It had all been for nothing. He couldn’t get in.

Magnus felt his glorious ascent slowing, and howled his frustration to the furthest corners of the Great Ocean.

Then he felt it, the familiar sense of something titanic moving in the swells around him, a continent adrift in the ocean with ancient sentience buried in its aetheric heart. Infinite spectra of light danced before him, more magnificent than the most radiant Mechanicum Borealis. Even to one as mighty as Magnus, the flaring eruption of light and power was incredible.

Its communication was sibilant, like sand pouring through the neck of an hourglass. It had breadth and depth, yet no beginning and no end, as though it had always existed around him and always would.

It spoke, not with words, but with power. It surrounded him, offering itself freely and without ulterior motive. The Great Ocean was truly a place of contradictions, its roiling, infinite nature allowing for the presence of all things, good and bad. Just as some entities within its depths were malicious and predatory, others were benevolent and altruistic.

Contrary to what most people believed, there wasuncorrupted power here that could be wielded by those with the knowledge and skill to do so. Such gifted individuals were few and far between, but through the work of adepts like Magnus, it might yet be possible to lift humanity to a golden age of exploration and the acquisition of knowledge.

Magnus drank deep of the offered power and tore his way into the golden lattice. He felt its shrieking wail of unmaking as a scream of pain. Without a second thought, he flew into the shimmering passageway, following a route he knew would lead to Terra.

FAR BENEATH THE birthrock of the race that currently bestrode the galaxy as its would-be masters, a pulsing chamber throbbed with activity. Hundreds of metres high and many hundreds more wide, it hummed with machinery and reeked of blistering ozone. Once it had served as the Imperial Dungeon, but that purpose had long been subverted to another.

Great machines of incredible potency and complexity were spread throughout the chamber, vast stockpiles and uniquely fabricated items that would defy the understanding of even the most gifted adept of the Mechanicum.

It had the feel of a laboratory belonging to the most brilliant scientist the world had ever seen. It had the look of great things, of potential yet untapped, and of dreams on the verge of being dragged into reality. Mighty golden doors, like the entrance to the most magnificent fortress, filled one end of the chamber. Great carvings were worked into the mechanised doors: entwined siblings, dreadful sagittary, a rearing lion, the scales of justice and many more.

Thousands of tech-adepts, servitors and logi moved through the chamber’s myriad passageways, like blood cells through a living organism in service to its heart, where a great golden throne reared ten metres above the floor. Bulky and machine-like, a forest of snaking cables bound it to the vast portal sealed shut at the opposite end of the chamber.

Only one being knew what lay beyond those doors, a being of towering intellect whose powers of imagination and invention were second to none. He sat upon the mighty throne, encased in golden armour, bringing all his intellect to bear in overseeing the next stage of his wondrous creation.

He was the Emperor, and though many in this chamber had known him for the spans of many lives, none knew him as anything else. No other title, no possible name, could ever do justice to such a luminous individual. Surrounded by his most senior praetorians and attended by his most trusted cabal, the Emperor sat and waited.

When the trouble began, it began swiftly.

The golden portal shone with its own inner light, as though some incredible heat from the other side was burning through the metal. Vast gunboxes fixed around the perimeter of the cave swung up, their barrels spooling up to fire. Lightning flashed from machine to machine as delicate, irreplaceable circuits overloaded and exploded. Adepts ran from the site of the breach, knowing little of what lay beyond, yet knowing enough to flee.

Crackling bolts of energy poured from the molten gates, flensing those too close to the marrow. Intricate symbols carved into the rock of the cavern exploded with shrieking detonations. Every source of illumination in the chamber blew out in a shower of sparks, and centuries of the most incredible work imaginable was undone in an instant.

No sooner had the first alarm sounded than the Emperor’s Custodes were at arms, but nothing in their training could have prepared them for what came next.

A form pressed its way through the portal: massive, red and aflame with the burning force of its journey. It emerged into the chamber, wreathed in eldritch fire that bled away to reveal a robed being composed of many-angled light and the substance of stars. Its radiance was blinding and none could look upon its many eyes without feeling the insignificance of their own mortality.

None had ever seen such a dreadful apparition, the true heart of a being so mighty that it could only beat while encased in super-engineered flesh.

The Emperor alone recognised this rapturous angel, and his heart broke to see it.

“Magnus,” he said.

“Father,” replied Magnus.

Their minds met, and in that moment of frozen connection the galaxy changed forever.

OCCULLUM SQUARE WAS busy, though Lemuel saw an undercurrent of nameless fear in the auras of the traders and buyers. They haggled with more than usual bitterness, and the sparring back and forth was done with tired eyes and heavy hearts. Perhaps it was a mass hangover from the riots two weeks ago. No one had adequately explained why such violence had broken out on the streets of a city that had not known unrest in hundreds of years.

He sat with Camille on a wrought iron bench between Gordian Avenue and Daedalus Street, watching the crowds go about their business, pretending nothing was out of place, as though they were not living on a world ruled by warriors who regarded them as nothing more than playthings.

In the fortnight since Kallista’s death, he and Camille had spent a great deal of time together, mourning their lost friend and coming to terms with their current situation. It had involved many stories, many tears and a great deal of soul-searching, but they had eventually reached the same conclusion.

“She thought this world was a paradise,” said Camille, watching the forced laughter of a couple strolling arm in arm beneath the shadow of the Occullum.

“We all did,” said Lemuel. “I didn’t want a tasking order to come for the Thousand Sons. I wanted to stay and learn from Ahriman. Look where that got us.”

“Kalli’s death wasn’t your fault,” said Camille, taking his hand. “Don’t ever think that.”

“I don’t,” he said. “I blame Ahriman. He may not have pulled the switches or pressed the buttons, but he knew what they were doing was wrong and he let it happen anyway.”

They watched the crowds for a moment longer, before Camille asked, “Do you think he’ll come?” Lemuel nodded.

“He’ll come. He wants this as much as we do.” Camille looked away and Lemuel read the hesitation in her aura.

“We do both want this, don’t we?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Camille, a little too quickly.

“Come on,” he said. “We have to be honest with one another now.”

“I know, and you’re right, it’s time, but I—”

“You don’t want to leave without Chaiya,” finished Lemuel.

“No, I don’t. Does that sound stupid?”

“Not at all. I understand completely, but is what you have worth dying for?”

“I don’t know yet,” said Camille, wiping the heels of her palms against her eyes. “I think it might have been, but this is her home and she won’t want to leave.”

“I won’t force you to come, but you saw what I saw.”