Warhammer - Eisenhorn 02 - Malleus (Abnett, Dan)

by Dan Abnett

  "Why did you survive the Thracian horror?' asked Moyag.

  'I was lucky.'

  'Explain lucky?'

  'I had stopped to honour the tomb of the admiral. The Spatian Gate protected me from the air strikes.' After the lies Cherabael had told me on Eechan, I dreaded this question coming up again under psychic interview. The lies, or at least my attempts to screen them, would be picked up.

  'The atrocity was simply cover to allow you to liberate and remove from Thracian the heretic psyker Esarhaddon.'

  'I would normally address that notion with scorn. If the entire event had been staged simply to "launder" the psyker, then it was inhumanly wasteful. However, I believe in some regards you are right. That's what the atrocity was engineered to do. But not by me.'

  Moyag licked his yellowing teeth eagerly. 'You maintain that it was in fact Interrogator Lyko who executed the event?'

  'In collaboration with the daemonhost.'

  'But Lyko cannot answer those charges, can he? Because you killed him on Eechan.'

  'I executed Lyko on Eechan as a traitor-enemy of the Imperium.'

  'I submit to you that you killed him because he was on to you. You killed him to silence him.'

  'Do I really have to be here? You're doing a fine job of making up your own answers.'

  'Where is Esarhaddon?'

  "Wherever Cherubael took him.'

  'And where is that?' asked Palfir.

  I shrugged. 'To his master. Quixos.'

  All three of them laughed. 'Quixos is dead. He died long ago!' Moyag chuckled.

  Then why did the inquisitor general and I find that he had been manipulating her codes to gain access to Cadian airspace?'

  'Because that's how you made it look. You say Quixos used his power to steal her authority code. If that's true, then it's a crime any deviant inquisitor of renown could manage. You could manage it. And using a dead man's code means no one is going to object/

  'Quixos isn't dead/ I cleared my throat. 'Quixos is Hereticus and Extremis Diabolus. He has perverted inquisitors such as Lyko and Molitor into his service. He uses daemonhosts. He triggers holocausts to cover his theft of alpha-plus class psykers/

  The three interrogators fell silent for a moment.

  "We are wasting time here/ I said. 'I am not the man you want/

  But the time-wasting continued. A week, passed, then a second. Every day, I was taken to the great hall and subjected to anything from two to six hours of First Action interview. The questions were repeated so many times, I became sick of hearing them. None of the interrogators seemed to listen to my statements. As far as I knew, no part of my story was being checked out.

  They were clearly wary of escalating to physical or psychic means of extraction. Because I was a psyker, I could at least make things difficult enough so that they'd never know how much of what they were getting out of me was true. Osma had evidently decided to wear me down with endless cycles of verbal cross-examination.

  For fifteen minutes each evening, with the ocean light fading, I was allowed to speak with Fischig. These conversations were pointless. The cell areas were undoubtedly laced with vox-thieves and listening devices, and as far as we knew, Glossia was compromised.

  Fischig could tell me little, although I was able to learn that Medea, Aemos and the gun-cutter were not in Osma's hands, and neither was the Essene.

  There had been no further sighting of Prophaniti-Husmaan, and Fischig was certain that the mystery starship that had delivered Prophaniti to Cadia had not been intercepted that fateful night.

  Through Fischig's agency, I sent petitions to Osma, to Rorken and to Neve, protesting my arrest and urging them to take further action regarding Quixos. No word came back.

  Candlemas was long past. Three more weeks went by. I realised that the year had turned. Outside the thick, bleak walls of the Carnificina, it was 340.M41.

  At the end of my third month of detention and interrogation, I was led into the great hall for my daily interview and found Osma waiting for me instead of the usual interrogators.

  'Sit/ he said, gesturing to the chair in the centre of the stark room.

  It was dark and cold. Bitter, late winter storms were pushing in from the east, and though it was day, no light came from the high windows. They were muffled with snow. My breath steamed in the air, and I shivered. Osma had arranged six lamps around the edges of the room.

  I sat down, pushing my hands into the pockets of my coat against the chill. I didn't want Osma to see my distress. He stood, warm and insulated in his burnished power armour, reviewing a data-slate.

