by Ben Counter
'I shall need to look at your organised records.' said Ligeia, removing her velvet gloves and feeling the word-heavy air tingling against her skin. 'I shall require any information you have on active or defunct heretic cults. Give particular priority to apocalyptic sects. Find out if there are any survivors imprisoned on the Trail. I shall start here.'
'Of course, inquisitor.' said the archivist, unable to completely hide the bemusement from her voice.
Ligeia held out her hands as the archivist left. She could feel the weight of meaning in the vault, most of it stodgy and grey with irrelevance. But there were seams of violence and heresy running through it like veins in marble. The faint echo of the Trail's fallen splendour reached her - though the Trail was still home to billions of Imperial citizens it had in truth been dying for some time, and it mourned the loss of its celebrated piety and wealth. War had touched the Trail where nations or planets tried to gain independence from the Imperial yoke, and when legions of men and women had left to fight in the wars that constantly raged around the Imperium.
She started with the world she stood on, its details illuminated by the inventories and maintenance records of the fortress itself - she let the information flow into her. She could see that Trepytos's society had been almost laid bare, leaving only the cold, diamond-hard core of the Inquisition, dwindling smaller and smaller but still desperately trying to hold the Trail together.
She let Trepytos slip out of her mind and moved on to the Trail's most important world. Volcanis Ultor was a slow, irascible old world, now decrepit but still with potential for one last fight. Some of its hives were all but empty, others were full to their considerable capacity as if citizens were huddling together for safety. The handsome velvet sheen of the Ecclesiarchy lay over Volcanis Ultor - the authority the cardinals had over the planet was a relic of the Trail's religious prominence.
The forge world of Magnos Omicron throbbed with factories churning out weapons for the armies now heading for the Eye of Terror, but the Adeptus Mechanicus were insular in the extreme and the cargo ships that visited the world brought no benefit to the rest of the Trail. The planet was cloaked and dark to Ligeia, only the odd flashes of technical information - new marks of tanks or lasgun pouring out of the forges, abortive diplomatic moves to bring Magnos Omicron into the fold of the Trail's authorities. The Mechanicus had kept their world insulated from the workings of the Trail and, as far as Ligeia could tell, it was one of the few places on the Trail not trapped in a spiral of decay and obscurity.
Half-settled or depopulated worlds cast shadows of ignorance where the information stopped flowing. The garden world of Farfallen was a small bright spark, too under-populated to ever be important but famed for its beauty. The drab grey canvases of agri-worlds spoke only of production quotas and tithing rates. A few mechanical glints betrayed the presence of monitoring stations on the outskirts of more important systems, their existence composed solely of blind numbers spooling from various sensors.
Ligeia's psychic power let her draw meaning from any medium. The whole of the Trail was there beneath the fortress at Trepytos. She could see the planets hanging in space and feel the currents of their histories churning through her. The cults she saw were dark wells of malice and debauchery. The Imperium's responses were sharp wounds that bled recrimination. But it was not enough - she needed details.
Ligeia walked up to the closest shelf, the hem of her travelling dress becoming grimy with the thick gathering of dust. She pulled one volume off the shelf - it was a collection of annual reports from the Officio Medicae on the agri-world Villendion on the edge of the Trail, going back thirty years. Disease and antiseptic desperation bled from its pages.
Ligeia placed her hands on the cover, letting the knowledge seep into her mind.
Silently, using the skills that had so scandalised the noble circles in which she had been brought up, Ligeia began.
ALARIC ROSE UP almost onto his toes, his hands moving slightly from side to side as he tensed up, ready to strike at any moment. He moved as he had been taught, ready with every enhanced muscle to go in any direction at split-second notice, to dodge or parry or strike.
Tancred was taller and so he ducked down lower, ready to use his greater reach. All Marines were tall, Grey Knights no exception, and Tancred was especially huge - not just tall but broad, with huge slab-like pectorals lying beneath the implanted black carapace and wide hands reaching to grab and throw. Tancred's head was a battered knot of scars and around his neck hung the Crux Terminatus on a silver chain.
