Fulgrim smiled and shook his head fractionally. 'I can craft pleasing shapes, yes, but to bring it to life… that is something that frustrates me and with which I would ask your help.'

'My help?' gasped Ostian. 'I don't understand.'

Fulgrim waved his hand towards the lifter servitor, and one of the Phoenix Guard pulled back the cloths covering the objects on the pallet to reveal three statues carved in pale marble.

Fulgrim took him by the shoulder and guided him towards the three statues. All were of armoured warriors, and, by the markings carved on their shoulder guards, each was a company captain.

'I set out to sculpt the likeness of each of my captains,' explained Fulgrim, 'but as I finished the Captain of the Third, I began to feel that something was wrong, as though some essential truth was missing.'

Ostian looked at the sculptures, seeing the clean lines and exquisite detailing, even down to the perfectly captured expressions of the three captains. Every line of carving was immaculate and not a single trace of the sculptor's chisel was left upon the marble, as though each image had been pressed from a mould.

Even as he appreciated the perfection of the statues, Ostian felt no passion stirring within him as he would expect to feel from great art. Yes, the sculptures were perfect, but therein lay their flaw, for something of such technical splendour had nothing of the creator in it, no humanity that spoke to the viewer and allowed him a rare glimpse inside the artist's soul.

'They are wonderful,' he said at last.

'Do not lie to me, remembrancer,' said Fulgrim, and Ostian heard a curtness in the words that caused him to look up into the primarch's icy features. Fulgrim stared down at Ostian, and the expression the sculptor saw there chilled him to the bone.

'What would you have me say my lord?' he asked. 'They are perfect.'

'I would have the truth,' said Fulgrim. 'Truth, like surgery, may hurt, but it cures.'

Ostian struggled to think of words that would not offend the primarch, for to do so seemed like the basest behaviour imaginable. Who could conceive of giving insult to someone of such beauty?

Seeing Ostian's dilemma, Fulgrim placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder and said, 'A good friend who points out mistakes and imperfections, and rebukes evil is to be respected as if he reveals a secret of hidden treasure. I give you leave to speak freely.'

The primarch's words were spoken softly but they acted like a key to a locked room within Ostian, opening the door to thoughts that he would not have dared give voice to before.

'It's as if… they are too perfect,' he said, 'as though they have been carved with the head rather than the heart.'

'Can it be possible for a thing be too perfect?' asked Fulgrim. 'Surely everything that is beautiful and noble is the product of reason and calculation.'

'Great art isn't about reason, it's about what comes from the heart,' said Ostian. 'You can work with all the technical perfection in the galaxy, but if there's no passion, then it is wasted effort.'

'There is such a thing as perfection,' snapped Fulgrim, 'and our purpose for living is to find that perfection and show it forth. Everything that limits us we have to put aside.'

Ostian shook his head, too caught up in his words to notice the primarch's growing anger. 'No, my lord, for the artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing. It is the essence of being human that one does not seek perfection.'

'And what of your own work?' asked Fulgrim. 'Do you not seek perfection in it?'

'People throw away what they could have by insisting on perfection, which they cannot have, and looking for it where they will never find it,' replied Ostian. 'Were I to await perfection, my work would never be finished.'

'Well, you are the expert,' growled Fulgrim. Ostian suddenly, horribly, became aware of the primarch's displeasure. Fulgrim's eyes were like gleaming black pearls, the veins on his cheeks pulsing with suppressed anger, and Ostian was filled with terror at the depths of yearning he saw within them.

He saw past the primarch's desire to render beauty in marble or painting to the obsessive compulsion to achieve the impossibility of perfection, a desire that would allow nothing to stand in its way. Too late, Ostian saw that despite asking for honesty, Fulgrim had not wanted honesty, he had wanted validation of his work and honeyed lies to prop up his towering ego.

'My lord…' he whispered.

'It is of no matter,' said Fulgrim acidly. 'I see that I was right to have spoken to you. I shall never lay chisel to marble again, for I am clearly wasting my time.'

'No, my lord, that's not what—'

Fulgrim raised a hand to cut him off and said, 'I thank you for your time, Master Delafour, and I will leave you to continue your imperfect work.'

Surrounded by his Phoenix Guard, the Primarch of the Emperor's Children had left his studio, leaving Ostian trembling with the horror of seeing inside Fulgrim's head.

Ostian shook off the memory of Fulgrim's visit to his studio as he realised that he was being spoken to. He looked up and saw the pale-skinned Astartes looking down at him.

'I am Lucius,' said the warrior.

Ostian nodded and drained his glass. 'I know who you are.'

Lucius smiled, pleased at the recognition. 'I'm told that you are a friend of Serena d'Angelus. Is that true?'

'I suppose so,' said Ostian.

'Then might you direct me to her studio?' asked Lucius.

'Why?'

'I wish her to paint me, of course,' smiled Lucius.

Dressed only in his surgical robes, Apothecary Fabius loomed over the operating slab where his subject lay and nodded to the apothecarion servitors. They lifted the chirurgeon device so that it slotted neatly into the interface unit mounted at his waist, and plugged in the connectors that meshed his own senses with the workings of the chirurgeon.

In effect, the device would give him multiple, independent arms that would all work in concert with his own thoughts, responding to his needs far quicker and more skilfully than any orderly or nurse could ever hope to. In any case, the surgery he was about to perform was best kept from the eyes of those who might baulk at what he must do for it to succeed.

'Are you comfortable, my lord?' asked Fabius.

'Never mind about my comfort, damn you,' snapped Eidolon, clearly ill at ease and feeling vulnerable on the surgical table. The lord commander was stripped out of his armour and fatigues, lying naked upon the cold metal slab as he prepared to go under the Apothecary's knife.

Hissing, gurgling machines surrounded him, and the flesh of his neck and throat was covered in coun-terseptic gel. A cold blue fluorescence bathed his skin in a dead light, and the glass jars around the apothe-carion were filled with all manner of abominable, fleshy growths, the purpose of which defied understanding.

'Very well,' nodded Fabius. 'I take it you have spoken to the captains under your command regarding their volunteering for augmentative surgery?'

'I have,' confirmed Eidolon. 'I expect most of them to report to you within the next few weeks.'

'Excellent,' hissed Fabius. 'I have such things to offer them.'

'Never mind about them,' said Eidolon, the powerful soporifics rendering his voice quiet and a little slurred. Fabius checked the machine monitoring the speed of the lord commander's metabolism and adjusted the flow of drugs into his system, mixing the composition with some chemicals of his own devising.

Eidolon's eyes darted nervously over to the spiking lines on the monitor's screen, and Fabius could see a light sheen of sweat on his subject's brow.