The steam that drifted from the central spreading archway was not hot. It was freezing cold, smelling of crushed ice, old parchment, and the bitter copper tang of spilled blood.
Ren Vale stood in the center of the sealed sorting vault. His back to the was locked gold-silver metal drop-gate. He held his carved mammoth ivory awl low. The silver metal ring was glinting under the pale violet emergency lamps. Beside him, Scribe Ren leaned heavily against a stone pillar, still pressing a stained handkerchief to his lip to catch the black drops of iron-gall blood.
The rhythmic footsteps stopped ten paces away, veiled by the drifting vapor.
“You have an artisan’s hand, Ren Vale,” a voice said.
The sound didn’t come from a single throat. It arrived as a layered sound chord—three distinct voices speaking in perfect, terrifying exact timing. One was the cultured, dry rasp of a high civil judge. The second was the deep-throated, wet wheeze of an old miner dying of dust-lung. The third was the flat, metal hiss of an iron-puppet’s copper chest muscle.
The steam parted.
Arch-Heresiarch Malakor the Un-Burned stepped into the light.
He was neither young nor old. He wore the sweeping, floor-length vestments of an Arch-Conservator, tailored from heavy wool that had been woven with fine threads of time gold-silver metal, shimmering like oil on dark water. Around his neck and lower jaw rested a complex breathing mask fashioned from an antique clockwork gear catch. With each breath in, tiny brass…
