by Andy Hoare
If she was to be damned, she thought, she would be damned for good reason. If she succeeded in ruining the deal with Luneberg, she would need to make some kind of power play against her stepbrother, for he would never forgive her, even if her father did. That made Korvane a long-term enemy, and now, Brielle realised, was the best time to deal with him.
Brielle crossed to the tall, glass doors that formed one wall of the stateroom, hauling them open upon corroded runners. She stepped out onto the high gallery, and looked out on a panoramic view of Luneberg’s capital city. The sun was almost set, the last of its rays turning the sky a deep bronze, and casting the air in a thick, golden haze. The city sprawled for many kilometres in every direction, distant, craggy mountains just visible on the horizon. Below her, the palace grounds were arrayed. She noted how these appeared overgrown and untended, not like the lovingly maintained ornamental gardens she would have expected to grace Luneberg’s estates. Beyond the grounds, the merchants’ quarter spread as far as the distant warehouses at the city’s edge, its street markets alive with activity even at this late hour.
Brielle felt a sudden urge to be free of the shackles of responsibility, if only for a short time. Luneberg’s court was a claustrophobic and stale environment, and little advantage was to be had skulking in the dusty guest suites. She looked out at the city, and then back towards the door of the apartment. She came to her decision.
While her father and stepbrother wasted time with Luneberg and his pet fops, Brielle would go out into his domain. She knew not what she might find, but she reasoned it had to be better than what she had here.
The household guards made no attempt to challenge Brielle as she strode through the main gates. They resolutely ignored her in fact, staring straight ahead, out into the city streets beyond. She reasoned that their task was to challenge those attempting to enter the palace. Her thus far limited experience with the Chasmatans’ bureaucracy suggested that their vigilance did not extend to those attempting to leave. An interesting observation, and one that might prove worth remembering, she thought.
The city streets outside the palace were narrow and old, the buildings overlooking them of pre-Imperial vintage, blocky and pre-fabricated to some long-lost pattern. Brielle stood outside the gates, looking first left, and then right down the empty thoroughfare. She knew the mercantile quarter lay to the east, and so turned left, headed for the junction at the end of the street.
Reaching the junction, she noticed how the further from the palace she travelled, the more people were out on the streets. She saw no signs of law enforcement, which on most of the Imperium’s more populous worlds was conspicuous, and proactive in keeping the subjects in line. Here, the enforcers were conspicuous by their absence. Was the populace so well behaved as to make enforcement unnecessary? She doubted that, for she knew that rebellion and heresy lay just below the surface on every world of the Imperium. Not a single world, least of all sacred Terra itself, was untouched by war, and most such conflicts were internal in nature, even when triggered by external factors.
Though rogue traders populated a rarefied world beyond the norms, if such a thing could even be said to exist, of human society, they only existed in reference to that society. While they conquered the stars and commanded vast private fleets and armies, they did so ultimately for the benefit of mankind as a whole. They could only bring the rule of law to the stars if they knew that rule would be upheld once established. To Brielle and her kind, the law was something that applied to others, but it was vital nonetheless. The thought that worlds such as Mundus Chasmata might fail in their God-Emperor-given duty to uphold the Pax Imperialis was, to Brielle, unsettling in the extreme. She checked the miniature weapons worn as jewellery on her fingers, just to be certain that she could enforce her own authority, should she need to.
Following no particular course, she rounded a corner. Yet more people were about their business as the day drew to a close. She walked casually, so as not to draw attention to herself. No doubt, many would mark her as a stranger, yet Brielle had learned from her father that it often paid to keep a low profile in such surroundings.
She studied the men and women travelling up and down the streets. There was something about them, something also evident in Luneberg’s court, which made her cautious. She knew her father had noted it too, though she doubted the less worldly Korvane had. There was a tiredness about the people, and the place in which they lived, as if they had simply lost interest in their own lives. Why should this be, Brielle asked herself? Many of the Imperium’s subjects lived their lives in hardship and toil, or in constant threat from marauding enemies. These people suffered no such circumstances; their world was prosperous and in no immediate danger of invasion. Perhaps that was the problem, Brielle thought. Perhaps the people of Mundus Chasmata had grown lazy and complacent without the crucible of war and poverty to unite them against an ultimately hostile universe.
Brielle saw that she was approaching the merchants’ quarter, the streets ahead lined with covered market stalls and thronged with strolling people.
A gruff voice interrupted her thoughts. She looked down, to see a man slumped against a doorway, looking up at her. He had addressed her, though she had not caught his slurred words.
The man repeated himself, and she realised he was not merely slurring his words, but speaking a heavily accented, local dialect, as opposed to the High Gothic spoken by rogue traders and by Luneberg’s aristocratic court.
‘You realise that upon any civilised world of the Imperium you would be shot on the spot for begging thus?’ she said, more a statement than a question. She made to walk away, leaving the man lying in his own filth, before noting that, although heavily soiled, the clothes he wore were of a very fine cut and material. Looking closer, she saw that this was no derelict beggar, but a gentleman of some means.
The man spat what Brielle could only take for a stream of particularly insulting local invective. She could decipher only one word in ten, and that related to an improbable biological function she was not prepared to undertake.
