by Dan Abnett
‘The Inquisition has safeguards–’
‘Indeed it does,’ said Imus. ‘Retirement from active service. Restraint. Incarceration. The Inquisition watches itself. When one of its own goes too far, becomes too lost, he is declared heretic as quickly and undeniably as any Archenemy rogue.’
‘That’s how it must be.’
‘But you consider yourself an exception?’ asked Imus.
‘No, I…’ Eisenhorn paused.
‘You always knew the path you were walking. You knew the cost. You knew the inevitable–’
‘I always accepted that.’
‘But now you deny it,’ said Imus. ‘For so many years, sir, they tried to get you to stop. To retire before it was too late. Your friends – forgive me, I misspoke. The people you described as your friends, they all tried, didn’t they? And you ignored them. Because you knew better. You overruled them. You cast them aside. They stopped being the people you described as friends. Some died, and you never cared. Some battled you to halt your progress, and you crushed them for it. And now you’re here in this room. Even the Holy Ordos, which you claim to serve so dutifully, have declared you a heretic. Diabolus extremis. And yet, they are wrong. Because you know better. You will disregard their authority and carry on anyway, alone and friendless – though you always were – claiming to serve the Inquisition even though it no longer wants your service.’
‘I know things that–’
Imus held up a hand so small and scrawny it looked like a bird’s claw.
‘No one’s listening any more, sir,’ he said. ‘Not even you. Look at yourself – broken beyond measure, obsessed. Serving on for decades, beyond any point that is wise or healthy. Always driving forward because you know best. You serve mankind, but you have only contempt for the people who cross your path. You use people. You neglect any bonds that might be considered friendship and which constitute the foundation of humanity. You forget the faces and the names of those whose lives you change. People die for you, and you care not.’
Imus pushed back his chair and rose to his feet.
‘You should think about it, interrogator,’ he said, ‘why you do what you do.’
‘I know why,’ said Eisenhorn.
‘The thing is, you poor fellow, you don’t. And it’s right there in front of you. The truth, staring you in the face. You’re so good at finding the truth, yet you fail dismally to find it in yourself.’
‘And what is the truth, Master Imus?’ Eisenhorn snapped.
‘Look at yourself, sir, and tell me what you would call a man like you,’ said Imus.
Eisenhorn shifted in his seat uncomfortably. He looked at his hands and saw how badly they were seared. Blisters, contracture, third-degree burns, perhaps fourth.
From the fire inside him.
‘Sir?’ Imus called out. ‘Are you quite well? You look rather ill at ease.’
‘I’m… I’m burning,’ whispered Eisenhorn.
‘Like last time?’ asked Imus.
‘What?’
‘When last we sat together in this room, you caught fire. Head to foot. I was most terrified. The fire, it burned your skin and roasted the flesh off your bones until nothing was left, except a torched skull staring back at me.’
‘That wasn’t real,’ mumbled Eisenhorn.
‘No, it wasn’t,’ said Imus. ‘It was a trick. A wretched trick of your psyker mind. You did it to scare me, to make me quail. It worked, by Throne it worked. The most terrible thing, and I have never forgotten it, or forgiven you for scaring me like that. Do you remember why you did it?’
‘To elicit a response–’
‘To elicit a response!’ cried Imus. He smiled and opened the glass front of the clock on the mantle. ‘That’s it exactly. You did it to scare the crap out of me, pardon my language. It was intimidation. Bullying. You’ve done that your whole life. You did it to get at the truth. Do you remember what you said about that?’
‘N-no,’ said Eisenhorn, wracked with pain.
‘You said that fear simplifies the mind,’ said Imus. ‘You said it is so strong and pure, it empties the head and removes all barriers and falsehoods. You scared me so you could read the truth inside me, the honest part of me that I could not dissemble.’
‘It was a technique,’ replied Eisenhorn, fighting to remain conscious. He rose to his feet, found he was too unsteady and sat down again. ‘A standard ordo technique. Just a mind-trick. The fire burning me is real.’
Imus craned his reedy neck and peered at the face of the clock. He began to adjust the hands.
