In the skies above Terra, the forces of the Imperium of Mankind were preparing for war. The birthworld of the human species turned beneath a haze of ash, the surface pockmarked by colossal city-sprawls and hive-plexes. It was a clenched fist of iron and stone, and from it rose spindly orbital elevator towers and the thruster trails of heavy transports. The planet was ringed by platforms and way-stations of varying size and complexity, littering the low orbit and the gravity-null clusters of the Lagrangian points. Ships crossed between them like motes of mercury over black velvet, engine exhausts glowing. A shroud of ever-moving armour turned about Terra, constructs as large as continents drifting as if they were gargantuan metal clouds. Some were gunnery complexes, little more than free-floating weapons aimed outwards into the void, like cannons atop ancient castle battlements. Others were command-and-control facilities, staging posts. Shipyards and star-docks bristled with battle vessels of every make and tonnage, old hulls being refitted with new weapons. Some orbitals were the private habitats of Imperial nobles and dignitaries, but even their exalted status did not protect them from the Order of Fortification. No one was exempt from the diktat that the Emperor had handed down. Terra was on a war footing, donning her chainmail and sharpening her blades. Watching. Waiting. Out past the orbit of Luna, secondary and tertiary lines of defence were already in place. Fields of autonomous cannon-drones and sensor webs floated in the darkness. Asteroids dragged in by tenders from the belt beyond Mars formed the bastions of the Ardent Reef, the Hecate Shoal and other portcullis groups. They prepared for the day they knew would come, the day when the sky would brim with the battlefleets of Horus Lupercal’s rebellion. The turncoat Warmaster had never let his gaze fall from Terra. The planet was more than just the spiritual heart of the Imperium, more than the capital world and origin-point of mankind. Pragmatic tacticians could say that a successful war against the Emperor might never even need to reach the light of Sol, but no one truly believed that it would not. Horus would come here. This was his father’s house. If he did not burn it or take it for himself, then he could never claim that ultimate victory. This, the Emperor knew full well. And so He made ready. The architect of the fortification was one seemingly born to such a task. Rogal Dorn, most steadfast and unswerving of the Emperor’s sons, primarch of the VII Legiones Astartes, the Imperial Fists. It was said that Dorn was the greatest master of defensive strategy in the galaxy, and that a stronghold designed by the Fists could never be breached. Horus would put that claim to the test. Dorn oversaw the great reinforcement effort from his flagship and star fortress, the mighty Phalanx. The size of a small moon, it was forced to remain clear of Terra’s shipping lanes for fear that its great mass would exert a tidal pull on the lesser orbitals. Standing sentinel over the ongoing work of the defences, the star fortress was a grand artifice of gold. Ramparts and towers, cathedral-like halls and acres of domes covered its flanks. The Phalanx was not only the flagship of the VII Legion, but also their home, with room for hundreds of thousands of warriors and support serviles in its habitat tiers. Lines of military traffic and freighters dotted the approaches to the fortress, a complex dance of starships moving back and forth under Dorn’s supreme command. Among them, lost in the mess of auspex returns and radiation back-scatter, a small shuttle-pod crept closer on stealth-cowled engines. The ship was barely worthy of the name. No bigger than a Land Speeder, the shuttle-pod carried only a single occupant, a rudimentary drive system and auto-navigator. What other space remained inside the seamless, scan-resistant hull was packed with sensor baffles and reflex shield devices. Craft such as this were typically deployed by Imperial agents or the killers of the Officio Assassinorum. But in this instance, the passenger was of a markedly different intent. The pod spiralled in towards the hull of the Phalanx, autonomic systems waiting until the last possible second to fire braking thrusters to slow its approach. Magna-grapples extended and drew the pod the last short span towards a service hatch, and locked on. Stealth protocols ran from the craft’s cogitators, misdirecting the docking sensors and masking the unscheduled arrival. The window of opportunity was only a few moments, but it was enough. Unnoticed by the Imperial Fists, an intruder had boarded their vessel. A ghost by any other name. Its sole function completed, the shuttle-pod disengaged and drifted away, blending back into the clutter of the space lanes. The lone passenger risked a single communication, a burst-transmission message encrypted on a deep-level vox-channel. There would be no reply. One signal alone was enough to chance detection. ‘I have boarded,’ he whispered into his vox-bead. ‘Proceeding with mission as planned.’ The warrior let the long shadows conceal him, the bulk of his ghost-grey power armour half hidden in the gloom. He wore a large, thin robe of shimmering material over the battleplate, giving him the look of a monastic figure out of old legend. Pulling it close, he activated a device sewn into the sleeve and the surface of the robe shimmered. He became a glassy sketch, a shape disrupted as if seen through a rain-slick windowpane. The technology was rare and fragile, but the Falsehood could shroud even an armoured giant from a passing observer. Beneath the hood, Nathaniel Garro grimaced. He did not approve of such clandestine acts, but he had no other choice. He was here on the direct command of Malcador the Sigillite, as one of the Regent of Terra’s covert agents amidst the turmoil of the galactic civil war. Months had passed since Garro had made his new oath to Malcador’s service and taken on the mantle of a so-called ‘Knight Errant’. Months since that first mission to Calth and gathering of the first name on the Regent’s list of recruits. Since then he had found more, swelling the secret ranks of the Sigillite’s secret militia. It was easy to lose himself in the work. He had been so desperate for purpose after his escape from Isstvan that the simplicity of tracking, isolating and recovering the legionaries Malcador required was enough to sate him. Until recently. Garro frowned and silenced the traitorous doubt before it could fully form in his mind. He could not afford to be distracted, not here of all places. He moved in the gloom cast by huge ornamental columns, shifting from point to point when the eyes of crew-serfs or Imperial Fists legionaries turned away. Garro crossed the Great Hall of Victories, following the lines of the Statue Garden and the Gallery of Heroes. He had been aboard the Phalanx once before, but under very different circumstances. Then, Garro had been a guest of the VII Legion, plucked from certain death by Rogal Dorn himself. It sat poorly with him that his return came under a shroud of secrecy. The corridors and chambers of the flagship were magnificent works of functional, martial architecture. Heavy with banners from a hundred thousand victories, lined with works of art that celebrated Dorn’s Legion and the high ideals of the Imperium, they were a glorious sight. Garro had no time to admire them. For the duration of this mission, he considered himself in enemy territory and would act accordingly. The only exception he had made to his usual preparation was to come bearing only his sword, Libertas. Garro had left his boltgun behind. That act signified that he would not, could not, shed blood in the prosecution of this duty. But if he were discovered now, he doubted that the Imperial Fists would extend him the same consideration. He froze in place at the sound of footsteps. A dozen armoured Space Marines passed close to his place of concealment, oblivious to his presence. Careful to remain unseen by his fellow legionaries, Garro let the Falsehood and his training carry him slowly and carefully into the inner halls of the vast star fort. The warrior’s objective lay deep inside the Phalanx, on the lower decks towards the flagship’s gargantuan engine cores. The chamber was known only as the Seclusium. Within a few hours, he had made his way to his target. A huge oval gate, titanium-blue and ringed with locking devices, rose up before Garro, and his eyes caught the symbol etched into the metal above the latch. A mailed fist against a white disc, the emblem of the VII Legion. Rogal Dorn himself had struck that sign when this door had been closed, and if Garro opened it, it would be Dorn that he defied. Inside the sealed chamber, behind humming forcefields, walls of deadening black phase-iron and psychic countermeasures from the Dark Age of Technology, the primarch of the Imperial Fists had wilfully imprisoned a cadre of his own sons. They had committed no crime, done nothing to dishonour their brethren. These were steadfast warriors taken from