She shook her head, deciding to waste no more of her time on the man. She carried on towards the busy market place, leaving the local in a pool of his own making.
The street upon which the market was being held evidently marked the border of the merchant quarter, for Brielle could see crowds of shoppers filling the streets beyond. She came to the first stall, looking between the shoulders of the customers before it. Nothing of particular interest, merely locally made eating vessels. She moved on to the next, pushing into the ever more dense crowd.
The next stall stocked all manner of spices, a variety of pungent aromas greeting her as she approached. Wide-brimmed pots and smaller, stoppered bottles contained all manner of brightly coloured powdered substances, small parchment scrips detailing the source of the contents. Brielle read the hand-written label on a small, glass container holding a bright, blue substance. Extract of legfish proboscis, it read. Brielle let out a small snort of amusement.
‘Would madam care to sample some snout powder?’ The stallholder appeared at Brielle’s side, clutching her arm obsequiously.
She stiffened, mildly insulted by his approach to selling, and snatched her arm away from his grasp. ‘No. She would not.’ She stalked off, hearing the seller chuckling to himself behind her back.
Crossing the street, Brielle noticed that the sun had entirely gone down, lights coming on all around the market. Like those in Luneberg’s throne room, these were free-floating, supported by some manner of artificial, anti-gravity generator. She studied one, her interest piqued, for such technology was comparatively rare on most worlds of the Imperium, and she had certainly never seen it utilised for mere street lighting. A couple dressed in merchants’ finery walked beneath the floating light, and Brielle watched as it followed after them at a short distance, before they entered the pool of light cast by another. At that point the second flo
ating light took over, the first gently floating until it came upon another pedestrian in apparent need of illumination.
She looked around at the faces of the people in the street. None of them appeared to acknowledge the presence of the floating lumens. She studied the upper storeys of the overhanging buildings, noting, as she thought she would, that older street furniture adorned their faces, static, conventional street lights rusting away unnoticed and unlit.
Feigning an air of nonchalant disinterest quite at odds with what was going through her mind, Brielle approached another stall. This one offered a staggering variety of small, decorated vials, each containing a miniscule quantity of oily liquid. The stallholder, a robed woman whose face was almost entirely shrouded, addressed her in heavily accented, but understandable Low Gothic. ‘Looking for something special my dear?’
Brielle looked down her nose at the woman, but curiosity temporarily got the better of her. ‘Yes. Yes, I might be.’
‘I thought so.’ The woman gave Brielle a quick appraisal, and then reached in amongst the mass of containers, picking out a small, unassuming bottle. ‘This,’ the woman gently lifted the stopper from the tiny bottle, ‘is what you want, I think.’
The stallholder lifted the bottle to Brielle’s nose. She hesitated for an instant, and then gently inhaled. A scent like none she had ever experienced struck her. Blood rushed to her head, and the sound of her heart pounding filled her ears. Her eyes watered and her knees trembled, before the sensation quickly passed and the world came back into focus before her.
‘Good, no?’
Brielle could only nod.
‘You should see what it does when you drink it.’
Wandering deeper into the city streets, Brielle came upon a wide, open plaza. Here the crowds thinned, until she stood alone, gazing at crumbling statuary. She looked up at the night sky, noticing, as any spacefarer would, that the stars appeared absent on what was an otherwise clear, cloudless night. Puzzled, she looked around, realising with mild surprise that the patch of sky she had, by chance, looked up into was not sky at all, but a vast, black silhouette against the night.
The silhouette described an impossibly tall tower, a cluster of spires at its summit piercing the night sky. This must be the city’s cathedral, Brielle realised, finding herself drawn towards it.
As she crossed the empty square, she became increasingly aware of her isolation. Not a single soul was to be seen anywhere near the cathedral. The feeling grew more intense as she crossed the square, and she could not help casting a glance over her shoulder as she neared the vast structure. The crowds appeared a very great distance away. She turned back towards the cathedral, craning her neck to look up at its bulk.
It was dark. No lights shone from what should have been, literally, a shining beacon of faith. Such buildings were to be found on every major world of the Imperium, many hosting one in every city. Her discomfort deepened as she reflected on how such a centre of spiritual authority should have been heaving with activity. Officers of the Imperial Creed, worshippers, penitents, petitioners, pilgrims; the cathedral should have been crowded with people, but it was silent.
Brielle approached the vast steps, at the top of which stood mighty doors of cast bronze. She began to climb, her unease growing with each step she took. She reached the top and studied the doors. The weakest of flickering candlelight shone through the gap at the base, and for the briefest of moments, something approaching hope pulled at her.
A small hatch was set into the vast doors, and she tested its handle. It swung inward, its hinges groaning so loudly that she winced as she heard the noise echo back from the depths of the cathedral. She stepped through, to be greeted with inky blackness.
After a few moments, her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and Brielle could discern her immediate surroundings. Wan candlelight flickered and guttered by the door, but beyond it, she could scarcely see. Yet she felt the vast, cold emptiness of the cathedral, sensing the huge space that seemed to swallow her up, body and soul.
