To be looked at dispassionately was so strange to the waif I was. They were set like gems in a face that was still and untouched by that hatred that i had expected. I saw eyes of a blended green and brown, like the spherical terrariums the blessed of my world would cherish.
I felt a touch on my forehead, and knew that I was to look upon the person who was to judge me.
The hand released my jaw and drew the mask away. Over time, it had become greened from the verdigris of the icon, and I had worked a few scraps of tin in the shape of a His skull for the celebration. My mask was a rag I had used to burnish pillars of the small chapel where I was permitted to sleep against an outside wall. I closed my eyes and waited for this representative of Him on Terra to judge me and end my life, having granted me that gift. It was the longest touch of a human hand I could remember. I felt a hand close under my chin and lift my face upward. They seemed far to quiet to belong to armored feet, and yet they did. Through the roaring of the crowd I heard steps. I would earn either a place in the lines leading to the landers, or death. I knelt there for what felt like hours, waiting. When I came to the foot of the alter and placed my hands on the first step. I knew what the lords of the spires called all who were so touched to come to the alter and be released from their bonds to home and work and go to the Emperor to be redeemed. I saw their hatred and knew it was that I was not meant to be among them.
I thought that all those around me, these good people of the Emperor, knew what I did not. I believed I was cursed, that I carried the mark of the psyker. I made my way through the crowds, kicked or trodden upon as I crawled forward, my face to the ground I was unworthy to walk. Those who feared that they might harbor unnoticed psychic potential, or who sought sanctuary in the right of conscription, or were simply lost in the adulation of the moment could present themselves before the tallymen of the tithe. On the last day, at the grand alter, the crowds were free to offer themselves. The crowds terrified me, as every soul that came near shuddered in revulsion, or cursed or stuck or spat on me. I remember the festivals and masks shaped as eagles, gates, the prows of great ships, faces of saints, and the countless other objects of adoration. My world was in the midst of a great celebration, as the blessed tithe had come for us. I must have been quite young, not yet fully grown.
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