More tales of the Inquisition from Black Library

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Incarnation
Divination

• The Agent of the Throne audio drama series by John French •

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Truth and Dreams
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• The Eisenhorn series by Dan Abnett •

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Malleus
Hereticus
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• The Ravenor series by Dan Abnett •

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Ravenor Returned
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Pariah

• The Vaults of Terra series by Chris Wraight •

The Carrion Throne
The Hollow Mountain

Great Warhammer 40,000 tales from Black Library

Blackstone Fortress
A novel by Darius Hinks

Rites of Passage
A novel by Mike Brooks

Spear of the Emperor
A novel by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

Requiem Infernal
A novel by Peter Fehervari

Visit blacklibrary.com for the full range of novels, novellas, audio dramas and Quick Reads, along with many other exclusive products

Contents

Cover

Backlist

Title Page

Warhammer 40,000

THE ABSOLUTION OF SWORDS

THE KNAVE OF STARS

THE MISTRESS OF THREADS

THE CIRCLE OF THE SWORD

THE SPIRIT OF COGS

THE THIEF OF CHALICES

THE MAIDEN OF THE DREAM

THE PURITY OF IGNORANCE

THE SON OF SORROWS

THE FATHER OF FAITH

THE BLESSING OF SAINTS

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Rites of Passage’

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of His inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that He may never truly die.

Yet even in His deathless state, the Emperor continues His eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in His name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst His soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Astra Militarum and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants – and worse.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

THE ABSOLUTION OF SWORDS

‘Claims of innocence mean nothing:
they serve only to prove a foolish lack of caution.’

– Judge Traggat, Selected Sayings, Vol. III, Chapter IV

I

Snow had come to Crow Complex as night fell. The ice-laden wind spiralled through the stacked domes and spires, reaching its fingers down into the cloisters to ripple the flames of candles. A trio walked through the ragged light, crimson robes dragging over the stone floor. No one stopped them. They passed like shadows beneath the sun. Most of the members of the complex’s orders had hidden from the cold as the sun had set. Those few hurrying through the processionals saw the bronze hand of the Order of Castigation hanging around the trio’s necks, and moved on. One did not draw the attention of the castigators unnecessarily.

The first of the trio was tall and slender, and the fall of its robes made it seem to glide over the floor rather than walk. Brass glinted inside its cowl. The second was heavier-set, and walked with head bowed and hands folded into its wide sleeves. A checked band of white and black silk ran around the hems of its sleeves, marking it as the abbot of its order. The last was hunched, fat, and moved with dragging steps. The fabric over its shoulders bulged, and it clinked as it walked. A length of chain trailed along the ground beneath the edge of its robe. To anyone considering if they should check the trio’s progress, this last figure removed any doubts; a weighted penitent was a visible reminder of the price of sin and the cost of absolution.

The wind tugged at the trio’s hoods as they stepped onto the Bridge of Benevolence. A sheer drop fell away to blackness either side of the narrow span of stone. Snow was already settling on the slabs.

‘Sweet tears of Terra,’ gasped the hunched figure, as a gust cut across the bridge.

The figure in the abbot’s robe turned its head slightly towards the hunched figure behind him.

‘Your pardon,’ said the hunched figure, and then muttered to himself, ‘This wind is enough to flay the armour off a tank.’

The trio passed on across the bridge, and towards the looming mass of the High Chapel. Hundreds of metres tall, and over a kilometre across, its size rivalled the cathedrals of other worlds. Twin doors of iron stood closed at the end of the bridge. Plumes of flame rose from vast braziers set into each side of the archway. Copper feathers cascaded down the face of each door.

A pair of guards stepped from niches as the trio reached the end of the bridge. Each wore a brushed-steel breastplate over white robes woven with scarlet flames. Both carried lasguns, the barrels hung with saint coins and water vials. The Ecclesiarchy had held no men under arms since the Age of Apostasy, so these guardians were technically separate from the priests whose will and creed they followed. They were of the Iron Brotherhood, pilgrim warriors who had taken oaths to guard the chapel’s sanctity. Of all the souls in the Crow Complex, they were some of the few who would question the right of an abbot to pass where he wished. They levelled their weapons at the trio.

‘Entrance to the chapel is barred by order of the prefectus prior,’ said one of the guards. ‘I cannot open the way, even to your order.’

The trio stood unmoving and silent.

‘By whose will do you come here at this hour?’ snapped the other guard. ‘You are not Abbot Crayling. Who are you?’

‘I ask your forgiveness,’ said the first of the trio, her voice sharp and clear. The nearest guard blinked, tattooed skulls briefly closing over his eyes. The other opened his mouth to speak.

The robed woman crossed the gap to the guards in a blur, red cloth spilling in her wake. The nearest guard pulled the trigger of his gun. A fist hit the back of his hand. Bones shattered. He gasped air to shout, as an elbow whipped into his temple. He fell, lasgun slipping from his grasp to the snow-covered ground. The second guard was slower, his fingers still scrabbling at the safety catch of his gun as the woman grabbed his collapsing comrade and threw the unconscious body at him. The wind caught the hood of their attacker and the velvet cowl fell back from a slim face beneath a shaven scalp. The second guard toppled, and tried to rise. A boot lashed across his jaw. He slumped to the ground. The lasguns went tumbling down into the abyss beneath the bridge a second later.

‘Someone will notice,’ said the hunched man. Neither he nor the figure dressed as the abbot had moved. The woman glanced up at him. The x-shaped henna stain running across her face made her eyes seem like polished jade set in copper.

‘I will add it to my penance,’ she said, ‘but we do not have the luxury of time.’

The fat figure grunted, chains clinking as he shifted his weight. The hunch on his shoulders moved. A slit in the side of his robes opened and a fabric-wrapped bundle slid to the ground.

‘If we are abandoning subtlety I won’t need these,’ he said, pulling chains from under his robe and letting them rattle to the ground. He knelt and unbuckled the straps around the bundle. The fabric peeled back; oiled metal gleamed within its folds. A pair of bolt pistols etched with gold feathers lay beside a long-hafted warhammer, and a sheathed great longsword. Beneath them were ammo clips and a narrow-bladed power sword. He tossed the bolt pistols to the woman with the painted face. She caught them, checked their action and holstered them beneath her robes. He passed the rest out, and for a second the clink of weapons and harnesses chimed against the wind.

The man in the abbot’s robe settled the sword behind his shoulders, stepped up to the doors, and pushed a section of the frosted metal. A small door hinged inwards.

‘Follow,’ he said, and stepped through.

II

‘You sleep at the other end,’ growled the pilgrim.

Cleander von Castellan sighed. He was starting to wish that they had picked a different infiltration location than this forgotten hole.

The cavern he squatted in had not been made for the purpose it now served. Cleander guessed that it had been a water cistern, feeding the thirst of the first monasteries built when Dominicus Prime had been a barely populated backwater. Now it was a store for the tides of humanity that came to the shrine world. Like everything in the sprawl built by the faithful, it had an acquired name that rang hollow to Cleander’s ear. The Garden of Eternity, they called it. Pillars marched into the dark holding up a ceiling of cracked plaster. Crude paintings of trees and vines wound up their sides. Sheets of cloth hung from wires strung between the pillars, dividing the cavern into a maze of spaces. The light of small fires and oil lamps cast shadows against the fabric screens. Salt deposits glittered where the rough floor met the bases of columns. Glum, unwashed faces had risen and looked down again at Cleander and Koleg as they had passed. There had been no offers of help or friendly greeting to fellow pilgrims. This was the kind of place that bred despair rather than good cheer.

They had eventually found a place in the maze of screens. That alone had been difficult. Every space had a claim on it, and they had to exchange cylinders of fresh water to find somewhere. The commerce that clung to almost every inch of life down here in the Warrens almost made Cleander want to laugh. They had to pay an offering of candle tokens at three shrines for directions to the Garden of Eternity. When they had found the entrance, it had turned out to be a rusted iron door set in a crumbling arch beneath a sculpture of the Emperor as provider. Even then a hooded crone sitting just inside the door had held out her hand for a donation. Cleander had noticed the blunderbuss welded to the metal struts of the crone’s other hand, and handed over another token. That the thug of a pilgrim who loomed over them had some claim on the bit of ground he sat on did not surprise Cleander. It was, though, getting on his nerves.

He looked up into the pilgrim’s face. The man’s head was a ball of scar tissue arranged around a snarl of broken teeth. Tattered fur covered his shoulders, adding to the bulk of the muscles beneath. Layers of stained cloth covered the rest of his body. Red veins spidered the yellow of his eyes.

Cleander tried a smile.

‘I am sorry, brother traveller,’ he said. ‘Is something amiss?’

The big pilgrim raised a hand and jabbed a thick finger towards the other end of the sleeping hall.

‘You sleep down there,’ growled the pilgrim.

Cleander glanced at Koleg, but his companion’s eyes were focused on a point in the distance, his face as blank as ever.

‘We have already paid to be here,’ said Cleander, and fixed his smile in place. He could almost see heavy cogs turning in the big pilgrim’s skull.

‘You go–’ began the thug.

‘No,’ said Cleander. ‘Like I said, we have paid.’ He held the smile in place, his good eye barely flicking as he sized up the thug. Lots of muscle, arms tattooed with tiny, black dots, one for every day spent on pilgrimage to the Crow Complex, a gang brand from Iago running around the left forearm.

The thug’s patience seemed to run out. He stepped back, tensing to lash a kick into Cleander’s face. The man’s collar shifted down his neck. A circle of faded ink coiled at the base.

‘The Tenth Path,’ said Cleander quickly. The thug froze. Cleander reached up to his own throat, careful to keep the movement slow, and pulled his collar down. The tattoo was false, but looked real enough: a ragged halo of ink curled around a bare circle of skin. He flicked his eyes at Koleg. The soldier returned the look without expression and bared his neck to show the same mark. Cleander looked back at the thug. ‘We are seekers of the Tenth Path.’

The thug looked between them. The other pilgrims sitting nearby had already shrunk back, and made it very clear that they had other things to concern them.

‘You,’ said the thug at last. ‘Follow.’ He turned and began to walk towards the far end of the cavern. Cleander stood, lifting the roll of rags holding his possessions and hanging its rope cord across his shoulders. Koleg followed, pulling his coat close about him. The specialist’s face was impassive as always, flint-grey eyes moving over the fabric partitions and huddled pilgrims as they passed. Koleg moved with unhurried care, precise and controlled. The dark skin of his scalp glinted in the firelight, the old surgical scars pale lines around the base of his skull. Unless you had spent years in the specialist’s company, there was little for the eye to catch in his appearance. Most people tended not to notice Koleg, as though he blended with the banality of life. He was also one of the most dangerous people Cleander had ever known.

They trailed the thug, passing down a corridor between fabric screens. People pulled back from their path, and Cleander could see fear in their eyes in the instant before they glanced away. It was not him that they feared, he was sure. At times he had cowed pirate lords and alien princes, but here and now he was just a man with one eye, a ragged beard and greying hair. Clothed in patched and reeking rags, he looked and smelled just like all of the rest of lost humanity.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked the thug.

The brute kept walking. ‘To see the confessor.’

Cleander felt his gut tighten, but kept his face impassive. A confessor could be trouble. The firebrand priests of the Ecclesiarchy were often dangerous and likely to deal with those they saw as heretics without mercy or waiting for reasons. It had taken him and Koleg three weeks to get this far. They were walking the Tenth Path, down into the dark. Now it might end not in revelation, but in fire.

‘Here,’ said the thug, stopping and pulling aside a panel of weighted fabric. They stepped through. The base of one of the pillars rose from the centre of the space beyond. Worn fabric hung over the rough stone, threadbare carpets covered the floor, and bowls of burning oil stood on poles. There was no sign of anyone else. The thug let the hanging drop, and turned to them.

‘What is the truth of the first path?’ he said.

‘That there can be truth,’ said Cleander without a pause.

The thug looked at him, nodded slowly, and then looked at Koleg.

‘What is the truth of the second path?’

‘That the universe is truth,’ said Koleg.

The thug stared at him.

Cleander held himself still. It had taken a lot of work and more than a little blood to learn the replies they had just given. Those words should be enough to take them one more step, but if the thug asked another question they were in trouble. He felt his fingers twitch, feeling the absence of his digi-rings.

The thug nodded, and moved the hangings covering the base of the pillar. A corroded metal door sat beneath. A heavy lock had been welded to the door and frame. A ragged circle had been burned onto the metal. The thug pulled a key on a leather thong from under his tunic, and slotted it into the lock.

Cleander took a step forwards.

The thug paused, hand still on the unturned key. ‘How found you the path, brethren?’ he said.

A chill ran over Cleander’s skin. He licked his lips, mind racing through all of the intelligence Viola had compiled for them on the Tenth Path. This was not a question that they had encountered. The question might have been one of the cult’s ritual challenges, or it might be simple curiosity. Either way there were more wrong answers than right.

‘By many steps, brother,’ said Cleander carefully. There was an extended moment in which he held the thug’s stare. The man’s gaze twitched.

Cleander yanked the bedroll off his shoulder. The thug’s fist lashed out. Cleander ducked, hand scrabbling at the roll of rags in his hands. The thug reached under the layers of his tunic and pulled a length of chain from his waist. Barbs glittered on the edges of the sharpened links. The thug swung. Cleander ducked again, hand reaching inside the bedroll. The weapon hit the floor, and snapped back into the air. Koleg was moving behind the thug. The chain whipped out. Cleander jerked aside. A barb caught his right shoulder and bit deep. The thug yanked, and Cleander lurched forwards, pain rushing through him. Blood spread across his tunic from his shoulder.

Cleander could see Koleg stepping up behind the thug, right hand wreathed with blue lightning. The thug’s lips pulled back in a grinning snarl. Rows of hooked metal teeth glinted in his mouth. He yanked the chain again. Cleander went with the force of the pull and slammed his knuckles into the thug’s throat. The man staggered, choking. The barb ripped from Cleander’s shoulder. Fresh pain burst through him, but his hand had found the grip of the needler hidden inside his bedroll. He pulled the pistol free as the links arced down again.

Blue light enveloped the thug’s head. His body jerked, muscles spasming, jaws clamping down on his tongue. Blood poured down his chin. Cleander saw Koleg’s fingers close around the base of the man’s neck. The polished armatures of the shock-gloves shone as they discharged power.

‘You shoot now,’ said Koleg.

Cleander brought the pistol up and squeezed the trigger. The gun’s hiss was lost under the crackle of electrical discharge. The toxin sliver hit the thug in the right eye and he dropped, muscles still twitching as he hit the floor.

Cleander stepped back, breathing hard. Shadows were moving behind the fabric hangings. Shouts echoed off the cavern ceiling. Koleg dropped to one knee and pulled grenades and weapons from under his coat, laying them on the floor in neat rows.

‘That was not optimal,’ said the soldier.

‘At least we know we found the right place,’ replied Cleander.

Cleander ripped open the rest of his bedroll. Objects tumbled out as blood scattered from his wounded arm. He grabbed a falling injector with his good hand and smacked it into his shoulder next to the wound. The cocktail of numb, spur and blood coagulant poured into him an instant after the needle punched through his skin. He let out a sharp breath. Koleg looked up at him, and tossed him a compact filter mask. Cleander caught it and shook the straps free. Koleg already had his mask on, his eyes hidden behind a slot visor set in a white ceramic faceplate. A short chrome cylinder projected from each side of the mask’s chin.

‘How long until they find us?’ asked Cleander.

A shadow loomed next to one of the hangings. A chain blade roared to life, and sliced down through the fabric. Cleander brought the pistol up and put two needles into the shadow. The figure dropped, ripping the hole wide as it fell, chain blade growling in its death grip. Another shape was moving behind it. Cleander could see the shadow of a handgun. He shot again, heard a noise from behind him and spun, putting another shot into a silhouette.

‘Secure your mask,’ called Koleg, his voice flat and metallic as it came from his own mask’s speakers. He held a pistol with a short, tubular barrel. The broken breech of the weapon was wide enough to swallow a shot glass.

Cleander pulled the mask over his head, the rubber seals pressed into his face. The world beyond the photo-visor became a twilight blue. More shadows were moving beyond the screens. He heard the clunk of a gun arming.

‘Secure,’ he shouted, hearing his own voice echo flat from his speaker.

Koleg nodded, dropped a grenade shell into the pistol launcher, and closed the breech with a flick of his wrist.

Gunfire ripped through the fabric screens. Cleander dropped to the floor as the bullets sawed through the air above him. The torn hangings swayed and his eye caught the flash of muzzle flare. He sent three needles into the space behind the flash, and the gunfire stopped. Koleg, unmoved, aimed the pistol launcher up and pulled the trigger. The grenade thumped into the air, hit the ceiling above and burst in a grey cloud of gas. The spent casing spun to the ground as Koleg cracked the launcher, and dropped another grenade into the breech. He fired again, the shot arcing high over the fabric hangings, then again and again, in a quick, remorseless rhythm.

Grey and cyan fog rolled through the cavern, sinking from the roof, spreading between the cloth hangings. For an instant there was a muffled lull in the noise. Then the screaming boiled up, rending the air as terror ripped from a hundred throats. Weeping and shouting blended with the cacophony, as the hallucinogen and terror gas flooded the cavern. Inside his mask, Cleander gulped the sanitised air. It tasted slightly metallic.

Koleg bent down and began to gather up the rest of his equipment, then shrugged into a twin shoulder harness. A macrostubber sat in the left holster, and the pistol grenade launcher went into the empty right holster, the grenades into loops and pouches across his chest. Cleander scooped up his own collection of trinkets. Two heavy rings went onto each hand, a power dagger in a sheath onto his left forearm, and a patch over his left eye socket.

Koleg moved over to the door in the pillar base. The thug’s key was still in the lock. Around them the sounds of panic rolled with the spreading fog. Cleander clicked a switch on the side of his mask, and his view through the visor snapped into cold black broken by splashes of red and yellow body heat.

‘We proceed?’ asked Koleg, drawing his macrostubber pistol from its holster. Cleander moved up next to him, and gripped the key. The lock turned smoothly. Cleander felt the door shudder as bolts thumped back into the frame. He pulled it wide. A flight of stairs spiralled down into the dark. Traces of green warmth moved in the blue-stained cold of Cleander’s sight.

‘We proceed,’ he said and stepped through.

III

Prior Prefectus Gul paused as he crossed the threshold of the western sub-chapel. Candles burned on the altar dominating the far end of the long chamber, filling the nave with the warm glow of flames, but leaving the rest to shadows. The candle in Gul’s right hand lit a circle of floor around him, but then slid off into the quiet gloom. Lumn had stopped three paces behind Gul, and waited, head bowed, arms folded in his wide sleeves. His face was wide, the flesh soft beneath his tonsured hair. In the low light the grey of Lumn’s robes seemed liked folded shadow.

‘Wait for me in the south transept,’ said Gul. Lumn bowed his head even lower, then turned and moved away into the darkness of the chapel’s main vault. Gul watched him go for a second. Lumn was his Silent Acolyte, an order whose entire existence revolved around serving the spiritual leaders of the Crow Complex. Conditioned to obedience and secrecy, the Silent Acolytes completed their novitiate training by having their tongues cut from their mouths. They were supposed to be utterly trustworthy, and Gul had never had reason to doubt Lumn’s devotion. But trust was a coin made of false gold.

Gul stepped into the sub-chapel, and let the quiet of night gather around him. Like the rest of the High Chapel, it was almost deserted. During the day, Dominicus’ sun would rise through the sky, and its light would fall through the chapel’s windows and crystal dome, illuminating the faithful. Once the sun began to fall, the prayers faded and those who had been granted a place at twilight prayer left the chapel to sleep in silence. Only the members of the order of the Eternal Light moved amongst the pews and pillars, tending the candles that burned in the one hundred and eight shrines. As the second most senior brother in all the orders of the Crow Complex, Gul was one of the only other souls who saw the High Chapel in the dark.

He liked the night. It was a sea of calm in the constant whirl that was the governance of the monastery complex. That you could only hear yourself think when this supposed place of peace was empty, was an irony that struck him every time he stepped into the High Chapel. Not that he ever thought of it as a place of true peace, nor of the blessings that were given within its walls as anything but empty lies. The Imperial Creed was a doctrine of blood and greed, and bloated power feeding on the fear of the faithful. The Emperor did not protect, and never had. He was a man who did extraordinary things, who had earned the Imperium he had created, but a man none the less. For all his power, one might as well take a hook and line to the sea and fish for truth as pray to the Emperor for deliverance, enlightenment or mercy.

Gul had not always known that the Emperor was not divine. Once he had been like all the other credulous fools. Now he held the truth locked inside his skull, hidden by competence and masked by piety. He could smile at a grossly fat prelate exhorting starving pilgrims to beware the lure of gluttony. He could watch the preachers dole out blessings while the devotional servitors followed them to collect coin from the grateful. He could do these things because he knew the truth. That core of secrets locked inside him gave him a strength that the Imperial Creed never had. He was a heretic, and he was blessed to be so.

He stepped towards the sub-chapel’s altar, glancing at the candle that marked the time. His rendezvous with his contact in the Tenth Path was not until the next division, but he liked to arrive first. It gave him comfort, a veneer of control over what was happening. Besides, it gave him time to think. His footsteps echoed softly under the gaze of the stone saints lining the walls. It had been sixty days since his last meeting, and he had not expected to be summoned again so soon. Had something changed? What would be asked of him? Was there something wrong?

He was a pace from the altar when the candle flames rippled. A breath of cold air touched the back of his neck. He whirled around, eyes going to the arch he had entered through.

There was nothing there, just the distant light of torches falling in the main transept. Cold air gusted past him again, and the candles on the altar guttered. Somewhere a door banged shut. The air was still again, the dark in the sub-chapel almost total now. Footsteps echoed behind him, and Gul turned.

‘Who is there?’ he called, and the stone echoed back his voice in fading whispers.

‘...is there?’

‘Who...’

‘... there... there... there...?’

The afterglow of the extinguished candle flames clung to his retinas as he turned and stared at the dark.

‘Prior Prefectus Aristas Gul,’ said a voice from behind him. He whirled back, eyes wide, mouth dry.

Fire sparked in front of him. Gul flinched, but the flame held steady, a single tongue of orange in the black. The image of a hand holding a burning taper formed next to the light, and then the flaring light caught the outline of a hooded figure. Black and white checks ran around the sleeves of the red robes.

‘You should not be here,’ snapped Gul, his voice ringing high. He could feel cold snaking down his skin. ‘I demand–’

‘A scholar once told me that humans lit candles in prayer before they even knew they were not alone in the cosmos,’ said the robed figure. The hand holding the taper reached out, and put the flame to the wick of a candle. The fire caught. ‘Before they knew that their gods were lies, they still drew hope from that one small act.’

Gul felt his mouth open to call out, but the words caught before they could reach his tongue. The robed figure turned. The bronze hand hanging on the robed man’s chest glinted. Gul’s frozen mind finally registered the colours and details of the figure’s robes. He could see the hilt of a sword and the butt of a gun projecting up behind the man’s hood.

‘You are not Abbot Crayling,’ he said, anger overcoming fear. ‘You are not of the Order of Castigation. Who are you?’

A swish of fabric jerked Gul’s eyes to the arched doorway at the other end of the chapel. A slender figure in red robes stood outlined against the glow from beyond. Her hood was down, and he could see the ruddy ‘X’ crossing her face beneath a shaved scalp. A heavy step rang behind him and a hunched figure appeared from the dark, muscles and fat rippling under crimson fabric as the man hefted a double-handed hammer.

His skin felt tight, his blood a racing beat of ice in his flesh. Fears and possibilities formed and spun in his mind: discovery, betrayal, escape. He should run. He should make for the small door behind the altar and flee. He should call out. Lumn might still be close enough to hear him. But he did not move or speak. Instead his mouth repeated the last words they had spoken.

‘Who are you?’ he breathed.

The tall man with the sword across his back reached up and lowered his hood. The face beneath was young and strong, long black hair pulled back in a topknot above hard, dark eyes.

‘I am Covenant,’ said the man, ‘and I am here to offer you a chance of absolution.’

IV

Cold darkness swallowed Cleander as he descended the spiral stairs. The world was painted in blue in his infra-visor. Only he and Koleg stood out, their shapes yellow and red with warmth. They had closed the door into the sleeping cavern, and had been descending for long enough that they had left all light far behind. After a while he had switched to dark vision, but there were no scraps of light for it to gather, just a grey blur at the edge of sight. He had switched back to the blindness of infra-vision, and moved by touch, left hand running over the rough stone of the wall.

‘These catacombs run deep,’ he muttered after a while.

‘A fact that we knew at mission briefing,’ said Koleg.

Cleander shivered, suddenly wishing that he had something more substantial than pilgrim rags to keep him warm. ‘It should not be this cold – there are no air currents, no running water. So why is it getting colder?’ he said. Koleg hesitated behind him. He turned, and looked at the soldier. Koleg’s shape was a bright rainbow of body heat.

‘The temperature is stable,’ said Koleg. ‘It isn’t getting colder.’

Cleander felt himself become very still. Ice ran over his skin. In his eyes the colours of the infra-sight swam, switching and blurring. His teeth rattled against each other in his mouth. He turned back to the darkness beneath the next step. He reached out for the wall. His fingers slid into empty air. He flinched, but kept his hand extended. The cold bit into his bare skin. He moved his hand to the side, breathing slowly. His fingers touched stone. It felt warm, as though it had been warmed by the sun.

‘There is a door on my right,’ he said, carefully. ‘Follow the direction of my right arm.’

Koleg moved close, macrostubber levelled, one hand on Cleander’s shoulder.

‘Ready,’ said Koleg.

Cleander’s right hand flexed on the grip of his needler.

‘Moving,’ he said, and stepped into the waiting emptiness beyond the door.

A deeper chill washed over him, as though he had stepped through a cascade of water. The view in his infra-visor flashed, bubbles of yellow and red heat popping against blue. He snapped the visor to normal vision. For a moment the black remained pressed against his eyes. Then light began to sketch a reality around him. A blue-green glow spread up columns framing eight openings set to either side of a long chamber. The columns supporting the arches were carved from a stone that glistened like glass. A long pool of liquid ran down the centre of the floor, its surface a black mirror. Cleander stepped forwards, and Koleg moved past him, pistol levelled, tracking between each of the archways.

‘This is it,’ said Cleander. ‘This is where they were bringing us.’

‘This is the target?’

Cleander did not respond. His eyes flicked over the chamber. For a second he thought had seen something sinuous move under the stone surface of the wall, as though it were a sheet of glass opening on an ocean.

‘Who was it that the big lug said he was bringing us to see?’ said Cleander, softly. He was suddenly wishing that he had argued for a different approach in tackling the Tenth Path, an approach that included a platoon of his household mercenaries. Or a Space Marine strike team.

‘The confessor...’ said Koleg.

Cleander turned to answer, and stopped. A tall, hunched statue stood under a white shroud at the far end of the chamber. The fabric stirred as though in a breeze. The scent of crushed flowers and spoiled meat brushed Cleander’s senses. Rage bubbled up inside him, staining his thoughts red. Whispers chirped at the edges of his mind, promising things he never knew he wanted. He shut out the thoughts and sensations.

He knew what this was; the warp was close, shivering just beyond the skin of reality, feeling for a crack through which to pour. To others, even that touch would be enough to force them to their knees, eyes wide but seeing nothing. Cleander had touched the warp and seen its true face many times, and though he knew better than to think himself immune to its promises, he also knew himself well enough to see those promises as empty. He was not a good man, he was very far from a good man. He knew the power of wealth and lies, and enjoyed using both. He cared for few, and saw most people as expendable and worthless at best. He had no ideals, and his few beliefs all had a price. These were facts that he had never denied, but they were not weakness; they were armour against false desire.

Koleg swayed where he stood, and then moved forwards, gun raised. Cleander stepped to follow, and then paused. He glanced up, and then back to the pool of water running down the centre of the room. The ceiling above was vaulted stone. Perhaps it had been the crypt of one of the first temples raised on Dominicus Prime, now buried deep beneath the mountain of stone that was the Crow Complex. Handprints covered the ceiling, hundreds of handprints in dried, dark liquid. Cleander paused.

‘Koleg,’ he said carefully.

‘Yes?’

‘The pool,’ said Cleander. Koleg snapped a glance at it, and then back to the space beyond his gun.

‘I see it,’ said Koleg.

Cleander stepped forwards, kneeling slowly. He stared at the black gloss surface. The water beneath was black, and Cleander could not tell if that was because he could not see through it, or if it was perfectly clear and he was looking down into an abyss.

‘It reflects nothing,’ he said, and reached out to touch it.

‘What are you doing?’ called Koleg.

‘The confessor,’ he said. ‘That is what is supposed to be down here. The first steps of damnation are always wrapped in the costume of piety – isn’t that what Josef keeps on saying? So when all those lost souls come down here, they come to confess. And why do the pious confess?’ His fingers were just above the surface. ‘To be washed clean.’

He touched the water.

Circles spread across the pool, struck the sides and rebounded. Water lapped over the edges.

‘Is this wise?’ said Koleg as he moved next to Cleander.

‘No,’ said Cleander, and the word was a puff of white in the suddenly freezing air. ‘But if I was wise I would not be here in the first place.’

More water was splashing out of the pool as its surface began to chop and heave. A low moan ran around the chamber, and Cleander looked up for a second. When he looked back, it was into a face floating beneath the surface of the water. He leapt to his feet. Koleg spun.

The face was pale, the flesh fat under blue-veined skin. Silver hair swirled around it, billowing in the water. Its mouth was open, tongue pink between white teeth. The eyes were closed as though in sleep, or peaceful death. Cleander tried to move, to bring his needler up, but he was frozen in place, eyes locked on the image forming beneath the waves. A torso appeared beneath the face, then arms and legs. Lines of stitched scars criss-crossed flesh. Silver tubes ran into the tips of its fingers and ran off into the depths. Cleander’s heart was a paused beat in his chest. The face in the water opened its eyes. He had an impression of colour swirling around ragged pupils. Ice was spreading across the floor from the pool edge.

+Help,+ said a voice that echoed in Cleander’s skull. +Help me.+

He felt his limbs moving, felt himself bend down to the water, reaching beneath to pull the figure out into the air.

+Free me.+

‘Von Castellan!’ shouted Koleg, close but so far away. ‘Stand back, now!’

+Please,+ whispered the voice in his head.

A hand gripped Cleander’s arm and yanked him back. He swore, surged up, confusion and anger roaring through him. Koleg shoved him away, and Cleander’s eyes cleared.

Figures stepped from the black spaces of the archways. Tatters of soaking cloth hung from them. Jagged circle tattoos slid over the exposed skin of their arms and necks. Darkness shone from the marks, shredding light, fuming night. Grey ash powdered their faces. Their eyes were closed, and frost breathed from their lips. Serrated knives and barbed chains hung from their hands.

Koleg fired. A tongue of flame ripped from the macrostubber. The shroud covering the shape at the end of the chamber billowed, and the lost pilgrims, who had found their way along the Tenth Path to a revelation that they could no longer escape, leapt forwards in a blur of sharp edges.

V

‘What are you talking about?’ said Gul, his eyes wide as he stared at Covenant. He could feel calm draining from him. ‘This is a gross violation of–’

‘The Tenth Path,’ said Covenant softly.

Gul breathed out, mind racing through what was happening.

Covenant turned back to the altar, reached out, and lit a second candle from the first.

‘Three years ago someone came to you and asked you to help him keep a secret,’ said Covenant. ‘He said to you that he saw a connection between you both, a shared vision of the truth. You were scared. You wondered how someone could know thoughts you had never spoken to another soul.’

Gul felt his hands start to tremble.

‘Are you...’ he said. ‘Are you with him?’

‘He said that you were right, that the faith you had turned from was false, that there was nothing divine in the universe beside what we made, that to believe otherwise was to create your own prison. He said that everything you had been told was a lie.’ Covenant’s eyes stayed fixed on the twin candle flames. ‘And then he asked you to serve, to help others who saw the truth, to protect them, and give them aid and shelter. And that is what you have done, prior. You have found ways of hiding people, of diverting funds, and deflecting attention from a cult that you have never seen.’

Shock shuddered through Gul. His head was spinning. Anger flared up, hot and bright.

‘You don’t know what you are talking about,’ he snarled. ‘You really have no idea what you are–’

‘The Inquisition,’ said Covenant. ‘The man who came to you said that he was of the Inquisition.’ He raised his hand, and opened his fingers. Luminous lines spread across the palm as an electoo lit.

Gul stared at the glowing image of a stylised ‘I’ broken by three bars across its middle. It was a sigil he had only seen once before, and then, as now, its implication stole every thought from his skull.

‘And the Inquisition is something that I know very well,’ said Covenant.

‘But he was of the Inquisition,’ Gul heard himself say.

Covenant gave a single slow nod.

‘Yes.’

‘Why did he... need me?’

‘Because he needed someone to protect the seed he planted here until he could harvest its flower.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Gul. ‘He was an inquisitor, and he said that I served humanity. Yet if you are an inquisitor how can you condemn me for doing his work?’

‘Because everything you have believed is a lie. The Tenth Path are not lost souls that share your misguided heresy. They are a coven devoted to darkness and ruin. What you have sheltered and protected is a cradle of monsters.’

‘I don’t believe you...’

‘Yes, you do,’ said Covenant.

Gul felt the shaking start at his feet, and roll up through muscle and skin. Something in him wanted to shout that he was innocent, that it was just another layer of lies. But something in Covenant’s voice cut through that tissue of comfort. He felt his knees begin to fold.

A strong hand caught his shoulder and steadied him. Gul glanced behind him and saw a scarred face in the shadow of a hood, and realised that the fat man with the hammer had stepped behind him without a noise.

‘Steady,’ growled the man softly. ‘Remember what you were, prior. Face this with courage.’

Gul blinked, confused, but felt his back straighten and some strength return to his limbs. Covenant remained still, gaze fixed, face expressionless. Gul felt moisture on his cheek, and raised his hand to touch his face.

I am crying, he realised. ‘What...’ he stammered. ‘What can I do?’

‘Before dawn comes the Tenth Path will be no more. There is nothing more you can do to aid or condemn them. But the one who began this, the one who deceived you, he lives, and above all else he fears what you can give me.’

‘I will tell you everything,’ said Gul.

A breath of cold air stirred his robes, and prickled his skin. ‘I...’ he began to say, but Covenant’s head had jerked up, eyes moving across the shadows beyond the altar.

‘How many ways in are there?’ growled the fat man behind Gul.

‘What?’ stammered Gul. ‘The main arch, the priest’s door, and–’ the words caught in his throat as he realised what the draught of air meant. ‘And... and the way through the undercroft.’

‘Severita,’ called Covenant.

‘I feel it, lord,’ came a woman’s voice from close by the arch into the main chapel. ‘Something is here.’

‘What is happening?’ hissed Gul.

‘A watcher,’ said Covenant. ‘The man whom you served would have sent a servant to watch over you, to make sure you did not stray.’ The breath of cold air was stronger now. The candle flames rippled.

‘Where is the entrance to the undercroft?’ said Covenant.

‘Here,’ said Gul, taking a step forwards without thinking. A warm glow had filled him suddenly. ‘It’s just behind this part of the altar. There is a trick to it,’ he said, and felt a smile form on his face as he spoke. ‘A trick lock that releases a panel. I have often wondered why anyone would conceal such a thing. As an amusement, perhaps.’ He laughed. His mind was clear. There was nothing to fear. Everything was simple. He just needed to show them where the hidden door was. He heard the one called Covenant shout something, but the words were distant, soft, meaningless. All that mattered was the next step he needed to take.

A thin figure stood before him in the shadows. Pale robes hung from it, a hood hiding its bowed head. Recognition sparked in the fog of Gul’s thoughts.

‘Lumn?’ he said, and felt the warm dullness of his thoughts shift as he frowned at his Silent Acolyte. ‘What are you doing here, boy? I said to wait in the south transept.’

Lumn did not answer, but raised his head. The face beneath the hood was Lumn’s but its eyes were holes, and for an instant Gul could not see the chapel, just the dark and stars swirling against the blood- and violet-stained sheet of night.

Then something lifted him from his feet and spun him over, as gunfire tore through the air.

VI

Cleander brought the needler up and squeezed the trigger twice. Toxin splinters hissed into the nearest pilgrim’s throat. The man crumpled, the chain in his fist whipping out with the last of his momentum. Cleander ducked. The chain whistled over his head. Another pilgrim was on him before he could stand. A knife sliced across his forearm. He flinched back, and shot the pilgrim in the face.

‘Koleg!’ he shouted.

More figures were coming from the arches on either side of the chamber. Two ran at Cleander. Neither had hands. Hooked blades projected from the stumps of their wrists. The first swung at him. He ducked under the blow, came up and levelled his closed fist. The digi-weapons in his rings fired. A stream of plasma hit the hook-armed figure, and blasted him into a cloud of ash and screaming heat. Another man came at him, hook arm arcing down towards his head. Cleander stamped his foot out, felt bone break under his heel, and the pilgrim was falling backwards. He rammed the muzzle of his needler into the man’s face and squeezed the trigger three times.

Cleander raised his head, breathing hard. A mass of figures was pouring from the arches, eyes closed, weapons reaching.

‘Koleg!’

‘Down!’ shouted Koleg.

Cleander dropped.

Koleg’s macrostubber purred thunder. The first rank of pilgrims fell, torsos almost cut in two by the deluge of rounds. Koleg panned the pistol left, scything into the crowd of bodies. Blood puffed into the air, scattering across the black surface of the mirror pool. The macrostubber clicked dry.

More pilgrims were scrabbling over the bodies of the dead, teeth bared, eyes twitching beneath closed eyelids. Cleander stood as Koleg levelled his pistol launcher and fired. Fire burst across the far side of the chamber. The visor in Cleander’s mask blinked to near black. Gasping cries rolled with the roar of the inferno. Limbs thrashed in the blaze. As his visor switched to mundane sight, he could see mouths moving in snarling faces as the flesh cooked from skulls.

Cleander moved forwards, needle pistol in both hands. Koleg was snapping a drum into his macrostubber. The surface of the pool was a mirror of flames. The fire coiled in the air, tongues spiralling together, roaring with the screams of the dying. The grey shroud covering the statue at the end of the chamber caught light, and dissolved in a curtain of ashes. The thing – that was not a statue – stood tall and shook itself free of cinders.

It had started as a human, or perhaps many humans. It looked like a man, but a man so tall that its shoulders touched the ceiling. Its skin was the white of marble. Rows of red eyes ran down its cheeks. Muscles bunched as it moved, and blood seeped from the iron bolts hammered into flesh. Chains circled its limbs and the links rang as it stepped forwards. Cleander knew what it was, though he wished with all his heart that he did not. It was a host to the powers of the warp, a conduit to the hungering beyond. It was a creature of Chaos.

The air in the chamber reeked of sulphur. The creature took a juddering step forwards. Koleg fired. The creature raised a hand. Cleander had an impression of long fingers and sharpness. Time stuttered, and the bullets melted in the air. Sparks and metal droplets scattered onto the surface of the pool. Koleg dropped the macrostubber, his hands a blur as he reached for the grenade launcher. The creature roared. A spear of fire ripped from between its teeth. Koleg dived aside as fire washed where he had stood. The creature dropped to all fours, and leapt through the blaze.

+Help me...+

Cleander heard the voice in the back of his head. He took the last step towards the ice-crusted pool, and looked down. The figure was still there, just beneath the surface. Ghost light blazed in its eyes. Its hands were moving, paddling weakly, tugging against the silver tubes linked to its fingers. He could see its lips moving, could see teeth glinting like pearls beside the wound where its tongue had been.

On the other side of the chamber, Koleg was rolling over, the right side of his body on fire. The creature from beneath the shroud stretched back to its full height. The air shimmered around it. Cleander could feel heat radiating from it. The figure in the pool was writhing under the ice, and he could see an echo of the warp creature’s movements in the desperate thrashing. They were connected, the host creature and the body tethered in the pool. He should do something now that he understood that fact, he should...

+Help...+

Sensations were spinning through Cleander’s skull. He felt his gun drop from his fingers. Everything was a rolling cloud of competing voices from his memory: his father shouting at him, the leaden disappointment in his sister’s eyes, the stillness of Covenant.

+Help–+

He punched his hands through the water’s surface. Ice cracked. Wet warmth surrounded his arms, soft and thick, like blood. He touched flesh, gripped, and twisted, and he felt something snap. Time blinked.

And then he was falling forwards into the dark embrace of the water.

VII

Gul hit the floor. Air thumped from his lungs. He rolled over and gasped. There was a slow quality to everything, as though his mind were a jammed chronometer catching up with time. He was on the floor next to the tier of pews that ran down the right of the chapel. The atmosphere was bright with explosions. The place where he had been standing in front of the altar was ten paces away. Something had picked him up and flipped him through the air like a hand batting away a toy. Lumn stood in the dark beyond the altar. Except it was not Lumn.

The young man’s face was a mask broken by black holes where his mouth and eyes had been. Colour and shape distorted around him, light casting shadow, shadow burning with light. Bolt rounds burst in mid-air around him. Shrapnel tore the wood of the seating. Splinters spun out. Lumn turned his head towards Gul, and stepped forwards. Covenant stepped across his path. Light haloed the inquisitor, and the air in front of him shimmered. A wall of invisible force blasted from Covenant. Broken pews tore from the floor. Lumn met the wall of force with a raised hand. Light shattered just beyond his palm. A shockwave rolled outwards. Gul felt his ears pop.

To his left he could see the woman with the marked face vault onto the pews, fire blazing from her bolt pistols. One of the bolts struck Lumn in the shoulder and punched him off his feet in a spray of shrapnel and blood. Covenant was moving, the great sword sliding from his shoulder in a single blur of sharpness and activating a power field. Lumn hit the floor, and the sword descended above him. He vanished. Covenant’s sword struck the floor. Stone sheared into shards.

A shadow rose above Gul. He looked up. Lumn stood on the tier above him. Black smoke coiled from where the bolt round had ripped away his shoulder and half of his face. Worms of pale light burrowed through the bloody flesh, and Gul realised that muscle and bone were bubbling up to fill the wound. The edges of Lumn’s form were like a ragged cloak blowing in the wind. The pews crumbled to glowing ash around him. He pointed at Gul and his hands seemed to grow, spreading through the air like the shadows reaching from flame. Pain exploded in Gul’s chest. Ice formed on his lips as he screamed.

The fat man with the hammer charged from behind Gul, muscle surging under fat as he spun his warhammer. Lumn raised his hands, and to Gul they seemed to be claws of hooked bone. The man swung the hammer, roaring, face locked in rage. Claws and hammerhead met, and suddenly Lumn was going backwards, shadows coiling around him, and there was blood mixing with the embers.

Bolt rounds exploded against the shadows around Lumn. Gul could see the woman with the bolt pistols leaping across the chapel. He heard words lift into the air between the roar of her guns. ‘Blessed father of mankind...’ the voice rose high and clear, echoing from the high roof. ‘May my hands be your talons...’ Fire blistered the gloom.

The man with the hammer glanced over his shoulder.

‘Get up! Move!’ he shouted at Gul, as Lumn stepped from the fire of the explosions, and punched his clawed hand into the man’s side. The man gasped, eyes wide, blood on his lips. Lumn lifted him from the floor.

‘For I am your Seraph...’ The woman leapt across the last yards between her and Lumn, pistols still firing.

Lumn’s head turned towards her. His face was a mass of red flesh, his eyes holes in a bloody skull. Lightning and blue fire lit the dark, and the woman was crumpling to the floor, the words of her prayer lost on her lips. Lumn threw the man with the hammer across the chapel, and stepped forwards, his form flickering like the frames of a faulty pict feed. He no longer looked like the young man who had walked at Gul’s side for three years. He no longer looked even human. His body pulsed with wet sinew and cold fire as he reached out for Gul. The clawed fingers closed over Gul’s mouth. Sharp claw tips bit into his cheeks as Lumn pulled him off the floor like a child lifting a broken toy.

+Silence,+ hissed a voice in Gul’s thoughts as he saw blackness fold around him.

The sword blow severed Lumn’s arm at the elbow. White light flooded Gul’s eyes as the power field flared. A cry filled the air, rising higher and higher. Half blind, Gul had time to see Lumn reel back, blood pouring from the stump of his arm. Covenant followed him, turning with the weight of his sword as he cut. Lightning flashed, and Lumn, or whatever had called itself Lumn, was falling, its blood burning as it scattered through the air.

VIII

The memory came to Cleander as he drowned.

‘How many choices do I have?’ he had asked.

Covenant had held Cleander’s gaze for a second, dark eyes unblinking.

‘There is always a choice.’

‘Information or execution?’

Covenant shook his head.

‘Execution is kindness in this universe, Duke von Castellan, and you know nothing that I want to know.’

‘So?’ Cleander had said, raising his eyebrow. ‘That is supposed to be your threat? You should work on your technique.’

‘You are not a coward, and you are not unintelligent, so please do not insult my intelligence by saying that you don’t understand what I am saying.’

‘Obliteration...’ Cleander had said at last.

‘For you,’ said Covenant, ‘and for your family, and everyone you ever knew and cared for. Those that are not found will be hunted for all time without hope of forgiveness.’

‘You can’t do that. No one can do that.’

‘I can, and you know that I can,’ said Covenant.

‘If I am the man you say I am, then you should know that I don’t care about anyone else.’

‘But you do.’

Cleander had not replied for a long moment, and then nodded once at the inquisitor.

‘What is the other choice?’

Hands gripped his back and hauled him out of the dark. He broke the surface of the water, gasped for air, and vomited. Water and bile poured from his mouth as he coughed and heaved air into his lungs.

‘You are alive,’ said Koleg from above him.

‘Your...’ Cleander vomited again. ‘Your observations are as insightful as ever.’

‘It was intended to reassure you.’

‘Good...’ gasped Cleander. The world in front of his eyes was smeared with grey and pain. ‘Good...’

He rolled over and tried to sit up. The chamber was quiet. Flames still crawled over the heaped corpses, and a layer of smoke was gathering beneath the roof and flowing through the archways into the spaces beyond. The pool of water stirred with the waves from Cleander’s exit, but it was just water, its surface reflecting the devastation in rippled fragments. A corpse floated close to the edge of the pool, its head waving on its broken neck.

‘Where is the... monster?’ he asked.

‘The host creature fell when you broke the neck of the thing in the pool,’ said Koleg. He pointed at the far side of the pool where a heap of skin lay on the wet stone like a discarded coat.

Koleg shifted his weight, and Cleander noticed that the soldier was holding his right arm against his body. His scorched mask and visor hung around his neck, and glossy burns marked the side of his face. Not for the first time, Cleander wondered if the alterations made to Koleg’s brain removed pain or just the man’s ability to feel the emotion of being in pain. He felt his own hands begin to tremble.

‘It was as Covenant expected,’ said Koleg, nodding at the floating corpse in the pool. ‘Another warp conduit and symbiotic possession, just like on Agresis.’

‘Yes, yes... just like it,’ said Cleander, not really listening. His limbs felt numb and his head was swimming. ‘Help me up.’ Koleg reached down with his good arm. Cleander gripped the arm and pulled himself up with a stream of swearing. He swayed on his feet, looked around the floor, frowning. ‘Where is my gun?’ Koleg held it up. Cleander nodded, took it, and began to limp towards the arch that led to the stairs.

‘Where are you going?’ called Koleg. ‘This area will need to be cleansed.’

‘Someone else’s problem, someone else’s job. I am going to find a place where the transmitter will be able to reach our lord and master, and then...’ he trailed off, pausing, blinking. He thought of the reflection he had glimpsed in the surface of the pool before he had touched its surface: a man with dark hair and beard, his skin marked by time and scarred by blades, one eye a pit, the other a flicker of black under his own gaze. ‘Then I am going to drink more than is necessary, and then, I guess, I am going to wait to hear where I will next serve my penance.’

He limped on to the arch, before turning and looking back. Koleg stood where he had been before, face unreadable in the light of the cooling fire.

‘Are you coming?’ asked Cleander. After a second Koleg gave a nod and followed him.

IX

Gul turned his head, blinking at the sunlight. Blue sky curved in a dome above him. The chair beneath him was carved from driftwood. Slabs of smooth stone ran away from him until they met the sea. Waves lapped against the stone edge, sending spray into the air to cool the warm breeze. Beyond that, the sea was a wide band of deeper blue beneath the sky. He knew where he was, knew that if he looked behind him he would see the tower of Solar Truth rising from the land like a shard of broken glass. He also did not know how he could be there. It had been three decades since he had last been in this place, since he had left his home to follow his faith. He turned to look behind him.

‘This is very pleasant,’ said a voice in front of him.

His head snapped around. A woman sat in front of him. At a glance she looked young. Red hair rose in the wind around a slim face. Her eyes were dark, her mouth tilted in a smirk. A silver carafe and two crystal goblets of amber wine sat on a stone table between them. He noticed that the goblet nearest the woman was almost empty, as though she had been drinking from it for a while. The green silk of her robe shimmered in the sunlight as she picked up the goblet and brought it to her lips.

‘Try it,’ she said. ‘It is worth it.’

Gul frowned. Memories of the chapel on Dominicus Prime pushed into his thoughts, the flash of gunfire, and the sound of screams rose, but they seemed distant, unconnected to him and unimportant.

He picked up the goblet and took a sip.

‘Where did you get this?’ he breathed. ‘They never let this vintage out of the arch-prior’s personal cellar.’

‘Oh, we have the means to get almost anything we like,’ said the woman. ‘But in this case I got it from you, Aristas.’ He looked up at the sound of his first name. The woman smiled, and gestured at the sea and sky around them. ‘Just like I got all of this from you.’

Gul stared at her.

‘Who–?’

‘You can call me Mylasa,’ she said before he could finish the question. ‘Do you like it? It was one of the few places in your head that you remember with happiness. Seemed like a good place for you to have this moment. Shame it could not be longer, really.’

‘What?’

‘I – or should I say we, because what is life but not being able to do anything without it being at someone else’s bidding – have just searched your mind, prior. I have stripped down all of the memories I could find, and where I needed your help, I have inflicted pain and nightmares on you until you told me – there I go again, of course I mean us – until you told us everything we needed to know.’

Memories came into focus in his head.

‘Covenant...’ he breathed. ‘You are with the inquisitor.’

‘Yes,’ she nodded, and took a sip of her wine. ‘And before you ask, the pain and the screaming are over. We are done. You are done. I removed the memories of what I did. This is a... oh, I don’t know... a gift, a kindness to ease my torturer’s soul.’ Mylasa put her goblet down on the table, filled it again, and took a gulp, then sighed.

‘If you have inflicted pain on me, but I cannot remember it, then what is to be my true punishment?’

‘You are a heretic, prior, but you are not an evil man. There is actually a difference, but don’t tell anyone. You are just a fool and very unlucky.’ She looked over her shoulder at the waves rolling across the sea.

‘So the chapel, Lumn, Covenant, it all happened?’

‘Some time ago, in fact,’ said Mylasa. ‘It took a while to make sure that we had every detail of what you knew.’

