Conversely, there were also cards bearing terrible, soul-searing images depicting the myriad enemies that threatened the human race. These were the cards of the Arcana Discordia. There was the vile, faithless traitor; the sorcerous alien warlock; the disgusting mutant, and the blasphemous-tongued heretic. There was the hulking tusk-mawed form of the beast ascendant, the leering horror that was the daemon and the notoriously guileful, ambiguous character of the Harlequin - the wild card of the Emperor's tarot.

But of course the most potent card in the tarot was that of the immortal Emperor himself, bound within the ancient, unfathomable technology of the Golden Throne of Terra.

A skilful astropath could discern the shape of things to come from a reading of the tarot. The many paths that fate might tread in executing its grand designs could be seen in the pattern of the cards since the pictures on their faces were psychically attuned to the constant flux of that otherworldly half-reality that existed beyond the physical universe.

The warp.

The immaterium.

The empyrean.

The ether.

The Sea of Souls.

The Realm of Chaos.

It was man's greatest hope and yet also his gravest peril. Humanity's link to that realm of raw emotion, the spiritual counter-universe, enabled mankind to draw upon the infinite power that lay there waiting to be exploited. And yet his very presence in that place attracted the interest of predators born of mankind's own imperfect psyche.

The seer revealed the top card. Upon it was inscribed a robed acolyte, carrying a hammer and a book. As both the astropath and her visitor watched, the image seemed to flex and ripple until it settled again, only now the image of the supplicant's aug-metically enhanced face appeared on that of the High Priest. This card would act as his talisman signifier; the card representing the one for whom the reading was being made.

'Your signifier,' the seer said, her voice scarcely more than a croak.

'Continue,' was all her supplicant said.

The astropath took up the rest of the deck again and proceeded to carefully lay out seven cards face down on the plinth in front of her, two inside a circle of five; the classic basic reading pattern.

The seer inhaled deeply, breathing in the heady perfume of the incense, feeling it free her mind of the restrictions of the physical failings of her body. Her breathing became slow and regular as she freed her spirit to commune with the warp.

Psykers - the name commonly given to those with psychic talents - had appeared in the human race long before the founding of the Imperium. Psychic ability was the human race's curse as much as its gift. Without this mutation the Imperium could not survive. Without psykers, messages could not be sent tens of thousands of light years to all corners of the Emperor's galaxy-spanning realm. Ships could not traverse the empyrean and make journeys between worlds that would otherwise take a thousand lifetimes. The servants of the sinister Officio Inquisitorum could not defend the Imperium's loyal servants from those who would pervert the Emperor's Will, and see His works undone and all creation overturned. And the Navigator Houses of the Navis Nobilite would not have their position of privilege brought them via their stranglehold of power on the Administratum of Terra.