Only after confirming that the Communications Channel had fallen silent, and that the echoes of Malcador had faded completely beyond the barriers of air and consciousness, did Lorgar's taut shoulders relax almost imperceptibly.
He held his listening posture for several more seconds. His powerful psychic senses swept like invisible tendrils through every inch of air in the meditation chamber, every shadow, even the faintest folds in space. Only when he was certain that no unauthorized scrutiny or lingering anomalous fluctuations remained did he truly ease his guard.
He let out a long, slow breath that had been trapped in his chest.
That breath carried the intense concentration of his confrontation with Erda, the mental strain of their verbal sparring, the embarrassment of having the Emperor and Malcador "listen to the entire exchange," and, deeper still, his wariness of that mysterious "mother" and the unsettling mysteries that might lie behind her.
Weariness crept over him like a rising tide—not physical exhaustion, but a fatigue deep within his mind.
Contact with a being like Erda, even through nothing more than words and a clash of wills, drained him far more than a prolonged battle against an entire fleet.
He looked around.
The meditation chamber, once tidy and solemn, filled with philosophical reflection and the orderly business of paperwork, was now a wreck.
Fragments of clay tablets and Dataslates hurled aside by psychic aftershocks littered the floor. Precious ancient manuscripts had been shaken from their shelves and lay open or curled on the ground.
Scraps of parchment and fine stone dust drifted through the air.
Most striking was the heavy stone desk. One corner had been utterly annihilated, leaving an unnaturally smooth surface, while a fine layer of stone powder covered the floor around it.
These were the traces left by his brief