Mechanicum

Beyond the archway lay Koriel Zeth's inner forge, and Dalia had never seen anything like it. Hewn from the bedrock of Mars and six hundred metres in diameter, the forge was a perfectly hemispherical cavern clad in silver metal. The curving walls were a latticework of coffers, each filled with a human being plugged with ribbed cables and copper wires.

'There's hundreds of them,' breathed Severine.

Dalia's skin crawled at the sight of so many people fixed into the very fabric of the walls and ceiling of the dome, knowing that Severine was wrong - there were thousands of people fitted into the alcoves.

The apex of the dome was a metallic disc that burned with light and from which crackling golden lines radiated around the chamber, like information ghosting along fibre-optic cables as they passed from coffer to coffer.

The fiery lines all eventually reached the ground, carried from the walls along the wires embedded in the marble flooring towards a figure who sat like a king upon a golden throne raised on a dais of polished black granite. Glittering silver devices with parabolic dishes projected from the cardinal points of the elliptical walls, all of which were aimed towards the convergence of energy at the raised throne.

It was towards this solitary figure that Zeth marched, flanked by Rho-mu 31 and followed by Dalia and her fellows. Dalia felt a crackling charge in the air, as though a powerful generator was pumping out megawatts of power, but she could see nothing in the chamber that would produce such an output.

For the forge of an adept as senior as Koriel Zeth, it was strangely empty, though what it contained was no less strange for that fact. As Dalia made her way to the centre of the chamber, she looked into the faces of the nearest figures encapsulated within the coffers and sealed in by glossy, translucent membranes.

For all intents and purposes, they were identical.

Thin and wasted, their muscles were stretched over their skeletons as though pulled too tightly across their bones. Clad in simple robes that might once have been green, the figures were held immobile by silver manacles and pipes that writhed with an undulating, peristaltic motion.

'Are they servitors?' asked Severine, her voice hushed.

'Course they are,' said Zouche, showing no such restraint in volume. 'What else would they be? Stands to reason, doesn't it?'

'I'm not sure,' whispered Mellicin.

'These aren't servitors,' said Dalia, now seeing what Mellicin had noticed.

One other feature unified the figures bound into the alcoves, a strip of white cloth bound over their sunken eye sockets.

'Then what are they?' demanded Zouche.

'They're psykers.'

1.06

Surrounded by the thousands of psykers, Dalia now understood the source of the voices she had heard during their descent to the chamber, the realisation making the sound swell within her skull. Still she could not make out the words or the sense, save that they were all directing their thoughts towards the individual enthroned at the centre of the chamber.

'Psykers,' hissed Zouche, placing a clenched fist over his heart with his forefinger and little finger extended.

'How is that going to help?' asked Mellicin.

'It wards off evil spirits,' explained Zouche.

'How does it do that?' asked Dalia. 'Really, I want to know.'

Zouche shrugged, his thick shoulders and stunted neck making the gesture encompass his whole upper body. 'I don't know, it just does.'

'Really, Zouche,' tutted Mellicin. 'I would have thought someone like you would be above such superstitions.'

The stunted man shook his head. 'It was all that saved my grandmother's life back on Terra when a blood-wytch came to feed on the children from our exclave. I wouldn't be here now if she'd thought as you do. I'll say no more, but it's your souls at risk here, not mine.'

'Whatever keeps you happy,' said Caxton, laughing and mimicking the gesture with exaggerated effect, though Dalia saw through his forced mirth. The young lad was genuinely unnerved by the psykers, as was the rest of the group.

Dalia was more curious than afraid, for she had never seen a psyker before, though she had, of course, heard many tales of their strange powers and infamous debaucheries. She suspected most of those were embellished far beyond any truth they might once have contained, but seeing so many of them gathered together made her flesh crawl in ways she had never experienced.

Just thinking about the psykers seemed to enhance her sensitivity to them, and it took an effort of will to force the tumult of distant voices from her head. Dalia took Caxton's hand as she climbed towards the seated figure, concentrating on following Zeth as the adept and Rho-mu 31 reached the top of the granite dais.

A golden throne stood on the dais, its occupant strapped in as securely as any of the individuals confined to the coffers, but where they were drawn and gaunt, this individual was healthy and serene.