by Dan Abnett
There was a prodigious quantity of blood. A major artery had been severed, and the force of blood pressure all but hosed the backs of the seniors on the stage.
The mess did not concern me much, nor the sudden commotion, the shouting, the movement, or the production of weapons. The poor house guardsman, already surprised at becoming a killer, was positively astonished to be killed. An outraged Inquisitorial agent drew down and shot him at point-blank range, and he fell backwards, releasing his grip on the haft of the poleaxe, which was still twitching in time with the ebbing arterial pulse.
My concern was the sense I had registered the moment before the killer struck. A tiny pulse of psychic power.
The house guardsman had been a puppet. A mind had used him. It had taken control of his limbs, and forced his action before he’d even had a chance to resist.
That was power. Worse, it was precision.
There is only one thing more dangerous than a human psyker. It is a human psyker expertly trained by the scholastica psykana.
I know. I am one.
The murderer’s executioner, standing over the body with his sidearm drawn, suddenly became the next instrument of the invisible agency. He shivered. Then he turned and started to shoot, wildly, into the galleries and across the stage. One of the savants was cut down, and Cyriaque was hit in the thigh. Guards – both ordos and house – who had rushed forward to help the first butchered victim and restrain his killer scattered.
Karnot Vesher was a psychic. Hurling himself out of his seat, the back of his coat soaked in blood, he yelled a command word at the shooter, who was one of his own retinue. The chilling use of will made me flinch. Vesher was strong, but his practice was clumsy. There was none of the stiletto finesse that had triggered the incident.
The guard with the gun ceased his rampage, impelled by Vesher’s will. He halted, and looked down at the gun he was holding as if its presence in his hand was an utter mystery.
Confusion had dulled everyone’s wits. The guard with the pistol, stunned to inaction by Vesher’s yell, was no longer the problem. The rogue mind had flitted on, leaving one slave for another.
Another House Vecum guard, a captain, had dropped down beside the first victim, attempting in great earnest to ease the fellow’s miserable death. The captain suddenly shivered, and wrenched the offending poleaxe out of the first victim’s torso. He rose, a brimming lake of blood around him on the floor, and ran the brute weapon at Vesher as one might run down a boar.
The captain would have killed the inquisitor cleanly, but for two factors. Vesher used his will again, and screamed a frantic command of prohibition. The captain was too possessed by a superior mind for it to be fully effective, but it did make him hesitate, and his boots, decorated with velvet rosettes and brocade, slipped in the pooling blood.
Instead of impaling Karnot Vesher’s chest, the spike of the poleaxe cracked through the inquisitor’s left hip and pinned him to the wooden frame of the box gallery.
His outraged scream was as considerable as the quantity of blood that he began to leak. Around them, guards of both stripe opened fire, and cut the blameless captain down from several directions.
They were all idiots. The mind had already moved.
The galleries were emptying. Spectators, in great agitation, were fleeing to the comparative safety of the side rooms and the waiting chambers.
I knew it was time to withdraw. The bloodshed on the little galleried stage, which had taken on the ridiculous quality of some gruesome pantomime show, had been just that, a show. The majority of the most powerful and capable people at the symposium were on that stage, and the attack had been designed to occupy them, to confuse them, to create a debacle that would entirely focus the attention of the audience.
Their demise had not been the primary intention, however. If one of the ordos seniors had been the target, why begin with the guard?
I was sure I was the true target.
Somehow, some agency had learned of my presence. I seldom frequented public or populated areas, but someone had found out about this one, rare appearance.
Where had I slipped up? How had I shown myself? For many years, I had lived other lives, covering all trace of myself. Where had I made a mistake? What fragment of truth had I left uncovered?
Was it simply my determination to meet with him here? Had that been my undoing?
Who was to blame? Who had come for me?
I have, I am sorry to reflect, accumulated far too many mortal enemies.
And I share the same Archenemy as the rest of my species.
