‘Nonsense!’ snapped Palladis. ‘It’s dangerous self-delusion, and I hear they’ve even spread these fantasies off-world. This is the very worst kind of lie, for it comforts people with a hope of protection that does not exist.’

‘Sorry,’ said Roxanne. ‘He just gave me it. I didn’t ask him to.’

Palladis was immediately contrite. ‘Yes, of course, I’m sorry. I know that, but I don’t want you reading anything like this. There is only one truth, and that is the finality of death. This is the worst kind of lie, because let me tell you, the Emperor most assuredly does notprotect.’

KAI HAD HEARD a wise man say that you can never go home, and until now he had never understood the sense of that. Born to a wealthy family of the Merican hinterlands, Kai had travelled extensively with his father, a cartel agent who brokered trade contracts between Terran conglomerates and the surviving mercantile interests of newly-compliant worlds.

As a youngster, Kai had scaled the heights of the mid-Atalantic ridges, explored the majestic ruins of Kalagann’s cities of Ursh, bathed in the glow of the pan-pacific magma-vents, and descended into the Mariana Canyon to gaze in awe at the great cliff sculptures carved by geological artists of a forgotten age. He had spent much of each year travelling the globe, following his father from negotiation to negotiation.

Life had been one adventure after another, but no matter how exhilarating each trip was, Kai would always relish the sight of the family home, perched high on the cliffs of what had once been a carven monument to long-dead kings of antiquity. His mother would be there with a welcoming smile that was just a little bit sad because she knew it wouldn’t be long until her husband and son would be travelling again.

Home was more than just a physical place, it was a state of mind, and even after he had come of age, and the men of the Black Ships had come for him, he always longed to return home to see that sad, welcoming smile.

The City of Sight had become his home, but it was one to which Kai had never wanted to return. The interior of the tower was lightless, cold and high-ceilinged, but Kai’s augmetic implants compensated for the low light and his surroundings swam into focus with a lambent green glow.

It wasn’t that the builders had set out to make the tower inhospitable, it was more the purpose it had been put to and the mien of its inhabitants that coloured it so. Kai imagined that with the gilt-edged hangings and dazzling lights that illuminated every other structure in the palace, the Whispering Tower could be just as impressive.

The stonework of its walls tapered inwards, planed smooth and cut with mason’s marks that helped the newly blind discern their location. Here and there, an inset whisper stone glinted in the dim light, and Kai wondered what secrets they passed between each other in such troubled times. Kai followed Sarashina along the narrowing chamber towards a curved wall, machined smooth and silver, incongruously modern amidst the ancient stone. Two Black Sentinels stood guard before a psi-sealed doorway in the silver wall, and they stood aside as Golovko waved a data wand before them. Kai watched the glowing hash of code cyphers reflected in the visors of the soldiers, automatically storing the binaric information before it faded.

The door slid open, and a cold gust of air sighed from within. Kai shivered as the psychically charged air caressed the skin of his face. Inside the silver chamber was a grav-lift shaped in the form of a double helix that ran the full length of the tower. A nimbus of light surrounded the gravity field, and Kai’s augmetics picked out the differing waveforms that rippled up and down the shimmering cascade.

Around the outer walls of this silver chamber, sealed doors led into iron-clad mindhalls, where choirs of astropaths distilled messages sent from all across the galaxy, while others led to vaulted libraries, filled with arcana gathered from the distant corners of Terra.

‘We are going to the novitiates level,’ said Sarashina, stepping into the leftmost curve of the double helix. The grav-lift enfolded her in its gentle embrace and carried her with smooth grace down into the tower. Kai hesitated at the edge of the light, knowing that once he took this step, there would be no going back.

‘Hurry up, Zulane,’ said Golovko. ‘I have better things to do than baby-sit you.’

‘I seriously doubt that,’ said Kai, stepping into the light.

Any step was a good one if it carried him away from Golovko.

The light surrounded Kai, and carried him into the tower. He travelled down the spiral, turned around as he descended into the bowels of his former abode. He passed numerous jutting steps where he could have stepped from the grav lift, but Sarashina had said they were going to the novitiates level, and that was right at the bottom of the Whispering Tower.

At last Kai felt the reassuring feel of solid ground beneath him, and stepped out of the light. His eyes adjusted immediately to the brightly lit surroundings. Not everyone who navigated these passages was blind, and bare lumen globes hung from the brickwork ceiling on linked loops of brass cabling. This chamber had been hacked from the bedrock of the mountains and faced with ceramic tiles of bottle green. It had the feel of a medicae chamber, and a number of locked doors led deeper into the guts of the tower. Some led to the novice libraries, where new additions to the tower learned astropathic shorthand, common symbols and the basic mantras of the nuncio. Others led to the novices’ cells, yet more to communal facilities for eating and ablutions, while yet others ended in hermetically-sealed isolation chambers.

In the moments before Golovko and his Sentinels arrived, Kai took a moment to study his former mentor.

Aniq Sarashina had aged since Kai had seen her last, and the naked light from the lumens was unflattering. Her hair had lost the last of its blonde lustre and was now completely silver. Puckered lines radiating from the plastic hemispheres inserted into her eye sockets had grown deeper and more pronounced. She had been old when Kai had last been here, but now looked positively ancient.

‘Do I look so different?’ asked Sarashina, and Kai blushed at being caught in his frank appraisal of her appearance.

‘You look older,’ he said at last.

‘I amolder, Kai,’ said Sarashina. ‘I have travelled the warp for too many years, and it has left its mark upon me.’

She reached up and ran her fingers over the rumpled skin of his face, her touch feather-light and tender. ‘As it has on you too.’

The curse of the Astropath was premature ageing, and Kai didn’t need Sarashina to tell him that he had lost the clean lines of his high cheekbones and his growth of fine, salt and pepper hair. Though he was in his late thirties, he had the appearance of a man in his fifties, at least. The face that looked back at him in the mirror – on those days he could face his reflection – was gaunt and hollow, with pinched cheeks and sunken eyes. Only the most expensive juvenat treatments could conceal the damage constant warp travel wreaked on a human being, and no astropath, even one of House Castana, was worth that indulgence of vanity.

Kai backed away from her touch. ‘I never thought I would return here,’ he said, anxious to change the subject.

‘Few of us ever do,’ agreed Sarashina.

‘Should I be honoured at being one of those few?’

‘That depends on how you view your return.’

‘As a punishment,’ said Kai. ‘What other way is there to interpret it?’

‘I will leave you to ponder that question for now,’ said Sarashina as Golovko stepped from the grav-lift.

His Black Sentinels swiftly followed, and when they were all assembled, Sarashina unlocked the door to her immediate left. Kai frowned at this new direction.