Flights of spheres moved along with the Blackstone Fortress, and a slow warp current carried us forth like a fishing boat of my lost homeworld heading to the bay with an escort of cormorans. Strange colours gave way to misty nacre. Soft silvery light was coming from behind a wall of aether fog right ahead. More spheres slipped in and out through the fog, their only enigmatic word repeated in hundreds of whispering voices.

When I reached the bridge, the first I heard was the excited screeching of the Hrud. Led by Dawnspark, they had climbed up to the vault of the central pavilion. The spheres had gathered on the other side, rocking to the sounds of the aliens' eerie chant.

Wannabe-Omegon who had been hiding in the ship's bowels for so long we had almost forgotten about his very existence was sitting in the corner, fresh cracks on his oversized pauldrons. He had been the only one to avoid visiting the Exodite world, probably afraid for his secrets before the Seers.

Ulchabhan, his arms crossed, watched the smooth movements of the sphere, his aura showing astonished curiosity, so rare for his life-worn people. The Fortress, adrift in calmed aether, was getting closer to the fog. Scalaria got up from the navigation throne and stretched.

'The place beyond is pulling us like a magnet,' she said. 'So I can have a rest. Just can't wait to enter the tower.'

'Are these… the Umbrae?' I finally managed to remember the drawing of a similar floating sphere in the xenology manual.

'They can be dangerous but in other places,' said Fluffster who was recording the flight with his dataslate. 'We could only have reached the place in a mighty ship like this. Many a hapless trader or even Inquisitor perished in the troubled tides trying to find a safe passage to this hidden place. But the Blackstone Fortresses were designed to sail through the worst of storms.'

The dense fog enveloped the ship. White glow was still oozing through, and we were sailing through a sea of warm scattered light. Then the fog parted. Radiance flooded the pavilion.

Amid a shining nowhere, arches upon arches, windows upon windows, the biggest building I had ever seen grew out of bottomless depths beneath. The spectral tower's summit was lost in aether clouds hundreds of floors above us. Fleeting shapes flickered in lit windows, new whispering voices weaved into the chant of the ship's choir. One of larger windows opened, and a torrent of light burst out. It weaved into a transparent bridge over the abyss. The other end of the bridge was unfurling towards us until it set against one of the star rays.

Cypher nodded. 'The lord of the tower has granted his consent. Board the shuttles but keep in mind you shall not forget your prudence while seeking for answers in his chambers.'

Cypher had the shuttles parked before the lock-gate in the end of the ray. Only there I saw Fluffster checking the engines but he only waved his paw and leaned over his dataslate again when I greeted him.

'Are we supposed… to just walk out into the warp?' I paused before the gate ready to open.

'Here, it's mostly safe like in the old millennia,' said Cypher. 'The Umbrae guards will sense any danger before it can do us harm. Just step out and don't be afraid.'

A delicate aether breeze blew in, bringing strange smells of so long ago I barely recalled them. Sea salt, orange groves, mixed scents of incense and freshly baked bread in the convent halls. The bridge was but a stripe of flowing light under our feet. I closed my eyes and made a step. It felt like a clifftop footpath over the edge of a precipice. With my eyes still shut, I put my hand into the belt pouch. The shard had been left on board but I was sure it followed me like before. As always, my fingers slipped across its sharp angle but its psychic echo died out at once in the surrounding calm.

Imudon strode towards the tower with his hand on the hilt of his bolter. Stricken by the distress of his aura, I touched his gauntlet. 'The damn woods,' he grunted. 'Even the smell of leaves cannot drown out the reek of rotting blood.'

Aphedron and the Stray Cat had calmed down as they walked towards the shining gate, deep in their remembrances. The tower's radiance enveloped us all.

The salty wind of the old town that was no more. Sunlight filling the summer garden of a house burnt down long ago. Booze fumes and a choir of rowdy voices in an underhive bar. The warmth of a night in the owl. The taste of redcurrants in the peaceful countryside. The smell of earth, rain and bone-white roses of an alien world.

