by Dan Abnett
They moved back along the platform, hustling Voriet along, and found a short flight of steps down onto an access catwalk. It felt wholly wrong to be going down rather than up.
‘More steps ahead,’ said Nayl. ‘A different way up.’
They approached the steps. These rose from a junction platform between catwalk spans. The steps ran up between two huge whizzing flywheels to another platform gantry that they could barely see in the smoke.
Drusher spotted movement beyond the steps. Two more animations. One was a hunched, decayed thing. The other was Deputy Cronyl. They were closing in.
‘Just get to the steps and get up,’ said Nayl.
The four began to ascend as fast as they could. Drusher didn’t want to look back. Cronyl had been moving quite fast, at a brisk stride.
Voriet slipped. They caught him, and Macks and Nayl began to carry him between them.
‘Move, move!’ Drusher urged. He glanced behind him. Cronyl was on the steps, the other two animations not far behind him.
‘Leave me,’ gasped Voriet.
‘Shut the hell up,’ Macks told him.
They reached the upper platform. It was a broad area of deck, with two exits, one at each end, both staircases leading up.
An animation was coming towards them from the right-hand flight of stairs. It was the Cognitae agent Blayg. The top of his head was missing, and his portly face was drenched in dried blood. A combat assault rifle was hanging around his shoulders on a sling, bobbing against him as he walked. It was just dead weight he was dragging along with him.
‘Other way,’ said Nayl. They turned.
Audla Jaff was coming towards them from the other flight of steps. The psykana shock wave that had destroyed her seemed to have broken everything inside her. She moved like a damp sheet hung from a wire, loose and heavy, one shoulder drooping, her head tilted askew. Her clothes were soaked in blood.
There was no way past either of them. Cronyl and the other two animations were almost at the top of the stairs behind them.
They were cornered, all exits blocked. Drusher wondered if he should stand his ground and wait for the hands of the animations to reach him, or admit defeat and take a running jump off the platform. He tried to decide which would be a worse way to die: the eradicating horror of the animations’ touch, or a long, conscious plunge into a lake of flame.
He put himself in front of Macks.
Nayl knew it was useless, but he pulled out his Tronsvasse. He fired multiple times at Blayg. Fizzling green light ate his shots. One round cut the sling of the autorifle, and it clattered onto the deck. Blayg stepped over it. Nayl turned and shot at Jaff.
The electric aura around her turned his shots to vapour.
The animations raised their hands.
‘What do we do?’ asked Davinch.
Gobleka was gazing at Eisenhorn. Eisenhorn simply stood there, staring ahead at nothing with his shining eyes.
‘Let’s get him into the palace,’ he said. ‘Run some tests, perception exams, psychometrics, you know.’
Davinch grinned at him.
‘Chase will adore you for this,’ he said. ‘This changes everything. With two successful subjects, we can keep the Loom operating full-time. No more shutdowns to let Sark rest.’
Gobleka nodded.
‘We’ll need to prepare a message,’ he said. ‘We’re going to need more staff here to manage the operation. Maybe Chase herself will come.’
‘You can tell her how you turned him,’ said Davinch.
‘Actually,’ said Gobleka. ‘I don’t think I had to turn him at all. Just give him a little push. I think this is where he was going all along. He just needed to tip over. That’s why there was no fight, no convulsions. He was basically already there.’
‘Gods below,’ said Davinch in awe. ‘To think… to think this man was ordo. That they used him and trusted him. Gave him authority. Damn, Goran, I thought their selection programme was rigorous and–’
‘I think that proves the King is winning,’ said Gobleka. ‘The warp’s everywhere, in everything. Even in the very heart of the Holy Inquisition, the very bastards who are supposed to be bulwarks of the fight against it. We’re close, Davinch. Months, maybe a year or two. So close. I knew the Rot-God’s kingdom was shaky, but it’s already disintegrating. It’s not even going to be a struggle to topple it. It’s rotten to the core. One touch from us and it’ll all come crashing down.’