‘Real?’ he asked, as if only half listening. ‘What’s real? Look at us, here, in this room. What’s real about that? It’s just another technique. Another mind-trick. Another phantom fire to burn through to the truth. To… How did you put it? Empty your head and remove all barriers and falsehoods. Fear, sir, to simplify the mind.’
‘No,’ said Eisenhorn. He took a deep breath. A shadow seemed to have passed over what little daylight existed outside, and the room was darker than ever. ‘It is the Torment. The antigenic at work. It’s a hallucination. Sark designed the inoculant to condition the mind. To strip away the will. To brainwash–’
‘No, he didn’t,’ said Imus mildly. ‘That’s not really what it does. It doesn’t make you think differently, sir. It makes you think truly. It burns away all the psychological armour and rationalisations and excuses a man has accumulated through his life, and shows him the truth that’s always lurked underneath it all. Like fear, it simplifies the mind.’
Eisenhorn rested his face in his hands, his elbows on the edge of the desk, and concentrated to control his breathing and moderate the agony.
‘I’m weary,’ he said, quietly, ‘of people telling me that I’ve… I’ve crossed some arbitrary line. It’s not the truth, and this… this delusion won’t convince me otherwise. You’re just an old memory, being used as a puppet by the Torment antigenic to get me to confess to something that isn’t true.’
‘Of course it isn’t true,’ said Imus. ‘You haven’t become a heretic. You are quite right to be resolute about that. Why, that absolute certainty is what helps you remain so defiant against accusations. You can conscientiously insist you have not become a heretic, no matter what your old masters say.’
Eisenhorn looked at the old man.
‘The real truth,’ said Imus, with a smile, ‘the thing we’ve met in this room to winkle out of you, is far more simple. Will you admit it to me?’
‘I don’t know what–’
‘Then I will say it,’ said Imus. ‘The warp has always been in you. Right from the start. It has called to you, and you have followed it. You wear the robes of an inquisitor to get close to it, and you finish any who dare compete with you for its affections. You are not a heretic because the Inquisition has proclaimed you one. You have not slowly become a heretic after years of stalking the dark. You have always been one.’
Imus grinned at Eisenhorn.
‘You must know that’s the case,’ Imus said. ‘Well, you must get a lot of cases like yours. You came to this place of your own volition. You know what happens in this room. You have always been a heretic, Gregor Eisenhorn. You simply haven’t ever had the clarity to recognise the fact. You do now. The barriers are burned down. Fear has simplified your mind. You cannot dissemble.’
‘No,’ said Eisenhorn. He rose to his feet.
‘Come now, don’t threaten me,’ said Imus. He finished adjusting the clock and closed its case. ‘I’ve been dead for two hundred years. You, you have never lived. You do not walk in darkness. You are darkness. It’s always been too late to turn back. It’s in your blood. Like a fire that won’t go out. You should accept it. That’s what you told me and a hundred thousand like me. Accept your transgression and you will find relief. A burden lifted. Embrace it. The warp is your only friend, and it’s been waiting for you for a long time.’
Eisenhorn felt the flames rise up, eating at him eagerly.
‘This is
trickery,’ he insisted. ‘Fever–’
‘No,’ replied Imus. ‘It’s the truth, which is always the most painful thing of all. End your torment, sir. Accept what you are. Acknowledge what you have always been. The pain will be brief. Beyond the pain, why… it is so very beautiful.’
Eisenhorn shook his head. Fire was gnawing his bones away.
‘You think the warp is your enemy,’ said Imus. ‘But it’s the only true thing there is. The one constant. Your only friend. Species rise and fall, Imperiums come and go. The warp remains. Bow down and let it take you. It’s what you’ve always secretly wanted.’
The door banged open.
‘Will this take much longer, Gregor?’ asked Titus Endor. ‘I’ve got things planned.’
Imus sniffed and looked at the clock.
‘About time,’ he murmured. ‘I was getting bored of this.’
Endor drew his autosnub and shot four rounds into the old man. Imus fell into the fireplace and smashed into a hundred thousand fragments of old Sameterware pottery.
‘Come on,’ said Endor, grinning. ‘There’s still time to get out. There’s always time to get out.’
He took Eisenhorn by the arm and bustled him out of the gloomy room.
‘You’ll burn yourself,’ Eisenhorn said, looking down at Endor’s hand gripping him.
