The machine priest slid through the doorway and Ravachol hesitated at the edge of the priest's vestry, unsure as to the purpose of the energy field.
'Fear not,' said the priest, again understanding his thoughts, and Ravachol wondered what machine senses he possessed that blessed him with such intuition. 'The Confessor Field is quite safe. It isolates us from the rest of the temple. We take the sanctity of the confessional very seriously and none beyond this field can hear or monitor what passes between us.'
Ravachol nodded and ordered his servitors to wait outside before passing through the Confessor Field, feeling no more than a gentle tingle as he entered the vestry. Inside, the priest's chambers were devoid of ornamentation, aside from a single metal stool in the centre of the room. The walls were bare, save for an input/output port and a single data reader set in a dimly glowing recess.
He sat on the stool, feeling exposed as the priest began to circle the room, the glowing sphere in the centre of his stone face rippling with traceries of light.
'You may begin,' said the priest.
And so Ravachol began to tell of his time working for Adept Chrom and his secondment to the Kaban Project, his expertise with robotic doctrina wafers and his realisation that the Kaban machine's sentience was in violation of the Emperor's laws.
To his credit, the priest did not openly scoff at the idea of an adept of Chrom's stature disobeying the Emperor, but Ravachol could see that he was sceptical, despite his absence of human features. Ravachol then spoke of his confrontation with the Mechanicum Protectors and how the Kaban machine had terminated them without orders from a human being.
The machine priest listened to him tell of his flight across the Martian surface and his eventual arrival at the Basilica of the Blessed Algorithm.
'What should I do?' asked Ravachol when he had finished.
'Your story is an interesting one,' said the priest, 'and presents us with a question that has long vexed the Mechanicum since its earliest days. Your level of flesh degradation tells me you were not born when the Emperor made his peace with Mars, were you?'
'No,' said Ravachol, 'I was born a century ago in the Mondus Terawatt region.'
'Then you will know of the Emperor's coming to Mars, but not the substance of it,' said the priest, lifting a coil of silver cable from beneath his flowing robes and plugging it into the wall's output socket. The sphere on his black, equine head flickered and pulsed as information flowed from the temple and into his memory.
'The Emperor came to Terra as he began to formulate the plans for his Great Crusade. Our world and that of Terra had long been the bitterest of foes, for the ignorant tribes of the blue planet sat upon the ruins of ancient technologies they knew nothing about and could never hope to use. The Mechanicum had managed to weather the rampant chaos of Old Night and our leaders knew that to restore Humanity to its rightful place as masters of the galaxy, we would need the technology of ancient Earth.'
'I know this,' interrupted Ravachol. 'My history upload told me of this period.'
'You know nothing!' snapped the priest, and Ravachol quailed before his anger. 'You have had dates and facts stamped into your cerebral cortex, but I lived through those days. I stood on the tallest peak of the Olympus Mons and watched as the Emperor set foot on Martian soil, the first Terran to do so in five thousand years. Can you imagine such a span of time, Adept Ravachol? Can you even begin to comprehend the secrets that can be lost and regained in that time?'
'No,' said Ravachol.
'No,' agreed the priest. 'I remember it well, the Emperor kneeling before the Fabricator General. As they exchanged greetings, I recognised a kindred spirit in the Emperor, even though he was twelve hundred and thirty six metres away. I saw that he was a man of science, a man who solved problems with empirical evidence and who had unlocked the secrets of machines that had eluded the greatest geniuses of Mars for centuries. We, the masters of technology, were humbled by the discoveries this Terran had made and yet he was gracious in his mastery, granting us access to the forgotten vaults of Terra and offering us an end to the war between our worlds. A union of Terra and Mars, the head of the Emperor's eagle gaining a twin in his heraldry'
The priest unplugged himself from the wall and slid across the floor to Ravachol. 'The Emperor shared his vision of a galaxy for humanity to inherit, but for such a grand dream to become reality, he needed weapons, supplies, tanks, ammunition and all that the Mechanicum could provide. He promised to protect Mars and respect our sovereignty of the forge worlds, even going so far as to grant us the exclusive services of six of the great Navigator houses to once again despatch our Explorator Fleets. An unprecedented era of cooperation with Terra followed and when the Emperor set out to prosecute his great war of conquest, it did not take long for some of the tech-priests to equate the arrival of the Emperor as the fulfilment of the ancient prophecies of the coming of the Machine God.'
'All hail the Omnissiah,' whispered Ravachol.
'Indeed,' nodded the priest. 'You believe as I do, but many others did not. They questioned such beliefs and claimed that such philosophies were blasphemous, that the Machine God still slept far beneath the surface of Mars.'
'The Noctis Labyrinthus...' said Ravachol.