I left the gallery, and took the small back stairs, a dark flight of wooden steps with a tight turn. I pushed my way past straggling spectators who were making for the exit. Some cried out as I pushed them aside, afraid that death was coming to touch them too.
I was armed with a power knife in a sprung sheath along my left forearm, and a Tronsvasse auto in a flat holster under my coat, but my most dangerous weapon was inside my skull.
I reached a lower hallway under the lecture room. The floors were boarded with gleaming black timber, and dressed with old rugs. The walls were lacquered panels. Dim, ancient faces peered out of ancient oil paint scenes in ancient frames. Refugees from the audience had accumulated in the hallway, huddled savants and frightened scholars. When they saw me, and read my grim sense of purpose, they shrank from me and fled.
My disguise – especially the uncanny ancient technology of the falsehood – was good enough to cover me under regular circumstances. Sitting, walking, standing, I was just another figure of no consequence. But now I was moving with speed, and no amount of borrowed finery and optic deception could cover my bulk and my oh-so-mechanical gait in rapid motion. I was clearly no academic. I was still a tall, broad-shouldered man, and what damage life has done to my solid frame, augmetics have repaired. Servo-assist leg-frames become obvious when one is running, and no one could mistake the martial training evident in my bearing.
Vesher’s brittle screams were still echoing from the lecture room above me. I believe that, by then, they were attempting to unpin his smashed pelvis from the panelling.
I felt the rogue mind flick across me, hunting for me, fixing on my psychic aura. I wrenched the auto from my concealed rig.
Just in time.
Shots came at me down the hallway, hard rounds. They drove into the wood panels like gas-gunned rivets, flecking the air with splinters. The scholars around me broke again, this time caught between my threatening form and the source of the gunfire.
More shots. Two of the scholars were hit as they milled in front of me, and crashed to the floor.
I brought the Tronsvasse up, still moving.
One shooter was half-concealed behind a golden helm and carapace displayed on a pedestal. I fired, missed, but made the attacker duck back into cover.
There was a second, concealed on the other side of the hallway. He was firing a large-calibre pistol. I saw the muzzle flash of the weapon as a bullet hissed past me, and aimed for that.
I think I hit him in the hand or forearm. I heard a yelp.
I used my will, and declared, ‘Show yourselves!’
Though they were both being slaved by the rogue mind, my raw command was enough to make them falter and stumble out of cover for a moment.
Both were ordos guards, black-suited members of Gaguach’s retinue. They were blameless and, like as not, would be free of control again in a moment. But I had not the luxury to show any mercy. Still running, I fired. Two shots, to the left, to the right. Each round struck the middle of a forehead and knocked a man on his back.
I had reached the end of the hallway. The door to a retiring room lay open to my right, and stairs were directly ahead. The scholars had all fled. I could still hear their cries of fright and panic from the staircase. I could still hear Vesher howling at a pain that would blight the rest of his life.
‘Who are you?’ I asked, reloading. ‘Who are you? Where are you?’
+Who
are you?+ a mind-voice answered. Cold, crisp. The sort of sharp voice a blade would use if it could speak.
I turned slowly, watching the doors and exits.
‘Who are you?’ I repeated, adding will to the words.
+Who are you? I did not expect you. You were not anticipated. Who are you? Reveal your name.+
The will-force in the send almost made me speak my name aloud, but I bit back. So I wasn’t the intended target after all. I was, in fact, the rogue element. The unexpected player in the game.
+I know you. I can smell your mind. The rogue. The famous pariah. Long years since your rosette carried any authority.+
The mind was strong. I pushed at it, harder, harder still. I knew the psyker was stronger than me, but sometimes strength isn’t everything. I was hoping to outflank it with skill and practiced technique, to wrong-foot it. The mind sounded young, not experienced enough to know every trick an old dog has in his book.
But it was hard to push, because the mind kept moving. There was a flexibility to the psionic pattern that was quite disturbing. It was fluid. It flitted, like a wild bird, from slave to slave, yet it did so with great purpose and accuracy. It was not simply ricocheting from one consciousness to the next.
