“Lazurus is a fool,” Killian said, leading the way across an immaculate lawn shaded by rustling trees, “and no threat to anyone, but a man of your well-known sagacity was a challenge of an entirely different order. The moment it was revealed that you were heading the search for hidden enemies, I realised that it would only be a matter of time before you found us. After Lazurus enlisted your aid, and you knew what you were looking for, there was never even the slightest chance that the Covenant of the Blessed would simply be dismissed as another subversive group of little significance.”
“The Chaos cult,” I guessed aloud, as though I’d always been aware of the fact, and Killian nodded, leading us through a sacristy cluttered with icons, in the centre of which stood a severely chewed-up suit of power armour. Judging by the number of votive candles surrounding it this was clearly one of the order’s most venerated relics, and I began to take more notice of our surroundings, realising that we were now deep in the convent’s inner sanctum, further than most visitors would ever have been allowed to go.
“Indeed,” Killian agreed. “Crude tools at best, but easily duped, and the ideal subjects for our work.” I still had no idea what he was talking about, of course, but nodded as if I did, acutely conscious that only the knowledge he seemed to believe I possessed was keeping me alive.
“That must have gone against the grain, though,” I hazarded. Killian looked up from yet another of the fleur de lys motifs decorating the barrel vaulted chamber, doing something to it that I couldn’t see, concealed as it was behind his torso. A section of stonework swung away from the wall, revealing a brightly lit space beyond, and the inquisitor stood aside to usher us through the gap. “I thought it was your duty to eliminate heresy wherever you found it.”
“Blunt and to the point,” Killian said, the indulgent chuckle back in his voice. “Great virtues I’m sure in the military mind, but in the twilight wars we inquisitors must fight, things are rarely so simple.” He looked at me narrowly, his mood switching instantly to one of intense seriousness. “You’re afraid of Chaos, aren’t you? In so far as you fear anything at all, of course. Your valour is far too well known to be in any doubt.” This last he delivered in a curiously placating tone, as though he might be afraid that he’d hurt my feelings.
The palms of my hands tingled, as I considered the question. Far more hung on it than a simple matter of courage in the face of the enemy, of that I was certain. Somehow, I knew, the answer I gave would either convince Killian he’d been right to change his mind about killing me, or persuade him I was still a potent threat, best eliminated at the earliest opportunity. Mentally cursing the pictcasts for having given him the impression that I was a danger to his deranged plans in the first place, and trying to ignore the growing suspicion that this was precisely why Amberley had drawn their attention to me to begin with,[1] I tried to formulate a safe response. [1. At the time, I just thought having a celebrated hero in the vicinity would draw attention away from my own activities. The effect this had on Killian, luring him into showing his hand openly, was merely a welcome bonus. (Though not to Cain, obviously.)]
“It’s not a simple matter of courage or cowardice,” I temporised, drawing on all the diplomatic skills I’d acquired over the years. “I’ve faced the forces of Chaos too often, and in too many different guises, to underestimate them. If you want to equate caution with fear, then you’re perfectly at liberty to do so, but I’ve seen too many overconfident idiots die on the battlefield to make that mistake.” I shrugged, pretending a casual confidence I didn’t feel. “Emperor knows, I’ve killed enough of them myself.”
I waited, ready to go for my weapons if I had to, but Killian was nodding thoughtfully, a quiet smile on his face, as though my answer was exactly what he’d been hoping to hear.
“I can see I was right about you,” he said, as the stone wall slid back into place behind us, and Metheius took the lead, almost trotting down the brightly lit corridor in his eagerness to show off his toys. The stonework here was smooth, uncluttered by icons, statues, or those blasted three-leaved weeds, and Jurgen looked around us with his habitual expression of vague bafflement. (Which, had I not been controlling my features with the ease of the long-practiced dissembler, would undoubtedly have been reflected on my own face.)
“Where are we?” he asked, not unreasonably, and Killian gestured around us, taking in a number of closed doors, and the electrosconces between them that illuminated our path more than adequately.
“The heart of the Order of the White Rose,” he explained, no doubt delighted to have something else to pontificate about. “Prepared as a hidden repository for their holiest reliquaries should an enemy ever be on the verge of taking the convent, in order to preserve them from desecration. Only the canoness and the palatine know of its existence, or have the necessary codes for access.” He coughed modestly. “And the Inquisition, of course. Several representatives of the Ordo Hereticus have found these chambers useful over the millennia.”
“I can imagine,” I said. “So why bother with Hell’s Edge at all?” Killian laughed.
“The military mind at work again, I see. I could hardly bring members of the Covenant here for our research, could I?” He stood aside to usher us through a doorway, no different to my eyes than any of the others, which Metheius had entered a moment or two before. As I stepped across the threshold I was assailed by a momentary twinge of vertigo, and stumbled, until Jurgen reached out a hand to support me. The feeling subsided again, and I sub-vocalised a curse. Of all the times for my concussion to make an unexpected return, this was about the worst one possible. Killian looked at me, with unexpected solicitude. “It takes a lot of people like that when they first get close to it,” he said sympathetically. “The feeling will soon pass.” He laughed. “Or if not, you may be more blessed than either of us have bargained for.”
