'You recognise these, of course.'

Old cards, worn and fraying, discoloured and liver-spotted with time. One by one, Malcador laid them out.

The Lesser Arcanoi, just gaming trinkets, really, but used widely before the coming of Old Night for divination. 'This deck was made on Nostramo Quintus.'

'He used them,' Dorn breathed.

'Yes, he did. He relied on them. He believed in cartomancy. He dealt his fate out, night after haunted night, and watched how the cards fell.'

'Oh Holy Terra…'

'Are you all right, sir?' Malcador asked, looking up. 'You are quite pale.'

Dorn nodded. 'Curze.'

'Yes, Curze. Had you forgotten him, or simply blocked him out? You have bickered and sparred with many of your brothers over the years, but only Konrad Curze ever hurt you.'

'Yes.'

'He nearly killed you.'

'Yes.'

'On Cheraut, long ago.'

'I remember it well enough!'

Malcador looked up at Dorn. The primarch had risen to his feet. 'Then sit back down and tell me, because I wasn't there.'

Dorn sat. 'This is so long ago or like another life. We had brought the Cheraut system to compliance. It was hard fought. The Emperor's Children, the Night Lords and my Fists, we affected compliance. But Curze didn't know when to stop. He never knew when to stop.'

'And you rebuked him?'

'He was an animal. Yes, I rebuked him. Then Fulgrim told me.'

'Told you what?'

Dorn closed his eyes. 'The Phoenician told me what Curze had told him: the fits, the seizures that had plagued Curze since his childhood on Nostramo, the visions. Curze said he had seen the galaxy in flames, the Emperor's legacy overthrown, Astartes turning on Astartes. It was all lies, an insult to our creed!'

'You confronted Curze?'

'And he attacked me. He would have killed me, I think. He is insane. That's why we drove him out, sick of his bloodletting. That's why he burned his home world and took his Night Lords off into the darkest parts of the stars.'

Malcador nodded, and continued to deal the cards. 'Rogal, he is what you are truly afraid of, because he is fear incarnate. No other primarch uses terror as a weapon like Curze does. You are not afraid of Horus and his sallow heretics. You are afraid of the fear that sides with him, the night terror that advances alongside the traitors.'

Dorn sat back and breathed out. 'He has haunted me, I confess. All this time, he has haunted me.'

'Because he was right. His visions were true. He saw this Heresy coming in his visions. That is the truth you fear. You wish you had listened.'

Dorn looked down at the cards laid out on the table before him. 'Do you believe in this divination, Sigillite?'

'Let's see,' said Malcador, turning the cards over one by one: the Moon, the Martyr and the Monster, the Dark King askew across the Emperor.

One other card, the Lightning Tower.

Dorn groaned. 'A bastion, blown out by lightning. A palace brought to ruin by fire. I've seen enough.'

'The card has many meanings,' said Malcador. 'Like the Death card, it is not as obvious as it seems. In the hives of Nord Merica, it symbolised a change in fortune, an overturning of fate. To the tribes of Franc and Tali, it signified knowledge or achievement obtained through sacrifice. A flash of inspiration, if you will, one that tumbles the world you know down, but leaves you with a greater gift.'

'The Dark King lies across the Emperor,' said Dorn, pointing.

Malcador sniffed. 'It's not exactly a science, my friend.'

They had blown their way through the massive earthwork defences at Haldwani and Xigaze. The sky at the top of the world was on fire. Despite the bombardments of the orbital platforms and the constant sorties of the Stormbirds and the Ilawkwings, the Traitor legions advanced, up through the Brahamputra, along the delta of the Karnali. Continental firestoms raged across Gangetic Plain.

As they entered the rampart outworks of the palace, the streaming, screaming multitudes and the striding war machines were greeted by monsoons of firepower. Every emplacement along the Dhawalagiri prospect committed its weapons. Las reached out in neon slashes, annihilating everything it touched. Shells fell like sleet. Titans exploded, caught fire, collapsed on their faces and crushed the warriors swarming around their heels. Still they came. Lancing beams struck the armour-reinforced walls like lightning, like lighting smiting a tower.

The walls fell. They collapsed like slumping glaciers, Gold-cased bodies spilled out, tumbling down in the deluge.

The palace began to burn. Primus Gate fell; Lion's Gate, subjected to attack from the north; Annapurna Gate. At the Ultimate Gate, the Traitors finally sliced into the palace, slaughtering everyone they found inside. Around every broken gate, the corpses of Titans piled up in vast, jumbled heaps where they had fallen over each other in their desire to break in. The heretic host clambered across their carcasses, pouring into the palace, yelling out the name of their—

'End simulation,' said Dorn.

He gazed down at the hololithic table. At his command, the forces of the enemy withdrew, unit by unit, and the palace rebuilt itself. The smoke cleared.

'Reset parameters to Horus, Perturabo, Angron and Curze.'

'Opposition?' the table queried.

'Imperial Fists, Blood Angels, White Scars, Resume and replay scenario.'

The map flickered. Armies advanced. The palace began to burn again.

'Play it out, simulation after simulation, if you like,' said the voice behind him. 'Simulations are just simulations. I know you won't fail me when the time comes.'

Dorn turned. 'I would never knowingly fail you, Father,' he said.

'Then don't be afraid. Don't let fear get in your way.'

What are you afraid of? What are you really afraid of?

The Lightning Tower, thought Rogal Dorn. I understand its meaning: achievement obtained through sacrifice. I'm just afraid of what that sacrifice might be.

Where before there had been light, now there was only darkness. The hot, urgent pulse of near death surged in his veins, the bitter flavour of betrayal fully expected, yet wholly unwelcome. This was what it would come to he knew, this was the inevitable result of naive belief in the goodness of the human heart. Death filled his senses, blood coating his teeth and the sharp reek of it thick in his nostrils.

As though it were yesterday, long buried memories of years spent on the night world of Nostramo emblazoned themselves on the forefront of his thoughts: haunted darkness punctured by stuttering lumen strips that fizzed in the shimmering, rain-slick streets and the stillness of a population kept quiescent with fear.

From out of this foetid darkness had come illumination and hope, the promise of a better future. But now that hope was dashed as the bright lance of the future seared itself into his thoughts…

… the death of a world and a great eye of black and gold watching it burn…

… Astartes fighting to the death beneath a red-lit sky…

… a golden eagle cast from the heavens…

He screamed in pain as images of destruction and the end of all things paraded before his mind's eye. Voices called out to him. He heard his name, the name his father had bestowed upon him and the one his people had given him, in the fearful watches of the dark.

He opened his eyes and let the visions fade from his mind as the sensations of the physical world returned to him. Blood and salty tears stung his eyes and he looked over to the sound of voices calling his name.