Mahavastu sighed and said, “I wish you wouldn’t.” Lemuel was taken aback.

“You don’t want to know what you’ve been writing all this time?” he asked.

“I think I am afraid to know.”

“Afraid of what?”

“I am a scribe, Lemuel. I am an exceptionalscribe, and I do not make mistakes. You of all people know that. So why appoint me as a scribe only to prevent me from knowing what it is I write. I believe the words I have written are not meant for mortal eyes to see.”

Lemuel took a deep breath, shocked at the fear he heard in Mahavastu’s voice.

“I am an old man, Lemuel, and I am tired of living like this. I want to leave the crusade and return to my homeland. I want to see Uttarpatha before I die.”

“The records of the crusade will be poorer for your absence, my friend.”

“Come with me, Lemuel,” urged Mahavastu, keeping his voice low. “There is a curse upon this world, you must know that.”

“A curse? What are you talking about?”

“This world was destroyed once before through the arrogance of its people, and all human history tells us that men do not learn from their mistakes, even those as advanced as the Thousand Sons.”

“The people back then didn’t understand their abilities,” said Lemuel. “The Thousand Sons have mastered their powers.”

“Do not be so sure, Lemuel,” warned Mahavastu. “If they had truly mastered their powers, why would the Emperor forbid them to wield them? Why would he have ordered them back to Prospero except to more fully dismantle their Librarius?”

“I don’t know,” said Lemuel, “but how galling must it be to be told that all the great things they’ve done and all the knowledge they’ve accumulated is worthless and forbidden?”

“That is exactly what I mean,” said Mahavastu. “They have been forbidden to pursue their esoteric leanings, yet they do so regardless. Your continued instruction is in defiance of the Emperor’s edicts! Had you thought of that?”

A hot flush settled in Lemuel’s belly at the thought of defying the word of the Emperor. He hadn’tthought of it like that at all, for he saw no harm in the skills he was acquiring. The long journey back to the Thousand Sons home world had been a time of rest for the remembrancers, but upon arrival on Prospero their training had been, if anything, more intensive than ever.

“This Legion is doomed,” said Mahavastu, taking Lemuel’s hand once more and surprising him with its strength. “If they continue down this path, it will not be long until their defiance comes to light, and when that day comes…”

“What?”

“Be anywhere in the galaxy, but do not be on Prospero,” said Mahavastu.

THE MEETING WITH Mahavastu had unsettled Lemuel, and his thoughts were troubled as he made his way through the city towards his rendezvous with Camille and Kallista. Tall buildings of white and gold lined wide boulevards of pollarded trees. Luscious green fronds hung low over the streetscape, heavy with fruits of yellow and red.

As usual, the sun was warm, and balmy ocean-scented winds sighed through streets busy with people. The inhabitants of Tizca were tall and uniformly attractive. They had welcomed the return of the Thousand Sons elements of the 28th Expedition, and the remembrancers that came with them. Lemuel had found much to like on Prospero, not least its people.

Tizca was a wondrous city of glorious architecture, open spaces, lively theatres and beautiful parklands. The White Mountains and Acropolis Magna provided a stunning backdrop to the city, and the great pyramids and silver towers of the Thousand Sons cults towered over everything. In any other city, such dominating architecture would have been oppressive, but such was the harmony with which the pyramids were constructed that they seemed as natural a part of the landscape as the mountains themselves. Even the pyramid of the Pyrae, with its titanic guardian and burning finial blended with the city’s aesthetic.

The months he had spent on Prospero had given Lemuel a good grounding in the city’s geography, and such was the intuitive design of its layout that it was possible to navigate its many streets after only a short time.

Currently, he was heading east towards the Street of A Thousand Lions and Voisanne’s. Tucked away in one of Occullum Square’s radial streets, Lemuel had discovered Voisanne’s on one of his morning walks, a modest bakery-cum-restaurant that did the most incredible confectionaries. Though he had kept off most of the weight he had lost since Aghoru, he still liked to treat himself to something sweet when he felt in need of comfort.

Today was one of those days.

Mahavastu had picked a scab Lemuel hadn’t even realised was there. Like everyone within the Imperium, he had learned of the Edicts of Nikaea and the ramifications they would have. Though these edicts had come directly from the Emperor, dissenting voices already wondered how many of the Astartes Legions would actually obey the ruling.

That was a problem for someone else to deal with, and Lemuel hadn’t been surprised when Ahriman continued his training on the voyage back to Prospero.

Lemuel had simply taken the fact that the Thousand Sons were continuing their education of the remembrancers to mean that they were utterly certain of their abilities. Now he wondered if that were true. Were they meddling with powers that ought to be abhorred?

Lemuel had heard the story of Prospero’s fall, but he hadn’t really given any thought as to whyit had fallen. Ahriman spoke of Old Night as an unavoidable catastrophe, but was that really true? Might those millennia of horror been avoided had humanity left well alone the powers that he used with such familiar ease?

He looked towards the water-locked Pyramid of Photep, the glittering spire immense and shimmering with heat haze reflecting from its mirrored skin. Primarch Magnus dwelt within this mighty structure, its gold and silver embellishments shining as though afire in the noonday sun.

Lemuel entered a street lined with statues of rearing silver lions. Each was subtly different in pose and size from the others, as though a vast pack had been gilded then brought to Tizca and placed upon tall plinths of polished marble. He touched the leftmost lion for good luck, smiling at the notion that one particular lion could be luckier than another.

Two particularly regal beasts framed the entrance to a small area of parkland, and Lemuel paused to watch a group of Tizcan citizens practicing taijiquan under the watchful eye of a warrior of the Thousand Sons. He found calm in the slow, precise movements, letting the soothing repetitions and graceful unity ease his troubled mind.

Lemuel took in deep breaths as the class breathed, finding his hands moving in unconscious imitation. He smiled and his grim mood vanished. Lemuel moved on down the street and emerged into a vast square, though such a term was misleading for the open space was perfectly circular.

Numerous streets, eighty-one to be precise, radiated from Occullum Square, and the centre was taken up by a tall column in the Doric fashion with a flaming urn at its summit. A great relief carved on its square plinth depicted a personification of Prospero grieving for her lost civilisation, while an armoured figure with one eye lifted her up. Some said the tower was all that remained of a device once used by the ancients of Prospero to communicate with Terra in the days before Old Night, but no one had been able to make it work again.

It was market day, and the square was packed with stalls, traders and good-natured bartering as the people of Tizca haggled for silks, produce and handmade ornaments. It reminded Lemuel of home, and he had a sudden pang of nostalgia for the heaving, bustling, sweating markets of the Sangha commercia-subsid.

He threaded the crowds, politely declining offers of food and drink while stopping to purchase two crystal vials of scented oil. Lemuel headed south, taking Gordian Avenue until it cut east into a narrow street overhung with trellis and hanging fruit.