He closed upon their lifeforce and saw the form his doom would take.

Magnus’ eye snapped open and anger boiled over. His hand erupted in searing white fire, the most prosaic and primal of the arts, and his chambers were filled with billowing flames, burning everything within to cinders. Wood and paper vaporised in the white heat of Magnus’ rage, and what little his despair had not destroyed, his rage consumed.

A column of blazing fire erupted from the summit of his pyramid, and a rain of molten glass shards fell from the summit. All eyes in Tizca turned towards the Pyramid of Photep, the plume of fire dwarfing that of the Pyrae.

Only the Book of Magnus remained inviolate, its pages impervious to the killing fire.

Nothing was left of the mirror, its fused shards bubbling in a molten pool at his feet.

“You can destroy them,” said the fading reflections in the liquid glass. “Say the word and I will tear their vessels asunder, scattering them beyond all knowledge and hope of salvation.”

“No,” said Magnus, dropping to his knees with his head in his hands. “Never.”

MAGNUS HAD NO knowledge of how much time had passed when he heard the crash of his door breaking open. He looked up to see Uthizzar enter his chambers, his youthful features shocked at the devastation he saw within. A squad of Scarab Occult came with him, their visors marred by a single vertical slash that obscured the right eye lenses of their helmets.

Magnus had heard that the tradition had become commonplace after the Council of Nikaea, but to see such a visible sign of his sons’ devotion was a poisoned barb in his heart.

“Uthizzar,” said Magnus through his tears, “get out of here!”

“My lord?” cried Uthizzar, moving towards Magnus.

Magnus raised a warding hand, his grief threatening to overwhelm him as he thought of all he had seen and all that the monstrous god of the warp had shown him.

Uthizzar staggered as the full force of Magnus’ thoughts struck him like a blow. Magnus veiled his mind from the young telepath, but it was too late. Uthizzar knew it all.

“No!” cried Uthizzar, crushed by the gut-wrenching hurt of betrayal. “It cannot be! You… Is it true? Tell me it is not true. What you did… What is coming…”

Magnus felt his heart harden, and cursed himself for such an unforgivable lapse of will. “It is true, my son. All of it.”

He could see Uthizzar’s eyes begging him to say he was joking, or that this was some hideous test. As much as Magnus wanted to save his sons from the sins of their father, he knew he couldn’t. He had lied to himself and his warriors for too long, and this last chance for truth and redemption could not be squandered.

No matter what it entailed.

“We have to warn the Legion,” hissed Uthizzar, spinning on his heel and barking orders to the Scarab Occult. “Mobilise the Spireguard and stand the fleet to battle orders. Disperse the Arming Proclamation to the civilian militias and issue a general evacuation order for non-combatants to the Reflecting Caves!”

Magnus shook his head, and a wall of unbreakable force sprang up before Uthizzar and his warriors, trapping them within his scorched and smoking chambers.

“I am sorry, Uthizzar, I really am,” said Magnus, “but I can’t let you do that.”

Uthizzar started to turn towards him, but before his son could look him in the eye, Magnus ended his life.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

A Good Student/My Fate is My Own/Dispersal

THE TANG OF salty air was strong. A stiff breeze blew in from the sea, and Lemuel felt a pang of nostalgia as he thought back to the sweeping coastlines of Nordafrik. The waters around his home had long since retreated, but the exposed seabeds shared the memory of their days at the bottom of the ocean with the air.

He shook off the memory. He needed all his powers of concentration.

The port area of Tizca was heaving with bodies: sweating stevedores, teamsters, servitors and load-lifters. The Cypria Selenewas scheduled to break orbit in four hours, and the last-minute preparations for her departure were in full swing. Trucks, supply tankers, baggage lifters and water bladders carefully negotiated the busy port, and the noise of horns and shouting drivers rivalled the roar of engines.

The hot reek of burning metal saturated the day as shuttles and lifters screamed into the sky to deliver the last crewmembers and passengers to their berths. Few remained on Prospero, and a palpable sense of excitement suffused the port.

Lemuel’s nerves were stretched bow-taut. Red-jacketed soldiers of the Prospero Spireguard circulated throughout the port, and officious docket-supervisors checked and rechecked passes and permits.

Beside him, Camille walked with her hands clasped demurely before her. She wore a long dress of emerald green, cut low and embroidered with black lace around the hems, sleeves and collar. She had balked at wearing the noblewoman’s dress before Lemuel had pointed out that a patrician gentleman’s consort would need to be seen in such a garment.

At this moment, that patrician gentleman was reclining in his palanquin, its ostentatious appearance enhanced by silk brocade and velvet cushions stolen from their living quarters. Bedecked in an exquisitely tailored suit, Mahavastu Kallimakus was failing miserably to look like an arrogant nobleman of Terra by looking down his nose as he tapped an ebony cane on the pillars of his conveyance.

Only Lemuel was spared the indignity of disguise, wearing his beige remembrancer’s robes to masquerade as Mahavastu’s personal scribe and eunuch escort to Camille. That last element of his disguise had raised a smile as they planned how best to reach a shuttle bound for the Cypria Selene. At least it had raised a smile with everyone except Lemuel.

Behind them came a team of bearers, nine servitors carrying a collection of steamer trunks filled with the mass of papers, sketchbooks and grimoires written by Mahavastu in the years he had spent as Magnus’ puppet. Lemuel had urged Mahavastu to leave them, but the old man was adamant. The past needed to be preserved. History was history and it was not for them to judge what should be remembered and what should be forgotten.

“I won’t be a burner of books,” said Mahavastu, and the discussion was ended.

They had entered the port area without incident, for centuries of peace and an increasingly compliant galaxy had made the people of Prospero complacent.

“So how are we going to do this?” asked Camille. It was the first thing she had said this morning, for there had been a furious row the previous night as she had told Chaiya of her decision to leave.

“Trust me,” said Lemuel. “I know what I’m doing.”

“You keep saying that, but you never say what you’re going to do.”

“I won’t know until the time comes.”

“Well that’s reassuring.”

Lemuel didn’t reply, understanding the root of Camille’s harsh words. They moved through the crowds, avoiding the main thoroughfares of wide-wheeled trucks as they ferried soldiers and crew to the loading berths. Tall-sided hangars, storage silos and fuel towers made up the bulk of the port facilities, and they threaded a path between them as they wound towards the silver platforms built on the edge of the shoreline.

A dozen craft growled in their berths, the last to join the orbiting mass-conveyer. This would be their last chance to get off Prospero.

Lemuel led them towards the launch bays as two more craft climbed into the sky on shrieking columns of jetfire. Camille walked alongside Mahavastu’s palanquin, trying and failing to look decorous as the bulked-out servitors bore him without complaint. They made for an unusual spectacle, but one Lemuel hoped looked about right for passengers who had every right to be taking flight on the newly refitted Cypria Selene.