‘Anything for a friend,’ laughed Endor. ‘You and me, through thick and thin. You knew I’d always come back, if you needed help.’
‘From the dead?’
Endor halted and turned to face Eisenhorn. He put his hands on Eisenhorn’s shivering shoulders and looked into his eyes, serious and sober.
‘Is this about the thing?’ Endor asked. ‘The… business? It turned things bad between us, I know. Tell me you’ve forgiven me. You must have forgiven me by now. It wasn’t my fault, you know? Just circumstances.’
Eisenhorn looked away. He couldn’t meet Endor’s urgent gaze any more. There were things in Endor’s eyes, writhing worm-things like larvae that pressed against the glossy windows of Endor’s eyeballs.
He looked around instead. A huge full moon, the colour of flame, was rising over the desert flats. The vast sky was woad-blue, speckled with stars. The endless sands were turmeric-yellow. There wasn’t a building around for a hundred kilometres.
‘Is this another stage of the fever?’ he asked.
‘The what?’ asked Endor. He began to walk, his boots kicking up fine dust from the soft yellow sand.
‘Another part of–’
‘Look, forget it, Gregor, will you?’ Endor said. ‘I let you down. I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry. Can we leave that business behind us? Come on, I’ve come to get you out of there.’
‘You shouldn’t consort with me,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘I will destroy you.’
‘I don’t need you for that,’ snorted Endor.
‘I am disavowed and declared heretic.’
‘Well, you’ve always been a bit of a rogue–’
‘I mean it, Titus. The ordos have cast me out.’
‘They got rid of me too, you know,’ said Endor. ‘Said I was, you know, unreliable. Took my rosette. Put me out to pasture. What does it matter? I’ve known you a long time, Gregor. I know what you are.’
‘And what is that?’ asked Eisenhorn. A sweet desert breeze rose, and dust swirled between them like smoke.
‘A friend,’ replied Endor, with a smile and shrug.
‘I was never much of a friend to you,’ said Eisenhorn.
‘Ah, I got used to you and your ways,’ said Endor.
‘I let you die,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘I think… I think I knew you were sick. I suspected. I knew I couldn’t cure you, but I could have come to find you. Made your last years more comfortable.’
‘You could have done,’ said Endor. ‘But let’s face it, that’s not you, is it?’
‘And what is me?’
‘Throne alive,’ laughed Endor. ‘You’re maudlin already, and we haven’t even started drinking yet.’
‘What?’
‘Come on,’ said Endor. ‘I can see you’re thirsty. Let’s put that fire out, eh?’
Figures had gathered ahead of them, a small group seated on rugs and blankets, around a crackling bonfire, under the wide starlit purple of the desert evening. Eisenhorn could hear talking and laughter.
‘Look who I found!’ Endor announced. The figures looked up. Some laughed. One handed Endor a bottle.
‘About time you got here,’ said Midas Betancore. He was poking the fire with a stick. The campfire was built in a circle of broken stones, its flames and sparks roaring up into the night. The crackle of the wood was like the chirring click of insects. Betancore’s cerise jacket looked like blood in the flame-light.
‘Another hour or two and there’d be no bottles left,’ said Harlon Nayl. He was lying back on an old Selgioni travel rug, his shoulders propped against a boulder.
‘I’m sorry,’ Eisenhorn said to him.
‘I was joking, boss,’ Nayl replied. ‘We brought plenty.’
‘No, I’m sorry…’ said Eisenhorn. ‘You were always so loyal, Harlon, and I got you killed. A crass mistake on my part–’
‘Just circumstances,’ Endor said encouragingly.
‘Listen to me,’ Eisenhorn said to Nayl. ‘I shouldn’t have trusted Jaff. That was a stupid error. But even before that, before the actual fact of your death, I placed you in danger so many times. I could have got you killed a thousand times over before I actually did–’
‘Give him a drink, for Throne’s sake!’ Midas called out.
‘He’s maudlin tonight,’ agreed Endor. ‘Very maudlin. Up in his head, all brooding, as usual. I told him to lighten up.’
‘Did that work?’ asked Midas.
‘Does it ever?’ snorted Nayl.
‘Here you go,’ said Kara Swole. She handed Eisenhorn a glass of amasec.