It was fast. Strong and fast.
I pushed again. It slipped aside, but this time I came away holding some words torn off its elusive subconscious like a handful of grass.
Grael Ochre, the Yellow King.
‘Grael Ochre. Is that your name?’
No answer.
‘Yellow King… of what?’
No answer.
‘Yellow for cowardice? Won’t you reply?’
I pushed again.
‘What is Orpheus, Grael Ochre?’ I asked. ‘Why does that word lurk so brightly in your mind?’
The mind pushed back. Fire cored through the neural links of my augmetics, making me gasp and stagger to the wall for support. All my old wounds – all the artificial neurons spliced in to allow me to control my exo- and endo-augmetics – shrieked with induced pain, the cellular memory of injury and surgical incisions replayed.
Clever, turning old pain against me. Getting me out of his head.
He was gone again. The house was alive with the sounds of shouting, of security teams rushing up and down the tight, wooden staircases. I limped into the retiring room, and pulled the door shut behind me. It was cold in there, unfriendly. No one had bothered heating it for the day. A limpid grey light fell through the tall windows. Drapes and tapestries hung dark like shrouds. There were shelves of books, some ragged furniture.
I needed to sit down. I tried to let go of the pain he’d poured into me. This Grael Ochre, whoever he was – and I was sure a name like that was just another mask, a psydonym – was cruel and exceptionally skilled. I had only stolen the few clues I had by brazen persistence and the fact that he had not expected another psyker to be in play at the symposium.
He had lit me up with old agonies: ghosts of all the wounds and traumas I had ever suffered, and not just the physical ones. I was almost overcome with a sense of loss, of several losses. Remembered grief. I saw faces, briefly, in my mind’s eye. Faces I had not thought of in years. Uber Aemos, my long dead savant. The irrepressible Midas Betancore. Fischig, stubborn to the end. Tobias Maxilla and his gleaming artificial life. Alizebeth Bequin.
He woke them up. Grael Ochre woke them all up, and sent them to torment me for a minute or two until the pain ebbed away.
‘Why are you here?’
I looked around sharply. He was right behind me. Perhaps he had taken shelter in the retiring room too, or perhaps he had been drawn to the flash of my mind. He was a dark shape, a shadow beside the seaward windows. It was as though he didn’t want to be involved in anything.
‘You recognise me?’ I asked.
‘Of course. Even with the falsehood, I had a suspicion. Is this anything to do with you? Today’s little round of murder and puppet-play?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I thought someone might have been taking advantage of me making a public appearance, but that was arrogant. It’s not me they’re after. Does the name Grael Ochre mean anything?’
‘No.’
‘The Yellow King?’
‘No.’
‘I see,’ I said. Was he ignorant, or was he just not playing? Throne knew, he had no reason to trust me. He hadn’t had for years.
I removed the falsehood so he could see my face. My scarred, expressionless face.
‘It is good to see you,’ I said.
His vox-speakers made a noise, perhaps the approximation of a sardonic laugh. I was not seeing him, and he was not seeing me. There was no expression, or even micro-expression, to read on my frozen face, and no nuance to prove that I genuinely was pleased.
And he was just the chair: the armoured, hard-machined, floating shape that stored and supported his helpless organic remains. He was seeing me through optical relays, and speaking via voxponder circuits. The armoured prow of his chair unit was no more readable than my features.
It looked as if he had not maintained the exterior of his chair in a long while. It was scarred and scratched, and the paint was flaking. He had not bothered to keep up its sinister appearance for field work.
Spots of fresh blood dappled one side of the chair’s armour.
‘Why are you here?’ he asked.
‘I came to see you.’
‘We have not seen each other for a very long time, Gregor. I had not expected ever to see you again.’
‘Times change,’ I replied.
‘So do people. Neither of us is what we used to be. Rogues, the pair of us.’