  I could see myself, reflected in the polished panels of his backplate. My clothes were ragged and filthy. My skin pale. 1 had dropped a good seven kilos, and now sported a thick beard as unruly as my hair. The only item in my possession was the inquisitorial rosette in my coat pocket. It comforted me.

  Osma turned to face me. 'In three months, your story has not changed/

  'That should tell you something/

  'It tells me you have great reserves of strength and a careful mind/

  'Or that I'm not lying/

  He put the slate down on one of the lamp tables.

  'Let me explain to you what is going to happen. Lord Rorken has persuaded Grandmaster Orsini to have you extradited to Thracian Primaris. There you will stand trial for the charges in the carta extremis before a Magistery Tribunal of the Ordo Malleus and the Officio of Internal Prosecution. Rorken isn't happy, but it is all Orsini would allow. Rorken, I have heard, feels that your innocence - or guilt - can be ascertained once and for all in a formal trial/

  The result of that trial may embarrass you and your master, Lord Bezier/

  He laughed. 'In truth, I would welcome such embarrassment if it meant the exoneration of a valuable inquisitor like you, Eisenhorn. But I don't think it will. You will burn on Thracian for this, Eisenhorn, as surely as you would have done here/

  'I'll take my chances, Osma/

  He nodded. 'So will I. The Black Ships will arrive in three days time to conduct you to Thracian Primaris. That gives me three days to break you before the matter is taken out of my hands/

  'Be careful, Osma/

  'I'm always careful. Tomorrow, my staff will begin Ninth Action examination of you. There will be no respite until the Black Ships arrive or you tell me what I want to hear/

  'Two days of Ninth Action methods will probably guarantee I won't be alive when the Black Ships come/

  'Probably A shame, and questions will be asked. But this is a lonely prison and I am in charge. That is why, today, I'm just talking to you. Just you and me. A last chance. Tell me the whole truth now, Eisenhorn, man to man. Make this easy on us both. Confess your crimes before the pain begins tomorrow, spare us the trial on Thracian, and I'll do everything in my power to ensure your execution is quick and painless/

  Til gladly tell you the truth/ His eyes brightened.

  'It's all there, on that slate you were reading. Exactly as I have been saying these last three months/

  When the guards took me back to my frigid cell, down stone hallways where the ocean gales moaned, Fischig was waiting for me. Our daily fifteen minutes.

  He had brought a lamp, and a tray with my night meal: thin, tepid fish-broth and stale hunks of rusk bread with a glass of watered rum.

  I sat down on the crude bunk.

  'I'm to be extradited for trial/ I told him.

  He nodded. 'But I understand tomorrow the painwork begins. I've filed a protest, but I'm sure it'll be accidentally lost in the trash/

  'I'm sure it will/

  "You should eat/ he said.

  'I'm not hungry/

  'Just eat. You'll need your strength and from the look of you, you've precious little of that/

  I shook my head.

  'Gregor/ he said, dropping his voice. 'I have a question to ask you. You won't like it much, but it's important/

  'Important?'

  'To me. And to your friends/

 
'Ask it/

  'Do you remember - God-Emperor, but it seems so long ago! - last year, when we met up again, at that grave field outside Kasr Tyrok?'

  'Of course/

  'In the shrine tower, you said to me that you couldn't conceive of doing anything that would please or benefit a daemon. You said, "I can't ever imagine myself that insane."'

  'I remember it clearly. You said that if you ever thought I was, you'd shoot me yourself/

  He nodded, with a sour chuckle. There was a moment of silence, broken only by the crackling of the lamp and the boom of the sea outside the prison ramparts.

  You want to be sure, don't you, Godwyn?' I asked.

  He looked at me, reproachfully.

  'I can understand that. I expect total loyalty from you and all my staff. You have the right to be assured of the same from me/

  Then you know my question/

  I fixed him with my eyes. 'You want to ask if I'm lying. If there's any truth to the charges. If you have been working for a man who consorts with daemons/

  'It's a stupid question, I know. If you are those things, you won't hesitate to lie again now/

  'I'm too tired for anything but the truth, Godwyn. I swear, by the Golden Throne, I am not what Osma says I am. I am a true servant of the Emperor and the Inquisition. Find me an eagle and I'll swear on that too. I don't know what else I can do to convince you.'

