‘Your plan is working,’ said the daemon. ‘The dead walk across the worlds we foul. The peons of Ultramar have had their eyes opened to their slavery and shake their fists at their blue masters. We shall combine forces when the time is right. We shall prevail. I need but a little more time to perfect my new concoction. Every strain of the galaxy’s finest diseases contribute their essence to its creation. There has never been anything like it.’ His voice came close to enthusiasm. ‘It will be as devastating as you desire, and more so – the finest plague, enough to slay a demigod! Delay the primarch. Keep him from Iax. Rot his empire, and when he is full of despair, we shall strike, and we shall kill him.’

Ku’gath withdrew from the communion. More of the mycelium mat fell into decay. Mortarion pulled himself free of the clinging tendrils, and with a wet rustle it shrank in on itself, shrivelling up to nothing. His eyes cleared. The fungal spike in the room’s centre collapsed into a mouldering heap that rapidly deliquesced into stinking water.

Mortarion walked across the slippery floor and hung Silence again upon its chain. He held the scythe’s head in one hand and petted it before drawing it back across the room.

‘Soon, Silence, we will reap the greatest prize of all – the death of my brother!’ He set it swinging. The great clock restarted. Their king ticking again, so did all the others.

‘What do you think of that, father?’ said the lord of death. The soul in the flask screamed at him and raced around its confinement. The machines constraining it buzzed with the additional strain.

‘Shhh,’ said Mortarion. ‘You will need your strength. I have neglected you for too long. I have new stimuli for you to enjoy, new pains and soul-fevers. Such times we will have, you and I, when the hateful Imperium is overthrown. An eternity to explore the rotting of the spirit. The galaxy will be free of stagnation, and there will be a riot of life in its place. The Emperor offers death in life. Nurgle offers the constant renewal of life in death! So many of the Emperor’s loyal subjects will join with us when they see how their suffering may be banished by embracing pain. Typhus says I do not understand, father. But I do, I understand far better than him. With Guilliman gone, the Imperium will be doomed. All glory to the generosity of Father Nurgle! It has been foretold, and I shall make it so.’