Alaric ducked forward and kicked out at Tancred's knee. Tancred saw it coming and did what Alaric hoped he would - he turned to one side and half-stepped away from Alaric's kick. Alaric swung behind Tancred and drove an elbow into his back, knocking him forward off-balance.
Alaric pounced, throwing his body weight onto the bigger man. Tancred fell forward but turned as he did so with dexterity that was always so alarming in such a huge man, bringing a foot up into Alaric's stomach. Tancred slammed into the riveted steel floor and kicked out, throwing Alaric solidly over his head to land hard.
Alaric turned over as quickly as he could, ready to dive forward and pin Tancred down. Suddenly there was a weight on the back of his neck - Tancred's foot pressed down on him. Like a hunter with a kill, Tancred stood over him.
'You're dead, justicar.' said Tancred in his customary growl.
Tancred took his foot off Alaric's neck, and the smaller man pulled himself to his feet. The sparring had left him breathless but Tancred seemed to be barely breaking a sweat.
'Good.' continued Tancred. 'What have you learned?'
'Not to try to beat you on the ground.'
'Apart from that.' Tancred was a true veteran, with an extraordinary panoply of scars and a place amongst the Terminator-armoured assault troops to prove it. He was older than Alaric and he had fought for longer - there was little he couldn't teach about combat of the up close and personal kind.
'Not to face a stronger opponent on his terms.'
'Wrong.' Tancred walked towards the edge of the training circle where an age-blackened steel arch led through to the cells. The Rubicon had been built with a deck set aside for the monastic cells in which the battle-brothers slept and spent their few moments of spare time, along with training areas, a chapel, an armaments workshop, a scaled-down apothecarion and all the facilities they needed to keep healthy in body and mind. The Grey Knights were segregated from the rest of the Rubicon's crew, which consisted of well-drilled engine and weapon gangs wholly owned by the Ordo Malleus.
'The lesson.' continued Tancred as the two Marines walked through the shadowy corridors of the ship, 'is to play to your strengths. I am stronger and heavier. You are smaller and quicker. I used what advantage I had and you did not use yours.'
Alaric shook his head. 'Have you ever lost?' he asked.
'To Brother-Captain Stern.' replied Tancred. 'He did me the honour of breaking my nose.'
Brother-Captain Stern was one of the most respected warriors the Grey Knights possessed. Alaric was not surprised that it had taken such a man to best Tancred.
'What are your men saying?' asked Alaric. Tancred was not considered a leader with Alaric's potential, which meant he had stayed a justicar for far longer than most and had forged a bond with his Terminator squad that meant he was well worth listening to when it came to the morale of his men.
'I feel they would rather be at the Eye.' said Tancred, almost sadly. 'They have said nothing, but I can feel their doubt. They do not think Ligeia is a warrior.'
'She is not.' said Alaric. 'She does not pretend to be. And I trust her.'
'Then so will they. But it will not be helped if we are kept here without acting against the Enemy.' Tancred did not speak the name of Ghargatuloth. It was out of habit rather than Alaric's orders - the very names of daemons were unclean.
'We don't even know if he's on the Trail. Even if he is not, this place has been spared the Em
peror's gaze for too long. I feel we will be called upon soon.'
They reached Tancred's cell, a simple, small room with texts from the Liber Daemonicum pinned to the walls. The stern words of the Rites of Detestation were the first thing Tancred saw when he woke and the last thing he saw before he entered half-sleep. Tancred's Terminator armour was laid out in one comer, the baroque polished armour plates shining dully in the dim light. The shield-shaped plaque of the Insignium Valoris mounted on one shoulder bore Tancred's personal heraldry - one half was glossy black representing space and the other was red with a field of white star-bursts. One star for each boarding action.
'Take your men through the Catechisms of Intolerance.' said Alaric. 'I think it is an appropriate prayer for the Trail. I will lead Squad Santoro's firing rites, we will need them when the time comes.'
'Santoro is a good man.' said Tancred as he entered his cell and took his copy of the Liber Daemonicum from where it lay beside his armour. 'Tough. And Genhain lost a battle-brother at the Gaolven Belt, he will want revenge, too. I think you have chosen your justicars well.'
