by Dan Abnett
Curved stairways, with tefrawood balustrades that Maxilla claimed had been salvaged from a twenty mast sunjammer on Nautilia, ran down from either end of the mezzanine onto the main deck area, a wide hall with a floor of inlaid marble. Works of art - paintings, statues, antiques, hololiths - were displayed all round the room between the crystelephantine wall pillars. Some were protected by softly glowing stasis fields, others hung weightlessly in invisible repulsor beams.
Elegant scroll-armed couches and chairs, some draped with throws of Sampanese light-cloth, were arranged on a large rectangle of exquisite Oli-tari rugwork in the centre of the room. The rug alone was worth a small fortune. The room was illuminated by six shimmering chandeliers from the glassworks of Vitria, each one suspended by a small antigrav plate so they floated below the dished ceiling.
I sat down on a couch and accepted the balloon of amasec Maxilla
handed to me. 'You look like a man who wishes to unburden himself, Gregor,' he said,
taking a seat opposite.
'Am I so transparent?'
'No, I fear it is rather more a case that I am hopeful. It's been a boring few months. I crave excitement. And when the only man I know who makes a habit of getting involved in the most ridiculously perilous ventures anyone ever heard of calls to me for help, I perk up/
He fitted a lho-stick into a long silver holder, lit it with a tiny flick of his digital ring weapon and sat back, exhaling spiced smoke, rolling the amasec in his glass around with an experienced hand.
'I...' I tried to begin, but I didn't really know where to start.
He put his glass down and made a gesture with his control wand like a theatrical conjuror. The air became close and slightly muffled.
'Speak freely/ he told me. 'I've activated the suite's privacy field/
Actually/ I admitted, 'my hesitation was more to do with not knowing what to say/
'I deal in routes and journeys, Gregor. In my experience, the best place
to start is always-'
'The beginning? I know/
I told him, first in general terms and then with increasing detail, about the events as they had unfolded. Durer. Thuring. The battles with Cruor Vult and Cherubael. His dyed face became tragic, like a clown's, as I told him about Alizebeth. He had always had a soft spot for her.
Though I felt I had taken his advice and started from the beginning, I realised more and more that I had not. 1 kept going back, filling in details. To explain Cherubael, I had to go back to Farness Beta and the struggle against Quixos, and that in turn required mention of the mission to Cin-chare. I told him about the assault on Spaeton House and our desperate flight across Gudrun. I recounted the murders that had taken place across the sub-sector. He'd known Harlon Nayl and Nathun Inshabel, not to
mention several other members of my team. My account of Pontius Claw's revenge was a litany of bad tidings.
Once I had begun, I couldn't stop. I spared nothing. It felt liberating to confess everything at last and unburden myself. I told him about the Malus Codicium, and how I might have compromised myself by keeping it. I told him about my dabbling with daemonhosts. And thralls. And warp vortices. I owned up to the deal I had struck with Glaw on Cinchare and how that had empowered him and turned him into the threat that now pursued me.
'Everyone, Tobias, everyone in my operation - my family, if you will -everyone except you, Fischig and the handful I brought aboard here with me, has died because of what I did on Cinchare. Something in the order of... well, I haven't made an exact count. Two hundred servants of the Imperium. Two hundred people who had devoted themselves to my cause in the firm belief that I was doing good work... are dead. I'm not even counting the likes of Poul Rassi, Dudane Haar and that poor bastard Verveuk who perished in what turns out to be the overture to this bloodbath. Or Magos Bure, who must have been killed by Glaw for him to have escaped/
'Might I correct you, Gregor?' he asked.
'By all means/
'You called it your cause. That they were devoted to your cause. But it isn't, is it?'
'What do you mean?'
You still, passionately, believe that you are doing the Emperor's work?'
'Damn right I do!'
Then they died in the service of the Emperor. They died for His cause. No Imperial citizen can ask for anything more/
'I don't think you were listening, Maxilla-'
He got to his feet. 'No, I don't think you were, inquisitor. Not even to yourself. I'm pressing this point because it's so basic you seem to have overlooked it/
He walked across the stateroom and stood looking up at a hololithic portrait of an Imperial warrior. It was very old. I didn't want to think where he might have got it from.