He started to laugh again, but it trailed off. He frowned and sniffed the air.
‘Do you smell that?’
‘No,’ replied Davinch.
‘Smoke,’ said Gobleka. ‘Something’s on fire.’
‘I don’t smell it,’ said Davinch. He had gone back to cleaning and patching his face with the contents of the med kit.
‘Of course you don’t,’ snapped Gobleka, ‘your nose is mushed across your dumb face.’
He went to the top of the steps and looked over the rail.
‘I can see light down there. Way down.’ He glanced at Davinch. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘I think the sump’s on fire. The sump well.’
Davinch lowered the crumpled, bloody dressing in his hand.
‘Are you serious?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I’m frigging serious!’
‘What do we do?’ asked Davinch.
‘Put it out. Fast.’
‘But how? We don’t have any–’
Gobleka looked up towards the main gantry.
‘Sark’ll have to do it. Trap it. Snuff it.’
‘He’s been running on full for a while,’ said Davinch anxiously. ‘What if he isn’t strong enough? I mean, what if he’s about to crash? He needs so long to recuperate–’
‘Help me with Eisenhorn,’ said Gobleka.
‘What?’
‘Just do it, Davinch!’ Gobleka fixed him with a savage look. ‘Do you want to tell the King how we let the Loom burn?’ he asked.
Davinch shook his head.
‘Then help me get this frigger up there,’ said Gobleka. He paused. ‘Wait… Show me his gun.’
‘What?’
‘You said you took his piece. Show it to me.’
Davinch pulled Eisenhorn’s Scipio from the pocket of his jacket and handed it to Gobleka.
Gobleka popped out the clip and examined the uppermost round.
‘Enuncia,’ he said. ‘Look, he’s marked the rounds with Enuncia.’
He pushed several bullets out into his palm and showed one to Davinch.
Davinch swallowed hard.
‘Is that what it looks like?’ he asked.
‘You said this was his back-up piece?’ asked Gobleka, reloading the clip. ‘Right. For special targets. I think these custom loads were the trick you reckoned he was hoping to pull.’
‘So what?’ asked Davinch.
Gobleka slid the clip back into the Scipio’s grip.
‘If we’re going to put the old bastard in the cage, we’re going to have to take Sark out,’ he said. ‘I want to make sure we’re covered.’
‘Against what?’ asked Davinch.
‘I don’t trust Sark,’ said Gobleka. ‘I don’t think he really is Sark any more. I don’t know exactly what we’re going to be letting out of that cage.’
They took Eisenhorn by the shoulders and began to escort him up to the gantry. He was slow and unresponsive, like a sleepwalker.
‘This is a bad idea,’ Davinch murmured.
‘Then have a better one,’ Gobleka snarled. Gobleka had been trained to improvise, even in the deepest crisis, and he wasn’t about to let any possibility go.
They struggled with Eisenhorn up the steps onto the main gantry. In the cage, the magos was sitting cross-legged like an ancient shaman, radiating light and muttering un-words. Gobleka and Davinch could see at once that Sark was close to the end of his strength. The glow coming from him was beginning to falter, like a dodgy filament. Plasmic residue was slick on his skin, oozing like glue. He was starting to blister.
‘Magos? Magos Sark?’ he called out.
The glow flickered.
‘I… I want to stop, Goran,’ Sark murmured. ‘Can I stop now?’
‘There’s a fire, magos.’
‘It’s in me, Goran.’
‘No, sir. A fire. Down below. The sump. Can you snuff it out?’
Sark opened his eyes and looked at Gobleka. Beads of blood trickled from his tear ducts.
‘I’m so tired,’ he mumbled.
‘All right,’ said Gobleka. ‘Magos? Magos, listen to me. You stop now. I promised you, didn’t I? It’s time to rest. We have another subject.’
‘You do? I can rest? Really?’
‘Just like I promised, magos.’
‘It worked again?’ asked Sark. ‘You got it to work again?’
