'Oh Emperor, merciful father that watches over us, send us your light that we might carry it into the dark places,' he said. 'In times of need, send us the courage that fires the hearts of all servants of righteousness. Be our strength and shield, that we might in turn be yours!'

Togandis felt the presence of his clerics gathering behind him, and their closeness gave him strength. He flipped the pages of his prayer book, reading each passage aloud with a power and clarity he had never before displayed in the pulpit.

Though the words he spoke were simple prayers and benediction, they carried his weight of belief and thus had strength. It was a simple revelation, yet a revelation nonetheless, and such things had power.

The cold wind that had pulled him into the temple blew again, stronger this time and without the gentle inquisitiveness it had displayed earlier. A gale blew from the end of the nave, howling and fierce, and Togandis felt his robes billowing around him, the pages of his prayer book flapping and tearing with its force.

His priests cried out as the ghostly shapes of the congregation were swept up in the maelstrom of bone-chilling light. Like wind-blown mist, the spectres dispensed with individuality and became one howling mass of gibbering faces.

'The Emperor protects!' screamed Togandis as the anguished phantoms screamed and wailed. The sourceless wind pulled the glittering, ghostly mass around the interior of the temple, slicing the air and twisting in coils of glittering silver light.

They gathered beneath the rose window at the far end of the nave, above the mighty bronze portals that led to the outside world, a roiling, tumbling, churning mass of light and mist. Silver tongues of cold fire burst into life around the edges of the temple, leaping from pillar to pillar and Togandis's eyes filled with tears at the sudden stench of burning flesh.

Frost was forming on the pews before him and a skim of ice crackled in the font beside him. The priests and vergers were on their knees, hands clasped in prayer. Still their eyes were full of adoration, and Togandis knew that the terror of the visions was meant solely for him.

Only he beheld the true face of the spirits, for they had come for him and him alone.

The mass of spirits shot down the nave towards the altar and Togandis felt their hunger for him in every agonised wail. The hundreds of mouths ran together and the billowing light flared outwards like the wings of some terrible, avenging angel.

'In Your eyes we are but humble servants,' screamed Togandis, the words snatched from his mouth by the cold air. 'Turn your face towards us and banish shadows, shield Your servants and protect them from the iniquities of the warp!'

The spirits were losing cohesion, skins of light peeling back from the angel of retribution as it came towards him. Togandis closed his eyes. He clutched the holy aquila that hung around his neck and lifted his prayer book high.

A blast of silver fire swept over Togandis and he felt the glacial cold of the dead pass through him. The ache of their pain and the horror of their existence suffused every molecule of his being, from his overburdened feet to his sweat-streaked pate, but, finding no purchase, they poured from him with a wail of frustration.

His heart creaked and bulged at the strain placed upon it, the valves and arteries pushed to their limits in keeping Togandis alive. Blood vessels strained and twisted, but whatever reserves of strength the cardinal's flesh possessed were up to the task of keeping him alive for a little longer.

Togandis kept his eyes closed for long moments, knowing that were he to open them he would gaze into the face of something so terrifying it would be the death of him. Sudden, unnerving silence descended on the church, the only sound the heave of his breath and the echoes of the departed.

A hand brushed his shoulder and he cried out, feeling a knot of pain in the depths of his chest and a tingling sensation in the tips of his fingers.

'Cardinal?' said a tentative, awed voice at his ear. Togandis recognised the speaker. It was one of the evening vergers, though he did not know the man's name.

Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, Togandis opened his eyes.

The temple was as it had always been at night: cool, shadowed and dimly lit by the stuttering glow of candles. No trace remained of the silver flames or the vengeful spirits, but a rime of melting ice dripped from the lip of the font.

Togandis waited until he was sure that his voice would not betray his earlier terror.

'What?' he asked at last.

'Was that an angel?' asked the verger.

Togandis looked beyond the verger to the enraptured faces of his priests. What was he to tell them? The truth? Hardly.

The light of faith was in their eyes and he could not take that away from them.

'Yes,' nodded Togandis. 'That was an angel of the Emperor. Pray you never see another.'

Night in the mountains north of Barbadus was absolute.

With the descent of the sun, the Unfleshed had tentatively ventured from the cave, their steps hesitant and wary as though they feared that the sun might return at any moment. Through the course of the long day, the Lord of the Unfleshed had felt his tribe's sense of hurt betrayal as the sunlight hovered on the brink of destroying them.

The cave stank of fear and only when the light ventured no farther did that fear turn to relief. They would be safe, for a time at least.

The Lord of the Unfleshed could taste the tribe's terror, a rank outpouring of chemicals that had once been a scent to be savoured in others, but which only made him angry now.

He was tired of fear, tired of having it as his constant companion.

Though he was powerful and strong, fear had nestled in his heart for as long as he could remember: fear of the Iron Men, fear of the Black Sun, fear of his own monstrous nature and fear of what the Emperor would make of it when he finally stood before Him.

The Lord of the Unfleshed lifted his arm and stared at the raw, pink newness of his flesh. The slick, sheen of his body had faded over the course of the day and as he tentatively explored the surface, he felt the new skin responding to his touch.

Instead of pain, he could feel the texture of his clawed fingers and the roughness of his hands.

Perhaps this place would be a new beginning for him and the tribe.

He looked over to where the tribe feasted on yet more of the fleshy creatures that grazed on the mountains.

Their meat was rich and tender, and their limbs no match for the ferocious speed of the Unfleshed.

The Lord of the Unfleshed wanted to be away from this place, but did not yet dare lead the tribe far from the cave for fear that the sun would catch them in the open again. Most of the tribe were growing new skin across their bodies, but at wildly differing rates, and those without a thick enough covering would die if the sun found them without shelter.

Eventually they would have skin to match his, but it would take time for their more degenerate bodies to catch up to what his had already achieved. Rippling skirts of flesh took longer to cover than knotty lumps of bone, and fused craniums of meat that pulled and twisted as each mouth fed, tore and healed as their owner took wrenching bites of food.

The Lord of the Unfleshed glanced over his shoulder.

Though the night was dark, the dead city below was bathed in light.

To mortal eyes, the city was as empty and silent as ever, but to eyes fashioned with sorcerous engineering of the darkest realms and a mind grown to maturity within the womb of a creature saturated in chaos magic, the streets were alive with a cavalcade of shapes. Not the shapes of the living, but shapes of… something else.