The outline was growing against the blaze of scarlet clouds till nothing but its surreal ramparts remained in sight. It was like a swarm of tangled monster beasts, a giant termite mound, a colossal carnivorous tree ready to trap and devour its prey.

'When will your poison start working?' I turned to Aphedron.

'Looks like the pusher has been a damn slacker again,' he said not even looking at me, fascinated by the majestic sight. 'I'm so close to my deliverance I don't care anymore.'

'Only one thing can be compared to the Casbah. Imudon's nightmarish shrine.' I felt pain in the midriff again once I uttered the words.

'Thank me I'll take your life before you can get there.'

'Tell me more about Imudon if you happen to know him.' A mere memory of my previous lucid dreams gave me chills.

'A renowned prude and virgin. Serving in that surly place only because he wants the same as me. To leave for a better place to flee the wrath of his hungry gods. That's why the failed sacrifice angered him so much he's still stalking you. Every single fail might turn him into a Chaos Spawn.'

'Is there a treasure like this one in the warped sanctuary?'

'A back gate which is sealed. The one who pleases the gods enough will have a chance to leave through the door to his freedom.'

'Why have you turned to Chaos if you all want to run away from its gifts?'

'People are never content with what they have. They leave their families, the Emperor, the gods but they cannot leave themselves behind.'

We stood before a portal of wrought red gold adorned with horrendously realistic shapes of distorted beasts by some inhuman crafter's hand. With their scythe-limbs, drooling maws and tail maces, the beasts bore striking similarity to the monstrous Carnifexes.

Aphedron put on his gold-crested helmet and knocked on the gate with his gauntlet. Nothing happened. The smell of musk got heavier and sweeter. He slapped me on the shoulder and pointed at the gate.

'You're the promised payment. Give it a try.'

I sighed and touched the massive doorleaf. The portal shivered as if the whole fortress gasped, the leaves parted with a beast's howl. Hot damp air enveloped us when the Casbah's maw swallowed us. A step inside, and the doors behind vanished with no trace. We found ourselves in an irregular tangle of meandering passages. The walls were heaving as if the fortress was breathing, a cyclopean beast itself, built not from concrete and stone but from throbbing flesh like the scarlet serpent seen by the crazy adventurers.

The call was desperately loud as we looked around, puzzled by the ever-shifting pattern of the corridors. I closed my eyes letting my psychic glance roam through the maze. Aphedron's soulfire was a dazzling blaze tainted by the scarlet shade of the shard, and I tried not to lose sight of him as I ventured out to the darkening depth of the fortress.

Unbearably sickening to the psyker-vision, the fortress spat me out back to the place we were standing. All I could catch was a shadow of some hostile presence in the distance, if there was any distance here at all.

Aphedron's eyes were closed as well. He took out the shard and raised it over his head, and it started glowing with eerie colours, the stain of smoke inside stirring and changing shapes.

'Look through my eyes.' He tugged me by the collar. 'Follow the trail.'

His aura touched mine, and I saw the very musky air condensing into greasy smoke, forming a thin smouldering string that ran away along one of the passages. At a swing of Aphedron's tentacles a dozen of his ornate kine-blades floated up and surrounded us like a shining cloud. I drew both my sword and laspistol with a sudden feeling of coming trouble.

We ran forward following the spectral thread through the nauseating mist. A swift movement in the corner of my vision, and half of Aphedron's blades stuck in the hide of theroid beasts that leapt at us from a side passage. Fearsome monsters of daemonic unflesh, they roared and swung the blade-claws of their multiple limbs, ready to tear up and devour the prey.

'Come get some.' Aphedron stuffed back the shard and rushed forward.

He pushed me back and unfurled his tentacles and his lash attacking multiple foes at once. I dropped to one knee with my laspistol aimed at the monsters. The beam severed a few bone-blades of the closest beast but it didn't even slow down. Aphedron tore it to pieces with his tendrils and sent his whip coiling around another theroid's neck as it prepared to slash at him with its limbs. He struck and parried with flowy grace of a dancer, his speed and prowess superior to anyone I'd ever seen.