'Do you know who this is?'
'No/
'Warmaster Terfuek. Commanded the Imperial forces in the Pacificus War, almost fifty centuries ago. Ancient history now. Most of us couldn't say what the damn war was about any more. At the Battle of Corossa, Ter-feuk committed four million Imperial Guardsman to the field. Four million, Gregor. They don't do battles like that any more, thank the Throne. It was of course the age of High Imperialism, the era of the notable warmaster, the cult of personality. Anyway, Terfeuk got his victory. Not even his advisors thought he could win at Corossa, but he did. And of those four million men, only ninety thousand left the field alive/
Maxilla turned and looked at me. 'Do you know what he said? Terfeuk? Do you know what he said of that terrible cost?'
I shook my head.
'He said it was the greatest honour of his life to have served the Emperor so well.'
'I'm happy for him/
You don't understand, Gregor. Terfeuk was no butcher. No glory hound. By all accounts he was humane, and beloved by his men as fair and generous. But when the time came, he did not regret for a moment the cost of serving the Emperor and preserving the Imperium against all odds/
Maxilla sat down again. 'I think that's all you're guilty of. Making hard choices to serve the Emperor the best you can, to serve him where maybe others would not be strong enough and fail. Doing your duty and living with the consequences. I'm sure dear Terfeuk had sleepless nights for years after Corossa. But he dealt with that pain. He didn't have any regrets/
'Committing men to battle is not quite the same as-'
'I beg to differ. Imperial society is your battleground. The people you have lost were your soldiers. And soldiers are only martial resources. They are there to be used. You used your own resources to win your battles. This book you speak of. This daemonhost. He sounds fascinating. I'd love to meet him/
'You wouldn't, I assure you. And it's an "it" not a "he".'
Maxilla shrugged. 'I fancy you wanted to talk to me about this because you thought you might get a sympathetic ear. Me being an old rogue and everything/ There were times, I swear, I believed Maxilla could read my mind.
'Let me tell you something, Gregor. I love you like a brother, but we're nothing alike. I am a rogue. A gambler. A liar. A reprobate. My vices are many and unmentionable. I never bend the rules; I break them. Snap them. Shatter them. However and wherever I may. In that regard alone, 1 am a kindred spirit. You are bending the rules of the Imperium, of the Inquisition. You are, undoubtedly, what they call a radical. But that's where the similarity ends. I break the rules for my own gain. To get what I want, to amplify my wealth and status. To make things better for me. Me. Just me. But you're not doing it for yourself. You're doing it for the system you believe in and the God-Emperor you worship and by damn, that means your conscience can be clean/
I was taken aback by the passion of his speech. I was also taken aback by the suggestion - one that no one had dared make before - that I had become a radical. When had that happened? My actions may have been radical but did that make me a radical to the marrow?
Sitting there, in that opulent room, I realised Maxilla had hit on the truth, a truth I had been denying. I had changed without recognising that change in myself. I would always
be grateful to Tobias Maxilla for that bruising realisation. I felt better for it.
'I suppose you can't turn to your superiors for help?'
'No/ I said, still reeling from the fresh viewpoint.
'Because you'd have to tell them things you don't want them to hear?'
'Of course. To get any kind of official help, I'd have to make a full report. And that report would fall apart under the lightest scrutiny if it omitted the Codicium, Cherubael. By the Throne, the list goes back! I even hid Pontius Glaw from them. What could I say? Pontius Glaw is exterminating my forces. Where did he come from, my lord grand master? Well, to be honest, I've known of his existence for centuries, but I kept him hidden from you. And he's only up and around now because I decided to give him a body/
He chuckled. 'I see your point. What will you tell Fischig? Dear Godwyn is as straight up and down as any man I know/
'I'll deal with Fischig/
'So what is your next move? You mentioned this daughter of his, the psyker. You saw things when you killed her, didn't you?'
