims, even a being as lofty as the Emperor, was a crime of such monstrous proportions that Dalia's mind shied away from that awful calumny.

*If the truth of this became known,' breathed Dalia. *It would tear the Mechanic.u.m apart.'

Semyon shook his head as the last vestiges of the sands of Libya faded away to be replaced with darkness all around them. *Not just the Mechanic.u.m, but the Imperium too,' he said. *I know this knowledge is a terrible burden to bear, but the Treaty of Olympus bound the fates of both Throne and Forge together in a union that must never be undone. Neither can survive without the other, but should this become known, then those who hold truth sacred above all else will not see that, they will only see the righteousness of their cause. In any case, the Mechanic.u.m is already tearing itself apart, but the horrors unleashed by the Warmaster's betrayal will be as nothing if Mars and Terra make war upon one another.'

Semyon fixed Dalia with a gaze of such pity that she shuddered. *But it is the duty of the Guardians of the Dragon, souls chosen by the Emperor, to ensure that such a thing does not happen.'

*You keep the Dragon bound?' asked Dalia as she began to perceive faint outlines of her surroundings reestablishing themselves.

*No, the Dragon is bound by chains far stronger than one such as I could devise. The Guardians simply maintain what the Emperor wrought,' explained Semyon. *He knew that one day the Dragon's lost children would seek its resting place and we are here to ensure that they do not find it.'

*You said *we', but I'm no Guardian,' said Dalia warily.

*You have not guessed why your every footstep has brought you to this place, girl?'

*No,' hissed Dalia as Semyon reached out and took her hands.

At the moment of contact, Dalia gasped in pain as the world around her returned, and she found herself once again standing at the lectern in the vast cave of silver.

She tried to pull her hands away, but Semyon's grip was unbreakable. Looking into his eyes, she saw the weight of a thousand years and more in those depthless pools, a duty and honour that was like nothing else in the galaxy.

*I am sorry,' said Semyon, *but my span, though much extended, is now over.'

*No.'

*Yes, Dalia, you must fulfil your destiny and become the Guardian of the Dragon.'

Dalia felt the heat in Semyon's hands spread into her flesh, a golden radiance that filled her with unimaginable wellbeing. She wanted to cry out in ecstasy as she felt every decaying fibre in her body surge with a new lease of life, every withered cell and every portion of her flesh blooming as a power undreamed of filled her.

Her body was reborn, filled with a sliver of the power and knowledge of a world's most singular individual, power and knowledge that had been pa.s.sed down from Guardian to Guardian over the millennia, a burden and an honour in one unasked for gift. With that knowledge, her anger at the Emperor's deception was swept away as she saw the ultimate, horrifying fate of the human race bereft of his guidance.

She saw his single-minded, pitiless drive to steer his entire race along a narrow path of survival only he could see, a life that allowed no love, few friends and an eternity of sacrifice.

Dalia wanted to scream, feeling the power threaten to consume her, the awesome ferocity of it almost burning away all the things that made her who she was. She fought to hold onto her ident.i.ty, but she was the last leaf on a dying tree and she felt her memories and sense of self subsumed into the fate the Emperor had decreed for her.

At last the roaring power within her was spent, its work to remould her form complete, and she let out a great, shuddering breath as she realised she was still herself.

She was still Dalia Cythera, but so much more as well. Semyon released her hands and stepped away from her with a look of contented release upon his face. *Goodbye, Dalia,' said Semyon.

The adept's skin greyed and his entire body dissolved into a fine golden dust, leaving only his aged robes to fall to the rocky floor. Dalia looked over at the hulking servitor that had accompanied the adept and was not surprised when it also disintegrated into dust.

Such a sight would normally have shocked Dalia, but she felt nothing beyond a detached sense of completeness at the adept's dissolution.

*Dalia,' said Severine, and she turned to see her friend looking directly at her, a look of manic desperation knotting her features as tears of grief and horror spilled down her cheeks.

Severine smiled weakly, looking up at the distant cavern roof, and said, *You brought me the Dragon, Dalia, but I wish you hadn't.'

*Wait,' said Dalia as Severine stepped towards the drop only a foot behind her.

*It's a mercy, I think, that we can't normally see the terrible things that hide in the darkness or know how frail our reality really is,' wept Severine. *I'm sorry... but if you could see as I now see, you would do the same as I.'

Severine stepped off the ledge.

3.04.

FIRST CAPTAIN SIGISMUND of the Imperial Fists watched as yet more metal-skinned containers were borne skyward on Fabricator Loc.u.m Kane's gigantic Tsiolkovsky towers towards the container ships in orbit. The enormous structures were working at full capacity, and it still wasn't fast enough, for his ship masters had just informed him of an enemy force closing in from the north-east: infantry, armour, skitarii and at least two Legios' worth of engines.

