by Dan Abnett
After the clerk had left, I discussed it with Aemos. He was as alarmed as I was. 'Undeliverable? Most perturbatory. And the interest of the arbites is disturbing.'
'What progress with the names?' I asked. He had been at work on Crezia's codifier all morning.
'Nothing. No listing for a Maria Tarray and nothing on any Khanjar the Sharp. A khanjar is a blade weapon, of course. A curved dagger from ancient Terra. The word is occurs in several Imperium cultures.'
'Can you resource further?'
'Not using this machine. But your doctor friend is going to walk me to the universitariate this afternoon and get me access to their main data engines.'
He was gone for hours, until late in the evening. Crezia had teaching duties to perform, and Phabes was all but invisible. I was left alone with Eleena.
I checked the prisoner. He was awake but unresponsive. Crezia had left him a tray of food and some water before leaving, but it was untouched. I tried a few questions but he didn't stir. He was zoned out in a post-interrogation stupor.
Medea was still sleeping, but her life signs was good and there was no trace of post-operative infection. I kissed her forehead gently and went back to the kitchen.
Eleena was seated at the refectory table, one third down a bottle of fine Hesperean claret. Without asking, she fetched me a glass and poured me some.
I sat down with her. The kitchen doors were open, affording us a cool evening breeze and a fine view out over the courtyard to the Itervalle. The mountain was ochre in the setting sun, and even as we watched it gently shifted colour, becoming russet, then almost scarlet, then ultramarine.
'Have you eaten?' Eleena asked.
'No. Have you?'
Tm not very hungry,' she replied, and drank a mouthful of wine.
'I'm sorry, Eleena/1 said.
'Sorry, sir? Why?'
'Sorry that you should be in the middle of all this. It's an unpleasant business and costing us all dear.'
She smiled. 'You got me out of Spaeton alive, sir. For that I'm thankful.'
'I only wish I could have got everyone out alive.'
She shrugged. I could tell she was haunted by the killing she had seen. Sastre's brave sacrifice in particular had scarred her. Eleena Koi was only about twenty-five, just a girl, and a new recruit to the Distaff. She'd not seen any active service in the field yet. She'd been posted to Spaeton as resident untouchable – something the Distaff regarded as an easy job – to get her acclimatised to the work. Some acclimatisation.
'If you'd like to leave, I think that would be all right. I could arrange some adequate papers, some money. You could get off-world, to safety.'
Eleena looked almost offended. 'I am a contracted untouchable in the pay of the Distaff, sir. Perhaps, Emperor bless me, the last one alive. I knew service to an inquisitor would be dangerous when I started. I'm under no illusions/
'Even so-'
'No, sir. I'm strong enough for this. It may be extreme, but it's what I was hired to do. Besides…'
'Besides what?'
'Well, for one thing, we know that the enemy has at least one powerful psyker in his pay. That means you'll need an untouchable/
'True/
'And… I think I'd feel safer sticking with you, sir. If I went off on my own, I'd be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life/
'Thank you, Eleena. You could stop calling me "sir" now, though. If what we've been through these last few days can't be counted as a bonding process, I don't know what can/
'Right/ she smiled. It was a change to see a smile on her face. She was tall and overly thin, in my opinion, always seeming edgy and nervous. The smile suited her.
Neither of us said anything for a few moments.
'So, what should I call you?' she asked eventually.
We chatted idly for a while longer, until the Itervalle had become black and the sky Imperial blue. The stars were out.
'Do we have a plan?' she asked.
Theoretically, we find out who is set so murderously against us and hunt him down. Practically, that means staying here, out of sight, for a while at least, then getting off planet/
'How long for that, do you think?'
'My preferred means of planet exit will be available in fifteen days/
She refilled our glasses. 'I like that. I like it when you sound like everything's under control/
'So do I/ I chuckled.
'So… once we're off-planet, what then? Practically speaking?'
