Changing the subject, Uriel indicated the decaying east wing of the palace. 'That building? What is that?'

Eversham said, 'That is the Gallery of Antiquities.'

'A museum?'

'Of sorts,' said Eversham. 'Somewhere between a regimental museum and a repository for items that Curator Urbican believes should be kept and put on display. It's a waste of time. No one will ever see them.'

'That's where our armour is?' asked Pasanius.

'So I believe,' said Eversham.

'I think I should like to see this Gallery of Antiquities,' said Uriel and Eversham shrugged, as though the matter was of no interest to him, which it undoubtedly wasn't, thought Uriel.

There was no further conversation between the three of them and a palpable sense of unease descended upon them. The feeling grew stronger as they approached the brooding grey tower at the far end of the parade ground.

Now that they were closer, Uriel could see that a series of recessed bunkers surrounded it. The flat, featureless walls were unpunctuated by so much as a sliver of a window, though a single portal sat incongruously open at the tower's base.

This was clearly their destination, the lair of the Janiceps, whatever they were.

Uriel did not like the tower and saw that Pasanius felt exactly the same.

An air of dread hung in the air and coils of razor wire surrounded it like thorn patches grown wild around the base of a dead tree stump.

'What is this place?' asked Uriel, the words lingering like dead things long after they were spoken. 'The lair of a psychic?'

'This is the Argiletum,' said Eversham, as though that were explanation enough, 'home of the Janiceps.'

'Nice,' said Pasanius, looking at the grim edifice without enthusiasm.

As they approached, a detachment of Guardsmen emerged from the nearest bunker and ran towards the edge of the razor wire. Now that he looked closer, Uriel saw numerous sheets of metal, which the soldiers manhandled with difficulty to drop over the wire until a clear path was created.

Eversham led the way across the flattened razor wire and Pasanius leaned close to Uriel to whisper. 'I can't help but notice that these Falcatas are armed with more than just blades.'

Uriel nodded. He too had seen the barrels of lasguns poking from the firing slits of the bunkers. The soldiers who had cleared them a path across the razor wire had been equipped with firearms. Was what lurked within this gloomy tower so potentially dangerous that Governor Barbaden felt the need to relax his policy of guns within the palace grounds?

Uriel stepped from the sheet metal bridge and no sooner had they set foot within the circuit of razor wire than the soldiers behind them began to remove it, leaving them trapped at the base of the tower.

Uriel saw it was formed from dark stone blocks inscribed with tightly wound warding script that ran the length, breadth and height of the tower. The portal that led within seemed to gape like the maw of some dreadful gateway to the nether-world, and for a moment, Uriel thought he could feel the breath of something ancient and malicious from within.

'They have that effect on everyone,' said Eversham, sensing Uriel's discomfort.

'Who?'

'The Janiceps,' said Eversham, heading towards the open portal. 'Come, Governor Barbaden is waiting for you.'

Inside, the tower was scarcely any less welcoming, its structure hollow and rising into darkness. A single shaft of light descended from the centre of the floor above and a frost-limned screw-stair of dark iron rose within it.

The air was cool, like that of a meat locker, and the walls glistened with moisture. Uriel felt a strange sense of dislocation, for the curve of the walls seemed to stretch far into the distance in defiance of what the outer circumference of the tower should have been able to enclose.

Uriel could feel the bitter, metallic taste of psychic energy in the air, an unmistakable actinic tang that unsettled him to the very core of his being. It was an irony not lost on Uriel that the potential for psychic power should so unsettle humans, yet without it the very fabric of the Imperium would crumble in the face of the vastness of the galaxy's unimaginable scale.

Once again, Eversham led the way, although his stride was a good deal less purposeful as he made his way across the hard, reflective floor towards the stairs. Careful not to touch the handrail, Eversham began his ascent and Uriel followed him. The stairs were narrow and groaned under his weight, but Uriel's thoughts were focused more on what lay at their end than on any risk of them collapsing.

Onwards and upwards the stairs stretched and Uriel knew, knew for a fact, that they had climbed higher than the tower had appeared from the outside. He heard laughter, small and childish, yet old beyond words.

Whispers seemed to echo from the walls, but Uriel kept his mind on putting one foot in front of the other until, at last, there were no more stairs to climb.

Uriel found himself in a gloomy chamber, lit only by the diffuse glow of sunlight that filtered through darkened windows that had been invisible from the outside. The walls of the chamber were cloaked in shadow, although Uriel could make out indistinct forms against the chamber's circumference, hooded figures that muttered nonsensical doggerel.

Uriel's breath misted before him and the cold knifed into his bones. Once again, he wished he were clad in his Mk VII plate instead of this thin robe, which offered scant protection against the unnatural chill.

Eversham strode to the centre of the room, where Governor Leto Barbaden stood before a reclining couch upon which lay something obscured from Uriel's view.

Barbaden was speaking, his voice low and little more than a whisper. He turned at Eversham's approach and impatiently waved Uriel over.

Uriel swallowed his anger once more and marched over to where Barbaden and Eversham stood, feeling the crackling psychic potential that emanated from the centre of the room. Barbaden moved to his left as Eversham stepped behind the reclining couch, and Uriel had his first sight of the Janiceps.

His first thought was that this was some sort of cruel hoax and that he had been brought before some hideous mutant. Uriel's hand clenched as he reached for a weapon he wasn't carrying. He fought down his horror at the… thing before him and looked more closely as he saw a glimmer of a smile on one of the faces that looked up at him from the couch.

She, or rather, they lay at a disturbing angle on the couch, a shapeless knotted mass of human flesh bound together in ways that anatomy had never intended. This was no mutant creature, but something conceived and grown within the womb as twin girls and upon which aberrant nature had played a cruel joke.

Their heads were fused along the rear quarter of the cranium so that neither could look upon the other. The poor, malformed girls had two mouths and two noses; in each face an eye, well conformed and placed above the nose with a third, milky and distended eye in the middle of the forehead common to both girls.

The brain of one girl was quite visible through a thin membrane of bruised skin that glistened and heaved in time with her breath. On the right side of her head was a rudimentary external ear, from which hung a golden earring, and their small, withered bodies lay in the grip of an embrace that their accident of birth had forced them into.

They were wrapped in dark green robes of plush velveteen, and Uriel saw an eagle head badge pinned there, the symbol of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. Was this the astropath who would transmit their message of return to the Ultramarines?

Uriel was horrified at the pitiful sight of the girls, seeing the light of intelligence in the single eye of each one. The milky eye in the forehead of the conjoined girls swam with patterns like droplets of coloured ink stirred into white paint.