'This isn't about revenge, Tancred. This is about stopping Ghargatuloth.'
'Maybe.' Tancred leafed through the pages of the Liber Daemonicum until he found the well-thumbed page with the Catechisms of Intolerance. 'But revenge helps.'
INTERROGATION CHAMBER IX was stained black with blood.
The Ordo Malleus possessed the best interrogation personnel and equipment in the Imperium, and each interrogation chamber had seen generations of psychological theories turned into practice.
Psychic surgery that placed a new, compliant personality inside a prisoner's head. Complex stress cascade scenarios that could convince a man the universe had ended and that his interrogators were gods. Total personality destruction that removed every facet of a person's mind except for the part that contained whatever the Malleus wanted to know.
Usually, the interrogators started with some of the more old-fashioned techniques. Which accounted for the blood.
All the conventional techniques had been tried on Gholic Ren-Sar Valinov in Interrogation Chamber IX. He had been worked on for weeks, but he had not broken. Careful examination of his body would reveal near-invisible surgical scars where the damage done to him had been repaired, because the Ordo Malleus did not do anything so crude as to cripple their enemies out of spite.
It was almost a matter of procedure when dealing with a man like Valinov. As an inquisitor his training, indoctrination and hard-won experience would all but ensure he would not break under conventional measures. The staff on Mimas had gone through the motions with grim efficiency, pausing only to ask the questions. Who was Valinov working for? What was his connection to Ghargatuloth? Why had he been in possession of the Codicium Aeternum.
The time came, eventually and inevitably, to move to the next stages, for which the lord inquisitors themselves had to give permission.
Explicator Riggensen was one of a small staff of psykers apprenticed to Ordo Malleus inquisitors whose minds had proven strong enough to allow for their powers to be developed and expanded. Riggensen was a telepath who had studied under Lord Inquisitor Coteaz and had learned to use his power to lever open recalcitrant minds. Riggensen and a handful of men and women like him were permanently seconded to Mimas, to eke vital information from the minds of the toughest prisoners the Malleus brought in.
The interrogation chamber was monitored from a tiny adjoining room. A large window looked in on Valinov sitting naked in the corner of the unfurnished chamber. Screens on the walls showed the same image in various wavelengths, and several monitors displayed Valinov's life signs. Psychic and anti-daemonic wards hung on the walls of the monitoring room in the forms of devotional texts and purity seals. Gun servitors flanked Riggensen as he sat watching his latest charge, because more than one such explicator had been compromised by a psychic prisoner.
Two of the interrogation staff watched Valinov's life signs and provided communications with staff headquarters and the Inquisitorial fortress on Encaladus. The Ordo Malleus's brightest lights were mosdy on their way to the Eye of Terror or were already behind enemy lines, but there was still a heady wealth of authority on Encaladus and many inquisitors were listening in.
'Wards down.' said Riggensen, as the interrogator beside him deactivated the psychic wards woven into the walls of the chamber. Riggensen closed his eyes and reached out with his mind. The chamber was dull and throbbing with the pain that had been inflicted there and the blood that covered its walls. Valinov was a complex knot of life in the corner, a tiny diamond-hard centre of resolve behind his eyes. Riggensen had felt the iron will of an inquisitor before; he had always known that one day he would have to try to crack one open. He was also certain that he would fail. But every attempt had to be made to find out as much information as possible before Valinov was executed, and Riggensen was probably, the last chance the Malleus had of breaking Valinov.
'Open it up.' said Riggensen, standing up.
The front wall of the monitoring room ground slowly open, and Riggensen walked through into the chamber. The smoothed layers of dried blood were like slick stone beneath his feet. The chamber stank of stale sweat.
Valinov looked up at him. The rogue inquisitor had been deprived of sleep and food but he seemed to take pride in not letting his health degenerate.
'Explicator? Then you are finally getting desperate. I was wondering how long it would take.'
'This does not have to happen, inquisitor.' said Riggensen.
'Yes it does. That's the way it works, isn't it? You do everything you can to bleed me dry and then you kill me. So get it over and done with.'