‘The Tenth Path...’ he said. ‘I had no idea. I don’t even...’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘But innocence proves nothing, as someone very perceptive once pointed out. You were used, prior, and so you suffer.’

‘By the man who came to me before,’ he said, ‘by the man who claimed to be an inquisitor.’

‘Oh, he was an inquisitor,’ she said, and he noticed that the smirk had gone from her lips. ‘Inquisitor Goldoran Talicto, in fact – Scion of Gorgonate Collegium, Scourge of the Nine Stars of Nix.’

‘But...’

‘There are truths in the universe, prior, truths so big that to know them is death or madness. The first truth is that every whisper of daemons that thirst for souls and torment – those whispers are just a shadow of the greater truth. There are creatures that wish to enslave mankind, creatures so powerful that it is easiest to call them gods, and their avatars, daemons. To know this truth is to be condemned to death, prior.’

Gul felt cold prickle his skin despite the warmth of the sun.

‘How can that be true?’

Mylasa continued as though she had not heard his question. ‘The second great truth is that those who are meant to protect us from such forces are divided as much as they are united. And sometimes – once upon a blessed rare age – one of them falls to something worse than divergent opinion. They become a slave to their own view of mankind’s salvation.’

‘And Inquisitor Talicto is one such–’

‘He used you to protect one of his projects. The Tenth Path were sheltering and nurturing a psyker that they had bonded to a host that acted as a conduit for the... things from the warp. It was crude, and luckily was largely a failure.’

‘I didn’t know,’ he said.

‘We know, and we know everything that you did to protect the Tenth Path. Those details will help us to condemn Talicto in the sight of his peers.’ She raised her goblet as though in a toast. ‘You have served the Emperor well.’

‘Is that why you are talking to me?’ he asked. ‘As thanks from Covenant?’

She laughed, covering her mouth as though choking on her wine.

‘No, I am doing this myself. Covenant would tell you none of this.’

‘But why tell me anything?’ he asked.

‘Because if you know secrets, sometimes it is good to tell someone who will never be able to break your trust.’

Gul frowned. He was feeling dizzy. The sun was warm on his skin. He could smell the salt spray from the sea.

‘And what is this? A dream? An illusion?’

Mylasa looked at him for a long moment, and then stood, turning away to face the sea.

‘Drink the wine,’ she said. ‘It is really very good.’

X

+It is done,+ said Mylasa. Cleander flinched at the sound of the psyker’s thought-voice. He would really rather have not been there, but Covenant had insisted that they all gather in the cell where they had been keeping Prior Prefectus Gul in the weeks since Dominicus Prime.

Cleander glanced at his sister on the other side of the room, but Viola was looking at Covenant, her face emotionless beneath the plaited ivory of her hair. Covenant himself stood at the foot of the slab, robed in grey. Josef stood next to him, the preacher’s face mottled with fading bruises, a servitor hovering above his shoulder, gently pulsing blood into his neck through transparent tubes. That Josef was alive at all was a miracle, but perhaps that was the benefit of piety. Koleg leant against the wall to the side, posture and face utterly unreadable. Severita knelt to the side of the prior, the hilt of her sword clasped between her hands, head bowed. The low sound of the ship’s engines rumbled through the quiet. They were all waiting, he realised.

‘He’s dead?’ asked Josef, eyes on the body of the prior shackled to the steel slab.

+Yes,+ replied Mylasa. Cleander looked at her reflexively, and then turned away, with a wince. Metal encircled the psyker’s neck and head. Bulbous tubes hissed steam into the air, and bundles of wires snaked between blisters of chrome. Her face sat in the mass of machinery like a strangled pearl. Withered limbs hung from the machinery like the mane of a jellyfish, hovering just above the ground. Static crackled around her in oily flashes.

‘One less for the edge of your sword, Severita,’ said Cleander, hearing the hollow sneer in his voice. The penitent sister did not bother to look up from her prayers. ‘Was he expecting another form of forgiveness, I wonder?’

+He died without pain, and with a memory of kinder times,+ said Mylasa. +In this age that is absolution enough.+

‘Something for us all to aspire to,’ snorted Cleander.

‘We have what we need,’ said Covenant. Every eye in the chamber moved to him. He was still looking at the body of the prior. ‘A conclave of war has been called on Ero. Talicto will be there. And there will be a reckoning.’ He looked up, eyes moving slowly over each of them around the slab, and then turned and walked away. The others followed after a second. Cleander lingered, looking down at the dead heretic.

‘A kindness...’ he muttered, and snorted. ‘I think I would rather take the cruelty of life.’ He shifted the eyepatch over his empty socket and walked away, leaving the dead to silence.

THE KNAVE OF STARS

‘Smile and all smile with you.

Weep and you weep alone.’

– ancient Terran saying

‘They say you wish to be healed?’

Cleander von Castellan raised his head and blinked. The dawn-flies had already laid a cluster of eggs in the corners of his left eye just under the patch, and his mouth felt like someone had been pouring acid into it as he slept. The man standing above him was thin, skin the colour of milk, wrapped in the patchwork rags of a priest of the Decagogue. The man did not smile, and Cleander doubted he was going to blink either.

‘I…’ he began, and licked his lips. Something had crusted his mouth, and his tongue felt heavy inside his teeth. ‘I…’ he tried again. ‘Healed… yes.’

The priest stared at him for a long while. Behind the man, raindrops showered through the rotting wood of the shack. Cleander could see a chunk of grey sky that meant another morning (or was it noon?) had come to Panetha Varn.

‘You were a wealthy man,’ said the priest at last.

‘I… I still am,’ said Cleander.

‘Your hands can hold gold enough to ransom lords yet feel like they hold only lead.’

‘What? It’s a bit early for that level of wisdom, friend.’

The priest tilted his head. Cleander was sure the man had yet to blink.

‘You have coin and jewel, yet have come here and sleep in the Rot-margins. You began by giving large offerings to the Stone Shrines but found nothing in what they gave you. You have been moving through the city from place to place. Everywhere you ask for aid, for how you may soothe the soul. You want to be healed, and have found no aid in anything that others have told or given to you.’

‘You seem very well informed,’ said Cleander, pushing himself up and shaking his head. He had fallen asleep curled under a pile of rotting cloth, his back against the shack’s mostly complete wall. Something had webbed another cluster of eggs to the topmost sheet of fabric. Each was the size of a fingertip and bright blue. He had not seen that type before, and for a moment wondered what fresh vermin the place had yet to show him. ‘Who are you? I am guessing a priest by the, ah… robes.’ He frowned at the priest’s patchwork garb.

‘I am of the followers of the Decagogue,’ said the man.

‘Never heard of them.’

‘You are lying – you have been looking for us.’

‘Well, I guess that’s me told,’ Cleander snorted, and began to shift the nest of rags off him. His clothes beneath were stained with mud and possibly vomit, the dark blue of his coat rumpled. Most of the gilded buttons had gone from its front and cuffs. The priest did not reply, but just stood waiting, rain from the holed roof dappling his shoulders.

There were a lot of priests on Panetha Varn. Sometime ago – a length notable only for its convenient distance from the present – a dying admiral had demanded to breathe his last breath with real, unrecycled air. His officers had dropped his ship out of the immaterium in the nearest system that could supply a planet with real air, and had conveyed their commander down to the planet’s sodden southern continent just as a ten-month-long season of rains began. Somehow, the deluge had not sped the admiral into the light of the Emperor’s embrace. Two days later he had risen from his sick bed, hale and ready to return to whatever war waited for him next.

Inevitably that recovery had grown into a miracle, and with it the reputation of Panetha Varn as a place of healing. Cults and superstitions of many stripes had sprung up over the following centuries, as thick as the lurid green plants that blossomed in the swamps. Some held that the power to heal lay in the planet itself, in the soil and water, others that it was the water of the rain as it fell from the sky that cured ills. All agreed, though, that the place was blessed in the sight of the Emperor and that His hand moved there, be it in water, prayer, or the perfume reek of the swamps in bloom.

The city that now stood on the site of the admiral’s failed death was a sprawl of wood and stone suspended above the green mire on stilts and piles. Shrines and cloisters crowded the spaces between wooden walkways and bridges. The oldest and largest shrines were made of stone, great piled blocks of crystal-flecked grey, and were called the Stone Shrines, with what Cleander could not help but view as an inevitable failure of imagination. New branches of the Imperial Creed rose and dwindled with the arrival and passing of the rains. There were cults who preached fasting, and others who gorged themselves on the flora and fauna of the land. Life-breathers, blood-balancers, soul-cleansers, revivers and bone-setters: all and more in myriad forms could be found without having to walk more than a hundred steps. Most, Cleander had found, seemed to wrap everything but the need for payment in the thickest clouds of mystery. There was one group though, priests led by a man just called the Decagogue, who did not hawk for followers like market traders. They were elusive, their faded patchwork robes rarely seen on the streets or bridges. But the whispers said that their ways could make any soul whole.

‘So what are you selling?’ asked Cleander as he pushed himself up to his feet. He still had his scabbard, but something had happened to the sword that should be in it. The buzz of the liquor he had drunk the night before was still running along his nerves.

‘We do not sell,’ said the priest, his voice still the same even tone as when he had started talking. ‘We offer help to those who need it most.’

‘And I am blessed enough to meet the criteria for you to find me and decide to wake me up. My fortunes must be improving.’

‘We can help you,’ said the priest, and for the second that the man’s lips formed the words it seemed as if the sound of rain and creaking water faded and the world was just the sound of his name alone.

‘H…’ began Cleander blinking. For a second he had felt as though he were – there was no other word for it – free. ‘How can you help me?’

‘We can undo the knot of your soul,’ said the priest in rags, and then he turned and stepped out of the hovel into the grey dawn rain. ‘Follow me and you shall see.’

‘Here,’ said the priest, handing Cleander a shift of patchwork grey fabric. It was clean, but the weave held a patina of stains. ‘This is your skin now.’

Cleander looked at the folded bundle, and then around the vestibule. The priest had led him through the city into one of the denser knots of buildings, walkways and alleys. No one had paid the priest any attention, but the shouts of the faith peddlers had followed Cleander. At last the priest had led him into an alley so narrow that his shoulders almost brushed the walls. The boards beneath his feet were soft with rot, and he could see the vivid green of the swamp through the gaps.

The door that the priest opened was small but heavy, a slab of rusted brown metal. The space within was cramped and a foetid warmth filled the air, and Cleander noted a blackened heat transfer duct running up the side of the wall, an access hatch punched in its side. Bundles of cloth sat in wooden niches, each of them a shift like the one that the priest held out to Cleander.

‘The colour won’t suit me,’ he said. The priest remained silent, the smock still held out in his hand. ‘All right,’ said Cleander at last, and took the smock. ‘I am guessing you don’t have anything as dignified as a small side room or a screen to hide my modesty?’

The priest shook his head.

‘Fine,’ sighed Cleander, pulling off his coat, and beginning to unbutton his shirt. The priest remained silent and blank-faced. At last, Cleander pulled the grey smock on over his head. His normal clothes lay in a drift on the floor around him, peppered with the possessions that had fallen from his pockets: a scatter of coins of half a dozen different shapes and metals, a silver flask, a small knife.

‘There we are,’ said Cleander, looking at the priest.

‘Your boots, too,’ said the priest.

‘But what am I going to wear on my feet?’

The priest stared at him.

‘Fine,’ said Cleander and began to pull the boots off, hopping briefly as he struggled with the worn leather. He dumped the boots on top of his spoiled silk shirt, and looked up at the priest. ‘All done – nothing now between toes and floor.’

The priest pointed at the eyepatch covering his left eye.

‘Really?’ said Cleander, lifting the patch up to show the blind, pale eyeball beneath. ‘Leave me something for modesty at least.’

The priest paused, and then shrugged and began to gather up the scattered clothes, boots and possessions.

‘Careful,’ said Cleander. ‘I have a fondness for that coat, and the knife was my father’s–’

The priest moved to the heat transfer duct and pulled open the access hatch. Cleander saw the glow of flames within, and felt the blast of heat. Then the priest dumped the bundled clothes and possessions into the opening and closed the hatch.

‘Great,’ said Cleander. ‘Perhaps not what I had in mind, but…’

‘You are not your past,’ said the priest, turning to another door at the far side of the vestibule. ‘Your past is what has given you pain. Leave it, let it burn and you shall be free. You shall be yourself. You shall be healed.’

The priest unlocked the door with a long, iron key, and motioned Cleander through ahead of him.

‘This is everything you have ever wanted,’ said the priest.

‘I have wanted quite a lot of things in my time…’

The priest bowed his head without reply, arm still extended towards the door. Cleander looked at the dark beyond the opening and stepped through. The door closed behind him. He tried to turn around, but the world was opening beneath him and he was tumbling down into darkness and off into oblivion.

He woke lying in a narrow space only just wide enough to fit in and barely high enough to raise his head without banging it against something hard. There was no light, and the only sound was his own breath. He twisted, feeling the walls as his shoulders, arms and body pressed against them. There was a rough texture to them, like pitch-covered wood. The smell, though, was almost sterile.

‘A coffin,’ Cleander heard himself say. His whisper was loud in the narrow space and pressing dark. ‘I am lying in a box made for the dead, waiting to die… a delightful thought.’

Time went on, first in minutes, then in hours, then in a time past that. He drifted into sleep, and woke with pain screaming in his muscles as they cramped. Thirst came next. First as a dryness on his tongue, then as a fire spreading up through him until it vibrated through his skull and skin like a drum beat. Consciousness and unconsciousness began to merge. Neon hallucinations broke the blackness. Faces ran in pink and lurid green across orange skulls. Voices and laughter and tears rattled his skull. The cord of time began to fray. The pain in his muscles and within his body vibrated against each other and merged as hunger came to join the thirst. He was not certain if he cried out. Voices pleaded in the silence, but if they were his, or someone else’s, or the cries of dreams, he could not tell.

When the walls and lid fell away, the light struck him like a physical blow. He recoiled, tried to twist away from the brilliance. He could hear himself gasping. The world was a blur, his eyes gummed shut. He tried to move his limbs, to stand, and found that his body would only shake.

‘Raise him up,’ came a level voice. Cleander felt hands lift him, strong and not gentle. Light and shadows moved around him. He felt his mouth loll open as he tried to speak. ‘Set him down,’ said the same voice, and he felt a jolt of impact as his back met cold stone. ‘Give him sight.’ Hands gripped his face and pulled his eyelids wide. Water splashed into his eyes. The coldness of it made him gasp, and then he was writhing, trying to put his mouth beneath the falling liquid. Droplets hit his lips, and exploded in cold bliss. Hands held his head firm. Others wiped his eyes.

He could see. He was on a raised dais in a black room. Dim glow globes hung just beneath the ceiling. Figures in robes of patchwork rags stood around him, emotionless faces watching him. They looked like no one, bland, smooth, unremarkable, neither ugly nor beautiful. He realised that he was shivering uncontrollably.

‘This is existence,’ said one of the robed figures. ‘Starving, shivering, desperate, clad in grey and drowning in misery. That is your life. That is the life of all who draw breath in this universe.’

Cleander tried to form a sound on his dry tongue.

‘You already know that what I say is true,’ said another of the priests. ‘You have known it was true your whole life. In the grey paste of your flesh you have known that nothing waited in the play of time but emptiness. One day piled on another, joyless, drained the spark of existence, leeched away into fog.’

Cleander could only shiver.

‘But everything…’ said a third voice. ‘Everything contains a spark of joy…’ And one of the blank-faced circle stepped forwards with a stone jug. Another of them lifted his head, and where their touch had been harsh before, now it was gentle. The water slid from the neck of the jug into his mouth. It was cold, and tasted of the perfume of the swamp flowers, but for the instant it rolled down his tongue it was bliss. Pure, perfect bliss.

They let him drink until the jug was empty. The gentle hands lowered his head back, but now there was a small pillow of folded cloth between his head and the stone.

‘Water to the thirsty…’

‘Dryness to the drenched…’

‘Warmth in cold…’

‘Cold in heat…’

‘On and on the circle goes…’

‘Torture in one place becomes succour in another, becomes a delight…’

‘Rot becomes the root of roses…’

‘And suffering the bed of all pleasures.’

And as the priests spoke, Cleander felt warmth rise from the stone he lay on. A hand reached down and delicately opened his mouth. The fruit they placed on his tongue was bitter as he bit into it, but the taste of the juice, the texture of it as he swallowed, was beautiful.

‘Simple things,’ said the first of voices.

‘Water…’

‘Folded cloth and half-ripe berries…’

‘Hands that comfort rather than hurt…’

‘Oh, wondrous…’

‘Wondrous!’

‘But in a moment the wonder fades…’

‘The thirst goes and with it the joy of cool water chasing it away.’

‘Hunger is sated and the taste of the berry is just bitter.’

‘Enough comfort and what value is there in the hand that is kind?’

Cleander watched as the figures in the robes of rags stepped back and turned to face away.

‘Your suffering is because you can no longer see the wonder that waits under even the grey skin of existence,’ said the voices in concert. ‘Do you wish your soul to be cured? Do you wish to know joy again?’

Cleander licked his newly wet lips. He could still taste the tang of fruit on them.

‘Yes,’ said Cleander.

‘Then look at the world you see again.’

Cleander raised his head as the circle of priests turned back to face him, and as they turned he saw that their clothes were not rags, but silks and velvets stitched with threads of gold and silver and copper. They shone in his eye, and the sight held the breath on the points of his teeth. Their faces were smiling, too, their eyes bright with laughter. The room seemed to dim, and he could see now that there were doors in the black walls.

‘We have such things to show you,’ said the priests.

They gave him a new skin. That was what they called the clothes – a skin to go under the outward grey. It was cut of soft, blue fabric, the cuffs a perfect crimson, the buttons gold. It fitted perfectly and hung like a whisper of air around him.

Once that was done they led him through their temple. It was not a single location but a warren of passages worming its way through, around and under the rest of the city. In places the passages were black and lightless, in others the light was almost blinding. Some floors cut his feet with shards of glass, others were covered in fur so soft that it felt like he was walking through warm mist. The priests led him from place to place. Some talked, some were silent, some laughed, one wept.

He slept in beds that embraced him into dreams, once hanging above a void, once in a pool of water the temperature of blood. He ate food that made him choke from foulness and feasts that were amongst the finest he had ever eaten. No instance was ever the same, and none passed without a tug of sensation that jerked him from moment to moment like a fish on a line. Time collapsed and he thought of himself like a fallen leaf, caught and carried by the currents of a river. He had to admit to himself that it was not unpleasant. Nothing was ever the same, every experience from small to large had a kernel of the extraordinary in it.

There were others. Sometimes just one. Sometimes many, great halls awhirl with colour, and wide grins and wider eyes. Supplicants, they called themselves. Most he never saw twice. They ate and drank and inhaled, and cried with delight. No one talked of what they had been, or how the priests had found them. Many of the supplicants spoke of the Decagogue, the one whose words could open your soul and make it anew. Most seemed hungry for that step, and all had no idea why. On it went, and he could not have said how long for. And as each moment collapsed into another, he waited.

Then, as he woke from a narcotic dream of fire dancing across water, a priest came and led him to an open door.

He stepped through.

The room beyond was wide, and curve-walled, with a low domed ceiling. The walls were the white-grey of bare plaster. The shapes of furniture dotted the floor, draped in cloth of the same colour. After the whirl of all that he had just plunged through, the room felt like the sun had been switched off in the sky.

A man sat at a rough wooden table at the room’s centre. He wore a robe of patchwork diamonds, each tessellated with the next, each contrasting and complementing the other so that it was like looking at shifting sunlight falling through the panes of a stained-glass window. His face was wide and bland, his eyes very dark.

The door closed behind Cleander. The man with dark eyes was watching him unblinking. Cleander took a step into the room, and felt a chill breath of air slide over his exposed skin. He could smell damp and the water aroma of the swamps. He looked around, cautious, wary.

‘Are you sated yet?’ asked the man. ‘Have you seen?’

‘What is this?’ asked Cleander, still looking around.

‘This is another moment of choice, Cleander von Castellan,’ said the Decagogue. ‘Come and sit.’

‘How do you know my name?’ asked Cleander, not moving further forward. ‘I never told you my name.’

‘Someone hears and keeps all secrets, even if those secrets are only spoken in the prisons of our hearts. I am the Decagogue, Speaker of Truths. Come. Sit.’

Cleander felt the last words as much as heard them, and took the wooden chair across the table from the dark-eyed man.

‘We have shown you some of what can be yours,’ said the Decagogue, ‘but you are still hollow, Cleander von Castellan, still unhealed. This I know. All that we set before you has not filled the void within you. We can give you what you have never had, but you have to choose.’

‘I don’t like choices,’ said Cleander.

The man gave a tiny shake of his head.

‘No,’ said the Decagogue. ‘You don’t like having no choice.’

‘Once again, you all seem very well informed.’

‘You use humour and disdain as a mask, Cleander von Castellan, but here there are no masks.’

‘I don’t know, I have seen a few since I got here, I am sure.’

‘Again the shield and cloak of scorn, but you are afraid, so afraid that if you let your fear out of that box you keep it in, that well, then you would be weeping.’

‘I came here because you said you could heal me.’

‘No, you came because the inquisitor who has enslaved you told you to.’

Cleander began to rise from his chair. The Decagogue’s eyes were like black pearls, face pale and expressionless except for a hint of a smile.

‘But you do wish to be whole again, Cleander von Castellan, and we can heal you.’ The man smiled. ‘Sit.’

And Cleander sat.

‘You were commanded to locate us, to infiltrate us, to worm your way in and then open us up to the knives of your master,’ said the Decagogue. ‘Just as there are no masks, so there are no secrets here. No one will find you and no one is coming for you. You sit in a palace not a dungeon, and no one can join us here uninvited.’

‘Is that right?’ said Cleander, forcing his lip to curl.

‘It is,’ said the Decagogue. ‘Your master sent you here because he knows that your hollow soul would make you ideal to perform the task he needed. But you are truly here because we brought you. We know you. We want to free you.’

‘I think that you have misunderstood,’ said Cleander.

‘But we haven’t,’ said the Decagogue. ‘We know what you want and the shadow that breathes in you. Let me show you, let me speak it to you…’

‘I don’t–’

‘The boy is worthless,’ said a voice, harsh, cold. The words he was going to speak vanished from Cleander’s throat. The Decagogue’s mouth was open wide, tongue and teeth visible but unmoving as the voices echoed up from within. ‘He is dead stock on the vine,’ said his father’s voice, echoing just as it had from the other side of the door he had pressed his cheek to all those decades ago. ‘He lacks steel. He lacks control. He is weak. He wept during the hunt, did you hear? A little blood on the cheek and he ran calling for his nurse. In front of Morio and his whole brood, if you could believe it. They were laughing into their cups.’

‘True,’ said his mother’s voice, taut, controlled. ‘But we cannot just cut the dead wood away.’

‘A shame that he appears healthy in body. Never would fragility and the swift scythe of the fever be more welcome.’

A pause, the sound of his father moving, the hiss of his mother’s silks moving.

‘There might be other solutions.’

‘Such as?’

‘He might be taught,’ said his mother’s voice, clear and precise. ‘Moulded…’

‘Taught? You think a lot of the abilities of his tutors.’

‘I am not talking about tutoring. I am talking of teaching – of lessons.’

‘Such as?’

‘He has favourites in the staff and household?’

‘He does,’ said his father’s voice, ‘his nurses, the master of the north wing, the librarian, a few others.’

‘They will be removed. All their replacements will be given orders to speak no word to him. If a softness forms between him and anyone, remove them immediately.’

‘You think that will work?’

‘As a beginning. Does he still have that one-eyed felid that follows him through the house?’

‘I believe so.’

‘Have it removed and ended. That is enough on Cleander. If we talk more of him we will have overspent on breath. To the next point. Viola – her tutoring and primary conditioning are progressing well…’

The voices stopped coming from the Decagogue’s mouth. The man licked his lips. His tongue was blue.

‘You ran with tears on your cheeks,’ said the man. ‘They gave you the skull of the animal who had been your companion, and you had to keep it in sight of your bed. It stayed there until after your parents’ death. You took it and buried it with their ashes.’

Cleander felt pain in his hands, and looked down. They were clenched shut, blood visible between the knuckles.

‘Every good pet deserves favour,’ he said, making his shoulders shrug.

The Decagogue smiled, and then his head tilted back above his lower jaw so that his mouth was open again.

‘It’s not so bad, little brother,’ said another voice, female, almost like his mother’s, almost like his own – Cristina, his sister, first in line, the heir to all he would never have.

‘The Imperial Navy… oubliette of every unwanted bit of family dross since we got the pissing charter,’ said his own voice, younger, much younger but still his. ‘You get a ship, lots in fact, and you don’t have to spend half a decade being humiliated in some mouldering training skiff.’

‘Trust me – being the designated heir is not anything you want.’

‘No?’ his voice asked.

‘No.’ A silence spread through the grey-draped chamber, and then his eldest sister’s voice again. ‘Look, try to not antagonise mother and father, all right.’

‘Antagonise? I wouldn’t know how.’

‘I am serious, Cleander. This family, it’s…’

‘I know,’ said his voice, suddenly flat.

‘I know you do, little brother,’ said her voice. ‘That’s why I am saying be careful. It only gets worse from here, not better.’

The Decagogue closed his mouth. There were drops of blood on his lips. The tip of his tongue licked them away.

‘Cristina,’ he said. ‘Your elder sister, whatever happened to her?’

‘You know,’ said Cleander. ‘If the voices in your skull have whispered this much, you know the rest just as well as I do, and I have the advantage of having actually been there.’

‘I do know,’ said the Decagogue. ‘I hear all the secrets of your heart. Listen…’

‘Duchess von Castellan will see you now,’ said the voice of Casulas, and the memory of the major-domo unfolded in Cleander’s mind like a sheet of crumpled paper smoothed out on a table. He saw the door to his mother’s personal office. He had gone in, through the doors and into a room hung with pictures with proud faces, hard eyes watching him as he had walked across the carpet. She had stood behind the expanse of blackwood that was her desk, layers of data-rich holo-projections hanging in the air around her. Her eyes moved between each of the displays, but not to him. He stopped in front of the desk. Still she had not moved. He had taken a silver case from the breast pocket of his jacket, removed a lho stick, lit it and inhaled.

‘Vile,’ said his mother’s voice from the Decagogue’s throat.

He had exhaled. The long plume of smoke drifted through the holo light.

‘I was actually thinking that you looked quite well,’ said a voice that had been his.

She had shut off the holo-light, and watched him, her thin, beautiful face, with skin too taut, and eyes of flint.

‘Your commission at the Naval academy at Bakka has been issued,’ said his mother’s voice.

‘So I hear. I am sure they can’t wait.’

‘You will begin your voyage there in five hours.’

‘Seems a little hasty, don’t you think? After all, aren’t most pleasures enhanced by being delayed.’

‘You are a member of this family – you understand.’

‘Am I? How nice to have it confirmed. Would you mind putting it in writing, Duchess von Castellan?’

‘You will not shame us.’ Her voice was low now, dangerous. ‘You will not shame this house. You will not shame me.’

He had shrugged, he remembered, the gesture a product of the years of careful selection from actions that would not demand punishment. There were many punishments, he had learned, some overt, most subtle. The subtler the worse. Cruelty had become the landscape he had danced through from waking to sleeping as he grew.

‘Let me think about it,’ he said.

And then, faster than he would have thought she could move, his mother had come around the desk and was in front of him, eyes alight, face hard.

‘I know you,’ hissed her voice, and her face had been so close that he could smell the cinnamon scent of stim elixir on her breath. He had been taller than her, then, taller and growing heavier with muscle, a man not a boy. But still, he had recoiled. ‘For all that I wish I did not, I know you, boy. The air you breathe is mine. The blood in your veins was mine. The skull under your skin I made. Your words I gave you. And I know that all there is to you is rot, the dregs of what our line can produce. Swagger and grin all you like, but never forget that I hold what little happiness you have in my grasp.’

And she had taken the burning lho stick from his lips, put it to her own mouth and inhaled so that the tip glowed red.

‘Give me your hand,’ said her voice.

‘No…’ said a voice that was no longer strong and swaggering, but small, crumpled.

‘Your. Hand.’

And he had held up his hand to her.

In the grey-white room facing the man with dark eyes, Cleander felt his fingers grip the wooden arms of the chair.

‘Did you feel sorrow when your parents were killed?’ asked the Decagogue.

‘I wept enough to fill an ocean.’

‘You drank enough to send you into a near coma.’

‘It’s what they would have wanted,’ he said with a smile.

The Decagogue was still for a moment then his lips started to move.

‘The cyber-tigers and chase-hounds they were using on the hunt were reprogrammed,’ said Viola’s voice. ‘A data-jinn in their governor devices. We will petition the tech-priests to share with us what they find, but it was subtle. Might have been there for years, just waiting for activation.’

‘And Cristina?’ said his own voice,

‘We think she managed to shoot five of the creatures before they brought her down.’

‘Was it quick?’

‘No,’ said Viola. ‘It was not. The hunting pack, they… they crippled them and then… The vox comms had been sabotaged too. Up there in the game ranges there was no one to hear them.’

‘I want to know who it was, Vi,’ said his voice, and he could hear the soft anger in it, barely held beneath the surface.

‘I am working on it, but–’

‘Once they have been found I want whoever it was destroyed, you understand? Messily and publicly. Cost no object.’

‘We shouldn’t do–’

‘I am giving a command. As head of the dynasty now, I am ordering it done. That’s how it works, doesn’t it?’

A pause now, in the silence between him and the Decagogue, a silence that was an echo of that moment as Viola had looked at him and then bowed her head.

‘As you say, so it shall be done,’ said her voice, and in his memory he saw her turn away to the doors out of the room that had been his mother’s office.

‘It’s not for them,’ said his voice, and he remembered that those words had held her at the door. ‘It’s for her, for Cristina. Everyone will think it was me that did this. But I…’

‘I know,’ said Viola’s voice.

Cleander let out a long breath, and closed his remaining eye for a second.

‘You ran from that moment,’ said the Decagogue. ‘You got everything that had been denied you and you ran into the throat of anything that could hide yourself from yourself. We know. We walked with you while you danced through the stars with a murderer’s blade in your grip. We held your hand as you raised the cup to your lips and hoped that it would tip you over into nothing. We were in the spin of the wheel and the gleam of gold and stars. We know you and we want you to be whole. We want you to be free. And we know that you want all that we can give you.’

Red pearls of blood formed on the man’s lips. Frost glittered around the edges of his eye sockets. And as the Decagogue spoke, the grey room around Cleander began to move. The pale shrouds that looked as though they covered furniture rose up, unfolded, and billowed as though caught in wind. But there was no wind. The shrouds rippled, colours spreading across them: gold, silver, copper, amethyst, mother of pearl, jet. Figures raised their heads from the billowing cloth. Their necks and limbs were long, stretched, skin smooth or finely scaled. Smiles broad. Eyes bright. A throng stood around him, silent yet filling the air with whispers and sobbing and giggles and sighs. They were all looking at Cleander.

‘These blessed ones were all like you. Yet look at them now… Look!’

And he looked, and saw the joy in eyes set in faces of smooth skin, and laughter in the lips pulled back from teeth. He looked around and then back to the Decagogue.

‘You know,’ said Cleander, forcing the lightness to his voice even as the old joke and laughter echoed in the hollows behind his eyes. ‘You are passable at the voices, but as an act I think it could do with some polish before you take it on the stage.’

The Decagogue tilted his head to the side, eyes still not blinking.

‘You have been kind enough to tell me such interesting stories,’ continued Cleander. ‘I really must return the favour. You are very keen to talk about me, about all you can do for me, but you haven’t said much about yourselves.’ He tapped his mouth. ‘I can’t do the voices like you can, but then I am a bit of a traditionalist, I suppose. Pen and ink and written record and words in files stamped with the seal of the Inquisition – not quiet secrets whispered from the ether, but good enough.’ He smiled around at the throng.

‘I know you, you see. I know all of you. I know all about you. You call yourself a priesthood because that’s what you want to be, and what is wrong with a lie if it brightens the day a little? You were all liars once,’ he flicked a hand at the Decagogue, ‘out there peddling lies to every idiot who would listen to you about how they could be healed. You sold tinctures, and prayer scrolls and cruelty masquerading as medicine. But that was not enough, and so you began to find other uses for the pilgrims you found – spiteful, vicious uses. And then something heard you, something that listens to secrets from just out of sight, heard and decided to give you a little of what you craved. Power, truth from which to make better lies, and now you really did have the means to change lives. People began to seek you out – empty people, broken people – and you made them like you… a priesthood of lies and secret sins that feeds on this city like a tick on a dog’s rump. And those that didn’t make it that far, well, you needed them for other things.

‘I know about the rooms, you see, the rooms where you take the ones that find you and don’t become like you. I know about the room of red, and the room of black, and the room of white. I know about the hidden feasts. I know about the eaters, and the singers, and those soft things that just sleep and feed. I know what becoming one of you means without needing to see it.’

The glittering figures were closer now, though he had not seen them move. The air was getting colder as he talked.

‘Then someone like me comes along, a threat, real threat, but with so much that you want, power, wealth, friends in high places and low ones. You are greedy. No real blaming you for that – it’s your nature at this point. And you think how splendid it would be to actually turn the person sent to destroy you into one of you. After all,’ he drawled with a grin that showed his own teeth, ‘I am just like you, so in need of something to make my life seem whole, so hollowed out by life. And so you think, maybe it’s possible.

‘And you know what? You are right.’ He gave a nod to the Decagogue. ‘I am perfect for you. I have killed, and drunk, and dived into every excess I could find at one point or another. And it is never enough, never even close enough. So I can’t say that I don’t understand why you think that you could turn this around. But…’

The smile faded from Cleander’s face. The glittering throng of priests seemed very close now, and some of that glitter at the edge of sight was sharp. His hand went to his eyepatch and moved it aside. The blind pale sphere in the socket looked out at the throng as they paused for a moment, caught between confusion and action.

‘But you don’t understand something that you really, really should.’ And he pulled the eyeball out. ‘And you really should check things more carefully.’

He squeezed the sphere of pale flesh, and the ball of circuitry and exotic machinery sheathed inside pushed out, like a pip from a soft fruit. A tiny red light flickered on and off.

A shout rose into a shriek. Cleander was up and out of the chair. The glittering throng surged forwards. Cleander threw the false eye. The Decagogue was on his feet, hand rising. White frost and black smoke poured from his mouth. A priest in a robe of golden scales reached for Cleander, blades for fingers, spikes for a grin. And Cleander grabbed the man, embracing him close.

The thrown eye detonated. Light shrieked through the chamber, blinding, energy scything through limbs and torsos, blood flashing to ash. The blast ripped through the priest Cleander clutched to him and sent them both blasting backwards. The man died with a shriek on his lips, but Cleander was already throwing the remains of the corpse aside and rising.

Another came at him, silk and skin burning. Cleander kicked the chair into the priest, who ducked back, bangles of jade and amethyst rattling. Cleander surged forwards, ramming the reeling figure as his arms locked around the priest’s head and twisted. The figure flipped over, vertebrae snapping before it slammed into the floor, twitching.

Another two were coming at Cleander. He stamped down on the one twitching on the floor then spun back, scooping up the wooden chair as he moved and crashing it into the first of the pair. The wood shattered. The first priest fell back into its comrade. Cleander had a splintered spar in his hand. The priest began to rise. The sharp tip of wood stabbed down, once, twice, again. And he was on to the next and the next: a knife twisted from a hand and slammed into a throat, the snap of a neck breaking, the blood from a head slammed down into the ground. All just passing moments, all just a world passing by, warm and fast and screaming. Blood scattered up to paint his face as fire filled the room, and he felt the void within him open and reach out through his hands.

And he was running through the old manse again, a boy alone in a house full of people.

Then a man sitting in the chair in his mother’s office, the holo-screens and data machines powered down, the factotums dismissed, and the silence settling over him as he began to light a lho stick and found that tears were rolling down his cheeks.

Then an older man sitting opposite Covenant, just the two of them.

‘I have no choice, really,’ he had said.

‘There is always a choice,’ Covenant had said.

The Decagogue was not coming forwards but standing, trembling mouth flapping, fragments of words spoken in other voices tumbling out.

‘Vile…’

‘There is nothing good in him…’

‘A waste…’

‘He’s useful, but nothing more…’

‘Give me your hand…’

Multicoloured images formed and vanished around the Decagogue’s head. Blood was running down the man’s chin. His smooth face was cracking, crumbling, age flowing back into the skin and bone as the gifts granted to him evaporated. Cleander felt ghosts of sensation rise in him as he stepped closer. The kiss of lips, the taste of honey and sweet milk, the boom of countless voices all crying out his name, all falling, all fading. Fire had caught in the wood of the walls and floor. Some of the gaudy figures on the floor were still twitching. Most were still, blood pooling from them, dead hands crooked. Cleander stopped, just in reach of the Decagogue. The man was a spindle-limbed thing now, cracked paper-thin skin hanging from bones. He raised a hand, a dagger gleaming in twisted fingers. Cleander smiled, and kicked the false priest’s legs out, so that the man tumbled to the floor.

The Decagogue snarled up at him, black tongue splitting.

‘Better if he had died at birth…’

Cleander knelt down.

‘They killed me, little brother… The hounds, their teeth… I was alive and awake for it all. I screamed but no one came…’

He took the dagger from the Decagogue’s fingers.

The man began to scream, the voice of his eldest sister blending with the howl of the creature that had been his companion as a child.

‘Do you want to know a secret?’ said Cleander, looking down into the eyes of the Decagogue. ‘I don’t care. Down at the heart of everything, this life is one thing. Not hope, not pleasure, not power. It took me a long time to see it, a long time and a lot of hiding from it, but I got there in the end. There is nothing that can save us and nothing that cares. You can offer me all you like, but all of it is worth nothing. There is nothing, just the void that we call life and perhaps the sound of the universe laughing.’

The Decagogue’s eyes were glittering, blood crusting and freezing at their edges.

‘Your soul is ours, Cleander von Castellan… ours.’

‘You know what I find is best?’ said Cleander, looking at the dagger, a small smile on his lips. ‘To laugh along.’

He stabbed the dagger down.

After a moment he stood and wiped his hand across his face, and then frowned. Both were sticky with blood. None of it was his. He coughed. Smoke was beginning to fill the room. The transmitter in the micro-grenade had probably triggered as intended. Dannica, Josef and the rest would be coming. Probably. All Cleander had needed to do was reach the Decagogue, confirm it was him, and remove him. He had done that. There was going to be a lot of clearing up, a lot of killing, a little mercy, and quite a lot of burning, he had no doubt. His part was done, though. For now.

He walked to one of the doors, looked at it and then kicked it through to the corridor outside. He would find his own way out of the warren. He would prefer not to see anyone for a while, and the others would be busy anyway.

He paused, looked back at the burning room. The corpses of the priests were beginning to contort as the flames started to eat them. He turned away and began to walk, the swagger slowly flowing back into his step with each stride. He decided he needed a drink.

THE MISTRESS OF THREADS

The following record entries make up the correspondence and summary documents (grade primus to secundus-beta) from the Stygian archives of the von Castellan Rogue Trader Dynasty relating to the Cytos Purge and the fall of the House Morio.

<entry I>

From: Cressida Syr Morio, Executor of the House Morio

To: Viola von Castellan, Seneschal of the von Castellan Rogue Trader Dynasty

Message delivered by oath-bound messenger

My Most Dear Cousin,

I hope that this finds you well. I am afraid that I must break with the formalities that should begin a letter between kin after such a long time. I am sorry to say that there are matters which must force formality and manners to the side. I must ask you for help, Viola, most urgently and strongly. I know that the circumstances around your family’s trouble may have left you less inclined to listen to me, but I hope that the bonds that we shared in childhood will mean that you will excuse me for my current lack of consideration. God-Emperor, but I need someone to help us.

It began with our pact with the Cytos Cartel.

As you may know, it became clear after only a few years that my marriage into House Morio was more than a merger of wealth. As your father counselled my mother at the time, it was clear that House Morio was decaying from within. Its diminishing intellectual and commercial ability and traditions had led to continual loss of station and wealth. While Morio still held the grand supply agreements for Battlefleet Caradryad and the transit bonds for goods coming from the Throneward trade routes, it was within a generation of collapse. My skills and those of my bloodline were what old Morio wanted when my marriage was brokered. And for a time that worked. My life-bound partner, Osric Morio, continued on the path of dissolution he had been following before our marriage. He had no power in the family any more and seemed happy with that lot, as long as he had money enough to waste on the turn of a card and to burn in cadula smoke.

I kept him happy in that regard, and turned my attention to salvaging the House’s withering fortunes. I was successful, as I am sure that you are aware. For a while it seemed as though there was no wrong that I, or the House Morio, could do. We secured the harvest rights to Persepol, regained the supply contracts for the Askar, Numal and Ventu chartist fleets. The broker houses of Tio and even Bakka were willing to extend credit bonds to us with eager smiles. The flow of wealth went from a rivulet to a torrent that carried us on and seemed bound only for an ocean of even greater bounty.

As executor of House Morio the credit for the return to fortune fell to me, and I must admit that I did not turn away from it. I don’t know if you ever knew what it was like being a fourth cousin of a minor bloodline bound to the great von Castellans. You were always at the centre of things, in the line of inheritance, control and fortune. We in the shadows knew our place, Viola, and that place was to be grateful for what fell to us. So I relished the power growing in my grasp and the fortune filling my fingers. It has a feeling, an almost physical sensation, doesn’t it? Warm, like smooth cut stone under the sun, fluid and flying like soft fabric caught in the breeze, strong as the pull of the ocean tide. It was mine, created by the application of my skill, and mine to protect and wield. The sense of freedom seems almost giddy as I remember it.

I am sorry that during the time of our prosperity misfortunes overtook you and your dynasty. It is a truth, though, that the wheel of fate raises us all up into light and plunges us all back down into darkness. I have learnt that truth well in these last months.

The beginning of our trouble was growing then, though I did not realise it. Shadows were spreading, omens abounded, and fanciful news came with travellers from far places. Storms, rebirth, horrors and devils and dead worlds haunted the loose talk around even high tables. I paid these rumours little attention; there was work to be done, and there have been stories of dire futures told since mankind learned to use its tongue.

Osric, my blessedly absent consort, also began to behave unusually at this time. Ever since our marriage he had been happy keeping himself to his well-financed life of dissolution. Now I found him haunting the estates and holdings of House Morio, as though uncertain what to do, or like a child caught just after committing a sin that they are considering confessing to. He seemed unusually interested in the details of the House’s business and transactions. I humoured him with a little insight into the universe of our trade ledgers.

All thought of Osric’s unusual behaviour vanished the moment that the storms broke and cataclysm came. I will not write to you of that moment; you know only too well, as do we all, and we are living in the world that it left to us. Let me touch on it only to say that as the wound opened across the stars and the storms swallowed the Throne’s light, my House lost and lost again.

Only a year before, I had made contact with trade enterprises in the coreward sectors. I had hoped to expand the scope of our operations and holdings beyond the Caradryad sector. Our credit, reputation and influence was at a height that made it seem like a modest venture.

The great storms swallowed that optimism.

Ships vanished in the immaterium. Riots on planets burned trade goods. Messages vanished. Suddenly we had reservoirs of promethium but no tankers to move it to the chem-combines who had paid for it. In other places we had trade ships bonded and paid and waiting for cargo that had vanished into the flames. In others… in most places we did not even know what we held or where it was going.

Wealth is a web of chains. Each link is a promissory note, a cargo, a bill of sale or a contract of supply. The credit bonds that pay for a trillion mega-tonnes of grain to be shipped from Caelus are raised on Tio against the contracts sworn with the Administratum that we will supply that grain to the monasteries of Dominicus Prime. The chartist freighters that carry that grain are charged at a rate agreed and paid for by credit raised against the billion tonnes of ore sold to us in advance of it being mined on Gult. On and on it goes, link by link, growing out and out, across drifts of stars and planets and threading the dark with ships crossing the night. But all the chains lead back to House Morio. To me, dear cousin. And for all that they are made of gold, those chains bind.

The storms broke and the promissory brokers and the coin guilders and the families and cartels called in their debts. All of them. First one then another and another, in a great hungry cascade. It was panic, you see. There was fire in the sky, prophets telling of the death of the most blessed Emperor, dreams of blood and darkness. And so people did what they do when afraid that the world is coming apart – they grab hold of whatever they can. For the people in the streets that meant food and water, and a weapon to keep themselves alive. For those whose world is measured in debit and credit it meant calling in every debt they were owed.

I know you understand these circumstances better than even I do. My mother once said you were the most brilliant seneschal-in-waiting the von Castellans had produced in twenty generations. And so I know that I have explained to you something that you already know, and that when I say that we could not pay our debts, not even begin to pay, that you have already deduced that before I wrote it.

Strange, don’t you think, that even in times of the greatest uncertainty and disaster the ability to call in a debt seems to persist? We had nothing. Our remaining assets were seized across the sector. Proxies of our House were imprisoned, some even killed. And it was clear that this was only the beginning. Bounty hunter platoons from the Iron Venators were bound to bring myself and Osric to a cabal of our creditors. Only the loyalty of our household staff saved us from that fate. But there seemed no hope besides exile and life as a vagabond House, living off scraps in the carcass of our broken empire.

It was at that moment that Osric said that there might be people who could help us. Things were so desperate that I barely wondered at how he would know of anyone who could offer us aid. He said that over the years he had made the acquaintance of a number of members of the Cytos Cartel and that they had sent him a message offering to help remove our current difficulties.

I had heard of the Cytos. They were a power in sector trade. Quiet, private, reliable. All its members were said to be bound by the single version of the Imperial creed that they all shared. I had done trade with them, but never met them. Now, despite myself, I agreed to meet their representative.

The one that came to us was called Sonnus, and he said that he had the authority to speak for all the cartel. He seemed young, clean-limbed and healthy, clad in the dust pale grey that I would come to learn was the mark of their kind. His eyes were the clearest amethyst I had ever seen. He wore a headdress of gold and beaten bronze set with moonstones and blood carbuncles. Two hulking lifewards accompanied him, their bulk and faces hidden beneath the plates of armoured pressure suits. His voice was like the ringing of a perfect silver bell. He was exceedingly gracious, expressing both great sympathy and willingness to help even without an agreement being reached. His agents had eliminated two bounty capture units and he presented us with real-time intelligence on many more. He also gave me the heads of the bounty hunters in crystal jars.

I confess, I was relieved. Here, somehow, we had a friend. We were not alone. It was a moment before I asked what the Cytos wanted in return for their help.

Sonnus replied that they wanted no payment. They simply wanted to become our partners in future business once our good name and fortune had been restored. They had the means to remove our debts and to help smooth over every other difficulty. All they wanted in return was to count House Morio as the most close associates and partners.

I had enough of my wits left to ask if he was alluding to taking over House Morio.

He replied with a kind laugh, and said no. Though the Cytos Cartel would make privileged use of all House Morio assets and contacts, we would keep complete autonomy. They would not even take a cut of the wealth flow – our profit would be ours.

I should have asked more. I should have looked deeper and thought longer. But the heads of eight bounty hunters were still looking up at me from inside the jars placed at my feet like blood gifts to a ghoul queen. I did hesitate, but Osric said that he for one did not want to be chained in the gaols of one of our creditors or made into a dancing servitor for their pleasure.

So, I agreed.

And it worked. Our debts were paid, the contracts and bonds we had committed to fulfilled. The storms were still swallowing ships, and worlds were still in chaos, but there was still opportunity for profit amongst the blaze. And we were suddenly placed to take advantage.

The Cytos were very helpful. Their own operations were exceptionally stable and seemed to stand like rocks of order amid a sea of anarchy. On the Fuzreina moons, the bond houses and fuel reservoirs held by the Cytos remained crewed and defended even as the rest of the populace rampaged through the refinery cities, and that was just one example.

We opened up new contracts, we made profits even beyond what we had at our previous high point. It was unbelievable, as though divine intervention had both saved and elevated us. I was not just relieved. I was elated.

For their part, the Cytos seemed content to simply take advantage of our name and contacts. Only gradually did they begin to make use of the terms they had negotiated with us. Both Osric and I acted as brokers between the Cytos and a number of other organisations and power blocs, in particular within parts of the Imperial power structure. I mediated an agreement that allowed ships carrying Cytos bonded cargo to resupply at Naval facilities in the Amarynth subsector, and for their agents to move onto and off Gothar without checks under bond to the governor. They made use of our trade routes as they said they would, but only for small, sealed cargos and, above all, personnel.

Did I have misgivings? After a time, I think I did. I found Sonnus increasingly strange. He was deeply charming and charismatic, almost mesmerically so, but the more time I spent with him the more I felt like there was something that I was not seeing, something that crawled over my nerves when my back was turned in his presence. I cannot describe that sensation clearly. The closest thing to it I have experienced before is when Cicero, the old master of beasts on the estate at Xarxis Plethis, would show us the old velocipuma they kept in the wild gardens. You remember how it used to look at us? How, despite the bars and the guards’ guns, you could see that it thought of us as nothing but prey, as cattle.

I put aside my feelings and focused on business. That is what you do. Your family taught me well, Viola. But there were other things, small things, barely noticed at the time: the deference of Sonnus’ guards, the way they never took off their masks, and a smell that lingered after them like… salt water or sugar sap…

All of this was incidental until I was delayed passing through our manse at Mithras. The storms had surged again, and the captain of the chartist vessel we were to take would not send his ship into the tempest. I had not intended on staying there, but now I found myself in residence at the old place for an indefinite amount of time.

I would ask if you remember the Mithras Manse, but of course you do – the lessons of our tutors mean that I am sure that you recall its every room and turret with perfect clarity. It still sits on the northern pinnacle outside Mithras-1, its wings and walls spilling down the mountainside. From the windows and parapets you can look down into the factory piles and see the flash of gunfire as the gangs kill each other down in the sump canyons. We had not really occupied the manse often, or for long periods, and so its stone and iron halls smelled of rust and dust. My servants did their best, but most of the rooms, staircases and wings remained deserted, or haunted by a few servitors with failing joints shuffling through half-forgotten tasks.

For the first day I confined myself with work, then with some of the volumes in the upper libraries, then, as our delay dragged on into days I found myself walking the more obscure parts of the manse. Perhaps like you, I have never been able to sleep well. The memetic and cognitive tutoring broke down my ability to find peace in sleep. Often exhaustion and a blend of chems will send me down into the well of dreams. So it was that I was walking through the north-east wing’s lower levels in the dark hours of the night, a suspensor-held candle bobbing at my shoulder.

The Northern Wing was the least used of the reaches of the manse, even when it was properly occupied. The tastes of its builder had run to long halls crawling with gargoyles and grotesques, statuary in the high mortuary style and narrow, high corridors that seemed to hold the promise of crushing those that walked them. The light of my candle pulled clawed shadows from the sculptures and threw them up the stone walls towards the darkened ceilings. Dust puffed from the rotting carpets beneath my feet. The sound of my breath slid off into the distance to echo in the dark.