In truth I barely heard this last remark, let alone had the leisure to try puzzling it out, as I’d just got my first good look at the room we were standing in. It was undoubtedly Metheius’ domain, at least in theory, displaying all the usual appurtenances of a techpriest’s workspace: whirring and clicking cogitator banks, piles of equipment that had no discernible function that I could see, but which were clearly drawing power from somewhere, and a scattering of data-lecterns, several of which seemed to be connected to pict screens or hololiths. The usual snakepit of cabling connected it all, with the techpriests’ traditional disregard for the possibility of snagging an unwary ankle, the majority of it appearing to emanate from a metal plinth, supporting something about the size of a data-slate on which I found it difficult to focus.
An icon of the Omnissiah stood on a small polished steel shrine away to one side, making me wonder just how Eglantine would react if it ever came to her attention that one small corner of her holy of holies had been given over to the clockwork Emperor of the techpriests. Rather badly, I suspected.
Although I’d never seen the place before, something about the layout of it sparked a vague sense of formless recognition, which didn’t quite come into focus until Jurgen spoke.
“It’s like the shrine we found on Perlia,” he said, and I nodded. There were differences, of course, but most of the equipment looked the same, apart from the absence of bolter holes. The other major difference was the peculiar object on the plinth, and I took a few steps towards it, picking my way carefully through the tangle of cables as I did so, hoping for a better look. Close to, it didn’t seem all that impressive, just a smooth slab of stone about three times as high as it was wide, so black that the light from the electrosconces on the walls seemed to fall gently into it.
“Careful,” Metheius said, and I became aware that I’d got a lot closer to the thing than I’d intended. “There’s a field of warp energy around it.” He glanced at his instruments, sounding puzzled for a moment. “That’s odd, it seems to be diminishing. No, it’s right back to its usual level.” He thumped the lectern, and shrugged, while I noticed Jurgen taking a ste
p backwards out of the corner of my eye as I moved cautiously away. “Loose connection somewhere, probably. That’s the trouble with these temporary systems.”
“Temporary?” I asked, and Killian nodded.
“Periremunda’s no longer suitable for our purposes. We need a reasonably sized population, with an organised Chaos cult we can infiltrate and control, to provide us with a steady supply of experimental subjects. How else are we going to find latent psykers in sufficient quantities?”
I felt a chill running down my spine as he spoke, finally getting an inkling of what this was all about. I fought to keep an expression of dumbstruck horror from my face. If I was right, and this maniac guessed my true feelings about his monstrous design, I’d be dead in a second, or worse. Instead I nodded thoughtfully.
“Quite. The ’nids have made quite a dent in them here.” I nodded at Metheius, hoping that by addressing my next remark to him I’d be able to keep Killian from reading me too easily. “You don’t seem to be having much luck with aliens, all in all. First the orks on Perlia, and now this.”
“Oh, quite the contrary,” Metheius said happily. “It was the arrival of the orks that put us on the right track at last. The artefact was completely inert until the burst of warp energy that accompanied the arrival of their space hulk activated it.” I nodded, remembering how the dormant necron portal on Simia Orichalcae had been triggered by a similar phenomenon. “Unfortunately they were rather too numerous to be easily discouraged.”
“I’d noticed,” I said. In spite of myself I looked at the object that just had to be the shadowlight again, the featureless black slab exerting a horrid fascination. “Did you ever find out what it was supposed to do?”
“Its actual function?” Metheius shook his head. “That still eludes us, but it’s the side effect, so to speak, that we’re most interested in, obviously.”
“Obviously,” I echoed, hoping that the side effect in question wasn’t the one I’d just deduced. “The implications of that alone are quite staggering.”
Killian nodded eagerly, an unhealthy enthusiasm burning behind his eyes again, renewing my already considerable doubts about his sanity. “More than just staggering,” he said. “Galaxy shaking! Think about it, Cain, think of the possibilities! If we can reliably enhance the latent psychic powers of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of individuals on every world in the Imperium, what a weapon that would give us against the hordes of Chaos! We could crush them with their own weapons, cleanse the Eye of Terror itself of their foul taint! And once the Ruinous Powers lie prostrate and broken before the Golden Throne, we can sweep the xenos breeds from the stars, until the galaxy belongs to its rightful masters alone: pure, unsullied humankind!”
“It’s a heady vision,” I said carefully, certain that he was at least as barmy as the Chaos worshippers he was supposed to hunt down. “But there are rather a lot of worlds in the Imperium, and you’ve only got one of those rocks.”
“At the moment, yes.” The madman nodded, as though I’d just scored a reasonable debating point. “That’s why Metheius’ research is so vital, you see. If he can determine the precise nature and frequency of the warp energy that triggers the transformation from latent to true psyker, we can build devices of our own to do the same thing.”
“We also have to refine the technique,” Metheius added, a little diffidently. “At the moment it only works on a very small percentage of the latents exposed to it. The rest find it as fatal to the touch as an ordinary untainted human.”
“I see.” I nodded again. “Must be rather difficult to find volunteers, then.”
