'What does it mean, Kva? What does the dream mean?'

'You shall die wielding the Spear of the Emperor,' said Kva without hesitation. There was no need to obfuscate the hard truth or flatter with a lie. That was not the way of the Vlka Fenryka.

In the same spirit Russ accepted Kva's pronouncement. 'That was what I thought.' For the first time he turned around and looked at the spear directly. 'I should throw it out of an airlock,' he said. 'If I rid myself of it, I may change my wyrd.'

'I do not think you will,' said Kva. 'No man can change their wyrd. Not even you.'

'You are right,' said Russ, 'for as much as I hate it and what it showed me, somehow, it is important. I cannot get rid of it. I have tried, not very hard, but how hard could it be to lose a weapon? I have lost many! Every time I leave it somewhere, it is returned to me. I doubt hurling it into the heart of a star would yield a different result, I only do not try for fear that it will be lost. You see the contradiction.' He gave a wry smile. 'No, I am fated to keep it even if it cuts my thread itself.' He looked Kva in the eye. 'Maybe it is not an ill wyrd but a false wyrd.' He clenched his fist. 'I cannot be sure. The runes show me nothing. I set out to kill another of my brothers, and I do not know if it is the right course of action. Tell me, Kva, how is a man of two worlds who is yet of neither to know the truth of his wyrd?'

'He never can,' said Kva. 'I know from experience.'

Russ sank deeper into his throne. 'I was afraid you would say that.'

Ten

Ten

The Lord Of Mars

The omnispex went green, and the adjudicator rang a tinny clarion.

'Pass,' said Cawl. 'The Machine-God bless you in all your undertakings.'

The thallax strode out of the screening bay on mechanical legs. Cawl left it in a dreamlike state, its higher functions deactivated as Domina Hester Aspertia Sigma-Sigma preferred. Cawl half-heartedly flicked scented oils over the thallax from an aspergillum and watched it go to join the silent ranks of its comrades. He would have liked to know what was going on in the man's brain, floating there in the metal casing, unable to influence his own actions. It was normal for the Mechanicum troops to undergo direct control from their clade masters from time to time. They expected it, even welcomed it as a chance to commune directly with the Machine-God. But the level of control Sigma-Sigma exerted over her minions was unusual, and probably unhealthy.

And now, he thought, I am one of them.