The Magos

by Dan Abnett

  ‘Let’s talk about what you discussed with him,’ said Voriet.

  ‘No,’ said Drusher firmly. ‘No, that’s not going to happen. Two things are going to happen first. I want some anxiety meds. Strong ones. And I want an explanation that entirely lacks groxshit. And that’s not an either/or thing. I want both. Now. Or I’m going to pack my bag and leave.’

  ‘Don’t be awkward, magos,’ said Voriet.

  ‘We need to tell him,’ said Betancore. ‘At least the basics.’

  Drusher thought she was talking to Voriet, but he saw she was looking up into space almost blankly. There was a soft pop, as though Drusher had yawned and cleared his ears. He distinctly heard a voice say +Proceed.+

  ‘What was that?’ he asked.

  ‘I think it would be better coming from you,’ she said. Again, she was not speaking to Drusher or Voriet. ‘I know you’re tired, but I think–’

  +Wait.+

  Betancore looked at Drusher.

  ‘Wait a moment, magos,’ she said.

  Drusher wiggled the tip of his finger in his ear. His head felt blocked and oddly pressurised.

  +Main room.+

  ‘What was that?’ asked Drusher.

  ‘We’re going to the main room,’ said Betancore.

  Eisenhorn was waiting for them. He was sitting in a high-backed chair, and he looked as if he were enduring some silent torment. Drusher felt that Eisenhorn was not so much sitting in the chair, as the chair was preventing him from falling into the centre of the world. His breathing was laboured.

  Audla Jaff was lighting candles to draw back the gloom in the great hall. It was still cold, and the chill seemed to radiate from the inquisitor. Outside, a storm had begun to grumble.

  ‘Have a seat, magos,’ Eisenhorn said.

  Drusher sat down facing Eisenhorn. Voriet and Betancore withdrew to sit on a bench at the back of the hall. Jaff lit the last of the candles and joined them. There was no one else around.

  ‘I have psykana abilities, magos,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘Do you know what that means?’

  ‘I suppose so. I’ve never met someone who–’

  ‘You probably have. We don’t tend to advertise our talents. Mine are considerable. You had an encounter today. When you left the site without permission–’

  ‘I’m sorry about that–’ Drusher began.

  Eisenhorn raised a hand to hush him.

  ‘I have no interest in rebuking you, magos. To be honest, I am exhausted. I don’t have the time or patience to bring you into line. If you wish for a rebuke, say so, and I will leave it to Voriet and Nayl.’

  ‘By all means do continue,’ said Drusher.

  ‘Your encounter today was with a psykana echo. An unanticipated side effect of work I was doing in the cold store.’

  ‘A psykana echo, sir?’

  ‘You referred to it as a ghost,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘That is a surprisingly accurate term.’

  ‘It was a ghost?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I… well…’ Drusher hesitated. ‘That’s very curious. I don’t know what to think about that. I may cry a little bit.’

  ‘Don’t,’ said Eisenhorn.

  ‘Do my best,’ mumbled Drusher.

  ‘Magos, your assessment of the bodies was interesting to me. It confirmed things that I had thought of, ideas I had begun to form. It was remarkably incisive. It revealed secrets that I have not shared.’

  ‘Thank you. Did it?’

  ‘The Inquisition is interested in this case for precisely the reasons you suggested,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘Marshal Macks circulated the facial reconstructs on all networks. One came to my attention. A person I knew. That’s what brought me here.’

  ‘You knew one of the victims?’

  ‘Personally. She worked for me. A field agent. Her name was Thea Inshabel. An interrogator. The daughter of a very old and dear friend, who had joined me to continue her late father’s work. She came to this system nine years ago to follow leads relating to a larger case I have been pursuing. She came at my request. Such investigations, magos, they take time. Years. I had not heard from her for some while. Her reports had become intermittent. I was concerned, but sometimes ordo agents in deep-cover operation are forced to go dark, for their own safety. Interrogator Inshabel was a very experienced and able operator. I was confident that she…’

  He paused.

  ‘I should have sent someone to find her,’ he said. ‘I should not have waited so long. I owed that to her father. To watch out for his daughter…’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Drusher.

  ‘Now she’s dead,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘Her bones lying, unclaimed and unidentified, in Marshal Macks’ morgue. Her reconstruction of Thea’s face brought me to Gershom. To find out what she had found out.’