I had paused to examine the plaques beneath a row of portraits when I noticed a set of doors that had clearly been opened recently. The dust was disturbed on the floor at the threshold, and the doors’ iron panels and hinges bore the marks from where hands had come into contact with them.

I paused, puzzled and intrigued. There had been no entries in the manse’s records of anyone visiting in the last ten years. Perhaps the few staff in the place had come here to perform a particular task, but I had absorbed estate-wardens’ logs and there had been no activity recorded in the Northern Wing.

I was curious. So, I went to the doors and put my hand on the left-hand one to push it open. It was locked. That was more curious still – many of the locks in the manse were purely mechanical, few doors were actually barred. I had the master key, however, the key that opened every door, key pad and security measure in the place. I slotted it into the lock. I wish I could say that I hesitated at that moment, that some summation of facts held my hand still on the key before it turned. I did not hesitate though, and no thought besides mild puzzlement sounded in my head.

The chamber beyond the door had been a greeting hall, and it extended from the entrance to where dust-covered windows let in a grey haze of moonlight. The floor was stone, bare and unadorned, as though in echo of a church, or the citadel of a feudal world. There was no light source beside my candle, and it took a moment for my eyes to see anything beyond the circle of light.

There were boxes set out on the floor. Plasteel crates, each two metres to a side and one high, the kind used to ship goods from and to every corner of the Imperium. They were not stacked, though, but laid out singly, each one separated from the next by a precise metre of space. The sides of the crates were stamped with the seals of our house, the House Morio crest stencilled beside the details of our bonds and license of commerce.

They were not ours, though. I know every shipment and detail of our commerce down to the last grain and base coin. The crates were nothing to do with us. But here they were in our house, bearing our crest, set down with all the care of reliquaries in a chapel. I shivered then, and looked around, aware that I might not be alone. There was nothing. Just the dark, and the boxes lying silent and still.

After a moment I forced myself forwards. The candle followed with me. The nearest crate hummed with an internal cryo-coolant system. Its lid was cold to the touch. There was a code lock holding it shut, but, like the door, it yielded to the master key of our House. Mist breathed from within as the lock released. I had not hesitated at the threshold of this room, but I did then. The carefree wander through the night of only moments before had fled, leaving a present that felt like it was going to tumble into an unkind future. I could have walked away, sealed the crate and room. I could have done that…

I opened the lid, and let the light of the candle show me what lay within.

Nestled in frost, coiled like a larva at the root of a tree in winter, it lay. Smooth edges and hooked plates like polished lacquer, royal purple fading to black. My eyes and the light found limbs, found claws, found the eye closed in a long skull.

I don’t think I moved. I don’t think I could have moved. It was the purest moment of terror I have ever felt. My instincts were screaming but my muscles and thoughts held still, frozen in denial of what was before me.

Then I heard a noise from the corridor outside, and the sound jolted me into movement. I sealed the crate, extinguished the candle and scrambled to the side of the room and the folds of a rotting tapestry.

The door opened. They brought no light with them, but they moved in the gloom as though it were daylight. I saw pale grey robes and gilded head crests, like those worn by the senior Cytos Cartel representatives. Two hulking guards came with them, heads hidden by hoods rather than helms. Each carried heavy cannons as though they were made of paper. One of them stopped on the threshold, raised its head, and for an instant I saw a grin of needle teeth.

It sniffed the air. The others that had come into the chamber froze, each of them perfectly still, eyes shining silver with gathered moonlight. Then, whatever moment had held them passed. They checked the crates were sealed and then withdrew, locking the door behind them.

I waited a long time in the dark, listening, waiting for a sound, eyes moving between the rows of crates. When I moved, I expected every step to summon a shout or a cry. None came, and when I reached the corridor I ran. I ran up and up, through the manse, until I reached the inhabited wings and the dawn light sliding grey through the windows of the high towers.

That day the storms in the immaterium cleared and our ship made passage. Osric joined me on the ship, and after we were clear of Mithras orbit I asked him if he knew of the Cytos using our manse on Mithras. I do not know why I did not simply tell him what I had found, but I did not. He said that, yes, he knew they were using some of our unused space and transit bonds to ship small, high-value cargos of goods belonging to the cartel away from the worlds on the edge of the storm front. He smiled at me, and said it was the least we could do given what they had done for us.

That was three weeks ago. Since then I have made investigation into the Cytos’ use of our House’s holdings, but have found little to give comfort. Worse, there are eyes watching me, some amongst my household. In truth, I don’t know the difference between fears and realities any more.

And so, my most beloved Viola, I have written this communique in the old trade cant of our shared lineage and put it into the hands of a messenger that I can trust to bring it safely to you. Please help us. I know that after your brother’s fall from grace, you and he formed an association with parties that have the means to deal with such problems as I face. Please help me.

Your most loving cousin,

Cressida Syr Morio

</>

<entry II>

Coded order docket

From: Viola von Castellan

To: Cassius Qualtren, von Castellan emissary-savant, Geresh, Subsector Battlefleet Base

Begin primary and secondary searches – Cytos Cartel, all history holdings and movements. I want to know everything about this outfit, Cassius. Go as far back and wide as you can – in particular, planets of origin and current locales of operation. Oh, and there is an above-the-margin likelihood that they are hostile and dangerous to anyone looking at them the wrong way, so be discreet, all right? But be swift, too. You know the drill by now, I’m sure.

In addition, get me a full trade and operational appraisal on House Morio. Same level of ‘no one should know’ on that, too, old friend. All of this comes under house cypher condition Stygian, with a priority rating of Aleph-75. I will transfer funds for operational expenditure.

Viola

</>

<entry III>

Notary exchanged between Viola von Castellan and Cleander von Castellan undertaken by real time signal on board the ship Dionysia

Cleander: I have received a letter – more of a screaming plea, actually – from Cressida. All raving under a cloak of formality. I am guessing she sent you the same.

Viola: She did. It is in hand. Send me the letter. I will need to sift it for other data scraps.

Cleander: You think there is anything in what she is saying?

Viola: I don’t know.

Cleander: Do you know what I would be tempted to do?

Viola: I think I can guess.

Cleander: Come on! Tell me you are not tempted to leave her hanging on whatever rope she has found to swing on?

Viola: I can’t ignore this.

Cleander: They did not lift a finger to help us. Our mother took Cressida in, educated and set her up, paid off her father’s debts, all of it. But when the time came for them to repay that help, where was she? Where was House Morio?

Viola: I know, brother. I was there, if you remember.

Cleander: They didn’t just turn away, Viola! Cressida and that turd Osric gave sacred oaths declaring the severing of all familial bonds to us. It was done in the sight of the Pontiff Maxima on Dominicus Prime. They made a bastard pilgrimage to the most holy place in the sector to publicly wash their hands of us.

Viola: That may be so, but there are things in Cressida’s letter that have to be looked into. We have a duty to more than our own wounded honour.

Cleander: True. You think this is something to take to him?

Viola: I am not sure, but I will need to tell him. I am deploying our personal resources, but if this problem requires more than that I will need his authority to activate other types of asset.

Cleander: You think it will come to that?

Viola: I don’t know.

</>

<entry IV>

From: Viola von Castellan

To: Inquisitor Covenant

Message delivered by hand by Inquisitorial Courier Venetia

My Lord,

I must apprise you of a matter that has come to light. A full packet of the current intelligence available on the matter is appended to this communique. In essence, there is the possibility that the ancient trade house of Morio, and the Cytos Cartel, have come into contact with, have dealings with, or have come under the influence of a malleus or xenos threat of unknown nature. I am proceeding with first stage information and intelligence gathering.

I must also inform you that the executor of the House Morio is a blood relative of mine and Duke von Castellan’s, and that she is our primary source of direct information.

At this stage I am using von Castellan assets and resources, both because the credibility of the threat is not certain, and the use of those resources is not likely to be noticed. I will though, with your permission, begin to form and assemble operational components to fit all eventualities.

In faith,

V.

</>

<entry V>

From: Inquisitor Covenant

To: Viola von Castellan

Message delivered by hand by Inquisitorial Courier Venetia

Proceed.

</>

<entry VI>

From: Viola von Castellan, Seneschal of the von Castellan Rogue Trader Dynasty

To: Cressida Syr Morio, Executor of the House Morio

Message delivered by oath-bound messenger

My Dear Cousin Cressida,

Your message disturbed me greatly. First let me reassure you that I will do everything in my power to help you. That power may, however, be more limited than you hope. You allude to associations made by my brother after his disgrace, but I must inform you that such rumours bear little relation to the truth, and we are a House with few and dwindling resources. Your fears that I would refuse you aid because of matters left in the past could not be further from the truth. I am, and always will be, the friend that you had in childhood. I will bend all that I can command.

On that matter, I must admit to being puzzled. Your description of what you found in the Mithras Manse, of Sonnus and the Cytos, is dramatic and distressing, but I am struggling to parse it into clean data. To be direct – are you saying that the Cytos Cartel are using the House Morio’s name and connections to move some form of living creatures between planets? If so, that is no doubt concerning, but the trade in xenos breeds, while frowned on by Imperial authorities, is not a great matter. If you recall, it was the least of the charges levelled against the von Castellan dynasty during the troubles we encountered. It also seems unlikely that a large cartel would go to the trouble of writing off debts such as those carried by House Morio for the possibility of moving crated creatures about like rare fruits. Take it from me, cousin; the margin simply isn’t there. Might there be a simpler explanation? A simple smuggling operation, or the movement of private goods of a cartel member that might attract thieves? As your mother used to say – ‘why presume grand malice where simple greed will suffice?’

I also cannot help but ask if the state of sleeplessness and cognitive boredom you say you were in while in the Mithras Manse might not have heightened your imagination and compromised your perception? I know first-hand that the conditioning given to us comes at a price. Sometimes I cannot sleep, and when I dream sometimes it seems that I wake.

If I can, may I encourage you to take rest where you can? The crisis in your House’s fortunes has passed, and there is no need to create more phantoms than exist.

Please reply to tell me how you are, and tell me how more I can help you.

Your most loving cousin,

Viola von Castellan

</>

<entry VII>

From: Cressida Syr Morio, Executor of the House Morio

To: Viola von Castellan, Seneschal of the von Castellan Rogue Trader Dynasty

Message delivered by oath-bound messenger

My Dear Cousin Viola,

I am sorry if my previous letter disturbed you or caused you to worry. You are right, the strain and cognitive drug regime I am using has been causing me to lose full definition between thought and reality. Is it not strange that such things come to us all in time? There is a price in flesh as well as coin for all we do. Please discount the overwrought nature of my last writing. I believe that you can help me, but that the extent of that help might be to act as a reader to my words. I am sure that I have not known a true friend, even one separated by great reaches of space, for too long.

I am remaining in the Sunlight Manse on Viran for now – it is calmer here, and the storms do not blight the light of the stars as they do on other worlds. Perhaps a little time and a little rest will see my mind clear. I look forward to your reply with love and affection.

Your most loving cousin,

Cressida Syr Morio

</>

<entry VIII>

Notary exchanged between Viola von Castellan and Cleander von Castellan undertaken by real time signal on board the ship Dionysia

Viola: Sevenfold curses from a saint’s lips – it’s real. Whatever Cressida stumbled on, it’s real and the Cytos are watching her closely.

Cleander: How do you know?

Viola: The message I sent her. Not that you would know, brother, but our dynasty’s trade cant has a number of deep code phrases for use in messages that you believe might be intercepted. They were used in the old Trade Wars. Simple but effective.

Cleander: Oh, what ingenuity do generations of greed and paranoia create?

Viola: ‘Presume grand malice’ – means that you must presume that enemies are close and may intercept messages. ‘Sometimes I cannot sleep, and when I dream sometimes it seems that I wake’ – that is an old proof of safety phrase that demands a response. Cressida used the phrase ‘great reaches of space’ in her reply, meaning that she was certain that there were enemies close to her. There is more, too, but you get the idea.

Cleander: Fascinating. What are you going to do?

Viola: I will get another means of communication in place. One that’s less reliant on archaic code phrasing.

Cleander: I still think it would be fitting to just leave her to whatever judgement fate has finally decided to dump on her head.

Viola: Doesn’t fate do that to us all in the end?

</>

<entry IX>

Mission tasking

From: Viola von Castellan

To: Lemaitre Corvae, von Castellan Household Truth Thief

Location:

Viran, Sunlight Manse of House Morio

Parameter:

Infiltrate manse and pass cypher signal transmitter to individual identified as Cressida Syr Morio (target details attached). Target must be 100% identified and pass-off with transmitter must be clean and unobserved. Covert hostiles likely to be active throughout target locale. Once the objective is complete, withdraw and set up concealed signal relay post 100 km from target location. All relayed transmissions encrypted: Stygian, Aleph-75.

Restriction: 0 fatalities.

</>

<entry X>

Mission report

From: Lemaitre Corvae, von Castellan Household Truth Thief

To: Viola von Castellan

Mission complete. All parameters maintained. Transmission device, concealed as a signet ring, passed to target. Encrypted transmission relay with target, in place and functioning.

</>

<entry XI>

Encrypted relay message delivered in binary code

From: Viola von Castellan

To: Cressida Syr Morio

What did we call the beast master on the estates from Xarxis Plethis?

</>

<entry XII>

Encrypted relay message delivered in binary code

From: Cressida Syr Morio

To: Viola von Castellan

The lord of rats and teeth.

</>

<entry XIII>

Encrypted relay message delivered in binary code

From: Viola von Castellan

To: Cressida Syr Morio

Apologies, I had to be certain that it was you. I cannot risk a drawn-out conversation by this method, Cressida, but wheels are in motion. This matter is going to be difficult to resolve and is going to require more of you. A lot more. Above all, I need direct information that only you can supply. First, I need to know about the Cytos in your immediate presence. People you suspect, assets and personnel, all of it – any and everything. Second, I need you to gather all records of your House’s activities and trade since the accord brokered with the Cytos. Also, any and all Cytos-related records of any kind that you can access. This transmission device can spindle and send it all in a single blurt. Once that is done, the next steps can proceed.

</>

<entry XIV>

Header note to report delivered to the rogue trader vessel Dionysia by Household messenger

From: Cassius Qualtren, von Castellan emissary-savant, Geresh, Subsector Battlefleet Base

To: Viola von Castellan

Most honoured and etcetera, Viola,

Well, you do like to bring me all the worst and most delicious puzzles, don’t you? The full report and info-packets are included in the data cylinders accompanying this note. In summary, the Cytos are a complex beast. On one hand they have an excellent reputation in all their dealings – they are highly efficient, never break a contract or a bond, never play the political or status games that other trade operations do. They pay on time and in full. Always. I don’t know about you, but that alone makes me suspicious. They also make large donations to the coffers of the Ecclesiarchy both at a sector and local level.

It’s past this point that everything gets a little murkier. They are called a cartel, but I can find no sign of division within their organisation – quite the reverse, in fact. They are exceptionally homogenous – all members of the cartel have a high degree of uniformity in approach and act with a consistency and cohesion that would make the high prefects of the Administratum green with envy. They act as one and without deviation or fracturing. In an Imperium where three people in a single room will find a way to form factions rather than unite, this uniformity is more than a little unusual.

Much of that uniformity might be attributed to the Cytos’ religious nature. It’s not that uncommon for an organisation to be bound by adherence to a particular branch of the Imperial creed. But in the case of the Cytos it goes further. Their branch of faith is called the Ascent of Plenty, and proclaims the Emperor as the incarnation of all truth and plenty and unity. As far as I could trace its origin, the Ascent of Plenty sprung up amongst docking clans in the Asoro void colonies, but from there I can trace no recorded path of how it developed. I could also find no one outside of the Cytos Cartel who follows the Ascent of Plenty – the cartel is the creed and the creed is the cartel.

As far as I can tell, the Cytos, like the Ascent of Plenty, began in the Asoro void – the two are intertwined so tightly that it’s almost pointless to see them as separate. A minor trade house called Esren and a cargo brokerage called the Volumani seem to have formed the nucleus of the early enterprise. As they grew others have been added: a noble house from Kias, a wealth-arbiter organisation from Dust Scorn, a produce combine from Geo-1. The interesting thing is that the individual identities of all of these parts have vanished completely. There are a few heraldic devices, some names on ancient compacts, but any sense of individual identity is gone, replaced by the culture and faith of the cartel. That would not bode well for House Morio maintaining autonomy in the long term.

And the Cytos are also not without teeth. Though they are firmly on the side of Imperial authority, and spotless as far as conflict with official bodies is concerned, they are not above killing to defend or extend their influence. The docking guilds on Kias tried to force a better rate during negotiations by commandeering Cytos Cartel goods using loader gangers. The Cytos broke off negotiations and sent in their own forces. No gangers survived. I also found an account that, during the fall of Helx, the holdings of the Cytos forces fought off the heretics so effectively that theirs were the only islands of order in a sea of fire and anarchy.

As to the House Morio, well, there is a sorry tale… The work on that was a good deal easier than researching the Cytos. I do not wish to cast aspersions on a blood relative of yours, but Cressida Syr Morio was running an operation that could hardly be described as watertight – full of holes would be a better description. They were structurally vulnerable from almost every direction, and their fiscal strategy, while yielding great rewards, also left them open to just the sort of events as took place in the wake of the Storm Break. In fact, I have a suspicion that even before then, there were clandestine moves being made to erode their ability to resist a catastrophe, and so increase their vulnerability to just the kind of approach made by the Cytos. If I was prone to betting – and you know that I never am, at least not with real money – then I would place a large sum on the Cytos Cartel secretly owning House Morio’s debt before they made an accord. Your cousin’s House was stalked, marked and snared like a gamebird, my lady.

Full report on the Cytos Cartel and House Morio appended to this missive, but I thought you would like the juicy bits upfront. Oh, and I included a list of all Cytos’ holdings and active locations and any information I could assemble to aid in any… direct action that someone might want to take against them. Call it acting on a hunch, but I thought you might find it helpful.

Anyway, if there is anything else, I am yours to command, quite literally of course, but nonetheless. I look forward to when our paths cross again, old friend – the regicide board and a very fine bottle of siliqua stand ready.

Cassius

</>

<entry XV>

Direct order parameter missive

From: Viola von Castellan

To: Kynortas, Master-at-Arms, von Castellan Household

Take action to augment our household forces with elements prepared for direct action – high intensity, fast assault, void and orbital insertion. Also bring in all the markers we have with any of the Dominicus Prime Death Clans and the Blade Cult on Inx. I want a multi-zone force in place ready to deploy on my command. Gather the primary action elements to the Dionysia. Transport ships for the mercenary companies are to be sourced. I will pay promissory bonds at 2% above harbour broker rates.

We might have to get dirty quickly – make sure we are ready.

V. von Castellan.

</>

<entry XVI>

Encrypted relay message delivered in binary code

From: Cressida Syr Morio

To: Viola von Castellan

Data files appended to message in cypher compressed packet

Here is everything I could get. I managed to get into a set of shared trade ledgers. There was not much, but I could build a picture from what was there. It took a while. They have wormed their way in everywhere. Pay attention to our deep orbital cargo stations of Geresh and Ero, they have been particularly busy there. Also the chartist ships Tide Bringer and Journey of Wonder.

You need to help Osric and I to get out, right now, Viola. They are watching me all the time. They are everywhere. How did I not see it? Every retainer we hired in the last cycle is theirs – I can feel it. It’s true. The new housemistress, Veng, she is like a second shadow walking behind me and there is something in the way she looks at me… like… like I am meat on a platter.

Get us out. Get us out now!

</>

<entry XVII>

Encrypted relay message delivered in binary code

From: Viola von Castellan

To: Cressida Syr Morio

Cressida – remain where you are. Remain calm. Everything is in motion.

Viola.

</>

<entry XVIII>

Notary exchanged between Viola von Castellan and Cleander von Castellan undertaken by real time signal on board the ship Dionysia

Cleander: What do you think they are? These Cytos types, I mean.

Viola: I am not sure. I have theories.

Cleander: You always have theories.

Viola: Thank you, brother mine. This is big, though, big and nasty.

Cleander: That’s one of your theories?

Viola: That’s the part I am certain about. Something very clever and insidious has made the Cytos Cartel into a sort of mask, like a suit of skin. It is using it to further its interests, its assets and its reach across the stars.

Cleander: Lots of things could fit that modus operandi.

Viola: Yes. Yes and no.

Cleander: You know what they are, don’t you? Come on, I can tell you are dying to educate me.

Viola: I need corroboration. If I am right, we are going to need to augment the forces I have already mobilised.

Cleander: That’s going to be difficult. If the Cytos are as dangerous as your silence suggests, it’s a wonder that your truth thief got the transmitter to Cressida. If you want a hard incursion, and you don’t want the Cytos to realise that we are on to them, well, you are going to have to use some of ‘his’ assets, aren’t you? You are going to have to send in some agents of the Throne.

Viola: Yes.

Cleander: They are already deployed, aren’t they? Who did you send? Ianthe?

Viola: Not close enough, and she has been out of direct communication for a while. Xith is trying to track down Talicto’s lost apprentice in the tri-storm zone. Sensus-54-Zeta… well, we need precision, not a blood bath. At least not yet.

Cleander: So, Tervaize, then. There is no one else, so it’s got to be her, yes? It’s all getting a bit ‘keeping it in the family’, isn’t it?

Viola: Tervaize is not family.

Cleander: Not technically, but…

Viola: Technicalities matter.

Cleander: And Cressida? When are you going to get her out?

Viola: Not yet. We aren’t ready. Move too early and everything goes to hell. She stays where she is. We might have use for her yet, too.

Cleander: Throne of Immortal Light, and there I was assuming that you were actually going to help her…

Viola: Never assume anything about me, brother.

</>

<entry XIX>

From: Viola von Castellan

To: Tervaize Astra, Agent of Inquisitor Covenant

Mission Parameter Order – delivered by Inquisitorial courier

Under the authority vested in me for this instance by your master, the most noble Inquisitor Covenant, I, Viola von Castellan do direct and command you to undertake the task here detailed with all haste using any methods you deem necessary and stinting in no degree in pursuit of its completion.

Now that’s out of the way, on to the task – all the details we have are attached, my dear. We don’t have much time so you are going to have to use that improvisational streak you have developed. The key thing is that we need a physical specimen – dead is fine, but intact is essential. I think the targets might be very, very dangerous, so bear that in mind, too. And it has to look like something other than a hit. Nothing official, nothing smelling of, looking like, sounding like or feeling like us or anyone else, all right?

Fortune go with you – the Emperor Protects.

Viola

</>

<entry XX>

Encrypted relay message delivered in binary code

From: Cressida Syr Morio

To: Viola von Castellan

They have taken Osric. He just vanished two nights ago and has not reappeared. The housemistress Veng says he took a shuttle south to go hunting. He didn’t. I just know he didn’t. They are watching all the time. They know. I just know that they know. GET ME OUT OF HERE.

</>

<entry XXI>

From: Tervaize Astra, Agent of Inquisitor Covenant

To: Viola von Castellan

Post mission message – delivered by Inquisitorial courier

You said they were dangerous, but you sold them short.

Here is the fast summary of operations – I picked out the orbital dock facility at Carthos from your list of places where the Cytos are active. It is on the storm edge and the guilds there are barely holding order together. Communication is patchy at best. I figured it would be the best place for what we needed to do to go unnoticed.

I took an eight-strong team into orbital dock. They were good too, all people I know, all Throne-bound and hardened. We identified the Cytos. There were thirty-three of them present in the dock. Half of them hiding their faces in void suits, the other half floating around in grey white. There were riots going on down in the low dock levels, but the Cytos did not seem bothered in the least – just went on with their business like nothing was happening. I picked out one of their party that seemed to have a lot of autonomy. The rest went around in groups but this one sometimes peeled off to whisper to dock controllers and cargo masters. He was the definite leader and coordinator.

Anyway, we hit them hard. Fermented the riots up several notches – sorry, we did some damage to the state of law and order, but you said time was short. Diverted a chunk of the fire and violence in the direction of the Cytos while our target was on his own in the dock section. We took him out. That wasn’t easy. As soon as the first shot was fired the psy-frost was crawling the walls. All of the dock workers started twitching, then moving like they were on strings, and suddenly we were on the wrong end of a battle with a couple of dozen heavily augmented cargo-gangers.

We did it though. It cost me five people, but we did it. One dead specimen. We got out with the corpse in a stasis chest and delivered it to the Inquisition Bastion on Malence. But you don’t need to wait for the dissectors or xenos-biologis to report. I know what that thing was. Not a hair on its skin. Eyes like cut amethyst and a row of ridges under the skin sliding up its brow, barely noticeable unless you know where to look. Near human, but not quite, not really – human with something else buried down in its gene-helix. I have seen the like before, in the Pale Drift a long way away – there they took over cities, raised temples in bone to many-armed gods. Different but the same. It’s a Corporaptor Hominis infestation. The Cytos are a devourer cult, a nest of the corruptor breed, what the void tales you told me give the name genestealers.

If you are waiting to act, don’t. Set the fire to them now.

Tervaize

</>

<entry XXII>

From: Viola von Castellan

To: Inquisitor Covenant

Message delivered by hand by Inquisitorial Courier Venetia

My Lord,

We have primary confirmation that the Cytos Cartel is a front for a xenos-hybrid cult of the Corporaptor Hominis. The cult is widespread and established. I believe they have been using the name and access granted by House Morio to move their alien primogenitors and other members of their cult out of the path of the spreading storms. They are fleeing the storm’s path and searching for new places to infest, and are using the fabric of Imperial commerce to do it.

While it lies outside of the sphere of interest of your ordo, my advice is that you move to deal with it directly rather than pass it over to one of your peers of the Ordos Xenos – the more time and room the Cytos have, the more chance they have to survive.

I have taken the liberty of gathering intelligence on the Cytos and drawing up a multiple-location purge plan. Forces from your retinues and the von Castellan household are standing by for your order, but given the combat effectiveness of such cults, I would advise that you requisition specialist Imperial assets to augment operations.

In faith,

V.

</>

<entry XXIII>

From: Inquisitor Covenant

To: Viola von Castellan

Message delivered by hand by Inquisitorial Courier Venetia

The order is given. Begin with all speed. Set the time and begin the count. I will summon Those Who Stand Vigil.

By the will of Him on Terra, who is all and who all serve,

Covenant

</>

<entry XXIV>

Encrypted relay message delivered in binary code

From: Viola von Castellan

To: Cressida Syr Morio

My Dear Cousin,

I am sorry. I know that what you have endured has been terrifying, and I offer every apology that I can make for not answering you sooner or getting you out. You must trust me that this will all be over soon, but, Cressida, there is one more thing I must ask of you.

The Cytos emissary you call Sonnus will be coming to the manse. It does not matter how I know this, only that you know it is true. He is coming to see you. Your behaviour has them worried and Sonnus is coming to make sure that the cartel’s use of House Morio is not in danger. You must wait until he is there and when he is there, when he is in your presence, send this word – Birthright.

Viola.

</>

<entry XXV>

Direct order parameter missive

From: Viola von Castellan

To: All units on Viran planet, and by proxy to all units involved in the purge operation

Stand by. The sword rises.

</>

<entry XXVI>

Encrypted relay message delivered in binary code

From: Cressida Syr Morio

To: Viola von Castellan

Birthright.

</>

<entry XXVII>

Edited transcript of interrogation of Hed-Sut, Servant Attendant 2nd Class, Morio House, Sunlight Manse Estate, after the Viran component of the Cytos Purge

‘Believe me, oh, please by the pity of saints believe me, I don’t know anything. I had only worked at the manse for a winter. There were lots of new people coming and going all the time. I just held the doors and brought the food. I… [weeping]’

[question redacted]

‘I was in the room. I had been ordered to bring refreshment for the mistress while she met a guest. I had… I walked in… They were in the Pinnacle Embassy Chamber. The sun was rising across the sea – from up there you can see right across the bay to the tide towns to the south. The walls on two sides of the Embassy Chamber are crystal, and the manse just drops away beneath it. You walk in, you forget that you are at the top of a big pile of stone and glass. It feels for a moment like you are floating. That must be what it is like to be them, to be like Mistress Morio or Master Osric – floating above the world…’

[question redacted]

‘Yes, he was there, Master Sonnus of the Cytos and five attendants and guards. Huge things, some in void suits, some in those grey robes they like to wear. Big, all of them. I… I didn’t like to look at them too much.’

[question redacted]

‘I couldn’t see their faces. Not then. Not until–’

[question redacted]

‘Yes, I had seen Master Sonnus before. He was a regular visitor to the master and mistress.’

[question redacted]

‘I was alone in the chamber with them for a few seconds before Mistress Morio came in. I bowed to give her the refreshment I had brought but she did not take it. She looked… Well, she looked frightened.

‘As soon as she was through the doors, the House senior closed them and I heard locks thrown. That was when I started to–’

[question redacted]

‘Sonnus greeted her, yes, but his guards started moving as soon as the doors closed. Mistress Morio did not move from where she stood but I saw her bring her fingers together to press a stud on a ring on her left hand. She was shaking, I saw. The guards had moved to circle the room. I had backed towards the locked doors…’

[question redacted]

‘Yes, it was then that I spotted it. It was just a dot, out on the horizon above the sea. Mistress Morio was really shaking now, like she was in an ice gale. And Sonnus was saying something about debts or it might have been doubts. There was a light in his eyes. And… and I swear I could taste burning sugar and ozone. Then housemistress Veng let out a cry. Sonnus and his guards spun around like they were pulled by cables. The spot was bigger now. Much bigger, and you could see that it was not one thing any more but several – aircraft flying close together, getting closer with each second.

‘Sonnus turned back to Mistress Morio, and his eyes were circles of lightning. He had his mouth open and… and there were teeth, teeth like needles of bone that had pushed out of the flesh inside his lips. He did not look… he did not look human.

‘The missiles hit then. I saw them launch, saw the fire flare on the wings of the aircraft, and for the length of an eye-blink I saw them flash silver in the sunlight. They hit. The whole manse shook. Then the planes were arcing close, and I could see them firing down into the lower levels. One came right at us. It fired. A cannon or something. The glass walls blew out. Veng and Sonnus were shrieking, and I could hear the sound in my head. It went on and on and I think I was screaming too.’

[question redacted]

‘Sonnus’ guards started shooting. The aircraft was flying straight at us. Figures came out of the doors in its front. They wore black. Huge black blurs, jumping across the gulf between aircraft and shattered window in an eye-blink. Then the aircraft slammed vertical and vanished out of sight into the sky. The roar of the jets shattered the last of the glass. The figures in black… I… I have never… they were so fast. Three of Sonnus’ guards were dead just like that. Heads blown off. Red and pink… I don’t want to think…’

[question redacted]

‘Yes, that was when the last two of Sonnus’ guards moved. Their robes tore off as they moved. They were just a blur. Claws and limbs and shining shells like polished bone. The figures in black… the Angels – that’s what they were, weren’t they? The Emperor’s Angels of Death – charged. And Sonnus reached out his hand and there was lightning on his fingers and he, he…’

[question redacted]

‘I don’t know. The doors just unlocked and there were people from the household, people I knew or thought I knew, with violet light in their eyes and guns in their hands. The Angels did not stop. I saw one of them reach Sonnus and put a sword through his chest and lift him up like a roasting carcass on a spit. He… I…’

[question redacted]

‘I don’t remember. Someone fired grenades into the room and suddenly I couldn’t see or breathe. There were just the flashes and roars through the fog and the shadows of the Angels.’

[question redacted]

‘Yes, I think Mistress Morio was alive when I last saw her.’

[statement redacted]

‘What is going to happen to me? I want to go home. Please can you tell me when I can go home?’

Interrogation transcript complete.

Hed-Sut was transferred to penal colony Stygos-VI as an acknowledgement of his freedom from taint.

</>

<entry XXVIII>

Operational summary report from Cytos Purge Stages I-VI

Geresh orbital and void facility targets – Cleansed by five companies of Suraso mercenaries. Three target clusters eliminated on Geresh surface by Dominicus Prime Death Clans.

Ero system – Void macro storage complex, purged by three companies of von Castellan Household voidsmen.

Mithras – Strike by Deathwatch Kill Company. All details redacted.

Asoro – Manse of the House Morio destroyed by macro orbital strike. Zero warning given to maximise casualties. Sweep of debris completed by Arbitrator Execution Unit.

Kias – Cleanse carried out by Throne Agent Cadre under Sensus-54-Zeta.

Dust Scorn – Assassination of six target clusters by Inx Blade Cult devotees.

Geo-1 – Assault on Geo Combine harvest machines by the 45th Plethian Dragoons. Total cleanse ratified after seven days of fighting by use of a Primaris Telepathica Cadre.

Trade ship Tide Bringer – Destroyed off Ero dockyards by direct fire from the warships Last Oath and Scion of Wrath.

Carthos – All Cytos Cartel members killed in the detonation of plasma generators on Orbital Dock 56-A.

Trade ship Journey of Wonder – Boarded and taken and scuppered by the rogue trader Dionysia under the command of Duke Cleander von Castellan.

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<entry XXIX>

From: Cressida Syr Morio, Executor of the House Morio

To: Viola von Castellan

I have nothing. I am a beggar in a universe that does not suffer the weak and where the light of mercy does not lighten the dark. I am alive and for that I suppose I must thank you. I am told that this ship will take me to Bakka, and from there…

Osric is gone. They say that he betrayed me, that he was working with the Cytos from even before the storms came, that he resented me and wanted to take control from me. It is a lie. I will not believe it.

Everything is gone. Even my House’s name will mean nothing. That fat priest friend of yours said I am to be a pilgrim – a pilgrim on a journey that may never end to see the light of Sol and the glory of Holy Terra; a journey of penance that I will die on. That is what I get? That is what I deserve?

My mother always said that the von Castellans had cold silver in their veins, and you… you, Viola, are a true scion of your noble line. Did you destroy the Cytos just so that you could do this to me?

You always were a jealous, bitter thing. Don’t deny it. Even when we were children you could not bear it that your sister would inherit, that your brother had freedom, that our tutors liked me more, that you would always be in someone’s shadow. You just could not bear it when I rose out of the pit that your family made for its loathed lesser cousins.

Do you know what kept me going all those years of watching you twist into the shape your parents wanted? Knowing that I was better than you all. And I still am, Viola, I still am. You have sent me into an exile of rags. You have your victory, Mistress of Threads. But I will remember what you did and what you are.

Cressida Syr Morio

</>

<entry XXX>

From: Viola von Castellan

To: Cressida Syr Morio, Executor of the House Morio

Cressida,

You say you have nothing, so let me give you the coin whose value never fades. The truth is that I never resented you – I pitied you. I pitied you when we were children, and I pity you now. In all honesty nothing that I have done since I received your first message was driven by anything other than my duty to the Imperium. You see, I am a penitent, too. I live a penance for the mistakes of my family and the sins of my brother.

Cleander, like you, wants to believe that I have taken revenge on you for your washing your hands of us after our family’s fall. He wants nothing more than for your current situation to be the result of my careful design, for it to be just and fitting that you find yourself alone and without friends just as you left us alone and without help. He very much wants to believe that. But the truth is that I don’t care enough to make that happen, and while I am many things I am not cruel for my own ends.

You are a bitter and foolish soul, Cressida. You believe your desires and power define the universe. I know that belief is false. I know that my desires and designs are nothing in the play of time and the span of the stars.

Could I have helped you to start again, set you up with wealth and the hope of the prestige you so crave? Yes, I could. But, as I said, I am not cruel without reason.

Walk the path given to you, cousin, and maybe one day you shall see the light of Terra and know that I have given you a freedom and peace that I cannot give myself.

Yours in blood and truth,

Viola von Castellan

</>

Operational records relating to the Cytos Purge end here.

No further correspondence between Cressida Syr Morio and Viola von Castellan exists in the von Castellan dynastic record.

THE CIRCLE OF THE SWORD

‘The soul is a tower that must stand against the might of the seas of fate and the storms of impiety.’

– Sebastian Thor, words spoken on the road to Terra

‘You do not deserve the absolution of execution…’

‘You have sinned and you don’t even have the strength to face your own impiety…’

‘You are sister to us no more…’

Severita shut the door of the training chapel. She closed her eyes for a second, her hands lingering on the cold metal of the lock. Under her fingers she felt the thrum of the Dionysia’s engines pushing the ship through the void. The old voices lingered in her mind for a moment. She felt the snap of the lash in memory, and her shoulders flexed under her bodyglove. She opened her eyes and turned.

Darkness. The sound of the ship was a distant pulse held back beyond the walls. Her hands found the candles by habit and touch, and she struck the flame to the first of them.

‘Most holy Emperor, illuminate this soul with your wisdom.’ The flame held steady, growing to a narrow blade of light. She watched it, letting the glow fill her eyes.

‘You have shamed us, sister…’

She spoke a different line of devotion as she lit each of the other candles and placed them in their niches around the training chapel. Shadows pooled in the faces of saints and light reflected from the gilded halos of painted icons. The skull etched into the central floor caught the light and gleamed, a ghostly pattern on worn iron. The room had been a cargo space, but the von Castellans had given it to her, and she had worked long hours on every detail. Her hands had been bloody once she had ground the rust from every rivet and panel. She had cast the candle stands in the ship’s forge and marked the symbols of devotion on the floor with the tip of a broken sword. Once it was done, Preacher Josef had consecrated it to service and blessed it for its purpose.

Only she came here now, but it was not hers; it belonged to the living god she served and had failed.

Slowly she walked from the last candle to the centre of the pattern on the floor. Her feet were bare. The metal was cold beneath her tread. The painted eyes of saints looked down on her as she stopped at the centre of the haloed skull. She could feel the sheathed sword at her back. The candlelight lingered in her sight after she closed her eyes. She began to gather breath into her lungs, and one muscle at a time she released the tension in her neck, then her shoulders, then the flesh that wrapped the muscles of her arms, working through her body fibre by fibre, calming, stilling by will, letting the darkness and silence drown her.

‘You are one of us no longer. You are false. You are unclean.’

The cold voice rang with anger in her head. Carefully, she breathed in, reached over her shoulder, and grasped the hilt of the sword on her back.

Love the Emperor…

The first words of the silent prayer rose in the dark behind her eyelids.

…for He is the salvation of mankind.

The sword slid from its sheath and the breath exhaled from her lips, and she began.

PUPIL

‘They say you are to be Seraphim.’ The crone lowered the clay cup from her lips and raised a hand to wipe the milk running down her chin. Fog puffed into the air as she coughed.

Severita stayed still. The wind pushed cold into her flesh and stirred the fabric of her smock. The sky above the crag still gleamed with stars. The dew on the stones had turned to frost. The flames rippled and snapped in the bowls of burning oil mounted on tall iron stands around the open-air training shrine.

‘I have been told to submit to training, sister superior.’

The crone took another slurp of milk. Droplets pattered to the frost-covered stone. ‘Submit… Is that what you are going to do, sister?’ The crone turned a time-yellowed eye on Severita, and the edge of her mouth twitched. Her face looked like crumpled leather and her back was twisted beneath the deep crimson of her robes. ‘Well, are you going to answer?’ she asked, after a long moment in which Severita remained silent. ‘I hear you are good, ferocious and unbending, just as the Emperor demands of his daughters.’

‘I do my duty, sister superior.’

‘Just sister,’ said the crone. ‘There is no superior here.’

‘But you–’

‘That was a long time ago. The Emperor did not require my death in battle so here I am, an old woman of blades.’

The crone looked at Severita for a long moment and then turned, put the cup down on the low stone wall at the edge of the shrine space, and lifted a thin bundle wrapped in red rags. She held it for a moment and then tossed it to Severita.

The movement was so quick and without ceremony that Severita almost dropped the bundle as she caught it. She held it for a second, suddenly uncertain.

‘Go on – unwrap it,’ said the crone.

Severita held still for a second. The weight in the bundle was familiar, but also not.

‘I have read your litany of battle. You are not a novice, sister, an old sword in a shroud should hold no terror for you.’

Severita unwound the cloth. Even with the cold wind, the scent of incense filled her nose. She stopped suddenly and stared.

‘What is it you see, my child?’ asked the crone.

A sword. Worn bone and wood set in its haft, its pommel a ball of iron, words spiralling in gold around the cold sphere, the crossguard two short wings of gilded adamantine, a leather-wound scabbard hiding the blade. It was as long as her arm, and narrow.

‘It is one of the Blades of Illumination,’ she breathed, ‘a relic of the War of a Hundred Worlds.’

‘Yes, it is, but before you get lost in reverence, answer the question – what is it?’

‘I…’ Severita felt the frown form on her face. The crone stepped forwards, gripped the hilt and drew the blade so fast that Severita’s eyes barely caught the flash of starlight on its razor edge. The point of the blade was against her neck before a word formed on her tongue.

‘What,’ said the crone, the words cold and measured, ‘is it?’

Severita could feel the sharp point on her skin.

‘It’s a sword.’

The crone smiled and lowered the blade.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Never let anything blind you to that simple truth. For all the martyrs that have held this blade, and all the heretics that have died by its point or edge, its history matters less than its nature.’ The crone paused, reversed the blade with a twist of her hand and held it out, pommel first, to Severita. ‘Here, take it.’

Severita reached out and gripped the haft, and felt the wood and bone of its grip settle against her skin. The flame-light and starlight caught the ripples in the blade’s steel. Fine power field conductors ran down its fuller like the paths of silver tears.

‘Our sisters in the Order of the Valorous Heart favour heavier blades in the style of the Stygies battle forges – powerful, with enough weight and power to cleave clean through flesh and bone without the field active. Truly fearsome with a fire of faith driving every cut.’

The crone turned and picked up a second bundle. Another sword lay within the fabric, twice the length of the one in Severita’s hand. The crone winced as she lifted it, skeletal hands gripping the long hilt.

‘Looks like righteous might given form, doesn’t it?’ said the crone, and grinned, the expression knotting the creases of her face. Severita was about to reply when the crone twisted, and the great sword in her hands spun around to stop a hair’s breadth from Severita’s own as she raised it to parry. The old sister was not smiling now.

‘A blow like that and even a sword in your hand won’t stop it,’ said the crone, her eyes boring into Severita’s. She turned away and hobbled back to her clay cup of milk. ‘They said you were pure, and deadly, and clever, which is why you are here. Tell me that they haven’t taken advantage of my old age to sell me tin as silver.’

‘I know the skill of the sword, sister,’ said Severita. Behind the layers of will and control she could feel anger begin to glow. ‘If I am not worthy to be Seraphim then that is as the God Emperor wills it.’

‘Worthy?’ snarled the crone, milk spraying from her lips. ‘Worthy? You have faced enemies in battle, you have sent them to the flames, you have been tested and trained and never broken or failed – of course you are worthy. The question is if you are more than that.’ The crone’s hand flashed out and her finger struck the blade of the sword in Severita’s hand. A sharp note rang into the air. ‘Why did you parry directly? You knew it would not work, you know this blade is too light for such a counter.’

Severita opened her mouth, but the crone stepped closer, her breath touching the skin of Severita’s face as she spoke.

‘You need more than faith to be a true weapon of the Emperor. You think too much of worthiness, and so you don’t see the simple truth that you need to learn here and now.’ The crone’s finger set the blade Severita held ringing again. ‘What is this?’

‘It is a sword,’ said Severita, saying the only word that came into her head.

The crone nodded.

‘But what is its nature, sister?’

‘It is light, balanced, sharp-tipped and edged, it is quick…’

She hesitated.

‘Yes? Go on.’

‘It is like a storm held still.’

The crone stepped back, nodding. ‘Better, but not all the way there. Good enough for now, good enough for us to start with. The point is that you understand the nature of the sword. And understanding takes a lifetime.’ She barked a snatch of laughter then. ‘Too bad that few of us will live to find it.’

The crone hobbled back to the edge of the space, sheathed the great sword and drew another that was similar in form to the blade Severita held.

‘Out of the way,’ said the old woman as she turned, motioning Severita aside with her blade and limping into the centre of the space. ‘We will begin with the First Devotion of the Tenth Blade. It is the truth and prayer of all who learn the higher arts of the sword in our order, so pay attention.’ Severita thought she might have seen the crone’s mouth twitch in a smile before she let out a breath and raised the sword in front of her so that it was almost touching her forehead. For a second the old woman seemed taller, her back straighter, and the wrinkles of age that lay upon her skin like the patina of old iron faded.

‘Obey His words…’ she said aloud as though continuing a prayer begun in the silence of her mind, and then she was stepping and turning and the sword flashed under the stars. ‘For He will lead you into the light of the future…’

MARTYR

‘Heed His wisdom,’ whispered Severita to herself as the rain began to fall. The belly of the storm cloud coming up the valley glowed red as the new day’s light snagged on the dark bulges. Drops began to patter across the stones of the pilgrim road that snaked up the valley to her feet. She could smell the lightning charge on the air and the tang of iron in the droplets as they exploded off her armour. ‘For He will protect you from evil…’

‘It’s come up from the south,’ said Clementia, from where she had come to stand beside Severita. ‘The fire winds pulled the ashes of the cities up into the air. That’s the grave dust of ten million souls falling in the water of this rain.’

Severita did not reply but watched as a fork of lightning stabbed down at the cairns on the lower hills. The shrine had stood here in the highlands of Quess for thousands of years. A girl had fled the slaughter of the devout during the Age of Redemption, before the War of a Hundred Worlds. She had found shelter in a cave and escaped the heretics hunting her. Fifty years later that girl had been declared Saint Aspira after a life of waging war against the forces of heresy. A shrine had been raised above the cave and had stood for the millennia that had passed since – a grey clutch of buildings on a bleak hillside at the end of a worn road of stone that led nowhere else. As the Archenemy flooded the southern plains, the Pontif General had commanded that Saint Aspira’s Refuge endure untouched at all cost.

‘Are we ready?’ Severita asked after a moment, her gaze steady on the oncoming storm.

‘Yes, seraphim superior,’ said Clementia. ‘Our sisters are positioned, they are shriven and are speaking the prayers of fury.’

Severita blinked as the rain fell and in her mind she saw a small girl clinging to the arms of her nurse as three figures in black robes looked down at her with cold eyes as she screamed at them.

‘No, I won’t go! Where is father? I won’t go!’

‘Your father and mother are dead,’ said a man with twin augmetic eyes and silver hands. ‘And you have no choice.’

‘And the faithful?’ she asked. Clementia paused and looked around at Severita. There was a note of surprise when she spoke.

‘They are gathered before the shrine.’

‘The walls will not shelter them.’

‘They have been led in prayers. If they remain true they will be protected.’

Three hundred people had reached Saint Aspira’s Refuge before Severita and her sisters had arrived. All had lived in the shadow of these hills, and all had grown up knowing that a prayer to the Emperor in the name of Saint Aspira was their truest shield against those who would do them harm. Now they had come to shelter from enemies as the young saint had, the young clutching the old, the desperate driven by the hope offered by old stories and the promise of prayers. But Severita and her sisters were not there to answer those prayers. They were here to hold to the last and see the shrine stand.

‘You have no choice…’ rasped the man with silver hands in Severita’s memory. That was her last memory before she had gone to the schola progenium and to the life of service that would follow. It was as though everything before that point had fallen into oblivion, leaving just that single moment of transition as a stump of a severed life. She could not remember who her parents had been or how they had served the Emperor, and she did not know how they had died. There was just that moment of pain and terror and pleading and then everything that came after. Except now, under the rain, something within her moved and she felt a fire rise.

‘Do you follow my command, sister?’ asked Severita, turning to look at Clementia.

The battle sister bowed her head. The rain was falling more heavily now. Down on the edge of the storm’s shadow, Severita could see the glow of promethium torches.

‘By His will, I am His weapon for you to wield. What is your command, sister superior?’

A blink of lightning struck the road a hundred metres from them. Severita did not move. The rain was a deluge now. Grey drops ran down the crimson of her armour.

SINNER

‘Make her stand.’

The voice spat the words, and Severita bit down on the pain as the chains yanked her to her feet.

Whisper His prayers with devotion…

She tried to make her legs take her weight but they slipped on the slick stone. The rings around her wrist bit, and the chains linked to the pulleys in the roof snapped taut. She made no sound but could not help blood spilling from her lips to spatter on the floor.

…for they will save your soul…

The chains clinked as she tried to find strength and balance. The sound of armoured boots on stone rose in her ears until she could see that a figure stood directly in front of her. The pain rose in a wave and she fought it as the sensation tried to tumble down into the relief of unconsciousness.

‘She is exceptionally controlled and very tough,’ came a voice from out of sight. ‘Remarkable, in fact.’

‘The strength of a sinner only makes their sins less forgivable,’ said the figure in front of Severita. The words were not hurried, not edged with anger – just cold and clear and certain. ‘Look at me, sister.’

Severita tried to raise her head. The battered and torn muscles in her neck and shoulders tensed. Her face began to lift.

A hand gripped her chin. The fingers were wrapped in black velvet and skinned in red iron. They lifted Severita’s chin. Pain exploded through her. The chains rattled as she shook.

Canoness Orn looked into Severita’s eyes. Prayer marks dotted Orn’s cheeks between the scar tissue. Age lines clustered around eyes that were the grey of rain clouds and ash.

‘This is not punishment,’ said Orn. ‘That shall come later. It is not even judgement. It is preparation, you understand? We cannot forgive, sister. We cannot even save your soul, but we will do what we can so that you may save it yourself.’

‘I…’ Severita gasped the word and felt it shake on her tongue. ‘I am… guilty. I–’

‘Your guilt is not the matter at hand, sister. And though your confession speaks to a willingness to repent, it cannot command absolution.’

Orn removed her hand slowly from Severita’s chin. The pain was fire, roaring and shaking through her, but she did not lower her gaze from her canoness.

‘You were always so strong, Severita. I should not let such weakness find purchase in me, but I confess that I am grieved that we did not find the flaw in you sooner. For that sin we all must pay.’

‘The sin… is mine… alone,’ said Severita. She could feel blood running down her chin.

‘No,’ said Orn, ‘no, it is not. Tell me, though, why did you do it, Severita?’

‘I did it… to save them…’

‘Their death or survival was not what was commanded, sister. If their time had come and their end been written, then so be it. The shrine of Saint Aspira was light to the faithful for millennia and is now ashes – by such cuts is faith broken and without faith mankind is nothing. Next to that the souls you saved from death are what?’

A girl trying to hold on to the arms of her nurse while cold metal fingers reached to pull her away… A face looking up at Severita from the throng crowding the vaults of Saint Aspira’s shrine, fear in wide, dark eyes…

‘The Emperor protects us, and we protect in his name…’

Orn let out a breath and stepped back, face hardening.

They had survived, all three hundred and five souls who had sought shelter at the shrine. She had ordered the withdrawal, assigned her sisters to see the faithful to the shelter of the land beyond the mountains. She and her few Seraphim had stood alone on the stones of the shrine as the throng of the Archenemy rolled up the valley with the storm. Too few to hold. She had thought she would die there, had been ready for her last sight of the world to be the knives of the enemy.

The shrine of Saint Aspira’s Refuge had burned. But Severita had lived. Bloodied, wounded, hanging by a thread of prayer and will, but alive. Alive to face the consequences of the sin of her choice.

