The Reflective Cavern lay roughly a kilometer beneath the City of Tizca. Thousands of meters wide, its stalactite-covered ceiling echoed day and night with soft chiming.
A slender Bronze Apparatus extended downward from the center of the ceiling, like a gigantic telescope.
Its surface was inscribed with mysterious symbols and silver lines, while a flawless green crystal sphere three meters in diameter was set at its apex.
Magnus wore nothing but a few scraps of cloth as his Primarch's Attendant, Amon, rubbed his gleaming skin with embalming oil blended from jasmine and sandalwood.
Uthizzar, the young Temple Master of the Pavoni Cult, used a bone knife to scrape away the excess ointment.
Phosis T'kar, Temple Master of the Pyrae Cult, held up a censer trailing blue smoke, filling the air with the scent of plum blossoms.
Standing directly beneath the green crystal sphere, Magnus gazed through it at the night sky above the Square of the Hidden Eye.
A heavy magnetized iron chain hung from the white square stone slab where Magnus stood, connecting it to five concentric circles surrounding the slab.
The outer four rings bore symbols that even the Thousand Sons did not yet understand. Every time Ahzek Ahriman, Temple Master of the Corvidae Cult, attempted to decipher them, a sour taste rose in his mouth.
At every point along the concentric circles stood a concave mirror.
A thousand psionic servants raised by the Thousand Sons Legion stood at the intersections of energy lines, holding gleaming Psyker Crystals whose radiance focused upon the concave mirrors.
"The time has come." Chief Librarian Hathor Maat approached, carrying a crown woven from vervain leaves, with a silver chain embedded in it.
A white robe draped over his armor, and a slender golden chain circled his waist.
Ahriman followed at his side,