‘You were only rogue by circumstance,’ I said.
‘It cost me my career. And that implies you are not a rogue by circumstance. Are you really the radical they say you are? The diabolus threat that has five sectors looking for you?’
‘What I am is immaterial–’
‘Not so,’ he replied. ‘Even if you are innocent, this isn’t the time or place to prove it. Your reputation is accursed. You should not be here.’
‘I walk where I choose.’
‘Dark places, all of them.’
‘And I am not here to prove my innocence. I am here to see you.’
‘Which is why you should not be here at all,’ he said.
Gunfire echoed down through the house. Upstairs, another attempt was being made to smoke out or kill the psyker assassin.
‘You could stop that. You could crush him,’ I said.
‘No.’
‘You’re the strongest mind on the island.’
‘Once, perhaps.’
‘You won’t use your psy to restore order here?’
‘Others will. Gaguach and Corwal are closing the killer down. Another few minutes.’
‘Neither of them is strong enough.’
‘Together, they’ll do it.’
‘So you don’t use your mind anymore?’ I asked.
‘It was a condition of my pardon. The inquiry lasted fifteen years, Gregor. Molotch made a terrible mess.’
‘Not as terrible as the one he wanted to make. The one you stopped.’
‘I agreed to retire from active duty. I swore to suspend my mind from psychic activity. I merely use the little mind-impulse I need to control the chair and run life support. Nothing else. Nothing active. Not even telepathy.’
‘Why? The greatest mind of your generation.’
‘In a ruined body, with a shattered reputation. My mind and your body, there’s almost one whole person between us. Almost.’
I looked away. Even without the nuance of micro-expression on my part, he could tell he’d offended me.
‘Your skin is thinner these days,’ he said. ‘It was a joke, yet it cut you. You never used to care. Are you so ashamed of the path you’ve taken?’
I holstered my weapon and readjusted my falsehood.
‘I came to see you,’ I said. ‘I know it’s been a long time, but it was for something imp
ortant. But I can see you’ve changed. There is no point bringing this to you.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’ll get over my disappointment.’
‘We cannot work together,’ he said. ‘We cannot be seen together, or have any association.’
‘Because I am a radical? Diabolus?’
‘Because I was given a choice after Molotch,’ he replied. ‘Retire from active service and refrain from psionics. Or, on behalf of the Holy Ordos, hunt down my old master, the heretic Gregor Eisenhorn.’
I did not know what to say. He had chosen the prison of his chair and the negation of his extraordinary consciousness over me.
‘This thing,’ he said, ‘this psyker that has come hunting in House Vecum today. I think it’s come for me. I made enemies. Molotch, Culzean, and their ilk, they had associates. They belonged to secret orders and clandestine frateries. Their kin want me dead. While I abstain from psionics, there is no satisfaction in killing me. They are goading me. It’s happened before. They are daring me to use my psy again. When I do, I will become a worthy target again. Then they will exact vengeance and kill me. I refuse to play their games and rise to it. This matter here, this Grael Ochre… it will be done soon. Calm will be restored. Go now, Gregor. Go now, before they lock the place down. You cannot be found here, for your own sake and for mine.’
I nodded. I turned.
‘Does the word Orpheus mean anything to you?’ he asked suddenly.
‘No,’ I said.
Another vox noise, the analogue of a sigh.
‘Then good-bye, Gregor,’ he said.
‘It really was good to see you, Gideon,’ I replied.
With a soft whir of suspensor mech, the chair turned to face the seaward windows. Ravenor was no longer looking at me.
‘I hope we never meet again,’ he said. His voxponder was toneless.
Covered by the falsehood, its resolution turned to maximum effect, I left the palace by the back staircase, and exited into the deep, hillside well of covered steps below the ramparts. An hour’s walk, down the steep black stairs that snaked down the windswept cliff, would bring me to the harbour road. From there, I could reach the boat-dock in the shadow of Shurfath Universitariate where my launch was hidden, and quit Maelificer.