I had indeed. Maria Tarray's entire mental shield had crumbled just before the vortex annihilated her. The picture I had obtained was far from complete, but it was plentiful.
'Maria Tarray was much older than she looked or claimed. She was the bastard offspring of Pontius Glaw and a serving girl from Gudran that Glaw had taken with him to Quenthus Eight. Maria was born in 020, corrupted from conception by the tainted tore Pontius wore. Several notorious heretics who have evaded the Inquisition in the last three hundred years were actually her under different guises. Many cases could be closed now she is dead/
'Pontius won't be too pleased/
'I imagine Pontius Glaw now wants me dead even more than before. But they were after the Malus Codicium, you see. I learned that from her undefended mind. Glaw knew Quixos must have it and, once Quixos was dead, realised it must be in my possession. He wants that book so much/
'Do you know why?'
'I saw images of an arid world just before Maria Tarray died. A dried out husk where primaeval cities lay buried under layers of ash. Glaw's after something there, and he needs the Codicium to help him/
'What?'
'I don't know/
Where?'
'I don't know that either. There was a name, a word in her mind. Ghtil. But I don't know what it means or what it refers to. Her mind was in collapse. Very little made sense/
'I'll consult my charts and my navigator. Who knows?' He sat forward and looked at me. 'This book. This Malus Codicium. May I see it?'
Why?'
'Because I appreciate unique and priceless objects/
I took it from my jacket and passed it to him. He studied it with reverence, a smile on his face.
'Not much to look at, but beautiful for what it is. Thank you for the opportunity to hold it.' He handed it back to me.
'I can't believe I'm going to say this/ he added, 'me of all people. But... I'd destroy it, if I were you,'
'I think you're right. I believe I will.'
I put down my empty glass and walked to the doors. Maxilla evaporated the privacy field.
Thank you for your time and hospitality, Tobias. I think I'll turn in now.'
'Sleep well'
'One last thing,' I said, turning back in the doorway. 'You said you break the rales to get what you want. That you serve no one but yourself and everything you do is for your own ends.'
'I did.'
Then why do you help me so often?'
He smiled. 'Good night, Gregor.'
The Essene put in at Hubris four days later. Hubris was an outlying world in the Helican sub-sector and Fischig, Bequin, Maxilla and I had all met there for the first time in 240.
Indirectly, that's where we'd first stumbled across Pontius Glaw too. Everything was turning full circle in the strangest way.
I had rerouted Fischig here as a convenient and out of the way meeting place, but it seemed apt. He'd been a chastener in the local arbites when he'd first crossed my path. It was his homeworld.
For eleven out of every twenty-nine months, Hubris orbits so far beyond its star that the population are forced to hibernate in massive cryogenic tombs to survive the blackness and the cold. Those winters of eternal night are called Dormant and I had experienced one on that last visit.
But now we arrived at the start of Thaw, the middle season between Dormant and Vital.
The tombs had emptied and the great cities were waking under a pale sun. The population was engaged in a frenzied jubilee of feasting and dancing and general excess that lasted three weeks and was supposed to celebrate the society's rebirth, but which probably had deep rooted origins in the traditional methods of recovery from extended cryogenic suspension such as forced physical activity and high-calorie intake.
I offered to travel to the surface to meet him, partly because I thought Crezia, Eleena and Medea could do with the relaxation of a festival and Maxilla had never been one to turn down a party.
But Fischig answered he would as soon come up to the Essene, and he arrived, piloting his own shuttle, a few hours later.
I could tell he was tense from the moment he stepped aboard. He was polite, and seemed pleased to see Medea, Aemos and Maxilla. But with me he was reserved.
I told him it was good to see him, and that I was relieved he had escaped Glaw's purge.
'Glaw, eh?' he said. He had heard all about the fall of the Distaff and our other holdings. 'I had wondered who it was.' 'We need to talk,' I said. 'Yes/ he said. 'But not here/
Maxilla lent us his stateroom and I turned on the privacy field.
