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The air became ever more close and still. I found I was sweating and the tunic of my uniform was sticking to me. I was very tired but had no great desire to sleep again. I feared what I might dream, and what I might see in those dreams.

We came to a fork in the road and Macharius chose the right-hand branch. There was a rune there. The roadway continued downwards. I wondered about this. If these paths ran beneath the surface of the planet we were down very deep now, but some instinct told me that we were not, that we were in a place far more alien and strange. There were more forks and the path looped more. I tried to picture the convolutions of the roadways unwinding around me, and I could not; it had become too bizarre and complex. Occasionally, a cold breeze blew out of somewhere, but it never lasted long and did not provide much relief from the heat.

It made me wonder about the eldar. Was this a natural temperature for them? It seemed possible that this heat was normal and comfortable for the builders of this odd labyrinth. But it was equally possible that the heat was the result of a malfunction in some xenos life support systems. There was ample evidence of dissolution and unmaking around us.

In places there were still statues. Many of them had been defaced and some of them looked downright daemonic. A few looked as if their stonework and been melted and remoulded into newer and more crude shapes, and then allowed to cool and settle again. I knew of no way of making stone do this, of course, but that is what it looked like. We trudged on and I began to feel that we were the ghosts, walking wearily through some limbo. Our whole purpose in being here seemed lost in the fog of tiredness and brain-stun.

I took a stimm tablet. As it fizzled away under my tongue I felt the alchemicals begin a losing battle against weariness. My sense of the strangeness of things began to ramp up. I was starting to feel as if somehow we were marching from one reality to another, from the world in which we had walked as men to the world of which I had dreamed.

Multiple shadows lengthened around us, products of many difficult-to-discern light sources. The click of our boot-heels on the stone of the roadway echoed into the distance. I found myself listening for some sign that someone somewhere had heard them and was coming to investigate. None came.

I looked at Drake. His face showed signs of awful strain as if the aura of this place were pressing down on him. He closed his eyes sometimes, and I could see his jaw moving as though he were grinding his teeth together. A faint nimbus of light played around his head as it tracked from side to side. He was still on the psychic trail of the eldar with the Fist, following it hound-like with his uncanny senses.

At that moment, in my weariness, he looked as different from a normal man as one of the xenos. I suspect, at the end of the day, that is how most of us feel about psykers because it is, ultimately, the truth. They are different from us. They see things we don’t, experience things we cannot, wield powers beyond our understanding. I could not begin to understand how this place must feel to him. I only knew it was bad enough to me.

Of all of us, only the Undertaker appeared untroubled. He kept moving mechanically, with no sign of weariness or emotion. Somehow, he looked right at home, a hollow shell of a man, amid the hollow shell of this alien place. Looking at him, it came to me that there are some mortal men who can be as strange and frightening in their own ways as psykers, and that he was one of them.

Anton took a slug from his canteen, and then wiped sweat from his forehead. He looked off into the distance for a moment then said, ‘I hope we find those bastards before the water gives out.’

‘There are fountains here, we’ve passed them,’ said Ivan.

‘Yeah – but do you fancy drinking anything out of them?’

‘I will if I have to,’ said Ivan. ‘And so will you.’

‘I dreamed they flowed with blood,’ Anton said. I wondered about that because I had dreamed no such thing. I wondered how different the substance of the others’ dreams had been from mine.

‘You’ll drink it if you have to,’ Ivan repeated. ‘We all will.’

We emerged from the archway and saw what lay below us. It was a vast bowl in which lay the remains of a ruined city. It looked as if an angry god had stamped his foot and smashed it. I thought of the destruction I had seen in my dreams and realised that this was an exact mirror of it. I realised something else. Down there, in the centre of the ruins, was a tower, and at its tip and down its length lights were glowing. The road ran no further.

‘It looks as though we have found what we were looking for,’ said Macharius. He glanced at Drake. The inquisitor nodded.

2

At last, what I have so long sought is within my grasp. The Tower of Heaven stands before me and within it is the reality engine the ancients devised. It feels astonishing that I am finally here, having travelled so far and sought for so long. And yet now it is almost done. I will soon know whether the secret exists or not.

It is clear that we are not alone here. At least one of the Space Wolves, possibly more, has followed us and is intent upon doing us harm. Talyn reports that he has seen other human troops passing into the city. They are not a huge force, yet they outnumber my own. Measures must be taken to stop them. I deploy the remainder of my warriors, giving them detailed instructions as to what they must do. They respond sullenly, seemingly unwilling at this final hurdle. I consider executing one or two as examples for the others, but it is pointless. I would simply be doing my enemies’ work for them.

Instead, I remind Sileria and the others that we are trapped here, and the only way they are going to get out is if they do what I say. The argument sways them. They know there is no reasoning with the humans. They are beasts after all. They know also that it is in our best interests to fight together, and that I am their strongest warrior. Their chances are greatly increased by doing what I say, and they are at least bright enough to see that.

Once I am sure they understand what needs to be done I step within the tower and begin to make my way towards my destiny. I still carry the ancient claw. I am unwilling to part with it. It has become a talisman of sorts for me, although whether for good or evil I cannot guess.

3

I felt a sense of excitement, the sort that you get before you go into combat. It came from the knowledge that one way or another a resolution was in sight, that we would find what we came for or we would find death.

I still felt tired but my head felt momentarily clearer, as if my brain realised it was going to have to make an effort to be alert if I were to live. I’ve heard tales of men being too tired to defend themselves. I’ve never encountered one in my career in the Imperial Guard. When the time comes, you fight for your life. Always.

We marched down into the ruins. I recognised something about this place from my dreams. A few of the shattered buildings looked familiar, and some of the open plazas, full of rubble and oddly changed statues. I thought about what I had seen in my dream and wondered whether there had been any truth in it. Was it possible that thousands of worlds had died to provide the energy that birthed a daemon-god? It seemed insane, but then the universe often does.

One thing was certain, something terrible had happened here. The streets were full of skeletons and they had not belonged to human beings. The bones of the limbs were too elongated, the skulls too long and narrow; the eye sockets were of a different shape. When Anton counted, the mouths held more teeth, and they were smaller than any human teeth would be.

Some of the bones no longer looked like bones. They had a glassy, crystalline quality. I was reminded of the way some of the statues had been transmuted. Perhaps the same thing had happened here. I only know that the bones glittered in the eerie light in a way I have never seen before and hope never to see again.