‘My lord.’ Losenti appeared in the doorway and came into the room. As he detached himself from the blackness, pools of it came with him in his eye sockets. His body appeared old and frail, but as he drew near the primarch, the inner strength that allowed Losenti to withstand the psychic pressure of the machine became palpable. There was great power clinging to his aged mortal frame.

‘I came as quickly as I could, master astropath,’ said Guilliman.

Losenti smiled, the skin wrinkling around the darkness in his eyes which, when one was close enough, revealed themselves to be shiny black orbs of jet. Losenti paced around the Imperial Regent restlessly. As he walked, he placed his staff with utmost surety, the ferrule that capped the black wood never once slipping into the holes of the grating.

‘To speak with my lord pleases me,’ he said. Losenti had the voice of much younger man.

‘Are you well?’

‘I am well.’ With one blue-veined, pale hand, Losenti pulled back the green hood of his robes. His scalp was hairless, and his skull clearly defined under its covering of parchment-thin skin.

‘I trust your duty remains onerous but bearable.’

‘I thank you for your concern. I do not enjoy my duty, Lord Militant. The nature of Cawl’s sendings are exceptionally tedious, and lack the vitality one experiences when minds touch across the immensity of the void. I think he might use a machine, although once I would have said such a thing were impossible.’ Losenti paused, waiting for Guilliman to confirm or refute this notion.

‘Perhaps he does,’ said Guilliman. ‘Having witnessed what I have of his works, nothing would surprise me.’

Losenti resumed his walk around the primarch, staff clicking unerringly on the metal. ‘However, I do not wish to change it. Cawl’s missives are so simple they suffer no corruption of the like that has plagued astrotelepathy since the opening of the Great Rift. There is no interference, no unwelcome intrusion. I am alone here, and isolated from my own kind, and that is hard to bear. The times I must be within the machine pain me greatly, but I am free from insanity, and as much as we all wish to serve the Imperium above all things, I admit to a certain sentimental attachment to my own life and soul.’

‘If you ever crave release, Losenti, I can provide it.’

Losenti had a clear, youthful laugh to match his voice. Its brightness angered whatever skulked in the machine’s depths, and the spiritual pressure grew. ‘My lord, forgive me. We both are aware of what “release” means. I assure you, I am content. You may keep the mercy of your boltgun for the time being. Now, shall we begin?’

‘If you would, master astropath.’