‘You have sinned,’ said Orn at last. ‘You have sinned and you don’t even have the strength to face your own impiety. You do not deserve the absolution of execution.’ Orn began to walk away. ‘You will be outcast. You will be shunned. You are sister to us no more.’

And hanging from her chains, Severita’s head dropped, and before she could stop them, she felt tears form in her eyes and carry the blood of her wounds down her cheeks.

PENITENT

They took the iron mask from Severita’s head after five days of hunger and silence. That act surprised her. She knew the path of penance, knew that it passed through many steps of which this was the first. They had given her water each day, piped it into her mouth through a hole in the mask, and that was how she had kept track of time. Only five of the fifteen days had passed. They should not have removed the mask yet.

Light poured into her eyes and for an instant she was blind. Then shadows formed in the brilliance and the chains on her wrists jerked as she swayed.

‘What…’ she began before she could stop herself.

A lash bit across her shoulders

‘The penitent shall not speak,’ came the cold tones of a female voice.

‘You will not do that again,’ said another voice, male, cold and controlled. ‘Her penance and redemption lie in my hands now. Do you understand?’

A pause, a shifting of the shadows.

‘Yes, inquisitor,’ came the female voice.

Inquisitor. The word echoed in her skull. The light was less blinding now. A blurred shape loomed above her.

‘Can you raise your eyes, Severita?’ asked the inquisitor. Severita blinked, and moved her hands to wipe her eyes. The chain snapped taut.

‘Release her bonds,’ said the inquisitor.

‘Lord, she is not permitted to–’

‘Release her bonds.’

Severita almost flinched at the cold force in the words.

The chains were released a second later. She wiped her eyes, blinking. The inquisitor stood above her, dark eyes in a young face of hard angles. He wore a storm coat of dark grey and a crimson cuirass. A mind-linked cannon twitched on his shoulder as he looked down at her.

‘I am Covenant,’ he said.

‘Are you here to give me judgement, lord?’ she asked.

He gave a single shake of his head, his eyes steady on her.

‘I cannot offer redemption or forgiveness,’ he said. The gun on his shoulder twitched again. Its targeting lenses focused on her. ‘All I can offer is death or service, the choice of which rests in your hands, Severita.’

‘I deserve no choice,’ she said.

‘But that is why you are here, is it not? You chose to let a shrine burn.’

‘We are instruments of the Emperor’s will. It is not for us to make choices.’

He looked at her for a long moment, and then crouched down so that he was at eye level with her.

‘You have never had a choice, not since you were taken to the schola, not since you rose to the Sisterhood. Your sin is not that you let a shrine burn, Severita – it is that for once in your life you wanted to make a choice.’

She stared at him, shocked. His gaze was unmoving. The gun on his shoulder had rotated its aim away from her.

‘Choices do not bring us peace, Severita, they are the root of all pain. You are to do penance for your sins, and that will either be in death or in my service as an exile from your sisters. But the first brand of that penance is the choice of whether to live with your pain or die for your sin.’

She felt a hollowness open in her, felt the years of sisterhood tumble into the void, felt the scream of a child taken from the only home it had ever known rise until it echoed behind her eyes.

Covenant waited, watching her. She looked at him and opened her mouth to reply.

PEACE

The wall next to Severita dissolved in flame and shadow. Shards of rock flew out. Pain spiked through her as she felt one of the splinters find the join at the back of her knee and punch through to the flesh within. She did not even stumble, but came up, pistols firing in concert, bolts exploding amongst the figures boiling up out of the dark.

Most wore tatters of rag and skin over crude, welded plate. Their faces were carved, bloodied ruins. Blood poured down their torsos under the lash of rain. Lightning struck down, strobing in bright chains between the hill tops and crags. The shrine was alone, walls and steps lit by the flare light and fire. The others of her sisters had gone, withdrawn with the people who had come to the shrine for safety. She alone remained. One figure in crimson.

A figure came bounding up the rubble. It had hooks in place of its hands. Its body bulged with muscle and black smoke oozed from its wounds. The ruin of its face screamed at her with a tongueless mouth. She snapped a pistol around. A blade-limb struck the gun and sliced it in two. The shell she had just fired exploded in the barrel. Shrapnel tore at the bloody figure. It howled. Severita staggered. The fingers of her right gauntlet were smoking and torn, the servos in the arm blown out from absorbing the explosion.

The blade-limbed thing sprang forwards. She ducked back. The silent prayer on her tongue changed. The note of fury that had guided her aim fell to a clear voice speaking old words. Her hand found the hilt of her sword behind her shoulder.

The world was a turning tableau around her…

Blood and lightning…

Screams and fire…

The sword slid free.

‘What is it you see, my child?’ asked the crone.

The blade-limbed enemy swung. Muscles rammed the cutting edge through the air.

‘They said you were pure, and deadly, and clever, which is why you are here.’

Severita ducked, and lightning lit along her sword.

‘It is like a storm held still.’

The edge of her blade met her enemy’s arm just below the elbow. Steel and lightning split it from joint to shoulder, and Severita was already turning, already hearing the next thread of prayer pulling her on as the old voices spoke in her soul.

‘Your father and mother are dead,’ said a man with twin augmetic eyes and silver hands.

The sword sliced, and the blade-limbed figure was falling, head and blood tumbling away.

‘And you have no choice.’

A figure with a flayed face and a gun in its blood-caked hands. And the sword looped up to drag its tip and edge through groin, gun and chest, and Severita could hear the roar of blood in her ears and the beat of the prayer and the turning of the sword.

…Honour His servants…

Blood and explosions and screams, and the world turning around her in a blur of red and fire as she cut and leapt along the razor’s path, faces snarling at her and blades reaching for her as she stepped and twisted and cut. Sharp edges bit into her armour. Pain blazed in her.

…for they speak in His voice…

She turned her grip on the sword, pivoted, cut, reversed the cut. The images and voices of the past slid past her like the failed blows of the enemy. Her breath had steadied now, her heartbeat dropping as though she were moving in sleep, the words of the prayer a soft voice in a dream of purity.

And then – suddenly – quiet, and the words of the prayer and the circle around her made by the passing of the sword.

And the crone was there in memory.

‘What is it?’ she asked Severita, taking the sword from Severita’s hand while she breathed white into a cold morning.

‘It is peace,’ said Severita.

And the crone had smiled.

‘Just so,’ she said. ‘It is the only peace you will ever know.’

In the training chapel on the Dionysia, Severita turned through the pattern of cuts and steps and let the voices of the past rise, and roll past her.

Tremble before His majesty…

A cut from high above her shoulder, the tip of the sword almost touching the iron of the floor, the thread of breath pulling from her lips as she placed her foot and pivoted.

…for we all walk in His immortal shadow.

The sword blade flicked out, and her muscles uncoiled into the blow that sang in the stillness as she turned, and within, for a moment – a moment no longer than the beat of a heart – all was quiet.

THE SPIRIT OF COGS

‘What dreams sleep in iron that by the turning wheel mankind has brought to waking?’

– from the Smith’s Address as spoken in the Penitent Cycles of Terra

‘There are ghosts in machines.’ Glavius-4-Rho looked up from the mirror of the blade in his hands as he spoke.

The former Sister of Battle sat on the floor of the armourium, legs crossed, armour replaced by a grey hessian smock. She had been sitting there ever since she had brought him the sword. It had been damaged, the edge notched and a tine sheared from the cross-guard. He had taken it from her and begun the repairs as soon as she had shown it to him. He had not grieved for the damage done to the sword – some things were created to be damaged.

‘Ghosts?’ said Severita at last. ‘Machines have spirits – that is what all of your priesthood say, isn’t it?’

He felt the servos in his frame twitch as a plasma flame lit on his workbench. Part of him wondered if starting this exchange had been wise. He was a magos after all, a high guardian of the truths and mysteries of the most sacred Machine-God…

No… he was not. That was factually incorrect. He had failed. He had lost the machines and knowledge entrusted to his care. He was a penitent, grey-robed, where once he had been clad in red. Without rank where once he had been most high. He served Inquisitor Covenant now – that was his function.

He looked again at Severita. Like him, she was an outcast from her own kind. She had been a warrior of the Adepta Sororitas but some transgression had seen her cast from her order, service to Covenant replacing the bonds to her sisters. He liked her, and she had made a habit of talking to him. She asked him questions, questions not about the function of things but about him, about what he had experienced, about what he believed. He did not understand why. A non-logical part of his mind thought that she was trying to redeem him.

He focused his attention on the sword for fifteen seconds while his servo-arms held it steady as he dipped its blade into the plasma flame on his workbench. Blue fire washed over its edge and sent light fizzing from its mirror finish. The beam cut off and he held the blade as it cooled.

Severita was still looking at him, head cocked, waiting for a reply to her question.

Glavius-4-Rho selected a mode of expression that he thought was correct. ‘All machines possess spirits. That is a fact and truth. I did not speak of spirits. I spoke of ghosts.’

The skin around Severita’s eyes creased further. Glavius-4-Rho turned back to the blade and focused the plasma flame to a narrow knife of fire.

‘There are no such things as ghosts,’ Severita said. ‘Daemons, yes, but not ghosts.’

‘Are you certain you wish to understand what I mean?’ he asked, staring down at the blade as it began to glow with heat.

‘I would have an answer if you would give it.’

He felt the seconds pass and the cogs in his chest tick over.

‘As you command,’ he said, and began to speak.

It was 401 days after my ascendancy to the rank of magos when I went to waken the machine in the underworld of Zhao-Arkkad.

Not all of those who serve the machine are made in the sight of its great forges. I was one such. My biological self began its life cycle on Mithras. The techno-clans of the second conurbation were my originators. I cannot remember my direct biological forebears. The first level of mental augmentation removed those memories when I was fourteen years. I do not miss them. I cannot remember what to miss.

I survived the early years of un-augmented life. I showed aptitude in assembly and logic application. I have memory residue from those times: a mental image of a drop of blood on fingers, geometric blocks of bronze alloy tumbling from their grasp, shouts of admonition, the flash of an electro-whip. I hear cries sometimes. I don’t know whose cries they are.

The representatives of the priesthood had already marked me as a potential subject for induction into their ranks. I was inducted into the orders of artisans. I assimilated the first levels of sacred maintenance and construction processes. I manifested the ability to replicate and memorise without error. I was blessed with machine creations to replace my hands.

At the passing of 21,233 years I was taken within the embrace of the Omnissiah. My sponsors were the Demi-flux Governors, a sanctioned branch concerned with the transference of electro-power and field parameters. There were other sects and branches who had marked me for their ranks. The high induction engines, though, calculated my characteristics being of most use to the Demi-flux Governors. If I had a preference on my path into the priesthood, I no longer store it in my memory – it was and is irrelevant.

I progressed through the levels of flux-savants. Further augmentation was made to my physical and mental architecture. At the point when I was raised to the rank of magos my physical self was 43.56 per cent of the machine. My cognition functioned between 35.45 and 37.23 per cent purity. In form my face was the blank mask of an aspirant, the nerves beneath the skin severed and expressive muscles paralysed. My hands and forearms were plasteel and black carbon. My primary organs had just been replaced, though my torso was still blood and bone. I recall that I was still adjusting to the rhythm of my new heart when I made my journey to Zhao-Arkkad.

Zhao-Arkkad was the first true forge world I had ever seen, and it was like nothing that I had expected. That may seem inconstant to you, but the sacred worlds of Omnissiah are few, our empire exists beside that of the Imperium, entwined with it, and my training had been in the priesthood’s enclaves on Mithras, Glaucon and in the void forges of Jeddev. Zhao-Arkkad was not an enclave world – it was a world given body and soul to iron, to the furnace and turning wheel, to the song of the blessed electro. But this soul hid beneath a skin of forests. It was a wonder and a paradox.

The fumes of engines were the clouds, and the rains that fell onto the green canopy were rich with radiation and minerals. Predator fauna thrived amongst the equally lethal flora. The Primary Forge Fane Complexes were buried beneath the ground, connected by tunnels and sealed against life on the surface. In these underground realms, the machine fanes and anvil districts stretched to the limits of the stone walls. Spires of data temples and the chimneys of fume vents rose to the stone ceilings and the thunder of forge hammers blended with the crackle of static leaping from wall to wall and spire to spire. Seeing that, hearing that, feeling that, was one of the most sacred experiences I have ever had.

That moment was brief.

I had thought that I would be installed in one of the electro-fanes; the divine flow of plasma and reactor rituals had been my calling since I had been raised to the cog. Instead I found that I was to be diverted to an isolated facility on the southern continent. No one could give me specific data on the purpose I was to fulfil there or even the name of the facility. I was to travel there by air, departing from an obscure landing pad set in a crater on the surface above the forge complex.

When I arrived at the landing pad, a shuttle was waiting. It bore no marks. That was an anomaly; everything I had seen since my arrival was stamped and marked with code and function. It took off as soon as I arrived.

There were two others with me. The first was a man of largely biological make-up, uniformed in the style of the Collegia Titanica, but without markings of Legion or rank. All of his noospheric data was also absent. He was a non-presence. A ghost. He offered me a curt sign of respect, but no further data.

‘What is your allocated personal identifier?’ I asked.

‘Zavius,’ he answered.

‘And your designated rank and organisational placement?’

He did not answer. Not even with a negatory.

<He will not comply with any other query,> linked the other individual in the shuttle. She was called Ishta-1-Gamma. She had greeted me formally when I had arrived and made a full data exchange. She was a hermetrix – an initiate into the higher mysteries of data transference, neural linking and communication interface. If information is to the machine as blood is to the biologic, then she was to the machine what a blood doctor is to a living being. Her robes of office were orange, woven with graphite thread. Her noospheric aura was multi-sphered, coloured and patterned with the canticles of data fidelity. Her data transmission was 99.999 per cent flawless. I had to acknowledge that I was impressed.

<He bears the signs of the Collegia Titanica,> I replied. Outside the grey-blue clouds were dragging past the shuttle’s portholes.

<He is a princeps,> sent Ishta-1-Gamma. The pause in my data reply must have communicated a query, because she continued. <He has mind-interface plugs and neural augmentation that is only gifted to those of that rank and position. He has refused all my greetings in all formats. Correction – his data links are shut down and he ignores audio greetings. Strange.>

<Strange?>

<Strange. Unusual or surprising. Difficult to understand or explain.>

<I apologise – I am aware of the word’s meaning. I did not follow your line of reasoning.>

Ishta-1-Gamma’s data aura rippled with symbol sets that denoted amusement in a number of language systems. <It was less of a deduction and more of a non-vital conversational opening,> she sent.

<Oh.>

I paused to parse that for several seconds.

The shuttle was gaining speed towards the southern continents now, weaving between columns of storm cloud. Its engines were singing at optimal output. I could feel the contentment of its spirit in the vibration of its skin. Through the portholes, you could see the waste rivers from the forge complexes’ outflows, a rainbow of reds, blues and oranges draining into green land.

<It is strange…> I transmitted to Ishta-1-Gamma, and looked at her. Her face was an ellipsoid of red ceramic. A quartet of teal eye lenses sat in a band across the top half. A vertical slot sat in the location of a mouth. There were no other features. <Do you have data on where we are going, or our purpose when we arrive?> I asked.

<I do not have that data…> She paused, but the transmission did not close. <But I have some theories based on dispersed logic.>

<You mean what the unblessed would call guesses?>

<Correct.>

A moment of silence on the data link. The wheels in my newly installed cognition implants clicked over. I glanced at Zavius, but the princeps showed no sign of having heard what we were transmitting.

<There is no possibility of the princeps intercepting this exchange,> Ishta-1-Gamma noted.

<Why are you concerned by that?>

<For the same reason you are,> she replied, <because the absence of data is disturbing.>

<Conceded. What are your… guesses as to what is occurring?>

<Facts first – I am a devotee of the divine spark of data and transmission. You are a magos of dataetherica. Neither of us are from this forge world. You arrived 2.45 days ago. I arrived 3.34 days ago. We are outsiders to the structures of this world.>

<The high magi of Zhao-Arkkad may not have available resources in those specialities,> I replied. I could see the possible branches of inference forming from her assembly of facts. Negative emotions were building up in my mental buffers.

<Or they do and the need is for individuals whose absence will not be noted and who have no connections through which to share data with the wider priesthood on this world.>

<There are other possible reasons. Those you have outlined have no greater logical weighting than any other.>

<True.>

Another silence.

The cogs turned in my cranium and the shuttle flew on. The nearest entrance to a forge complex was now far behind us. This was the Nul Zone, a reach of Zhao-Arkkad that hid no machine-filled caverns beneath its green shroud, just a vast area of hostile bio-fauna feeding grounds. Grey and black clouds passed us, and black rain began to spatter the window ports and front canopy. Needle-like crags of black rock rose from the ground. Streams of water poured down their sides, bright green or blue with minerals leeched from below.

I admit that a disturbance had entered my thoughts. Perhaps it was Ishta-1-Gamma’s guesses. Perhaps it was something in the green desolation of the land before us, bare of the shapes of machines and buildings. Perhaps it was because, for the first time in my life, I felt a long way from the familiar.

<Landing approach protocols initiated,> transmitted the shuttle’s servitor pilot. A second later I detected a shift in the air pressure. I looked out of the portholes, expecting to see a landing pad rising from the jungle canopy, but there was nothing except a range of mountains. The light was fading.

The shuttle continued to lose altitude. I looked at Ishta-1-Gamma, but her noospheric aura was repeating a pattern of blank data values. I looked out again. The sides of the mountains were close enough now that they filled the view; a black-grey wall stretched before us. The shuttle began to shake.

Zavius was on his feet, face showing no emotional markers. He moved to the back of the crew space, balancing effortlessly with the vibration of the craft. I felt high-power auspex reach out and burrow into the shuttle.

<Submitting clearance codes,> the pilot servitor broadcast. <Standing by…>

Seconds decremented. The shuttle flew on towards the mountainside.

<Clearance granted. Landing protocol initiated. All praise to the vigilance of the machine.>

The whine of the shuttle’s engines was a scream. The mountainside was so close I could see the canopy lights reflecting off the wet rock. I felt a cold shutter fall across my thoughts as my emotional buffers activated.

Thrusters fired. The shuttle spun around and dropped vertically down. The fading light vanished. My eyes captured a brief image of the external view. We were plunging down a vertical shaft…

Melta-bored walls…

Diameter: 33.43 metres…

Gun platforms mounted at 50-metre intervals…

Multi-laser and plasma cannons…

Cabin temperature dropping at 1 degree per 50 metres…

The shuttle’s thrusters fired to the edge of tolerance. We settled to stillness, moisture running off the fuselage. Zavius still stood in front of the rear access ramp. Beyond the canopy I could see guide lights flashing in the dark. We rocked in place for a second, suspended in the freezing air, surrounded by the fog from our thruster jets. Then we settled onto the landing platform. The shuttle’s engines cycled down as the ramp at the back opened.

‘You will follow,’ said Zavius, looking back at us before stalking down the ramp himself. I glanced at Ishta-1-Gamma.

<He appears to have discarded his etiquette protocols…> I transmitted.

‘You will follow,’ came the repeated imperative from beyond the hatch.

<And he is determined to put that freedom to use,> she sent, standing and moving towards the ramp. I noticed that his noospheric halo had shrunk and become a monochrome sphere of basic identification data. The equivalent in flesh might be to see an expressive face become still and set.

<You are concerned about the current situation?> I queried, as I followed.

<You are not?> she replied.

Guns rotated on wall mounts to greet us, tracking our steps as we descended to the landing platform. Multi-spectrum targeting and scanning systems locked on to us. An iris hatch had closed off the shaft above us. As we reached the bottom of the ramp, the guide lights shut down across the landing platform. My sight shifted into the infra-red portion of the spectrum. The air was 8.72 degrees below zero. The heat from the engines was already dissipating. Above ground it was an average of 34 degrees above freezing, but here the moisture in the air, vented from the shuttle’s cabin, fell as frost.

A tall figure, wrapped in a cloak of graphite and carbon thread, waited for us. It had four upper limbs. Each one rested its digits on the top of a chrome cane. Its head sat high on its hunched shoulders. The portion of its anatomy that would be a face on an unblessed human was an arrangement of turning cogs. A single violet eye lens sat on the left of its face. From these augmentations alone I assessed this to be a senior member of the machine priesthood. That being the case, I should have offered supplication, made formal greeting. I did not. Like Zavius, this magos gave out no noospheric data and offered no connection hail. Still, I might have bowed anyway, but Ishta-1-Gamma had remained unmoved and so I did the same.

‘Ishta-1-Gamma…’ the waiting figure intoned. It breathed and hissed from its voice speaker. ‘Glavius-4-Rho… You will both submit to the rites of data assessment. Failure to grant access to your data reservoirs and instrumentation will result in immediate life termination and reclamation of the blessed machine components of your forms.’

‘You have not identified yourself,’ said Ishta-1-Gamma. Her physical voice echoed loud in the cold dark. The hunched magos rotated its head to look at Zavius and then back to us.

‘My identification is not required,’ it said. ‘You shall comply or the stated consequences shall occur.’

‘But after we comply,’ she said, ‘you shall tell us who you are.’

A pause. Seconds counted down in the edge of my sight. I was aware of the wall-mounted weapons trained on me. I could feel the tingle of the power held in their charge coils.

‘Your compliance,’ said the hunched magos. ‘Now.’

<I think I have pushed the parameters of this exchange as far as is wise,> transmitted Ishta-1-Gamma, and then spoke aloud. ‘Compliance.’

Her noospheric aura unfolded, and 0.67 seconds later I felt data-interrogators push into my own systems. It took only 0.33 seconds but left me with a sensation of needles and sharp edges.

‘All is as it is designated,’ said the grey magos and began to move away across the platform. I could see the flash of hundreds of bladed feet moving beneath the hem of its robes as it glided away from us. Lights outlined a door set into the wall, and a section of rock slid back to reveal a passage beyond. I began to follow, but Ishta-1-Gamma still had not moved.

‘Who are you?’ she asked. The hunched magos paused, and rotated its head backwards without turning around.

‘You may use the designation Atropos,’ said the magos, then continued to glide towards the waiting doors.

I looked at Ishta-1-Gamma. She transmitted an unresolvable code blurt that would be interpreted organically as a shrug, and we followed Atropos through the door.

It was another 3.67 hours until we saw the reason for our being brought to the underworld of Zhao-Arkkad. I use the term underworld advisedly and in full knowledge of its non-literal meaning and symbolic resonance. The caverns beneath the mountains were a world apart. Silence filled their spaces and unseen watchfulness crowded their shadows. We met few other initiates of the priesthood. Those that we did see offered no greeting and passed without pause. The servitors that we saw moved in their own locked rhythms, their joints so maintained and blessed by oil that they made no sound. I observed signal and interface code locks on every device; there would be no communing with their machine-spirits or workings without the keys to unlock them.

<There is no wider noospheric network to access,> noted Ishta-1-Gamma after we had been walking for an hour.

<Perhaps it is shielded from our awareness,> I ventured.

<Negatory,> she responded. <I am initiated to the fifteenth turning of the mysteries of transmission – I would be able to detect a noosphere presence even if it was obscured. There is nothing. Every mechanism in this place is closed and locked to itself.>

<Apart from us two,> I noted.

<For now,> she replied, and then lapsed into silence. This did little to reduce the disturbance building up in my emotional buffers.

The light in all the passages we passed through was increasingly dim the further we went. The lumen globes and strips faded from clear white blue to stuttering dimness. It became colder. My sensors detected that it was not only heat that was leaching from the air – so was radiation of a number of other types. Power was slowly decrementing from my capacitors. It was as though something beyond the passage walls was drawing in every scrap of energy, a mouth breathing in warmth and light.

We passed many doors, some wide enough for large vehicles or machinery, some so small that only servo skulls or scuttle servitors could have passed through. None of the doors were open, and neither Magos Atropos or Princeps Zavius paused next to any of them.

‘What is to be our purpose here?’ I asked as we passed the latest locked opening. I had asked the same question in five different ways since our arrival, and received no reply. I experienced surprise when Atropos spoke.

‘You are here to wake a machine that has lain long asleep,’ he said.

‘What variety of machine?’ I asked.

‘I cannot tell you,’ said Atropos.

‘To withhold data is to inhibit the probability of success.’ I detected a sharpness in my reply. My emotional disturbance was bleeding out of its containment.

Atropos halted in front of a circular door set into the passage wall. Slowly the magos extended one of its canes and tapped the surface of the door. Bolts withdrew around its edge. Leaves of metal folded into the rock surround.

‘I cannot tell you,’ said Atropos, as the last portion of the door slid aside. Distant lights glimmered in the vast space beyond. ‘I can only show you.’

I confess that I did not want to pass through the door. I confess that I also wanted to see what lay at the heart of this underworld. We are made to seek knowledge, to revere it, and for all of the Martian priesthood’s traditions and reverence of the known, we crave the unknown far more.

The space beyond the door was not a chamber – it was a cavern. A platform extended into space, secured to a cliff wall that I could only estimate as being as high as the mountain peaks above. Darkness ran off into every other direction. I walked across the platform to its edge, dimly aware of Ishta-1-Gamma at my side, and Atropos and Zavius following a step behind. The air was cold, so cold that warnings lit the bio-monitors linked to my remaining flesh. There were lights shining on the cavern floor far beneath us. I stepped closer to the edge, my eye lenses adjusting to focus.

‘Be careful,’ said Zavius, his breath powdering to crystal in the air. His flesh suddenly seemed stiff and pale, like a mask pulled over something that was not as pure as a machine, or as kind as flesh. ‘It can unsettle the mind at first sight.’

I did not reply, but took the last step and looked down.

<Sacred oils of the turning wheel…> For a fraction of a second I thought the words might have been mine. Then I noticed Ishta-1-Gamma standing on the edge beside me. <The machine is god…>

Beneath us, half buried in the floor of the cavern, was a Titan. It lay like a fallen monarch found in its grave. Rubble had been cleared away around its sides. Ladders extended down to it from a web of gantries and platforms suspended above it. Stab lights lit its form, pouring brilliance into its crevasses and across its armour plates. If it had stood, its head would have been on a level with our platform, and the guns on its back would have loomed far above us. Figures moved on the gantries. I saw huge power lines and machines whose functions I knew in theory though I had never seen in practice: galvanic wave compressors, gain-output macro regulators, trans-uranic adjusters.

‘How did it get down here…?’ breathed Ishta-1-Gamma.

‘You are attempting to…’ I stated, and turned to look at Zavius and Atropos. ‘You mean to wake it.’

‘Correct,’ said Atropos.

I looked back at the dead god-machine. There was something about it that made me not want to look away from it. As though it might have moved while unobserved.

‘But you mean to wake it in secret…’ said Ishta-1-Gamma. She was still looking down at the great machine. Her noospheric halo had faded, its loops of data patterns fraying. ‘This is a machine of majesty, a relic from times now long lost. That it remains here is a marvel – that it might walk again a miracle. Yet you hide it from sight.’

Did I detect a flicker of movement in Zavius’ eyes and a microscopic shift in Atropos’ posture?

‘You are here to perform a function,’ said Atropos. ‘No further clarification is needed.’ He turned and began to move away. ‘Zavius will supply the data relevant to your task. Review it. You will be integrated into the endeavour in five hours.’

‘And that endeavour is to waken the spirit of this machine?’ I asked, inferences and uncertainties still spinning at the edge of my thoughts.

Atropos did not stop, but called in a voice that echoed flatly in the vast space, ‘It shall wake. It shall walk.’

They called the first Titan Artefact-ZA01. That was not its name, of course. The names of machines are impressed upon their form and spirit when they are made. They are not designators. They are specific. They are a form of truth. The Titan had a name; we just didn’t know what it was.

We went down to see it after five hours of preliminary data in-load. A platform hoist lowered us down to the gantry web. I had assimilated all of the data supplied by Zavius. It was sizeable, and had required multiple overrides of fatigue to parse fully. I knew now that Artefact-ZA01 was a battle Titan, but that variations in its system configuration conformed to no recorded class or pattern. Preliminary investigations had been made into its interior systems, and its reactor and energy transmission systems conformed to those of other Titan engines. At least they did superficially.

There was more, reams and reams of data and analysis, but, for all that, there was much that was screamed by its absence. There was no mention of any propitiatory rites being attempted, no identification codes for the adepts who had made the assessments. It was as though there was no history on this endeavour before this moment, as though the past did not exist.

Again a sensation of unfamiliar emotion filled me as I stepped onto the gantry and looked down at Artefact-ZA01. Burnished metal gleamed beneath the layer of dust that clung to its armour plates. I identified amaranth colouration, what is designated as regal purple by some, gold edging and patches of bone-white lacquer. There was no damage though, no marks of battle that had laid this god low. This cavern was not a grave, it was something else.

‘You will need to get moving,’ said a voice from behind me. I turned to see a figure in the robes of an enginseer limp along the walkway behind us, red robes and augmentation in line with the biological human form. The figure stopped, then cocked its head and gave a stuttering bow that spoke of poorly meshing gears and malfunctioning servos. ‘My apologies, honoured magos, I have still not adjusted to the absence of noospheric connection. I have been here for six months, two days, seventeen hours, five minutes and two seconds and I am still sending data hails that no one receives. Personal introduction – I am enginseer designate Thamus-91.’

‘I am Magos Glavius-4-Rho,’ I replied. I was aware that an enginseer designated Thamus-91 was the overseer of primary operations at the excavation; it had been in the data supplied by Princeps Zavius. ‘I have requested a close inspection of Artefact-ZA01.’

‘I know,’ said Thamus-91. ‘I was made aware of your arrival and have already conversed with Magos Ishta-1-Gamma.’

Thamus-91 straightened, juddering as she moved.

‘Are your movement systems not functioning as ordained?’ I asked.

She shook her head. Patches of black frostbite mottled the skin of her face above her breath mask.

‘I have stayed close to it for too long,’ she replied. ‘I should have withdrawn, purged and charged, but I was informed that you were coming. I waited. We should move. It is worse if you stay in one place for a prolonged time.’

‘What are you referring to, enginseer?’

‘The drain – you must have noticed.’

‘The power drop-off?’ I queried.

‘Not only power, but energetic potential across multiple forms and spectra – all of it vanishes. It takes time but the closer you are to it–’

‘You are referring to Artefact-ZA01?’

Thamus-91 twitched and I formed an impression that she was suddenly exerting a great deal of control not to look down, not to look at the Titan lying beneath us.

‘Yes,’ she said, and gestured at the unlit candles of appeasement and devotion set along the sides of the gantry. A pair of servitors were moving along them, lighting each with a stuttering blast of flame from nozzle-tipped fingers. The flames began to fade as soon as they flared. ‘You see? Even the sacred flames gutter.’

‘That cannot be an effect related to the artefact,’ I said. ‘I have reviewed the data, and it is clear that none of the Titan’s systems are active, and further it is clear that all attempts to waken them and kindle its energies have failed. Added to which there is no system within the bounds of the blessed incandescence and transference of energy that I am aware of that could produce such an effect.’

Thamus-91 gave a creaking nod. ‘Just so…’ she said, and extended an iron finger to point at a candle flame. ‘And yet…’ The flame shrank as we observed it, and then guttered. I had detected no movement in the cavern’s air.

‘Why is there no record of this phenomenon in the data I was supplied?’ I asked. Thamus-91 was still pointing and looking at a wisp of smoke rising from the extinguished candle. She made no move to acknowledge my query. ‘Enginseer Thamus-91?’ I queried. She twitched and turned her head back to me.

‘You are Magos Glavius-4-Rho,’ she said. ‘Please accept my greetings. I was made aware of your arrival and have already conversed with Magos Ishta-1-Gamma. She has requested a close inspection of the… of Artefact-ZA01. If you wish to accompany her, we should join her now.’

For a second I tried to process what had just occurred. The logic trees branched but offered no clear solution. I moved the unresolved calculations out of my immediate focus.

‘We will proceed with the inspection,’ I said.

Thamus-91 bobbed her head. I noticed her fingers judder open and then closed. She gave no sign of being aware of the movement.

‘As you will it,’ she said. ‘We should get moving.’

Darkness. Darkness that I have never known before or since. Our primary source of illumination failed as soon as we were inside the Titan. Lights simply blinked out, and power sources wound down to nothing. Red capacitor warnings lit my visual display as it began to fog with distortion. The thread of noospheric connection between me and Ishta-1-Gamma vanished. We were in a conduit space accessed by a panel that was normally riveted shut. Before the lights had cut out I had captured an image of a cable-lined wall, clean of dust and corrosion. A hatch into the main engineering compartment lay 2.63 metres below us.

‘I would advise linking with the reservoir power-umbilical,’ said Thamus-91. ‘You may wish to divert available power to tactile sensors – they appear to be more reliable than visual.’

An insulated cable linked all of us to an external plasma generator. I had questioned the need for this contingency. At peak function the generator would have been able to power an entire facility and maintain the equivalent output of three Baneblade tanks, a surfeit of power for our augmetics. Now, standing in the total dark and watching my power reserves fall to zero, I had to acknowledge that I had been wrong.

I opened the umbilical power connection. My systems activated, but the power was flowing in only slightly faster than it was vanishing. I flicked my sight to an augmented infra-vision and the grey snow became a multi-coloured image of heat and energy blooms. Thamus-91 and Ishta-1-Gamma became glowing outlines of orange and red. The power-umbilicals glowed white with radiation bleed. Everything else was a perfect, cold black.

‘We should proceed,’ said Thamus-91. ‘Based on previous explorations we have approximately fifteen minutes and twenty-one seconds before our power status becomes non-viable.’ She began to move towards the hatch at the end of the conduit space. She braced herself against the walls with all four limbs, moving with care, pausing at irregular intervals as a twitch ran through her frame.

I looked at Ishta-1-Gamma. Without her noospheric halo she seemed diminished, a shadow with the same shape. She returned my look and then followed the enginseer.

Thamus-91 reached the hatch and pulled it open. The void beyond was a black circle. For an instant I had the impression that the static in my eyes had begun to spin around it, like iron dust pulled by a magnetic field.

<The machine is god…>

I snapped my head around to Ishta-1-Gamma.

‘What did you say?’ I asked.

She tilted her head in puzzlement. ‘I am sorry, I do not follow.’

‘You made a noospheric transmission–’

‘I am afraid you are mistaken,’ she said, and I formed a non-logical impression of her displeasure at my assertion. ‘I have been trying to activate noospheric connection since we entered the artefact, and have not succeeded.’

‘I would not try to do that,’ said Thamus-91 from by the hatch. She glanced back at us, twitched. ‘I mean I would not attempt to access the noosphere in here.’

‘Why?’ asked Ishta-1-Gamma. ‘There was no standing prohibition against it in the site protocols.’

Thamus-91 twitched her shoulders in a deeply biological gesture that I assessed as a shrug.

‘It is best not to,’ was her reply. ‘Follow,’ she said and dropped through the hatch. I looked at Ishta-1-Gamma, and then complied.

The void beyond the hatch was black, unlit and without any form of radiation for my eyes to pick up. There were only the beams from stab lights attached to us, cutting into the blackness for the brief moment of our fall. I landed on the rear wall of the enginarium compartment. My legs mag-locked to the metal. I froze for a second. A cold, yes, a cold sensation slid through my machine limbs from the point of contact. The air temperature had dropped further, but this… feeling was something else. A chill, a… touch.

‘I estimate that we have twelve minutes twenty-one seconds until we lose umbilical power,’ said Thamus-91. ‘We will need to begin to withdraw in nine minutes. I tender humble advice that the exalted magi begin their assays of the relic’s systems.’

‘Let us begin, then,’ said Ishta-1-Gamma.

I had never been in the sacred inner spaces of a god-machine before. I had been privileged to review schematics and system rituals, but this was the first time I had perceived the wonder of such sacred knowledge made real. I must confess that for sixty-seven seconds I did nothing other than take in our surroundings.

Curved girders ran down the walls of the compartment, each one a single, metallic crystal. Bundles of cables and loops of insulated piping snaked beneath grates and curved out though openings in the metal skin of the walls and ceiling. Hatches marked with runes and yellow and black chevrons led off to either side, to the servitor niches that controlled the arms. A wider set of doors yawned open at the far end, the darkness beyond leading to the head of the god-machine and the throne of its command. I could see the marks where piston claws had pried the doors open – each scrape was marked by a taper of parchment held by a wax seal, the code lines printed on each a prayer to soothe the soul of the machine for the harm done to it.

I found myself moving towards the black space between the open doors. There was something vibrating in the dark beyond…

Blurred haze…

Night beyond night…

Ishta-1-Gamma brushed past me as she made for the open doors. I stopped. Power was still draining from my reserves and the umbilical.

The reactor. I was here to examine the reactor.

I turned my awareness to the reinforced hatch in the floor that should lead to the plasma reactor. The hatch’s seals had already been disengaged, and the plasma chamber was utterly inactive, but I still proceeded with caution as I climbed down into the space beneath. The rewards for recklessness are death and suffering, it is told, and I have never observed it to be otherwise.

I began with augurs of the first order and cycled through the Aclaan diagnostic sequence. I also began cataclysms of appeasement for any spirit of power or charge still lingering in the reactor systems. I soon halted this litany. There was nothing. No returns. No energetic signatures of any kind. It was dead and cold, as though plasma and electrostatic convergence had never sung in its heart.

I was about to begin an integrity examination of the plasma ignition array when an alert in my visual analysis systems made me halt. There were conduits bonded and integrated into the system in addition to those that I would have expected – pipes and heavily insulated cables snaked and wormed beside those that the schematics had ordained to be there. I had not noticed them at first, in part because I was not expecting them to be there, and partly because they were not made of standard material. It had to be an error but the close augur returns read them as being made of rock or crystal.

<The machine is god… All is known in the machine…>

I hesitated and then stepped forwards, extending a blade from a finger to peel the black insulation from one of the conduits.

‘Magos Glavius-4-Rho!’ The call came from the enginarium. It was Ishta-1-Gamma, her voice loud and sharpened with indications of alarm.

‘Is there something awry?’ I called, blade finger hovering above the insulation. I had a strong inclination not to leave, to look at what strange devices had lived in this walking god’s core.

‘Attend immediately!’ she replied. I let my hand drop and climbed back up into the enginarium compartment and then into the bridge in the Titan’s head.

Ishta-1-Gamma was there. As was what remained of Thamus-91. The enginseer had linked to a mind-interface unit set behind the princeps’ throne. Her remains hung from the interface cable, a slack tangle of metal and desiccated flesh. Frost covered her, the crystals growing even as we watched.

‘I went back into the enginarium for twenty seconds…’ said Ishta-1-Gamma. ‘She must have been waiting for the chance to be alone…’

I thought of the cables of crystal and stone threading though the reactor spaces, of the whisper on the noosphere channels and the power and heat draining from the world around this… tomb.

‘We must go,’ I said, and was already lifting Thamus-91’s remains and moving for the hatch out to the world above. Ishta-1-Gamma followed. As we climbed back up to the outer skin of the god, I looked back and thought for a second I saw a face looking up at me from the black circle of the hatchway. I began to climb faster and did not look down again.

<It was not my intention to disturb your rest.> Ishta-1-Gamma’s noosphere halo turned slowly as she entered my workshop.

<I was processing the latest ritual read-outs – there was no rest for you to disturb.>

She advanced from the door as it sealed behind her. I watched her as I parsed the symbols walking across the parchment spooling from the data-font. I saw her reach out and take an inert plasma coil-disc from my tertiary workbench. She did not look at it, but rolled it between her hands. The gesture had no purpose to it. It was enough to make me halt all my activity. You must understand, nothing in the Priesthood of Mars is without purpose; everything is of the machine and no part of the machine lacks purpose.

I watched her as the data-font clattered and the buzz of cogitator and power transfers dimmed from a cackle to a hum. She seemed to realise what she had done after three seconds. Her noospheric halo flashed through static as she replaced the coil-disc on the workbench, blurting the canticle input of harmony across all primary frequencies.

<Your pardon,> she said. <I am…>

<Pardon granted,> I replied. She shifted, looking around the workspace at the test components lying under their seals, and parchments of quieting.

I waited.

She had not been the same since that first excursion into the Artefact-ZA01. We had made a full report to Atropos about the demise of Thamus-91. The senior magos had accepted the data, but had requested no clarification or further analysis. I could not help but form a list of possible ideas as to why: the senior magos was uninterested in what had happened, the data that we supplied needed no further clarification or the incident held no new data. This last possibility clung to me. Atropos did not ask for further data because the magos knew what had happened. It had happened before.

Ishta-1-Gamma had demanded more data access. The reply from Atropos had been simple. If we wanted answers, wake the machine. If we wanted knowledge, wake the machine. If we wanted to perform our duty to Omnissiah and knowledge, wake the machine.

We protested, but neither of us had demanded to leave. We had remained, and begun work to do just what Atropos had said. We had worked to wake the machine.

Why? Even now I am not certain as to the answer, or rather, I am not certain there is an answer that would satisfy logic. We like to think that choices are rational, like the turning of cogs, that we leave the weakness of the irrational behind as we shed the weakness of flesh. But the question that does not arise in all the coda of the Omnissiah is whether the irrational fears that pulse in blood and beat in our chests when we wake in the night are not weakness, but warnings left on the edge of the darkness.

We were priests of the machine. Knowledge is sacred, and there is nothing higher than knowledge lost to the past. The artefact… the Titan in that tomb… there was knowledge in it, great and terrible knowledge waiting just out of sight yet close enough to grasp. You cannot understand, perhaps, what that means, what that demands of us. It calls to the truth of all we are. And so we worked to wake the machine – I to kindle energy in its metal, Ishta-1-Gamma to allow a human to interface with its systems. She worked with a focus and diligence that I have never seen.

We assayed the artefact further, accessed rituals from the Collegia Titanica archives granted us by Zavius and created test rituals that grew sacred theory into a harmony and order. Weeks, weeks and weeks with the cold and silence, weeks of the finest work perhaps I have ever been a part of. All of it bringing us to a threshold.

<May I tender a question?> Ishta-1-Gamma asked after twenty-four seconds of silence.

<That linguistic formation is itself a question, and so the answer is presented by your ability to ask it.>

Her aura expanded for a second, flashed with bright and subtle formulae. <Was that an attempt at humour, magos?>

<An attempt implies that it was a failure, and so I shall choose to say not.>

A brighter flash, a spiral of calculations in the data link. <Was that a second attempt?>

<No.>

<You are lying.>

<That implies a degree of empathy and social judgement I am not sure I possess.> I moved to the tertiary workbench she had stopped by and moved the plasma coil-disc she had handled the 1.4 mm required for it to be resting in the correct position. <There is something you wish to discuss,> I stated. <About the endeavour.>

<Are there limits to what is divine?> she asked.

<I do not understand your frame of reference.>

<The nature of the machine reveals its divinity to us.>

<That is a primary truth.>

<Is there an exception to it?>

<I still do not follow the logic chain of your questions,> I replied.

<Artefact-ZA01, the Titan, is it divine, or–>

<It is a machine of unknown power and pattern from ages long past, how can it be otherwise than divine?> I asked.

<The demise of Thamus-91 implies–>

<The spirits of great machines are not kind.>

<The lack of data from investigations that have already taken place, the anomalies – those do not indicate to you that this might not be something that is divine but unclean?>

In truth, the same possibilities and questions had been rising unbidden in my mind with regular frequency since the first expedition into Artefact-ZA01. But I could not form a full and logical chain of inference from them.

<The demands of knowledge are proof.>

She reached her hand inside her robes and removed a data-cylinder of milled brass – 0.75 cm in diameter, 6.6 cm in length. She placed it on the workbench. I looked at it.

<What does it contain?> I asked.

<As part of my preparations to re-enable the neural interface with the ZA01, I have been able to access a number of data transfer systems in this… whatever this place is. That is the raw output of what I have found.>

<All the systems I have been granted access to are limited to current data directly relevant to the endeavour,> I said, looking at, but not touching, the cylinder. <No wider data has been present.>

<Truth, but there are fragments and trace impressions in the transfer filters and noospheric buffers. The data djinns loosed to clear the information were thorough, but you cannot remove the past. Ghosts remain.>

I looked back at the data-cylinder, then picked it up. <What does the data indicate?>

Ishta-1-Gamma transmitted a negation. <I do not know, not completely.>

<Then why–>

<I thought I wanted to know the truth,> she transmitted. <But now I am not sure. I don’t know. I have an emotion-based intuition that if I look at what has tried to be hidden from us then I won’t be able to carry on with the endeavour.>

<Surely the only way to determine the accuracy of that is to examine this data,> I replied.

<Truth. But until it is examined I can choose to ignore it. Once I have examined it…>

<If I may extend an observation – that is not in keeping with that level of protest and suspicion of this operation you have manifested since we met.>

<I know,> she transmitted, and paused. Data silence filled the link. <But you were there. This machine, this god-machine, it is not like anything else. It is a mystery of technology. It is terrifying. And I am afraid to go forwards. And I am afraid that part of me, the part that has a spirit of flesh, is looking for reasons to turn back.>

I considered what she had said for three full cycles of thought. I admit, she spoke fears that had followed me too.

I held the data-cylinder up between us and crushed it between my digits.

<All knowledge is divine,> I transmitted. <And all knowledge comes from the unknown.>

<Thank you,> she sent, then turned and left me to the silence of my work.

‘Initiate the second incarnation of power transfer,’ I said, and the body of the god-machine shook. Plasma cylinders slid out of their magnetic sheaths and slammed into the fuel conduits around the Titan’s reactor core. I watched through a visual feed piped from sensors in the reactor wall. Some of my kind see no value in such direct observation – all can be seen in data, they claim. The eye is merely an imperfect sensor and its output is of no value. But, to me, to watch such a moment, imperfect though that perception may be, is to look on the face of god.

Glowing primary plasma flooded though flow coils and poured into the reactor core. Magnetic fields caught it, spun it, moulded it into a roiling globe of blinding light. Output data danced in my sight. Energy was draining from the Titan’s reactor core, but I had anticipated this. In an instant I had flooded the core with eight times the fuel needed for ignition, more than could drain before we could complete the ritual.

I stood in the centre of Artefact-ZA01’s enginarium compartment. Stuttering blue light filled the space as relay-linked lumen globes lit and died one after another.

Atropos had not joined us in person but watched from a haze of distorting holo-light. Choirs of servitors crowded the space, each sheathed in layers of thermal and energy insulation.

The 441 mm thick trunk of cables passing power from the reactors outside the Titan buzzed and oozed heat into the freezing air. I had set six Solex grade reactors to work in sequence, like the lumen globes in the compartment they lit as the power drained from the others. From these, we were consuming enough raw energy per second to power a manufactory for a month.

Through the open doors at the end of the space, Ishta-1-Gamma and her own cohort of servitors filled the bridge. Zavius sat on the princeps’ throne, sheathed in a black body-glove and coiled with interface cables. The neural connection spike that would link his mind and body to the Titan sat poised just behind the socket in the base of his skull. Ishta-1-Gamma’s hand rested on the lever that would close the connection once primary systems had power.

‘Standing by for primary neural interface,’ called Ishta-1-Gamma.

‘Plasma in reactor core reaching saturation,’ droned one of the servitors wired into the flux monitors. ‘Primary ignition yield will be achieved in three… two… one…’

‘By the soul of this machine and the truth of iron, ignite!’ I said.

‘Compliance,’ droned a servitor.

A spear of lightning stabbed down into the roiling ball of plasma held at the reactor’s core. I saw it strike, saw the light pour out, blinding even to machine eyes. The body of the Titan shivered. Every light in the compartment blew out. Static poured out of every speaker grille in the chamber. The holo-image of Atropos vanished.

Then silence.

I waited in darkness.

Then I felt it. A low vibration pulsing through the floor, an electro-song on the edge of hearing. Indicator lights lit on access panels. The optical feed to the reactor cleared.

‘Light is brought to dark,’ I intoned. ‘Fire kindled in the forge. The wheel turns.’

‘All praise to the machine!’ echoed the servitors.

The power drain was slowing, dropping as the reactor output grew.

<It hungers no more, but still it thirsts…>

The noospheric words flashed into my mind. I flinched.

‘What?’ I blurted.

‘Standing by for first phase neural connection,’ called Ishta-1-Gamma. Princeps Zavius had closed his eyes.

‘Take this fire to your soul and be illuminated,’ I intoned, counting the sacred five seconds and holding down the switches on the power governor console. Plasma was pulled from the reactor core into conduits. Heat and power flowed into cold metal and cable. And, for a moment, through the touch of my hand on its heart, I felt the god-machine’s spirit wake.

Hollowness.

The ache and hunger of aeons.

The sound of a scream that never ends caught in metal.

My consciousness almost failed at the vastness of it, but it was partial, incomplete, a half-soul of iron. And behind that presence, like a shadow gathered at a god’s back, was a waiting dark. I saw it then. By my oath to cog and data, I saw what had been. The ghosts flowed through my sensors and data connections, and perhaps through the cells of my flesh. I saw them moving in the spaces in which I stood. I heard their voices speak from long ago. They were there – figures in robes of emerald and fire-orange, and they spoke in tongues that were not the tongues of machines or men. And for a moment, a long black terrible moment, I saw what they had done.

I saw their dream, the dream of not just connecting man and machine, but of the machine as a sepulchre for the souls of those it consumed. I saw the devices they had wrought and bound into the heart of these machines. I saw the machine walk, and the dead scream in the minds of those who guided them to war. I saw the core of black iron nested at the root of the machine, sealed beyond sight, and the threads of crystal and stone branching from it though every limb and fibre of the walking god. And I saw the moments and thoughts and dreams held in that black heart, frozen for millennia, sent down to sleep and dream without end at the root of mountains.

And then the vision passed.

‘Initiating first phase neural connection,’ called Ishta-1-Gamma. ‘All is known in the machine.’

I tried to shout, to warn her. Cold static poured from me. I could not move, but only watch as Ishta-1-Gamma pulled the lever that sent the neural connection spike into the socket at the base of Zavius’ skull.

I think I was moving across the compartment. I think I was reaching for the lever to break the connection. I think that is what I was doing… I am not certain, though, because at that moment Zavius opened his eyes.

Everything stopped. Nothing was moving. Not power, not the sparks running up the power cables, not the flicker of lights on consoles. Everyone else was gone. Ishta-1-Gamma, the servitors, Zavius, all of them.

<Where?> The voice arrived in my connections with power enough to make me fall… then I was not falling, just standing as I had been. A figure in a body-glove of emerald and orange stood in front of me. Gold symbols flowed over her form as she took a step closer to me. Her skin was pale. There was frost, I realised. Frost on the floor and walls. Frost spreading up my legs and robe. <Where?> repeated the woman. I began to form a clarifying question. She froze and began to judder, form and image blurring, face and body melting through shapes like the merged and corrupted output of a pict feed. <Where? Where? Where? Where? Where?>

The words were rolls of data thunder, crushing me down to the deck. I raised my hand to catch myself. An invisible force bent it around. Servos and hinges snapped. Cogs fell to gathering ice as they tumbled.

<Target return negative…>

<When…?>

<I walk, I walk…>

<Where…?>

<Fire and night and the song of inferno, oh the song, listen and hear…>

Black iron, cold iron and shadow and a hole at the centre of all…

<Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul. Input-nul…>

And I was screaming, and the blurred figure was stepping closer as the image of the inside of the Titan faded and folded into a static blizzard and blackness. I could feel something pulling me, something that felt like a hand.