'It depends on a few things. What we manage to turn up in the next two weeks. Whether I dare correspond with the ordos/
'You don't think the Inquisition is involved, do you?'
'Not at all/ I replied. It wasn't a lie, because I was sure we weren't in conflict with any external agency, but it wasn't entirely the truth either. I had been in the job long enough to know that nothing is out of the question. But there was no point alarming her. 'It's simply that I think our enemy is so well co-ordinated, so well provided, that he's watching everything. If I contact the Inquisition, it could betray us/
I took up my glass and drank a good measure of the fine red wine. 'So, if nothing turns up, when we leave here… it's open. There are places we could run to find security, friends I could call upon. Our best bet might be to disappear and stay hidden until our plans are formalised. But I'm torn. I'd like to head to Messina. If there's a chance any of them are alive…'
Apart from roaming field agents engaged on diverse tasks, the Distaff headquarters on Messina represented my only other base of operations. If it was gone, and Spaeton House too, I was cut adrift.
'I had many friends at the Distaff Hall. I hope they're all right/ She looked at the table and fiddled with her glass. 'I suppose you're most concerned about Madam Bequin/
4Vell-' I began.
'She being such an old friend and colleague of yours, I mean. And that she was badly hurt on Durer. And everyone knows…' She stopped suddenly.
'Knows what, Eleena?'
"Well, that you love her/
'Everyone knows, do they?'
Ybu can't hide something like that. I've seen you together. You adore each other/
'But-'
"You're a psyker and she's one of us. I know, I know. That doesn't mean you don't love her, all the same/
She looked at me and blushed. This wine!' she said. 'I've said far too much, haven't I?'
'No, Eleena/ said Crezia. Neither of us had heard her come in. 'Talk some sense into him, will you? He has to go back and see her. It's the right thing/
Crezia was dressed in her formal tutorial robes. She took a glass from the rack, came to the table and, finding the bottle was empty, set about opening another.
'How was your day?' I asked, trying to change the subject.
'I spent four hours lecturing the sophomore class on the principles of thoracic palpation. I've never seen such a crowd of ill-prepared dolts. When I got one fellow up for a practical, he took hold of the volunteer subject's thigh. How do you think my day was?'
She sat down with us at the table. 'I looked in on our guest. I'm concerned about his condition. He hasn't taken any food or drink, and he's only marginally responsive. I think you may have damaged him with your mental probings.'
'Either that,' I said, 'or he's having an adverse reaction to the drugs.'
'Possibly. If he's the same in the morning, I'll run some bloodwork on him. Whatever, he's not well and he's not comfortable. There's severe lividity in his hands and feet. You tied those bonds so damn tight.'
'As tight as they needed to be, Crezia. He's a Vessorine janissary paid to murder me, don't forget.'
'Shut up and pour me a drink.'
The moment Aemos came in, past ten o'clock, I could tell something was wrong. He was carrying a small pile of data-slates and accepted a drink from Eleena without question, which was unusual for him.
His hand was trembling as he raised the glass to sip. Even Crezia could see this was not like him.
'
Well, old friend?' I asked.
'I spent hours resourcing those names, Gregor. Still nothing on this Khanjar, though I assembled a list of planets that still use the word.' He slid a slate across to me.
'Maria Tarray… a little more success there. A Maria Tari was arrested by the arbites on Hallowcan five years ago for participating in cult activity. She was pending trial when she escaped custody. She turned up twice more: on Felthon, where she was a known associate of the cult leader, Berrikin Paswold; and on Sanseeta, where she was wanted in connection with the murder of Hierarch Sansum and five Ministorum clerics. The Inquisition also has a warrant out for her restraint as a suspected rogue psyker.'
'So, an active participant in cult activity, then?' I looked at the extracts Aemos had put on a slate. They didn't tell me much more. If I contacted the Inquisition, they'd have a more complete file. Despite the risks, I felt inclined to get in touch with Rorken.
'If it's the same woman/ he replied.