  Drusher tilted his head to the side, questioning.

  ‘It’s very difficult to get answers from the dead,’ said Eisenhorn.

  ‘I can imagine,’ said Drusher.

  ‘But there are means,’ said Eisenhorn. Thunder rumbled on the far side of a neighbouring mountain, and the first drops of rain began to strike the hall’s windows. ‘A process of divination, of psychometric assay. It is a testing and complex craft, and should be attempted only by those who are well trained, or those who are prepared to face the consequences.’

  ‘I’m not sure I know what you’re describing, sir,’ said Drusher.

  ‘In layman’s terms, magos, a séance.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Drusher.

  ‘The term we use is auto-séance,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘Thea left nothing except her bones. No clothing, no effects, no trace of where she had been for nine years, where she had lived. So, when I first arrived, I conducted a psychic audience with the remains. It was… unpleasant and unrewarding.’

  ‘I…’ Drusher began, but didn’t really know what to say.

  ‘Thea had been dead for too long,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘Her psionic essence was too far detached from her mortal relics. Also, I have reason to believe the means and process of her death were so reductive, so annihilating, that nothing sensible remained. I reached out and touched something, but it was not coherent.’

  Eisenhorn shifted in his seat and took a sip from a glass of amasec that had been placed by his side. His hand was shaking.

  ‘I extracted only one thing,’ he went on. ‘A brief, fragmentary impression of an old fortress. It was not a clear mental image, but research had shown that there were several old structures in the Karanine region. Old fortresses from the settlement era. This place, Helter, resembled the vision. It was the only such structure that remained intact within the vicinity of the bodies that were found in situ. So, I transferred my party here to begin an investigation, a thorough search of the surrounding area.’

  ‘And you brought the bodies too,’ said Drusher.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Eisenhorn, ‘so I could repeat the auto-séance process with each one. It was a gruelling process. Some were utterly inert. From the rest, I obtained nothing but incoherent pain. So, I widened my search and conducted similar divinations at the sites where bodies were found, as well as other locations in the forest. Again, nothing. As you have demonstrated, convincingly, they were dump sites. No psychometric echo of the victims’ lives or the moments of their deaths would have lingered there anyway.’

  The rain was beating hard now. Lightning blinked in the high windows.

  ‘About today,’ said Drusher. ‘In the woods–’

  Eisenhorn cleared his throat.

  ‘After you made your report,’ he said, ‘I felt an urge to try again. To restage the divination with poor Thea’s body. It was a grim and thankless effort that has left me drained. But I believe it had an unexpected consequence. While I was here, in the cold store, trying to reach Thea Inshabel, the considerable psykanic backwash rippled out into the surrounding forest. It stirred up ghosts, Magos Drusher. Ghosts I was not aware of. Which is how you came to meet Esic Fargul in the woods today. A man thirty years dead. I wa
s conducting my séance in his home, magos, the place where he had lived and the place where he died. It is hardly surprising that it might raise him up into the sunlight.’

  ‘Not to you, perhaps,’ said Drusher. ‘I have to say, sir, that I am half out of my mind just now. Fear, sir. At what you are telling me. At you. Fear and incredulity. I spoke to the man for ten minutes. He was real. He was solid. I could see him and hear him and smell his hair oil and the sweat of a body that has walked briskly in the sun for a whole afternoon. I… I shook his hand.’

  ‘We have used the word ghost carelessly, magos,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘A psionic manifestation can be very real. Utterly convincing, especially to one who does not realise that it is what it is.’

  ‘Or that something like it could even exist,’ said Drusher. ‘May I…? May I have an amasec?’

  Eisenhorn made a small nod, and Audla Jaff came over. She handed Drusher a fine old glass filled with amasec.

  ‘If it eases your mind at all,’ said Eisenhorn, ‘I doubt the phantom of Esic Fargul knew he was a ghost either.’

  ‘With respect, it doesn’t really,’ said Drusher. He knocked back the drink in one. Jaff, waiting patiently nearby, stepped in and refilled the glass.

  ‘What did you speak of, magos?’ asked Eisenhorn.

  Drusher shrugged feebly.