‘Help! Glavius, help us! Help him!’

And the figure was gone and I was standing as blue cords of power wormed over the walls. Zavius was convulsing on his throne. His eyes were red, pupils swallowed by haemorrhages. His mouth was a bloody pit. Pieces of teeth and tongue spilled from his lips as he screamed. Smoke rose from the neural connection. The skin of his skull was charring and peeling, the bone beneath already black. His brain was cooking inside his skull. Ishta-1-Gamma was trying to pull the cable free from his head. I could see the metal of her fingers glowing and distorting with heat as she struggled.

‘Shut down the power!’ she shouted. I pivoted and lunged at the reactor governor controls. I could still see into the reactor core through the remote pict feeds. The spinning ball of energy was distorting, burning bright and flowing with black veins. I began the emergency shutdown ritual, slamming levers down.

Crimson warning indicators lit.

‘It will not comply!’ I shouted. The reactor output spiked. Power lashed out of the console and through my hands. I flew backwards and slammed into the compartment wall. Damage and system errors screamed through my awareness. Frost was spreading over Zavius’ face. Ishta-1-Gamma flinched back, her hands smoking and glowing with heat. Zavius’ body convulsed again. The bones of the Titan creaked and shook around us.

‘The neural connection is overriding all control,’ called Ishta-1-Gamma. ‘It has to be shut down from within.’ She was trying to lift one of the back-up mind-interface cables, her damaged hands slipping. Smoke was rising from Zavius, coiling in the air. Ishta-1-Gamma gripped the interface cable. Her hood fell away from her head, and I saw that it was a pure construction of polished brass and chrome. Socket plugs marched in a line from the base of her skull to her forehead. She paused for an instant, the cable held level with her face. I understood in that moment what she was going to do.

‘No!’ I shouted, and tried to rise, reaching for her as the frame of the Titan lurched and Zavius’ back arched on his throne. Its metal was glowing with heat under an impossible covering of frost. ‘No!’

But Ishta-1-Gamma plunged the cable into the socket on her forehead. For a second she was still, frozen.

Light exploded through her. Metal became liquid. Ceramic became dust. And her form became a shadow suspended in the flash of her disintegrations.

Then Artefact-ZA01, the Titan that had slept silent in darkness for millennia, screamed.

War horns boomed. A rolling cry broke from every speaker grille. Steam poured from coolant vents in a rush. I felt the chamber pitch as the god began to rise. Then, with a sound like an avalanche of gears, it collapsed back. The lights on the consoles dimmed. Then the impact shockwave of the Titan falling back to the ground slammed me back into a girder. My consciousness failed and blackness filled me.

‘It was a failure,’ I said. ‘It cannot wake. It should never wake.’

Atropos tilted its head beneath its graphite-weave cowl. Lenses flicked from green to cold blue. No reply was given.

I had woken in a chamber bare of machines and blessed only with the light of caged lumen spheres. The damage to my physical components had been repaired. My chronometric measures indicted that I had been unconscious for one hundred and five hours. Atropos had been there when I regained consciousness.

‘You know what they are,’ I stated. ‘Ishta-1-Gamma found the remnants of the records you had imperfectly expunged from the cogitator-sifts.’ I held up the crushed data capsule that I had carried in my robes. ‘She wanted to believe that there was a purpose to what you… in what we were doing here. A higher illumination that was guiding our actions… She linked to the machine to prevent it waking fully. It was the only way. If we had had known, if she had known…’

‘Your contributions to the endeavour are no longer required,’ said Atropos. ‘Your efforts and diligence up until this point mean that no censure will follow you. You will submit to a total data purge before you depart.’

Atropos turned and glided away.

‘I will remember, though,’ I called and even now I am struck by the emotion in my words, the humanity, you might say.

Atropos half turned. ‘Ghosts caught in flesh are not truth. Data is truth. And only truth will be heard. You may keep your memories, Glavius-4-Rho.’

I left the facility four hours and forty-five seconds later. The rites that purged my data reservoirs and sensor captures were thrice performed. I left with nothing. The shuttle did not take me back to one of the forge fanes but up to a ship in orbit and a summons to attend the forges of Kelio 4 as Magos-Maxmima. I never spoke again of what I had seen.

‘Did you ever find out what happened to them, to the Titans, to the facility?’ asked Severita.

Glavius-4-Rho adjusted a dial on a control panel. An armature of chrome unfolded from the top of the workbench. He lowered a tiny cog of grey polished metal into it.

‘What prompts you to enquire?’ he said.

Severita looked at him, unblinking. ‘I believe that I know when a story has not been fully told,’ she said.

He did not answer, but keyed a control and watched the fingers of the armature close on the cog. A hair-fine laser beam extended to the cog from a projector. A tiny wisp of smoke rose as the beam began to cut.

‘Truth is data,’ he said without turning from his work. ‘Do not stories need to be truth, also?’

‘There is more to truth than data,’ said Severita, ‘and more to stories than truth.’

He released the armature, removed the cog and turned to the sword that lay on the metal slab of the workbench. Its disassembled parts lay in gleaming rows beside the repaired blade.

‘I do not know what happened to the facility,’ he said at last. ‘But…’ he hesitated, and then pressed on. ‘There is the dream… I have not dreamed since I ascended to the priesthood. I do not believe my cognitive augmentation allows for it. But before I left, and sometimes since, I have had a dream… In that dream I am standing on the platform in the cavern beneath the mountain on Zhao-Arkkad. I am alone. The cavern is dark except for the lumen spheres on the platform. Beyond its edge the dark goes on beyond sight. I step to the platform edge, and look down…

‘And something moves. Something vast rises up, unfolding through the dark. I cannot move. I hear nothing. Silence swallows any cry. A vast head of metal lifts to become level with the platform. Dust falls from it. Its eyes are cold fire. I look into them, and I hear a voice. Her voice, Ishta-1-Gamma, echoing through me.

‘<The machine is eternity,> it says. Then the head and the body beneath it turn away, and the light of its eyes shines through the dark, and I see what lies in the cavern beyond my sight… Vast figures of metal, half buried by rubble and grey dust… eleven… fifteen… eighteen…twenty-seven… thirty-three… and more. A Legion sleeping in the dark. <The machine that dreams shall wake>, says the voice, and then the dream goes, but when it returns I always think I can see another metal god stir from its sleep.’

‘And you hear her voice?’ asked Severita. ‘The other magos, it is always her?’

‘Always,’ said Galvius-4-Rho.

He turned to Severita, holding out her sword. It was fully assembled. The blade shone blue and silver in the light of the plasma torch burning on the workbench. All notches and blemishes had gone. The power field generator at the base of the blade gleamed with sacred oils.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘It is perfect again.’

She took it and muttered a prayer before sheathing it.

‘My thanks.’ She began to turn, hesitated. ‘For this and for your tale.’

Glavius-4-Rho was still for a moment, and then bowed his head and turned back to his machines.

THE THIEF OF CHALICES

‘There is no virtue to knowledge, no comfort in knowing. There is no greater curse that can be bestowed than insight and no higher blessing than to be oblivious. If you look for comfort in this age, seek ignorance; shun thought, close your mind and break its key.’

– Personal reflection of Inquisitor Silas Marr,
during his time in the Ordo Redactus

VI

Viola had crossed the threshold into the archive and begun to die. The poison was still a sweet taste on her tongue.

‘You need to keep moving,’ said their guide, glancing up at the racks of rotting tomes, scrolls and broken data-slates stacked above them. The light of the lantern carried by the servo-cherubs reached into the gaps between shelves and spiral stairs. Viola had the impression of wide silver eyes catching the light as it passed. ‘Even this close to the door, there are things watching.’

Viola glanced up again. The dark beyond their bobbing lights flowed down narrow gaps between towering shelf stacks.

‘I am Tristana. Just in case in you were wondering,’ said the guide, without looking back at them. The woman had been waiting for them just inside the door into this underworld of abandoned books – oak- skinned and wrapped in armour that looked like it was made of dry scales the colour of ash. She held a gun with a flared, pepper-pot barrel, and carried short, barbed spears in a quiver on her back. Blue-black traceries of inked burn-scars mottled her face and arms.

‘You want safeties off. You don’t look like the types to shoot each other from nerves but be careful, all right?’

Covenant did not reply but strode on. He wore a dark grey storm coat, and a black cuirass without mark or insignia. He had an Arbites pattern shotgun in his hands, and a flechette blaster twitched on a mount on his left shoulder. The mind-interfaced gun whirred as its targeting lenses focused on the spaces branching off from the path they walked. Severita kept three steps ahead of Covenant, her bolt pistols in her hands, the upper portion of her face hidden by a set of six-lensed infra goggles.

Viola kept close to the guide, Tristana, and tried to ignore the sweet taste in her mouth.

‘Drink,’ the hag at the door to the Dead Archive had said.

Viola had looked at the chalice set on the plinth before the portal. The cup was iron and silver. Death-masks and dead hands ringed its bowl and stem. Rubies and cracked sapphires glinted in the eye sockets of the carved skulls. The liquid inside the bowl was clouded white.

The door that waited behind the plinth was circular. An iris of corroded bronze sealed its mouth and Viola could see the glint of servitor eyes in the nests of cables that hung from the tunnel roof above them. She did not need to see them to sense the threat and promise of the weapons aimed at them from the dark. This was not a place of welcome.

The hag had stood before the door. She was twice Viola’s height, withered flesh bonded to a clicking exoskeleton of stilt-like piston-legs and armatures shaped like the bones and ribs of a cadaver. White hair hung lank and ragged from the brow above eyes like black pearls. Two attendants stood just behind the hag. They wore robes the colours of cobwebs. Both held lumen globes on poles and both had their eyelids sewn shut.

‘There is no other way?’ asked Viola, looking up at the hag.

‘No other way if you wish to pass beyond this door,’ replied the hag, and Viola thought she saw a smile twitch the woman’s dry lips. ‘This is an archive that now belongs only to the dead. If you wish to seek a ghost of knowledge within, then you too must die.’

Viola glanced at Covenant, but the inquisitor’s gaze was steady on the hag.

‘She will not let us pass,’ he said to Viola. ‘We would have to kill her and all of the other guardians of the door that we cannot see, and then we would have to breach the door, and proceed without a guide. Is that not right?’

The hag had given a rasping wheeze that might have been a chuckle.

‘Just so,’ she said. ‘Those who pass into this archive must die before they cross the threshold and live only if they return within the time allotted to them.’ She extended an arm and stroked her hand across the bulbs of hourglasses hanging from the ceiling above her. ‘You have the power or the coin to reach this threshold, but to pass further you must forfeit your life. There is no other way.’

Covenant had held Viola’s gaze for a long moment and given a small nod. She had felt her mouth compress into a thin line but had returned the gesture. They were here without the mark of Covenant’s Inquisitorial authority. To the hag they were but a party of script seekers, wealthy, powerful, but not the anointed servants of the Emperor himself. Watching the hag grin down at them, Viola had wondered if the ancient creature suspected what they were but did not care.

Covenant had moved forwards, lifted the chalice and drained the poison within. Viola and Severita had followed suit. The hag had chuckled and unhooked the hourglasses from the ceiling above and set the sand within running. Each of them had drunk and each time the hag had filled it for the next. Viola had drunk last, and as she had she had looked up and seen that the hag was watching her, smiling.

‘A price must always be paid,’ the woman had said. ‘Life for the dead. Death for the living.’ Viola had drained the cup and placed it back on the plinth without replying. Her timer now hung from her waist, its weight tapping against her thigh as she followed the guide, Tristana.

‘How far to the location?’ asked Viola.

‘Not the right question,’ replied Tristana without looking around. ‘What you should ask is how long will it take and do you have enough life to get there and get back.’

‘How long, then?’ asked Viola.

‘Difficult to say. You can’t even tell me exactly what it is you are after, in a location that was probably in a secured stack even before this place was sealed and given to the dead. That means that it might take hours, it might take days, or we might not find it at all.’

‘It is here,’ said Covenant, his voice clear and certain.

‘Well, confidence is good,’ said Tristana with a snort of laughter. ‘But this place has a habit of taking it as a challenge, if you understand me.’

‘Do we have enough time?’ asked Viola.

‘Maybe,’ said Tristana, glancing back at Viola, and grinning. ‘The Doorkeeper was generous.’

‘Generous?’ replied Viola, glancing down into a void created where a thirty-metre-high shelf had collapsed through the corroded floor. Her eye caught the bulb of her hourglass hanging at her waist; there was already an inch-deep layer of sand in the bottom.

‘You get back before the sand vanishes and you can drink the antidote and live,’ said Tristana. ‘And that’s more time than I have seen carried down here in a long while.’

‘I did not know that many came to the sealed archives,’ said Viola.

‘They come,’ said Tristana with a grim laugh. ‘Script seekers and record hunters, just like you, all hoping to find something intact that the archivists will pay for.’

‘Do any leave with what they seek?’ asked Viola.

‘Some leave…’ Tristana replied, the mockery gone from her voice. ‘Some even leave with something they need, but none of us leave with what we were looking for.’

ONE

The lighter shed its escort craft as it curved in above the island. From inside the cockpit, Cleander von Castellan looked down at the sea glittering under the sun. From up here he could see the edge of the island balloon out into the depths beneath the water. Sprays of neon-bright weed clung to the rust-thick metal, billowing in the pulse of the tide. Above the water line, the island rose in spiked towers like fingers of coral, hung with ropes of script banners.

‘Lighter aircraft designate Phoenician,’ crackled a servitor’s voice from the vox in his flight helm, ‘this is Archive Node 001. You are clear to land on North Platform 72. Follow guidance signals.’

‘Received and understood, Archive Node 001,’ Cleander replied. ‘Proceeding as instructed.’ A touch of the controls and the curve of their path began to tighten. The lighter started to judder as its airspeed dropped. Thrusters began to fire, jolting the craft up into the air as it seemed about to fall. The bannered towers were so close now that Cleander felt that he could breathe on them. Just one small movement and the craft would be an orange smear of fire on a rusted pinnacle. Just one small movement… Would that be such a bad thing?

‘You all right?’ Josef growled from behind Cleander.

‘Never better,’ he said, and flashed a smile back at the old preacher. Josef’s face was pale and clammy above the collar of his bronzed battleplate. ‘You don’t look so good, though.’

‘I am as good as your flying lets me be,’ said Josef, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth and shifting his shoulders under the layers of ceramite plating. Kynortas and a quartet of troopers in bronze and green sat next to Josef in the lighter’s crew compartment.

‘I thought you like this kind of ride,’ called Cleander over the rising whine of altitude thrusters. They were coming in tight around a tower pinnacle now. Salt- and rust-clogged grotesques leered at them from lintels and ledges. The lighter shuddered and whined as its engines fought to keep it in the sky. ‘All those boarding actions and combat drops – shouldn’t this be like home for you?’

‘If you can lay on some incoming flak and a better than evens chance of not making it through the next minute, it might improve the experience,’ snarled Josef.

‘I can fly, you old bastard,’ said Cleander. ‘I am even more than slightly brilliant at it.’

‘Whatever you need to tell yourself to get us down on this cursed island is fine by me.’

The pinnacle vanished behind them, and a chasm between two towers opened beneath them. A landing pad clung to the flank of a tower. Cleander cut the engines and slammed the retro-thrusters to full. The lighter lurched to a halt, its frame screaming as it hung in the air. He held it in place for a second and then let it sink down onto the plateau of metal.

He keyed the door release and was up and out of his flight harness before any of the others. Kynortas and the guards fell in behind him as he waited for the rear hatch to open fully. The household troopers wore bronze carapace over quilted ballistic weave fabric in dark blue and red. Draconic symbols coiled on shoulder guards and lasgun stocks, and glittered in the rings set on Cleander’s fingers. He smoothed the long coat of black and green, reset the smile on his face and looked around as Josef came to stand next to him.

For this excursion, the preacher had replaced his robes with powered half-armour that coated his torso and arms with massive plates of bronzed ceramite. The power pack set into the back was already chugging and whirring as it pumped power into the struts and fibre bundles that carried the weight. Below the waist, Josef wore a skirt of chainmail and layers of blue fabric and boiled leather. A bolt carbine was mag-clamped to his waist, and he held a long staff in his right hand.

‘Heralds generally smile,’ said Cleander.

‘Is that right?’ said Josef, scowling at the widening view beyond the hatch.

Cleander stepped down the ramp as it touched the landing pad. The air was hot, and he overrode the need to squint as the sun struck his face. Salt-laden wind spilled his hair as he crossed to the people waiting at the edge of the landing platform. The two in the front were hunched, their wizened flesh crawling with inked tattoos. Exo-braces coiled up their spines and necks, providing the support that their failed muscles could not. Behind them stood a block of figures in matt-black armour. Each had a plough-fronted helm and all of them carried wide-mouthed guns with the poise of those who knew how to use them.

He stopped and widened his smile as he looked at the wizened pair and their guards. Josef lumbered to a halt a step in front of him and slammed his staff into the floor. A banner of emerald fabric unfolded from the staff, caught the wind and spilled out. The device of a winged lion in golden thread clawed its crimson field.

‘Sire Cleander of House von Castellan comes with all majesty to this place, and greats you in the spirit of mutual prosperity and honour,’ boomed Josef, his voice rising over the sound of the sea wind. ‘Glory to the radiance of the Emperor. Glory to those that prosper under his light.’

‘Thank you, Khoriv,’ said Cleander, ‘most right and proper.’ He inclined his head to the wizened pair, noticing first that they had moved and then that both were wearing goggles of black glass. He smiled more broadly. They cannot see, he realised. So much time in the dark of their books, bent over text and quill, that in the daylight they are blind.

‘Master Sardus, Mistress Ki,’ he said pitching his voice to carry clear, ‘my thanks for agreeing to greet me and hear my request. It is a pleasure to meet you in person.’

One of the pair, who Cleander guessed was Ki, shook and then opened cracked lips.

‘Your message promised much,’ she said. ‘How could we refuse such an offer?’

‘The question,’ said the other, who would be Sardus, ‘is what you want in return?’

‘I have said nothing of wanting anything,’ said Cleander lightly.

‘Everyone wants something,’ said Sardus. ‘Come inside, out of the light.’

VII

‘Go on – ask,’ said Tristana.

The words surprised Viola, and she looked up at where Tristana had paused. They were far from the door and the hag now. They had sunk down and down into the quiet dark. They had passed through levels of half-collapsed shelves, and through corridors that wound through walls made of rotting heaps of manuscript. At last they had reached a spiral stair, its treads and banister hung with fronds of pale mould and beaded with damp. They had descended, lights and eyes tracking the doors and landings that led off. In places, Viola had seen brass plaques bolted above the arches of doors cut with number codes, some just shadows of digits, others still readable under the layers of corrosion: 115, 122, 116, on and on like the jumping count of a confused mind.

After twenty minutes of descent, Tristana had called a halt. Covenant and Severita had taken positions higher up, watching the dark above. Tristana had gone to stand on a step just below Viola, closed her eyes and taken a deep breath through her nose, and then swayed her head slowly from side to side. The gesture made Viola think of an animal sniffing the air. Viola had been watching the guide when Tristana spoke.

‘Go on,’ she said again, opening her eyes and looking at Viola. ‘Ask.’

Viola began to form a denial, then stopped. Tristana’s eyes were dark and unblinking in the light of the cherub-held glow-globes.

‘What did you do?’ asked Viola at last. ‘For you to be condemned to live down here – what did you do?’

‘I was a scholar,’ said Tristana.

‘No,’ said Viola, shaking her head once. ‘You were a thief, weren’t you?’

‘Is there a difference? All learning is a type of theft, isn’t it?’ Tristana shivered and shook herself. ‘Come on, we should get moving. I think it’s safe to carry on down.’

They began to descend again. Water dripped from somewhere above.

‘What was it you stole?’ asked Viola after a few minutes.

‘Tried to steal,’ said Tristana. ‘You think I would be a guide for overcurious souls if I had succeeded?’ Viola looked up the stair shaft, which vanished into blackness above them. The cyber cherub holding the glow globe above Severita was twitching as drops of fluid hit its chrome skull. ‘Do you know what the Tractate Serith is?’

‘A work on the nature of divinity by Catullus Ven, a proscribed text,’ replied Viola, ‘thought destroyed in the scouring of Himsezia. Only fragments exist.’

‘Impressive,’ said Tristana, and Viola thought she caught the ghost of a smile on the guide’s face. She was moving down the stairs level with a landing from which a fresh set of arch doors led off. ‘Except that your summary is incorrect. A complete copy does exist.’

‘That is unlikely,’ said Viola.

‘True though, and it is here, on this water-drenched world in the sealed vaults of Archive Node 090. I know, I saw it.’

‘That can’t be true,’ said Viola. A drop of water hit her shoulder.

‘True enough to cost me my life,’ said Tristana.

Viola was about to reply when Tristana went still, head up, muscles taut. Viola turned to look around at the wide stair shaft. Covenant and Severita had also gone still. The gun mount on Covenant’s shoulder twitched.

‘What–’ began Viola.

A circle of teeth at the end of a huge serpentine body plunged from the dark above. Viola caught the impression of vast, pale coils unfolding, scales and soft flesh rippling. Water fell from its mouth as its jaws hinged wide. Gunfire tore the dark and silence to burning shreds.

TWO

‘This is fabulous…’ Master Archivist Ki spun the hololith projection with a skeletal left hand. The images of pages of script and illuminated illustration changed and snapped into grainy focus. ‘You have the originals? You have them here?’

Cleander took a sip of water. The smile had not left his face since he had stepped off the lighter, but he let it broaden now.

‘I have brought a selection in my lighter. The remainder are on my ship held in stasis chests ready for shipment here as soon as we have an agreement.’ He let the crystal cup hover by his lips before taking another sip. ‘If we come to an agreement, of course.’

‘These are artefacts of script and record of profound value,’ hissed Sardus, coming to his feet. ‘They should be here. They are part of the summation of record, they–’

‘Belong to me,’ said Cleander smoothly, as he placed the crystal glass of water down on the table set before him.

The Archivists had brought him to a greeting chamber in the tower connected to the landing pad. Sealed shelves and stasis-field-wrapped cabinets lined the curved walls. Cleander could see spidered writing and gilded illumination through the skins of buzzing energy. Wrought iron frames held blocks and wafers of data-circuitry. A handful of guards stood at the edge of the room, in sight but not intruding. Cleander had been permitted to bring only Kynortas and Josef with him, and both stood behind his chair. Even in here, in what he supposed to be one of the most deliberately refined areas of this island, a smell of dust, damp and overheating circuits filled the air.

It was not an island, though, he reminded himself: none of the parts of the archipelago were. Each was just a surface node of the archives that extended down into the depths of Serapho’s oceans and into the bedrock beneath. Node 001 was a growth of metal plating and rivets, capping a metal mountain hidden beneath the waves. In the guts of that mountain were records, books, scrolls, data-blocks, and memory cylinders gathered and sorted by the Archivist guilds over thousands of years.

So much lore had been hoarded here that the archive had spread out and out, across and through the planet’s sea bed. Node 001 was just one amongst many islands that had broken the waves as the archive had bloated. In its deepest regions all of the areas of the archive connected to each other, so that someone could walk from Node 090 in the northern seas to 001 on the equator. That was theory rather than fact, though: at those depths, areas of the archive had flooded, collapsed or fallen to the creatures that fed on the rotting books and parchment that had been lost to time and entropy. And much had been lost. Even as the guild Illuminators and Transcribers laboured to copy and create more, so the treasures of the past decayed in the depths. Yet the hunger of the Archivists for more records and books knew no moderation or limit. At least, Cleander hoped that it did not.

‘I just wanted to be clear,’ said Cleander, still smiling. ‘These volumes are the von Castellan dynasty’s, collected by my late mother–’

‘Stolen from the Night Trail Cluster by a murderer and a thief,’ snarled Sardus. He had not taken a seat, but stalked the circle of the chamber, robes rustling, and the silver fingers of his quill-hand twitching. Cleander gave a small shrug and kept his expression amused and indifferent.

‘She saved them from the fires of war, most wise Master Sardus. Tell me, would you be more polite if I had come to bargain with a box full of ashes?’

Sardus glared at him. Ki shifted in her high-backed chair, and then leant forwards, a smile trying to form on her desiccated lips.

‘We appreciate that you are here to pass these works to our trust,’ she said.

‘If we come to an agreement, mistress…’

‘Just so,’ she said, and leaned back. ‘What do you want, Sire von Castellan? We can pay in brokered credit, in jewels, in gold, even human flesh and blood if you so desire.’

Cleander reached for the bronze ewer and poured a fresh stream of water into the crystal goblet, sat back and took a large swig. The water tasted of metal, but he was sure that it was the purest the planet could provide.

‘I have all the jewels I desire, and the glitter of coin has a habit of becoming irritating. Besides, my price is much more within your means – a simple trade, something that you have for the things you want.’

Sardus narrowed his eyes. Ki blinked.

‘What do you wish in exchange?’ she asked.

‘Knowledge,’ he replied.

VIII

Viola ducked back, brought her pistol up and fired. The creature coiling on the stairs looked like a worm or larva, pale and bloated to vast size. Gunfire split the dark. Blood fell all around her, and a chunk of scaled flesh struck the balustrade just next to her. The spiral stair was shaking and twisting, the worm creature coiling around it. Rivets shrieked as they tore from rusted fittings. Viola saw one of the cyber cherubs flutter close to the worm, glow globe clutched in its hands, cog-work and wings buzzing in confusion. The creature’s head snapped around and the cherub was gone. Viola saw its toothed mouth opening and closing as it chewed, fronds of feelers running down the side of a blind head, flesh and scales the colour of parchment.

She put three las blasts into it. It coiled back, mouth opening in a hiss of pain. The remains of the cherub tumbled from its maw as a wad of oil, cogs and feathers. Burnt chunks of meat tore from its gums. She could hear the buzzing shriek of Covenant’s flechette blaster and the booming of bolt rounds as Severita fired into its coils. The thing shook like a punched bag of fluid.

Viola surged to her feet. All her youth had been spent in training at the hands of her family’s tutors. Much of that had been to shape her mind, but she had spent hours and days learning to shoot, fight, live and kill. She had never been gifted, but no scion of the von Castellan line was allowed to be less than competent in the arts of war.

The beast’s head lashed down at her. She felt the warm reek of its breath: mould and iron and raw meat. She activated her power sword as she slashed it up. It was a light naval sabre, balanced for speed and relying on the energy field wrapping the blade for killing force. But in that moment speed was worth more than power. The edge met the teeth in the creature’s bottom jaw and sliced through fangs with a flash of lightning. The thing’s head snapped aside. Viola leaped backwards, hit the balustrade of the stair and brought her pistol up to fire again.

‘Down!’ roared a voice from above her. Viola heard the command and ducked back. Tristana dropped onto the worm from above. She had one of her spears in her hands, and now Viola could see that the core of its shaft was a power pack like one of those used in a high-brilliance lamp. Its barbed tip struck the top of the creature’s head and punched through. The flesh of its head twisted, bunching and bulging around the spear, but the barbs dug into the meat of the roof of its mouth. Tristana twisted the shaft and leapt free as the worm reared. Arcs of electro-charge lashed out from the spear. A smell of cooking fat and static filled the air. The creature writhed, juddering in place.

‘Now!’ shouted Tristana. ‘Tear it apart!’ Bolts and hard rounds slammed into it, shivering its flesh and scales as it twitched. Within three heartbeats there was only a heap of pulped matter, and rivulets of pale blood pumping away to fall into the dark of the stairwell. Tristana’s spear stood upright in the quivering mass, pulsing arcs of charge into the torn meat.

‘Some of these things can knit themselves back together if you don’t leave them with a pin in them.’

‘Neuro-disruption,’ said Viola, half to herself. ‘What kind of creature was it, I wonder?’

‘They breed down here, feed off the parchment mulch and whatever else comes close,’ said Tristana. ‘This is a big one, but you get bigger.’

Viola raised an eyebrow. ‘We should get going, then.’

‘Never a truer word,’ said Tristana, unslinging her gun again and starting down the stairs. ‘To the place that you asked to go to, it’s another eleven levels and then across another archive hall. We are deep here, so things might have changed.’

‘Changed?’ asked Viola.

‘Collapsed, flooded, infested, take your pick.’

Viola glanced down at the hourglass hanging from her waist.

‘Oh, you might still have time, mistress…? Sorry, I forgot your name.’

‘Viola.’

‘Viola… good name. That lot back there, what’s the story? Wealthy magnate? I mean you have the smell of something a bit… roguish. But the others…’ Tristana flicked a look up at Covenant and Severita. ‘They have an air of the Imperial about them, of high authority.’

‘I thought the guides in the sealed archives just showed the path rather than asked questions,’ said Viola archly.

Tristana gave a small shrug, and continued on without answering.

THREE

‘We will give you no book, page or word from this world,’ said Sardus.

‘Not even for stacks of paper and words that you seem to want so much?’ asked Cleander. ‘Not even for…’ He made a show of pulling a small book from his pocket, holding it up and opening it to squint at the title page. ‘The Testament of Gius Vive… No, wait, that’s just a way of writing four in an over-elaborate manner, isn’t it? The Testament of Gius the Fourth of Julna.’ He opened the book more widely. The green leather spine creaked. Ki winced, her hands darting out as though to snatch the book from Cleander’s hands. Sardus came forwards at a speed that belied his withered frame. Josef took a step forwards, his power-armoured torso growling as he raised a hand. Sardus stopped.

Cleander kept his face impassive, closed the book and put it back in his pocket.

‘Sacrilege,’ hissed Sardus.

‘But my property,’ said Cleander. ‘And the von Castellan dynasty, the dynasty that I rule, will happily trade with you for it, or… we put it in the fire.’

‘You can’t,’ said Ki, and Cleander could hear the genuine despair in her voice.

‘I can, and I am very pleased to see that you both understand that.’ Cleander put his hand back in his pocket, took out the small book and tossed it to Ki. She caught it.

‘What is this?’ asked Sardus.

‘A gesture of good faith,’ growled Josef. ‘I should have thought that obvious.’

Ki was looking down at the book like a pauper holding a ruby.

‘We have understanding and now I hope we will have an element of trust,’ said Cleander.

Sardus had gone to stand next to Ki. He was looking at the book, too, the anger on his face replaced by something that might have been hunger.

‘If you will not accept riches then we have nothing else to offer besides what our archives hold, and that we cannot barter,’ said Sardus.

‘I didn’t say I wanted any of your books or bits of parchment,’ said Cleander. They looked at him, and he was pleased to read the puzzlement on their faces. Part of him, a part that he let pull the smile back onto his lips, felt the old kick of joy at how easy it was to pull the strings of someone’s life if you knew what they wanted. ‘I said I wanted to trade for knowledge. Everything you have seen that we have, every book, jot and page from the collection for one small piece of knowledge that is not even in your archives. Now, do you want to know what it is?’

IX

‘How did you plan to steal the tractate?’ asked Viola. She had kept close to Tristana as they left the long spiral of stairs and passed through an archway. Shelves lined the hall beyond in cliff-like rows, forty metres high. The remains of ladders, rails and ratchets hung from the cases. Half dissolved parchment had dribbled from niches and bound volumes carpeted the floor. The reek of rot and mould was thick. Clumps and balls of semi-luminous fungus glowed in the shadows.

She felt herself shiver again, and blink. Just adrenaline working its way out from the fight with the worm, she thought.

‘It’s a contradiction, isn’t it?’ said Tristana, her head and eyes moving across the spaces and floor before them. ‘The Archivists hoard books and writing, and guard them as though they were more precious than souls, but down here and across this world there are things they once treasured left to rot.’

‘It is about possession, isn’t it?’ replied Viola. ‘They have to possess these things, but they cannot preserve all they hoard.’

‘That’s it, more or less,’ said Tristana. ‘Better no one have a book than let another have it. No one is allowed to read a complete record or book on this world, did you know that? The Archivists will not allow it.’

‘There must be ways though, surely? Ways to get something out of the archive.’

‘There are,’ said Tristana, with a humourless laugh. ‘There are…’

‘So how did you do it?’ asked Viola.

Tristana stopped and looked around at Viola. Further back, Covenant and Severita continued to close, their eyes and guns on the towering shelves and the dark between them.

‘I didn’t,’ said Tristana.

‘Of course not,’ said Viola. ‘You were caught.’

Tristana held her gaze for a long moment, then turned and began to move to the base of a stacked ziggurat of shelves. Mounds of torn parchment covered its tiers like dirty snow. High on its flanks a great growth of fungus glowed with an oily, green light.

‘This is it,’ said Tristana, gesturing up. ‘This is Sub-Stack 210-1. Whatever you hope to find, it’s in there.’

Viola shook her head.

‘I don’t think anything legible or useful is in there, do you?’

Tristana laughed.

‘Could have told you that and saved you your life a long while back. Why do you think they let you and idiots like you down here? Because there is nothing here left to find.’

‘But we did find what we wanted,’ said Viola. ‘We found you.’

Tristana pivoted, gun rising smoothly.

‘Be still,’ she said, voice strong and calm. ‘I am a thief but I can be a murderer too. You are already dead from the poison you drank to get down here, but I am more than happy to complete the transaction.’

Viola kept still, but she had begun to shake now. Cold was winding through her, and all she could do was think of the sweet taste of the poison on her lips. She glanced down at the hourglass at her waist. There was still more sand in the upper half than had poured into the bottom.

At the corner of her sight she could just see where Covenant and Severita had frozen.

‘Who sent you?’ snapped Tristana.

Viola gave a small, sad smile.

‘You didn’t trust us,’ she said. ‘That’s why you talked so much, trying to find out if we were what we said.’

‘You are no fortune hunters, I could tell it as soon as I saw you. So, who sent you?’

‘No one,’ said Viola, ‘but we found what we came for. Tell me, how long did it take you to memorise the Tractate Serith?’

Tristana stared, then fired into Viola’s face.

FOUR

‘You had a thief,’ said Cleander.

‘No one steals from our archives,’ snarled Sardus. ‘Not in part, not in whole.’

‘They do, actually,’ said Cleander mildly, ‘but I will admit that very few are successful. Most you catch, and most die, and those that attempt and fail, you send down into the Dead Archives, and most of them die down there of something hideous, and those that live never get to leave.’ He paused and picked at the skin beside a nail on his left hand. ‘I have done my research, you see.’

He looked up at Sardus and Ki, and folded his hands on his lap.

‘Go on,’ said Ki carefully.

‘The thing about thieves is that they rarely steal from just one person. A decade ago, a very subtle, very clever thief stole from me. She stole something very dear to me and the theft cost me more in pride and reputation than it would ever have been worth in coin.’

Sardus broke into a laugh then, the sound hovering between a wheezing rattle and a cough.

‘And where she eluded you, we caught her, is that it?’ he asked.

‘She is here on your world,’ said Cleander, ‘and she is still alive.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Ki.

‘I know,’ said Cleander, his voice soft and dangerous. ‘Time and wealth open all paths and all doors.’

‘So you are here for vengeance on a thief?’ asked Ki, frowning.

‘I am not a man given to forgiveness,’ he said.

‘Neither are we,’ said Ki. ‘But I am not…’

‘I want your prisoner.’

‘If she is here and if she lives,’ said Sardus, ‘then she will be one of the walkers of the Dead Archives. We do not track their kind, and we do not go beyond the doors of those realms.’

‘I do not want you to deliver her to me,’ said Cleander. ‘I simply want to know where she might be – one simple bit of knowledge, remember. The rest is up to me.’

The silence stretched for long seconds. Cleander could hear the buzz and thrum of Josef’s armour.

‘We do not let those who walk the Dead Archives back beyond the doors,’ said Ki, at last.

Cleander looked around at Josef, who gave a nod of acknowledgement and lifted a heavy metal box into the space before the Master Archivists. The lid released and hinged back with a buzz of static. A smell like frost and metal filled the room. The space within glimmered cold blue with the light of the stasis field wrapping the open book within. Faded script marched across foxed pages beside curling illuminations of beasts, angels and fire. Sardus began to tremble.

‘That…’ he began.

‘The Testament of Tertia, follower of Sebastian Thor, compiled in his lifetime on Terra itself.’

Ki looked pale.

‘So,’ said Cleander, ‘can you give me what I want?’

X

The blast from Tristana’s gun unfolded towards Viola’s head. She had a moment in which every detail of the world was a still image held behind blurred glass…

Then everything dissolved into a whirl of colour and a scream of noise and sensation. She was tumbling, wrapped in a bubble and yanked through a void where emotion became sound and shape. She wanted to gasp, to scream, but there was no air and nowhere for her thought to go but into the riot of form and light all around her.

And then she was standing in the archive. Tristana’s gun flared three metres away to her right. Rounds sliced through air. Tristana whirled, eyes wide, gun rising. A bolt round hit the gun’s muzzle and exploded. Tristana reeled. Severita advanced towards their guide, pistols raised. Viola opened her mouth, the sugar-and-bile taste of the warp displacement almost bringing vomit up her throat.

‘Don’t run,’ she called. ‘We–’

But Tristana spun and dived backwards, reached the side of a ziggurat of shelves and swung up. Viola moved to follow. Severita was faster, holstering one of her two bolt pistols and bounding up a rusted ladder like a cat. Tristana paused, balanced on a projecting shelf and drew and threw a spear in a single motion. Severita yanked herself upwards just in time. The spear struck the ladder just where she had been. Electro-charge burst from the shaft and leapt up the ladder’s rungs. Severita’s back arched, her hand locking to the ladder as the charge whipped through her.

‘Tristana!’ shouted Viola. She was at the base of the ziggurat now, her hands shaking with the warp displacement that had saved her life. ‘You can live, Tristana, you can leave this place.’

But if Tristana heard the words, she was not listening. She was already at the first tier in the pyramid of shelves and running along it sideways to an intact ladder leading upwards.

Covenant went past Viola, and up a twisted ladder. His shotgun was sheathed across his back, but the flechette blaster in his shoulder spun and fired as he climbed. The darts buzzed as they punched through the air. The shelves and platform in front of Tristana exploded under hundreds of impacts. She half fell, caught herself, turned her fall into a roll and was up again, sprinting for another way up the next face of shelves.

Viola reached the ladder and began to climb after Covenant. Her hands felt numb, her skin clammy. She glanced to her side as Severita reached down and grasped the spear embedded in the ladder next to her. Whips of blue charge snapped around her hand. Viola could see Severita’s lips moving in silent prayer as her skin began to char. Then the spear was tumbling down to the floor, broken, and Severita was leaping up the rungs and shelves.

Tristana paused and raised her head. A high looping note rang through the air from her mouth, echoing and vanishing into the gloom. Then she was moving again, springing from hand-hold to hand-hold while Covenant’s blaster shredded the books and shelves in her path. Tristana did not slow or stop.

She knows we are not shooting to kill, thought Viola. She knows we want her alive.

Covenant had reached the first tier. Viola could see a glow building around the inquisitor’s head. The air around him was shivering. Frost formed on the rotting books. Severita was just a few metres beneath Tristana. The guide paused and twisted to draw another spear. A wave of force ripped up through the shelves from Covenant. Rusted metal and rotten parchment exploded outwards. The telekinetic wave struck Tristana and ripped her from the face of the stack. She fell, thrashing in the air for a hold on the emptiness rushing past. She hit the tier that Covenant stood on with a wet crack of breaking bone.

Viola pulled herself up the last rungs and onto the platform. She was breathing hard. She was cold… very, very cold…

Tristana was rising to her feet. Her left arm hung crooked and limp at her side. There was blood on her face. But her eyes were cold with pain.

‘You will come with us,’ said Covenant.

Tristana stood, her gaze moving from Viola to Covenant and then up to where Severita hung from the shelves above, gun aimed.

‘We can set you free,’ shouted Viola.

A bloody smile formed on Tristana’s face.

‘You want the book, don’t you? You want the tractate. Do you know how long it took me to memorise?’

‘Minutes,’ said Viola. ‘You have a stratified and data-perfect memory, Tristana. A glance at a page of text or stream of numbers and it is yours forever. That’s how you stole the Tractate Serith from the archive.’

Tristana’s smile curled at the edge to show teeth, pink with blood.

‘You know, after a while I got used to never getting out of here. Survive anything for long enough and it becomes normal. As long as those bastards never realised what I had, that I got away with their precious book – things like that keep you warm, keep you alive, keep you free.’

‘You can be truly free,’ said Viola, trying to edge closer to Tristana. Her legs were becoming numb, though. ‘All we want is–’

‘You wanted to be certain it was me, didn’t you?’ said Tristana. ‘That’s why we came all the way down here, so that you could listen and ask questions and be certain before you made your offer.’

‘We–’ began Viola.

‘You are Inquisition, aren’t you?’ asked Tristana. None of them moved or answered. ‘All those years ago the buyers for what I have in my head said that if something went really wrong, someone like you might come for me. And here you are…’ She laughed, the sound thin and humourless.

‘You will be free,’ said Covenant, and the sound of his voice jerked Tristana’s head up.

‘That is a lie,’ she said, and the smile was gone from her lips. Her eyes twitched up to the dark above. Something in the gesture sent ice running through Viola’s flesh. And above them in the gloom piled above the stack pyramid a high, ululating cry rose as though in answer to the cry of Tristana.

‘I shall not be free,’ said Tristana. ‘But I shall live.’ And from above, the creatures of the Dead Archive came in a blur of pale chitin and parchment wings.

FIVE

‘You wish nothing else asked?’ questioned Ki. ‘Just to know where the thief might be in the underworld?’

Cleander nodded, then gave a small shrug. ‘A little help getting into this place of horror and mystery you call a Dead Archive, but other than that, no, nothing.’

Silence again. Cleander felt the stillness creep around the room. He heard Josef shift uncomfortably in his power armour and wondered if the preacher was feeling overdressed.

At last Ki turned her head and nodded at Sardus.

‘We agree to your offer,’ she said.

‘Splendid,’ said Cleander, with a grin that he almost felt. He reached down to pour fresh water into his glass and then paused. He held the glass up, still unfilled. ‘I don’t suppose you have something a little stronger, do you?’

XI

No one had given the creatures a name. Bred down in the lost edges of the stacks they had gorged on vermin and parchment pulp as larvae, and shed their worm bodies and soft bulk to become things of buzzing wings and hard carapace. Legs hung beneath pale thoraxes. Sets of six wings beat the air, filling it with soft, white dust. Viola saw clusters of eyes glow pale white as the swarm rose above the stack and plunged down towards them.

Covenant’s shoulder gun pivoted and fired. He turned, shotgun in hand, head haloed with witch-light. A wall of telekinetic force met the swarm. Wings tore from bodies. Chitin cracked. Shreds of meat hit the platform like red sleet. Viola saw Tristana bound to the edge of the platform and jump.

‘No!’ shouted Viola, but even with a broken arm Tristana moved with fluid grace. The thief bounded down the racked face of shelves to the ground below. A hand yanked Viola aside. A bolt pistol roared. One of the winged creatures exploded in the space where she had been.

‘Start shooting!’ shouted Severita from next to her. A pale shape buzzed down at them. Severita turned to meet it and the space between gun muzzles and beast burned. Viola squeezed her right hand, found her pistol still in her grasp. Her eye went to where Tristana was dropping down the cliff of shelves, almost at the floor beneath. She ran for the edge of the platform, not hearing the shouts as she gripped a twisted ladder and swung down. Pain burned in the muscles of her shoulders. Her sword was gone, dropped somewhere up on the platform above.

Tristana had reached the floor of the chamber and was beginning to sprint away into the shadows. A blow struck Viola across the back of her head. She spun, gripping onto the ladder. One of the winged things was above her, mandibles snapping as they tried to fasten on her. Its wings beat around her head. Dust filled her mouth and eyes. The thing was shrieking and chittering. She rammed the barrel of her las pistol up and squeezed the trigger. Energy blasted up through the creature’s head and wings. Its cries rose, wet and gurgling. Viola punched the gun into it, still firing. The thing tumbled away, spiralling, bleeding. More were swarming down onto the stack pyramid. Viola half fell down the ladder. A rune flickered from amber to green at the edge of her view through her bionic eye. She blinked a fast activation sequence. The vox bead in her ear squawked.

‘Brother, if you want to put in an appearance…’

‘Apologies,’ came Cleander’s voice, relaxed to the point of boredom even through the vox crackle. ‘Difficult travel conditions. Here now.’

Figures in bronzed armour were advancing out of the spaces between the shelf stacks. Glowing light snagged on helm visors and gun casings. A chorus of building charge rose to meet the chatter of the winged creatures.

‘Fire,’ said Cleander’s voice over the vox. Red bolts of energy blurred through the air. Creatures fell. Viola could see a full squad of household troopers, and at their front the armoured bulk of Josef, and the tall figure of her brother, sword in hand. He and Josef had secured the location of Tristana and then made their way here via a longer route to provide a net should she prove difficult to take down. Now they were between Tristana and the maze of shelves.

Viola was at the bottom of the stack pyramid. Gunfire flashed and roared amongst the swarm. It wheeled in the air, re-forming even as individuals were torn from it. They corkscrewed in the dark, dozens of pale winged bodies. Then they dived. Viola stumbled, and saw Tristana sprawl as the cloud of creatures skimmed the ground. She had a second to see Josef punch a creature from the air, his power-armoured bulk surging as his fist went clean through its thorax. She saw Cleander’s sword light and rise. Then the swarm was between them, and the world was filled with the buzz of wings and clouds of dust.

Tristana was trying to get to her feet. A creature hit the thief on the back and sent her to the floor. Viola swore and found the displacer field projector on her waist, and switched it to inactive. The swarm was a layer of wings and bodies boiling a metre off the ground. She scrambled forwards, head low, and grasped the other woman’s leg. Tristana tried to kick free. A creature buzzed low above them. Viola sprawled but did not let go.

‘You want to live, stay still,’ she shouted.

‘You are dying, Viola, if that is your name.’ shouted Tristana. ‘You can barely hold on to me. The hag takes her price. Always.’

Viola could feel the cold numbness spreading through her.

‘Be still, come with us,’ she managed to say.

‘You will kill me,’ snarled Tristana.

‘You are doing a good job of killing yourself without us!’

Viola felt something hit her on the shoulder, tried to turn, but coldness was flooding through her. She tried to turn her head, but could not feel her neck. The edge of her sight was grey. She saw Tristana look at her, her mouth moving in an oath or a shout, but all she could hear was the beating of the wings and the feel of soft, grey dust in her throat. She thought of the hag and the chalice, and the withered woman’s smile as she had refilled the cup of poison.

‘Life for the dead. Death for the living…’

The world was draining from grey to black.

XII

Viola woke. Not the slow rising from deep sleep or the blurred emergence from a drug daze, but clean sudden waking, like a light turning on in a night-filled room. She moved her shoulders, felt the stiffness of a sutured wound. The familiar hum of the Dionysia slid into her ears. She was in a room of brushed steel and bright light.

‘The tears of truth,’ said Tristana, ‘that’s what they call it. Causes paralysis, deafness, blindness, and then death.’

Viola focused on the figure in front of her. A blue and red smock and trews had replaced the hide armour and patchwork clothes Tristana had worn in the Dead Archive. The ash, dust and grime had gone from her skin, too, but the patterns of burn scars and ink tattoos still ran across her neck and up her cheeks. A plasteel brace wrapped her right arm and shoulder.

Viola tried to move her own arm and fingers and found that she could. She thought about moving, and started to shrug free from the restraints.

‘The medicae said that you were not to move. They were very firm on that, in fact,’ said Tristana.

Viola was still for a moment and then settled back.

‘It was the poison from the chalice, but I should have had time…’

‘The Doorkeeper, the hag, she always fills one cup with three times the dose of the others. The thief’s cup they call it – the life price paid at random by anyone who goes into the Dead Archives. A bitter form of vengeance for all that lost knowledge.’

‘But the agreement…’ she said.

‘The one your brother made to find me, and get you into the archive? The Doorkeeper wanted her due, and made no bargain. It’s just lucky I decided to keep you alive.’

‘You know the antidote?’

‘Oh, yes. It wasn’t poison keeping me down there, remember.’

‘You took our offer, though,’ said Viola.

‘Not much of a choice.’

‘We tend not to give much room for that.’

‘Quite a price you charge for freedom,’ Tristana said. ‘No memories, the last ten years gone. I finish this chat, walk out and then, the next thing I know, none of this sorry story will exist for me.’

‘We will put something more pleasant in their place, I am sure,’ said Viola. ‘But we can’t let you take what you stole with you.’

Tristana winced, eyes fixed on a point in the distance.

‘You think the people who paid me to steal it would still want it?’ she asked. ‘Even after all this time?’

‘I am certain of it,’ said Viola.

Tristana nodded, half to herself.

‘They were like you, you know,’ she said after a moment. ‘The people who hired me to steal the tractate from the archives. They were like you, and the others you are with – high authority, sharp as a knife, can cut through anything and don’t care who it cuts on the way.’

Viola was silent.

‘Throne knows why you want that book,’ said Tristana after a while. ‘It makes no sense, you know? The tractate I mean. I was not lying, I was a scholar before I was a thief. And the book that your witch is going to yank out of my head makes no sense. Reams and reams of archaic religious verse, voices singing questions about the God Emperor’s divinity across the pages, but no sense, no meaning, no secrets.’

‘Nothing worth stealing,’ said Viola.

‘I stole it because I was paid to, and because I could, and what other reason is there to do anything?’ Tristana shook her head and turned to the door. ‘Be seeing you,’ she said as the door opened in front of her.

‘No,’ said Viola. ‘You won’t.’

Tristana shrugged.

‘You never know,’ she said, and then was gone.

XIII

Cleander found Covenant, his sister and Josef in a cupola of the high observation tower, halfway down the Dionysia’s spine. They broke off talking as he entered. Josef gave Cleander a grim smile. Covenant, a curt nod. Viola, a thin smile. Cleander replied with a beautifully executed formal bow.

‘It’s done,’ he said. ‘The thief will wake on Nix with a hangover, the memory of a job well done for the von Castellan dynasty and enough funds to lose herself in pleasure or find trouble.’ He gave a small shrug. ‘I am almost envious.’

‘The Tractate Serith was extracted from her memory cleanly,’ continued Viola, as though she had not heard him.

‘Is there any doubt that it was the Triumvirate that sent her to get it?’ asked Josef.

‘There is always doubt,’ said Viola. But then shook her head. Her eyes went to the storm bruised stars beyond the cupola’s dome.

‘It was them,’ said Covenant.

‘If they wanted it so much then why did they not track down what happened to their thief?’ asked Cleander.

‘Who says they did not?’ said Covenant, and turned his gaze to Viola. ‘The agents following her are competent?’

‘Your best, my lord.’

Cleander began to laugh truly then.

‘Of course,’ he said, the humour still ringing in his voice. ‘Of course. You didn’t even want the book. The whole sorry pantomime was just for her, and now you are going to send her off without a memory in her head and watch to see who comes for her.’ He shook his head. ‘How do you know the Triumvirate will know she is loose?’

‘We believe there are agents of our opposition in the archive hierarchy,’ said Viola.