There was no picture, but the physical description matched my mind's retrieved image.
What's her background?'
There's nothing on that… except that when questioned during her detention on Hallowcan, she claimed to be thirty-seven and stated her birth wo rid was Gudrun/
'Interesting…' I said. 'We should check her details against the planetary census and-'
'I believe you pay me to be thorough, Gregor/ said Aemos, churlishly. 'I've already done that. There is no record of her here. In fact, there is no one on Gudrun with the surname Tarray or Tari. The surname does, however, occur on other worlds. Too many, in fact, to be of any help/
'So, savant/ said Crezia, 'what's really, troubling you?'
Aemos took another glug of wine and pushed a slate into the centre of the table. 'I was running out of options with the names, so I turned to something else. I inspected the news registers from across the sub-sector, hunting for key words. You won't like it/
I read down the slate, my heart turning to cold stone. It showed me bulletin reports of incidents from several planets in the sub. Just little items, most of which wouldn't even have made column space beyond the regional news wires. Certainly, the events reported wouldn't have been planetary news, and definitely not interplanetary. Aemos had only found them because he had been specifically looking, and trawling the Imperium's news wire data compendium.
The first report was of the explosion on Messina. Messina Prime, the main hive, spire eleven. The blast had occurred at ten fifty, local. That was chilling. By my estimation, the raid on Spaeton had commenced at precisely the same time, given sidereal adjustments. The explosion had incinerated the uppermost ten levels of the spire. The death toll was put at eleven thousand six hundred. The Lord Governor had declared a state of emergency.
There was a long appended list of properties and business destroyed. Amongst them halfway down the second page, was the Thorn Institute, the name by which the Distaff had been publically known.
No survivors. I supposed it could have been a coincidence, but I didn't believe in them. Which meant that my foe, this Khanjar the Sharp, had not hesitated to exterminate thousands of civilians just to take out the Distaff.
The news file stated that a proscribed movement calling itself the Scions of Messina had claimed responsibility. That group, it said, struck for Messina's independence from the Imperium.
Which was frankly rubbish. Messina was as Imperial as a planet-culture got.
The second report listed on the slate was filed from Cartol. A family touring Kona Province on vacation had been found murdered by unknown gunmen. Two men and three women. Identities were to follow as soon as they had been established. Authorities on Cartol estimated the time of death at between ten and midnight, two days back.
I had sent my agent Leres Phinton, along with Biron Fakal, Loys Naran and two untouchables, to Cartol five months earlier, to gather evidence concerning a death cult in the Kona region. They had reported back regularly. Dear God-Emperor…
I scrolled to the next item. From Thracian Primaris. A private residence in Hive Sixty-Two had been firebombed just before midnight. Eight dead, unidentified. The location was listed as Sixty-two, Up-Hive, level 114, 871… which was the address of the subsidiary office I maintained on the capital world of the Helican sub-sector. Barned Ferrikal, who had been with me for thirty years, ran that place with a staff of seven.
The next. Hesperus. Two men killed in a firefight with juve-gangs. Just before midnight a week ago. They had wandered into the wrong part of town, an arbites spokeman said.
Lutor Witte and Gan Blaek, two of the most capable undercover agents I ran, had been operating on Hesperus for a year, seeking to uncover a Tzeentchian cult that was preying on the juve population of the under-hives.
Next, Sarum, capital world of the Antimar sub. One of my most promising pupils, Interrogator Devra Shiborr, had gone there under my instruction eight months prior to infiltrate and expose a chaotifiliac ring in the central university. She had posed as Doctor Zeyza Bajj, a historian from Punzel.
The news item recorded the death, apparently by suicide, of the promising academic Bajj. Her body, dead for about eight hours, had been discovered in her bathroom at choir bell this same morning.
And then the last, the most shocking. From the Sameter Global News Wire, posted a week ago. The residential home of Inquisitor Nathun Inshabel had been attacked by an unidentified enemy and obliterated. Inshabel was listed amongst the dead.
