by Ben Counter
Against this backdrop, then, the statue in the middle of the room was incongruously horrible. Ligeia didn't want to guess what it was supposed to depict, but that was her job. It was something daemonic, certainly. Its every angle screamed insanity. Ligeia felt it hurting the psychic corners of her mind just looking at it. Unbidden, hints of its meaning filtered into her consciousness - it was a celebration of something foul, an imperfect rendition of something the sculptor had seen and wanted to emulate in his art.
Ligeia flicked a switch on her vox-array and the device began recording her voice onto a data-slate. Many inquisitors travelled with a savant or a lexme-chanic to keep their records and collate findings, but Ligeia preferred to do her own bookkeeping, accompanied only by her silent death cultists. The... item,' began Ligeia, unwilling to assign the repulsive sculpture a name, 'is of hardwood not native to Victrix Sonora. It must have been made off-world and imported by the cult, which means it is of ritual significance.' She paused. 'Half the thing's many eyes seemed to be staring at her through hard wooden pupils, the rest of them scanning the room as if looking for a way out.
The texts recovered from the cult's cogitator, coupled with the obvious heretical references in the carving's shape, suggest that the sculpture depicts one of the Thousand Faces of Ghargatuloth.'
Ligeia stared at the sculpture for a good few minutes. She reached out gingerly with her psychic perception, feeling oceans of meaning wrapped up in the carvings which might be too much for her consciousness to cope with. She tasted metal in her mouth and heard something laughing or perhaps screaming, far away.
She could hear a name - very, very faint, too distant for her to make out. She listened harder, reached closer. The eyes were windows onto a perfect galaxy, a place devoted to the architecture of Chaos. The leering mouth spoke the unending spell that would remake the universe for the Lord of Change. The grain of the wood was the swirling pattern of fate that wrapped around everything, dragging it inexorably towards the final end - ultimate Chaos, the totality of the Change, the unending magnificence and pure horror of which Ghargatuloth was the herald.
Ligeia saw the galaxy, saturated with the power of the Change. She saw stars weeping and dying. She saw worlds crushed into crystal shards of hate. She saw the galaxy uncoiling and spilling all creation out into nothingness, down the throat of the ringmaster of Chaos, Ghargatuloth's master, the Change God Tzeentch.
Ligeia snapped her mind away just in time. She was on her knees, gasping, sweating. A lock of her carefully dressed hair lay lank across her face. She brushed it away with a shaking hand.
The death cultist in the corner, Taici, inclined his head almost imperceptibly forward. The subtle, silent code Ligeia and her bodyguards used was clear - did she need help? Medical assistance?
Ligeia shook her head, clambered shakily to her feet and tottered over to a table, where there were several crystal glasses and a decanter of syrupy, vintage amasec. She poured herself a good bolt and swallowed it down - she knew it did her no good but her mind told her differently, relaxing its grip on her and shedding some of the after-image of a galaxy gone mad.
'The... the item.' she continued, 'is now under absolute quarantine, with access available only to myself. Should I be lost, access shall be granted only on the permission of the Conclave of the High Lords of the Ordo Malleus.' She opened a draw of the desk and took out a slim wooden case, flipped it open, and withdrew a surgeon's scalpel. Carefully she sliced a sliver of wood off the sculpture, placing the sliver in a specimen bottle. 'A sample from the item is to be tested under my authority as soon as possible.'
Ligeia took another bolt of amasec and composed herself. If she had needed proof, it was here. That only she could see it - her power was extremely rare and she had never heard of another inquisitor possessing it - was frustrating. She would probably have to provide proof eventually that did not rely on her ability to draw meaning from any form of communication. But for her, this was enough. She could still taste in her mind the after-image of Ghargatuloth draped across the stars, an endless ocean of seething Change. A lesser mind, untrained by the rigours of an interrogator's apprenticeship and the demands of the inquisitor lords, might have snapped. If that madness came out from the warp back to real space, how many minds would be lost?