‘Ah, I see,’ said Cleander, turning his smile on Viola. ‘I did wonder why you wanted the full man of money and power routine from me. Just wanted to make as much noise as possible so that someone would notice – that was it, wasn’t it? Which of them do you think will whisper that someone came looking for a thief of knowledge?’

‘High Archivist Ki, possibly,’ said Viola, ‘but it scarcely matters. Someone will hear.’

‘Very good, very good. How clever you are, sister.’

‘Have you been drinking?’ asked Viola.

‘Would you believe me if I said no?’ said Cleander. ‘And the tractate? I am guessing that bad religious poetry does not bring Horusians out of the shadows to feed. Are you finally going to tell me, simple soul that I am, what it is?’

They looked at him for a long moment, and then Covenant turned away and looked down at the spear-tip prow of the Dionysia pointing towards the stars.

‘The tractate is not a book,’ said Covenant, ‘it is a code. And in that code are laced ideas and insights into divinity and power and the future.’

‘Important then…’ said Cleander.

‘No,’ said Covenant. ‘It is a corrupting idea given angelic form. It is heresy.’

‘And we… you have this now? Besides bait, what use can it be? You don’t intend to read it, do you?’

Covenant gave no answer, and after a long minute of silence, left. Josef followed, leaving Cleander and Viola alone on the viewing platform.

‘He knows what he is doing,’ said Viola at last.

‘Yes, he does,’ breathed Cleander. ‘That’s what worries me.’ Viola made no answer, and after a glance at the red-purple glow of the storm, Cleander left and went to see what he could find to drink.

THE MAIDEN OF THE DREAM

‘If you have nothing, then no one can steal from you.
Desire nothing and nothing can tempt you.
Lose everything and you can take anything.’

- Aphorism of the Nepenthe Collegium
of the Scholastia Psykana

Mylasa Yaygus stepped from the shelter of the doorway as the grey man passed. It had started to snow, white shards falling from an iron sky to carpet the city streets. Crisp whiteness crunched under her boots. The black chimneys rose above her, scraping the cold sky. A layer of cold mist had begun to form in the air, pulling halos from the streetlights atop their iron poles. The street was almost empty, just a few scribes from the broker houses, their black velvet robes gathering a scattering of white as they carried out whatever task their masters had set them. A message runner stalked past her, sprung bladed legs hissing, eye lenses fixed on its distant destination. The grey man moved between the scattered pedestrians like water, his movements unhurried and fluid. A long cloak hung from his shoulders, its hood lowered around his neck to allow for the tall hat that marked him as a debt broker of the second order. Under the cloak he wore layered coats of grey velvet and silk. His gloves were soft leather the colour of storm clouds; his neckerchief and waistcoat were slate grey with silver buttons. The cane in his left hand was burnished steel capped with jet. Thus clothed he fitted the world he moved through without seam and wrinkle. He did not belong here, though. He was not a debt broker. In a sense he was not even human.

The snow began to fall more heavily; Mylasa quickened her step. Ahead of her the man in grey stepped out of the way of a pair of tracked servitors pulling a cart heaped with scroll tubes. He glanced behind him and for an instant she had a view of the pale flesh of his face and his hook-nosed profile. She saw the glint of a dark eye.

A cluster of chained scribes came out of the thickening swirl of snow. The grey man slid behind them. Mylasa swore to herself, and dodged forwards. The scribes’ silver chains jangled as she jostled them. Curses followed her. The shadow of the grey man was vanishing into an alley mouth. She ran, shedding pretence, knife sliding into her right palm, green cloak and skirts swirling behind her. He had seen her, and that meant that he needed removing now. Never mind the fact that the rest of his allies were still out there, never mind that it would mean that more might come. He had to die here and now.

She came round the corner. Black iron walls rose up and up and up above her. The grey man was ten paces down the alley, his back still to her. She ran at him, footsteps muffled in the thickening snow. She reached for his shoulder. Heavy flakes were swirling down. High above, the flare fires from the promethium works breathed fire and orange light into the dull metal sky. She gripped his shoulder and yanked back. The knife in her right hand rose, point first to meet his back as he fell.

He did not fall.

He spun. The thick grey fabric of the cloak yanked out of her hand. The steel cane in his left hand came around with him and hit her forearm with a crack of shattering bone. She cartwheeled back through the white-flecked air, shutting down the pain and shock flooding her. The man in grey seemed still as the world turned around her. She had an impression of sharp features framed by dark sideburns.

Mylasa landed and threw the knife in a single movement. The blade slid to a stop in mid-air. The snow slowed its fall. Frost covered the floating dagger’s blade. The man in grey looked at her for a long instant. Mylasa leapt, muscles flicking her body into the air as her left foot extended into a kick.

A wall of invisible force punched her from the air. More bones broke inside her. More pain. She hit the snow-covered ground, tried to roll, but found the point of the steel walking cane pressed into her neck. The man in grey stood above her. He held her own dagger in his left hand with the casual ease of a killer.

She took a breath. Something wet clicked in her chest, she spluttered, and tasted iron on her lips. She tried again and, rather than defiance, a question came from her mouth.

‘Who are you?’

‘I am Covenant,’ said the grey man. ‘Or rather that is the name of the person who stood here when this encounter occurred between him and his would-be killer. But you were not here, Mylasa. When the gene-assassin called Yaygus came out of the snow-filled night to kill Covenant, you were far above the clouds from which this remembered snow falls. So, to answer your question, my girl, I am the voice of someone you don’t remember.’

‘What–’

‘But the real question, Mylasa,’ said the mouth of the man in grey, ‘is who are you?’

And before the reply could come the snow swirled, and the steel cane lashed down, and the world was blank whiteness.

Josef looked down through the viewport at the pair of figures in the cell beneath. Frost covered the glass on both sides. A smell of ozone filled the air even in the observation deck. Static crackled across the walls inside the cell. The two figures within the room were completely still. One was only loosely humanoid, a shrunken, withered thing. It hung above the floor, black robes and vestigial limbs suspended beneath a head ringed by chromed machinery. A throbbing dome of sickly light flickered above its bare skull. The second figure was a wasp-thin man, tall and gaunt. Slick black robes clung to his torso and flared wide beneath his waist. Cables looped under his spindle-thin arms to sockets in his ribs. A metal halo of black iron spikes rose above his head, the metal ring rooted in his skull.

‘How long until this… trial is complete?’ said Josef, and fidgeted with the fit of his robes. He was sweating despite the cold, moisture rolling down his wide face.

The woman that stood beside him turned her face towards him. Her skin was pale and had the washed-out greyness of someone who lived their life in the recycled air and false gravity of void ships. Her form-fitting armour was graphite grey, and the colour of her lips hid beneath blue tattooed lines that spilled down her chin. Her eyes were hard, pinprick pupils set in irises of blue so pale that they were almost colourless.

‘Do you wish her ordeal to end?’ she said.

‘I wish you to answer my question,’ said Josef.

The armoured woman rotated her head to look back down into the cell.

‘It will last until we have the answer to our question.’

‘Which is?’

‘Are you demanding to know?’

‘I am the servant of an inquisitor, and I am asking.’

The woman tilted her head as if in acknowledgement.

‘The Primaris named Mylasa serves Inquisitor Covenant in the interrogation of heretics and the purgation of memories from the tainted. Oblivion is her skill, her craft, and one that your master clearly values.’

Josef kept his face impassive. In truth he was sometimes unsure if Covenant valued anyone now, but he certainly found Mylasa useful. Covenant was a daemon hunter of the Ordo Malleus, and part of his self-imposed duty was to maintain one of the greatest and most terrible secrets in the universe, that – in a shadow realm just out of sight – vast and terrible forces coiled, and hungered, and dreamed of the enslavement of mankind. The Dark Gods of Chaos and their daemons could corrupt a soul in countless ways, but many of those ways began with simple knowledge of their existence. Mylasa was a weapon in the war that Covenant and his kind fought against Chaos. She could rip truths from minds, and cleanse the minds of those who had learnt the truth, and were too valuable to the Imperium to grant the peace of bullet or blade. She was a psychic torturer and executioner.

Josef held the woman’s gaze, and did not blink.

‘She is valued very highly,’ he said carefully.

‘And that is why your master has requested this examination, and allowed the Scholastia Psykana to administer it.’

Josef looked back at the scene beyond the frosted crystal panes. The air had taken on a heat-haze blur. Stigmata had opened on Mylasa’s withered limbs. Blood dripped from her bare toes and fingers.

‘You do not like what we do to her,’ said the woman, still looking at Josef. ‘You think us cruel. You think this unnecessary.’

‘You have the right to do this, but I have the right not to like it,’ he growled.

The woman shrugged.

‘You pity her, preacher, but you should not. Mylasa is a Daughter of Nepenthe. Few can do as she does – cut into others’ thoughts, see and live through their eyes, touch horror and corruption and remain untouched… that is a great gift.’ The woman’s pale eyes focused on the floating, withered figure opposite the gaunt man. The blood pooling on the deck beneath Mylasa was freezing into a crazed, red mirror. ‘But what of her memories? What of her purity? She sees and destroys thoughts that cannot exist, but she must live those memories, again and again. And her soul is not mundane like mine or yours. It burns in the night of the warp. What do all the poisons she drinks do to her? She is strong. Yes, she is strong. But strength is just weakness seen from another point of view.’

‘So you are seeing if she is corrupted?’ said Josef, and felt his lip curl as he spoke. ‘Who are you to judge that?’

‘We cannot judge whether she is corrupt. But we can judge if the defences she was given still hold.’

‘How?’ snapped Josef.

The woman just shrugged.

‘By asking the only question that matters – who is she?’

Mylasa Ilk woke with the scream on her lips. Her hands reached out and found the sweat-soaked blanket. She thrashed. The fabric tangled her limbs. She was shivering with heat. Her head was pounding. Fever burned through her muscles and skin. White shards were falling all around her. They looked like flakes of ash, like the plumes of burning corpses that fell in the dreams of golden light and screaming.

She could not see. There was just whiteness and the–

‘Hush,’ said her sister’s voice close to her. Mylasa went still. ‘Hush now. It’s all right.’ Cool hands peeled the blanket from her soaking body, untangling its folds from her arms and legs. Mylasa reached out, feeling her fingers shake as they found her sister’s face. There were tears on the cheeks. ‘It’s all right, just another bad dream.’

Her sight began to clear. The whirl of white was settling, the reality of the hab room pushing into her blinking eyes.

The room was the sum of very little: a square box of metal, four strides to a side, enclosing all their lives; a blank door in a bolted frame; a food burner; the mattress pallet she lay on; the work overalls stacked neatly despite the fact that they would never be clean. The air-duct fan turned slowly behind a circle of wire mesh. The jug for their water ration sat on the floor beside the mattress, drained to the one quarter line. The numerals on the work rotation clock blinked red from the opposite wall.

Mylasa’s sister knelt down, red hair falling in a matted tangle beside her face.

Beautiful hair, said a small voice in the whirl of her mind. Like copper.

‘It’s all right,’ said her sister, and tried to hug Mylasa, but she pushed her away.

‘There’s something…’ said Mylasa. The words were thick on her tongue. ‘Something from my dream.’

‘You shouldn’t–’

‘Something is going to happen,’ said Mylasa, feeling the certainty fill her as she spoke. ‘The cold… it was so cold… and they…’

‘Forget it,’ said her sister. ‘You must forget it. If anyone heard…’

‘No!’ Mylasa shoved her sister away. ‘It is out there, the cold dark, and the ship that moves but not through water. It is–’

‘Stop!’ shouted her sister, ‘Please, for the love of the Throne stop. They are just dreams, just dreams. Please–’

The door blew inwards. Mylasa’s sister was turning as the blast caught her. She hammered into the metal wall, and fell, a rag doll thrown by a child. Figures in black armour came through the door. Silver masks covered their mouths. Tattooed script covered their bare heads. Swords and pistols glinted in their hands. Mylasa screamed, and the scream froze the cloud of debris before it could fall. She stood. Bolts ripped from the wall. The jug of water shattered. Debris and fragments rose like a wave from the surface of the sea and rushed towards the armoured figures. The squall of broken glass and metal tore the first figure through the door in half. Blood scattered. The second blasted backwards, its armour crushing the flesh beneath.

Mylasa felt her rage and grief flow out. There was no divide between her and the dreams now. They were here, in the waking world.

‘We have to protect her,’ Mylasa’s father had once said when he thought she was asleep. ‘She is… different. And they will come for her one day if we don’t keep what she can do hidden.’

She had seen the fear in her father’s eyes as he died, and heard his whispered plea to her sister.

‘Keep her safe. Please keep her safe.’

She had heard the overseers preach about the dangers of witches, and known that the warnings were about her. This moment was always going to come. She had not needed the dreams to tell her that. And tonight it had.

Another figure stepped through the ruin of the door, taller than the others, grey-armoured, face bare above the silver smile of its mask. Mylasa felt grief and rage rise through her and pour from her mind into the world. The air ignited. The metal of the walls blackened with heat. The stacked cloths, blanket and mattress became flame and smoke. The burning wave tore towards the grey-armoured figure…

And drained into cold nothingness. Mylasa staggered, limbs shaking, terror suddenly taking the place of rage in her heart. She felt her fear trying to pull apart and remake the world into a place where the figure in dark grey was not walking forwards, silver sword held low, eyes unblinking. There was nothing behind that stare, just an abyss, which fell away into a darkness deeper than night. For the first time in her life Mylasa felt her thoughts pound against the inside of her skull, screaming at a universe that would not change, that was as cruel as a sword edge. She thought of her father, who had wanted to spare her this. She thought of her sister, dead in the corner of the room. She thought that she had never asked for this.

She crumpled to the soot-covered floor, scrabbling backwards, skin burning on the hot metal.

The figure advanced.

‘Why…’ moaned Mylasa Ilk. ‘Please, why?’

It raised its hand, but it was not the hand that held the sword. A heavy circulate of chrome and polished spikes glinted in the figure’s grasp. Vials of liquid gleamed like jewels on its circumference.

The figure stopped. Mylasa waited.

‘Why?’ she asked one last time.

‘Because this is not you either, girl,’ said the figure in a voice she had heard before but did not recognise. ‘Because it was not you curled on the floor of a hab when the hunters of the Black Ships came. Her name was Ilk and she had no other name. After this moment she became one of the thousands sent to Terra to burn so that the Emperor can live.’

Mylasa stood, looking around her at the still tableau of the hab room.

‘I met her on the Black Ship…’ she said carefully as understanding crept through her. This was not her memory. It belonged to someone else.

She turned to look at the figure on the floor where she had just been. Wide eyes looked up at her from a soot- and tear-streaked face, but the gaze was frozen and unseeing.

‘I met her only once. We were put in a cell together, two frightened girls, huddled together in the dark. The null fields must have failed because in the dark I found that I was not alone. Our minds touched. I knew her for what? A minute? An hour? Not much, but enough.’ She paused, and looked back at the witch-seeker who was not a witch-seeker. ‘Enough to remember a life.’

‘And who are you?’

‘I…’ she began, but the figure moved before she could speak.

‘You are not ready to answer yet.’

And he raised the spiked circulate and pressed it down on her skull. The spikes bored in. Drug injectors thumped, and Mylasa arched her back and opened her mouth to scream as the world vanished again.

‘You test her for memories?’ said Josef. ‘But everyone remembers.’ He could feel his frown creasing his face. He was sweating profusely now. The air in the observation room had become close and humid as Mylasa and her examiner filled the cell beneath with ice and static.

The woman in grey armour did not answer him at first, and he noticed her mouth pinch tight at his question.

‘We test for memories of a certain kind,’ she said at last. ‘Not the memories that pile up from living – we look for the deepest memories, the memories that make us who we are, that come to us in dreams and nightmares, and in hope and despair.’

‘And you, what? You test these memories for corruption?’

‘No,’ said the woman carefully. ‘We test to make sure that those memories are absent.’

‘But–’ he began to growl, seeing the horror implied in that explanation.

‘She is an eater of lives, preacher. She swallows thoughts, and memories and dreams, and to do that, and remain pure, requires that she have no true core, no real self, no deep memories to rise unbidden from the dark as she wades through the filth of another mind.’

‘You did that to her?’

‘That is how the Scholars of Nepenthe make their sons and daughters,’ she paused, and Josef thought he saw a brief smile of pride on the woman’s face as she looked at Mylasa. Scabs of frozen blood clung to her floating form. ‘Most telepaths are not strong enough for the process. Most of those that are strong enough die anyway.’

‘But not her,’ said Josef.

‘Not her,’ said the woman. ‘She has strength.’

‘But you test her anyway.’

‘The fortress that crumbles may have stood against every enemy until the last.’

‘How profound,’ he said.

Mylasa Verrun gave a lopsided smile, knocked the glass of blue spirit back, and then – slowly, because she was not entirely sure that her hands were following her mind’s commands – turned the glass upside down and put it on the top of the major-domo’s head. Disappointingly the man did not even blink.

‘No,’ she said, and smiled wider. Behind her the cluster of her friends lounging on the dustsheet-covered furniture giggled. The major-domo reached up and carefully took the glass from his head. A film of sticky blue liquid clung to his shaved scalp. She wondered how the man would react if she licked a finger and wiped it from his skin. She was very tempted to try it and find out.

‘Your mother…’ began the major-domo carefully.

‘Whatever the walking corpse has sent you to say, the answer is still…’ she reached out and picked up another glass of spirit from a table, and raised it to her lips ‘…no.’

‘Your mother has sent me to inform you that your second sister has returned.’

Mylasa blinked, and lowered the glass from her lips.

‘Cordia…’ she said. ‘She is back?’

The major-domo nodded once, the high collar of his stiff black-and-gold uniform creaking at the movement.

She put the glass back on the table.

‘Take me to her,’ she said. The major-domo nodded again, turned and began to move towards the doors out of the unused staterooms that Mylasa had commandeered for her experiment with the family liquor stores. She followed him, ignoring the calls of disappointment from her friends.

They passed through the corridors of the manse towards the east wing. Candles floated on suspensor discs beneath the high ceilings. Grim faces looked down from painted walls. Dust rose from the dark red rugs under their feet.

She had not seen her sister for two years. Cordia was supposed to be learning the void trade on one of the family’s chartered merchant ships. Of all Mylasa’s siblings and half-siblings, Cordia was the only one who had ever been genuinely kind to her. She was the only member of the family whom Mylasa thought of as worthy of the word. If Cordia was back that would mean having someone other than her vacuous supposed friends to talk to. It would mean…

Wait… wait… not until she is past… and then quickly…

Mylasa stopped. She blinked, looking around for a voice that she was sure had spoken just behind her left shoulder.

The major-domo paused and looked back at her. She stared at him, eyes darting around her, sweat prickling her skin.

‘Mistress?’ he said. ‘If we could hurry, your mother was most insistent.’

In her head she felt facts and inconsistencies poke through the fog of alcohol and excitement. Why was Cordia back now? How could she be back now? Why would her mother send for her to see Cordia? The old witch would have taken greater pleasure in keeping Mylasa in the dark than inviting her to greet her sister. Why were they going into the old east wing, rather than the central manse? Why…

‘Mistress…’

The walls were shimmering. The candlelight dimmed in her eyes. Echoes filled her ears. The world was looming over her. Shadows coiled around the major-domo. Mylasa shrank back from him. He stepped towards her.

‘Follow me, mistress,’ he said.

His eyes were smudges of fire in her sight that was suddenly like that of a nightmare. Somehow she could see the dagger in his sleeve, and feel the eyes of the figures in the shadows waiting for her to take another step.

‘No…’ she said, and took a step backwards.

The major-domo leapt at her, tugging the knife free of his sleeve. A high guttural word tore from his lips. Figures charged from further down the corridor. Mylasa jerked back as the major-domo’s dagger slashed past her. She was no fighter, but neither was he. She kicked him the only way she knew how, as though he was a door that needed breaking down. He staggered. She turned to run the way she had come. Figures were running down the corridor towards her. Even through the fever smear of this living nightmare, she could recognise servant uniforms. Twisted silver masks hid their faces. Screams followed them. All of them had knives. Snakes coiled down the serrated blades.

In a lightning flash of insight she knew. A serpent had coiled through her family while Mylasa had been sulking and drowning her youth. Her mother had made the family into something monstrous, and now was trimming away any imperfection in what she had created.

The wall three paces behind her blew inwards.

A dust-clogged shockwave picked Mylasa up and slammed her into the opposite wall. Pain ripped the nightmare veil from her eyes. She coughed as dust filled her throat. A cluster of figures in servant uniforms and silver masks came out of the rolling cloud of smoke. Silver edges glinted with murder.

The nearest masked figure exploded. The detonation spread crimson through the air. Bolt rounds shrieked past. The sound was deafening. Blood and shrapnel tore the world apart around her. Two figures advanced out of the breach in the wall. They fired, moving with tight efficiency. Muzzle flare glinted from burnished steel plates as the lead figure braced and sent a stream of shells into the masked servants. He was bareheaded, a grey beard framing a hawk-like face. The dirty light gleamed off the bronze tri-barred ‘I’ on his breastplate.

An inquisitor, she thought.

The figure turned and looked towards where she lay at the base of the wall. She tried to move, but there was the taste of copper in her breaths and a sharp grinding pain in her legs. The inquisitor stepped towards her, dark eyes meeting her gaze. The gunfire ceased, and ringing silence filled the corridor.

‘Covenant,’ said the man, and the second man who had come through the breach moved closer. This one was younger, and his features held an intensity that robbed them of some of their handsomeness. He wore armour that reminded her of the pict images she had seen of elite soldiers of the Astra Militarum. The gun in his hands had the blunt shape of something designed without a veneer of art to hide its purpose. ‘This one is alive,’ said the inquisitor. ‘Signal Orsino to send a gunship and medicae. You are responsible for this one. I want her to live.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ said the young man called Covenant, and turned away, talking into a vox bead.

‘I…’ she began, forcing the words from herself. ‘I do not know anything. I have nothing that I can tell you.’

The inquisitor’s gaze bored into Mylasa.

+Perhaps,+ said a voice in her head. +But you are more than you seem, aren’t you?+

‘I…’

The drifting cloud of dust froze. The inquisitor’s face became a sculpture.

The figure of the young Covenant shook himself, and turned back towards Mylasa. He looked at the inquisitor’s still face, and shook his head.

‘This is not even a real memory is it?’ he said. ‘It is based on bits of one of Inquisitor Covenant’s memories of Inquisitor Argento, and the moment that his master found the girl who would become Covenant’s fellow apprentice and later inquisitor. Her name was Idris, not Mylasa, wasn’t it? And this dream is something you built from what? Those few recollections of Covenant’s and your own imagination?’

Mylasa shook her head.

‘It is a real memory,’ said Mylasa, standing, the idea of pain and injury falling from her. Her clothes shimmered to green silk, and her hair grew, and turned to burnished copper. ‘It was Idris’ memory of the moment she met Covenant and Argento. She once shared it with me, back when she and Covenant still worked together. She was a telepath too. This memory was of the moment her family ceased to exist, and also the moment when she was saved. Without it, what would have happened to her? The Black Ships? Would she have become fuel for the Golden Throne? Would she have become like me?’ Mylasa stopped, shivered and reached out a hand to run it through the frozen smoke cloud as though dipping it into a pool of water.

‘The memory of an inquisitor?’ said the man wearing the dream form of Covenant. ‘You are honoured, it seems.’

She shook her head.

‘No, not really.’ She looked around her, blinking. ‘This didn’t end well. Not for any of them. It just took time to reach that end.’ She dropped her hand to her side, and let out a breath. ‘Come on, let’s be done with this. I am tired of dreaming.’

‘As you wish,’ said the man, and the image of smoke and people came apart.

Mylasa fell and she knew that she would fall through countless more dreams of stolen lives until she reached the bottom. Until she could fall no further.

She thought she heard the voice of Josef, speaking close by, yet far away.

‘Why must she not remember her past?’

‘Because she must be nothing,’ said a woman’s voice in answer. ‘And what is a person but what they remember?’

‘So you took everything from her?’

And on Mylasa fell towards the infinity of lives that waited beneath her.

‘It was the only kindness we could give her.’

Mylasa opened her eyes. Snow covered the ground beneath her feet. Above her the bare branches of a tree reached up to the light of a full moon, glinting silver with frost. The hills she stood on fell smoothly away, rolling towards the edge of the sky in soft, white folds. The air was sharp with cold. Somewhere, far off, a night-raptor took wing with a cry.

‘Mylasa…’ The voice behind her brought a smile to her lips that did not reach her eyes. She pulled the green velvet of her coat closer. The white fur collar pressed against her cheeks. She let out a breath, shivered and jumped slightly, trying to shake some heat into her skin.

‘You would have thought that I would have picked a dream that was a little warmer.’

‘You like the cold,’ said the voice.

‘True,’ she said.

The man stepped up beside her. His face was slim, the features fine. A smile hung on his lips as he looked up at the frosted tree. He wore a black coat with silver buttons, but his hands were bare. He pressed them together and breathed between the palms. Mylasa glanced at him. He looked young apart from his eyes.

‘Where is this?’ he asked.

She shrugged.

‘I don’t know. I have never seen it before.’

‘A construct then,’ he said. ‘The tree you once saw on a forest world, the cold from the memory of winter?’

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘I honestly don’t know.’

‘Something from your childhood…?’

She gave a brittle laugh.

‘Is that what you think? That this is the last piece of personal memory that I keep at the heart of my soul? The lost jewel of who I was before I became what I am?’ She snorted. ‘No, even if it is something from my past, it doesn’t belong to me now.’

‘You could be lying…’

‘You are a telepath who has just spent a lot of effort digging through my subconscious,’ she said, ‘you tell me.’

He smiled at her, and there was sincerity in his expression

‘A fair point,’ he said. They both turned to look at the silent snowscape.

In the quiet, she could hear the rustle of the frost thickening on the branches above her.

‘Is that it then?’ she asked. ‘You are satisfied that I am free of the taint of self?’

He turned and looked at her, his eyes moving over the stolen features that she wore in her dreams: the green fabric, the red hair, the knowing smile in a slim face, all the tiny details of a person taken from hundreds of other peoples’ memories.

‘There remains only the question – who are you, Mylasa?’

A heartbeat passed, and she wondered how long all this had taken in the waking world: A second? An hour? A lifetime?

‘I don’t know,’ she said.

He nodded, and raised his hand. Light split the palm.

‘Good,’ he said.

And the snow and night became gossamer thin, and beyond it she could see an image of a steel and glass cell in a world that was not a dream.

Inside her soul Mylasa smiled to herself.

THE PURITY OF IGNORANCE

‘The darkest secrets are those we hide from ourselves.’

– Sebastian Thor, words spoken on the Road to Terra

‘Do you know why we do what we do?’

‘No, sir. That is not my... I do not need to know.’

‘We do it for the survival of humanity.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Lieutenant Ianthe, Second Squadron, Agathian Sky Sharks, sat at attention, hands on her knees, eyes straight ahead. The man sitting across from her was a priest, his bulk covered by an off-white robe. Crude tattoos spidered the knuckles of his hands, and hard, knowing eyes glittered in the wrinkled lump of his face. He was called Josef, or that was the name he had introduced himself with. Now after half an hour talking with him, Ianthe thought he seemed more senior sergeant-at-arms than a priest in the service of an inquisitor. But what did she know of the Inquisition?

‘Do you understand what that means?’ said Josef, as though hearing her thoughts in her silence.

‘If we fail, so does the Imperium,’ she said.

‘True, but not the whole truth. We fail and there will be no humanity to be called an Imperium. Not here, not on distant Terra, nowhere. There will just be a thing that was once call mankind, weeping as it eats itself and the darkness laughs. You understand me, Ianthe?’

‘Sir,’ she said.

He cocked his head, and scratched his stubble-covered jaw. She did not move her own gaze but she could feel his eyes moving across her face, searching for something, watching for something. 

‘Tell me about your service before this,’ he said at last.

‘Sir?’ she began, and fought to keep the frown from her face. ‘My apologies, sir, but I thought we had covered that.’

He shrugged, muscle and fat rippling under the folds of his robe.

‘Humour me,’ he said.

She listed her record, passing through the last twelve years of her life in clipped bites of information: Karadieve, command of platoon in the assault on the pirate holds; Anac, command forward reconnaissance units, wounded; Grey Klave, command primary assault squadron; and on until her record ran out, and the silence formed again between them.

‘And now you are here, with us,’ he said.

‘Yes, sir,’ she nodded, and then felt her expression twitch before she could stop it.

‘You have something to say – say it, lieutenant,’ said Josef.

Ianthe nodded, licked her lips and then spoke. ‘Is this interview related to the mission, sir? I have been over my record several times, and my appraisal of the soldiers under my command.’

‘It is related to the mission in every way, lieutenant. In every way.’ He paused, watching her. ‘Is there something else you wish to say?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s just that I have never had the honour of serving the Inquisition, sir. It is...’

‘Irregular?’ he finished for her, and nodded. For a second she thought she saw a glimmer of something like sorrow in his eyes. ‘That it is,’ he said, and there was an edge of weariness in his voice. Then he stood, shaking out his creased robe, and rolling his shoulders like a pugilist before turning and moving towards the door. ‘Ready your squad. It is time.’

Spire Mistress Sul Nereid woke with a scream between her teeth. For an instant the nightmare smudged her sight with bloated flesh and blood-covered chrome, and she felt the acid kiss of vomit rise to her mouth. Then it was gone, draining away with her panic as the dawn light filled her eyes. She shifted, feeling the silk padding of the throne at her back, and the smooth silver of its arms beneath her hands. She stretched, smiling. She had fallen asleep in her chair, just as she had when she was a child and used to sneak into the throne room at night. She laughed, and the sound slid out to meet the sun rising behind the crystal walls of her room.

The throne room sat at the tip of the hive spire. Crystal walls set in frames of polished adamantine encircled a single open space within. A flight of shallow steps led from the foot of the throne, each one carved from a single piece of dark wood. The pelts of a thousand white felids had been seamlessly stitched to create a rug that flowed down from her throne to spill onto the open space beneath. Slender columns of ivory rose from the black glass floor, each holding a frozen explosion of gemstones and light, which glittered in rainbow hues as they spun in suspensor fields. Beyond the clear walls the cloud layer ran to the arc of the sun slipping above the horizon; the crowns of cumuli rose above a soft sea of white and folded purple and orange. At the apex of the sky’s dome stars winked against the last darkness of the night. In the far distance the pinnacles of Tularlen’s other hive spires rose from the plateau of clouds like shards of diamond set on cushions of spun sugar. Nereid sighed at the sight.

This moment, this perfect moment, had been hers ever since she had inherited the spire throne from her father. He had treasured both the view and the position it represented, clutching both close to him even as he had fought the doom that claimed him at last. It had been a sad end, but it did mean that the pleasure of waking to this world was Nereid’s now. 

‘Are you hungry, mistress?’

Saliktris’ voice came from just behind and beside her throne. She half turned her head, enough to catch the impression of the major-domo standing just on the edge of sight, clad in plum and crimson velvet, his smile an echo of her own. He was always there, just where he needed to be.

‘I am...’ she replied, and shifted on her seat, tilting her head to one side as she thought. ‘But...’

‘Some music...’ said Saliktris, smoothly.

Nereid’s smile widened.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That is it. The arrangement from last night would be...’

‘Perfection,’ he said, and her smile widened. Others might object to a servant talking so freely with their betters, but Saliktris always knew what to say, and what she wanted. She did not know what she would do without him.

The spire throne was no doubt something that many coveted. The House of Tears, the Extrabati and their Mechanicus backers, the Sons of Lupolis, and all the other lesser power blocs regarded this seat, and the power it represented, with a hungry eye. That jealousy had been one of the poisons that had marred her ascension, that and the riots burning in the factory core of the hive, and the Administratum’s suddenly inflated tithes of manpower and materiel. Apparently there was a war, and Tularlen had to feed every scrap of flesh and wealth into its gullet.

No matter that it was draining the wealth of the hive houses, no matter that discontent was curdling to violence in the drone masses, no matter that it could not be done, the Imperium demanded and would not be denied. Nereid shuddered as the memory rose in her mind, and her mouth twisted as though she had just bitten into a rotten fruit.

The expression and memories faded, and she smiled again.

‘Mistress...’ whispered Saliktris, and she looked up.

The ensemble players appeared as her smile bloomed. They filed out into the space beneath the throne, thirty-six men and women robed in white, their instruments gleaming in the brightening day.

‘Do you wish for dancing?’ asked Saliktris, and all she had to do was nod.

Two of the thirty-six players stepped forwards, their limbs trailing tapers of silk that shimmered like the inside of a seashell. They halted, and stretched their limbs, becoming statues poised on the edge of movement. The first notes rose from the instruments, blending as layers of melody harmonised from tuned strings, silver flutes and taut drumheads. They began to sing, voices rising to meet the swelling chords of the instruments.

Nereid closed her eyes and tilted her face back as the sound pulled her senses up through the greyness and into a world of unfolding glory. This was what the dull words of preachers never could convey; this was what it was to touch the divine.

She opened her eyes just as the dancers started to move.

‘Wait,’ she said. The dancers froze, bodies suspended in mid-movement as though they hung on strings in defiance of gravity. The music from the ensemble did not cease, but circled through harmonies, holding just beneath the peak of its ascent.

Nereid turned her head slightly to the right, and a mirrored platter appeared, heaped with glistening fruit, each one a jewel taken fresh from its tree. A chalice sat beside it, the wine within almost black in the daylight brilliance. She reached out, took the chalice and raised it to her lips. Warm liquid kissed her mouth, filling her nose with sweet scents and the promise of endless days of laughter. She plucked a fruit from the platter and popped it into her mouth. It burst, and the flavours of the wine and the juice briefly warred before fusing into a taste that slid through a thousand shades of sweetness.

Nereid swallowed, and breathed out.

‘Now,’ she said, and raised the chalice to her lips again, ‘dance.’

The gunship dropped through the deepening blue of the sky, its wings still glowing with the heat of atmospheric transition. White shark’s teeth snarled across its fuselage. Rocket pods hung beneath its hunched wings, and kill-marks marched in rows beneath the cockpit. Clouds of sensor baffles crackled through the air around it in an invisible sphere. Any weapon systems looking its way would see nothing but static.

Ianthe felt the gunship shake around her as it banked and levelled out. She allowed herself a smile as adrenaline spiked fire in her muscles. They were almost at the target.

God-emperor grant me strength enough for this, she thought.

‘Five minutes to target. Atmosphere protocols active.’ The pilot’s voice echoed through the compartment. Amber light soaked the soldiers as Ianthe and her squad rose from the benches running down the sides of the compartment. Hands checked rebreathers and sealed visor plates. They were all veterans, all seasoned in battle and hardened in warzones that had left them alive and taken others.

Beside her the preacher called Josef heaved himself to his feet. He shrugged, settling the ill-fitting pressure suit he wore under his robes. He slung his warhammer between his shoulders, and started to fit his rebreather over the bottom half of his face. Ianthe caught his eye, and he nodded to her as she checked the lascarbine strapped across her torso. She glanced at the two figures that remained seated beside the rear hatch.

Inquisitor Covenant was utterly still, dark eyes open, his great sword resting in its scabbard across his knees. The red lacquer on his cuirass seemed black in the amber light. The impulse-linked psycannon mounted on his shoulder moved in a slow arc, back and forth, back and forth, like the head of a patient predator. Beside him sat a woman, her sword drawn, the point resting on the deck. She wore a hessian shift over a studded black bodyglove, bolt pistols strapped to her thighs, the lower half of her face hidden by a double-plugged breath-mask. A hennaed cross cut across the upper half of her face beneath a shaven scalp. Battered armour plates covered her shins and forearms, red lacquer clinging to the pitted metal. Ianthe thought she saw the emblem of the Adepta Sororitas on the armour plates, but that made no sense; the woman looked more like a wanderer or a bounty hunter than a holy warrior. Ianthe had heard Josef call her Severita, and the name seemed to fit her intensity. Severita looked up as though sensing Ianthe’s gaze. Her eyes were green. For a second Ianthe blinked at the feeling of familiarity in that look.

‘From the lightning and the tempest, our Emperor, deliver us,’ Josef growled across the squad vox. The soldiers looked towards him, and his voice rose, rolling with strength. ‘From plague, temptation and war, our Emperor, deliver us.’ She could almost feel the words sinking into them as he spoke, stealing doubt, firing blood. ‘From the scourge of the Kraken, our Emperor, deliver us,’ he intoned, and as he spoke the next words the voices of the soldiers rose with him.

‘From the blasphemy of the Fallen, Our Emperor, deliver us.’

‘Two minutes to target,’ came the pilot’s voice, cutting through the prayer. ‘Depressurising now.’ The rear hatch began to open, air rushing out of the growing crack. Bright golden light cut into the compartment.

‘From the begetting of daemons, Our Emperor, deliver us.’

The door gunners released the side doors, and pulled them back. Rotor-cannons folded out on weapon mounts, barrels jutting out into the thin air as the gunners set themselves. Ianthe could see green holo-light flaring in their targeting monocles.

‘From the curse of the mutant, Our Emperor, deliver us.’

The spires of the hives rose from the cloud layer around them, glinting like spear-tips.

‘That thou wouldst bring them only death.’

Covenant stood, the air racing through the compartment catching his topknot as he turned to face the open rear hatch. 

‘That thou shouldst spare none.’

The air buzzed as grav-chutes activated. 

‘Thirty seconds to target, weapons live,’ said the pilot. The Valkyrie banked and Ianthe braced herself as the view beyond the nearest side door became the plateau of polluted clouds. Severita was standing beside Covenant, both steady as the world turned around them.

‘That thou shouldst pardon none.’

The rotor-cannons began to spin, barrels blurring. Beyond the right-hand door the crystal flanks of a spire tip came into view, so close Ianthe could see the silver angel set on its point.

‘We beseech thee, destroy them.’

The rotor-cannons fired. Casing showered out, falling into the dawn light as flames breathed from their muzzles. Sheets of crystal shattered, fragments spinning outwards on a wave of explosive decompression. The gunners panned the cannons across the spire’s flank as the gunship turned, thrusters and engines screaming as it cut its speed.

At the rear hatch, Covenant and Severita braced as the gunship tilted, hanging against the wind above the broken summit. The rotor-cannons ceased fire. Covenant leapt, Severita a heartbeat behind him. Six troopers followed, and then Ianthe was at the rear hatch, and the sky was screaming around her as she jumped into the dawn light.

The flank of the spire rose to meet her, jagged holes yawning wide. Beneath her, Covenant and Severita triggered their grav-chutes, and seemed to jerk upwards as their fall slowed just before they hit the spire’s side. Ianthe and her squad activated their chutes. She felt force thump through her gut as the chute activated, and then she was through the splintered windows, and the throne room poured into her eyes.

The musicians nearest the window died first, falling as rotor-cannon rounds punched through the crystal and tore them apart. Nereid shrieked in shock and alarm. A black shadow was blocking out the sunlight. Air rushed through the shattered window as the throne chamber depressurised. A singer tumbled backwards into the sky, arms thrashing, the rushing air snatching away the broken harmony of his song as he fell. Figures were dropping through the broken windows, brutes in metal with blunt helms, moving with disordered speed. They were dark blurs, eyes burning coals in faces drooling blood. The reek of iron and ashes filled Nereid’s nose.

This was wrong, this was not as it should be.

‘No! Please, no!’ she shouted, wine spilling from her mouth as she twisted towards Saliktris. The major-domo had twisted back with the explosion, but was still at her side. She caught the impression of his slim face, as thin and beautiful as a white flame. ‘Saliktris, please...’ 

‘Yes, my mistress,’ he said, and the song rose.

The cacophony sliced into Ianthe’s squad. Pain exploded behind her eyes. Sound vibrated through her flesh and bones to shake her eyes in her skull. To her left, one of her squad dropped as though felled by an axe blow. Ianthe stumbled, for a moment blind. Discordant notes bored into her. Colours exploded with migraine brightness in her sight. Her skin was writhing, a creature with its own will as it strangled her flesh.

‘No,’ she growled. The word pulled her to her feet and cleared her sight.

Flesh and chrome filled the space before her. Vast machines of blood-daubed metal towered like metal trees towards the ceiling’s apex. Flared pipes and clusters of vox speakers sprouted from their sides. Figures stood on the blood-slicked floor. Shining metal staples ran across their skin, and soiled silk clung to their limbs. Bundles of tubes poured from their mouths and circled their necks, rising to hoods of polished pipes above their heads. Others plucked at strings stretched between their half-fused torsos. Amongst them spindle-limbed dancers spun, cartwheeling through the throng, lidless eyes rolling in screaming faces, scythe limbs arching.

And beyond and above the crowd of horrors a throne rose. Flayed fur and skin draped its steps, crusted with blood and vomit. A figure sat on the throne, bloated to monstrous size, bulk straining against the chair’s structure, tatters of bright silk hanging from its form like a half-sloughed skin. A web of tubes and cables coiled over it, vanishing into its bulk like worms burrowing into mud. Trays of red, glistening matter sat beside it, and Ianthe saw crimson on the lips of a small mouth set in the boulder-like head. It was a nightmare vision of careless joy sculpted in machinery and flesh. A vision that was now tearing apart.

Some of the throng were falling, dying as the explosive decompression ruptured lungs. Blood-mist aspirated from their mouths as they shuddered and folded. Ianthe fired, hosing las-fire across the room as she forced herself forwards. Some of her squad came with her, firing in ragged bursts. Covenant and Severita were amongst the press, bodies falling before them like wheat before a storm.

‘Ianthe!’ she heard Josef shout her name over the vox, and jerked around just in time to see a scythe-like blade whip down towards her face. There was no time to avoid it. She raised the lascarbine, and the blade clanged on the case of the gun. A starvation-thin figure was looming over her on thin, double-jointed legs. It shrieked, sacs of skin bulging in its throat. Ianthe felt the sound shake through her. The scythe blade sheared away from the gun, and the stick-limbed figure twisted to cut again. Ianthe slammed the muzzle of her gun into it. Bones shattered under the blow. She pulled the trigger, and the thing was falling, its flesh cooking in the spray of las-fire. Ianthe brought the butt of the gun down to shatter skull and brain. She was breathing hard.

Fire and blood blurred her sight. To her left she could see a clutch of her troopers, already fewer than they were seconds before. They were shooting, but they had stopped moving, their fire ragged. Beyond them, deeper in the churning press, were Severita and Covenant. Severita’s sword was a spinning blur orbiting her as she stepped and ducked and cut, never pausing, each movement a slice that severed limbs and bisected bodies. Covenant carved his path at her side, the great sword a sheet of lightning in his hands as it cut, and cut. The psycannon on his shoulder was spinning and firing, punching figures from their feet behind the inquisitor as he cut down those in front of him. It was a sight to light the dark of despair, two warriors moving amidst a tide of horror as death reached for them. It was also about to end.

Fog was rising in the room, pink with the spray of blood, shivering with the surge of noise ripping from the throats of the dying. Ianthe saw the fog coil across the skin of the dead and flow up the steps of the throne. Something was happening, something that she could feel buzzing on the edge of sight and hissing in her ear. A heat-haze blur was shaking the air. The smell of cinnamon and burnt hair reached her nose through her breath mask. She swayed. The sound of the screams was softening, soothing her into acquiescence.

There was nothing to do...

The future just required her to let it happen...

For once in her life there was no weight to bear, no duty or responsibility...

All she needed to do was be...

+Ianthe... Ianthe... Ianthe...+ breathed a voice that was everywhere.

Laughter, soft but brittle, itched in her awareness. The carnival of violence around her had slowed. Blades traced lazy arcs through limbs. Blood-drops fell like jewels. Skin and bone parted.

She raised her eyes to the throne. The figure on it was a blurred haze, like an image painted in smeared pigment. As she watched, a form detached itself from the enthroned figure, pulling shape to itself as it stepped down towards the floor. It moved slowly, languidly, its limbs sheathed in iridescent skin, its eyes black pools beneath a billowing mane of violet hair. The figure’s face turned towards Ianthe and its eyes seemed to swallow the world.

+Ianthe... You poor, wronged child...+ The voice purred in her skull. +How much has been taken from you...+ And the world was falling backwards and the memories of lives she had forgotten she had lived were dancing in front of her...

...She was coming through a rusted door, gun in hand, and the space beyond was a pit writhing with worms that looked at her with slit-pupil eyes... And Covenant was calling to her to shoot, and she was beside him firing until the charge pack in her gun was dry...

...She was standing on a stone platform beneath a sky of bruised light. Balls of lightning were falling from the heavens, and the cannon on Covenant’s shoulder was swivelling and firing, punching glowing rounds up at the corposant, and she could see the tangle of arms and mouths thrashing in the balls of flame...

...She was standing with Josef in the ruins of a violated city. His old eyes turned from the walls that still ran with ectoplasm and blood, and he began to say something...

...And now she was standing in the throne room again.

Curtains of light hung across the space, shifting between colours. The image was strobing, pulsing between colours and blinding monochrome.

The sinuous figure was at the foot of the steps to the throne, movements flowing between the shutter-blinks of light. Claws of red chitin grew from its arms, the edges blurring to black smoke as they peeled a path through the whirl of bodies. It was beautiful and vile, like a song sung from a strangled throat.

Covenant was cutting his way towards the creature, bodies falling before him, Severita at his side, sword weaving circles around his cuts.

Ianthe froze, watching the scene play out, and realised that she had seen this before, this clash of man and daemon. She had faced and survived this many times. She was not the soldier she thought, she was not even sure if she had ever been.

Josef was shouting somewhere close behind her, and one of her squad was falling, his hands ripping at his visor to get to the flesh beneath. Another looked at her, head rotating with serene slowness, gun muzzle rising to rest under his chin.

‘No...’ she began as his finger closed on the trigger. The las-bolt burned through his head and blew the top of his skull off.

Nereid watched Saliktris stride down the steps, his coat whipping in the wind rushing through the shattered windows. Most of her musicians and courtiers lay bloody on the floor, while the few that remained clawed desperately at the brutes cutting through them. She could see those invaders now, dark shadows, like the tattered silhouettes of men, their eyes burning, bellowing as they hacked the beauty of her world to ruin.

Then Saliktris began his dance. Sharpness glinted at the edge of his arms. The court of musicians parted before him, and the major-domo was a blur as he met her enemies, edge to edge.

The daemon – for that was what it was, Ianthe realised – slashed through a silk-wrapped mutant and its pincer claw snapped down towards Covenant in a languid blur. The psycannon on his shoulder pivoted and fired. Rounds burned through the air, and the daemon spun, and Covenant was cutting and cutting, and the daemon swayed and pivoted around each shot and cut as though it were all a dance, as though every step and turn was part of a pattern. As Ianthe watched, Josef waded to Covenant’s side, hammer battering aside clawing limbs.

‘I shall not fear,’ she heard his voice booming out the prayer over the cacophony. ‘I shall be fury. I shall be fire.’

‘Get up,’ the voice made her flinch, and then she realised it was her own, and she was rising from where she had slid to the floor amid the blood and filth. ‘Get up, now!’ And she was on her feet, gun in her hands. If there were still any of her squad alive, they might have been with her, but if they were, she did not see them. She fired, pouring las-bolts into a tall mutant with no eyes and a needle-fanged mouth. It shrieked, falling in a tangle of hook-bladed limbs. She kicked past it, boots sinking into blood-soaked fur.

To her right the daemon leapt, pivoted in mid-air, and lashed a pincer at Covenant’s head. His sword met the blow. Chitin and lightning-shrouded steel met with a howl. The daemon flipped over Covenant, a scorpion tail growing from its back as it arched through the air. The sting stabbed down. Severita’s sword spun high, edge bright, and the tip of the daemon’s tail was falling away in a spray of ectoplasm. The daemon landed, twirling like a spill of silk in the wind, and Ianthe could feel its laughter shuddering through her thoughts. 

Blood was rising from the floor, flowing into globules and spiralling into red ropes, congealing into sculptures of flesh and chitin and claws. Josef was beside Covenant and Severita now, the trio at the centre of the circle of creatures birthing into being from the blood of the dead and the screams of the living. Covenant’s psycannon blasted a cluster of creatures to a shower of black slime, and then dry-cycled on an empty breech. The chorus of congealing daemons stepped forward, skin spreading across their limbs. Colours and light were running and swirling at the edge of Ianthe’s vision. A warm fog of cloying scent poured down her throat, and she gagged inside her mask.

She was at the foot of the steps leading to the throne. Above her the bloated figure on the silver chair gazed at the slaughter. Gossamer strands of light billowed through the air around the throne.

Ianthe mounted the steps.

Nereid turned and looked at the figure climbing the steps towards her. Ashes fell from its tread. Red eyes burned in its iron face. Her household guards were finally there, ringing the remaining intruders, but this other one had risen from the slaughter and reached the foot of the throne. It would not matter though, not now.

Saliktris would remove these... creatures, and then everything would return to how it was. Yes... to how it was when she woke. But at that moment she saw Saliktris seem to slow, his endless dance stuttering, as though he were tiring. And the tallest of the invaders stepped forward and hacked down, blade screaming. Saliktris pivoted aside, but only just fast enough to escape the edge, and the swordsman cut again and again, and her guard that had ringed the three were shrinking back. Nereid screamed at them, but they didn’t listen. And then the swordsman slashed his sword down, and Saliktris did not sway aside, and the sword split the major-domo from collarbone to groin.

Pain flared in Nereid’s chest, expanding into a burning sheet of agony. The world blinked out of existence, and the pain ran out to the edge of her being. Agony burned her thoughts, and she saw again her father fall, her dagger ripping free of his back. She felt the silk of the throne as she sat on it for the first time as spire mistress. She tasted the sweet dream of being able to live in a world that existed for her and for her alone.

Then it was gone, and a hole gaped within her soul, pulling in warmth and brightness, leaving just the feeling of shivering flesh, and the smell of spoiled meat and ashes.

The sound of the wind blowing through broken grass brought the moans of pain to her ears. She could feel the wetness of blood and drool on her chin. She did not want to look up. She did not want to open her eyes; she knew what she would see.

In the end it had just become too much: the demands of authority, the decisions, the relentless indifference of the Administratum as they demanded more and more and the glory of her throne became a vice to crush her.

The voice of her dreams had seemed like a release then. She had given that joy a name and a face, and the dream had remade her world. It had become golden again.

Shouts, gunfire, sounded nearby but she did not move. Her breath was a heavy wheeze in her throat. She heard a crunch of broken crystal nearby.

‘Look at me,’ said a voice above her, firm but ragged with effort. Nereid stirred, raised her head, and opened her eyes.

A soldier stood before the throne, her grey armour sprayed with blood, her face hidden by a breath mask, her eyes a blank visor. Nereid dropped her gaze to the lasgun in the soldier’s hands. The barrel was steady. 

‘I...’ began Nereid. ‘I just wanted to be–’

Ianthe pulled the trigger. The las-blast burned through the spire mistress’ head. Blood and charred brain sprayed the soiled upholstery of the throne. The bloated figure slumped, silken bulk settling with a gurgle, its last words lost.