  ‘We talked as two men of similar interests might if they met by chance,’ he replied. ‘Of nature. Of the country and its various species. He had a leaning to natural history. He… he asked if I was a visitor, if I was staying nearby. He told me he was a local man, with a timber business and–’

  ‘When he asked you that,’ Eisenhorn interrupted, ‘what did you say?’

  ‘I told him yes,’ said Drusher. ‘That I was staying in the area. I didn’t say where. So he asked me if I was a guest of his neighbour.’

  ‘His neighbour?’

  ‘A friend. A local man of some influence who entertained famously.’

  ‘His name?’

  ‘His name?’ Drusher echoed. He frowned. ‘I can’t recall. Straker? No, Draker? Something like that. Draven something. Draven Sirk? Stark?’

  ‘Sark?’ said Eisenhorn. ‘Was that the name?’

  ‘I think it was. I can’t be sure, but… Sark. Draven Sark. I feel that’s what he said.’

  ‘So did Thea,’ said Eisenhorn quietly.

  Voriet rose to his feet.

  ‘My lord,’ he said. ‘You said you got nothing today.’

  ‘I didn’t think I had, interrogator,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘Just sounds. Noises. The wailing psionic roar of the warp. But one sound repeated, and now the magos says the name, I know that’s what it was. A name. Sark. Thea Inshabel was screaming it.’

  ‘I will begin a search for the name,’ said Jaff. She looked at Drusher. ‘Do you know the spelling?’

  ‘Of course I don’t,’ said Drusher.

  Eisenhorn slowly rose to his feet, almost clawing at the edge of the table for support.

  ‘Throne,’ he murmured. ‘All along, Inshabel was trying to tell me something. It was the last remaining fragment of her, the only thing she had strength of will to hold on to. One word. One name. And I didn’t realise…’

  Medea Betancore had come to his side to steady him.

  ‘You should rest, Gregor,’ she said.

  ‘I should work.’

  ‘Leave it to us, for now,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Let us do the research. Rest and regain your strength. You’re no good to us otherwise.’

  ‘I know where he lived,’ said Drusher. Everyone looked at him.

  ‘This Draven Sark,’ said Drusher. ‘The ghost told me. He said Sark was a neighbour. He lived in another old fortress close by. Down towards the pass, he said, and older than this place. Pre-Udarin he called it. Its name is Keshtre.’

  NINE

  That Which Is Not There

  ‘Come with me,’ said Voriet.

  Audla Jaff had gone off to begin her research. Drusher wasn’t sure what that meant, and he didn’t like to imagine. Medea Betancore had begun the slow process of leading Eisenhorn up the stairs to his chamber. Full night had closed in and with it a thunderstorm of monstrous proportions. Lightning strobed at the fortress windows. The shutters rattled, and the stone hallways resounded with the drumming of rain outside and the frantic dripping within, as water drained through the ragged roof and dribbled into pots and buckets.

  Voriet led Drusher to a small parlour behind the kitchen where the others were waiting. A fire had been lit, and it was verging on cosy. Macks looked up as they entered. Nayl was by the hearth, chatting to the three deputies. The storm had driven Cronyl and Edde indoors. Their boots were off, and they were trying to dry their socks against the fire.

  ‘Has something happened?’ asked Garofar, lowering a mug of caffeine.

  ‘We may have a lead,’ said Voriet. ‘Can I borrow you, marshal?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Macks, rising to her feet.

  ‘We need some local data,’ said Voriet. ‘You have maps. I’ll need your link to the Magistratum database.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Macks. ‘That is, if the up-link is still working. The storm’s playing blessed hell with vox connections. Look, if it’s local information you need, ask my deputies. I’m not from the area, but they were all born in Unkara.’

  ‘Keshtre,’ said Voriet. He looked at the deputies. ‘Mean anything to any of you?’

  ‘Not me,’ said Edde. Cronyl shook his head.

  ‘The bad place?’ asked Garofar.

  ‘What?’ asked Voriet.

  ‘Like in the bedtime story…’ Garofar’s voice trailed off. He blushed. ‘Sorry. I wasn’t trying to be funny.’

  ‘Go on, Hadeed,’ said Macks.

  ‘I don’t know, mam,’ said Garofar. ‘It was just a story. A faerie story. The bad place up in the hills. Keshtre. Where the monsters lived. We had to go to bed when we were told and behave and stuff, or the monsters would creep down in the night and steal us away.’