ALARIC WAS CLEAN at last. Twelve hours of prayers, seeking deliverance from the corruption he had come so close to, had scoured his soul of the sorcery that had blasted against it. Ritual decontamination had left his skin raw and tingling beneath armour gleaming from a ceremonial bath of mild acids and incense. The Rubicon echoed to the rituals that followed battle, slower and more reflective, as the battle-brothers sought to understand what they had experienced without letting it corrupt them. Alaric had seen terrible things before, from the sky turning red and bleeding over Soligor IV to the legions of the Lust God marching across the plains of Alazon. Each of them had left its mark, but observance of the prayers and rituals of the Grey Knights had washed those marks away. Other men were driven mad, but a Grey Knight was made clean and became stronger.
In the dim light of his cell, Alaric read from his copy of the Liber Daemonicum. The Rituals of Conclusion told of the soul being wrapped in faith like a planet is wrapped in an atmosphere, like a warrior is clothed in armour. Faith is a shield, a badge of the righteous, and is required for the very survival of the Emperor's soldiers. They were words Alaric had read thousands of times, but each time it gave him comfort as it did now. He was not alone. If the Emperor was not watching, then faith would mean nothing - but Alaric's soul was intact, and so faith must be a shield against corruption, and so the Emperor must have His eyes upon the Grey Knights.
In the infinite, cold, hostile universe, where the futures of so many trillions hung by the slimmest of threads and the tendrils of Chaos reached everywhere, it was only the Emperor who could show the way. To know He was there gave Alaric all the strength he needed.
The rituals were done. Alaric was safe from the depredations of the enemy until the next battle. But he knew, as always, that would not be very long.
Alaric put on his armour in time for Justicar Santoro's arrival. Santoro was a quiet and intense man who rarely let any emotion surface. That did not mean he had no presence, however, because his men followed him as if his every word was that of the Emperor. If he further proved his prowess as a justicar, Santoro would have a place in the chaplain's seminary under Durendin if he wanted it, and Alaric knew he would take it.
Santoro stood outside Alaric's cell. He was in full armour - as a justicar he could display his own heraldry on the stylised shield attached to one shoulder. Santoro's heraldry consisted of a single white starburst on a black field - the light in the darkness, the cleansing flame of the Emperor, the wrath of the Knights piercing the black heart of the enemy.
'Justicar.' said Alaric. 'How are your men?'
'The rites are done.' replied Santoro. 'Jaeknos suffered a lasgun shot to the back of the knee but it will be healed in a day or two. Their spirits are good, but they do not feel they know enough about our enemy here.'
'Have they told you this?'
'It is what I feel. My men always feel the same.'
'It cannot be helped. Knowing too much is as dangerous as knowing nothing when it comes to the Enemy.'
'Too true. But that was not why I needed to speak with you. Inquisitor Ligeia contacted the bridge a few minutes ago with new orders. She needs us to go to a world named Sophano Secundus.'
Alaric though for a moment, then went back into the cell and found the data-slate onto which he had downloaded the basic information about the Trail. Sophano Secundus, he read, was a backwater, a feudal world that hadn't yet reached blackpowder-level technology, where the sole Imperial authority was a preacher of the Missonaria Galaxia. The world had been bypassed by the Trail's prosperity because it had no resources of any note and had been lost in the bureaucracy surrounding the settling and development of new worlds.
'It does not sound promising.' said Alaric. 'The population would normally be too small to hide a cult of any size.'
'The inquisitor believes the statue you recovered from Victrix Sonora originated from there.' continued Santoro. 'She thinks there could be a link between the cults of the Trail and that she could find it on Sophano Secundus. We are to remain in orbit and back her up. She does not seem to think it would be wise for us to accompany her.'
'And you disagree?'
'The inquisitor is in command of this mission. There is nothing to disagree with.'
Alaric knew the men under his command. Santoro was not so inscrutable that he could hide his lack of enthusiasm. 'Inquisitor Ligeia will have a lot in common with the nobles she will need to deal with.' said Alaric. 'It would hardly help her cause if she had to go everywhere surrounded by armoured superhumans. She's better off on her own in this case.'
'Of course. I will tell my squad.'