  He got to his feet. That's enough for me. I just wanted to be sure. Your word has always been enough, and after all the years we've been together, I was sure that you'd tell me if... even if it was...'

  'Know this, old friend. 1 would. Even if I was the scum Osma believes me to be, and even if I could hide it from him... I couldn't lie to a direct question from you. Not you, Chastener Fischig.'

  The guard rapped on the cell door.

  'One minute more!' Fischig shouted. 'Eat your supper,' he said to me.

  'Did Osma put you up to this?' I asked.

  'Hell, no!' he snarled, offended.

  'It's all right. I didn't think so.'

  The guard hammered again.

  'All right, damn your eyes!' Fischig growled.

  'I'll see you tomorrow/ I said.

  Yeah/ he replied. 'Do one thing for me.'

  'Name it.'

  'Eat your supper/

  The cramps began just after what I guessed was midnight. They woke me from a bad sleep. Pain surged through my body and my mind was numb. I hadn't felt this bad since Pye's handiwork on Lethe Eleven, during the Darknight almost two whole years before.

  I tried to rise, and fell off the bunk. Spasms wracked me, and I cried out. I vomited up the dregs of the dire supper. Bouts of fever-heat and death-chill twitched through me.

  I don't know how long it took for me to crawl to the cell door, or how long I lay there beating my fists against it until it opened. Hours, possibly.

  Consciousness ebbed and flowed with the cramping and the rising agony.

  'Holy Emperor!' the guard exclaimed as he opened the door and saw me by the light of his rush-lamp.

  He called out and feet came beating down the cell way.

  'He's sick/ I heard the guard say.

  'Leave him till morning/ said another.

  'He'll be dead/ the first guard answered nervously.

  'Please...' I stammered, reaching out my hand. It was frozen in a claw-shape, paralysed and ugly.

  Others were arriving. I heard Fischig's voice.

  'He needs a doctor. Trained medicae help/ Fischig said.

  'It's not allowed/ complained a guard.

  'Look at him, man! He's dying! An attack of some sort/

  'Let me through/ said another voice.

  It was the prison medic, accompanied by Interrogator Riggre, who looked as if he had been roused from his bed.

  'He's faking it, leave him!' Riggre said contemptuously.

  'Shut up!' Fischig snarled. 'Look at him! That's no act!'

  'He's a master of deception/ Riggre returned. 'Maybe he's been licking the lead-paint off the door to aid his act, more fool him. This is a sham. Leave him/

  'He's dying/ said Fischig.

  'He looks bloody sick/ said a guard uncomfortably.

  More cramping spasms twisted me involuntarily.

  The doctor was hunched over me. I could hear the beeping of the medicae auspex he'd taken from his pharmacopoeia.

  'This is no act/ he muttered. 'His body's in seizure. You can't fake muscle binding like that. Blood-oxygen is down to thirty per cent and his heart is defibrillating. He'll be dead in less than an hour/

  'Give him a shot. Fix him!' Riggre yelled.

  'I can't, sir. Not here. We haven't got the facilities. Ahh! Emperor, look! He's bleeding out now, from the eyes and nose/

  'Do something!' Riggre screamed.

  'We have to get him to an infirmary. Kasr Derth is the nearest. We have to get him there quickly or he's dead!'

  That's ridiculous, doctor!' said Riggre. 'You must be able to do something...'

  'Not here/

  'Call up a flight, Riggre/ Fischig said.

  'He's a primary level prisoner of the Inquisition! We can't just take him out of here!'

  Then get Osma-'

  'He's gone back to the mainland for the night/

  Fischig's voice was low. 'Are you going to be the one to tell Osma you let his prize captive die on the floor of his cell?'

  'N-no...'

  Til tell him, then. I'll tell Osma that his man Riggre cheated him of the greatest prosecution of his career because he couldn't be bothered to authorise transport and thus let Eisenhorn die of toxic shock in this prison stack!'

  'Call up transport!' Riggre shouted at the guards. 'Now!'

  They carried me up to the stone-cut landing pad on a stretcher. Voices yelled and argued in the biting wind and blizzard-filled darkness. The medic had fixed up an intravenous drip and was trying to slow my symptoms with a few drugs from his kit.

