Losenti worked alone as his mission dictated. He had been selected from the strongest astropaths Guilliman could find. Among his many gifts, Losenti required no translator for his visions, but was able to recall the images from his fugues and explain them himself. Not a particularly unusual skill in an astropath, but a crucial one to the running of a machine that secrecy demanded have a sole operator, and when found in conjunction with his fortitude, rare indeed.

‘By the will of the Omnissiah,’ he said in his crystal voice. ‘Engage initiation sequence.’

A crunching sounded from within the curved walls. A harsh machine voice boomed out.

‘Provide identity.’

‘Astropath Prime Ultra Guidus Losenti.’

‘Ident confirmed. Secondary unlock necessary.’

‘Primarch Roboute Guilliman,’ spoke the primarch. ‘Lord Militant of the High Lords of the Imperium of Man, and Imperial Regent.’

‘Secondary unlock ident confirmed. Stand by for gene scan. Gene scan.’

A flat band of green light fanned out from the wall. It washed up and down the primarch and the astropath.

‘Gene scan confirmed. Ident confirmed. Code required.’

A noise damper projected a cone of null-sound around Guilliman. He heard nothing; even the vibrations of the machines under his feet were robbed of auditory expression. From Guilliman’s position, Losenti’s lips moved wordlessly. Guilliman looked away. He could lip read. Cawl knew that. The first and only time he had idly let his gaze rest on the astropath’s face while he spoke his code, Guilliman been temporarily blinded by a las strobe.

He could not fault Cawl’s dedication to security. Though his attention to detail bordered on pathological, for ten thousand years Cawl’s procedures had kept Roboute Guilliman’s secrets for him. He had no grounds for criticism.

The null-sound cone snapped off. Guilliman spoke out his own code, a string of nonsensical words that changed depending on the date.

‘Codes accepted,’ said the voice. ‘Commencing main series activation sequence.’

The twenty small doors in the walls opened downwards. Behind each was a lit armourglass tank containing a severed human head bathed in clear yellow nutrient fluids. Metal neatly capped each neck. From these issued small bundles of tidy cables and pipes that curled downwards under the heads, then up into the machines above them.

‘Activation code required,’ said the voice.

This time, there was no null-sound cone. The code sent astropathically to Losenti by Cawl to turn on his abominable machine was different every time, and there was no need to rob the primarch of his hearing. Cawl made a virtue of economy in all things he did.

‘Charnibel crow, white crow, white crow, white crow, charnibel crow, black crow,’ said Losenti.

‘Code accepted. Code accepted. Code accepted,’ said the machine. ‘Stand by for communion. Cawl Inferior awakening rite underway. Stand by for communion.’