One of the beasts bit off the tendril that grabbed it, and I leapt to my feet and turned on the chainsword right before it jumped on me. As it moved with horrendous velocity, I couldn't dodge its first blow when I sank my blade in its chitinous hide. The scythe-claw cut my carapace breastplate in half with a single gash. I fell on my side but the monster was torn in half when the daemonic whip lashed out with a shrill psychic scream.

The combat ended in no time. I got up, the pitiful remains of my carapace dangling on the clasps. Aphedron threw down a claw stuck in his armour and tore off my cuirass pieces.

'Shameful to wear crap like this. Your boss has money for marble tile and expensive garden statues but cannot afford normal armaments for his employees.'

'I'm a blooddamn witch-hunter, man. This frigging zoo is the last thing one expects from boring city cults.'

'A petting zoo the other way round. Your flashlight has been able to deal them great damage. Two claws fully severed, the third half-burnt. Pull your chainsword out and check whether it's still working after the first strike.'

'Very funny. I should have been less shy to take Fluffster's gun and tell him you'd snatched it from me.'

Strangely, no other theroids appeared as we walked further to the heart of the fortress. Even the voices died out, and the silent emptiness was suppressing and sinister. The passages were changing shape and direction with vertiginous speed so I closed my eyes trying to concentrate on Aphedron's psychic flame. Growing hunger like at the gambling table didn't let me think straight. A strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. Dull pain in the solar plexus as if the old mark was the only obstacle for a new intrusion.

Aphedron had got fully captivated by the enigmatic power of the place. With a mixture of thirst and desire that flooded my mind through the psychic link he reached out with his psyker-sight, focused on the long-sought transformation. He bound my hands and neck with his tendrils so I couldn't run away from him, and I paced beside him trying to pull out the grenade.

The trail ended at a gate of red gold similar to that at the entrance. Aphedron forced me to push it but nothing happened. He pulled out the shard and put it to the leaves after a second's reflection. The gleaming surface rippled, and one of the carved monsters opened its maw. The shard vanished for a moment but then the maw spat it out to the floor. Strangely devoid of its previous power, it was no more than a clear piece of crystal.

Every small pore on the breathing walls let out a thin, barely visible gust of smoke. Swirling and shifting, they weaved together and fused into semi-transparent shapes of theroids and distorted human figures. They rounded up Aphedron, and in moments he was lost in a thick whirling cloud of fumes. His grip loosened as pink ichor streamed from his mauled tentacles at a single strike of a smoky blade.

My hands clasped in the holy sign, I rolled down a passage before the guards could him and proceed to me. One of the smoke monsters parted from the cloud, its smouldering shape changing as it moved along the wall, beastly features reshaped into Angel's perfect form. I rose up holding to the wall and met the attack with laspistol fire. The blasts died out the second they hit the semi-opaque unflesh.

I activated the sword but couldn't move a step forward. My feet and back stuck to the damp surface. The horrendous apparition approached slowly and graciously, its claws tore at my coat as it folded in half and started losing its contours to wrap me whole in its greasy fume. The blasphemously familiar face touched mine, and I cried out when the spectral fangs bit into my flesh. I hacked at it again and again, but the blade passed through the smoke with no harm.

Lacerated by invisible gashes, I instinctively covered my chest the other hand and startled at the touch of metal. My Aquila pendant slipped out to my palm from under the torn coat. Unable to even shout a litany, I tore it off the corroded chain and forced it into the abomination's open maw.

The monster swallowed it greedily but stopped and recoiled. Its limbs started withering and shrinking until it was a mere formless stain of smoke with a spark of fire glowing inside. A psychic scream shook me, and the lump burst in a flash of scarlet flame. The wall rippled and drew back. Free again, I picked up the pendant that fell to my feet and ran off trying not to look at the gate.

I stopped at another crossroads to catch my breath. My clothes had turned into blood-soaked rags, my chin and neck were sore after the monster's excoriating kiss. Not a single sound could be heard around but slow murmurs of inhaling flesh. Narrow passages formed a maze of intertwined irregular spirals with no way out.

