Emerging from the oppression of the gateway, Uriel gaped in dark wonderment as he saw that the tower did not sit upon the rock of the mountain at all, but was impossibly suspended over a giant void that mirrored the dead sky above on hundreds of immense chains. Each link was as thick as the columns that supported the great portico before the Temple of Correction and as they were carried towards a bridge, Uriel saw that the tower also plunged deep into the void for thousands of metres.
'Emperor protect us…' breathed Uriel.
'You waste your breath,' said Onyx. 'You think he has any power in this place?'
Uriel disdained to reply, unwilling to further bandy words with one touched by the fell powers of the immaterium. A long basalt slab spanned the void, its surface worn smooth by the passage of uncounted marching feet, leading to an enormous gateway that pierced the tower itself. As they crossed the bridge, Uriel saw that it was fashioned from some deathly material, hissing and spitting as though fresh from the forge. Its scale was colossaclass="underline" entire regiments would be able to march through and the tallest of Titans could pass beneath it without fear.
Onyx led them towards the gate, a smaller, rivet-studded postern granting them access to the tower's echoing interior. Uriel felt the power of ages past within the tower and its ancient malice was a potent breath on the air.
'Khalan-Ghol,' said Onyx proudly. 'The power and majesty of a living god helped forge this fortress, shaping it into a form pleasing to him, unfettered by any of the laws of nature.'
'It is an abomination!' snarled Pasanius.
'No,' said the daemonic symbiote. 'It is the future.'
The interior of the tower was no less horrifying than its exterior - vast dusty halls of bronze statues, huge, sweating forges that spat sparks and orange rivers of metal. A parching, stifling heat infused the tower, black moisture dripping from the shadowed vaults of the ceiling. Uriel could hear distant screams and heavy hammer-blows far below, louder and more powerful than he had heard thus far on Medrengard.
Crawling shadows, perhaps more of the Exuviae, lurked in the high cloisters, though the most numerous inhabitants of the tower appeared to be figures swathed in black robes, walking with a wheezing mechanical gait.
Red augmetic eyes scanned them with interest as Onyx led his coterie of Exuviae deeper into the tower, clicking brass limbs grasping towards them with a hissing hunger. Warped cog symbols combined with the eight-pointed star of Chaos were burned into their robes and gurgling algorithmic voices clicked between them as they tended to vast, dusty machines whose purpose was lost on Uriel.
As they passed a hulking, bronze construction with pumping, greased pistons and an armature-mounted pict-slate, a huge, hissing monster stepped from the shadow of the great machine to bar their way.
Onyx stiffened as the black-robed creature shuffled painfully into a pool of light and Uriel felt a creeping horror scrape its way up his spine at the sight of it. It moved awkwardly on six, spider-like legs of riveted iron, its body braced within an oil-stained exo-skeleton at its cenue. Where its flesh was exposed, Uriel could see that it was withered and dead, a patchwork of sutures running along raised ridges of bone. Its head was heavy and hung low on its shoulders, brass rods piercing the width of its skull and scaffolded by a cage of brass bolted to its temples. Its hooded face was a loathsome, parchment-coloured skull, the lower half gleaming metal and flensed of skin, its eyes replaced with whirring mechanical optical feeds.
Myriad transparent tubes pierced its flesh, running in gurgling loops around its body and hissing valves released noxious gusts as its chest heaved with the effort of breath. It reached forward to lift Uriel with long, augmetic arms, bulky with scalpels, drills and blowtorches.
Onyx stepped in front of the creature, his claws unsheathing.
'No,' he said. 'These ones are for the master of Khalan-Ghol.'
The beast hissed in anger, its clawed hands snapping in frustration and its drill bits whirring dangerously close to Onyx's head. It reached down to push Onyx out of its way, but the black-armoured warrior refused to be moved.
'I said no,' he repeated. 'It may be that the Savage Morticians will have them in time, but that time is not now.'
The creature appeared to consider this for a moment, before its hideous skull face nodded and it retreated into the shadow of the machine once more.
Onyx watched it go and, while his attention was elsewhere, Uriel struggled within the stinking prison of the beast that bore him, Pasanius and Vaanes, but it was no use, they were held utterly immobile. At last, sure the Savage Mortician was not waiting in ambush, Onyx sheathed his claws and led the Exuviae bearing his prisoners onwards.
Uriel's frustration grew with every darkened hall they traversed and every impossibly angled staircase they climbed or descended, unable to move so much as a single muscle. The maddening sound of hammering grew louder the further they travelled and the same emerald light that permeated the city beyond the tower grew brighter as their journey led them from passages and chambers raised by the hands of men into a vast fiery cavern edged with great steam-venting pistons.
A gleaming silver bridge crossed a great chasm in the floor, through which rose banks of hot, sulphurous fumes and the taste of beaten metal. Beyond the bridge was a colossal wall of dark, green-veined stone pierced by a great, iron gate. Studded with jagged black spikes, the gate was flanked by two daemon-visaged Titans, their armoured plates scarred by millennia of war. Uriel saw with loathing that the rippling kill banners hanging from their weapons bore the damnable symbol of the Legio Mortis.
'Behold, the inner sanctum of the fortress of Khalan-Ghol! You are honoured indeed!' cried Onyx, leading them across the bridge spanning the chasm. As they drew near the gate, it unlocked with a reverberating boom that shook the dust from the leering gargoyles clustered around the chamber's roof, and the Titans reached around to open the spiked portal.
Onyx led them through the gateway and at last Uriel and his companions came face to face with the master of Khalan-Ghol.
The walls within the inner sanctum of the fortress were of a dressed black stone, threaded with gold and silver and glistening with moisture. A score of tall, arched windows pierced one wall and the dead light of the sky was reflected as milky lines on the floor.
Surrounded by two score Iron Warriors and seated on a throne of silvery white sat a scarred warrior with close-cropped black hair, clad in a dented and heavily battle-scarred suit of armour. His face was cruel, set in an expression of arch interest, a long, recently healed scar on his right temple. Behind him stood the giant Iron Warrior who had incapacitated Uriel with the writhing energy whip.
'Get rid of the Exuviae, Onyx,' said the warrior.
Onyx nodded and turned to face the slithering monsters, the silver lines on his face flaring brightly and a silver sheened hiss escaping his mouth. Uriel felt the solidity of the creatures become less constrictive and toppled to the floor as their form became sticky and liquid once more. Their substance retreated from the light on the floor, reverting to their sinuous shadow forms. Like whipped dogs, they slipped into the dark corners of the hall before sliding out of sight through the great gateway and back into the mordant darkness of the fortress.
Briefly Uriel considered reaching for his sword, but when he looked up, he stared into the barrels of some forty bolters, their plated sides carved with obscene sigils and decorated with the eight-pointed star of Chaos. The Iron Warriors divested them of their weapons and indicated that they should approach the warrior on the throne.