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'It begins… "Gregor, my friend. I have been kept up to date with the data concerning your quarry. It gives me something to do, these

winter afternoons. I agree that Maginor may be the seat of the evil, and certainly requires the attention of the Inquisition. But, if you'll

pardon me, I suggest that Maginor be left to the Ordos Niaides. Using pointers Aemos gave me, I have assessed the following. My full

findings are on the data-files attached below, but in short, I think you should be looking at Farness Beta. Quixos's fascination with the

pylons of Cadia made me think, you see.

'"See below, that I have traced massive stonecutting orders to the limit-world of Serebos, which lies galactically south of Terra. The

masonic guilds of Serebos are famously secretive about their contracts. They provide an inert, obsidian-like black glass-stone called

serebite, a beautiful substance that is in high demand right across the Imperium. Serebite is, as far as reckoning goes, as close to the

material used on Cadia for the pylons as it is possible to get. As I have said, the masonic guilds are close about their contracts, but

there is little hiding the transportation of a massive copy of one of those pylons by shipping guild bulk-lifter. Three-quarters of a

kilometre long and a quarter square! Quixos has ordered the manufacture of a perfect copy of the Cadian pylons, and has had it

shipped to Farness Beta."'

Bequin paused and looked up at us.

'"If you've ever trusted my advice, trust this now,"' she continued. '"Quixos is on Farness. And if you're going to stop him, it must be

now. Your devoted friend and pupil. Gideon."'

Gideon. Gideon Ravenor. Crippled as he was, he had found this insight, which totally altered our plan of attack. I was speechless. I

felt almost tearful.

'There is a postscript,' said Bequin. 'He writes, "The daemonhosts will be your foullest problem. I know you are prepared, but I send

you these. One for each of the twenty you have summoned."'

Bequin took off her half-moon glasses and rose. Nayl brought in a crate and set it down on the table. Inside were twenty scrolls of

daemonic protection, each sealed inside a blessed tube of green marble, and twenty consecrated gold amulets of the God-Emperor as a

skeletal relic. It was so typical of Ravenor to attend to such details. Nayl handed them out, a heavy scroll tube and an amulet to each of

us.

'I'm convinced,' Ricci said, getting to his feet and hanging the amulet around his neck so that it hung between the purity seals of his

armour.

'I am glad. Grumman?'

'I'm with you,' said the Cadian.

'A toast,' I said, raising my glass. 'To this cell of five. And to the others who have assisted in getting us this far.' Bequin, Aemos, Nayl,

Fischig and Inshabel also saluted with their glasses.

'To Farness Beta. To the end of Quixos.'

'The five inquisitors in the drafty keep clinked glasses.

'Farness Beta,' said Ricci. 'Remind me. Where is that?'

'In the throat of the Cadian Gate,' said Grumman. 'Right on the edge of the Eye of Terror.'

TWENTY-TWO

SARNESS BETA.

CHERUBAEL AND PROPHANITI.

QUIXOS.

IT WAS EARLY in 343.M41 before we reached Farness Beta. By then, war was bifurcating the Cadia subsector, and armies of sheer

horror were spewing out of the Eye of Terror. Like a whirlpool of fire, the Eye dominated the skies of most gate-worlds, distended and

angry, flaring more savagely than at any time in living memory. Every flash and pulse of its maelstrom was another warp hole

opening, another flotilla of death unleashed. That spring was known as the Staunch Holding of the Cadian Gate, and entered the

history books, as every scholar knows.

During the first months of 343, the Cadians saw off the greatest incursion of Chaos suffered in three hundred years.

It was almost as if the Archenemy knew something.

THE ESSENE BROUGHT me to Farness champing and eager to get on. We were escorted through the immaterium by two other ships:

Ricci's stately steeple of a cruiser and Voke's ancient porcupine of a warship. Endor and Grumman, along with their retinue bands,

travelled aboard the Essene with me. It had been a long time since the Essene had carried so many people.

The Imperial Navy taskforce, a ten-ship squadron seconded from Battle-fleet Scarus for special operations under the remit of the

Battlefleet Disciplinary Detachment, was waiting for us.

THE TASKFORCE HAD already been on station for a fortnight, and its reconnaissance and intelligence operations had comprehensively

prepared the ground for us.