Ianthe let her aim drop. Her limbs began to shake. A sound on the steps made her turn. Covenant stood behind her, sword deactivated. Josef stood with him. Blood and slime covered both of them. Behind them Severita was moving through the heaped dead, pausing to fire a bolt into a twitching corpse. A few of Ianthe’s squad were still alive, kneeling or lying on the ground, shaking as though they had been pulled from freezing water. Except that they were not her squad, not really.

‘My lord,’ she said, and bowed her head.

The after-echo of what she had seen throbbed in her mind. Coloured lights were bubbling in her eyes. She felt as though she were going to be sick.

‘You have served well, lieutenant,’ said Covenant, and his voice was as familiar as an old friend’s.

‘I always endeavour to, lord.’

‘You remember,’ said Josef.

She looked up at the preacher, and the blur of dozens of memories of his face filled her mind.

‘Yes,’ she said.

A shriek of thrusters cut through the thin air as a black-hulled lighter dropped into sight beyond the shattered windows. They all turned to look as it pivoted in mid-air, its rear ramp hinging open to touch the window edge. A figure drifted out of the gloom of the gunship’s compartment. Withered limbs and tattered black robes hung beneath it. Loops of metal pipes hung snaked around the shrunken flesh of its head, crackling with worms of greasy light. Ianthe knew who it was, and knew that they had met in the past, over and over again.

Covenant looked at the hovering psyker.

‘Begin the purge,’ he said. ‘Everyone who had a connection with the spire mistress in the last years is to be culled. Issue an extermination order to the arbitrators under my authority. No mercy or exceptions.’

The psyker’s head dipped in its machine setting.

+And these?+ said a voice that crackled in Ianthe’s skull.

Covenant looked at the troopers from Ianthe’s squad who lay scattered across the carnage-daubed room. One was kneeling in a pool of blood and severed limbs, head rolling from side to side, eyes fixed as though in wonder on the empty air. Another stood, eyes closed, swaying in place like a reed in a wind. The rest did not move, and if they lived, the world was not something that they saw any more.

‘If they will survive, cleanse their minds,’ said Covenant. ‘For the rest... they have earned peace.’ The psyker tilted in mid-air, in what must have been a bow, and then pivoted to face Ianthe; the question asked by the gesture unspoken but ringing in Ianthe’s mind as though shouted. She bowed her head. She knew what was coming; after all, had she not lived this moment many times before?

‘You remember,’ said Covenant, ‘so you know the choice that faces you.’

She nodded.

‘Death or to live and remember nothing – I remember, my lord.’ She paused and words came to her lips, like a prayer learned long ago. ‘To know that daemons exist is to invite corruption. To face them is to risk your own soul. To face them and live is to risk the souls of billions.’

Josef bowed his head, and she heard him mutter something that might have been a prayer. The psyker was drifting closer, and Ianthe could feel its presence blurring the edge of her thoughts.

Covenant held her gaze.

‘A risk,’ he said, carefully. ‘Or a burden to be carried.’

Ianthe raised her head, blinking. Josef looked up at Covenant. Sparks flickered around the psyker. Amidst the blood and corpses, Severita turned to look towards them. Covenant kept his gaze on Ianthe. ‘You have served me for many years in a war that is for the survival of mankind. You will serve in this war again, but you can choose to do so armoured by ignorance, or by the strength of your soul.’

Ianthe stared back at him for a second, and bowed her head before answering.

‘Do you know why we do what we do?’

‘You are the Inquisition.’

‘I am just a servant, as are you now. But do you know what we do in the service of the Inquisition?’

‘We protect mankind.’

‘Do you understand what that means?’

‘If we fail, so does the Imperium.’

The sergeant flicked his eyes to the face across the table from him. Hard eyes met him, unblinking and piercing. The officer’s red and grey combat armour bore no mark of rank, but the weight of her gaze was enough to hold his questions behind his teeth. He had led his squad through two warzones, and seen the rest of his regiment vanish until there was only him and the few he led: a vagabond remnant of war.

‘You have a question, sergeant?’ she asked.

He flinched.

‘I have not served the Inquisition before. I just wondered if this is how it always is?’

Something flickered in the unblinking stillness of her eyes.

‘Tell me about your service before this,’ she said.

‘With respect, I have given you chapter and verse twice already,’ he said.

She shrugged, and leaned forwards slightly.

‘Humour me,’ she said.

THE SON OF SORROWS

‘Slaughter is harder than people imagine. With the right circumstances, it can occur spontaneously, but to bring it about deliberately is a most difficult matter. Still more difficult is effective terror. The human mind is prone to fear, but terror, the deep emotion that lingers in the bone and blood for generations – for that, the tools must be sharp, and their application finely judged.’

– from an address to the High Lords of Terra
by Drakan Vangorich, 12th Grand Master
of the Officio Assassinorum

MISSION TIME STAMP 01:32:34

‘You.’

Koleg did not look around.

‘You hear me?’

Koleg kept his gaze on the temple front.

‘You need to move, friend-pilgrim.’

Statues covered the temple, piled together and mortared in place, drowning in bright paint and gold leaf. Gargoyles leered up at the blink of discharge from the remembrance towers that rose above it. Gilded halos gleamed. Holy lips smiled red. Rain ran from the faces of the saints and the wings of the angels. They called it the city of tears for its rain.

The drops splashed on his face and patterned on his coat. He saw the water pour from the edge of an angel’s wing. The stone feathers caught a flash of light from the electro-discharge. For a second they looked real…

Oh-ho, ho-nooo…

Which one did we know…

Knowww… ho…

‘I am going to say it one more time. You need to–’

‘It needs to be an example,’ he said. ‘That’s what the order is.’

He turned and looked at the warden. The man was fat. His red cloak of office was too small for him, and he held a shock rod in his right hand. The thumb was steady on the activation stud. There were debt and penance tattoos on the man’s chin and jaw, red and black dots amongst stubble.

‘You are not a part of this,’ said Koleg. ‘You should not be here.’

He saw the pupils go wide in the warden’s eyes, but he did not back away.

‘It’s curfew,’ said the man. ‘It’s the will of the Lords, you have to–’

Koleg hit him just beneath the sternum. Air gasped from between teeth. The man stumbled backwards. Koleg jolted his palm into his jaw, and the warden dropped onto the wet stone steps. Koleg drew a needle from a sheath in his cuff and stabbed it into the man’s throat. He flicked the tiny glass bubble on the needle’s head, and sedative began to seep down the silver shaft. The warden would not wake for an hour. By then it would be over.

Koleg shrugged the pack from his back. Fastenings snapped open. Gun metal gleamed in the blue crackle. His hands worked quickly: propellant kindler into stock, stock into casing, drum number one into feed port. 

I know, I know…

I know where you go…

The thread of rhyme passed through his thoughts again. He paused for a second.

Hawk shifting on a gloved hand, eyes hidden under a red falconry hood…

He blinked and stood, the grenade launcher in his hands. Viola said that communication out of the district would be disrupted for an hour. He reached into his coat and took out the mask. The raindrops formed silver domes on the black ceramic. Its eyes were mirrors. Two chrome cylinders plugged into the cheeks. He pulled it on. Luminous numerals lit at the edge of his sight. Small speaker grilles settled over his ears with a hiss of static.

He took a breath. It was not to calm him. He was always calm. It was a habit, and habits were important.

They did not know that he was coming. The shock would help.

He looked at the temple doors, big blank slabs of board and metal. White-and-red handprints all over them. Hinges exposed. Rock frame. He had time to place the charges he had brought. There was no need to rush. They did not know he was coming.

SIGNIFIER 0

‘It’s a kill mission, top to bottom. It needs to be–’

‘An example,’ said Koleg. He looked up from the weapon components laid out on the green cloth.

His room was two metres by three metres. White paint covered the riveted metal walls and ceiling. The paint was fresh, but the rust still showed on the panels next to the basin and faucet. The floor was a rough-textured black. His bunk was bolted to the wall. The sheets and blanket on the bed were taut and smoothed, edges folded tight. His personal chest sat in the corner. Equipment gleamed inside the open lid. He sat on the floor, the stripped and separated tools of his trade in front of him.

‘I understand what is needed,’ he said. ‘You can leave the mission briefing details. I will review them and clarify if necessary.’

Viola was still looking at him. He read the expression on her face: the distaste in the crease of her mouth, the questions she could not keep from her eyes. He noted the emotional markers, and then looked away. He looked straight ahead, hands and fingers finding their own way as he broke a gas-propelled grenade launcher down.

‘It needs to be an example. That is why it’s just going to be me.’ He glanced up. ‘It is this type of mission that the inquisitor recruited me for.’ He put the last piece of the launcher down and snapped the casing pins from a Kahre 354 hand cannon. ‘Is there something you wish to ask?’

Viola’s face twitched under her ash-white hair. It was a slim face, he noted, made lean by concern, and taut by habit. Her hand shifted the collar of her velvet dress coat. She began to shake her head and turn away, then stopped and looked back at him.

‘You are unsettling,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I have been told that before.’

She looked around the room, and shook her head again.

‘This is a cell, you understand?’

‘I know,’ he said.

‘We painted it and scrubbed it, but it was part of a brig.’

‘I know.’

‘You requested this?’

‘Yes.’

Viola shook her head and let out a breath.

‘Why?’

‘Because it is all I need.’

‘All right,’ she said after a moment. ‘All right. You are here by the inquisitor’s command, and that is enough.’

She moved towards the door.

‘Your discomfort is understandable,’ he said. She paused in her step. ‘I am new. I am unknown. I do not fit. Your discomfort is understandable.’

‘I thought you did not feel emotion?’

‘I don’t. Not any more. But you don’t need to feel emotion to recognise its effects. If I could not do that then I could not perform my role.’

‘And what is that?’

‘Terror, Mistress von Castellan. The creation of a precise kind of terror.’

MISSION TIME STAMP 01:35:01

Click…

Switch to arm.

A breath. Muscles relaxing. 

Thumb tense on switch.

Press.

Click…

The doors to the temple blew in. Rock dust and smoke billowed through the breach, and out across the square.

Koleg’s mask blanked the flash of the explosion. The blast wave whipped over him.

Two seconds, counted precisely in his mind.

He stood. The launcher was in his hands. The first cylinder was loaded with photo flash, choke and shriek grenades. He aimed. His mask was set to infra-sight. The air around the temple door was red with heat.

Five seconds.

Orange silhouettes moved beyond the door, staggering. The metal of their guns was cold-blue.

Koleg fired, shifted aim and fired, shifted and fired. The grenades flew through the door and detonated. Choke gas blended with smoke. Hot silhouettes began to stumble and fall. 

Flash of blinding light, white through the cloud. Human shouts. The sound of people trying to breathe while choking.

They have no gas masks, he noted. The shriek charge went off under the stone arch. The air shivered. The staggering figures began to spasm. Koleg caught the edge of the sound an instant before his mask filled his ears with grey noise. That instant of exposure was enough to bring bile to his throat.

Forward, another two grenades. 

Thump-crack, thump-crack…

He had reached the door when the first armed target lurched into sight, and raised a weapon. Koleg put the third grenade into its central mass. It punched the figure back off its feet. The shriek grenade detonated and a fresh blast of neuro-disruptive noise ripped through the air. Koleg was through the door, slinging the launcher over his shoulder. The bloom of heat from the door breach was fading from his sight. He pulled his macrostubber from its holster. Lights flashed on as the temple finally began to wake. Koleg tapped the switch on his mask. Red markers spun at the edge of sight as the mask sifted heat and motion for threats.

Flaking faces of saints and angels covered the ceiling and walls. Open arches ran across the far end of the chamber. A man came out of a vestibule door, wearing soiled, multicoloured robes, face blue and white from ingrained dye. Koleg squeezed the trigger for an instant. Recoil kicked up his arm. Muzzle flare breathed from the pistol. The deluge of micro-rounds tore a hole in the man’s chest. Blood smudged the fog of gas. Koleg surged forwards, grabbing the corpse as it fell. The next target through the door had an autopistol. 

Munitorum pattern d-3-4, thought Koleg. High rate of fire. Substantial recoil.

The target fired an instant after Koleg shoved the corpse forwards and put a point-blank burst into the shooter’s face. Koleg went through the next door.

The temple structure opened beneath him.

SIGNIFIER 1

The door closed behind Viola. Koleg remained on the floor. His hands slotted the last pieces of the macrostubber pistol together, and he set it down beside the other weapons. All were ready. He looked at them for a moment, and then picked up the data-slate that Viola had left on the bed. It had a holo projector attachment and filled the air above it with a three-dimensional image of a structure which looked like a spire tower that had been turned upside down, and thrust into the ground. Audio crackled from the slate’s inbuilt speaker.

‘…Seekers of Incandescent Truth, a cult that conforms to the prevalent local interpretation of the Imperial Creed…’

‘… fallen out of favour within the dioceses…’

‘…temple capable of housing nine hundred adherents, numbers currently dwelling in the temple estimated at two to three hundred…’

He listened. He watched, and read. When it was complete, he set it going from the beginning. After three passes he shut it down. Then he sat, eyes open, but flickering from side to side as though he were dreaming. Parameters were set, methods selected. When that was done, he paused.

It would take him an hour to pass from orbit to the strike location. The rogue trader ship Dionysia would pass over that optimal drop location in one hundred and five minutes. That was acceptable. Inquisitor Covenant wished this dealt with as soon as possible, before the Seekers of Incandescent Truth had time to realise what was happening, before they had time to prepare. He would complete the task within the next four hours. Before he began he needed to review his signifiers.

They were in a box: green metal, foam-lined, letters and numbers stencilled on the outside. He stared at it before he opened it. That was the way he had to do it, the way that he had been taught to do it, each step meticulous. The lid opened with a hiss of collapsing vacuum. He paused, observing the passage of his thoughts, watching for threads of emotion. There were none. He would maintain his watch throughout this preparation.

Three small packets lay in the box, each wrapped in black velvet. He began on the left, taking each packet out, setting it down, and unfolding the velvet to reveal the contents: a crystal cylinder a little taller than a clenched fist; a votive candle; a falconry raptor hood to fit over the eyes of a trained hawk.

He looked at them, listening to his pulse. It remained steady, the turning of his thoughts regular, smooth, flat…

Then he reached out and picked up the crystal cylinder. A thick, brushed-steel cap sealed the top. Three slivers of pink flesh hung in the thick fluid within, each no larger than the tip of his smallest finger.

Memory filled his senses.

It began with smells: burnt flesh, urine, static and sweat all hiding under the thick blanket of counterseptic.

The orderlies moved around him, checking the bindings that held him at the wrists, neck, ankle and waist. He rolled his shoulders. Above him a cluster of articulated limbs twitched and extended. Laser cutters, micro-saws and drills spun and cycled between different speeds. It reminded him of a prize brawler, limbering up before a fight.

‘It’s part of the mind interface integration,’ said the chirurgeon. Koleg glanced up at her. She smiled at him. It was a beautiful smile, he thought. Teal plastek robes covered her from neck to fingertip. An indentured medicae tattoo sat on her left cheek. Chrome cables led from sockets in her spine up to the cluster of flexing limbs hanging from the ceiling. ‘I have to make sure that when I impulse a drill to push through the skull it stops when I tell it, and doesn’t, you know, start trying to click fingers it doesn’t have instead.’

‘I would prefer that not to happen,’ he said, and found himself smiling back at her. 

‘For now,’ she said. ‘You would prefer that not to happen for now. By the time I have finished with you, the two possibilities will seem as insignificant as each other.’

Assistants in red and teal bodygloves began to clamp his head in place. Cool fingers held him still as metal touched the skin of his scalp. The beat of his heart rose.

‘Calm, calm now,’ said the chirurgeon. She was still smiling at him. The movements of the articulated limbs on the ceiling slowed. A single needle-tipped arm reached down and jabbed into his neck. Warm numbness spread through him. ‘We are going to have to secure your head so that you cannot move during the procedure.’

A second later he heard the sound of drills and bolt drivers as they screwed the clamp to his skull. He was breathing hard. He tried to think of the swish of feathers, and the beat of wings carrying a hawk into a blue sky.

‘Heartbeat and adrenal levels rising,’ said a cold voice from out of sight.

‘You have to be conscious, you see,’ said the chirurgeon, ‘so that I can observe your emotional reactions as I work. It’s the only way to be sure that the excision and implants are correct. That we are taking enough, but not too much.’

The limbs unfolded above him, spreading like a flower under warm sun. A circular saw the size of a coin began to spin. The chirurgeon was next to him now, needle-tipped fingers moving over his skull, serene smile still in place. ‘There will be no pain once we are working directly in the brain.’

‘They…’ He tried to speak, but his breath was coming fast now. His blood hammered in his ears. ‘They did not tell me about this. They said it was an augmetic implantation. That I would wake up and not feel…’

‘Hmm… Yes, that’s true.’ Her fingers held still on his scalp. ‘But also not. You agreed to this because you do not want to suffer any more. But I am afraid that to do that we need to know what part of your brain your sorrow and terror live in so that we can remove them. I need to be able to see the signal spikes. So, right here and now, Sergeant Koleg, for this to work, you need to be terrified.’

The saws and drills plunged down towards him.

MISSION TIME STAMP 01:39:42

The Seekers of Incandescent Truth had not begun as heretics. They professed love of the Emperor. But it was their faith that had led them astray. They had taken to kidnapping nascent psykers. All were tortured for pain-soaked words of revelation. Some proved imperfect to the needs of the cult. It was worse for those who survived. The cult had not done anything more directly dangerous, but they would. In time, of course they would. The rot would swell and burst its bounds. When that happened it might do a lot of damage, or it might implode. It did not matter, though; it could not be allowed to continue, and the inquisitor had decided that while it was being dealt with, the death of this heresy could serve as a lesson.

Koleg was the agent of that lesson.

He knelt on a grated platform above the cavern. Multicoloured light glimmered up through the mesh floor from the drop beneath. The space was a wide, circular shaft. Metal steps led to a spiral of metal gantries that ran down the cavern walls. Lanterns of stained glass hung in the central space, lighting the gloom with dirty red, blue and orange. Down at the bottom of the shaft, lights shimmered and crackled cold-blue and fire-yellow.

Someone saw him. Bullets sparked off the grated floor. Threat markers multiplied in his sight. He placed the macrostubber on the ground next to his knee and slid the grenade launcher from his back. More rounds pinged off the floor. The air vibrated with gunshots and cries.

Koleg looked up at the ceiling: soot-skimmed bronze and iron supports, no ventilation. They would be relying on the natural draw of air up the cavern. Fire burst across the edge of the gantry. He heard the buzz-whip of rounds passing close by. He released the launcher’s ammo drum and reached for the one in the pouch on his lower back.

A trio of figures ran from a door to the stairs leading up to him. He scooped up the macrostubber and fired. They dropped in red shreds, one tumbling over the edge, blood scattering as he fell.

Koleg put the pistol down, pulled out the drum of six grenades and locked it into the launcher.

More figures were coming up the spiral of stairs and gantries. He saw tatters of fabric, faces with fever-sheened skin. He aimed the grenade launcher up, tumbled the firing setting to low-pressure auto, and pulled the trigger. The grenades thumped free of the barrel one after another. Red and black gas trailed in their wake as they arced up and dropped down the central well of the chamber. Koleg picked up his pistol and put a trio of controlled bursts into the clusters of armed figures.

Gas dispersion would take twelve seconds in this space, air saturation thirty. He moved down the stairs, pistol tracking threat markers, his left hand pulling a chrome-and-black disc from a pouch across his chest. The disc was a little wider than his palm with raised circles of shining metal. He stopped and placed it on the metal gantry floor. It locked in place with a magnetic thump.

Black-and-red-streaked fog filled the chamber now. The screaming had started: one voice and then a second, and then a chorus. It was not the sound of panic, but pure human terror. The gas was at saturation, one half hallucinogen, the other half a fear inducer that the prosecutors of the Adeptus Arbites gave the simple name of ‘scare’. The effect on anyone who breathed it was to make the nightmares of the subconscious real, while plunging them into the most intense fight or flight response. The red-and-black colouring was simply for the spectacle.

A fat man in a gown of yellow and blue burst from the fog, hands ripping at his own face. Koleg blew the man’s head to mist with a stutter of micro-rounds.

Koleg looked at the controls strapped to his wrist, and keyed a command. The disc on the floor extended upwards, rings telescoping to sections of a long silver rod. They split and branched, until a metre-high tree of gleaming chrome stood amidst the murk. Tiny blue crystal spheres tipped every twig. Even the most exalted of magi amongst the priests of Mars would have struggled to recognise the device or its purpose. Koleg keyed a second command and sparks began to run up and down the silver rods.

The sounds of screaming were getting louder. He paused, listening to their pitch rise as they echoed and shattered against the temple’s roof. It was not that he was indifferent to the sounds – he knew the emotional content they denoted – he just felt nothing. That was the gift they had given him in exchange for his service. To pass through a universe where even happiness held the seed of sorrow, and feel nothing.

He holstered his pistol and took the spool of micro wire rope from a pouch, locked it to the edge of the gantry, and then clipped its end to a loop on the back of his harness. The tree-like device was sparking. Motes of light grew in each of the blue spheres. A shimmering haze surrounded it. Koleg drew his hand cannon, keyed the last command on the wrist controls and jumped into the red-and-black-swirled air.

He fell, the wire rope coiling behind him. The guns were heavy weights in his hands.

‘Why does it fly so high?’ asked a voice that came from the still depths of his mind. ‘Why doesn’t it keep lower?’

‘So it can see the world.’

‘All of it?’

A small face looking up, wide eyes under a frown.

‘As good as all of it, yes.’

‘I want to be a hawk.’

He had laughed.

‘Maybe you will be…’

And above them the hawk had turned in a cloudless sky.

SIGNIFIER 2

‘Faith is a powerful thing,’ said the voice from the chapel door.

‘Is it?’ asked Koleg, without looking around.

The candle burned in front of his eyes. He had not looked up from it since he had entered the chapel. That had been six hours ago, and the candle had burned to almost a nub. The commissars and warders of the prefectus would find him soon enough. He had not made it hard for them to find him. Once they did there would be pain and then… nothing.

‘In another context that question would be heresy,’ said the voice. ‘But I am sure that the punishments don’t hold much fear for you, now.’

Koleg looked around then.

The man standing behind him wore grey robes, without mark or ornamentation. His face was dagger-sharp beneath his hood. He looked something like a priest and a lot like a killer.

‘Who are you?’

‘I am your confessor.’

‘Did they send you?’

‘If you mean the commissars and your superior officers, then no, they did not.’

‘Who then?’

‘A higher power, shall we say.’

Koleg grunted and looked back at the candle. He did not have the energy to think about why the man who dressed like a priest, and talked like something else, was there. It just meant that the end was coming, at last.

‘So what happens now?’ asked Koleg, looking back at the candle.

‘You beat your captain to the point that he has only just come out of a coma. There must be a consequence to that action.’

Koleg’s face twitched as the fire rose in him.

‘He should have got the grid coordinates for the fire drop right.’ He turned his gaze on the grey-clad man. He could feel the rage burning behind his eyes. ‘What are the consequences of that?’

The hand was black. The fire had shrunk the skin around the bones, and hooked the fingers into claws, but somehow they still opened to reach for his hand.

‘You…’

The fingers were cold. He looked at them, only at them, and tried not to hear the bubbling gurgle of air sucking into fluid-filled lungs. The inferno bomb had hit just the other side of the wall. The blast had ripped that down and then the liquid fire had drowned the remains. Pools of reeking, jellied promethium sat in depressions still burning with black-edged flames. He had seen corpses as he ran through the ruins – lasgun thumping into his back on its sling – pink mouths open on charred faces, silent amongst the guttering flames. 

‘You… are…’ said the face that he could not look at.

‘I am here, Kesh,’ he said. Somehow the words were not a scream. He still did not look up at his brother’s face.

Kesh jerked, a huge swallow of air sucking into his lungs and crackling back out.

‘You…’ he began, but the words never followed.

The man in grey held Koleg’s gaze.

‘Regiments are raised to fight, soldiers to die. They are not meant to live, they are not meant to be family.’

Koleg’s muscles bunched, the rush of fresh anger feeling cold in his guts, like water, like cold rain. The man gave the smallest shake of his head, and somehow that movement was enough to freeze Koleg to the pew. The man stood up and moved around to the shrine that Koleg’s votive candle burned on. A statue of the Emperor as judge gleamed in the flame light, its features lost under layers of gold leaf.

‘What do you pray for?’ asked the man, his voice soft.

‘I don’t,’ said Koleg. ‘I ask Him why He did this.’

The man in grey took an unlit candle from the box beside the shrine, and lit it from Koleg’s flame.

‘Because we are made by suffering,’ said the man.

Koleg was silent for a second, and then felt his mouth open.

‘I just… I just want not to feel that any more.’

The man in grey turned to look at him, candlelight dancing in hard eyes.

‘That prayer, my son, is one that can be granted.’

MISSION TIME STAMP 01:43:05

The floor of the cavern shot up towards Koleg as he fell. Above him, the neuro-disruptor reached full charge. A ball of actinic lightning formed around it, held in place for an instant and then burst outwards. The pulse shivered through the temple. Exotic energies poured into toxin-laden synapses. It was a simple method, really. The gas mix created fear and altered perception. The neuro-disruptor took those nerve signals and shaped them into violent panic and paranoia. The aim was not just to kill; it was to make the targets tear each other apart. Pulses of grey, blue and white noise filled Koleg’s ears as the disruptor energies washed through him. Motes of pain flared behind his eyes, but he felt only the steady beat of his heart as he fell. They had cut out the strings on which emotion played its song, leaving only echoes.

He could see figures hacking and tearing at each other on the cavern floor beneath him. One of them looked up, eyes bloodshot above a bloody snarl. The wire rope snapped taut. Koleg jerked to a stop, brought the hand cannon up and fired, three times. Three figures fell. He released the wire rope and dropped the last metre, spraying a long burst from the macrostubber in a circle around him. The gun clicked empty.

Koleg rose to his feet. A figure came out of the fog to his right, screaming, a bloody length of pipe raised above its head. Koleg put a hand cannon shell into its chest.

He looked down.

Three circular hatches stuck with prayer papers formed a triangle on the floor. Motes of lurid green light were bubbling and bursting through the metal. Koleg felt a greasy pressure slide over his scalp. This was the one facet of the mission that he could not leave to chance. The psykers held by the cult would not have been able to inhale the gas, but they would have felt the neuro-pulse. Fear like that was a dangerous thing to inflict on a tortured soul whose thoughts could break reality.

He unfastened the krak charges from his waist and clamped the first one to a hatch. It armed with a dull chime. The floor began to shake. Ozone filled his nose inside his mask. Another charge clamped in place. The arming runes glowed amber at the edge of his sight.

Pain sliced across his right side. He pitched forwards, twisting, hearing the buzz and crack of the round that had gouged across his shoulder. A figure in bloody robes staggered closer, blood leaking from a torn face, a slug pistol clutched in its hands. The barrel swung towards Koleg.

The floor hatch just behind the figure exploded upwards. Arcs of ghost light crawled through the air. The figure with the pistol twisted, as a shape rose from the broken hatch. Blood-streaked amnion fell from it. Wasted limbs scrabbled at the floor. A corona of pale light pulsed around its head. The hatch ring glowed and blackened under its touch.

Pain filled Koleg’s eyes as he looked at the psyker. The floor was buckling. Heat ringed the other two hatches. The psyker opened its toothless mouth and howled.

And the world vanished into the past.

SIGNIFIER 3

The sun was high and he was laughing, Kesh running a pace behind him. High above, the hawk turned in the cold dawn air. They should not have been out, but had sneaked from the house while the sun was just a golden blush beyond the mountains, the heat of the day still to soak into the stones of the streets. Their mother and father had been asleep, and had not stirred as Koleg pulled open the door on the hawk house. Kesh had fitted the red hood over the hawk’s head as he took it from the cage. It had settled onto Koleg’s leather-wrapped arm, and kept still as they walked through the night-stilled streets to the edge of the settlement and up onto the hills. They had sung as they ran, the old nonsense rhyme remembered since the crib:

‘Oh-ho, ho-nooo…

Which one did we know…

Knowww… ho…’

On and on in the sleep-rocked rhythm of the childhood they thought they had outgrown. They ran all the way until the town was laid out beneath them, its off-white buildings clustered around the aquila-capped spire.

When he took the hood from the hawk’s head, it had given a sharp cry, stretched its wings and taken to the air. He had watched it, and laughed with joy as it had returned to his call, and then cast it back into the air, and they had run to track its shadow.

Kesh had stopped suddenly.

‘You hear that?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Koleg, ‘hear what?’

Then he had heard it too. Kesh had pointed, and Koleg had seen the black dot on the lightening horizon. He had stared at that dot for a long minute, watching as one became two, became half a dozen. The drone of engines threaded the air. Lights lit in the town, and then he heard the blare of sirens. He stood for a second, frozen, the hawk crying as it wheeled above him. He began to run. Kesh followed an instant later. They were still running, feet stumbling on the rocky hillside as the first bombs began to fall.

MISSION TIME STAMP 01:47:26

The flare of explosions died in his eyes. He was lying on the metal floor. The psyker’s howl faded as it pulled the last of itself out of its prison. Koleg looked into its cataract-clogged eyes. It was shivering. Desperate. Terrified. The halo of ghost light above its head grew. Koleg raised his gun. It opened its mouth. He fired.

He pulled himself up. Blood flowed down his coat from his shoulder. The pain was bright, but he kept moving. Frost rimed the floor around the two remaining hatches. Above and around him rose the sound of the Seekers of Incandescent Truth slaughtering themselves. He blanked the pain in his shoulder, reattached the steel rope. He keyed his wrist controls. The air above the floor shimmered, greasy, fizzing with bubbles of light. The charge runes in his helmet display blinked green.

He triggered the explosives at the same moment as the cable recoil. The wire rope yanked him into the air as the krak charges on the hatches blew. Fire flashed through the smog of gas as Koleg rose.

In a closing box in the back of his mind, the memory of explosions rising into the blue sky shrank beneath the eye of a circling hawk.

SIGNIFIER 0

The lid of the casket closed and locked. Koleg unfolded a green tarpaulin and spread it across the floor of the cell. He began to strip the macrostubber. His eyes noted the dust and soot on each component as he laid it beside the others. The grenade launcher and hand cannon would come next, and then he would check over the neuro-disruptor. Everything would be mission-ready within the hour. Viola was watching him from by the door, turning the data-stub from his mask over in her fingers. He did not return her look.

‘Any problems?’ she asked.

He split the firing block and laid the parts out, cold metal under his fingers. The light feathered from the oiled edges, and for a second became the sun behind a spreading wing.

‘Koleg…?’

‘Yes, Mistress von Castellan.’

‘There were no problems?’

‘The mission was completed. The full details are in your hand. If you need further clarification I am happy to provide it, but anything I can add might be more relevant after you have reviewed the mission capture.’

A frown pinched her forehead for a second, but then she nodded and opened the door.

‘Mistress Viola,’ he said as she was stepping through the cell door. She paused and half turned. He looked up at her, fingers still moving to break apart the macrostubber.

‘Yes?’

‘There were no problems.’

‘Thank you, Koleg,’ she said.

She made her face smile and then closed the door.

On the cell floor Koleg began to clean the pieces of the pistol. Behind his eyes he remembered hawk feathers beneath a high sun, and candle flame, and felt nothing at all.

THE FATHER OF FAITH

‘There is nothing worse than realising that one’s father is mortal, and flawed, and always was.’

– from the Life of Sebastian Thor,
proscribed as a Heretical text circa M37

You know what I can’t stand?

Quiet. Too much silence and I find myself wishing for the rattle of a chain or the hum of a machine, or the sound of footsteps. Just goes to show, doesn’t it, enough of anything and you can get used to it.

I find myself coming down here more and more recently. Here, down in the dark stirred by the old machine heart of the Dionysia, time seems to mean less. The past seems closer and the future a little further away. I am called Josef Khoriv, preacher of the Imperial Creed, sometime drill abbot to the schola progenium, Inquisitorial servant, and mostly just Josef to those that know me.

I am old. I can still move, and there is still enough strength in my arms to wield a hammer, and my wits are only as dull as they ever were. But being old is not just about muscle and brains. It’s about how much you have seen pass, about how much you remember and regret is in the past. Everything comes back around eventually. Live long enough and you see the truth of the past wearing the face of lies in the present.

In truth I don’t know exactly how old I am. The years weren’t counted in the sump of the hive where I was born, and the birth of another screaming human was no more marked than the sound of a bullet passing. You aged in scars down there, and I have enough that I think I must have been barely an adult when the Navy press-gangs came. I fought them; we all did. They were all in heavy ballistic coats with scales of bronze. And they were vicious bastards. I remember that one of my gang brothers got a knife in under the visor of one of them. Didn’t manage to cut the throat but it spoilt the press-ganger’s face. They didn’t like that. They had shock-mauls to break bones and knock us senseless, but the one who had been cut flicked the power on his maul all the way up, and the next blow crumpled my brother’s chest like cheap tin. They kept hitting until there was just pulped meat.

We didn’t know why they wanted us or where they would take us. So we fought. I lost. Strange to think now, but those press-gangers in their coats of scale bronze were a form of salvation. The Emperor moves in ways that we cannot always see or understand, and the tools He uses are mysterious. That was the start, the first step on the road to where I am now. It has not been a good life, but it has mattered. I hope it has mattered.

Why am I talking about this? Why now, alone down here in the dark and quiet of a ship’s hold, am I talking to the dark about something so long ago that it might as well have happened to a different person?

Because sometimes you don’t know what things mean until later.

The message came for me as I laboured in the Dionysia’s training hall. Two of the von Castellan household guards were doing their best to try and beat me down with small shock shields and heavy Naval cutlasses. I, old man that I am, had chosen an old man’s weapon, and had been holding them at bay with a five-foot staff of metal-capped wood. Time was when I would have just gone at them with armour gauntlets and aggression. Not now, though. Part of the thing about time is that it teaches you to change. I am slower, fatter and wiser than when I was young, so I now use a stick in these bouts and let the young try and kill me. All of them had bloody lips and faces. I was sweating.

It was Covenant, my master, who brought the message. I did not see him enter. One of the household guards had just strung together a clever series of feints with shield and blade. I ducked the last cut and stepped in as the shield edge slammed towards my face. My staff took the trooper’s legs out from under him and sent him tumbling to the floor. I hit the butt of the stick into his helm and brought it up just in time to strike another of them in the gut as they came at me. Both guards staggered, and the other end of the staff cracked across each of their heads. The klaxon sounded to signal the end of the bout. I reached down to help the two troopers up off the floor. I was breathing hard, but I was grinning. The Emperor, high and beneficent that He is, may forgive me for taking pleasure in what is duty, but I do love to fight. You might think that the life I have led would have made combat a grim necessity, but it has never been like that for me. Fighting is a joy, and one that has been mine since I can remember.

The household troopers pulled their helmets free. Both returned my grins, but then their eyes caught sight of something behind me and both snapped to attention, heads bowed. I looked around. Covenant walked from the edge of the training room. He wore dark grey robes like those of an adept or an official of the Adeptus Terra, but without symbol or rank.

‘Lord,’ I said and bowed my own head briefly. ‘How may I serve?’ He did not look at me but gestured at the troopers to leave. I waited until they had gone before talking again. ‘Has something happ–’

‘Abernath has been sanctioned for heresy. He is being held on the Ecclesiarchy sanctuary at Bakka.’

I must confess that for a moment I could not answer. It was as though I had been struck over the head with an iron-tipped staff instead of the troopers.

‘What are the charges?’

‘Heresy and blasphemy,’ said Covenant. ‘One of my agents in the Bakka power complex sent the information as part of a wider operation.’

I nodded slowly, part of my mind parsing Covenant’s words. The rest… the rest was trying to find footing in a world that had tilted over on its axis.

‘Thank you, Lord…’ I managed to say, hearing my own voice. It sounded frayed. ‘Heresy… how? I–’

‘We are going to Bakka,’ said Covenant.

That cleared the fog fast. I looked at my master, frowning. ‘Lord…’

‘You should see him. If we can arrive in time you shall see him.’

I held Covenant’s gaze for a moment then. All my life has been service. First that service had a sound and weight, the links of chains rattling across the gun decks, dragged by muscle. Then it was the roar of the gun and the heft of cutlass and pike. Now it is the measure in words and choices, and in the will of one man. Covenant, cold as the edge of a sword, unflinching as the fall of a hammer. Those who have met him see the power he wields and perhaps the majesty of the office he holds: the manifest will of the God Emperor that humanity endure through the dark of our futures. He is a soul of control and supreme will. He is, and always will be, my friend. But he is not kind.

‘As you say, my lord,’ I said at last, then turned and left without another word.

Cardinal Abernath did not start out as he would end. None of us do. We look at great women and men and imagine that they must have always been so, that they leapt into being haloed by the greatness they would achieve. But we are all born, all shaped in the same flesh, and breathe and scream and laugh alike. The choices that we take may lead to sainthood or damnation, but we walk the road of those choices from the same low place.

Before the titles, and the honours, and the gilding of history written by those who were not there, Abernath was different. We both were.

It is difficult for those who have never served on a warship to know how much of life is ruled by sound. Down in the fume-filled decks and the reeking companionways there are no suns or stars or moons to divide time into days. Up on the command decks they might follow day and night watches and dim the lamps when the false night comes, but down beneath their feet a watch is just a bell that echoes through the gloom. Days are divided by the soundings of those bells, disaster marked by the cry of the klaxon, and the heartbeat of the world by the growl of machines and the rattling of chains.

I should have seen it coming. I had grown up in the bloody bowels of a hive, and the chain decks of a warship were not that much different; the mistakes that got you killed were just the same: little things, not paying attention, thinking you were safe, not seeing the knife coming until it was too late.

There were gangs down on the decks. No surprise really; there are gangs everywhere. Regiments, divisios, creeds, ordos, convents: in a way the whole of the Imperium is just like a hive gang stretched out across stars and billions of souls. On a loading deck, the gangs are divided by the chains they pull. Everybody on a chain belongs to that chain, there is no other way or option. There are dozens of chains, some with links as thick as your arm. The bigger the chain, the heavier, the bigger the gang and the stronger each soul on it. The names of the gangs came from the chains: the Blessed from the Blessed Emperor chain, the Iron Children from the Iron Eternal chain, the Kindly Ones from the Kindness of Service chain, on and on, dozens of them, all loathing each other with the strength that only humans can muster.

I had been an Iron Child since I went to the decks. It was one of the biggest chains and we had dominance over half the deck and a bunch of the lower decks too. I was a gang boss. I had reputation and a little power, all earned in the battles that washed through the decks. That was how you made your way up – by spilling the blood of others. Like I said, not much different from anywhere else, really. But there had not been a deck war for a while, not a full-blown fight. And peace breeds complacency.

I did not see it coming. I was on my own, a bad idea to start with, but I was in Iron Children territory by the main shell hoist, so I did not think there was anything to watch out for. I turned the corner into a companion way and ran straight into the point of a knife. The kid holding it just stood there, pale, shaking with terror at what she had just done, her blade in my guts up to the hilt, blood leaking out onto her fingers. For a second I just stood there, too, gawping at the kid. She had the open hand tattoos of one of the Kindly Ones on her arms. Cold was radiating through my guts. She jerked the knife, tried to pull it free, trying to stab me again. My hand clamped on her arm. She tried to twist free. The world was a smudged blur. I took a step forwards, stumbled and the gang-girl let go of the knife. Her face was a pale smear in my sight. I was falling, any word or cry just a gurgle in my throat. Just like that… just like the cord holding me up had been cut.

We are fragile things. You can be as strong as you like and something catches you in just the wrong place and you fall like a stone. We are like that, full of weaknesses that can kill us.

I remember things becoming very soft, sound and sight just running out like rope unravelling… I didn’t even fight it. I knew that I was dying but I didn’t fight. I think I found the thought peaceful. Just let things happen… no point any more, if there ever had been in the first place…

‘Come on now,’ said a man’s voice very close by. I tried to look up, to get up, to fight whoever this new enemy was. I did not move. Blurs of colour filled my eyes. I had not realised how little I could move, or how much blood I must have lost. ‘Good, very good – still fighting. You know for a moment you had me worried – even chance they did not hit anything really vital. The Emperor is fond of the dead, but prefers it if dying meant something, you know?’ said the voice. I wanted to say something but cold was creeping though me.

‘Over here!’ I heard the voice call. ‘Over here, you cursed sons and daughters of idiots, get him up, we have not got long – most of him is swimming on this deck!’

I think I remember hands lifting me, and then nothing much of anything.

I woke in a space that smelled of raw meat and sweat. I woke with a ball of pain where my stomach had been. I roared, a full-voiced cry that rolled with the agony and anger.

‘I wouldn’t do that,’ said the voice from close by, and somehow the sound – calm, sincere but somehow casual – made the shout wither to a croak in my throat. I looked around. I was in a butcher-brig. That was what the medicae wings for the higher-rated crew were called. They earned the name, too. There was not much tenderness in a butcher-brig, just a lot of blood, screams, and the sound of the bone saws. More people died in them than were saved by them, but their kind of care was more than you got on a loading deck. There you didn’t even get a chance to see if you could survive the treatment. How I had ended up here, I didn’t know, but there I was, strapped down to a cot. A mass of blood-stained cloth covered my gut.

A man with a black robe, its collar and cuffs edged by white checks, stood beside me. His face was narrow and solemn, his hair cut into an untidy tonsure. Beyond him I could see others lying on cots similar to mine. The walls were a mottled, gloss red. Wide drains with grille covers dotted the floor.

‘Quiet times in here…’ said the man following my gaze around the room. ‘Just the injured from a bilge riot and the usual set of accidents that seem to befall so many on a ship even when it’s not at war.’

I began to thrash around, trying to reach the buckles of the straps holding me down.

‘Don’t do that,’ said the man in robes, looking back to me. ‘There are a reasonable number of people with guns in this place, and most of them are not happy I brought you here. The rest of them are even less happy that you look like surviving that puncture in your gut. Give them too much of an excuse and I think they will ask for the God Emperor’s forgiveness rather than my permission to put a bullet in you.’

‘You’re…’ I began, putting together the man’s words and appearance. ‘You’re a script-monger. A cursed script-monger.’

‘I am a priest in the service of the God-Emperor of Mankind, yes.’

‘Why… why did you take me, priest?’

He blinked once and frowned, but his gaze held steady on me.

‘I have a calling,’ he said at last. ‘I save those I can. That is my purpose, my sacred duty.’

‘So you go looking for the dying on the low decks and see if they can be saved, is that it?’

He did not even blink.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘So,’ I said, ‘you think that the Em-per-or, high and all mighty, has a use for me?’

‘You’re alive, aren’t you? That’s an indication, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t–’ I began, but he held up a finger. Even then, I had seen a lot of life’s crueller edge. I had seen someone kiss a hammer that had just crushed a friend’s skull. I had heard people make threats that I knew were red truth, and gone to greet them with a knife and a grin anyway. I had looked down the barrel of guns and wondered if they would bring the end at last. I had done all this, and yet that simple raised finger stopped the words before they could get free of my teeth.

‘You are here for a reason,’ he said. ‘Just as I am, just as we all are. Think about that. I have taken twenty-four souls on the edge of death just like you. All died. You show every sign of surviving. That means that the Emperor may see more worth in you than you believe.’

‘So? I am going to become some chosen saint or powerful lord, is that it?’

The man smiled.

‘Many amongst my brethren would take that as heresy, or at the very least blasphemy. Luckily, I am more forgiving. And, no, I had rather more modest thoughts for your future.’

‘Yeah, like what?’

‘You are good at killing people, I can tell. And although you have a hole in you, most of you seems to be muscle. The Emperor has use for many types of instruments, but for now you might serve him well by defending this ship, by being one of those that keeps it and all the people on it safe.’

‘An armsman?’ I asked, and I confess that there was surprise in my voice. The contingents of armsmen on a warship came in many types and qualities, but they were several cuts above the chain haulers on the gundecks. Better food, a real berth, guns and armour and rank… all the good stuff. ‘They don’t take gun-deck scum.’

‘I have an understanding with the master-lieutenant-at-arms for the mid-port decks. He will take you.’

‘And what do you want from me?’

‘Nothing… well, maybe that you listen to me if I am passing by.’

I nodded slowly.

‘All right,’ I said at last.

The man smiled, and then stood. A haloed skull set in a bronze ‘I’ swung around his neck as he moved. He caught it and kissed it, bowed his head and then closed his eyes for a second as though in thanks.

‘What is your name?’ he asked when he opened his eyes.

‘You don’t even know who you…’ I began, and then stopped. ‘Josef, my name is Josef.’

‘Blessings to you, Josef. I am Abernath.’ And he put his hand on my shoulder, and nodded. ‘I believe that you might have much to give the Emperor.’

The Dungeon of the Doubted was designed in every way to make those who entered it feel the gaze of judgement they were under. Set at the hub of the wheel-shaped star station that housed the Ecclesiarchy enclave in the port system of Bakka, it was a form of torture just to walk its halls. All the corridors were narrow but the walls soared up to many times a human’s height. Images of penance and excruciation covered the ceilings, the eyes of the sinners and sufferers painted so that they followed those who passed beneath. Worse though was the light.

Illumination blazed from hundreds of candles and glow globes hung from every wall and ceiling. The light poured across the statues of blind angels that looked down on the chambers and corridors. There were no shadows to hide sin in such places, that is what they said. I have always found sin more ingenious than we give it credit for. The guards were robed in white and the lower portion of their faces hidden by iron masks in the shape of pleading mouths. Dark goggles protected their eyes from days spent in the endless light. They carried short metal staffs capped with clenched steel hands cast in iron. Keys and lengths of chain clinked at their waists. Technically none of them were part of the Ecclesiarchy. The old prohibition against the Ministorum keeping men under arms meant that the guards were lay brothers, followers of the faith rather than part of the priesthood. Most would be veterans of the Astra Militarum, Navy, or arbitrators, and they had taken oaths to imprison members of the priesthood accused of heresy or crimes against the Imperial creed. It was a duty they took with the utmost seriousness.

Here, in small cells, members of the Ecclesiarchy who might have strayed were kept confined. It was not a gentle place. The Imperium is an empire of faith, and the Ecclesiarchy is the keeper of that faith. The Emperor is not only god but also the Imperium. To stray, to become doubted, is not just to fail in the eyes of the Emperor, but to wound Him. At least, that is how the argument runs.

I walked alone through the dungeon. I wore the robes that marked me as a drill abbot attached to the schola progenium, but around my neck hung a tri-barred ‘I’ worked in copper that was the symbol of the Inquisition. I carried a great hammer across my shoulders as was my right by rank and role. No one tried to stop me. Covenant had sent word and his symbol around my neck was enough to answer any questions the guards had about my being there. Plasteel doors opened before I reached them, and guards stepped aside without a word. Occasionally I heard a cry or moan echoing down one the corridors. I glowered at the guards as I passed. I am not a believer in unthinking judgement or cruelty. The more I have seen of the true face of the universe and all that threatens mankind, the less I find I can stomach the pettiness of most cruelty.

At last I reached a corridor that had only a single door set in its far wall. A stone angel with a blindfold and sword sat above the door, serene in grey, veined marble. The guards at this door bore power maces and wore heavy silver plate. They bowed their heads as I approached. I did not return the gesture.

‘Open it,’ I said. They paused for an instant and then slotted long keys into two keyholes in the door. Mechanisms released with a thump of oiled metal and turning cogs, and the door hinged open. If the light in the corridors of the dungeon was blinding, then looking into the cell was like looking into a sun. Mirrors covered each wall and stab lights shone from the corners and ceiling. A man sat in the centre of the floor, his hands covering his eyes, manacles circling his wrists, chains running to cleats in the floor. I looked at him for a long moment.

‘Shut the lights off,’ I said. The guards shifted, hesitated. ‘Shut them off. Now.’

The lights in the cell cut out. The man on the floor did not move. His hands were still covering his face.

‘Give me a candle,’ I said. The guards hesitated again. ‘That one will do.’ I jerked a hand at a candle held in the hands of a sculpted cherub projecting from the wall next to the door. They handed it to me, and I stepped into the now-dark cell. The door closed behind me, and I heard the locks turn. The man on the floor flinched, but did not take his hands from his face. Carefully I set down the hammer and then the candle.

‘Your eminence,’ I said. Still he did not move. ‘Lord Cardinal…’ Gently I bent down and put my hand on his arm. ‘Abernath?’

He looked at me, then, or tried to. The light in the cell must have bleached his sight enough that he was halfway to blindness. He blinked as the small light of the candle touched his eyes. Moisture began to stream from their corners. He looked old, I thought, old, drained and with the hard edges exposed. I had not seen him for three decades, and he had not been young even when I saw him last. But what I saw in his face was not about time.

‘Josef?’ he said.

‘Yes, your eminence. It’s me.’

‘Why are you here?’

‘As your confessor, as your friend,’ I said. He let out a sigh, closed his eyes.

‘There is no helping me, my son, not now.’

I felt words of reassurance come to my lips, facts about the power that might be brought to bear on his behalf. I closed my mouth and my eyes moved over his face, reading the lines of expression beneath the wrinkles. I met his gaze.

That is the thing about serving the Inquisition; you never see the world, nor any of the people in it, in the same way again. Hardening, loss of innocence, true perception, it’s all the same, and utterly irreversible. An old soldier call Ianthe once told me that. She was not wrong.

‘Why can’t you be saved?’ I asked Cardinal Abernath, holding his gaze.

He gave a small, sad smile, and looked away.

‘Because I am guilty,’ he said.

I am not an inquisitor, though I have known many. Their burden is not one that I could shoulder. Their job is to look into the eyes of anyone they meet – ally, enemy, heretic and penitent – and weigh what they see against the survival of mankind. I believe that the human soul is flawed and dangerous and radiant and majestic, and I could not balance that against the weight of the future. Do not mistake me; I am a killer, I am a soldier, but I am a priest first, and while some see the God-Emperor we serve as filled with vengeance, I know His wrath as righteousness not rage, His power as a shield against the dark. I believe. I do not judge.

‘Are you shocked?’ asked Abernath.

‘I… I do not know,’ I replied carefully. Abernath nodded.

‘I could not tell,’ he said. ‘You have changed, Josef.’

‘Not really,’ I replied flatly.

‘You have,’ said Abernath, and looked up at me. He smiled, a genuine smile that you could barely see the sadness in. ‘A bit of distance, a bit of coldness, a bit of knowing that you are going to be careful what you say now, that you can’t just trust me like you used to.’ He motioned to the Inquisitorial symbol hanging from my neck. ‘It is a heavy thing to bear and a heavier thing to live with.’ He let his hand fall, looked at me, still smiling, and shrugged. ‘It’s good to see you, Josef. Truly, it is.’

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘Haven’t you read the rote of charges?’ he asked. ‘The Court of Purity of Bakka might resent Inquisitorial interference, but it won’t hinder it. Everything I have done, everything for which I will be punished, is in there, neat and true.’

‘What happened?’ I asked again. In truth, I had read the rote several times, dissected it with Viola, filtering the formulae of language for edges of inconsistency. We had found none. But written words are not the same as those spoken from a mouth.