She took a step forwards, coughing as dust billowed up from the floor, disturbed by her tread. How long had the cathedral stood abandoned, and why? Such a question was beyond her experience, for although she had faced all manner of alien monstrosities, she had never had to deal with such heresy upon a loyal world of the Imperium. How could a civilised world exist beyond the constraints of faith?
She started forwards into the darkness, her eyes adjusting further as she moved away from the circle of light cast by the flickering candles. She began to discern other, tiny pinpricks of light against the all-encompassing veil of darkness.
She closed in on one such candle, finding it guttering and hissing, almost entirely spent. As the small flame flickered and died, a chill swept through her body. An involuntary gasp escaping her lips, she turned, and saw a terribly misshapen face looming towards her from the darkness.
Brielle dived to her left, a bulky form moving through the space she had just vacated. She froze, ready to defend herself against attack, but none came. Instead, a second flame ignited, lighting the form and revealing it to belong to a decrepit mono-task servitor. She saw that the flame emanated from a nozzle that replaced the servitor’s right hand.
She watched as the servitor replaced the dying candle from a stock carried in a large sack strung around its shoulder, lighting the replacement by way of its own flame. Its task complete, Brielle expected the mono-task to shuffle off, but before it did, it lingered a moment. She watched in silence; she could have sworn it mumbled a quiet prayer as it gazed into the newly lit flame. Then it did shuffle off, its sack of replacement candles dragging at its feet.
Brielle waited until she could hear the servitor no longer, determined to continue. Cautiously, for despite the trail of renewed candles left in the servitor’s wake, the cathedral was still dim and the dust thick. She followed a cloistered walkway, statues of ancient saints ensconced along its walls, until she reached the entrance to what she knew would be the cathedral’s inner sanctum. She stood before the entrance, and hauled upon the brass doors. They gave only slowly, the grating of metal on stone painfully loud in the vast emptiness.
The doors open enough to allow her passage, Brielle stepped through. She was greeted by a vast, hexagonal space, many times taller than it was wide. Massive columns supported an intricately worked glass ceiling. Through the glass, shafts of silvered moonlight beamed straight down, illuminating the altar at the centre of the chamber.
Brielle stepped forwards, her head tilted up. She stepped into the light. Looking down at the altar, she turned her head sharply as the moonlight glinted from a metal statuette set upon it. She waited for the retinal burn to fade, before cautiously looking upon the altar once more. The statue represented a martyr she did not recognise, although the stylised tears running down its face were a common enough motif. She looked around, seeing that the cathedral must have fallen into disuse many years ago. The tears of unnamed saints had not kept the flock faithful, she mused, a bitterness rising unbidden within her. As incredible as it was to her, she saw that the Imperial Creed had simply faded away, as forgotten to the people of Mundus Chasmata, as was their world to the Imperium. Such a thing ran contrary to everything she had been brought up to believe. Yet she stood in the very centre of an abandoned and forgotten cathedral, the people given over to their own selfish follies and affectations.
Verses from the Creed ran through Brielle’s mind, clashing and contradicting where once they had soothed. Unfamiliar teachings stabbed at her, until she realised that she was hearing not her own, inner voice, but distant words echoing through the night outside the cathedral.
Holding her breath so that she could hear well enough to determine the voice’s direction, Brielle stepped out of the shaft of moonlight cascading from above. She ghosted down dusty, cobweb-strewn corridors, the voice growing louder all the while. After several minutes, she came upon a small port
al, and stepped through it. She was in the plaza once more, on the opposite side of the cathedral to where she had entered, and she could clearly hear the voice, across the square from her. A crowd clustered on the plaza’s edge, the voice clearly audible. Now that she was in the open, Brielle could hear that the voice was an angry one, that of a preacher haranguing a crowd. She looked behind her at the vast, empty cathedral, curious as to why such an expression of faith would be manifested outside of the institution of the Creed.
She started towards the crowd, the words of the speaker becoming clearer.
‘And there shall be a great apocalypse! A great war whose might and clamour shall dwarf all the wars that have come before.’
The familiar verse drifted towards her, and she instinctively raised her hands to her chest to make the sign of the aquila, but something made her hesitate. Some deeply hidden doubt rose to the surface, a feeling of tension that only increased as she neared the crowd.
‘We bring upon ourselves the doom of all that was and all that is!’
Reaching the nearest of the crowd, Brielle stood upon the tips of her toes in order to see over the shoulders of those before her. She caught a glimpse of the preacher, and was surprised to see that he appeared not to be a robed priest, but a trader or a merchant.
‘We the masses huddle in our hovels, unaware of the war fought on our account.’
Brielle did not recognise this segment, although there were so many thousands of variations of the books of the Creed that that alone did not concern her.
‘How long shall the masses toil in silence? How long must we labour in ignorance?’
A chorus of agreement swept the crowd. Yet their reaction was not one of anger or of fervour, but of curiosity. Brielle studied the faces of those nearest her. Each man and woman appeared to listen intently, as if a spectator at a theatrical performance. Small quips and witticisms abounded, ripples of applause sounding at what the crowd perceived as particularly well-constructed verses.