Mortarion went to stand by a bank of valves and wheels hidden behind an array of clocks. The activated workings connected to the tubes that ran into the glass prison. He let his hand hover over them, tormenting the spirit of his xenos father with anticipation of the soul-rotting poisons he might unleash. Under his breathing mask, what remained of Mortarion’s mouth smiled. He let his hand drop. Leaving the wheels untouched, he departed the horarium.

The third part of Mortarion’s plan was in motion. He would leave Guilliman to his victory at Ardium. On other worlds, in other places, Mortarion would weaken him, poisoning his mind, body and soul, just as he poisoned the mind, body and soul of Guilliman’s realm.

And then Mortarion would destroy his brother.

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

The Council of Hera

The Fortress of Hera had changed greatly since Guilliman’s time. The walls had grown outwards, swallowing parts of Magna Macragge Civitas below it and the Hera’s Crown mountains behind it. To the west, it had spread as far as Hera’s Falls. Their foaming rush had exchanged natural beauty for architectural elegance. Where once water had thundered down a steep natural gorge, now it was constrained in a vertical channel of marbled stone. Slippery rocks were replaced with tall statues, the irregular plunge pool by a square lake edged with greened bronze. The cliffs had been carved back. Statues stood in their stead, and shrines in stacked clusters.

The city was different, too. Flat land was at a premium on mountainous Macragge. Like a displaced nation, what Magna Macragge Civitas had lost to the Fortress of Hera’s encroachment it had taken from its neighbour. The seafront was over a kilometre further out than it had been ten thousand years ago, and beyond its edge the Pharamis Ocean was clustered with floating habitats.

Both fortress and city had lost much of what Guilliman remembered to the vagaries of war. Ultramar had been invaded many times while he slept, and as the capital world Macragge had been targeted over and again. Tyranids, orks, and the minions of Chaos had all left their mark. The grand triumphal arches of the Great Crusade had gone, blasted down in one war or another, and lesser monuments had taken their place. History had a great inertia, and the layout of the streets had resisted change, but every attack had swept away another part of the past in piecemeal destruction. Pale shadows in marble had supplanted old glories.