‘Tetrarch,’ said Guilliman. He dipped his helmet at his one-time equerry. Without slowing, he and his entourage walked directly through the main gate. ‘No one is to enter.’

A pair of Sisters kicked the remains of the dead traitors away, and closed the door behind the party.

Felix watched the gate a moment. The feeling of a malevolent beast watching him was so great he had the urge to run. He wished he had gone within, to be at his lord’s side once more. To protect him, as ridiculous as that seemed. Roboute Guilliman needed no protection from anything.

Felix turned his back, facing out into the city. ‘Keep watch while the primarch is inside,’ ordered Felix.

‘Gladly, tetrarch,’ said Macullus Fides, ‘though I do not fear for him. There is nothing but ghosts and whispers here now.’

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

Theologica

Guilliman walked under a carved stone motif proclaiming the divinity of his creator and into a space constructed entirely around that belief. The cathedral enclosed a huge volume to fit the enormousness of the faith the people had in the Emperor. The stonework was encrusted with decoration and statuary; it was almost frenzied in its devotion, a plea in stone to be noticed and saved. But like the truth it purported to encompass, the space within the walls was empty.

If only they knew, thought Guilliman. He looked upwards through the roof towards the clearing sky. Beams dangled from rotting ligaments of iron. The floor was slippery with mulchy timber and fallen tiles.

The statues were broken, the windows smashed and anything that bore witness to the Emperor’s divinity had been damaged. These were the least of the harms done to the building. The desecration of the cathedral was more fundamental than the mere destruction of art, for the warping effects of Chaos had been forced deeply into its fabric. An unwholesome foetor filled the cathedral wall to wall. It had similarities to the scent of decay found in the lower reaches of a forest – a loamy, deep smell, though this had little of renewal to it. The promise of new life it offered up was a lie.

The entourage of Adeptus Custodes, Sisters of Silence and the Victrix Guard fanned out, weapons ready. The Librarians remained at his side. Hard sounds clattered through the ruin. There were two major transepts at either end of the long knave. A third minor transept crossed the middle of the church. Like many holy buildings, the cathedral’s plan when viewed from above made the single barred ‘I’ of the Imperium.

Guilliman surveyed it all disapprovingly. Worship of his creator had become the bedrock of the Imperium. It was as pernicious as the efforts of Chaos, in its way. He did not understand it, but as he looked around this cathedral, one like many hundreds he had seen all across the Imperium, he doubted his own convictions regarding the Emperor’s divinity.