'Let Genhain and Tancred know, too.' said Alaric. 'I need to read up on our destination.'
As Santoro left, Alaric began to search the Rubicon's databanks for information on Sophano Secundus, using the data-slate terminal in his cell. He had certainly not expected to end up on an undeveloped backwater of the Trail when there were still so many population centres where, he knew from experience, a cunning leader could hide whole armies of cultists. The Missionaria Galaxia, the organisation through which the Adeptus Ministorum sent preachers and confessors to benighted worlds throughout the galaxy, was notoriously quick to call in the Sisters of Battle or even the Ordo Hereticus when they suspected something evil had taken root in their flock. If there really was a connection to Ghargatuloth on Sophano Secundus, it would have to be subtle. And subtle, Alaric suspected, was something Ligeia did well.
Once again, however, he had to trust her. All the prowess of the Grey Knights would mean nothing if Inquisitor Ligeia's hunches proved wrong. She was a psyker, yes, a powerful one, and a determined woman devoted to the eradication of the Enemy - but she was still human, and even her most precise divinations were ultimately guesswork.
Alaric had learned long ago to put his trust in the Emperor, for he was engaged in a fight against such odds that only through the Emperor could he prevail. But he was still not completely certain that he should have the same level of trust in Inquisitor Ligeia.
SOPHANO SECUNDUS HAD been discovered so long ago that it was all but impossible to trace its whole history under nominal Imperial rule. In the latter years of the Great Crusade, when the Emperor was already worshipped as a god, missionaries from his fledgling church had sent one of their number to Sophano Secundus to preach the word. They found a world mostly barren and drab with only one habitable continent that could only support a handful of feudal kingdoms around a few cities. Such rediscovered worlds were common, because the scattered human worlds had been torn apart in the Age of Strife and during the Crusade many were found that had been forgotten since the first waves of colonization.
The Missionaria Galaxia maintained a presence on Sophano Secundus, which was why there were any records of it at all. The first missionary to be named in the records, Crucien, described primitive but broadly harmless kingdoms that bowed before an Allking and occasionally settled disputes with pitched battles. At some point the planet was forgotten by the Administratum and so a formal settlement order was never drawn up for Sophano Secundus - it became, by default, the responsibility of the Adeptus Ministorum, who were unwilling to waste any more resources on the backwater than the personnel required to keep a mission on the planet.
There were many such planets in the Imperium, most of them on the outer reaches of settled space or scattered through the Halo Zone, but more than a few surrounded by more developed systems. The Imperium's official policy was to 'civilise' such worlds and open them up for settlement, but even at the best of times there were more than enough wars and rebellions to keep Imperial efforts elsewhere. And times were never the best.
Sophano Secundus, according to the reports that had filtered back to the Trail authorities from the missionaries, was almost deliberately bad at accepting new technology and ideas. In any case, the Ecdesiarchy knew better than to cause a perfectly good Imperial flock to decimate itself by giving them lasguns. The Allking had therefore ruled over a feudal nation for as long as the records stretched back, knowing nothing of the Imperium other than that the missionary was holy and untouchable and that fire would rain from the sky if heresy ever showed its head. The missionaries considered the population's faith to be relatively stable, albeit prone to the sorts of misunderstandings inevitable when existing beliefs came into contact with the Imperial faith. There was no suggestion that the Ecclesiarchy had been forced to quell any rebellions or cult activity (although the Ecclesiarchy kept such things to itself) and other Imperial authorities seemed not to have even visited the world for several thousand years. Aside from the missionaries and perhaps a few curious wealthy visitors keen to observe how humans survived outside the hive cities, Inquisitor Ligeia would be the first 'outsider' to set foot on Sophano Secundus for all that time.