Distant yet hostile presence startled me. Nor spectral smoke, nor a hungry beast - the Magnificent had managed to overcome the guards by means of sorcery or superhuman strength. Insane in his desire for ascension, he couldn't let the bait go. I hid in the center of a smaller spiral trying not to give out my presence. His power should have faded with the loss of the shard, so there was a chance another guard devoured him on the way.

Closer and closer, he moved through the passages, and his crooning voice reached my mind.

'Where are you, Volentia? Come out, you sweet, sweet girl! I'm looking forward to having an old friend for dinner.'

I suppressed my psychic presence as much as I could and held my breath squeezing the chainsword hilt.

'I'll strip the skin from your body and eat your sweet flesh off your bones while your heart's still beating.' The voice got desperate and crazy.

So close I could see a giant shadow just round the corner. He'd found me. He was standing there waiting till I ran out of my hiding, unable to bear the strain anymore. I froze up for a dozen heartbeats. Then he rushed in, his tendrils reaching for me. I pressed the throttle and swung the weapon with my last ounce of strength.

The blade cut through the psychic projection. It was faint and diffuse, little more than the smoky likeness of the Blood Angel. When I stepped back, it spun around for a few seconds gradually losing solid shape and crumbled to spectral flecks that scattered in the air like withered flower petals.

I whispered the Death Incantation with trembling lips. The last prayer my foster parents said before sending me away with Uncle. Neither the raid to Coreopsis nor the grueling work in the traitor camp had driven me that close to the end. The trail had vanished, so I walked out to the wider corridors trying to remember the direction to the exit in the twisted geometry of the Casbah.

Narrow and wide, light and dark, passages crossed and meandered, the sultry, musky air too hot to breathe. My lungs ached, struggling with weakness caused by blood loss was harder than before. I repeated the prayer again and again, stubbornly continuing my way through the warped fortress.

A place too familiar. The bloody golden gate glimmered before me as if I hadn't run away at all. The other passages around got dark and shaded, something abominable and hostile stirring in the depths. I stood still as it was hard to choose between two equally gruesome deaths.

Aphedron was there, a pathetic sight even compared to his broken state after the fight with the Iron Father. His armour was a gory mess of shattered ceramite, he had no helmet on, and his face was so horribly flayed by the smoky monsters that skin hung in flaps on his forehead and cheekbones. He was desperately mauling the doorleaves with all his kineblades leaving ugly marks on the polished surface.

When he felt me come closer, he lashed out with his remaining tendrils. No match for him even in my best shape, now I failed to parry the attack. He dragged me closer and snatched the chainsword from my hand.

'We won't give it up, babe. The quest must be finished.'

He hacked at the metal with a yell of madness. A few furious strikes, and a section of the doorleaf fell to the ground revealing but swirling darkness beyond, so empty and hungry human language was unable to describe. Aphedron's mutilated features twitched and distorted in a mute cry of anguish. He lifted me and pressed his lacerated lips to the wound on my face licking trickling blood with his tongue.

I hissed at the burning pain of his venomous touch. With a yowl that was almost a sob he darted forward right to the slit in the gate before it could close back. There was no further waiting. I tore the psykout grenade off my belt and pulled the pin on the very moment he plummeted into the voracious void.

The blast was so powerful I felt the twisted unreality around burst and implode. I slipped out of Aphedron's grip and fell head over heels into the formless mess of colour spots and blobs of melting smoke. The fall lasted for an eternity till I landed into something warm and fully material.

I was plunged neck-deep in already cooling desert sand. The sky above was almost dark, only a thin stripe of dim red was still glowing in the west where the fortress had been at sunset. I pulled out my hand and wiped blood off my face. The head was heavy after the null-field shock, and a few hours in the Casbah had left me so weary as if I'd spent a whole year there.

Having cleaned the pistol and the sword from sand, I got up to my feet and tried to find the shortest path to the owl parking. My vox bead had been lost during one of the fights, chainsword fuel and laspistol charge were almost at zero.

