Still, the Imperial Palace stood defiant. It was like a galaxy of stars, every security lamp, glassaic window and loophole blazing with the light of occupation and industry. An army of serfs and servitors criss-crossed mighty halls, corridors and precincts. Adepts and scribes went about their bureaucratic business. Warriors of the Adeptus Custodes stood sentinel about the fortifications while important personages of every rank and station took meetings in conference halls, auditoria and star chambers, talking about everything and nothing. Even the High Lords of Terra haunted the dusty corridors and grand quarters of the Imperial Palace, for the Palace was to be found at the heart of the Throneworld and Terra at the heart of the Imperium of Man. No place in the galaxy bustled with such status and significance. It was a gothic crown of architectural magnificence, within which the mind-numbing business of a fading Imperium was conducted. Hive cities towered about the Palace walls. Titan god-machines shook the ground of their assigned avenues with ceremonial patrol circuits. A glittering blizzard of landers, shuttles and atmospheric craft passed overhead, funnelling into restricted flight paths.
On the Plaza Decamerata, Drakan Vangorich moved through the crowds. There was an atmosphere, something sombre and rehearsed. Still, gatherings of such number and in such majestic surroundings had the ability to send a flutter through the stomachs of even the jaded aides and clerics. It wasn’t just the number, it was the identity of those in attendance that stirred the soul. The entire Council was present, High Lords of Terra in luxurious robes, furs and best bionics. Like newly formed planets in a field of debris, they seemed to accrete growing mobs of followers. Some were serfs carrying furniture, attendants and advisors. Most were sycophants and opportunists. Adepts and officials who had High Lords they had waited months to meet with out in the open. The gathering on the Plaza Decamerata might have been a ceremonial engagement, but it still provided the chance to do business and press agendas.
Like these bureaucratic parasites, Vangorich was also working, but while other High Lords indulged and ignored, the Grand Master strode with purpose through the crowds. No flatterers mobbed him. No minions followed him in train. Talk became direct and economical. The Grand Master could get things done instead of spending his days wading through Palace bureaucracy. Unlike the other members of the Council, his robes were dark and simple, extravagant only in their depth.
The Plaza Decamerata was by no means the largest of the Palace plazas. It didn’t even come close. It still took the Grand Master thirty minutes or so to reach his seat. Situated in the western upper precincts, the plaza had always been a favourite of Vangorich’s. An elevated court, it boasted the monstrous fortification of the Boenician Wall on one side and views of Hive Valatyne on the other — one of the more handsome hives of the capital. The venerable Warhound Titans Canis Romula and Canis Rema towered over its bustling expanse, brought in specially to lend the ceremony an aura of significance. The Plaza Decamerata was ordinarily reserved for theatrical celebrations rather than Astra Militarum parades or Aeronautican flyovers. It was primarily used for entertainment and light-hearted distractions for dignitaries and the occasional High Lord and their staff: off-world acrobats, xenos menageries and colossal troupes of dancers. This, despite the fact that the grand atrium at the head of the plaza fielded twelve stone thrones.
Drakan Vangorich went to take a throne on one end of the line but found Fabricator General Kubik there already, resplendent in robes of crimson fabric and silvered mail. A skitarii honour guard stood nearby, flanked by a pair of combat-servitors, the grotesque fusion of their bodies disguised with ceremonial trappings. Taking the throne next to Kubik, Vangorich offered a slight bow from the depths of his hood.
‘Fabricator General.’
‘Grand Master.’
Vangorich looked out across the plaza. It was one thing to invite the High Lords of Terra and then watch as one by one they consented to attend, unwilling to be outdone by other members of the Council. The horde of adepts, aides and bureaucrats occupying the vast plaza in their dun robes was something else. Usually lord scriveners, sub-secretaries and adjutants were not invited to such gatherings, and the repulsion could be seen on the High Lords’ faces as they negotiated the crowd. Vangorich enjoyed watching them squirm.
The vox-bead in Vangorich’s ear chirped. Beast Krule was calling in. By the clarity of the vox-signal, Vangorich assumed he was near. Casting a practised eye across the multitudes he spotted Krule moving through the crowd in the simple robes of a scribe. With his bulk thus disguised the Assassin felt his way through the masses, attaching himself to the train of one High Lord and then the next. He moved within the protective canopies of storm troopers, between genetically-enhanced bodyguards and through dark throngs of Inquisitorial henchmen. Vangorich knew Krule to be an operative who never wasted an opportunity. He assumed that the Assassin wanted to show him how close he could get and how exposed the other High Lords were. He wanted to show his master what could be achieved.
Vangorich, meanwhile, had managed to lose two tails in the crowd — unobtrusive ghosts dressed as ceremonial serfs. They probably belonged to Wienand, but Vangorich couldn’t be sure. Another — a servitor-that-wasn’t — had offered the Grand Master a drink but in addition had placed a tiny listening device on his robes. That had been clumsy, and likely to have been someone else. Dropping the device into the drink — some kind of warmed, spiced wine — the Grand Master had deposited the chalice on the next meandering servitor’s tray.
His enemies on the Council would do anything to catch an unguarded whisper, or the exchange of intelligence between the Grand Master and his Assassins. Such efforts were undertaken as much in self-defence as from the desire to know Vangorich’s secrets. Each High Lord present wished to know what he was planning for them.
While an annoyance, Vangorich appreciated the theatrics. It fitted their location, the Plaza Decamerata having played host to celebrated savants, authorised remembrancers and great-companies of actors. Vangorich had seen both Klastragar Part II and The Witch of Galatae here, as well as The Massacre at Montalaban Fields, in which the Company of the Chartist Captains dramatised the atrocity death for death on the plaza expanse.
Now the plaza was going to play host to an entirely different kind of theatrics. Vangorich saw Gibran, Paternoval Envoy of the Navigators, exchange pleasantries with Juskina Tull, Speaker for the Chartist Captains, before the both of them settled. Wienand and Veritas of the Inquisition leant in conspiratorially. Their eyes darted across each other’s shoulders while harsh whispers were exchanged. Master Anwar of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica felt his way to his throne, while Tobris Ekharth, Master of the Administratum, scowled at approaching attendants, forcing them into a retreat. Vernor Zeck, Lord High Admiral Lansung and the Lord Commander Militant simply sat in grizzled displeasure. As the High Lords took their time and eventually their seats, the gathered thousands grew quiet.
Adeptus Custodes warriors watched from the ramparts of the Boenician Wall and the Warhound Titans boomed to stillness. Beneath the feet of the multitudes, the stone rumbled. Millimetre by grating millimetre, the plaza floor began to part. Adepts and scriveners cried out and jumped to safety as a gap began to open between them. For many, it was the most exciting thing to ever happen to them and they stared down into the trembling depths with awe. It was as if they had become part of the entertainment.