It seemed Mondus Occulum's privileged status was at an end.

Nothing of this mission to Mars had panned out the way it was supposed to, and Sigismund felt his anger gnawing at his bounds of control. Camba-Diaz and the Jovian regiments were embroiled in a fight for their lives at Mondus Gamma, and the Saturnine companies tasked with breaking the siege at Ipluvien Maximal's forge had been repeatedly turned back by the horrifyingly altered weapon-creatures of the Dark Mechanic.u.m.

Sigismund marched through the precisely organised ballet of servitors, loaders and speeding lifters carrying racks of armour and bolters, seeing the elegant form of the fabricator loc.u.m directing the work of his menials with calmly efficient waves of freshly-implanted manip arms.

Dust storms billowing in from the wastelands beyond the collapsed caldera of Uranius Patera rendered the gold of Sigismund's battle plate ochre and stained the black and white of his personal heraldry, yet he was no less impressive a figure for such blemishes.

A host of similarly armoured warriors moved with the methodical precision for which the Imperial Fists were famed, working alongside mobs of Kane's bulky lifter servitors to secure as much of the armour and weapon supplies as they could.

Sigismund's companies had descended upon Mondus Occulum not knowing whether they would have to fight to secure the forge, and it was a relief to find that the fabricator loc.u.m still held true to the Throne of Terra.

Even Sigismund had been grudgingly impressed by the efforts made by Kane to ensure the smooth transfer of supplies from his forge to the ships anch.o.r.ed at the tops of the Tsiolkovsky towers. As impressive as Kane's efforts were, Sigismund knew they would be forced to leave the bulk of the materiel produced here behind.

Kane turned at the sound of Sigismund's footfalls, a weary smile on his smooth face.

*First captain?' said Kane. *Have you heard from Camba-Diaz? How goes the fighting at Mondus Gamma?'

*Desperate,' admitted Sigismund. *Camba-Diaz has secured the armour forges and the ammunition silos, but his company is outnumbered a hundred to one. The traitor Chrom's forces are pushing him back to the landing fields and his losses are grievous. We will not be able to hold the forge, but a great deal of essential supplies have been secured for transit to Terra.'

*Chrom's skitarii always were brutal things,' said Kane, shaking his head in wonder that things had come to this. *And the number of his robot maniples is considerable.'

Sigismund felt his gauntlet curl around the grip of his bolter. *Aye, and it offends me that such mindless machines spill the blood of Astartes. But enough of Camba-Diaz, how close are you to completing the evacuation of armour and weapons from here?'

*The work proceeds,' said Kane. *Already we have shipped over twelve thousand suits of Mark IV armour and twice as many weapons.'

*I will be blunt, Kane,' said Sigismund. *It must go faster. We have little time left to us.'

*I a.s.sure you we are going as fast as we can, first captain.'

*Yet still it must be faster,' stated Sigismund. *Orbital tracks show a sizeable force of enemy troops moving in from the north-east. They may be upon us any minute.'

Kane's eyes flickered as he inloaded the feeds from the surveyor systems of the ships in orbit, and his manip arms clenched as he saw the size of the force converging on his forge.

*Two Legios!' exclaimed Kane. *Over sixty engines!'

*And the rest,' said Sigismund.

*Those banners,' said Kane, haptically sorting the wealth of feeds from those satellites still in orbit around Mars. *They belong to Urtzi Malevolus. d.a.m.n, but there's a lot of them. Can you hold against that many, first captain? We must save Mondus Occulum!'

Sigismund hesitated before answering, his desire to wreak a b.l.o.o.d.y vengeance on the heads of those who rebelled against the Emperor warring with the mission his primarch had given him of securing the armour and weapons of Kane's forge.

He sighed. *No, we cannot. The forces arrayed against us are too many and my orders do not allow for futile gestures of defiance.'

*Futile defiance?' exclaimed Kane. *This is my forge we're talking about. What could be less futile than defending the very place that fabricates the armour that shields you and the weapons you bear?'

Sigismund shook his head. *I don't have time to debate this with you, Kane. Speed up the loading by whatever means you can, but within the hour we must be away or we will not be leaving at all. Do you understand that simple fact?'

*I understand,' snapped Kane. *But you must understand that if Mondus Occulum and Mondus Gamma fall, you will have no way of replenishing the combat losses you will sustain in any meaningful way.'

Sigismund was about to reply when one of the Tsiolkovsky towers exploded.

The mighty structure spewed fire, and debris fell lazily from the ruptured portion of the tower as metres-thick guys snapped and tw.a.n.ged. Black smoke curled upward from the site of the explosion and a terrible scream of ruptured metal and torn carbon nanotubes rent the air as the tower leaned and bent as though no more substantial than a length of rope.