Riggensen held out his hand in front of Valinov's face, focusing his energy through it so that it poured out and flowed through Valinov's mind.
Valinov resisted, and he was strong. Riggensen could feel landscapes of hatred in the man's mind, a seething storm of arrogance. He was driven by the same conviction that drove every inquisitor, an absolute faith that could not be broken. But Valinov's faith was in darkness. The stink of Chaos filled him. The names of gods that Riggensen had been forbidden to speak echoed through the parts of Valinov's memory that the rogue inquisitor let the explicator feel.
Valinov was taunting him. Riggensen had never felt such strength of mind. Valinov couldn't hide his corruption but he could pick and choose which details Riggensen pried out of him, and he wasn't giving anything away. That diamond core of willpower shielded everything - there were no records that suggested Valinov was psychic, but his sheer resolve was superhuman.
Without warning, Valinov pushed back. Psychic feedback flooded into Riggensen's mind and he was hurled across the chamber, crashing through into the monitoring room. The two interrogator staff were thrown to the ground and the gun-servitors whirred angrily as they trained their guns on both Riggensen and Valinov.
Riggensen pulled back from Valinov's mind before the feedback knocked him unconscious. The wrecked monitoring room swam back into view, with shattered machines sparking.
'Abort!' yelled one of the interrogators, reaching for the control that would send the psychic wards leaping up around the chamber again.
'No.' said Riggensen, grabbing the man's wrist.
Valinov stood up and walked slowly across the chamber. 'I kill millions of vermin in the plain sight of your Inquisition, and they send me a boy.' he sneered. 'This mind will never crack. Don't you see? There is nothing left for me to fear.'
Riggensen sent a white-hot psychic spike into Valinov's mind, visibly leaping from the monitoring room into the chamber and spearing into Valinov's forehead. Valinov spasmed as the motor control portions of his brain were overloaded but the spike shattered like a glass arrow against the core of his resolve.
Riggensen's mind flowed around Valinov's psyche, finding only deserts of boiling hatred. Valinov spat wordless filth back at him. Traitor, he called him. Scum. Failure. Child. Less than nothing.
Riggensen screamed prayers straight into Valinov's mind. Words that would draw tears from daemons scoured through storms of anger. Valinov grabbed hold of Riggensen's psychic probe and the two men wrestled, Valinov's willpower against Riggensen's psychic strength. Valinov was on his knees and grinning wildly through bloodied teeth, but his mind was undamaged.
'Life signs fluctuating.' said one of the interrogators at the edge of Riggensen's perception. He could just hear the screams of the medical cogitator as it told him that Valinov was going into cardiac and respiratory arrest. But Valinov kept fighting.
Sharp flashes of pain washed through the mental battleground as Valinov's body reached the edge of its limits. Riggensen could taste Valinov's heart as it beat wildly out of time and the agonizing grind of his lungs as they tried to draw breath.
Riggensen limped into the chamber, staggering against Valinov's resistance like a man walking against a hurricane. Valinov lashed out with a bolt of sheer malice and Riggensen was thrown against one of the chamber's walls, then yanked the other way and slammed against the opposite wall. Riggensen kept hold of Valinov's mind, clinging on grimly as the most powerful psyche he had ever faced clawed at him like a wild animal.
'Signs critical! Get the apothecarion crew in here!' someone shouted. Riggensen didn't listen. Everything he despised was staring at him like a single huge burning eye of hate. Corruption. Treachery. Surrender to the great Enemy. Valinov had hatred, but so did Riggensen.
Riggensen reached out with the last ounce of his willpower and wrapped a mental fist around the diamond at the heart of Valinov's mind. As his sight greyed out he put more willpower that he knew he had into crushing that diamond.
The dried blood was flaking off the walls. The white tiles beneath were cracking, falling like sharp flurries of snow. Klaxons were blaring on the gun-servitors that were demanding the order to fire. Life sign indicators were bleating that Valinov was about to die. The interrogators were shouting orders. The cacophony grew louder and louder, merging with the din spouting from Valinov's mind.