Mechanicum

She made her way along the length of the wall, seeing hundreds of pictures, all displaying elements of human bodies with glowing, colourful auras surrounding them. Like the first picture, each silhouette showed a loss in colour at one extremity, be it a leg, arm or a head.

'I don't like this,' said Zouche as he examined the machine. 'Reeks of dark technology. Forgotten science. Like the kind that almost destroyed mankind before Old Night.'

'You don't even know what this does,' said Caxton, stepping in front of the silver wheel.

'Don't stand there!' shouted Dalia, dropping the image she held.

'What? Why not?' asked Caxton. 'I don't think this machine's worked in centuries. There's nothing to worry about.'

'Ha!' said Severine. 'The last time you said that we almost died when that battle robot attacked the mag-lev.'

Caxton shook his head, but moved away from the strange machine, smiling at Zouche as the machinist examined what looked like a steel control panel with a number of gem-like buttons, a brass radial dial and a long lever.

'I think you're wrong about that, Caxton,' said Zouche. 'This panel hasn't got a spot of rust or dust on it. I think someone's used this machine quite recently.'

'And you would be right,' said a cracked voice, ancient and thick with age.

Dalia spun to see Rho-mu 31 with his weapon stave aimed at a hooded adept in dark robes emerging from the passageway at the far end of the chamber.

'Oh yes, you would be right,' continued the adept. 'Happy day that you come to me! I had all but given up hope of anyone ever arriving!'

'Who are you?' demanded the Protector, igniting the tip of his weapon stave as a hulking servitor emerged from the shadows to stand beside the adept. The servitor was bulky with augmetics, one arm replaced with a hissing, wheezing power claw, the other with an oversized chainblade.

The adept drew back his hood and Dalia gasped as she saw his gaunt features, wild eyes and thin scraps of bone-white hair. His flesh shone with mercurial light, as though glittering fire filled his veins instead of blood, and upon his forehead she saw a shining electoo of a diminishing spiral with a stylised set of wings to either side.

The mark of the Dragon.

'I know you,' she said. 'I dreamed of you.'

'The hooded man?' gasped Caxton. 'He's real?'

'Am I real?' asked the adept. 'Well, as real as any of you, though what constitutes reality in this polluted cesspool of psi-spoor we call a universe… well, a matter for some debate, yes?'

'Who are you?' repeated Rho-mu 31, taking a step towards the man.

'Who am I? Now there's a question. One might as well ask how many stars there are in the heavens, though that would have a definite answer. Or would it? Ah, it's been so long since I have seen them. Are they still there or have the others devoured them?'

'The stars?' asked Dalia.

'Of course the stars,' snapped the adept. 'Are they still there?'

'Yes, they're still there.'

'How many?'

'I don't know,' said Dalia. 'Millions, I think.'

'Millions she says,' laughed the adept. 'And not a second after she says she knows not.'

Rho-mu 31 stepped between Dalia and the cackling adept.

'I won't ask again,' said Rho-mu 31. 'Tell me your name.'

'My name,' said the adept, looking confused. 'Ah, but it's been so long since I needed one and it gets so hard to remember. I need no name, for my name is insignificant against the vast, echoing emptiness of the darkness, but men once called me Semyon.'

'And what are you doing here?' asked Dalia.

'Here?' cried Semyon, throwing his arms wide and spinning around like a lunatic. 'You have such a limited understanding of the material world, girl. Words like here and there have no meaning. The myriad dimensions of this material universe cannot be defined by so limited a thing as human language!'

Semyon stopped with his back to Dalia and looked over his shoulder, his face alight with the fire she had seen in Jonas Milus's eyes before his body had disintegrated.

'I am the Guardian of the Dragon!' said Semyon.

The sub-hives and manufacturing regions to the northwest of the Magma City lay in ruins. Kilometre-high hab blocks lay scattered across the burning container port like toppled anthills and smashed war engines burned where they had fallen. Bodies littered the ground and tanks lay on their backs or twisted onto their sides without turrets.

With the destruction of their scouting engines, the Titans of Legio Mortis had pulled back, unwilling to advance through such dense terrain and into the teeth of an unknown number of enemy engines.

Instead, they had settled for an intense bombardment from afar, each engine bracing itself with internal gyros and gravitational stabilisers as they locked out their weapon limbs and began to systematically pound the outer habs and work precincts of Koriel Zeth's domain, careful not to damage the forge.

That was to be captured intact.