More explosions boomed skyward on the crater's edge and the echoes of their detonations rolled over the landing fields.

*No more time, Kane,' snarled Sigismund. *They have range on us already.'

The distant tower came down in a rippling series of crashing detonations, trailing a city's worth of rubble and twisted metal in its wake. Huge manufactories, acres of industrial landscape and forests of towering coolant towers were smashed to pulverised dust as entire worker districts vanished, flattened in an instant by the monstrous weight of debris.

A ma.s.sive cloud of dust and ash billowed outward from the collapsed tower like the blast wave of an atomic explosion. The ground shook with the force of the impacts, and Sigismund heard secondary detonations as enemy fire began to pound the outlying segments of the forge to destruction.

A thunderous, booming horn-blast echoed across the landing fields, and Sigismund looked up in time to see a host of towering silhouettes emerge from the red-lit smoke of the tower's destruction. Six Warlord t.i.tans, their hulls blackened and scarified, roared in triumph, their weapon arms blazing with apocalyptic fire that reduced towering structures to rubble and entire swathes of infrastructure to little more than vaporised metal.

*Get to your ship, Kane,' ordered Sigismund. *Now!'

*My forge!' cried Kane. *We can't just abandon it!'

Sigismund grabbed Kane's arm and said, *Your forge is already lost! Now get to your d.a.m.ned ship. Your skills will be needed in the days ahead.'

*What do you mean?'

*I mean that with Kelbor-Hal's treachery, you are now the Fabricator General.'

*But what about Zeth? Maximal?' shouted Kane over the deafening crescendo of the advancing t.i.tans and the destruction of his forge. *What of them?'

*We can do nothing for them!' shouted Sigismund. *They must stand or fall on their own.'

DALIA STOOD OPEN-MOUTHED, staring numbly at the empty s.p.a.ce where, not a moment before, Severine had been standing. She couldn't comprehend what had just happened and her brain fought to process the knowledge that her friend was dead.

She took a horrified lurch towards the edge of the promontory, but a powerful hand seized her arm. Rho-mu 31 held her firm and said, *Don't.'

*Severine!' wailed Dalia, her legs turning to the consistency of wet paper and giving way beneath her. Rho-mu 31 bore her gently to the ground as aching sobs burst from her. She held him tightly, burying her face in the fabric of his cloak as she wept for her lost friend.

*Why did she do it?' asked Dalia, looking up at Rho-mu 31 when her sobs had subsided.

*I do not know,' admitted Rho-mu 31, as Zouche came up behind Dalia and placed his hand upon her shoulder in an awkward gesture of comfort.

*I think our Severine was a girl who depended on certainties,' mused Zouche. *This place... well, it strips away the illusions that allow us to function and shows you that there's no such thing as certainties in this universe. Some minds can't handle that kind of truth.'

*She's gone,' whispered Dalia.

*Yes, Dalia-girl, she's gone,' said Zouche, his voice choked with emotion. *With all that's happened, I'm surprised any of us are still here.'

*Caxton!' cried Dalia, suddenly remembering that when she had last seen him, he had been insensible on the ground.

*I think he'll be fine,' said Rho-mu 31 as Dalia disentangled herself from him and stood on unsteady legs. *He blacked out when everything went... strange.'

*Like a fuse or a circuit breaker,' elaborated Zouche, making his way over to the lectern, upon which sat Semyon's book. *He should be fine when he wakes up.'

Dalia saw Caxton lying in the recovery position, his chest rising and falling with rhythmic breaths. He was alive and she could sense the bruised insides of his mind already beginning to heal. She wondered at how she could see such things, and then remembered the power that had flowed into her at Semyon's dissolution.

*Good,' she said. *I can't bear to think of this place claiming any more lives.'

Zouche lifted a handful of golden dust that was all that remained of Adept Semyon and his battle servitor. *What happened here?' he asked. *They aged a thousand years in an instant.'

*More, I think,' said Dalia. *I think Semyon had been a Guardian for a long, long time.'

*So now what do we do?' asked Zouche, his eyes scanning over the pages of Semyon's book. *We found the Dragon, so do we free it?'

*No, absolutely not,' said Dalia. *You were right after all, Zouche. Some things are meant to be left in darkness forever. We were never meant to come here to release it.'

*Then why did you have to come at all?' asked Rho-mu 31.

*I think you know,' said Dalia, turning away from Zouche and facing Rho-mu 31 as flecks of golden light simmered in her eyes. *To make sure it stayed entombed. Semyon is dead, but there needs to be a Guardian of the Dragon.'

*And that's you?' asked Rho-mu 31.