Chapter 2 Divinus Prime, The Cronian Sector, Six weeks later.

Chapter Two

Divinus Prime, The Cronian Sector,

Six weeks later.

"You are reborn."

Prester Kohath reeled in the dark, shocked to realise that he was not alone. He stumbled over a hill of bones and peered into the smoke, twitching and muttering as he searched for the voice's owner. "Who's that? Who's there?"

Flames had painted everything red, ruins and corpses alike, and he felt as though he was slipping through the guts of a great beast. All around him the world was tearing itself apart, collapsing in a promethium storm of blood and fire. Valkyrie gunships screamed past like daemons, carving up the night with incendiaries and bolter fire, while the valley below sank under the weight of its numberless dead. Prester Kohath reached around in the piles of bodies, trembling as he prised a pistol from the fingers of a dead trooper. Such a soft voice should not have been audible over the pounding thud of the artillery. Warpcraft. He would taste it, oily and metallic on the night air. "What have I done?" he whispered. "Why did I leave? Why tonight?" He waved a gun at the distant battle lines and raised his voice, attempting to sound fierce. "I'm not alone. One call to those Guardsmen and -"

Something drifted through the darkness towards him.

"Wait!" He crouched and aimed "show yourself!"

There was no reply and Prester Kohath did not ask again.

Whatever madness was consuming Divinus Prime, it would not consume him. To die now, after finally seeing the truth would be too cruel a trick. He had to survive. Despite his trembling hands, he managed to unleash a blast of las-fire. It lit up the surrounding corpses and they seemed to dance, twitching in time with his clumsy shots.

The shadow fell away and Prester Kohath lowered his pistol, blinking in the afterglow, trying to see what he had killed.

"We are all reborn. With every new breath." The voice was closer now, coming from behind him. "The man who fired that gun is already gone, already a ghost."

Prester Kohath cursed and backed away, jabbing his pistol at the shadows.

"Every new thought remakes us. Every decision is a rebirth." There was a distant distracted tone to the voice, as though the speaker were merely thinking aloud. "There is always another chance."

Prester Kohath fired again, wildly this time, creating another tableau of blue-limned corpses. "Show yourself!" he yelled.

"Would you kill me," asked the disembodied voice, "Without even asking my name?" There was no anger, only mild surprise.

Prester Kohath spat another curse. The voice was directly above him now. He looked up and saw a deepening of the darkness, a shadow within shadows. It blocked the burning heavens as it fell towards him. Clumsy with panic, he backed away, tripping across the rubble as he fired again. Blue flame kicked from the muzzle, revealing a sight so disturbing that Prester Kohath howled.

The bloody ruins had spawned an avatar, a giant carved from the same crimson flesh – an ivory-faced daemon borne on death-black pinions.

Prester Kohath's shots where useless. Each blast ripples harmlessly across the flayed muscle and lit up the things grotesque face – a mask of cracked alabaster with eyes that made Prester Kohath cry out in shock. All the lunacy of Divinus Prime was in the ashen face, burning in an infernal gaze.

Prester Kohath collapsed. He tumbles against a shattered column, struck his head and slumped, insensate, in to a ditch.

When he came to the monster had its back to him. Dawn was approaching, and there was enough light for Prester Kohath to see his mistake – the flayed muscle was actually a suit of thick battleplate, intricately wrought and designed to resemble skinless flesh. The wings must have been a delusion brought on by his fear, but the stranger was a giant, seven or eight feet tall. At first he thought he might be looking at a mortal warrior. Then the light shifted across the ruing and passed through the giant's flesh. Kohath realised he was sitting with a ghost.

To Kohath's relief, the grim apparition did not turn to face him. It was crouched near a corpse, one of the dragoons from the capital. The poor soul's helmet had been torn open by shrapnel and the head was a misshapen mess. Something was crawling through the grey matter: an eager host of milk-white grubs.

The ghost was staring intently at this gruesome display and, despite his fear, Kohath felt a macabre desire to see what the spirit was doing. As he watched, the ghost removed one of its gauntlets and drew a series of arcane symbols on the dusty ground. Then it lifted a long ceremonial knife from its robes, sliced the palm of its hand open and made a fist. A quick torrent of blood rushed from between its fingers and pattered onto the symbols it had drawn. As it landed, the blood traced the shapes of the characters as if it were sentient, feeling its way through them. When the symbols had all been drawn, they flickered, as though particles of metallic dust were suspended in the liquid. The spirit whispered some unintelligible words and then pressed its bloody hand onto the crimson text. The letters bubbled and hissed at the contact, and when the ghost removed its hand the symbols were scorched into the ground. Kohath dragged his thoughts from the strange ritual, realising that, while the ghost was so fixated on its work, he had a chance to flee. Kohath lifted himself slowly into a crouching position and prepared to run.

"What do you see?" asked the spectre, nodding at the broken corpse of the soldier. The spirits voice was cold, inhuman.

Prester Kohath wanted to run, but as he looked at the corpse it reminded him of all the horrors he had seen over the last few months, all the bloodshed caused by a war that made no sense. Rage boiled through him, drawing out and unexpected reply.

"Pointless sacrifice."

Still the ghost did not turn. "Pointless? A strange choice of word, Prester Kohath. What could be more worthwhile than the fight for survival?" He picked up one of the wriggling grubs. "Even these lowly creatures understand that. And you and I understand far higher truths. Unto death we serve, Prester Kohath, unto death. As it has always been." The spirit paused, wiping the blood from its hand. "Or perhaps you've learned a new philosophy."

Prester Kohath's face flushed. "Survival? Is that what you see down there?" He waved at the massacre taking place beyond the ruins. The ghost turned to look, revealing a gaunt, bone-white profile.

Guardsmen of countless regiments where dying in the dark, blasting and hacking each other down in the flames. More pitiful still were the priests, Prester Kohath's own brethren, the Children of the vow. They where kneeling in prayer, holding up patens and censers as volleys of las-fire tore them apart.

The spirits face remained expressionless, driving Prester Kohath to an even greater rage. "How do you know my name, ghost?" he snapped, looking around for his pistol.

"Ghost."

To Prester Kohath's horror, the phantom turned to face him and he caught a brief, unbearable glimpse of its eyes.

"What do you see?" repeated the spirit, still holding the grub.

"Death," muttered Prester Kohath.

The ground shifted and hurled Prester Kohath forwards. He landed gasping just a few feet away from the ghost.

"Look harder?"

Prester Kohath looked back to his dying brethren instead, reaching out to them with a trembling hand.

His head jolted back against his will, forcing him to look at the grub. It was now sated and red, coiling and uncoiling between the ghost's fingers.

Kohath saw a flash of iridescence and looked closer. Slowly, the grub parted its flesh to reveal tiny, diaphanous wings.

"Death?" asked the ghost "Or transformation?"

There was doubt in the spirits voice. This was a genuine question.

Prester Kohath turned to look it in the eye. What he saw in those eyes finally broke his nerve. His screams rang out, even over the din of the battle, and when the echoes ceased he was on another world.

Meanwhile on Baal Mariah was worried about Mephiston as she hadn't heard from him for six weeks. For all she knew something bad could have happened to him that's when Gaius came to get her to help out with something.