front-line battle duties, men ordered to disarm and stand down by the father of their Legion. They were Imperial Fists, sombre and steadfast in character, and to every last degree Dorn’s true sons. Yet they had accepted their primarch’s command without question. The only offence that these legionaries had committed was to be cursed with the gifts of the warp – Lexicanium, Codicier or Epistolary, they were the battle-brothers of the Librarius, trained to use the power of their minds as a weapon. The Emperor’s passing of the edict after the conclave on Nikaea had ended that service in a single moment. In the wake of the sorcerer-primarch Magnus the Red’s dalliances with the mercurial powers of the warp, their weapons had been denied to them and now Dorn’s Librarians spent their long days in quiet meditation, isolated from their kinsmen and their future uncertain. Garro paused, considering the great seal, the edict and the men he had recruited. He thought of Rubio, the Ultramarines Codicier who had been the first. The act of bringing Rubio to Malcador had been in direct violation of the Emperor’s Decree Absolute, and so it would be violated again if he were to proceed now. Yet it was necessary for the safety and security of the Imperium. Garro believed that wholeheartedly. The troubling duality of the situation weighed heavily upon him, and not for the first time. In the end, he did what he always did, and silenced his misgivings with action. Garro reached into a pouch on his belt, removing a device that Malcador himself had pressed into his hands. The origin of the small crystalline object, its radiant glow soft and ethereal, was unknown to him. Still, Garro could not entirely banish the feeling that it was somehow alien. When he had questioned the Regent of Terra on that suspicion, Malcador had said nothing, merely holding him in that steady, stony gaze. He held it up to face the sigil on the gate, and tendrils of faint energy reached out to caress the locks. The glow brightened and the arcane device began its work, the seals holding the gate shut opening in swift order under its influence. But the act did not go unnoticed. Hidden alcoves spun open to reveal a pair of armoured gun-servitors in the yellow livery of the Fists. They marched towards him, weapons spinning up to firing speed, targeting lasers flashing in the cold air. A vocoder grille in the chest of the nearest cyber-hybrid produced a pre-programmed demand. ‘In the Legion’s name, halt and identify.’ The Falsehood’s image-collapsing effect seemed to confuse them, and the machine-slaves dithered, struggling to track the cloaked warrior. Garro did not give them time to target him. Libertas came to life in his hand. He allowed the servitors no opportunity to raise the alarm before he attacked, the power sword making swift, deadly arcs. The servitors barely managed a screech before they were cleaved apart. Oil and blood spurted, electricity crackled, and with their neural cords severed, the mind-wiped helots stumbled and crashed to the deck. Leaving them where they fell, Garro turned back to the gate as the last of the seals disengaged. Slowly, the Seclusium began to open. Brother Massak was dreaming. He did not truly sleep, for the bio-implants of the Legiones Astartes ended the need for such a thing. But he did dream, in the strange mind-space of his meditations as his thoughts turned in upon themselves, and there he contemplated his fate. In the darkness, he sometimes saw glimpses of things that appeared unreal. Skies, black with warships. Creatures beyond the alien, warped and monstrous. Fire and thunder. War, burning the galaxy from spiral arm to core. Time had become meaningless to Massak and the other psykers. Isolated from the universe at large, the passage of weeks into months, and months into years had fallen away until there was only the now. Massak was ready to wait as long as his primarch wished him to, contained within this chamber. That was his duty. ‘When the time is right, he will come.’ His voice echoed into infinity. ‘When the Imperium needs us, Dorn will return.’ The words came from nowhere, but the conviction beneath them seemed transient. None among the isolated Librarians had given voice to any doubts about their confinement, but a bitter thought buried deep in Massak’s mind threatened to rise to the surface. What if Dorn did not return? Then the moment faded. At some great distance, he heard the faint sound of complex locks opening, of gunfire and sudden death. The Seclusium gate? Brother Massak’s mind snapped back to wakefulness and he rose swiftly from his pallet. Something was wrong. He sensed the flicker and fade of the gun-servitors as the dim candles of their minds were snuffed out, and then the hazy shape of another psyche. One hidden behind hard walls of counter-telepathic training and rigid thought. It could only be a legionary, but the identity of the warrior was impossible to grasp, and to call upon his powers to push deeper would be to violate the decree. ‘Brothers!’ Massak sprinted towards the opening gate, rousing a handful of the other Librarians around him, calling them to arms. ‘The gate should not open so readily. This must be some sort of attack!’ The great hatch yawned, light flooding in from beyond, and Massak’s kinsmen stood ready as a vague shape moved like heat-haze in the air. Then the phantom was revealed, a grey-armoured figure appearing as a Falsehood about it opened and fell to the deck. The figure was haloed by the glow from the corridor beyond, a power sword crackling in its grip. By contrast, the Librarian’s weapon of choice was a force axe, two curved blades of psychically resonant metal forming the killing edges. It was in his hand in a heartbeat, and at his side his brothers drew their swords and force rods from arming racks about the chamber. ‘You wear no colours or sigil, intruder! Give me your name and Legion. Surrender your sword.’ ‘And if I do not?’ said the stranger. ‘Those weapons in your hands are nought but dead metal without your psionic powers to charge them.’ Massak’s knuckles whitened around the shaft of his axe. The invader was quite correct, but months of isolation with little else to do but train had sharpened the Librarian’s already excellent skills of blade-play, enhanced or not. ‘They will be enough,’ he countered. The warrior in grey smiled at that. ‘Come with me, and we need not cross blades at all.’ ‘You do not command us,’ Massak retorted. ‘Now surrender your sword.’ The smile faded. ‘I do not wish to fight you. But I will not give up my weapon.’ ‘Then you will pay for your trespass!’ Massak and his battle-brothers advanced upon the intruder, launching a string of connected attacks that were each met and parried. The Librarian tried to find the measure of the warrior. He moved with a fractional hesitance, betraying the presence of an augmetic replacement limb, but he was not slow. His great power sword deflected Massak’s own weapon and forced the Librarian back a step. The nameless one had the scarred face of a hardened battle veteran, and the prowess to match it. The Imperial Fists outnumbered him, but he held them at bay with unparalleled focus and skill. Massak grimaced, advancing. He let his brothers move in a swift feint and then he struck, swinging the axe hard. Their blades met and locked, sparks flying. Massak glared at the trespasser, searching his expression for some understanding of why he was here. ‘Who are you?’ he hissed, and for a moment he allowed his emotions to take the upper hand. A flicker of psionic power sparked across his thoughts. Despite his iron self-control, in the melee some tiny fraction of Massak’s preternatural power brushed across the mind of his opponent. A flash of insight came to him, the briefest glimpse of why the legionary had come to the Seclusium. The shape of his true intention was almost within reach… …but then the moment broke like brittle glass as a new force entered the chamber. The burning, stony mind of a warlord. ‘Cease!’ shouted Rogal Dorn, in a voice that had ended battles and split mountains. Hard as granite, radiating dark fire, his psyche eclipsed everything else in a silent inferno of pure will. ‘By my command, put up your weapons.’ None dared defy the order. Dorn filled the chamber with the great weight of his presence, his aura the very echo of the mailed fist upon his ornate armour. Flanked by his huscarls, the primarch of the Imperial Fists threw his stormy gaze across the psykers and watched them each sink to one knee, bowing their heads. Massak followed suit, as did the grey-armoured intruder. Dorn was a son of the Emperor, a walking fortress of a man more invincible and unyielding than any construct of stone and steel. Few could have had the courage to meet his gaze without flinching, but to Massak’s surprise the veteran warrior did so. ‘Well met, Lord Dorn,’ he said. Something like surprise flickered briefly on the face of Massak’s master, before quickly vanishing again. ‘Nathaniel Garro. I wondered if our paths might cross again. Did he send you?’ The warrior named Garro looked away. ‘With all due respect, my lord… I believe you already know the answer to that question.’ Dorn’s eyes narrowed, and he gestured to one of his men. ‘Take him to my chambers. I will have words with this one.’ Massak watched Garro sheathe his blade without resistance and walk away in custody. As he crossed the Seclusium, he threw Massak a nod. A gesture of respect, perhaps? ‘Your isolation should not have been disturbed,’ Dorn said tersely. ‘Those responsible will be punished. Return to your meditation.’ He turned away towards the threshold of the hatchway. ‘The gate will be secured once more.’ ‘Master?’ The Librarian spoke before he could stop himself. Dorn halted but did not turn back to face him. ‘My lord, before you leave us, if I might ask of you…’ He mustered his will to put forward the words. ‘How goes the Great Crusade?’ The primarch was silent for a long moment. The question – not what he had uttered but the true question – hung unspoken in the air between them. When may we return to our Legion? Dorn’s tone became grim. ‘Matters have become complicated. It is a crusade no longer. It is a war now. A war of brutal dimension and great sorrow.’ Massak drew himself up to attention. ‘We stand ready to serve.’ When his gene-father replied, the psyker heard sadness in the words. ‘I know you do, my son. I know.’ Garro looked around, taking in the scope of the primarch’s sanctorum. Little had changed since his last visit to this chamber, other than a new profusion of documents, pict-slates and data charts ordered in neat piles across one great chart table. The matters of the Order of Fortification presented for Dorn’s guidance were many and complex. The ornate chambers, atop the tallest of the Phalanx’s towers, commanded an impressive view of the star fortress. The wide, oval space seemed now like an arena, and Garro felt like a sacrifice sent to perish upon its azure floor. He tensed as he sensed a presence behind him. ‘Do you recall what happened the last time we stood together in this room?’ Dorn’s voice was deep and resonant, like a faraway storm. ‘I watched the noble Eisenstein meet its end.’ Garro felt an unexpected pang of guilt at the memory of the steadfast ship and its destruction. ‘After that.’ The warrior stiffened. It had been here that he had first revealed to Rogal Dorn the facts of Horus Lupercal’s betrayal. Dorn’s reaction had been that of any loving brother: first denial and then great anger, severe enough that Garro had feared for his life. Considering his next words carefully, he turned to face the primarch. ‘I brought you a hard truth. The burden of my duty.’ ‘As I recall, you asked me if I was blind. And perhaps I was. But no longer. I see clearly now – I must so that my duty can be completed. The Emperor has charged me with the defence of Terra and command of all His armies. That is my burden. I am now Warmaster in all but name.’ ‘Much has changed for both of us, my lord.’ Dorn loomed over him, his eyes glittering like shards of flint. ‘I know what you are, Garro. I know of Malcador’s plans and his secret endeavours. I know that you and that old wolf Iacton Qruze are among his agents. The Sigillite uses you to gather materiel and to recruit men, many of them psykers, for reasons as yet unrevealed. And all of it in apparent defiance of the Emperor’s commands.’ The primarch’s heavy gauntlets closed into fists. ‘That ghost-armour you wear, with Malcador’s brand upon your shoulder, it may give you leave to go where you wish elsewhere in the Imperium, but not here! The Phalanx belongs to my Legion. You do not come to my domain in stealth and expect no censure. You will explain yourself to me.’ He raised his hand to point at Garro. ‘Or this time, I will not hold back when I strike you.’ There was only truth in the threat, and all too clearly Garro recalled the grievous pain that had shocked through him when Dorn had lashed out at him once before. He still had the scars from the day. But still, the primarch’s order was one he could not readily obey. ‘I mean no disrespect, my lord. But my mission cannot be revealed. Even to you.’ ‘You owe your life to me, Garro.’ Dorn’s fury seethed beneath the words. ‘It was the Imperial Fists that rescued you and your men from deep space. You were adrift and facing certain death. Have you forgotten that so readily?’ ‘I forget nothing, my lord. True enough, I know the full weight of the debt I owe you, but my duty to the Sigillite is greater still.’ Dorn’s eyes narrowed menacingly. ‘What duty can require you to steal aboard my ship like a thief, break my commands and disturb those whom I hold in isolation? We have already recovered your shuttle-pod, Garro. How were you going to escape? What did you want with the Librarians? You will answer me!’ Garro breathed deeply, steeling his courage to openly defy the primarch. ‘I regret that I cannot, my lord.’ For a long moment, Garro feared that Dorn would make good on his threat and knock him to the deck. But then the primarch stepped back, his aloof rage simmering. ‘I do not accept your refusal. You will remain a prisoner aboard the Phalanx until such time as you decide to provide me with the answers I have requested. Here you will stay, if need be until the stars themselves burn cold.’ Before the Master of the Fists could summon his guards to escort him away, the sanctorum’s doors opened of their own accord and Garro saw the psyker he had spoken with standing there, held back by the praetorians. ‘Lord Dorn, forgive my intrusion, but I must speak with you!’ ‘Brother Massak.’ Dorn dismissed him with a glance. ‘I did not grant you permission to leave the Seclusium. Return there at once.’ ‘I shall,’ said Massak, ‘but first I must beg this audience with you.’ He shot a look at Garro. ‘I know why he is here.’ Dorn waved a hand, and his praetorians stood aside to let Massak enter. The primarch’s narrow gaze turned its full, withering power on his son. ‘Explain yourself.’ ‘I can sense the truth he is hiding,’ insisted the Librarian. ‘It lurks beneath the surface of his thoughts. With your permission, I can reveal it.’ The warrior-lord’s huge arms folded across his golden chestplate. ‘Do you dare suggest the use of psychic power? You know better than any Imperial Fist that my father forbids it!’ But even as he said the words, Garro saw the conflict in Dorn’s eyes, the same questions he himself had wrestled with. Even as Dorn knew he was honour-bound to follow the Emperor’s edict, he could never ignore the great value of a psyker as a weapon of war in the arsenal of the Legions. Massak shook his head. ‘He can hide nothing from me, master. If only you will allow me to put Garro to the question. I swear to you I will not defy the Decree of Nikaea.’ ‘But you will. Even the smallest exercise of warp-born power is defiance. It opens the door to misuse, just as my brother Magnus misused it.’ Dorn scowled. ‘No. The Imperial Fists are loyal to the Emperor in all things. My father’s decision is the final word.’ In that moment, Garro saw an opportunity and took it. ‘If I may speak… I would offer a compromise, Lord Dorn.’ The primarch eyed Garro. ‘I will hear you out.’ ‘Your Librarian’s instincts are strong,’ Garro went on, ‘and they are correct. I came here for him.’ He pointed at the psyker. ‘I will reveal Malcador’s orders, but to Brother Massak and no other. He will know if I am truthful.’ Dorn studied him, his expression impassive. ‘And if I refuse?’ Garro managed a rueful smile. ‘Then, my lord, as you say, you will have my company until the stars burn cold.’ The interrogation chamber on the Phalanx’s dungeon decks was no larger than the interior of an armoured transport. Dull, featureless metal walls rose up to a ceiling studded with lumen orbs, and a sluice-grate in the centre of the floor betrayed the spilling of blood that had often occurred there. A heavy hatch slid closed on oiled pistons, the thud of magnetic locks sounding as it sealed them off from the rest of the vessel. Garro and Massak stood opposite one another across the empty room. The former captain was as still as a statue. The Imperial Fist studied him, watching his face for the first sign of some telltale micro-expression that might reveal Garro’s true intentions. ‘Are we being monitored?’ he asked. ‘No,’ said Massak. ‘Even the primarch cannot hear us in this place. Whatever you have to say to me, it shall be between us alone.’ He took a breath, preparing himself for what would come next, reaching for a point of calm neutrality in his thoughts. Garro nodded. ‘Tell me about the dreams, Massak.’ Of all the words he had thought to hear, the Librarian had not expected those. Massak had told no one of the disquieting images that had visited his meditating mind in recent weeks, their appearance growing more frequent with each passing day. ‘I do not dream.’ The lie came too easily to him, and Garro saw it immediately. ‘We all do, kinsman. Perhaps not in the way that common men think of it, but we dream. And you, with your abilities… You dream very differently indeed. You haven’t spoken of it, have you?’ For a moment, Massak considered prolonging his denials, then thought better of it. They were truly alone here, and in that there was a kind of liberation. ‘I have not,’ he admitted. ‘Yet the Sigillite knows.’ It troubled Massak greatly to see that his thoughts were open to others, but then Malcador was the greatest living psyker in the galaxy, after the Emperor of Mankind, and it was said that any mind was as an open book to him. ‘I said nothing because I feared my brothers would not understand.’ He took a breath. ‘I have dreamed of the skies above Terra filled with black warships, a baleful eye emblazoned upon them. I dream of hordes of malformed horrors in league with traitors, laying waste to the planet. Atrocities. Creatures the like of which have never been seen before in mortal realms.’ ‘Daemons?’ Garro offered the word without weight, but Massak instinctively knew that it carried grave meaning for the warrior. ‘That name is good enough,’ he said. Garro nodded. ‘They are no mere fancy, no trick of the mind. They are real.’ With blunt, steady words, he told the Librarian of the insurrection spreading under Horus’ hand. He revealed the whole bloody truth of it to him, as at first shock, then revulsion and finally fury warred across Massak’s face as he struggled to take it all in. ‘I have fought these creatures,’ Garro concluded. ‘I have seen them born from the flesh of the dead. Your visions are–’ ‘The future, then?’ ‘A possibility,’ he corrected. ‘What you have seen is why I am here.’ Garro took a step closer, his manner sobering. ‘The Sigillite sent me to retrieve you. Malcador seeks men of strength and honour for an endeavour that will defend the Imperium against such threats for millennia to come. He chose you, Massak. He chose you for a duty that goes beyond your loyalty to Rogal Dorn and the Imperial Fists.’ The grey warrior offered his gauntleted hand. ‘Come with me, kinsman. Your seclusion will be at an end. Your power will be returned to you.’ Brother Massak looked down at Garro’s outstretched hand. He knew what the offer meant. A chance to end his isolation, to be useful again. To fight for the Imperium. But he shook his head, turning away. ‘No. I refuse. Tell the Regent of Terra that I must decline his offer. I am an Imperial Fist, a son of Dorn, and subject to my primarch’s command over all else. I will not leave my Legion.’ Garro’s hand did not drop. ‘You realise what you are rejecting, Massak? If you do not come with me, Lord Dorn will return you to the isolation of the Seclusium. You will be a prisoner there, an outcast among your own Legion. You may never have another chance to be freed from the Decree of Nikaea.’ ‘That may be so,’ Massak told Garro, a resolute cast rising in him. ‘We are iron and stone, captain. We do as our primarch commands us. I do not seek to be free of the Emperor’s mandate. I embrace it. I am of the Seventh Legion, and we obey.’ ‘Even if the order brings you to doubt?’ For a moment, it seemed as if Garro’s question were directed towards himself and not Massak. The Librarian drew up to attention, his gaze unwavering. ‘If Dorn speaks the words, then there is no doubt. My visions…’ He hesitated, framing his words. ‘If what you say is true, Garro, if the Warmaster has betrayed us, if he makes pacts with monsters, then I must stand side by side with my primarch and my battle-brothers, and meet this treachery head-on.’ ‘When the time comes, that may not be enough to stop him.’ ‘I have faith that it will.’ Massak’s reply seemed to strike a chord with the warrior, and at length, Garro nodded in reluctant acceptance. ‘I understand. I too know the burden of duty all too well. I will see your words carried back to Malcador. He will not be pleased, but I will make him appreciate your choice.’ Garro saluted Massak with the sign of the aquila and strode towards the hatch, but he held firm, musing upon his words. ‘Farewell, Massak,’ Garro added, as the heavy door hissed open once more. ‘I hope one day I will have the honour of fighting the enemy at your side.’ Unbidden, a dark mood settled on the Librarian, and the memory of stark, dreamlike images clouded his thoughts. ‘That day... it will come sooner than we expect,’ he said, the words coming from nowhere. ‘Yes, it would indeed.’ Rogal Dorn stood waiting for Garro in his sanctorum, staring out of the great gallery windows towards the distant sphere of Terra. The primarch’s praetorians escorted him into the chamber, before executing a flawless about-turn and retreating to the corridor beyond. ‘An unscheduled transport vessel flying the colours of the Regent’s Court is approaching the Phalanx, requesting permission to land,’ said Dorn, when they were alone. ‘Your passage home, I imagine. It seems that the Sigillite is always watching.’ ‘That has been my experience, lord.’ The primarch spared him a glance. ‘I am within my rights to kill you, Garro. This is a time of war, and deeds done in shadows are dealt with in most harsh a manner. Is it not enough that we must guard against assassins and spies from the traitors? Must I protect myself from my own side as well?’ ‘I would not presume to say.’ Dorn’s expression shifted. ‘Of course not. You are a loyal son of the Imperium. My issue is with he who gives your orders. Your only error is that your loyalty may be misplaced. Or misused.’ At last Dorn turned to look directly at him, starlight throwing the hard lines of his face into stark relief. ‘My sons make me proud. Tell me, are you proud of your duties, Nathaniel? Does it elevate your spirit to be a soldier in a silent war, out in the darkness chasing deeds of questionable provenance?’ ‘I do… what must be done.’ Garro faltered on the words, as Dorn’s pitiless gaze bored into him. ‘Malcador and I…’ Dorn paused, his gaze turning inwards. ‘We want the same things. In a way, we fight the same battles and we prepare the same ground. But his methods! I cannot countenance them. And it saddens me to see a warrior of your calibre at his side. He will put you on a certain path, captain, if you allow it. And it will lead you to ruin, to the fulfilment of his need and no other.’ ‘The Sigillite serves the Imperium,’ said Garro, echoing words that Malcador himself had once uttered. ‘But does he serve the Emperor?’ said Dorn. Garro’s throat felt arid. ‘I am clear-eyed in this. I know the dimensions of the bargain I have struck.’ ‘Do you?’ Dorn’s simple question thundered through the canyons of Garro’s soul. Did he really understand? The uncertainties that had been building since Calth and the incident in the Kuiper Belt could not be ignored. It was as if the primarch’s words had removed a veil from Garro’s gaze and forced him to see them, straight on and without obfuscation. ‘Question yourself, Nathaniel,’ Dorn went on. ‘Question him. Ask why he keeps so much from you.’ A chill crept through Garro’s bones. ‘What do you mean, lord?’ ‘I will show you.’ Dorn walked to the chart table and picked out a particular data tablet. ‘Do you know where your brothers are, Nathaniel? Not the traitors. I speak of the ones who risked all to come with you.’ ‘The Seventy?’ He was describing Garro’s own command cadre, the warriors who had joined him in his desperate race to warn Terra of Horus’ betrayal at Isstvan V. ‘They remain at the Emperor’s pleasure in the Somnus Citadel on Luna, in the care of the Silent Sisterhood.’ Dorn shook his head. ‘Not all of them.’ He handed the tablet over, and Garro scanned the words there, his eyes widening as he read on. ‘What is this?’ ‘Intelligence comes to the Imperial Fists as we fortify and prepare. I had considered directing my sons to investigate the report you have in your hand. But now you are here, and perhaps it is better that you look into the matter personally.’ Dorn studied him for a moment. ‘And when you do, ask yourself why Malcador did not speak to you of it.’ The primarch walked away, towards the towering windows looking out onto the blackness of space. When he spoke again, it was with stern, unbending conviction, his brief flash of liberality extinguished. ‘Do not test the tolerance of the Imperial Fists again. That warning is to you and to Malcador. Make it clear to him.’ He waved him away. ‘You are dismissed, Captain Garro. Take what I have given you and leave.’ Garro bowed, his thoughts churning, but still he hesitated a moment longer. He could not leave without one more thing said. ‘Lord Dorn… Your warrior, Massak. He has great insight that goes unheeded in his confinement. There will come a time when you will have use for him and his fellow Librarians once again.’ ‘I value Massak’s insight more than you can know.’ Dorn spoke over him. ‘The Sigillite believes I act out of ignorance and fear. He does not understand. The Librarians are precisely where they need to be.’ Garro’s brow creased. ‘Locked in a vault, in the bowels of your fortress? They mark time like condemned men waiting for the scaffold.’ ‘No,’ Dorn corrected. ‘They stand ready. Close at hand, in the heart of my Legion. I will choose the right moment, Death Guard. Not you. Not Malcador.’ ‘You ask much of them, my lord.’ The father of the Imperial Fists nodded grimly. ‘These times ask much of us all.’