The wind that blew from the north was unnaturally cold. The headache got sickening, and I shivered as a null aura touched me again. I was no more afraid of any posse as I was probably all alone after the cursed desert had taken my crew. I took a deep breath and stopped.

The chilling presence was growing till seven silhouettes appeared in the dunes in a circle of moonlight. Six were warriors in power armour, and I recognized their signature gorgets and tall topknots of the Silent Sisterhood. They were accompanied by a man in flashy rogue trader clothing and an ornate artificer cuirass. The one whom I had kicked escaping from 'Hog'n'Shroom.' To my surprise, he looked quite friendly.

'We've met at last, Lady Volentia.' He walked up to me and bowed down with flirtatious courtesy. 'My parents have told me about you. I'm Aeneus Corydoras, and my honoured companions are the Steel Owls cadre led by my foster-sister, Oblivion Knight Ephestia Interpunctella.'

The tallest Sister in a heavy cloak pressed an inhibitor button on her gorget and stood next to her brother. She made a few quick gestures, and Aeneus started speaking again.

'We've been following you since the evening in the city, but Lord Cynops has advised us to focus on Pansexualis without bothering you too much.'

'Your unexpected interference kinda scared me after the bar brawl.'

'The Sisterhood is watching over this kind of abomination. We've already discovered the diary in your owl and have learned about the shard that fell into your hands.'

'It's got lost unfortunately. As I'm seemingly a lone survivor of the accident, may I ask will I be prosecuted for what's happened.'

'I don't think so. And we have good news for you. About your crew. We stumbled upon them right before infiltrating the fortress. You will meet them aboard my vessel.'

Ephestia looked at me with certain anxiety and made a few brisk finger signs again.

'You have to watch out for a graver threat than Pansexualis who's suffered numerous injuries and has been reported to leave the system by means of a warp portal. Ephestia's special task is to hang around watching over the crap that's happening in the sector not unlike the sad story with your mentor.'

She frowned and put her finger to her mouthpiece. Aeneus just smiled.

'Sorry, sis, you know I've always been that of a blabbermouth.'

'Please send my best regards to your prominent family. Hope I'll see them again very soon.' I returned his smile.

His face got unexpectedly sour.

'Ah, you've been away while that damn scandal broke out. I didn't want to believe it myself.'

'Pansexualis has told me a few outrageous things about... the Panther but I was sure it was a lie concocted by the enemies of the Inquisition.'

'I wish it had stopped at the story with the Biruang. The outcome has been even worse. You'll learn more soon. Please follow us, the evacuation of the hive is in full swing.'

'Didn't expect our venture resulted in a warp storm.'

'The fortress is stirring, Ephestia says. That's why you've been able to get there. It's invisible to the eye right now but it's like a volcano ready to erupt. Lord Cynops has ordered the complete destruction of the planet.'

'Who's that frigging Cynops? I thought it's Lady Cichlasoma who should deal with that.'

'He's been Cichlasoma's mentor.'

'One more question, sir. Maybe you or the Sisters know what's the power of the shards? Even the mark of the Dark Prince worn by Pansexualis was nothing against that. I've gathered a number of library requests with keywords while digging into that case.'

'Only High Inquisitors have access to the data,' Aeneus translated his sister's sign phrase. 'You have to thank the Emperor you haven't been chosen by the shard like it happened to the man buried in the robbed tomb. All you should know that you've assisted us in the completion of the case and, if Lord Platydoras agrees, you all will get a fortnight off.'

Though the case had been seemingly solved, the shaggydog story left a disturbing aftertaste. Maybe Fluffster would be more talkative.

Both the atmosphere and the orbit were swarmed by hundreds of transportation ships and shuttles that carried people and machinery away from the surface of the doomed planet. The haunted desert was but a small yellow spot on the distant surface. There, in the cursed village down below, the lost and damned devotees of the creepy spirit of the place were about to offer their souls to the insatiable maw of their enigmatic mistress.