  ‘Where is it?’ asked Drusher.

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ said Garofar, ‘it’s not anywhere. It was just a made-up thing.’

  ‘It’s a fortress, apparently,’ Voriet said to Macks. ‘Near here. Towards the pass. That’s right, isn’t it, magos?’

  ‘That’s what the ghost told me,’ said Drusher. He knew he could have phrased it better, but he quite enjoyed the look his comment got from everybody.

  ‘There’s no other fortresses near here, sir,’ said Cronyl. ‘Not between here and the pass. The closest is Angmire, but that’s forty kilometres north.’

  ‘No, Korlok is closer,’ said Edde. ‘That’s near town. Over west.’

  ‘Oh yeah, Korlok,’ said Cronyl, ‘but that’s just a ruin.’

  ‘Well, they’re all ruins,’ said Edde, ‘apart from Helter. And this place isn’t much better than a ruin.’

  ‘Yeah, but Korlok and Angmire aren’t ruined ruined,’ said Cronyl. ‘I don’t mean fallen stones and traces. The woods are full of that kind of rubble. I thought we were talking places that are still standing.’

  ‘This place would be intact,’ Drusher said to Voriet. ‘At least, in recent memory. There was somebody living in it maybe fifty or sixty years ago.’

  The deputies shook their heads.

  ‘Nowhere like that, sir,’ said Edde.

  ‘You sure you mean Keshtre?’ asked Garofar.

  ‘What about the name Draven Sark?’ asked Drusher.

  The deputies looked blank.

  ‘Let’s go check it,’ said Macks. ‘All the research material is in the library. Garofar, you come along.’

  ‘Do you need me?’ Nayl asked Voriet.

  ‘Get your things together, Harlon,’ said Voriet. ‘Take Cronyl and Edde, and do a sweep. Make sure we’re locked down.’

  Drusher and Macks followed Voriet up the stairs to the library. Garofar hurried along behind them, buttoning his service jacket.

  Drusher hadn’t seen the lib
rary before. It smelled of damp. Rain battered at the shutters and rustled the plastek sheeting. The room was lit by glow-globes and candles. The wind was fluttering the candle flames and stirring loose papers stacked with the piles of old books.

  Audla Jaff was sitting on the chaise, working methodically through a pile of tomes.

  ‘Anything?’ asked Voriet.

  ‘The name Keshtre appears in three folk tales,’ she replied. ‘It’s not a location. It’s just a myth. An imaginary place.’

  ‘Why would he have told me a lie?’ asked Drusher.

  ‘Who?’ asked Macks.

  Drusher shook his head.

  ‘The word is not Unkaran dialect,’ said Jaff. ‘All the fortresses have names of Karanine origin. Even those of the Pre-Udaran Era. “Keshtre” is a derivative of the Fent language of Outer Udar. Possibly a pre-Gothic proto-root. It means “speaking place” or “meeting place”. A moot or court, perhaps, but there is a sinister aspect to it. Literally, “forbidden speaking place”, or “place of unholy speech”. I repeat, it’s not a physical location. It’s not on the maps. It’s not in the histories.’

  ‘It could be an old name for somewhere else,’ said Drusher.

  ‘Not that I’ve found,’ said Jaff. She looked somewhat annoyed.

  ‘Keep looking through the old man’s books,’ said Voriet.

  ‘There are only a few I haven’t reviewed,’ Jaff replied.

  ‘Then go back over the rest,’ Voriet snapped.

  ‘I retain everything I read, interrogator,’ Jaff protested.

  ‘Just do it,’ said Voriet. ‘I’m not doubting your abilities, savant. We now have key words to look for. Names. Keshtre and Draven Sark. We have an approximate location. You may make a connection that you didn’t make before.’

  She sniffed.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, and turned back to the books.

  ‘We’ll look over the area maps again,’ said Voriet. Garofar and Macks were already rolling out the Magistratum charts on a side table. They had territorial surveys dating back nine decades.

  ‘She doesn’t like you much,’ Drusher whispered to Voriet.

  ‘Audla is very precise,’ replied Voriet quietly. ‘Inhuman levels of retention, processing and data comparison. She is offended when I question her efforts.’