'We have a confirmed location for Pariah,' Lord Procurator Olm Madorthene told me over a vox-pict link from his own ship.

Pariah was the operational word we had set for Quixos. 'Or at least his seat of activity, anyway. I'm relaying the data to you now. Site

A is what you're looking for.'

I turned from my seat on the Essene s elegant bridge and Maxilla nodded to one of his beautiful servitors. The map display flashed up

on the secondary screen of my console.

'I have it,' I said, turning back to look at Madorthene's slightly fuzzy image on the main bridge display.

'It's a table mountain called Ferell Sidor, literally the "altar of the sun", up in one of the remote northern wards of Hengav province.

Provincial government has declared the whole ward a Sacred Territory because the area is riddled with Second Dynasty tholos tombs.

Access is supposed to be restricted to the Ecclesiarchy, the Farnessi royal families and sanctioned archaeologists. We believe Pariah

obtained licenses to excavate on Ferell Sidor about six years ago, in the guise of an archaeological mission from the Universitariate of

Avellorn. The local authorities are supposed to monitor such missions, but frankly they have no idea what he's up to there. If you look

at the detail map…'

'Yes, got it.'

'You can see the extent of the workings. Pariah's constructed a small town up there, alongside the pit.'

'The excavation is considerable…'

'We think that's where he's buried or sited this facsimile pylon. It's difficult to get a clear view. We didn't want to get too close and tip

him off.'

I rose from my bridge throne and stood facing the enormous image of the lord procurator's face. 'You're set?'

'Absolutely. You have a copy of my assault strategy there. Make any amendments you like.'

There was no need. Madorthene's plan was economical and efficient. Officially, this was an operation by the Battlefleet Disciplinary

Detachment, prosecuting leads gathered during the inquest into the Thracian Atrocity. Lord Procurator Madorthene had entered into a

co-operative pact with Commodus Voke to execute the plan. In reality, his pact was secretly with me. Olm was the only non-inquisitor

I had written to.

We encrypted the call-signs and command authorities for the operation, agreed the zero-hour, and wished each other luck.

'The Emperor protects, Gregor,' he said.

'I hope so, Olm,' I replied.

TWO HOURS BEFORE sunrise the next day, five hundred Imperial Guard from the Fifty-First Thracian moved in towards Ferell Sidor -

Site A – from covert forward assembly points in the surrounding hills where they had been dropped by troop ships the day before.

They advanced, silently, in three prongs, the first securing the single trackway that gave land-vehicle access to the table mountain.

When all three were in position, we woke Ferell Sidor up.

The frigates Zhikov and Fury of Spatian bombarded the mountain for six minutes, raising a ball of fire that lit the landscape as if the

sun had come up early. In its afterglow, thirty Marauder bombers overflew Site A at low level and delivered thirty thousand kilos of

high explosives.

Another false dawn.

Despite this punishing overture, when the ground troops went in eight minutes after the last bomb, resistance was furious. Madorthene

had feared that the best part of Quixos's strength lay underground, wormed inside the mountain, resistant to the worst aerial assaults.

In the blazing rains of the excavation township, the Thracian troops found themselves engaging fanatical and well-armed cultists.

Most wore the insignia and colours of the Mystic Path. Many were mutants. Initial reports estimated over eight hundred enemy

warriors. Madorthene committed the taskforce reserve: another seven hundred Thracian assault soldiers.

BY THEN, WE were already deploying in the second wave. Medea landed Inshabel and myself on the edge of the strike zone, along with

Endor and his two weapon-servitors. Ricci's shielded pinnace settled in close by, kicking up dust and delivering him and Commodus

Voke, along with a bodyguard of twenty inquisitorial troops. Grumman, using a Navy drop-ship loaned by Madorthene, was the last to

make groundfall, but the first to engage. Grumman's ten-man squad were all ex-Kasrkin specialists.

As we hurried forward through the backwashing smoke, our landing ships rising back into the pre-dawn sky behind us, there was a

tremor and a palpable upwelling of psychic force. Frighteningly powerful waves of psyker power erupted from the epicentre of Site A,

killing over thirty of the forward troops… and then suddenly cut off.

