Access to the cathedral was via a winding flight of exterior stairs that curled around the peak. Running up several thousand steps would have been too slow, even if we weren't being shot at by trigger happy religious fanatics the whole way. Fortunately even the divine Ecclesiarchy has to eat, and a cathedral palace has alot of mouths to feed. 


"Abandon your labours and leave this place, pray for repentence until the hour of the Blessed Saints Jubilee," I shouted as we entered the loading dock. It was a cave at the far side of the island where food and bulk goods were brought in by barge from the main land. A large diesl powered vessel was tied up to the internal dock. Heavy duty loader servitors trundled back and forth shifting crates and bales of cargo to a large cargo elevator at the rear of the cavern under the supervision of a handful of menials. The sudden apperance of a Sister of Battle and a touch of psycic glamor was enough to convince them that the Emperor had better use for their time. 


"Are you sure you should be doing that?" Hadrian asked.


"You don't like my halo?" I asked, batting my eyelashes.


"There are serious theological implications, but I was rather thinking of the psyker sensing it," Hadrian replied as we climbed onto the elevator. Gydwyn, apparently familiar with cargo loading equipment, worked the control panel and got us rumbling upwards into the bowels of the Church.


"Even if he is conscious he won't be able to speak coherently," I explained, a little pride in my voice. The psychic trauma of being forcibly re-incorporated was considerable.


"We have the advantage then," Hadrian said as he checked the load on his looted rifle. I wasn't entirely sure that the three of us had any advantage over an armed force of hundreds of Fraternus Militia but chose not to step on the optimistic notion. The elevator opened onto what  must have been a warehouse space. I could smell food coming from an industrial kitchen somewhere ahead of us. Servitors trundled forward milling around in confusion when their sensors registered there were no supplies.


"Any idea where Vorn will be?' Hadrian asked as we swept forward to a large stairway. I knocked several crates over by accident, the bulk of the power armor still throwing me.


"There is a chapel of the central nave, Vorn and the Psyker are there, or they were fifteen minutes ago," I told him.


"Let's go."


________


To my surprise Hadrian had considerable knowledge of Imperial sacred architecture and lead us through the maze of chapels and reliquaries towards the central chapel. There were considerable numbers of people around, but a Sister of Battle striding purposefully with two attendants was enough to get us by with little beside awed looks. Eventually though we were forced to cross the nave. It was a vast hall, hundreds of meters long supported by intricate pillars, each ten feet in diameter and a masterwork of carven oozlite. They were wrought in the shape of tiny human figures, many hundreds of thousands of them. At the bases were carved serfs, Administratum drones, and  other lowly servants. It mounted rank after rank to reveal the entire social order of the imperium, with the great lords and prelates perched far above, out of sight. I thought there might be a message there that the architects had not intended. 


The hall itself was thronged with pilgrims dressed in the robes of a hundred worlds. Priests in white robes shouted homilies from gilded prayer balconies. Cyber cherubs with masks of verdigris copper fluttered around with donation boxes or pict screens displaying Imperial verse. The air was filled with the suurence of several thousand people speaking in low voices and several hundred screaming preachers. Here and there a flagellant displayed wounds they had inflicted on themselves or received upon pilgrimage. One man, evidently not having purchased the proper permit, was dragged away by a pair of temple wardens with iron capped bo-staves. Nobles walked with retinues of guards, their weapons ostentatiously peace bound with gilded ribbons and seals. This didn’t stop them from keeping the rabble back with cudgels and rifle butts.


My presence cut a path through the crowd, a combination of religious awe and the practical bulk of powered armor. We were halfway across the nave when a group of robed women with prayer beads and veils parted and we found ourselves face to face with a second power armored figure. Tertius Vorn stood beside Cardinal Molmenieu and his retinue. The Cardinal was an active man in early middle age, gesturing to emphasize some point  to Vorn. He was so engrossed in the conversation that he kept going a few steps after Vorn froze at the sight of us. He pulled up suddenly as he realized Vorn was no longer keeping pace. The cardinal’s retinue of priests, scribes and relic bearers undulated like a sea snake as a pocket of deadly silence descended in our little section of the vast nave.