There's nothing you couldn't say in front of the others, Godwyn/ I said.
'No? Glaw's killed everyone except us few. Because-'
'Because?'
You should have destroyed that monster years ago, Eisenhorn. That, or handed him over to the ordos. What the hell were you thinking?'
'Same as I'm thinking now. I did what was best/
'Nayl? Inshabel? Bure? Suskova? The whole damn Distaff? That was best?' His tone was venomous.
'Yes, Fischig. And I never heard you contradict my decisions/
'Like you'd have listened!'
To you? Yes. Not once did I hear you say we should turn Glaw over to the ordos/
'Because you always make it sound so logical! Like you know best!'
I shrugged. This is beneath you, Godwyn. It sounds like sour grapes. Things didn't turn out the way I would have wished and you're making out it's all my fault. I took tough decisions that I thought were right. If you'd ever - ever - objected, I'd have considered your opinion/
'Too easy, too damn easy. I was only ever your lackey, your minion. If I'd said we vapourise Glaw, you'd have said yes and then hidden him anyway/
'Do you really think I'm that underhand? You, of all my counsel, I respect the most!'
'Yeah?' He tossed his gloves onto a couch and helped himself to a schooner of Maxilla's clawblood. 'Who told Bure to build Glaw a body without telling any of us? Who suddenly knows how to conjure daemons like an expert? You cover your secrets with such an almighty righteous air we all thank the stars and the Emperor Himself you chose us to help you in your work. But you're a liar! A conspirator! And maybe worse!'
'And you're too much a puritan idealist for your own good. And mine/ I hissed. 'I dearly wanted your help, Godwyn. You are one of the few men I really trust and one of the few humans in space with the stalwart spirit to keep me on the level. I needed you now, in my fight to destroy Glaw. I can't believe you're turning against me like this/
He stared down at the contents of his glass. 'I always did warn you I would if you crossed the line/
'I've crossed no line. But if you feel that way... go. Get off this ship and leave me to my work. You'll always have my gratitude for the service you put in. But I won't have this bitterness/
That's what you think?'
Yes/
He hesitated. 'I gave my life to you, Gregor. I admired you
. I always believed you were... right.'
'I still am. I serve the Emperor. Just like you. Get rid of your rancor and we can work together again.'
'Let me think about it.'
'Two days, and we're leaving orbit.'
'Two days then.'
Apparently, his ruminations only took him a day.
I had just received, via the Essene's astropath bank, a rather fascinating communique, and I went looked for Fischig. I found Crezia playing regicide with Maxilla in a mid-deck suite. He'd taken quite a shine to Doctor Berschilde.
She got up as I entered the room, and excitedly displayed the stunning funz-silk gown she was wearing. Tobias had his servitors make it for me! Isn't it gorgeous?'
'It is/ I agreed.
The poor woman had virtually no wardrobe at all, Gregor. Just a few travel bags. It was the least I could do. You wait until you see the epinchire dress they're embroidering for her.'
'Have you seen Fischig?' I asked.
Crezia looked at Maxilla sharply and the ship master suddenly became occupied with his study of the game board.
'What?' I asked.
Crezia took me by the arm and walked me over to the cabin windows. 'He's gone, Gregor.'
'Gone?'
'Early this morning. He left in his shuttle. Dreadful man.'
'He was my friend, Crezia.'
'Not any more, I think.'
'Did he say anything?'
'No. Not to me. Or to Tobias, except a quick goodbye. He was up late last night though, talking to Medea and Aemos.'
'About what?'
'1 don't know. I wasn't included. Tobias took Eleena and me on a guided tour of his art collection. He has some extraordinary p-'
'They talked and this morning he just left?'
'I like Medea, but I think she may be a little careless. I'd never have told that Fischig man about the things you did in New Gevae/
'And she did?'
'I'm just saying. She might have.'
I had servitors summon Aemos and Medea. They arrived in my stateroom at about the same moment. Both of them looked awkward.
'Well?'
'Well what?' snapped Medea.