‘Kara,’ he said. He was so tired. His resistance was ebbing. They all looked so young.
‘Good to see you again,’ she replied.
He took the glass. The heat of the fire inside him ignited the vapour of the amasec. Tiny blue flames danced across the surface of his drink.
‘Are you dead too?’ Eisenhorn asked her.
‘As good as,’ she said. ‘I have walked in your footsteps. Your path only ever leads to one place.’
‘Kara–’
‘I’m joking! Throne! What’s the matter with you tonight?’
‘Some die outright,’ said a figure on the other side of the fire. ‘Some just end up damaged. Their lives ended, to all intents and purposes. It amounts to the same thing.’
Gideon Ravenor gazed through the roaring flames of the campfire at him. He seemed much further away than the rest of them. He was young and handsome, his hair tied back in a long horse tail. He raised his glass.
‘Your health,’ he said, nodding.
Eisenhorn tried to move around the campfire to approach Ravenor. The fire somehow contrived to remain between them, keeping Ravenor on its far side, constantly watching Eisenhorn through flames.
‘Most perturbatory,’ said Aemos, at Eisenhorn’s side. ‘The way the fire moves like that. As if it is sentient, keeping one thing screened from another.’
He glanced up at Eisenhorn and sipped his drink.
‘Wouldn’t you say so, Gregor?’ he asked.
‘Strange indeed,’ said Eisenhorn. He looked at the old savant.
‘Do you recall the Torment?’ he asked.
‘Which one?’ asked Aemos. ‘There have been so many.’
‘The Torment, Aemos. Uhlren’s Pox–’
‘Hmmm! Yes. Sequestered ordo dossier 1767563 triple seraph. Docket 991. Entered by Rubricator Edrick Callik on–’
‘Just the details, Aemos.’
‘The first outbreak was recorded on Pirody,’ said Aemos, ‘some thirty-four years before a second pestilence occurred during the third year of the Genovingian Campaign. Ingenious research by the scholars of Materia Medica revealed
the plagues to be related forms of the same pathogen. It was untreatable, and the death toll across many infected worlds was immense. Thanks to the work of a recollector called Lemual Sark, it was eventually identified to be a virus engineered by the Ruinous Powers. Indeed, its efficacy had been enhanced by Subjunctus Valis, an Apothecary of the Doom Eagles Chapter, Adeptus Astartes, who had himself succumbed and was under its malign influence. It would seem, you see, the pox had some self-possession, Gregor. A sentience. Ha ha, like the fire! Is that why you asked?’
‘Just… go on, Aemos,’ said Eisenhorn.
‘The Torment took hold of Valis’ mind, the poor devil,’ said the old man, pondering the facts as he accessed them from his memory. ‘It acted through him, guiding his work so as to protect itself and propagate its curse.’
Aemos looked up at Eisenhorn.
‘Hardly the subject of light conversation at a gathering of friends,’ he smiled.
‘The Torment, Aemos, might it also be an infectious idea? Carried and transmitted by thought as well as body?’
‘Well, I suppose, at a stretch…’ Aemos shrugged.
‘And if it was engineered into an inoculant, Aemos? An antigenic. To transmit the idea alone, without the physical malady? To infect thought, not matter?’
‘Gregor,’ said Aemos, ‘I have no idea who in the Holy Imperium would have the talent or means to perform such a feat. Not even the most gifted magos of Materia Medica.’
‘Unless the Torment itself willed it?’ asked Eisenhorn. ‘Took, let’s say, a gifted magos of Materia Medica, and showed him how the feat could be achieved? Transformed his mind to devise the technique required?’
‘I would think,’ said Aemos, ‘it would need to also transform his mind to make him even want to do it.’
‘A given,’ Eisenhorn agreed. ‘So, in such circumstances, how could a man fight the antigenic? How could he stop it corrupting his system?’
‘I don’t suspect he could,’ said Aemos, ‘if the Torment could overcome the will and physiology of an Adeptus Astartes…’
‘It gets to what is already there,’ said Ravenor, through the flames. ‘It burns through will to whatever lies beneath. The truth, I suppose you’d call it prosaically. It doesn’t turn a man into a heretic. It merely burns back everything to reveal the heretic that’s always been there.’