We had all anticipated Quixos would have vast psychic defences - he had, after all, been collecting psykers like Esarhaddon - and it

seemed likely that active psychic assaults would be a key element of his resistance, perhaps even more significant than his

daemonhosts. I had taken no chances.

In two groups, my entire Distaff of untouchables, some fifty individuals all told, had moved in alongside the first ground-troop

advances. Bequin, guarded by Nayl and twelve of my warrior staff, led one group, and Thula Surskova, protected by Fischig and a

dozen more fighters, led the other.

The Distaff had never been used on such a scale before, but it proved to be the weapon I had always suspected. The blankness they

generated contained and negated the engulfing psychic storm, effectively bottling it inside Site A and preventing it from threatening

our closing forces.

WITH INSHABEL, I moved underground, down the rock-cut steps into the inner sectors of Site A. For almost an hour we fought our way

through the smoked-swathed surface structures, a metre at a time. Now, with the sun rising, we found our first access point to the

lower levels: a stairwell exposed by a bomb crater.

The place was strewn with smouldering debris and a few unidentifiable bodies. In places, power cables were hanging, sparking, from

the rockcrete roof. We both wore motion trackers, and switched left and right, gunning down cultists as they appeared. My boltgun

was already running short of shells, and Inshabel was on to his second-to-last power cell. The level of resistance was unbelievable.

At a junction in the seemingly random jumble of tunnels, we encountered Endor. He had a couple of Thracian troopers and an

Inquisition guardsman with him, but he'd lost both of his slow-moving attack-servitors. I knew what he was thinking just by the look

in his eyes. We had come in strong and confident, but perhaps not strong enough. I thought I had anticipated the worst Quixos could

throw against us. Maybe I had underestimated him after all.

Ferocious bursts of shooting alerted us to a firefight in a larger chamber to the left. We arrived in time to meet four wounded, terrified

Thracian troopers fleeing towards us.

'Back! Go back!' they were screaming.

I pushed past them.

The chamber beyond was massive and half-filled with veiling smoke. Green, unnatural flames were licking up the walls. At the far

end, the already huge chamber seemed to open out into something much, much vaster.

But that was not what occupied my eyes.

Surrounded by over fifty bodies, most of them Imperial Guards, Commodus Voke was standing his ground against Prophaniti.

The old inquisitor was shuddering, his robes stiffening with psychic ice. Corposant fire glowed from his mouth and eyes. The

daemonhost, its cruel features just recognisable as a distortion of poor, lost Husmaan's face, hovered in front of Voke, struggling at an

invisible barrier of telekinetic wrath.

We ran forward, abruptly drawing fire from cultists spreading into the chamber from the right. The Thracian beside me bucked and

twitched as he was hit twice, and Inshabel cursed as he was winged.

Endor urged the remaining men to advance on his lead, and took the fight to the cultists, his laspistol blazing and his chainblade

swinging.

Voke was close to breaking. I could see him wavering under the immense pressure.

I bolstered my boltgun and stumbled across the bodies and debris to aid him, praying that my runestaff would do what it was supposed

to.

And a dizzying blast of white light and scourging heat blew me back through the air.

I TRIED TO get up, half-realising that I had been blown clean out of the chamber, through a flakboard partition into some kind of dank

chute. Invisible forces lifted me to my feet. Light bathed me.

Cherubael hovered before me.

'Gregor,' it said. 'You've come so far. I knew you had it in you.'

I held the runestaff in front of me. The green marble scroll of daemonic protection that Ravenor had sent had already been reduced to

a shattered remnant by the force of Cherubael's opening attack.

'I've waited for this moment for such a long time,' said the daemonhost. 'Remember on Eechan I said you'd have to make things up to

me? Well, this is the time. Now. This is the moment that everything's been about. The one I have seen coming since our paths first

crossed. Destinies… our destinies, intertwined, remember that?'

'How could I forget?' I spat. 'You claim to have been using me all along! Guiding me! Even protecting me! I watched you kill Lyko on

Eechan! So that I would live… for this moment? Why?'

Cherubael smiled. 'When the warp is in you as it is in me, you see time from all angles. You see what will be and what will come,

what someone here now will do in a century or two, what someone there has done a thousand years in the past. You see the