'The Warmaster is a sublime warrior,' agreed Cavalerio, 'but it would be a mistake to think of those armies as belonging to him. Our first loyalty must be to the Emperor, and only a blind man could fail to see how this division is affecting Mars.'

'What are you talking about, Cavalerio?' snapped Camulos.

'You know what I am talking about. Nothing is said and nothing is ever recorded, but we all know that lines are being drawn. The divisions between the adepts of Mars grow ever more vocal and bitter. Long buried schisms are stirred and ancient feuds reignited. The attack on Adept Maximal's reactor is just the latest example of violence that's rising to the surface and spilling out onto the red sands. The factions of belief are mobilising and our world is on the verge of tearing itself apart. And for what? A semantic difference in belief? Is such a thing worth the bloodshed it will no doubt unleash?'

'Sometimes war is necessary,' said Camulos. 'Did not the Primarch Alpharius say that war was simply the galaxy's hygiene?'

'Who knows? It is certainly attributed to him, but what weight do his words carry on Mars? Any war fought here will not be for hygiene, but for misguided beliefs and differences in theology. Such things are anathema to the Imperium, and I will not be drawn into war by the beliefs of religious madmen.'

'Madmen?' said Camulos, with exaggerated horror. 'You speak of the senior adepts of Mars? Such words from a respected princeps.'

Cavalerio ignored the barb and addressed his next words to the assembled princeps and warriors of the Titan orders. 'Every day, the Legios and warrior orders receive petitions from forges all over Tharsis, begging our engines to walk. And for what? Differences of opinion in belief? It is madness that will see us all burn in the fires of an unnecessary war, and I for one will not lead my warriors into battle for such things. The Legios have always been the defenders of Mars, and we have always stood above the squabbles of the Mechanicum. We have always done so, and must do so now. We must not allow ourselves to be baited.'

'True sons of Mars know that the fire of the forge burns hottest when it burns away impurities,' retorted Camulos. 'If blood must be shed to preserve the glory of Mars, then so be it. Kelbor-Hal, the Fabricator General of Mars himself, receives emissaries from the Warmaster, and the great forge masters Urtzi Malevolus and Lukas Chrom have already pledged their labours to Horus Lupercal. Who are we to doubt their wisdom?'

'Then this is not about belief,' said Cavalerio. 'It's rebellion you're talking about.'

A gasp of horror swept the chamber at Cavalerio's words. To even speak of such things was unheard of.

Camulos shook his head. 'You are a naive fool, Cavalerio. The things you speak of have been in motion for centuries, ever since the Emperor arrived here and enslaved the Mechanicum to his will.'

'You speak out of turn!' cried Lord Commander Verticorda. 'This is treachery!'

An angry hubbub filled the Chamber of the First, with princeps, moderati, engineers, steersmen and armsmen rising to protest - either at Camulos's words or at Verticorda's accusation.

Following Cavalerio's example, the senior princeps of Legio Mortis turned to the shouting warriors and said, 'We are shackled to the demands of Terra, my friends, but I ask you why that should be? We were promised freedom from interference, but what freedom have we enjoyed? Our every effort is bent to the will of the Emperor, our every forge dedicated to fulfilling his vision. But what of our vision? Was Mars not promised the chance to reclaim its own empire? The forge worlds long ago founded in the depths of the galaxy are still out there awaiting the tread of any Martian son, but how long will it be before the Emperor claims them? I tell you now, brothers, that when those worlds are held by Terra, it will be next to impossible to reclaim them.'

Camulos turned his gaze upon Deus Tempestus and said, 'Princeps Cavalerio is right about one thing though: a storm is approaching where our vaunted neutrality will not stand. You will all need to choose a side. Choose the right one or it will devour even you, Stormlord.'

Dalia stared at the complex lines radiating from the plans before her, the notations in a tightly-wound gothic script that made reading them next to impossible. Numbers, equations and hand-written notes conspired to make the confusing arrangement of circuit diagrams, build arrangements and milling plans almost unintelligible.

'Give it up, Dalia,' said Zouche, with his customary angry tone. 'We've all been over this a hundred times. It doesn't make any sense.'

Dalia shook her head. 'No. It does, it's just a case of following the path.'

'There is no path,' said Mellicin, her voice arch and weary. 'Don't you think I've tried to follow the plans? It looks like Adept Ulterimus didn't think the standard methodology applied to his own work.'

Dalia rested her arms on the wax paper upon which the plans had been printed. These, of course, were not the originals, which had been drawn many thousands of years ago, but copies transcribed by later adepts over the centuries. She closed her eyes and let out a deep breath. She knew she ought to be used to the defeatist carping of her fellows, but their daily negativity was beginning to get to her.

She took a calming breath, picturing the oceans of Laeran, as described by the poet Edwimor in his Ocean Cantos, which she'd transcribed nearly a year ago. The image of that far distant planet's world-oceans always calmed her, and she badly needed that calm now, for time was running out.

No sooner had Koriel Zeth welcomed Dalia to her mighty forge than the adept had turned on her heel and marched deep into the sweltering depths, announcing that Dalia was being taken to where she would be tested.

Dalia had never been comfortable with tests, knowing she tended to clam up, and her mind go blank whenever she was asked a difficult question, let alone made to sit any form of exam. She often wondered how she'd managed to pass her transcription assessments.

The gleaming halls of the Magma City were spacious and functional, geometrically precise and machined with a smooth grace. Though there was utter devotion to function in its architecture, form was not overlooked and there was great beauty in the mechanisms of Zeth's forge. Menials and lowly adepts threaded the halls, chambers and cavernous workspaces, every one according Adept Zeth the proper respect as she passed.

Each new chamber brought fresh wonders of engineering and construction: enormous, cogged machines surrounded by crackling arcs of lightning; thudding pistons driving unknown engines and enormous caverns of steel where thousands of techno-mats toiled at bronze work benches on the tiniest mechanisms with delicate silver callipers and needle-nosed instrumentation.

At last they came to a wide chamber lined with rack upon rack of gleaming tools and fabrication devices that she could not even begin to name. A tall plan chest stood at one end of the chamber and four robed individuals stood around a workbench at its centre, each one shaking her hand and nodding as she was introduced to them.

First was Mellicin, a tall, handsome woman of middling years from the Merican continent, with smooth brown skin and a grafted augmetic faceplate over the left side of her face. She had been coolly welcoming, her remaining eye sizing Dalia up and down with the look of a professional assayer.

Next was a swarthy, stunted individual by the name of Zouche, a native of what had once been known as the Yndonesic Bloc. His handshake was curt and his brusque welcome had a hollow ring to it. Dalia was not tall by any means, but even she towered over Zouche. She estimated his height at no more than a metre.