'Ha! Now you lecture me, Garviel,’ sighed Sindermann. 'So much has changed. You're not just a warrior any more, are you?'

'And you are not just an iterator?'

'No, I suppose not,’ nodded Sindermann. An iterator promulgates the Imperial Truth, does he not? He does not pick holes in it and spread rumours. But Karkasy is dead, and there are... other things,’

'What things?' asked Loken. You mean Keeler?'

'Perhaps,’ said Sindermann, shaking his head. 'I don't know, but I feel she is part of it,’

'Part of what?'

'You heard what happened in the Archive Chamber?'

With Euphrati? Yes, there was a fire and she was badly hurt. She ended up in a coma,’

'I was there,’ said Sindermann.

'Kyril,’ said Mersadie, a note of warning in her voice.

'Please, Mersadie,’ said Sindermann. 'I know what I saw,’

'What did you see?' asked Loken. 'Lies,’ replied Sindermann, his voice hushed. 'Lies made real: a creature, something from the warp. Somehow Keeler and I brought it through the gates of the Empyrean with the Book of Lorgar. My own damn fault, too. It was... it was sorcery, the one thing that all these years I've been preaching is a lie, but it was real and standing before me as surely as I stand before you now. It should have killed us, but Euphrati stood against it and lived,’

'How?' asked Loken.

That's the part where I run out of rational explanations, Garviel,’ shrugged Sindermann.

'Well, what do you think happened?'

Sindermann exchanged a glance with Mersadie and she willed him not to say anything more, but the venerable iterator continued. 'When you destroyed poor Jubal, it was with your guns, but Euphrati was unarmed. All she had was her faith: her faith in the Emperor. I... I think it was the light of the Emperor that cast the horror back to the warp,’

Hearing Kyril Sindermann talk of faith and the light of the Emperor was too much for Mersadie.

'But Kyril,' she said, 'there must be another explanation. Even what happened to Jubal wasn't beyond physical possibilities. The Warmaster himself told Loken that the thing that took Jubal was some kind of xeno creature from the warp. I've listened to you teach about how minds have been twisted by magic and superstition and all the things that blind us to reality. That's what the Imperial Truth is. I can't believe that the Iterator Kyril Sindermann doesn't believe the Imperial Truth any more.'

'Believe, my dear?' said Sindermann, smiling bleakly and shaking his head. 'Maybe belief is the biggest lie. In ages past, the earliest philosophers tried to explain the stars in the sky and the world around them. One of them conceived of the notion that the universe was mounted on giant crystal spheres controlled by a giant machine, which explained the movements of the heavens. He was laughed at and told that such a machine would be

so huge and noisy that everyone would hear it. He simply replied that we are born with that noise all around us, and that we are so used to hearing it that we cannot hear it at all,’

Mersadie sat beside the old man and wrapped her arms around him, surprised to find that he was shivering and his eyes were wet with tears.

'I'm starting to hear it, Garviel,’ said Sindermann, his voice quavering. 'I can hear the music of the spheres,’

Mersadie watched Loken's face as he stared at Sindermann, seeing the quality of intelligence and integrity Sindermann had recognised in him. The Astartes had been taught that superstition was the death of the Empire and only the Imperial Truth was a reality worth fighting for.

Now, before her very eyes, that was unravelling.

Yarvarus was killed,’ said Loken at last, 'deliberately, by one of our bolts,’

'Hektor Varvarus? The Army commander?' asked Mersadie. 'I thought that was the Auretians?'

'No,’ said Loken, 'it was one of ours,’

'Why?' she asked.

'He wanted us... I don't know... hauled before a court martial, brought to task for the... killings on the embarkation deck. Maloghurst wouldn't agree. Varvarus wouldn't back down and now he is dead,’

'Then it's true,’ sighed Sindermann. 'The naysayers are being silenced,’

'There are still a few of us left,’ said Loken, quiet steel in his voice.

Then we do something about it, Garviel,’ said Sindermann. 'We must find out what has been brought into the Legion and stop it. We can fight it, Loken. We have you, we have the truth and there is no reason why we cannot-'

The sound that cut off Sindermann's voice was the door to the practice deck slamming open, followed by heavy metal-on-metal footsteps. Mersadie knew it was an Astartes even before the impossibly huge shadow fell over her. She turned to see the cursive form of Maloghurst behind her, robed in a cream tunic edged in sea green trim. The Warmas-ter's equerry, Maloghurst was known as 'the Twisted', as much for his labyrinthine mind as the horrible injuries that had broken his body and left him grotesquely malformed.

His face was thunder and anger seemed to bleed from him.

'Loken,' he said, 'these are civilians.'

'Kyril Sindermann and Mersadie Oliton are official rememberers of the Great Crusade and I can vouch for them,' said Loken, standing to face Maloghurst as an equal.

Maloghurst spoke with Horus's authority and Mersadie marvelled at what it must take to stand up to such a man.

'Perhaps you are unaware of the Warmaster's edict, captain,’ said Maloghurst, the pleasant neutrality of his tone completely at odds with the tension that crackled between the two Astartes. 'These clerks and notaries have caused enough

trouble; you of all people should understand that. There are to be no distractions, Loken, and no exceptions,’

Loken stood face-to-face with Maloghurst and for one sickening moment, Mersadie thought he was about to strike the equerry.

'We are all doing the work of the Great Crusade, Mai,’ said Loken tightly. 'Without these men and women, it cannot be completed,’

'Civilians do not fight, captain, they only question and complain. They can record everything they desire once the war has been won and they can spread the Imperial Truth once we have conquered a population that needs to hear it. Until then, they are not a part of this Crusade,’

'No, Maloghurst,’ said Loken. You're wrong and you know it. The Emperor did not create the pri-marchs and the Legions so they could fight on in ignorance. He did not set out to conquer the galaxy just for it to become another dictatorship,’

The Emperor,’ said Maloghurst, gesturing towards the door, 'is a long way from here,’

A dozen soldiers marched into the training halls and Mersadie recognised uniforms of the Imperial Army, but saw that their badges of unit and rank had been removed. With a start, she also recognised one face - the icy, golden-eyed features of Petronella Vivar's bodyguard. She recalled that his name was Maggard, and was amazed at the sheer size of the man, his physique bulky and muscled beyond that of the army soldiers who accompanied

him. The exposed flesh of his muscles bore freshly healing scars and his face displayed a nascent gigantism similar to Loken's. He stood out amongst the uniformed Army soldiers, and his presence only lent credence to Sindermann's wild theory that Petronella Vivar's disappearance had nothing to do with her returning to Terra.

'Take the iterator and the remembrancer back to their quarters,’ said Maloghurst. 'Post guards and ensure that there are no more breaches.'

Maggard nodded and stepped forwards. Mersadie tried to avoid him, but he was quick and strong, grabbing her by the scruff of her neck and hauling her towards the door. Sindermann stood of his own accord and allowed himself to be led away by the other soldiers.

Maloghurst stood between Loken and the door. If Loken wanted to stop Maggard and his men, he would have to go through Maloghurst.