Then a wistful voice spoke within my mind through the whirlwind of memories that came down upon me. The voice I had heard in my dreams in the blackstone quarry of Auriglobus. 'THE LANDFILL OF OBSOLETE IDEAS AND CAST-OFF IMAGES FORGOTTEN BUT STILL LINGERING.'

Cypher stopped in the stream of light pouring out of the gate. 'The ways of my kinsmen all lead to your abode where you treasure dreams of yore, Keeper of memories. Let us learn what we should know in the end of days. Nothing has evaded the halls of your mind.' The Hrud gave out a simultaneous lengthy squeak.

Another cryptic phrase rustled. 'THE MASTERY OF BEING REDUNDANT. THE ART OF BEING A STRANGER.'

Uncounted paths unfurled past the gateway, up and down galleries and stairways. I grabbed the hem of Cypher's robe as he was about to step through a door. 'Lord, shall we follow you?'

'You have your questions to find answers,' he said without looking back. 'Go your own way, and the tower shows you what you should know.'

I walked past wannabe-Omegon who froze up on a crossroads pondering with his hands clasped on his chest. Imudon was nowhere to be seen. Spectral cities and battlefields flickered in shifting doorways, bits of phrases in human and alien tongues reached my ears. Keeping in mind the same painful question, I ran through a long arched gallery. Doors clapped on both sides but the shining path ran further. I followed the psychic trail down a spiral stairway.

In the middle I stopped to have a rest in a stairwell. A hot wind that reeked of metal and slag hit me in the face, and it tasted like blood in my mouth. A black sun was like a hole in the pale skies of Medrengard over my head. Through the cackling of the Iron Seer another voice called from the depths of a darkened fortress below.

'In the darkest of abysses… He sees me. He sees you.'

With a shriek I rushed down on my eagle wings. 'Do not come out through a closed door!' the Iron Seer cried out but I was far away. Steps were flashing past me until I found myself back in my body in the center of a vast chamber with dozens of doors of varying shapes and sizes but none of them was closed.

My midriff started aching when I stepped towards the closest door. I took a deep breath. The spring sea was rolling over white cliffs of the bay. First leaves had burst out on trees in the convent garden but the bright sky showed through the still bare branches. I hid both hands in the pockets of my dress. Inquisition? Mark? A strange dream to tell the girls after breakfast. Now I should hurry down to the refectory. If I finish the breakfast quickly, I'll manage to write down the High Gothic exercises from yesterday until the first lesson.

'IT IS GONE, INQUISITOR. LOST BUT NEVER FORGOTTEN.' I startled as the sad voice called out to me. Fog covered the tall window, and the convent hallway shattered and dissolved.

'Tell me how to find the key, the Lingering One,' I whispered.

'GO ON TO THE VERY BEGINNING OF THINGS.'

A familiar psychic waft came from another half-closed door. After a moment's doubt I pushed it.

White ceiling. Flowers on the wallpapers. A small room in a city district, the present me thought, but the one who stared up at the ceiling felt it to be big, even vast. Two faces leaned over me, a man and a woman smiling. Faces I didn't remember but so familiar at the same time. I reached for them, and a baby's cry echoed in my ears.

The small room faded away. Dazed, I leaned against the wall. The life before the orphanage I didn't remember. The beginning that may mean something. Or may not.

'Is it somehow connected to my present?' I sent a voiceless question to the Lingering One. 'Who were they?'

'PEOPLE. IS NOT THIS ENOUGH? PRESENT GROWS OUT OF PAST. APPEARS, FLICKERS, SEEMS.'

'Do you speak to the others like this too?'

'TO EVERY ONE WHO ASKS ME. EVEN WHEN YOU ARE FAR FROM MY PLACE. DELVING INTO THE DEPTHS OF YOUR GONE SUMMERS, PAST BATTLES, BURIED WOES.'

'You remember what I need to know.'

The voice rustled lower and lower. 'THE SMOKING FEATHERS OF DEAD SONGS AND FORGOTTEN TALES AND YESTERDAY'S SPRINGS.'