Alaric reviewed this information on a data-slate as he waited on the bridge of the Rubicon for Ligeia's shuttle to drop out of orbit and start its descent. He tapped the slate mounted on the rail around the captain's pulpit, trying to work out why Ghargatuloth might want to make his presence felt on such a world. He had certainly inspired cults on feudal and feral worlds before his banishment - Khorion IX itself was such a backwater. But was there any real benefit for him in doing so, or was it just another feint? Alaric knew that the Prince of a Thousand Faces would not let anything lead the Grey Knights to him as directly as the statue on Victrfx Sonora, but perhaps there would be a link somewhere on the planet below them, and perhaps Ligeia would be able to find it. Much would lie in how she negotiated with the current Allking Rashemha the Stout, and with the current missionary, a hardy confessor named Polonias.
The bridge was a huge space, all highly polished metal wrought into elaborate scrollwork on every surface, swirling and organic, forming a grand series of murals around the huge viewscreen on the sloping ceiling like an ornate frame around a picture. Command pulpits stood around the walls, each with a grim, silent Ordo Hereticus crew member manning the controls. The Hereticus raised its own fleets and provided most of the crews for the Grey Knights - each had a complex psycho-trigger, built into their minds by sleep-doctrination, that would wipe out their higher brain functions if the order was given from a Grey Knight. That way, if the taint of Chaos ever touched the crew they could all be reduced to drooling idiots before they took control of the Rubicon. The crew knew it, too, and they were generally a grim and humourless lot. They never associated with the Grey Knights, and were replaced regularly The Rubicon itself, a heavily modified Space Marine strike cruiser, was a fine enough ship to fight above its weight even with such a fatalistic crew.
The viewscreen was showing an image of Sophano Secundus, half-lit by its sun. Most of it was grey-brown slabs of land rearing up from dark blue oceans, but towards the equator one continent bloomed with life, a burst of green against the drabness. Somewhere in the middle of it was Hadjisheim, named after a legendary Allking, the capital of Sophano Secundus. It contained the Allking's palace and the temple built around Crucien's original mission, and it was where Inquisitor Ligeia was headed.
Alaric wished he could be down there. Though he had not heard anything so vulgar as a complaint from his Marines, he knew that they would rather know where the enemy was and have the chance to fight it than wait in orbit while Ligeia navigated through unfamiliar politics a Grey Knight had no time for. Tancred, in particular, was bristling - the old warhorse was most at home in the thick of the fight, and he must have felt like every moment out of it was a moment of unforgivable dereliction of duty. Alaric had felt that same impatience himself, many times, when the forces of Chaos had run rings around Imperial intelligence and forced
the Grey Knights to wait for the next atrocity to happen. As a justicar and as the leading military officer on this mission, though, he knew how such distractions could take the edge off a fighter's instincts. The Grey Knights were some of the most dangerous troops in the Imperium, but that did not mean they could afford to lose their edge. He hoped he could keep his Marines sharp enough to face Ghargatuloth, because he still had to keep faith that Ligeia would lead them to it.
'Seventh stage.' came the flat, monotonous voice of the crewman at the shuttle control pulpit. 'Atmospheric controls on-line.'
'Descending.' said the shuttle pilot in reply, voice crackling over the vox. Ligeia's shuttle pierced the atmospheric envelope around Sophano Secundus.
'Wish me luck, justicar.' said Ligeia cheerfully over the bridge's vox-casters.
'You don't need it, inquisitor.' replied Alaric. 'Just find out what they're hiding down there.'
An inset image showed the faint orange streak as the shuttle entered the atmosphere, and then it was gone. It was time, thought Alaric, for Ligeia to do with words what the Grey Knights could not do with strength.
* * *
THE FIRST TASTE Inquisitor Ligeia had of Sophano Secundus was from the warm, slightly damp air that filled the passenger cabin of the shuttle as the rear ramp slid down. It was faintly spicy, faintly dusty, with a slight taste of the forests that rolled out across the continent. The light that streamed in was bright and yellowish, a stark contrast to the cool harsh lumostrips of the Rubicon and the feeble illumination in the archives of Trepytos.
She hoped the change would do her good. She had been suffering headaches and painful joints, and she had been woken by sudden sharp nightmares where invisible hands clawed at her while she slept. She had rarely used her powers as intensively as she had done scouring the Trepytos archives for information on primitive sculpture and the trade in artwork through the Trail, and it had taken its toll. She was reminded that she was not a young woman any more.