  The pad lights flickered on, cold and white, and backlit the swirling snow into black dots.

  A Cadian shuttle came in low, its attitude thrusters shaking the pad and swirling the snowfall in random directions.

  They carried me into the green-lit interior, and the worst of the cold and weather was stolen away as the hatch shut. I felt the sudden yaw of the ship as we lifted up and turned away towards the mainland. Fischig loomed over me, adjusting the restraining straps that held me into the shuttle's cot. Over the roar of the engines, I could hear Riggre shouting at the pilot.

  Covertly, Fischig slid an injector vial from his coat and fixed it into the intravenous rig in place of the prison doctor's injector.

  I began to feel better almost at once.

  'Stay still, and breathe slowly,' Fischig whispered. 'And hold on tight. Things are about to get... bumpy'

  'Contact! Three kilometres and coming in hard!' I heard the co-pilot blurt.

  'What the hell is that?' Riggre demanded.

  There was a pinging sound from the shuttle's transponder.

  Throne of Earth! They've got a target-lock on us!' exclaimed the pilot.

  'Attention, shuttle,' a voice crackled over the open vox. 'Set down on the islet west five-two by three-six. Now, or I will shoot you out of the air!'

  My vision was settling now. I looked across the green-lit cabin and saw Riggre pull a laspistol.

  'What treachery is this?' he asked, looking at Fischig.

  'I think you should do as you were asked and set down right now,' said Fischig calmly.

  Riggre made to fire the pistol, but there was a searing flash of light. Fischig burned Riggre with a blast from the digi-weapon built into the jokaero-made ring on his right index finger. An item of Maxilla's jewellery, I realised.

  Fischig fired another shot that vaporised the vox-system.

  'Down!' he ordered the pilot, pointing the ring at him.

  The shuttle made emergency groundfall in a snowstorm on the rocky beach of the uninhabited islet.

  'Hands on you
r heads!' Fischig ordered the crewmen as he bundled me out of the hatch and into the blizzard.

  I could barely walk and he had to support me.

  'You poisoned me,' I gasped.

  'I had to make it convincing. Aemos prepared a dose that would reactivate the binary poison in your body. Pye's poison.'

  'You bastards!'

  'Hah! A man who can curse is far from dead. Come on!'

  He half-carried me across the shingle into the oceanic gale, snowflakes stinging our faces. Lights swooped down ahead of us as the gun-cutter came in, executing a perfect, Betancore-style landing on the icy shingle.

  Fischig bundled me up the landing ramp into the arms of Bequin and Inshabel.

  'Dear lord, have you thought this through?' I wheezed.

  'Of course we have!' Bequin snapped. 'Nathun! Get a booster shot of antivenin!'

  For the second time in under two years, I was dead. From binary poison at the hands of Beldame Sadia's henchmen on Lethe, and now, dead in a shuttle-crash, brought down in a winter-storm over the Caducades on Cadia.

  The gun-cutter lofted from the beach, ran the length of it, and then came back towards the downed shuttle.

  May the Emperor forgive me and my staff for the deaths of Riggre and the two flight crew. Their deaths were the only way I could maintain my security.

  'Fire/ I heard Nayl tell Medea.

  The gun-cutter's ordnance strafed the Cadian shuttle and blew it apart. By dawn, the jetsam along the remote islet's shore would suggest nothing but a tragic crash caused by the hellish storms.

  We banked up through the cover of the storms towards orbital space. Though no one told me, I knew our flight plan was covered by someone else's authority code.

  Neve's was my guess. Probably with her permission.

  The Essene was waiting for us.

  'Now what?' I asked Fischig hoarsely.

  'Dammit, I've risked everything I count dear to get you this far/ he replied. 'I was kind of hoping you'd know what to do now/

  'Cinchare/ I said. Tell Maxilla to get us to Cinchare/

  There are some secrets that are worth keeping.

  'What's at Cinchare?' Bequin asked.

  'An old friend/ I said.

  'Not a friend, exactly/ added Aemos.

  'No. Aemos is right. An old associate/

  Two old associates, to be specific/ Aemos added.