I stepped along the wall as slowly as I could, looking into every single door on my way. Nothing special caught my sight. Some episodes were relatively meaningless scenes of my past missions, some weren't familiar at all. An albino space marine in grey armour was answering a call on the bridge of his equally grey ship, a spectral crow cawing on his pauldron. A tall cloaked man entered a library hall that reminded me of the Inquisitorial Library of Uebotia. A warrior in a power suit of plain unpainted ceramite was arguing with a man of his stature clad in black armour.

Watching them discuss their matter in an unknown language, I somehow tripped on a step. Before I could grip the door, I was already rolling down a narrow stairway I hadn't noticed. I didn't feel pain as it all happened away from the material realm but the fall made me so dizzy everything whirled and danced before my eyes. I landed into something soft and burst out coughing at a sharp reek of smoke.

It was the freshest, brightest dawn I had seen but for settling clouds of smoke on the horizon. I lay in a heap of ash, flakes of soot were falling on me like black snow. There wasn't a living soul in the surrounding ruins. Charred remains of fortifications and piles of mauled metal towered all around. There was such overwhelming bitterness in the place that tears filled my eyes.

'A place of death,' I whispered.

'WHO PERISHED IN THE DECISIVE BATTLE, THE GENIAL DEFEAT?'

'Please. Please. Just tell me what it is, Keeper of memories.'

'THE DARKEST DAY THAT STILL LASTS. BUT IT IS GETTING TO ITS END. THEY WOKE UP IN THE MORNING, SANE AND SOUND, LIVED THEIR LIVES, CALLED THINGS BY THEIR NAMES…'

Contours of a gigantic crumbling palace appeared from the smoke. I gasped. It was the Imperial Palace of Holy Terra every Imperial citizen knew from the illustrations of pious books. A hundred centuries ago, on the morning after the Siege's bitter end. I curled up in the ash and hid my face in my hands.

I didn't know for how long I had lain in the place of sorrow when a new smell startled me. A distant note of musk and ambergris. It was probably just an echo, I thought, too weak to get up. Still the obnoxious smell didn't fade, only getting more sickening. I rubbed my eyes.

The desolation of Terra had gone. I found myself in a shaded corridor that led to another hallway with doors. The smell was wafting out of there. My legs got numb at once, vertigo struck me. For a second I was sure I saw a ring of smoke flutter out of a half-open door in the very end. Honestly unsure whether it really held keys to the past that did mean, I walked on my tiptoes to the doorway and peeped in.

Void. Void burst through a burnt breach in the place of a window. The only room devoid of memories. An image from the old dream flashed before my eyes. Rows of windows in the tower wall where one among them is blackened and blind. A stronger smell of musk enveloped me like a cloud. Right ahead amid the void a flock of Umbrae appeared whirling and flickering.

It is getting near. It is. A pit opened in my stomach, the floor rushed towards me. The very air was swishing out through the breach.

'JUST THE SHADOW'S SHADOW WHERE A BROKEN RUNAWAY MADE A FOOLISH STEP INTO THE ABYSS.'

My mouth opened and shut. Nothing but burning musk reek in my lungs, I turned to my back staring into the blackest black beyond. Sweat was rolling down my face as the ominous presence heated the room.

'Good Emperor,' I uttered with my lips only. 'Good Emperor.'

The musk stench ceded a bit but the presence still weighed down on me not letting me get up. I lay like that for some time, then mustered up my strength to whisper the first words of the Litany of Fear.

'GO AWAY FOR THE BOTTOMLESS MAW LURKS WAITING ON THE OTHER SIDE,' another powerful psychic voice called out all of a sudden.

'You're not the master of this place,' I sent back. Strangely, I didn't feel fear as the entity's aura was mighty and placid like the Lingering One's but I didn't sense anything even remotely familiar.

'BUT I AM A TREASURED GUEST IN THESE HALLS. YOUR COMPANIONS ALL LEAVE TO GET FAR AWAY BEFORE THE BEAST CATCHES THEM ON THE EXIT.'

'I've failed to find what I need.'

'ONCE THERE WAS A SORCERER WHO WANTED TO UNCOVER ALL MYSTERIES IN THE WORLD BUT IT DIDN'T END WELL.'

