Sanguinius howled. He charged at the thing that could not be the Emperor. The presence was real, but the image was not. That was what he had to see. That was what he must believe, but all he knew as he screamed was that he aimed his blow at the neck of his father. The evidence of his eyes declared him the greatest of traitors. He, not Horus, struck at the Emperor. He attacked with desperate faith that he had made the choice at last, and that it was the loyal one. He attacked what could not be his father. But he could not see past the appearance. His soul cried out at the crime he saw himself commit.

Father, forgive me, for I know not what I do.

The Emperor did not move until the sword began its descent. Then He moved suddenly to block it, and He changed.

Everything changed.

The cloister melted. Columns and fountains bent and flowed. A web of fissures split the fountains and colonnade. It split the water and the air. Ferocious, roaring light of violet and red and green erupted through the fissures. All form vanished, and the cloister became a maelstrom of dark and light. The wind shrieked, a hurricane blowing reason and matter into madness.

A staff stopped Sanguinius’ blow. Its head was a cluster of nestled, savage blades, and they held the sword fast. The hand that clutched the staff was huge and clawed. It was on the end of an arm thick with scaled muscle and deadly with curved spines down its length.

The Emperor was gone. In His place, a daemon towered over Sanguinius. Multiple twisted horns framed a skull with monstrous jaws and eyes that were blind yet filled with awful knowledge. Its torso was covered in eyes. Some gazed at Sanguinius with hunger. Some with amusement. Some with anger.

The daemon parted its jaws. When it spoke, a tongue long as a serpent uncoiled to taste the Angel’s pain.

‘By paths of eight and gods of four, I am Madail the Undivided. By fates of eight and edicts of four, you shall serve. You shall be the Angel of Ruin.’

The maelstrom slowed. The rush of non-being coagulated. It became real. It became nightmare. It became the interior of a ship.

Madail the Undivided

Sixteen

Sixteen

The Shattered and the Returned

The Sthenelus cut through the void partway between the necrosphere and Davin. Its full auspex array was directed at the bones. Khalybus paced slowly back and forth across the width of the strategium, his bionic legs taking strides of perfect, mechanical regularity. His gaze never left the oculus. He watched the slowly shifting view of the necrosphere. At this distance, all he could see was a wall of grey lined by faint, broken, jagged veins of black. The lines were huge topographical features, the bones pushed together in mountain chains larger than worlds.