The people of his collective farm filled the underground fields, dressed in simple chitons of a pale blue as they worked hard, but contentedly, to gather the harvest. The field filled the cavern, stretching away in a gentle curve and following the line of the rocky walls of the underground haven. Silver irrigation machinery hummed and sprayed periodic bursts of a fine spray across the crop and Uriel smiled as he remembered many happy days spent industriously in this very cavern as a child.

But this had been before…

Before he had travelled to Macragge and begun his journey towards becoming a warrior of the Adeptus Astartes. That had been a lifetime ago and he was surprised at how vividly this scene, which he had long thought vanished from his memory, was etched upon his consciousness.

How then was he here, standing within a memory of a time long passed?

Uriel set off along the line of crops towards a series of simple white buildings arranged in an elegant, symmetrical pattern. His home had been situated in this collective farm, and the thought of venturing there once again filled him with a number of emotions he thought long-suppressed.

The air darkened as he walked and Uriel shivered as an unnatural chill travelled up his spine.

'I wouldn't go down there,' said a voice behind him. 'You'll accept that this is real if you do, and you might never come back.'

Uriel turned to see a fellow Space Marine, clad in the same pale blue chiton as the workers in the field, and his face split apart in a smile of recognition.

'Captain Idaeus,' he said joyfully. 'You are alive!'

Idaeus shook his scarred and hairless head. 'No, I'm not. I died on Thracia, remember?'

'Yes, I remember,' nodded Uriel sadly. 'You destroyed the bridge across the gorge.'

'That's right, I did. I died fulfilling our mission,' said Idaeus pointedly.

'Then why are you here? Though I am not even sure I know where here is.'

'Of course you do, it's Calth, the week before you took the first steps on the road that has ultimately led you back here,' said Idaeus, strolling leisurely along the path that led away from the farm towards one of the silver irrigation machines.

Uriel trotted after his former captain. 'But why am I here? Why are you here? And why shouldn't I go down to the farm?'

Idaeus shrugged. 'As full of questions as ever you were,' he chuckled. 'I can't say for sure why we're here, it's your mind after all. It was you that dredged up this memory and brought me here.'

'But why here?'

'Perhaps because it's a safe place to retreat to,' suggested Idaeus, lifting a wineskin slung at his waist and taking a long drink. He handed the skin to Uriel, who also drank, enjoying the taste of genuine Calth vintage.

'Retreat to?' he said, handing the wineskin back. 'I don't understand. Retreat from what?'

'The pain.'

'What pain? I don't feel any pain,' said Uriel.

'You don't?' snapped Idaeus. 'You can't feel the pain? The pain of failure?'

'No,' said Uriel, glancing up as the dark shadows of clouds began to gather in the topmost reaches of the cave and evil thoughts began intruding on this pastoral scene.

Dead skies, the taste of iron. Horrors unnamed and abominations too terrible to bear…

A distant rumble of thunder sent a tremor through the clouds and Uriel looked up in confusion. This wasn't part of his memory. The underground caverns of Calth did not suffer such storms. More clouds began forming above him and he felt a suffocating fear rise up within him as they gathered with greater speed and ferocity.

Idaeus stepped in close to Uriel and said, 'You're dying Uriel. They're stealing the very things that make you who you are… can't you feel it?'

'I can't feel anything.'

'Try!' urged Idaeus. 'You have to go back to the pain.'

'No,' cried Uriel, as a heavy, dark rain began to fall, hard and thick droplets sending up tail spumes of mud.

Suffocating, cloying, questing hands within his flesh, a horrific sense of violation…

'I do not want to go back!' shouted Uriel.

'You have to, it's the only way you can save yourself.'

'I don't understand!'

'Think! Did my death teach you nothing?' said Idaeus as the rain beat down harder, melting the skin on his bones. 'A Space Marine never accepts defeat, never stops fighting and he never turns his back on his battle-brothers.'

The rain pounded the fields flat, the workers running in fear towards the farm. Uriel felt an almost uncontrollable desire to join them, but Idaeus placed a palm on his chest and struggled to speak in the face of his dissolution. 'No. The warrior I passed my sword to would not retreat. He would turn and face the pain.'

Uriel looked down, feeling the weight of a perfectly balanced sword settle in his hand, the blade a gleaming silver and its golden hilt shining like the sun. Its weight felt good, natural, and he closed his eyes as he fondly remembered forging its blade in the balmy heat of the Macragge night.

'What awaits me if I go back?' he asked.

'Suffering and death,' admitted Idaeus. 'Pain and anguish.'

Uriel nodded. 'I cannot abandon my friends…'

'That's my boy,' smiled Idaeus, his voice fading and his form almost totally washed away by the hard rain. 'But before you go… I have one last gift for you.'

'What?' said Uriel, feeling his grip on this fantasy slipping and his perceptions growing dimmer. As the vision of his captain diminished, Uriel thought he heard him say one last thing, a whispered warning that vanished like morning mist… beware your black… sun? But the words faded before he could hold onto the sense of them.

Uriel opened his eyes, feeling the sting of amniotic fluids on his skin and hearing the heartbeat of the dae-monculaba above him as reality rushed in once again. He roared in anger, feeling questing, umbilical tendrils invading his flesh. They burrowed in through the sockets cored into his body where the monitoring systems of his armour interfaced directly with his internal organs.

Suckling, feeding parasites wormed inside him, feeding and sampling his flesh.

Chains clanked as a pair of dangling hooks connected by a horizontal iron bar were lowered from the framework that encompassed the anatomist's arena. Connected to sturdy block and tackle, the heavy hooks were dragged onto the metal gurney upon which Seraphys lay. As one Savage Mortician prepared the hooks, the other cut his armour from his body with practiced ease. Lastly, it removed the helmet from the Space Marine and produced a heavy iron mallet from the whirring mechanisms of its arm.

Before Seraphys could do more than shout a denial, it smashed the mallet repeatedly against his skull.

Seraphys grunted in pain, but after the sixth blow, his eyes glazed over and his head rolled slack. The Mortician nodded to its compatriot, who lifted the unconscious Space Marine's legs and sliced a heavy blade across his Achilles tendons then thrust a hook into each ankle for hanging support. Seraphys's legs were spread so that his feet hung outside the shoulders, and, satisfied his body was secure, the Savage Mortician hauled on the rattling pulley and dragged the body into the air.

'What are you doing?' shouted Vaanes. 'For the love of the Emperor just kill him and be done with it!'

'No,' hissed Sabatier. 'Not kill him. Not when he has such succulent meat on him. See how they keep arms parallel to legs? This provides access to the pelvis, and keeps his arms out of the way in a position for easy removal.'

Sabatier chuckled as it continued its gruesome narration. 'Observing anatomy and skeleton, you can see that you humans not built or bred for meat. Your large central pelvis and broad shoulder blades interfere with achieving perfect cuts too much. You are too lean as well, no fat. You see, some fat, though not too much, is desirable as "marbling" to add a juicy, flavourful quality to meat.'