“That’s why we subverted the Covenant of the Blessed,” Methius explained. “They’re insane enough to take the risk, and the ones who survive, and develop useable talents, become tools of the Emperor without even realising who it is they now serve.”
“Rather a delicious irony, don’t you think?” Killian was getting carried away again. “The foot soldiers of the enemy, duped into defending the very Imperium they sought to destroy.”
“I can see why you find it so amusing,” I said, “and why you’re so keen to carry on the good work.” I used the phrase in its colloquial sense, of course, with a fair amount of sarcasm if I’m honest, but Killian pounced on it eagerly.
“Then you do understand!” He glanced at Metheius. “What did I tell you? It was worth the risk of bringing him here!”
As you’ll no doubt appreciate, astonishment barely begins to express how I felt at that moment. Feeling as though I was inching my way along a narrow ledge above a bottomless abyss of insanity, I nodded slowly.
“You’re hoping I can take a message to Lazurus for you. Get him to back off.”
“Precisely!” Killian said. “For our work to succeed, we must be free of outside interference. Our shuttle will be leaving within the hour, and if you were to report back that we’d been killed, along with everyone else on the plateau, no one could possibly doubt it, not the word of a man of your reputation.” A solid knot of ice seemed to gather itself in the pit of my stomach, and I glanced uneasily at Jurgen.
“I’m not entirely sure I follow,” I said, the memory of the massacre in the Valley of Daemons rising up to haunt me again. Killing everyone in a remote Mechanicus shrine was one thing, but there must have been thousands of people on Gavarrone, and hundreds of Sororitas warriors in this convent alone. Quite how Killian proposed to eliminate them all unaided was beyond me. An expression of deranged cunning flitted across his face.
“The Sisters here are loyal, there’s no doubt about that, but too many of them know of our presence. So I’ve taken certain precautions.” Beckoning to me to follow he left the laboratory, and I complied, Jurgen at my heels as always. Metheius remained, making whatever preparations seemed necessary for their imminent departure. “If you refuse to help us, which I’m bound to say would hardly surprise me, I’m sorry to say that they’ll suffice to ensure your silence too.”
“What precautions?” I asked, a little breathlessly, as I finally caught up with him. Killian paused next to another of the doors lining the corridor.
“This,” he said simply, swinging it open. I reeled back, reaching for my chainsword by reflex, and Jurgen raised his lasgun, emptying the power pack over my shoulder on full auto. The tyranid lictor inside the chamber reeled back, shrieking, and crashed to the floor, with an impact that shook dust from the crevices in the stonework. I stepped forward cautiously, keeping it covered with my laspistol as Jurgen reloaded, only then noticing that it had already been grievously wounded, and had been firmly secured to the wall by chains that looked strong enough to have held a dreadnought in check.
“Oh, bravo.” Killian clapped his hands, looking at Jurgen with something approaching interest for a moment, before returning his attention to me. “I can see why you insisted on keeping this fellow around. There’s obviously far more to him than meets the eye.”
“What the hell’s this thing doing here?” I asked, incredulous, too startled to carry on pretending we were all reasonable people. Killian looked at me blankly, as though that were obvious.
“Attracting the swarm,” he said. “These creatures exude pheromones that—”
“I know what it is!” I practically shouted. I activated my comm-bead. “Amberley! This lunatic’s got a pet lictor stashed in the catacombs! The whole bloody swarm’s on its way!”
“Traitor!” Killian screamed, almost drowning out Amberley’s startled acknowledgement, drawing a plasma pistol from beneath his tabard. I already had my gun in my hand, though, and squeezed the trigger before he could bring it to bear. Instead of falling, as I’d expected, however, he suddenly vanished, with a crack! of imploding air.
“Frak!” I said angrily, recognising the work of a displacer field. Amberley had used one on Gravalax, and I knew the little teleportation device couldn’t have taken him far. Time we got out of here, before he crawled out of whichever niche the displacer had dumped him in, and caught up with us again. Somehow I
doubted that he’d still want to use me as a messenger boy.
“Ciaphas! What’s happening?” Amberley asked, her voice sounding unexpectedly concerned. I filled her in as best I could while sprinting for the entrance to this bizarre hidden labyrinth, blessing the innate sense of direction that generally allowed me to remain orientated in underground environments.[1] “And find Eglantine,” I concluded. “That wretched woman’s the only one apart from Killian who knows how to get down here.” [1. A talent he displayed on many occasions, and which he attributed to his upbringing on a hive world.]
“That wretched woman is already aware of the situation,” the canoness informed me coldly, apparently having overheard the entire exchange. “Inquisitor Vail revealed her identity to Sister Caritas the moment she was out of earshot of Killian, demanded a meeting, and has convinced me of his true nature.”
“Well that was a neat trick,” I said, wondering just how she’d managed that,[2] but I had little time to speculate. A burst of light in the corridor ahead of us dazzled my eyes, and a bolt of plasma burst against the stonework, vaporising a chunk of it about the size of my head. By the worst piece of bad luck imaginable, the displacer field had dropped Killian right between us and safety. [2. An Inquisitorial mandate tends to impress people; probably something to do with all those seals.]
[Ciaphas Cain 05] - Duty Calls Page 29