'Yes, the Noctis Labyrinthus, where some say the Machine God lies dreaming his silver dreams that filter through the red sand to us on the surface. Such divisions within our order are becoming ever more pronounced, Adept Ravachol, and I fear that what you have discovered will only lead to further division between those that support the Emperor and those that seek to follow the rumours that the Warmaster has made entreaties to senior adepts - promising them access to lost STC systems and permission to research the dark technologies.'
'Then— what should I do?' begged Ravachol. 'Such lofty designs are beyond me!'
The priest placed a cold, metallic hand on Ravachol's shoulder and said, 'If your belief in the Emperor is true then you must seek out a senior adept who shares your beliefs in the danger of the Kaban project. Claim the ancient right of Sanctuary within his temple and while you are protected by his patronage none may enter his temple that mean you harm. Know you of such an adept?'
'I do,' nodded Ravachol. 'My former master, Adept Urtzi Malevolus.'
'Then seek him out, adept,' said the priest. 'And may the Omnissiah watch over you.'
Leaving the temple, Ravachol felt a curious lightness upon him. The priest had offered him a chance to rest, but he had wanted to press on without delay. He had, however, accepted nutrients and water, the use of a wheeled transport-skiff to hasten his journey to the forge temple of Urtzi Malevolus, which lay three hundred and nine kilometres to the east of the basilica.
The battle servitors sat immobile in the back of the skiff as Ravachol guided it expertly through the press of bodies and more outlandish vehicles that thronged the metalled roads of Mars. Avoiding collisions was easy, for the skiff broadcast a continuous electronic bow wave that registered against anyone in its way, gently guiding their steps or course away from its path and thus Ravachol was able to make steady progress through the Martian landscape.
The towering basilica receded behind him as travelled deeper into the fiery skylines that marked the territories of Adept Malevolus. His forges specialised in the manufacture of arms and armour for the Astartes, and forges hammered day and night to fashion the Mark IV battle plate of the Space Marines and the bolters by which they cleansed the stars of the enemies of mankind.
The sky above darkened as Ravachol travelled onwards, dark smudges of smoke staining the sky, and the temples that crowded in to either side of him appeared dark and threatening, their soot-stained flanks black and brooding. Huge ore carriers thundered alongside him and the beat of powerful forges filled the air with the booming, industrial peals of war.
Lightning danced between the tall towers of Mars and filled the red and yellow sky with a creeping fear of potential, the sensation of a storm about to break.
Though it never rained on Mars, Ravachol knew that this philosophical storm would wash all division from the red planet in a tide of blood.
He could see it clearly; understanding that his whole life was now pointed in one direction, and that there had never been a choice for him.
He was the Emperor's lonely man, doing what was right for that reason alone.
The Basilica of the Blessed Algorithm never closed its doors and none were forbidden the succour granted by the priests of the machine. The priest that had spoken to Ravachol knelt before his data terminal, letting the blessed music of the planet wash through him. Its subtle rhythms filled him and he basked in the harmonics of devices talking to one another from opposite sides of the planet.
The visit of the young adept had troubled him more than he like to admit and was another example of how far the Mechanicum had fallen since the glory days of the Emperor's coming. As soon as Ravachol had left, the priest had plugged himself into the temple and had spent these moments of privacy in commune with the machines of Mars.
The first indication that something was amiss was a gradual dampening of the sounds, as though, one by one, the devices of Mars were falling silent. Puzzled, he ran a self-diagnostic test, finding to his alarm that several of his primary interface systems appeared to be offline.
The glow from his sensory dome intensified and he cast a 360° sweep of his surroundings.
Behind him was a figure clad in a form-fitting bodyglove of deep red. Though the priest had long since left much of his flesh upon the surgical tables, he recalled enough to know that this was a female of the species. Two pistols hung from her slender hips, but, more horrifyingly, she held a bundle of wires in one hand and a series of delicate tools in the other.
The priest looked down at his robes, finding a wide square cut in the fabric and a host of neatly severed wires protruding from the framework of his body.
'Who are you?' he said, relieved to find that his vocabulator still functioned.
'I am Remiare,' said the figure. 'Where is Adept Ravachol?'
'Who?' said the priest, though he knew such an act of defiance was futile. Amongst the adepts of Mars, the name Remiare was well known and he understood with terrible clarity that his doom was at hand.
The tech-priest assassin smiled as she saw the effect her name had and cocked her head to one side. She tapped the enlarged portion of her skull where a multitude of sensor equipment was grafted to her death mask face and said, 'I have followed his information trail here, so do not insult me by denying you know him. Tell me where he is now'
The priest looked towards the vestry doorway, praying that one of his fellow priests would find reason to come this way or hear the silent call for aid he was eyen now broadcasting.
The assassin dropped the parts she had taken from his innards and shook her head. She waved a finger at him as though scolding a child and knelt before him.
'This is a very private vestry,' she said, lifting the delicate tools she held. 'And your Confessor Field should ensure we are not interrupted.'
'Why are you doing this?' asked the priest. 'Tell me that at least.'
'You have become an enemy of my employers.'