'This isn't curiosity. These scraps of knowledge are all I have to face the abomination…' My throat spasmed, and I doubled over coughing. 'The abomination who is stronger than the strongest of my friends. That is after our lives.'

'BE GRATEFUL THE THING THAT NEEDS YOU COULDN'T FIND YOU HERE.'

I sat up and slowly got back to my feet holding to the wall. The musky wind burned my face. A thread of glowing light was winding from under my boots out of the room. I ran along the pathway following the thin stream of the Lingering One's radiance. Corridors and rooms flashed by, howls and yells came from behind as the squall of hot wind was chasing me through the halls.

Soon human auras showed up in the current of dreams and visions. That was no realspace, a belated recollection popped up. Haywired, I reached for the closest pack of soul-lights and made a giant leap with closed eyes. I bumped into something hard and grabbed it with both hands so as not to fall down.

Gauntleted fingers touched my head. I looked up to see Imudon standing next to the entrance gateway, the rest of our group gathered around. My hands clasped on his vambrace, I staggered. Imudon wrapped his arm around my shoulder.

'Let's go. We feared we had lost you.'

'The hungry monster,' I started but Imudon shook his head and nodded aside. The Stray Cat was there, gripping his bolter so tight his gauntlet joints screeched. The wrath of his aura was laced with utter despair. The false Omegon leaned against a column as if it didn't bother him but startled when the side wall moved.

Cypher walked out of a hidden doorway. Only then I realized the Hrud were nowhere to be seen.

'The beast is lurking beyond the wall of fog waiting for us to leave the tower's safety,' he said. 'Even here, it can reach out to us through the breach left by one reckless man in the moment of his madness.'

I shrugged. 'The xenos have vanished.'

'They're already waiting in the ship to proceed further.'

Imudon stepped forward and gave me a light nudge. A strong wind blew from the depth of the chambers to our backs as if to swipe us out. A whirlwind of psychic images rushed through my mind, the Lingering One's quiet voice was whispering in the background but the words eluded my senses. Once we stepped on the bridge of sparkling light, it started melting behind with every step. Aphedron and Scalaria, their fingers intertwined, stopped in the middle of the bridge looking at the changing patterns of clouds until Ulchabhan overtook them.

A pit opened in the bottom of my stomach when I got too close to the edge. There was no falling to one's death outside of the material realm but the shimmering nothing beyond gave me vertigo.

Even bigger flocks of Umbrae swarmed the outside of the damaged room, a few followed us shifting colours of charcoal and pearl, shadow threads appeared from their spheric bodies and weaved into large intricate nets as they flew close to one another.

'Shan't we wait, sir?' I sent to Cypher.

'The beast has found us here though we eluded its grip last time. Turns out it has been stalking the crippled Fortress since that encounter like a predator following a wounded animal . It craves to be let inside to feast on the ship's heart.'

'Imudon told me even shrine shadows couldn't break through the Fortress' defenses.'

He shook his head. 'That doesn't mean it won't try. It can do great harm still, as well as kill us.'

'Will we be able to leave through the warp?'

'Only if the Shadow doesn't blind us'.

The Blackstone Fortress loomed anchored on the other end, so gigantic that half of it was lost to sight in the fog. For one last time I glimpsed back at the tower when I reached the lock-gate but the bridge under my feet dissolved with a flash. Dazzled, I staggered but suddenly found myself already in behind the sealed gate.

The Hrud were chirping in the distant end of the passage pointing up at the vaults. Cypher listened for them for a while, and no one dared to interfere. Even Fluffster. He hadn't uttered a word during the whole trip to the Tower of Memories, I realized. The man with the most puzzling and wonderful memories to recover there.

'Right to the central area without delay,' Cypher ordered. 'Every minute is vital.'

Cracks had appeared on the glossy surface of the vaults though this part of the Fortress had been shielded by the Lingering One's aura. That could only mean the beast had found a way to the ship's circuit. We could only hope it was true it couldn't undo the inner protective sigils. Fluffster climbed in first and started tapping on the control panel. I flopped back on my seat. The shuttles rushed through the passages at top speed.