‘I had a revelation, Josef,’ he said, and twitched, face twisting in pain as he held his side. I moved forward, but he held up his hand, shaking his head. ‘Age, my son, age and sitting in chains on a cold floor. It will pass.’

I waited. After a minute his face unknotted.

‘Revelation, Josef. The accounts in the Creed are wrong about it, you know – it is not like fire or like lightning or like anything so much as waking up.’

‘You were on Dominicus Prime, weren’t you?’

‘Ah, so you have read a little at least. Yes, I was on Dominicus, a grand visit as part of a circuit of the sector worlds…’

He trailed off.

‘Tell me,’ I said. ‘I have come a long way, old friend.’

He shivered, nodded, and carried on.

‘It was half a decade in the planning and ten years to complete. There had been a growing tide of incidents in the worlds of the Caradryad Sector. Not a sudden surge of heresy but a gradual rise in the level of fear, and with it followed the two handmaids of that shadow – violence and rebellion. False prophets, stories of saints and resurrections, and omens of doom and ending, in dreams and in words shouted to the ears of crowds. But of course you know this better than I do.’

He paused and licked his lips. They were cracked and dry. I handed him a flask of water that I carried on my belt. He took a short swallow.

‘It had been thought that a grand tour of faith would pour water on the kindling before it caught aflame. So I and five hundred confessors, preachers, bishops and sundry others set out across the stars with an army of attendants and a treasury of relics. We arrived on worlds like an invasion. Processions bore the relics we had brought with us through the streets, crowds gathered, incense smoke clouded the sky and shouts of devotion broke over us. On over a dozen worlds it had been so. Then we came to Dominicus Prime, most holy, most blessed, where the world itself is given to nothing other than faith. The plains were covered with pilgrims as our landers took us to the surface. You could see them, a sea of people looking up to the sky…

‘They had prepared a dais – a huge block of tiered stone and metal. It alone was the size of a Battle Titan. Huge carved faces of the oldest saints covered its sides. Rose petals and leaves of gold wafer fell in a deluge from the holes that were their eyes. As I stepped onto the platform to speak the first blessing, the crowd fell to its knees and I heard the first word from my mouth roll across the land like thunder… Quite a feeling. You should feel humble in such moments. You are the voice of the Emperor’s divinity, a conduit for His truth. You are small, but at your back you should feel the weight of His presence.

‘It happened then. I was looking out and my eye caught one of the crowd, a woman. She was dying. She was on her knees and she was trying to raise her head, trying to look up at me, but there was blood on her chin and on her robes, and I don’t know how but I knew that this was the last inch of her life. She had spent everything in her body to bring herself to this point. To see me. And as I looked at her…’

Abernath paused then. His gaze had gone to the candle, and his eyes seemed both deep and far away.

‘I saw something… No, that’s not right – I didn’t see. For an instant I was somewhere.’

The sound of his voice raised the hairs on my arm. I have seen saints and daemons and heard prophecies and felt eternity’s breath close. But those words brought a chill to my flesh that I cannot explain. I did not speak. Part of me did not want him to carry on. But he did.

‘I was standing in a city. It was like nothing I had ever seen, vast in a way that I felt rather than saw. Statues and buildings rose as mountains. Streets were canyons. It was magnificent and humbling and ruined. Towers lay toppled. Rubble covered the roads and dry bones clustered under coverings of ash. Dust blew through it, billowing in rust-coloured clouds. And I could feel the wind and the dead coldness of the air. I have seen nothing more terrifying in my life, and… and I knew it was real.’

He stopped then, and I realised he was shaking, his arms wrapped around himself as though to keep warm from a frost that was not there. I did not say anything for a moment. I had heard words like his before and yet still what he said held the breath in my lungs. I had been standing until then, but now I sat on the floor in front of him, close, waiting.

‘Did you know where it was?’ I asked at last.

He did not move for a long minute, just stared into the candle flame. Then he nodded slowly.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I think so.’

I nodded once. I knew too. I had heard a dying witch once gasp out words that could have been pulled from Abernath’s mouth. The Desolate City, that was what Argento, Covenant’s one-time master, had called it, an echo of what would be and a reflection of a terrible truth. A dream place, a place that existed only in moments of revelation.

‘Was there anything else?’ I asked carefully.

‘Yes,’ said Abernath quietly, and there was moisture on his cheeks once again. ‘There was a voice.’

‘What did it say?’

‘It said…’ He shook like a parchment taper caught in the wind. ‘It was calling out… It was in pain. I felt… pain. Terrible pain.’

‘And?’

‘I cannot go on,’ said Abernath, and he was very still now, eyes hollow. ‘That’s what it said. I cannot go on.’

‘And you saw who was speaking?’

The nod was so small it was almost imperceptible.

‘Tell me,’ I said, and saw him flinch and his head almost shake in refusal. Then he spoke.

‘There was a… figure… a figure sat on a stone chair in the middle of the city.’

‘No,’ I said gently. ‘It wasn’t a chair, was it?’

He shook his head then, eyes closed in pain as if the thought held in his head was burning him.

‘It was a throne,’ he said. ‘Forgive me, but it was a throne. The voice, it… He said He could not go on…’

I sat back, closed my own eyes, and listened to the man who had given me the greatest gifts of my life sob quietly.

‘You spoke about what you had seen,’ I said. It was not a question; I knew he had. I had read the full evidence, even the parts that would be withheld from the Court of Purity.

‘Not then. I blinked and the city vanished and I was on the dais on Dominicus Prime and there were hundreds of thousands of eyes all turned to me… I collapsed. When I recovered I–’

‘You spoke to Confessor Nissena, then to Gardula. You preached, Abernath. To small groups, you started to preach about what you had seen.’

‘The storms had come – ships lost, dreams and wild omens and darkness eating the stars, and I knew. I knew it was because of what I had seen.’

‘And what had you seen?’ I asked.

Abernath looked away, down at his hands.

‘The truth,’ he said.

‘What truth?’

‘The God-Emperor is dying.’

Saints preserve me, to hear it from his lips was like a blow.

‘A heresy black enough to stain the soul, and spoken from your lips enough to strip the faith of billions…’ I said.

‘Faith only matters if it is true, Josef, you remember that. You knew that.’

‘I know that still,’ I said.

‘I envy you.’

The quiet came then, falling between us and folding over us as we sat on the floor next to the candle. I spoke at last, the words heavy as they came to my tongue.

‘There is something I have to ask you, old friend.’

‘They will punish him,’ I said. ‘He is guilty. He knows it. He just wishes it to be over.’

Covenant gave a single nod of acknowledgement.

I let out a breath and rubbed a hand over my eyes. It was an old hand. There were wrinkles under the patterns of scars and tattoos.

We were on the Dionysia. The ship had docked with the Ecclesiarchy enclave, and I had returned to it from the Dungeon of the Doubted to find Covenant waiting for me. We talked alone, the silver and gold death masks of enemies and allies watching us from where they hung on wood-panelled walls.

‘He is in pain,’ I said.

‘The weight of guilt?’ asked Covenant.

‘No, the weight of what he thinks he knows. It is a terrible thing when partial truth meets faith.’

‘You have endured,’ said Covenant.

I gave a snort of laughter.

‘I am a simple soul, lord. Bluntness has its benefits.’

Covenant raised an eyebrow. On the desk beside him the brass arms of a small fabricator array spun and wove around a bronze disc. The cable linking the machine to the mind-impulse plug in the back of Covenant’s skull hung down his back like a chromed plait of hair. Micro las-burners and grinders sent sparks and metallic dust into the air in a fine, glittering shower. The disc was the guard for a sword. Patterns were emerging on the bronze: roses, thorns and birds in flight. I watched the tools do their work for a moment, seeing the deft strokes and forms that came from my master’s hidden thoughts. We are all conflicted souls, all contradictions given flesh; priest and deck-scum, heretic and holy man, executioner and dreamer.

‘You were right,’ I said at last. ‘There was one thing he did not tell the Ecclesiarchy confessors.’ Covenant tilted his head but said nothing, just waited as the arms of the fabricator array danced beside him. He had known this would happen, that there was a shadow of a secret behind Abernath’s heresy. We had not gone to Bakka for the sake of friendship or old times. We were there because of what Abernath had seen in the vision that had broken his faith. We were there because it was one part of an emerging pattern, a great and terrible pattern that might bring humanity to an end.

There are some things that are more important than individuals, more important than one person or the meaning of one life. We have to be more than our own desires, or hopes, or faith. That is what Abernath had given me all those years ago, that is what I believe, and why I had gone to listen to him and asked if there was something he had yet to confess.

‘In his vision of the Desolate City,’ I said, ‘before it vanished from his sight, he told me he heard one more thing.’

Covenant waited. I closed my eyes and gave the slightest shake of the head.

‘You know what they are going to do to you?’ I had asked Abernath.

He had nodded.

‘I know. The punishment is ordained by my sin. And it is a sin, Josef. Though I know you could, I do not want to be saved from what awaits me. I have failed my god.’

‘Not in faith,’ I said gently.

‘No,’ he had replied. ‘But in strength, Josef. I am a weak soul who looked for something stronger than I to give me what I lacked. And then I see the face of all I have believed and I cannot help but despair.’

‘He said that the voice said, “Please… I must be free.”’

The arms of the fabricator array had stopped moving. Covenant sat still, his eyes on me.

‘Dominicus Prime,’ he said carefully. ‘The augurs and signs are circling that place.’

I did not reply. None was needed. There would be steps taken next, checks and information gathered. The signs had been there before and were there again – that the Emperor was seeking a way to walk amongst humanity again. We were chasing living gods again, though whether to find the salvation of all or prevent damnation I could not tell. Others would do that. The pursuit of truth was not what I was there for. I only knew that, the last time, it had ended in suffering and disaster.

‘Are you certain you wish to follow this path, lord?’ I asked.

‘It is demanded of me,’ he replied. ‘I do what I must.’

I nodded. I knew there would be no stopping him. I keep my faith, and always have, even in the face of all I have seen and done. It is my calling. I believe not in purity or righteousness, but that if we follow our purpose then the God-Emperor will work through us. I do not need visions or certainty to know that. I need only to know myself, and do what I can. I need no other proof than I am here, that I have lived this long and continue to serve. My faith is simple, perhaps too simple.

‘Lord,’ I said carefully. ‘Abernath is–’

‘He was a good man,’ said Covenant, before I could unfold the thought in my head. ‘But he is guilty and he goes to his punishment by his will. I will not stand in the way of that. You cannot save him, Khoriv. Nor should you try. Sometimes even the people who raise us up prove unworthy of us.’

I nodded. I knew that would be his answer, just as he knew that I would ask, and had spared me having to speak a plea that he could not grant.

‘I am sorry,’ he said at last. I looked up then and met his eyes. They say you know a soul by its deeds, but you don’t. More is hidden within than we can ever see.

‘Might I ask one thing, then, lord?’ I asked. Covenant nodded. ‘Once the Ecclesiarchy have completed the punishment there is a request you could make, one that they will grant without you having to order it.’

Covenant looked at me for a long moment. On the desk, the fabricator array flickered back into motion.

‘Speak it,’ he said.

The Ecclesiarchy agreed to our request. There was not much they could have done to stop it, but they did not try. The trial was completed and the sentence was passed and carried out.

We collected… it from the dock connected to the Court of Purity. It stood there, docile, fresh blood still weeping from the nails fastening the prayer tapers to its back. Stitches crisscrossed its flesh. Muscle had been grafted under the wrinkled skin, stretching it out like leather pulled taut across a drum head. Injector plugs and drug vials dotted its spine. Its arms hung limp at its sides, metal talons and power-flails dragging on the ground as it shuffled forwards and stopped in front of us. Arco-flagellation, a process and punishment, and a mark of the extent of the kindness of this age. Bits of flesh and humanity hacked out and the simplicity of fury and the peace of hypnosis put in their place.

‘What is he called now?’ I asked.

‘Credo 425,’ said the guard that had brought the creature to us. Its head rose at the sound of its name. A steel visor covered the top half of its face and encircled its skull. Through narrow eye-slits in the metal, I could see pale light flickering across placid, bloodshot eyes. The mouth was open, slack, spit dribbling down its chin. ‘He will respond only to voices that he is imprinted to obey. The helm will keep him docile until the word of waking is spoken to him. He is ready to follow your command, lord.’

‘Give us his words of control,’ said Covenant. The guard held out a sealed scroll. Covenant took it and passed it to me without looking at it. I held it in both hands for a second. Covenant turned and began to walk towards the docking bridge with the Dionysia. I half turned and then looked back at the hunched creature who had been one of the best men I ever knew.

‘Follow,’ I said, my tongue dry, the quiet ringing in my ears. And he followed me, like a child, like a silent, lost child.

THE BLESSING OF SAINTS

‘She was an angel, pure as righteous destruction. She laid low the twisted and lifted the hearts of the righteous. At her passing, a million voices cried out her name. Shall we ever see her like? No, not now, not ever again…’

– Sister Patricia of the Order Famulous,
on the disappearance of Saint Celestine

The three saint-hunters came to the Hill of Brass as the call of hours blared from the vox-towers to greet the sun. They passed through the tangled alleys in a tight group, moving with the flow of foot traffic, the bright colours of their wound robes billowing slightly in the cool dawn breeze. No one they passed spared them a second glance. They were all tall, but that was not uncommon amongst those of the Temple of Plenty; service to the Emperor of Silver and Gold came with an excess of food and better health.

‘Mistress, mistress!’ The call made Idris turn her head. A boy in the off-white wrappings of the work-born was running up behind them, a plate of spice cakes held above his head. Idris felt Covenant tense. The shape of his surface thoughts shifted into hard lines of readiness. The boy slowed as he came level with her. ‘Sweetness for you, mistress,’ said the boy, looking up at her, clever eyes glittering in a wide face.

Idris stopped, and bent to look at the sweet cakes on the plate.

‘How much?’

‘Three coins for each,’ he said, then shot at look at where Covenant and Argento had stopped further up the alley they were climbing. ‘Or five for three.’

+We do not have time for this,+ came Covenant’s thought voice, edged with impatience.

Idris smiled at the boy.

‘Just one,’ she said, and glanced at where Covenant stood, the hood of his red robes shadowing the sharpness of his face. ‘Those two don’t really appreciate sweet things.’

The boy handed her a cake wrapped in paper, took the three small coins and vanished with a grin.

+A little on edge,+ she sent, as they started up the alley.

+If they know we are coming, they will be waiting,+ replied Covenant.

Idris bit into the spice cake. It was warm, and tasted of honey.

+Would you have preferred me to shoot him?+ she said.

+Enough.+ Argento’s sending was light, but resonated with control. The inquisitor had not looked around at them, but continued to climb the slope of the alley, his sky-blue robe hiding the flow of his muscle. +We are close.+ Idris gave a slight shiver and took another bite of the spice cake.

Hammer songs rose from the cog-yards they passed as the trio climbed the hill. The call of hours droned on through the air, swallowing the sound of metal falling on metal. The square compounds covered the Hill of Brass. Each cog-yard was a squad space open to the sky. Walls and buildings ringed each yard, all made of the pale stone that came from the hill itself. Each yard had a single arch that opened onto an alley. Curtains of coloured fabric hung across each opening, their hems weighted with broken cogs. Azure, crimson, saffron, indigo and emerald twitched and rippled.

Idris caught glimpses of the spaces beyond. Men and women sat cross-legged in rows in front of low workbenches. Collars of brass machinery circled their hunched shoulders. Manipulator tools, arc torches, micro cutters arched over their heads, in ever-shifting cowls of metal limbs. Each of them had a whirring bionic lens in place of their left eye. The bright wheels of cogs glinted on the workbenches, each one a tiny flower of hand-cut brass. Cyber-hawks wheeled above, their jewelled eyes the eyes of the guild masters. Thousands of cogs were made every day by the hands of these people on this one hill. It was all they had constructed since before records recalled. Most went off world to play tiny roles in machines that the hunched figures in the cog-yards could not imagine.

Idris had just stepped out of the way of three servitors carrying ingots on their backs when her fingers twitched. Threads of shock flicked up her arms, and she tasted bitter iron over the lingering honey of the cake.

‘Did you feel that?’ she said.

Argento nodded, his steps quickening. Covenant closed in behind the inquisitor’s shoulder. Idris felt another ghost of pain flick up her limbs.

+No more time for subtlety,+ she sent.

She began to run. A woman with an armful of scrolls stepped from a door in front of her. Idris jumped without pause, kicked off the alley wall and was past the woman before she realised what had happened. Covenant and Argento were two strides ahead of her. Eyes and faces turned towards them now.

A group of men stepped to bar their path. All of them wore the leather and copper scale armour of the law-keepers. She saw sparks wreath the batons in their hands. Argento hit the first one, without slowing down. The man spun through the air, a cry hissing from his lips as he tumbled into his comrades. One of them surged back to his feet faster than the rest. Covenant struck the man in the chest with the flat of his palm. The man grunted and cannoned backwards, air gasping from his mouth. Idris leapt over the fallen bodies and ran on after Argento, Covenant now matching her stride for stride.

Shouts of confusion chased them up between the buildings. At the edge of her perception she could feel the minds of a forming crowd, and beyond it the ghost shadow of another mind moving through the aether like a Leviathan through deep water. Something had sensed them and was dragging a mob after them by pouring anger into the confused minds of the people they passed.

+It’s getting stronger,+ came Covenant’s thought voice. +She must be waking.+

‘Here,’ called Argento, turning a corner. His hood had fallen away. An ash-grey beard framed his sharp face. Fine wrinkles textured his tanned skin. His grey hair was drawn back in a ponytail that hung down his neck. A brief look would have placed him in vigorous middle age, but his eyes showed his true age. He was one of the most brilliant and terrifying human beings that Idris had ever met.

Idris spun round the corner just behind the inquisitor. Covenant was beside her. She could hear the sound of running feet coming up the alley in their wake. The alley before them was a dead end. A painted metal door sat in the far wall. Argento drew a pistol from under his robes as he slowed. It armed with a whine. Covenant had his bolt pistol in his hand. Idris drew the paired knives from the base of her back and the dart casters snapped from her forearms to her wrists. She and Covenant ran past Argento, hit the wall either side of the door, and braced. Argento paused for a second, pistol levelled, and then fired. A white-hot cone shot from his pistol. The air screamed, and then the door was gone, molten metal and the reek of burning paint filling the air.

The cult was of the type that spawned, grew, and vanished in their billions across the Imperium. It did not even have a name. Most of those who lived on the Hill of Brass worshipped the Emperor in the form of the Giver of Plenty, a gilded fragment of his divinity that rewarded labour, duty and commerce. The greatest sign of his blessing was wealth, and piety was marked by the tithing of wealth to the Temple of Plenty. The creed dominated the planet of Frell, though the piety of the Hill of Brass was noted across the world. A few others of off-world origins followed different versions of the Imperial creed, but they were outliers, accepted, but apart. It was a robust tradition with only one half-buried strand of belief that lay towards the edge of orthodoxy: the soothsayers.

All fortune followed from the Emperor. Every guild master that made a fortune, or turned a loss, was raised high or cast low, was so because the Emperor had ordained that they be so. The Emperor of Silver and Gold was the wind and weather of commerce. All on the Hill of Brass accepted this. What they would also admit to believing amongst those they knew was that someone gifted by the Emperor could read the direction of future fortunes. Traders, magnates, and even makers who had saved enough for the offering, would go to small shrines and listen to the words of raving women, withered men and blind crones.

Would their endeavours succeed? Should they sell what they made to this broker or that? Would the cost of ingots from the southern continent rise or fall? All these questions and more were put to the Oracles of Plenty, and their answers treated like the words of saints. For thousands of years this had happened, and the Hill of Brass had seen nothing more divine than a lucky coincidence of prediction. But then, through luck or providence, something close to a true saint had appeared amongst them.

The metal door vanished in fire. Idris could feel the swelling bubble of the saint’s psychic presence close by, shot with raw emotion and power. She reached out and met the telepathic presence of both Argento and Covenant as they reached for her. Surface thoughts and sensations meshed.

Covenant went through the door. The edge of his robe touched the glowing metal and began to burn. Idris followed, eyes sweeping high as Covenant’s aim tracked low. Across the telepathic bond, she felt what he saw blur into her own sight. The space beyond the door was a small courtyard ringed by a cloister of pillars, a covered walkway running above their tops. A small, square pool of green water sat in the centre of the courtyard. Pink flowers floated on the surface. Sinuous shapes moved in the clouded water.

Gunfire roared from above the cloister. Stone exploded as hard rounds chewed the ground just behind Idris. She jerked to the side. Covenant fired. The double boom of his bolt pistol swallowed the buzz of passing bullets. Clouds of shrapnel exploded across the far side of the courtyard. The gunfire slackened. Idris reached out with her mind, and felt the shape of minds above and in front of her.

+Three,+ she sent. +Two on walkway, one behind the pillars to the left.+

+Understood,+ replied Covenant and stepped out of cover. Rounds poured down at him. His image shivered, and suddenly the air around him was a blur of sparks. Rounds flashed to molten fire. Covenant walked forward unhurried, his face still. Idris noticed the vein pulsing in his temple. He was pouring all his will into the aetheric shield around him. Effort bled across the mental link between them. He would not be able to keep it going for more than a few seconds.

Idris spun out of cover. She felt the surface thoughts of the shooters above her. Impulses to pull the triggers of their guns formed in their minds and began to flare along nerves. She slammed her will into their minds. It was enough to freeze them for a second. Her hands came up. Darts were released from the casters strapped to her wrists. She had not aimed by eye, but by the second sight of her mind. The darts hit their targets just as the delayed impulses reached the shooters’ hands. They fired as they died. A sheet of shimmering force slammed into place in front of Idris. The rounds flattened and melted a hand-span from her head. She glanced at Covenant, in time to see him put three bolt rounds into where the last of the three shooters had been.

Behind them the sound of the mob pouring up the alleys towards them rose. Argento backed through the door, pulling a grenade from his waist. Idris could feel his will pull them wordlessly forwards.

+Gas,+ he sent. Idris clamped her mouth shut. The filter plugs in her nostrils wheezed as she shucked a breath. Argento threw the grenade. It exploded as it spun down the alley. Pink fumes billowed out as a wall of running figures rounded the corner. The first rank met the spreading gas. They took two strides and dropped, muscles twitching, air gasping from lungs.

+Go,+ sent Argento.

+Door, far end, left corner,+ sent Covenant.

Idris moved towards the door. Behind them Argento moved close to Idris.

A man rushed into the courtyard, bent-backed and swathed in the umber robes of a life-bound servant. He held a sceptre of authority in his hand. His eyes were wide, mouth opening to shout a challenge. Covenant’s telekinetic blow flipped the man off his feet like a leaf caught by a gust of wind, and pinned him to the floor. The man’s mouth stayed open, tongue clamped in place by invisible force.

+Your turn,+ said Covenant as he reached the door leading out of the courtyard and crouched beside it.

Idris pushed her thoughts out and into the pinned man’s skull. Fear, anger and confusion rose from his mind in a churning cloud of emotion. She punched through it. The man’s back arched. Blood trickled from his nose and froze. She normally preferred to use more delicacy when invading a mind, but here and now she did not have the luxury of time. She bored down through the strata of his identity and memories in the time it took her to take two paces.

+He is a servant,+ she said. +He serves the saint’s cult. There are ten other servants in this compound and five members of the cult. The sanctuary is underground. He has never been inside it. It is guarded…+ The thread of her thoughts faltered.

Stillness…

The creatures moving in the courtyard pond were frozen beneath the surface, the water a green mirror to the dawn sky above. A sudden quiet had fallen, the sounds of distant shouts and the call of hours gone.

+That is not good, is it?+ sent Idris.

+No,+ sent Covenant. +It’s unlikely to be.+

Blue sparks ran up the pillars around the courtyard.

+Move!+ sent Argento. The force of the sending jerked Idris’ muscles forwards. Covenant swung into the opening of the door off the courtyard. Idris went with him, shoulder to shoulder. The space beyond was a landing to a spiral stair. A corridor led off to the left, the stairs curving down into the dark. Curtains hung across the doorways that lined the corridor. The pressure of stillness clamped tighter. Idris pushed her senses out, feeling for other minds… and touched something that felt like a wall of ice.

The hangings billowed inwards.

Frost flashed across the ceiling and floor.

The stone floor exploded. Dust and rock shards fountained up. Idris’ mind recoiled. The presence boiling through the corridor rammed her own thoughts back into her head.

‘Down the stairs!’ called Argento. ‘Fast!’

Covenant started down the stairs. Gunfire poured from the darkness to greet him. He fired back, squeezing off a bolt-round with every step.

A cloud of debris filled the corridor, white and blue sparks flaring in its core. Argento faced it. Idris saw the subtle shift in his posture, control and calm spreading through his limbs. The debris cloud flexed, as though a vast mouth was inhaling. Idris leapt down the stairs after Covenant. She saw the debris cloud blast down the corridor. Splinters of broken stones stabbed towards Argento… and stopped. Light screamed through the air. Argento flinched. He staggered, his posture bending as though under a vast weight. Colours bleached from the air.

In front of Idris, Covenant fired the last round from his pistol, stripped the magazine, pulled a fresh one from his waist, slotted it into place and was pulling the trigger before Idris’ heart had beaten twice.

‘Cover,’ she called. Covenant dropped to one knee. The line of his fire shifted to open a narrow passage between his gunfire and the stair wall. Idris tensed and leapt down, hitting the wall and kicking off. She landed on a lower step, and the open space at the bottom of the stairs was in front of her. A muzzle flash drew the shape of two figures in off-white robes crouched five metres away. They saw her, and bullets sawed towards her. The dart launchers on her wrists loosed and reloaded with a purr of gears. One shooter tumbled back, breath and blood gurgling in his throat. The other raked more fire towards Idris. A snap of muscles and she was across the space between them. The knife in her right hand hooked over the barrel of the gun as she slashed her left blade through his neck. She felt blood gush over her. The stink of meat and organs filled her nose. She pivoted back, dropping to the side, eyes sweeping the space around her. Covenant came down the last steps of the staircase behind her.

The space before them was a wide forest of darkness and stone pillars. Cracked tiles covered the floor. The only light was the crackling glow from the spiral stairs behind her. She took a step forwards.

On the ground behind her, the blood-soaked corpses stood up. Blood ice formed and cracked as they moved. Pale light spun in their eyes.

+Why?+ The word exploded in Idris’ head, and she was falling, blinding pain drowning her world with blood and gold. +Why can’t you let me have peace?+

‘A saint?’ Idris had asked. Argento had looked up from the velvet-covered tabletop. In his hands the crystal-wafer cards gleamed as they fanned and merged. ‘How can someone be a potential saint? Surely they are either touched by the divine or not?’

Argento finished shuffling the crystal cards and set the deck down in front of him. The backs of the crystal-wafers flickered with images of serpents and eagles coiling and soaring around each other. Covenant caught her eye from across the table. He wore red robes, with a heavy hood, but no other adornment. She read the admonishment in the glance; we are the pupils, it said. He is our master. This is a lesson, not a chance to challenge the knowledge of one who knows more than us.

She frowned, not trying to hide her disagreement. Argento looked from the cards to each of them. He wore a black cassock and red surplice, and a crystal-threaded psy-hood sat over his iron-grey hair like a skull cap.

‘The universe does not split into simple categories. The masses of humanity need simplicity – light and dark, good and evil, saints and witches. These things all exist, but so does everything in between. For every light that burns bright there are more that burn only dimly, or for too short a time. For every saint that the Emperor imbues with his divinity there are others that are touched but cannot bear the burden of revelation, that fly close to the sun but fall.’

‘How can we tell the difference?’ she asked.

He gave a brief smile.

‘We can’t, but we can try to find them before they either die or are consumed by what they are.’

‘And we either execute them or…’ said Idris, her eyes drawn to the deck of crystal cards.

‘Or we help them become what they need to be in the service of humanity,’ said Argento.

‘What does that mean?’

Argento gave a small smile that somehow carried a burden of time and failure and hope.

‘Salvation,’ he said.

Idris’ thoughts turned over with sudden clarity. She had served Argento for several years. Some of that time had been at his side, some of it with others, some of it on her own. There had been training: mental, physical and esoteric. There had been missions and lessons both obvious and obscure. There had been blood, and death, and moments when she had thought that she was going to die or go insane. She had survived, and as far as she could tell she was still sane. Covenant had served the inquisitor for longer, but not much. Their service and learning under Argento followed parallel tracks that sometimes crossed or diverged. This moment was the first time that felt like the beginning of true learning, as though here and now she was crossing a boundary into a world that worked towards truths that she had not known before.

‘How do we find these saints?’ asked Covenant.

‘That, my apprentices, is the first thing for you to understand.’

Argento closed his eyes. The air around him became taut. Idris felt the static charge of highly controlled psychic activity ripple up the inside of her skin. The inquisitor picked up the crystal cards, and spread them across the velvet-covered table. A pattern grew arc by arc, line by line, until the tabletop was covered. The backs of each card flickered, and then the serpents and eagles of the design were flowing from card to card, as though each of them was a small window onto a single moving image. A card sat on the table in front of each of Argento, Covenant and Idris. These were their signifiers that marked their place within the pattern of events.

‘Idris,’ said Argento, and his breath was white in the air. He nodded at the card in front of her. She reached out. Pins and needles spread up her arm as she flicked the crystal-wafer over. The image of a woman in red robes and a silver mask formed in the crystal. Claws and serpents flowed in the air around her. In her left hand she held a candle, its flame haloed with golden rays of light. ‘The Light Bearer,’ said Argento.

He looked at Covenant, who turned over his signifier. A man on a throne looked up from the face of the card. An executioner’s mask hid his face, and a hammer sat beneath his left hand, a book in his right. ‘The High Priest,’ said Argento. Idris waited for him to turn his own card over, but instead he reached for the card at the centre of the table. It turned over on its edge before he touched it.

A screaming face looked up at them, its eyes pools of fire, its lips charring, its hair a swirl of flame and smoke.

‘The prophet,’ he said softly. Frost was forming in the air and falling around them. ‘Now let us begin.’

Idris raised her head. A cold, high ringing filled her ears. Breath hissed from her lungs. The pillared chamber was still there, but there was something wrong. She turned and looked back to the stairs; the light falling from them was a frozen flicker of lightning and fire seen through a haze of dust. Argento stood on the steps, facing up towards the light. His foot was frozen between steps. Closer to her, Covenant stood next to a pillar, his bolt pistol braced in both hands. The bolt that he had just fired sat at the end of a spear of flame a metre beyond the muzzle. The dead guards stood in the glow of the bolt’s muzzle fire, their faces slack, blood frozen on their off-white robes.

Idris felt a cold knot pull tight in her gut.

‘What–’

‘Why will you not leave me alone?’

Idris turned.

Where there had been darkness at the far end of the chamber, now there was light. A young man sat on a raised platform, legs folded beneath him. Black robes hung from his narrow shoulders. Tiny brass cogs had been stitched to the cloth, so that he was scaled in shining wheels. His scalp was clean-shaved, his skin dusted with silver powder, his eyes ringed with blue pigment. Golden light flowed over him, though there was no sign of a candle or flame. He looked at Idris. A slight tremble ran through his lip. He looked regal, and terrifying, and fragile.

‘Go away!’ shouted the youth, and his voice was high, and shrill, and filled with terror. The pillars shook. Sound roared back into being for a second. The dead guards juddered towards Covenant. The bolt speared towards them and struck one in the chest. Blood and bone and shrapnel exploded from its chest… and froze.

+This is not your place, child,+ said a voice in her skull that was louder than a mountain fall, colder than the void. Idris felt herself crumple under the pressure of the words.

The boy’s eyes flicked from molten gold to frightened human eyes, the stillness of his face to panic.

The world crashed back into motion with a roar of explosion. Covenant’s bolt exploded in the skull of the dead guard. Argento leapt down the last few steps.

‘We must secure the saint,’ he gasped. Idris took a step towards the boy on the dais.

+No! No! I don’t, I won’t!+ The youth tilted back his head, and his scream ripped through the air in a burning wave. Idris had time to turn her head and raise her arms and feel her skin prickle as it began to burn. She felt fire pour into her mind. It blazed through her carefully conditioned defences, and flowed through her thoughts like a flood tide. Her thoughts and flesh burned.

And the moment she knew she was going to die, it stopped. She felt the presence in her skull change, as though it had found something other than what it was expecting.

+Look…+ said the voice that held none of the boy’s fear, but strength like nothing she had ever touched. +Look at what seed this tree grew from.+

In a frozen instant she saw the life of the boy. She saw him running through the alleys of the Hill of Brass, laughing, his friends at his heels. She saw him hunched over a workbench, fumbling with a novice’s tools as he tried to cut the teeth and spokes in a cog wheel the size of a fingertip. She saw the tears, and pain that followed his failure to become apprentice to one of the guilds. She saw the shame in his mother’s eyes as she turned away from him. She saw him begin to make patterns with the broken cogs he swept from beneath the benches of the other apprentices. He saw things in the meshing of the tiny wheels: things that had not happened, things that made no sense. A priest from the Temple of Plenty noticed. She was with him as he found himself kept in the dark, chained to cold stone. There was pain. They fed him strange food and stranger drink.

The world he saw fell apart. Sometimes he was sitting on cushions with people kneeling before him asking questions. Sometimes he was walking through a desert in which cities rose and fell with every step. Sometimes he was looking out across armies as they marched into a curtain of flame and smoke. Sometimes he was a scrap of flesh, slowly rotting at the heart of a failing machine, feeling only pain, and knowing that when the pain ended he had failed.

Idris saw and felt, and did not know what it was that she saw. It was too huge, too small, too powerful, and too weak. It was not what she had expected. She had come here expecting terror and divinity, and she had found misery.

+I…+ she said with all her will. +I am sorry.+

+I cannot go on…+

+You don’t need to.+

The vision fell away from her eyes. The fire wave vanished. Idris leapt forwards. The young man on the dais turned his silver-dusted face to look at her. His pupils were sharp. A tear rolled out of the corner of his eye, dragging blue and silver pigment down his cheek.

She brought up her hand, and the dart thrower on her wrist released. The boy flinched. He looked down. The fins of a cold iron dart projected from his chest. He coughed. Blood glossed his lips.

+Thank you,+ said a voice in her skull. +Thank you, Idris.+

He slumped forwards. The chamber became dark. The world was suddenly quiet, both inside her skull and around her.

A stab-light cut through the gloom behind her. Argento and Covenant ran to her side, shining light down on the body on the dais.

‘We were supposed to take it alive,’ said Covenant.

‘No,’ said Argento, his voice low. ‘No, the power flowing through this soul was uncontrollable. It would have killed us. I made a…’ He paused, staring at the corpse for a long moment. ‘I made a miscalculation. The boundary between divinity and abomination is thin, and most potentials are balanced on its edge. It must have sensed our presence and its fear must have unbalanced what control it did have. No, Idris was right to end it.’

He looked at her, and gave a nod.

Idris felt her mouth open to say what she had seen intertwined in the boy’s pain: the sights and sensations so vast and strange that they lingered in the root of her mind like a burn.

‘I…’ she began to say. ‘I saw…’

‘I know,’ said Argento, nodding slowly, and holding her gaze. ‘Today you touched the edge of divinity searching for a way back into the world. This is what we are seeking. Remember it, Idris. Always.’

She nodded, and was thankful when Argento turned away and moved towards the steps up into the world above.

‘Come,’ he said. ‘We have to be gone.’

Idris moved to follow, and then paused, looking back at the slumped figure on the dais. Blood was soaking into the cushions beneath it. She sensed Covenant pause beside her.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘It said it couldn’t go on,’ she said. ‘I heard it inside my mind.’

‘It is at peace now,’ said Covenant.

She started to nod, but then shook her head.

‘That is the thing,’ she said. ‘There was more than one voice speaking to me – the boy and something… someone else… and I am not sure which one spoke.’

She looked at Covenant, but he did not reply, only held her gaze for a long instant, face carved in shadow by the glare of the stablight in his hand, and then moved towards the stairs. A second later Idris began to walk in the same direction, and only looked back once.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John French is the author of several Horus Heresy stories including the novels The Solar War, Praetorian of Dorn, Tallarn and Slaves to Darkness, the novella The Crimson Fist, and the audio dramas Dark Compliance, Templar and Warmaster. For Warhammer 40,000 he has written Resurrection, Incarnation and Divination for The Horusian Wars and three tie-in audio dramas – the Scribe award-winning Agent of the Throne: Blood and Lies, as well as Agent of the Throne: Truth and Dreams and Agent of the Throne: Ashes and Oaths. John has also written the Ahriman series and many short stories.

An extract from Rites of Passage.

They were forty-seven hours out of Necromunda when the warp shock took hold.

Chettamandey Vula Brobantis jerked awake from cloying dreams of roaring giants and blood-flecked axes as the Solarox shuddered violently, the entire starship spasming like some mighty aquatic beast impaled by a hunter’s harpoon. She rolled to her right, ignoring the pain in her shoulder, and reached out with her left hand to slap the lumens on. Pale light sprang up at the gesture, as torches held aloft by bronze images of Terran saints illuminated her private chambers. The rays glinted dully off the gilded surfaces of her dressing table – built of wood from a planet liberated from the savage aeldari – reflected from the gilt-edged mirror presented to her as a gift by Admiral Venuza of the 19th Pacificum Sector Fleet, and got tangled in the folds of black Azantian lace that hung around her huge, pillar-cornered bed. The bed that until a matter of days ago, she’d shared with her husband of forty-three Terran years.

But then there had been that unpleasantness with the rogue House Goliath pit fighter on Necromunda, and the life-voyage of Azariel, Novator of Navigator House Brobantis, had been abruptly and quite dramatically truncated, courtesy of an extremely large edged weapon. Chetta actually missed him a little, despite the fact that she’d orchestrated the whole thing. She’d had to kill the fighter concerned to ensure her involvement didn’t come to light, but no one seemed to doubt that she’d opened her warp eye and blasted his mind into fragments in self-defence.

Well, it had been self-defence, after a fashion. There was no question that Chetta would have died, if he’d been allowed to live and had suffered from loose lips.

The Solarox bucked again, and Chetta frowned. The Navigator for this segment of the voyage was Vora, a scion of one of the minor branches of House Brobantis. He wasn’t scintillating conversation, but he was highly competent at the business of guiding starships through the screaming, roiling mass of malignant energy that constituted the warp, else he’d have never been selected to pilot his Novator’s personal ship. For the Solarox to be acting like this either meant that Vora had steered them extremely carelessly into a warp storm an order of magnitude worse than any Chetta had ever experienced first-hand, or…

She keyed her bedside vox-set. ‘Captain Arqueba.’

There was nothing but the faintest of crackles of an open line for a few seconds, and then Anja Arqueba’s voice replied.

‘Lady Chettamandey.’

‘What’s going on?’ Chetta demanded bluntly. ‘I haven’t been tossed around this badly since taking fire from an ork cruiser in Tennyson’s Reach.’

‘We’re… not certain, my lady.’ Anja’s voice was as clipped and professional as always, but Chetta had known her for over a decade, and could hear the tension in it. ‘We’re still in the warp, and the Geller field is holding, but we’ve lost all communication with Lord Vora. We’re steering blind.’

Chetta swore, and rolled out of bed. ‘Have you got a reading on his vitals?’

‘No, my lady. As I said, we’ve lost all communication.’

‘Either that, or the links are working just fine, and he’s dead.’ Chetta sighed, running through the possible scenarios in her mind. The ravages of the empyrean could scour a Navigator’s skull clean of sanity, but one of her kind actually dropping dead mid-voyage was less common, although not unheard of. Heart failure, perhaps? Or possibly a fit, or some other madness that had caused him to tear himself from his throne and the machines that monitored him? ‘I’m heading up there. Prepare a team.’

There was of course one other possibility: that something unholy had manifested out of the shifting currents of the warp and was even now eating Vora’s soul. It was unlikely, but possible. However, leaving the ship blind in the immaterium was as good as a death sentence for everyone on board anyway. Chetta had calculated the mathematics of risk in her head and come to the same conclusion that she had so many times in the past.

If you wanted something done right, it was best to do it yourself.

‘Yes, my lady,’ Anja acknowledged her, and that was an end to the conversation. Chetta shrugged her way into a heavy robe and belted it securely, then eased on the diamond-encrusted slippers Azariel had gifted her for their tenth wedding anniversary.

The Solarox rocked again, and spilled Chetta sideways into her dressing table. She steadied herself on it, wincing at the jolt to her knee and ankle joints, and made a mental note to dispose of it as soon as she could get away with doing so. Collecting relics linked to the aeldari had been one of her husband’s few real vices, and the damned things made her decidedly uncomfortable.

The next jolt nearly sent Chetta tumbling backwards onto her bed again. She gritted her teeth, and took up her cane of blackened tachydon ivory from its resting place. She needed it some days more than others, but she’d be damned if she was going to try to make her way through a warp-tossed starship without it.

‘I cannot,’ she muttered, stumping towards her cabin door, ‘be having with this foolishness.’

The Solarox was not a large ship by the standards of the Imperial Navy vessels Chetta had served on, but nor was it a tug. Even using the express elevators, it took her several minutes to get to the forecastle, by which point her joints were protesting bitterly and her mood had worsened significantly. She’d been met along the way by the team Captain Arqueba had assembled at her instruction: a dozen Brobantis armsmen and women in midnight carapace, armed with suppression shields and combat shotguns. Thus flanked, Chetta approached the Navigator’s chamber: a heavily shielded, ingrowing barnacle in the ship’s structure, its external walls encrusted with pipes and power cables, and dotted here and there with readouts attended to by the Solarox’s crimson-robed tech-adepts. One of them looked up at the tap-tap-tapping of Chetta’s steel-shod cane on the deck.

‘High lady,’ the adept buzzed in greeting through the voice-synth that had replaced their vocal cords. It was an alteration most likely made by choice rather than necessity, but Chetta didn’t regard the Adeptus Mechanicus’ habit of replacing their body parts with machines with the same distrust or disgust as many humans did. There were many days when she’d have given her right hand for artificial hips, knees and ankles, but for the moment she was still stubbornly determined to stick with her natural body, despite her regular disagreements with it.

Besides, Chetta knew well what it was like to be regarded as a disgusting aberration. Navigators might be essential to the functioning of the Imperium, but that didn’t prevent the ill-informed and overly superstitious from regarding her and her kin as heretical mutants, rather than the finely tuned results of countless centuries of jealously guarded gene-lore.

‘What is the Navigator’s status?’ she asked, eyeing the chamber warily. The walls weren’t coated in frost, which was something – the very worst manifestations of the warp tended to drop the local temperature to something approaching a Valhallan summer.

‘Insufficient data to be certain,’ the adept replied simply.

‘Your best estimate?’ Chetta said. She’d learned long ago never to use the word ‘guess’ around the initiates of the Martian priesthood, since it tended to upset them.

‘There are no indications of abnormal atmospheric conditions within the chamber,’ the adept told her. ‘Readouts suggest a steady temperature of nineteen point two five degrees Celsius, with humidity at thirty-two per cent. However, we have no readings for pulse, respiration or brain activity. The probability of these monitoring mechanisms all failing at once while others are unaffected is approximately seven per cent. Ergo, I believe it is reasonable to assume that Lord Vora has expired.’

‘Marvellous,’ Chetta muttered. ‘The viewing shields?’

‘Still open, high lady.’

‘Whatever happened must have happened fast, then,’ Chetta said, more for the benefit of the others around her than anything else. She looked sideways at the sergeant and pointed at the outer blast door in front of them. It appeared ludicrously solid, but it wasn’t a Navigator’s frail frame that it was intended to contain. ‘Remain here, and shoot anything that comes out of that door unless you’re absolutely certain that it’s me.’

‘And if we think it’s Lord Vora, high lady?’ the sergeant asked.

‘Shoot it anyway,’ Chetta grunted, walking forwards. ‘It’s the only way to be sure.’ That had happened once, on one of her first voyages. Old Scara had ridden them through a warp storm, then when the time came to hand over to the next shift and he’d emerged from the chamber, something – some thing – made of torn flesh and jagged bone spurs had started to claw its way free from his skin. Three ratings had died before someone had managed to turn a heavy bolter on it, and even then it had nearly got to Chetta to open her throat with its teeth before it had finally been brought down.

She barely thought about it, these days. She’d seen far worse inside the chamber.

The first blast door slid aside and Chetta stepped through it, then gathered her robe around her as it slid shut behind her. She’d never yet had an item of clothing get caught, but it remained a tiny, irrational fear of hers, one that not even all her years of starfaring could shake.

The blast door in front of her opened, and Chetta took a cautious step into the Navigator’s chamber.

It wasn’t a large space, for a Navigator was required to do very little in there that involved any form of physical activity. It was dominated by the throne: an imposing seat of metal and animal leather, utilitarian yet menacing. Chetta absent-mindedly tugged her robe well clear of the closing second door and scanned the walls and ceiling. They were largely bare metal, and she could see nothing out of place there, no gibbering creature of malice and shadow waiting to spring the moment her attention was diverted. With that precaution taken, she stepped forwards cautiously to inspect the throne’s occupant.

Vora Brobantis was slumped in the seat, and quite definitely dead, if the trails of blood leaking from his nose and ears were anything to go by. Chetta prodded him suspiciously with her cane, but he didn’t spring up and try to murder her while screaming warp-riddled heresy.

‘Thank the Emperor for small mercies,’ Chetta muttered. Vora was dead, sure enough, but at least it looked like he might stay dead. Such things were never entirely certain, when the warp was involved.

With those details taken care of, Chetta turned to the side of the chamber she’d studiously been ignoring so far, and opened her third eye to gaze upon the warp.

The warp; the immaterium; the empyrean – all names that humanity had conjured and tried to apply to the roiling, boiling, raw energy that lay over and under and around the material universe in which the flesh and blood and bone of their species existed. It was a lexical effort to apply order and definition where there was none, the notion that by naming something it could be understood, perhaps even tamed and mastered.

The problem with that was that regular humans were blind and blunt, little more than mewling infants adrift in a hostile universe that would swallow them without mercy or compunction should they trail so much as a toe in the waters that bore them. Only Chetta and her three-eyed kin could look into the face of the warp and see anything of meaning; only a Navigator could hope to do such a thing and survive with their mind intact, and even then it wasn’t certain. The key to Chetta’s genetics lay many millennia in the dim and distant past, even further back than the rise of the Emperor and the formation of the Imperium itself. Perhaps, somewhere on Holy Terra in the most secure vaults of the Paternova, the most senior of her people, lay the true nature of the Navigators’ history. Then again, perhaps the knowledge was lost, along with so many other secrets.

Chetta frowned at the warp, trying as ever to make sense of what she was experiencing. Colours without name exploded and whirled, then died in starbursts of melting hues. Sounds chased each other past the viewport, then returned to sink their claws into it. The shifting, kaleidoscopic light momentarily turned every shadow in the chamber into a face, familiar but unplaceable, screaming in agony. She winced as a stabbing pain assaulted her forehead, seeming to reach right through her third eye and into her brain, twisting at its substance with ephemeral claws.

‘All quiet, then,’ Chetta snorted. She reached behind her, and her grasping fingers encountered Vora: still dead, she was delighted to find. She hauled him out of the throne and onto the floor with a grunt of effort, then forced her knees to raise her up so she could take his position. The throne, recognising that it had a new and living occupant, subtly extended its biometric devices to begin monitoring her vital signs.

‘Captain Arqueba?’ Chetta called, activating the vox.

‘High lady?’

‘Vora is dead,’ Chetta said, ‘but I’m a jokaero if I can work out why. The warp isn’t exactly calm, but this wouldn’t have bent the mind of a green acolyte.’ She frowned, drumming her fingers on the throne’s arm. ‘You’ll have to cope without direction for a little while longer. Something took a swipe at us, and I’d like to know what it was.’

‘As you wish, high lady.’

Chetta gripped the armrests of the throne, gritted her teeth and concentrated.

The fact that the throne room only had a narrow field of vision was of no consequence. The warp was not the material universe, where light travelled in straight lines. There were very few rules that applied to it. A skilled Navigator could gaze out and perceive a threat that might affect the rear or underside of the craft, or something which could engulf it entirely. Distance and direction were subjective at best in the warp, as was time, and that was something Chetta could use.

She wrestled with the immaterium’s presentation into her mind, hardening her will into the psychic equivalent of an adamantium-tipped drill. In the same way as a warp-blind human might concentrate on focusing their eyes to see the finest detail at very close range, or their ears on detecting a single sound amidst others, Chetta chased down the thread of time in the white noise of images and sensations she was being barraged with, and followed it backwards.

There. A series of shock waves, ripping through the warp and buffeting the Solarox, lines of what she could only internally verbalise as a glistening dark brown against the shifting yellow background. She fought against the feeling of her skin itching on the inside, and clung on to the images in her head. That was no warp storm; it was like no natural phenomenon of the empyrean she’d ever witnessed, if ‘natural’ was a term that could even be applied to this place. The shock waves were radiating outwards from another event; something else had birthed them. But what?

She forced her third eye to follow the ripples back to their origin, rolling back her subjective notion of time through sheer bloody-mindedness coupled with long practice. It was like trying to get a grip on a bubble in a hurricane, but…

‘High lady, are you well? Your pulse is accelerating rapidly.’

‘Not now, Anja!’ Chetta snapped, trying not to lose the thread. Talking to someone in the present while peering into the past was not unlike trying to juggle with one hand while fencing with the other. She was nearly there; she could feel the shock waves converging on a single point.

They met, and formed a distinct image in Chetta’s mind, one of uncommon focus and clarity for someone used to wrestling with the warp’s abstracts. It was almost as though the trigger event didn’t exactly involve the warp at all…

‘Oh crap,’ Chetta breathed. She took a quick check on the position of the Astronomican, that great beacon of psychic light and noise radiating out from Terra to guide the Imperium’s starships through the shifting morass of the immaterium. The Solarox had been knocked off course from its planned route to Vorlese, where House Brobantis had its primary holdings, but not far. It wouldn’t take much time to get them back into the most favourable currents, on course to return home as quickly as possible. After all, she had a husband to bury, and important decisions to make. There was little point in going to all the trouble of arranging Azariel’s death in order to carefully steer her adopted house away from his plotted route, only to then not capitalise on it.

And yet, despite it all, Chetta was still a dutiful citizen of the Imperium. Some things were more important.

‘This is Lady Chetta Brobantis,’ she said, relaxing her grip on the past. Now she knew where she was looking, she could see the ugly wound that still pulsed in the warp’s fabric. It wasn’t near, as she comprehended such things, but it wasn’t far either. In fact, she was fairly sure she knew where it was in relation to the material universe, and that unnerved her. ‘We have a new heading. Prepare to alter course on my mark.’

‘Are we far off course, my lady?’ Anja replied.

‘I said we have a new heading, captain,’ Chetta said firmly, rolling her neck in an attempt to loosen some of the tension in it. ‘Vorlese is going to have to wait. Unless I miss my guess completely, something has just sucked an entire planet into the warp. I rather think we should go and find out what’s occurring.’

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