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'You say that as if Chaos is a… thing.'

'It is. Does that surprise you? You've known the warp and seen its corrupting touch, that's Chaos. It has touched humanity now, twisted our brightest and best. All we can do is remain true to ourselves and fend it off, deny it. Trying to understand it is a fool's errand. It would claim us too.'

'I see.'

'Don't see, Rogal Dorn, and you will live longer. All you can do is acknowledge your fear. That's all any of us can do. Recognise it for what it is: your pure, human sanity rocked by the sight of the warp's infecting, suffocating madness.'

'Is this what the Emperor believes?' asked Dorn.

'It's what he knows. It's what he knows he doesn't know. Sometimes, my friend, there is salvation in ignorance.'

Dorn sat still for a while. Malcador watched him, occasionally sipping from his glass.

'Well, I thank you for your time, sir,' said Dorn eventually. 'Your candour too. I should—'

'There is one other thing,' said Malcador, setting his glass down and rising to his feel. 'Something I want to show you.'

Malcador crossed the chamber, and took something from a drawer in an old bureau. He walked back to Dorn, and spread that something out on the low table between them.

Dorn opened his mouth but no sound issued. Fear gripped him.

'You recognise these, of course.'

Old cards, worn and fraying, discoloured and liver-spotted with time. One by one, Malcador laid them out.

The Lesser Arcanoi, just gaming trinkets, really, but used widely before the coming of Old Night for divination. 'This deck was made on Nostramo Quintus.'

'He used them,' Dorn breathed.

'Yes, he did. He relied on them. He believed in cartomancy. He dealt his fate out, night after haunted night, and watched how the cards fell.'

'Oh Holy Terra…'

'Are you all right, sir?' Malcador asked, looking up. 'You are quite pale.'

Dorn nodded. 'Curze.'

'Yes, Curze. Had you forgotten him, or simply blocked him out? You have bickered and sparred with many of your brothers over the years, but only Konrad Curze ever hurt you.'

'Yes.'

'He nearly killed you.'

'Yes.'

'On Cheraut, long ago.'

'I remember it well enough!'

Malcador looked up at Dorn. The primarch had risen to his feet. 'Then sit back down and tell me, because I wasn't there.'

Dorn sat. 'This is so long ago or like another life. We had brought the Cheraut system to compliance. It was hard fought. The Emperor's Children, the Night Lords and my Fists, we affected compliance. But Curze didn't know when to stop. He never knew when to stop.'

'And you rebuked him?'

'He was an animal. Yes, I rebuked him. Then Fulgrim told me.'

'Told you what?'

Dorn closed his eyes. 'The Phoenician told me what Curze had told him: the fits, the seizures that had plagued Curze since his childhood on Nostramo, the visions. Curze said he had seen the galaxy in flames, the Emperor's legacy overthrown, Astartes turning on Astartes. It was all lies, an insult to our creed!'

'You confronted Curze?'

'And he attacked me. He would have killed me, I think. He is insane. That's why we drove him out, sick of his bloodletting. That's why he burned his home world and took his Night Lords off into the darkest parts of the stars.'

Malcador nodded, and continued to deal the cards. 'Rogal, he is what you are truly afraid of, because he is fear incarnate. No other primarch uses terror as a weapon like Curze does. You are not afraid of Horus and his sallow heretics. You are afraid of the fear that sides with him, the night terror that advances alongside the traitors.'

Dorn sat back and breathed out. 'He has haunted me, I confess. All this time, he has haunted me.'

'Because he was right. His visions were true. He saw this Heresy coming in his visions. That is the truth you fear. You wish you had listened.'

Dorn looked down at the cards laid out on the table before him. 'Do you believe in this divination, Sigillite?'

'Let's see,' said Malcador, turning the cards over one by one: the Moon, the Martyr and the Monster, the Dark King askew across the Emperor.

One other card, the Lightning Tower.

Dorn groaned. 'A bastion, blown out by lightning. A palace brought to ruin by fire. I've seen enough.'

'The card has many meanings,' said Malcador. 'Like the Death card, it is not as obvious as it seems. In the hives of Nord Merica, it symbolised a change in fortune, an overturning of fate. To the tribes of Franc and Tali, it signified knowledge or achievement obtained through sacrifice. A flash of inspiration, if you will, one that tumbles the world you know down, but leaves you with a greater gift.'

'The Dark King lies across the Emperor,' said Dorn, pointing.

Malcador sniffed. 'It's not exactly a science, my friend.'

They had blown their way through the massive earthwork defences at Haldwani and Xigaze. The sky at the top of the world was on fire. Despite the bombardments of the orbital platforms and the constant sorties of the Stormbirds and the Ilawkwings, the Traitor legions advanced, up through the Brahamputra, along the delta of the Karnali. Continental firestoms raged across Gangetic Plain.

As they entered the rampart outworks of the palace, the streaming, screaming multitudes and the striding war machines were greeted by monsoons of firepower. Every emplacement along the Dhawalagiri prospect committed its weapons. Las reached out in neon slashes, annihilating everything it touched. Shells fell like sleet. Titans exploded, caught fire, collapsed on their faces and crushed the warriors swarming around their heels. Still they came. Lancing beams struck the armour-reinforced walls like lightning, like lighting smiting a tower.

The walls fell. They collapsed like slumping glaciers, Gold-cased bodies spilled out, tumbling down in the deluge.

The palace began to burn. Primus Gate fell; Lion's Gate, subjected to attack from the north; Annapurna Gate. At the Ultimate Gate, the Traitors finally sliced into the palace, slaughtering everyone they found inside. Around every broken gate, the corpses of Titans piled up in vast, jumbled heaps where they had fallen over each other in their desire to break in. The heretic host clambered across their carcasses, pouring into the palace, yelling out the name of their—

'End simulation,' said Dorn.

He gazed down at the hololithic table. At his command, the forces of the enemy withdrew, unit by unit, and the palace rebuilt itself. The smoke cleared.

'Reset parameters to Horus, Perturabo, Angron and Curze.'

'Opposition?' the table queried.

'Imperial Fists, Blood Angels, White Scars, Resume and replay scenario.'

The map flickered. Armies advanced. The palace began to burn again.

'Play it out, simulation after simulation, if you like,' said the voice behind him. 'Simulations are just simulations. I know you won't fail me when the time comes.'

Dorn turned. 'I would never knowingly fail you, Father,' he said.

'Then don't be afraid. Don't let fear get in your way.'

What are you afraid of? What are you really afraid of?

The Lightning Tower, thought Rogal Dorn. I understand its meaning: achievement obtained through sacrifice. I'm just afraid of what that sacrifice might be.