I sat back. They were all looking at me. Aemos was leaning his chin on his hands and the two women were staring with anxious patience.
They're all dead,' I said. 'Everyone. Every thread of my staff operation. My home here, the Distaff headquarters, and all the agents I had on active work in the field. Every one, everything. All hit at effectively the same hour on the same day of the week.'
My voice tailed off. I was too deeply shocked. Crezia poured me a glass of amasec and took one herself.
All of it, gone. The operation I had spent decades building up, the friends and allies I had drawn together… destroyed in one night. All my visible resources had been identified, targeted and eliminated. Apart from dear Fischig, slogging his way back to meet us, we were all that was left.
I felt disconnected more than anything else. The network of intelligence and active personnel I had built up since the start of my career had been brutally taken from me.
I was alone.
I wanted nothing… nothing more than to see this Khanjar the Sharp face to face and make a reckoning.
I went то bed, the amasec untouched, and slept fitfully. In the small hours, I woke painfully from a dream I couldn't quite remember at first. As I lay in the darkness, the details slowly returned to me. I had been dreaming about the escape from Spaeton. Medea and Jekud Vance had been calling out to me, begging to be rescued. I remembered the sensation of taking Medea's hand, and clutching out at Vance, who couldn't quite reach me. The janissaries shot him down, cutting his body apart with las-fire. His psychic death scream had cut into my mind like a hot wire, and that's what had woken me. Hadn't it?
I woke again at four. The night was quiet except for the click of the mountain crickets.
Something was wrong. I got up, slid the autopistol out from under the mattress and crept out into the landing.
I could hear Aemos snoring in his room, and the distant sighs of Crezia in slumber.
Eleena's door was open.
I looked in. The bed was empty and the quilt cast off onto the floor.
I edged down the corridor with my back to the wall and my weapon raised in both hands, almost as if I was praying. There was a light shafting out from under the next door. The bathroom.
I heard water gurgle and light suddenly flooded me as the door opened.
I aimed the gun.
'Oh god! Golden Throne, sir! What the hell are you d-'
I slapped my hand across Eleena's startled mouth and pulled her into the shadows.
'You scared the hel
l out of me,' she whispered once I relaxed my grip.
'Sorry/
'I was just going to the bathroom.'
'Sorry. Something's wrong.'
'Gregor? What's the noise?' Crezia's voice floated down the landing.
'Get back in your room!' I hissed.
In a typically Crezia Berschilde manner, she did the opposite. She was pulling on her silk robe as she padded down to join us.
'What is damn well doing on?'
'For once, just shut up, Crezia,' I snapped.
"Well, excuse me all to hell.'
I pushed them both behind me and crept down towards the door of the box room.
'Nice rump/ said Crezia. I was only wearing a wrap.
'Will you be serious just for a minute?' I snarled back.
'Please, doctor/ urged Eleena. 'This is serious/
The box room door was shut and dark.
'See?' said Crezia. 'No problem.'
I felt the doorknob and realised it was loose. Crezia jumped as I kicked the door in, and aimed my gun at the bed.
The empty bed.
Eleena turned on the light. The wispy, fraying strands of Tarl's bindings were still tied to the bedstead. He'd bitten through them or tugged them off.
'Golden Throne, he's gone!'
'Oh no…' Crezia murmured. 'I only loosened his bonds a little.'
'You did what?'
'I told you! I told you I was worried about the constriction. The lividity in his hands and his-'
'You didn't tell me you'd slackened them off!' I raged.
'I thought you'd understood what I meant!'
I ran downstairs. The unlit hall was pale with moonlight that slanted in through the half-open front doors.
'He can't have gone far! What does it matter any way?' Crezia called after me.
I stepped out into the street. There was no sign of any one or anything. The cool shadows of the night spread fluidly across the flagstones.
Tarl, I was sure, was long gone.