The astropath's life-support cradle was suspended from a gargoyle-mouthed buttress that projected out into the centre of the reclusium, wreathed with power cables and feed-pipes. It hung at the centre of a complex pattern inscribed on the Mhorovite onyx floor of the chamber, the detailing of the warding sigils and inscriptions of holy lore picked out in platinum, silver and gold.

Awake, the warp-seer's numerous psycho- and mechanical-induced tics recommenced as well. The elongated fingertips of her hands tapped a rapid staccato rhythm on the polished marble plinth in front of her, her eyes spasmodically glancing at the deck of crystal cards every few seconds.

Between glances, the astropath looked up at her visitor. The man was tall and stick thin. His body was swathed by a heavy cowled robe, like those favoured by many servants of the Emperor, its hem elaborately embroidered with the machine-code catechisms of the Omnissiah's priesthood. She could see little of his face beneath the shadowing hood of the cowl, other than the myopic blinking of a red ocular implant.

The figure strode across the black stone floor of the chamber towards the seer's consultation plinth, a metallic tapping punctuating the sackcloth scrape of his heavy robes dragging across the floor.

The astropath knew why the magos was here: there was only one reason why anyone of his standing ever came to visit her prison. Her gaze lingered for a split second longer on the tarot deck in front of her.

There were no words of greeting exchanged between the two. As far as her visitor was concerned, she was merely a tool to be used for a specific job, no different to a lascutter or hydraulic wrench. There was no need for conversation. That said, when the priest utilised a tool such as electro-forceps he made a supplication to its machine spirit before commencing. She did not even warrant that. She knew her place.

'Begin.’ was all the visitor said.

'The cards have been prepared, anointed with oils and thrice-blessed before the image of the Emperor Enthroned.’ the seer intoned in the accepted litany of the tarot reading, her voice resonating with the buzzing hiss of an augmetic voice box.

She raised the deck in her adapted hands and deftly shuffled the cards with the speed of an automated credit counter, the beautifully worked, wafer-thin slivers of crystal flying between her articulated digits and arranging themselves into an esoteric order potent with eldritch potentialities and possibilities, known only to capricious whims of fickle fate.

It could take centuries to master the Emperor's tarot, to learn every combination of cards, every subtle nuance of meaning, read every play of warp-light on the psychoplastic-impressed images. Time few practitioners were ever graced with.

One scribe-artist would labour his entire lifetime lovingly hand-crafting a single card. The deck of seventy-eight cards on the plinth in front of the seer was itself worth a planetary governor's ransom.

Laid out in their entirety, the cards formed an allegorical image of the entire Imperium - a realm that spanned a million worlds and untold billions of souls - its heroes and its enemies. In the Emperor's Tarot there were cards representing the champions of the mankind including the noble warrior, who was prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice in his service of the Imperium, the superhuman Space Marine brother of the mighty Adeptus Astartes; the truth-seeking inquisitor; the rabble-rousing preacher of the Imperial creed; the shadowy, death-dealing assassin; the inspiring Chaplain of the Astartes Chapters, the unequivocal judge and the warp-seeing astropath, of course.