‘We did.’
‘Who?’ asked Sark. Gobleka gestured at the figures waiting behind him. Sark peered through the bars, trying to focus his eyes.
‘Eisenhorn?’ he asked. ‘You made it work with him?’
Gobleka nodded.
‘Let’s get you out of there,’ he said.
‘Oh please,’ said Sark. ‘I want to get out. I want to get out.’
Gobleka crouched in front of the cage door. He put his hand on the grip of the Scipio tucked in his waistband.
‘Power down, magos,’ he said. ‘Just bring the Loom back to idling. I’ll get you out, and you can rest.’
Sark nodded. He muttered something that wasn’t words. The light radiating from him diminished, as if it were sucking back into him, light running the wrong way and draining into nothing. The great gears and wheels of the Loom began to chug and clatter as they decelerated. The industrial roar faded back to a hum.
Panting, Sark looked out at Gobleka.
‘Let me out, please, Goran,’ he said. ‘I so long to be let out. This cage is crushing me.’
Gobleka said an un-word Chase had taught him. The cage door clicked unsealed. Gobleka swung it open.
Sark began to crawl out. He clearly needed help, but Gobleka didn’t want to touch him. He wanted to watch him closely and draw Eisenhorn’s gun fast if he had to. Outside the bounds of the psychometric cage, anything was possible. Anything could be coming out. Anything could be crawling free.
Sark pawed his way out onto the deck and flopped on his side like an exhausted dog, the plasmic residue dripping off him and pooling around him. Some of it was drying to a crust on his shrivelled skin.
Slowly, he began to rise.
‘H-help me,’ he called out.
‘You can do it,’ Gobleka replied, his hand still resting on the pistol.
Sark stood up. He raised his head and looked at the light of the lamps in the rigs around the gantry.
‘How long?’ he asked, his voice thin and frail. ‘How long have I been in there?’
‘A long time,’ said Gobleka.
‘A week?’
‘Longer.’
‘How long, Goran?’
‘Seventeen years, I think,’ said Gobleka.
Sark didn’t reply. He looked down at himself, at the wreck of his body.
‘I won’t go back in,’ he said at last. ‘I have earned my reward. I have earned my place at the King’s right hand. I have served. You will not force me back in there again.’
Gobleka saw that Davinch was looking at him, anxious. Gobleka shook his head quietly. They’d deal with Sark in due course. If they could keep him contained and happy, they’d find a way to get him back in when it was time for another weaving.
‘I’m going to rest, now,’ Sark said. ‘Make arrangements, Goran. I want passage to Sancour by the end of the week. A fast ship, a crew that can be trusted. I will make my report to the King personally.’
‘I’m going to need to run some tests on you,’ said Gobleka.
Sark looked at him sharply. A ripple of violet light flickered in his eyes.
‘Just to make sure you’re fit to travel,’ said Gobleka.
‘And to obtain more data, magos,’ said Davinch. ‘To assist in the preparation of further successful candidates.’
Sark nodded. He walked over to Davinch and faced Eisenhorn.
‘You have had some success at least,’ said Sark. ‘A replication to build on.’
He looked more closely into Eisenhorn’s blank face.
‘I pity you,’ Sark said. ‘I hate all you stand for and all the setbacks you have caused the Cognitae over the years, but even so, I pity you for what you are about to endure.’
Eisenhorn didn’t reply.
Sark turned and limped up the steps towards the hatch into the palace.
‘Should we follow?’ Davinch whispered to Gobleka.
‘I don’t want to leave him alone for long,’ Gobleka replied. ‘He seems safe, but I really don’t know what he is any more. First, let’s deal with this.’
He looked at Eisenhorn.
‘Let’s get him in the cage,’ he said.
Nayl took a step towards Blayg.
‘Get ready to move,’ he told the others. ‘I’m going to knock him down. Get ready to run when I do.’
Drusher could see that Nayl meant to tackle the animation and grapple it out of their way.
‘You’ll die!’ he exclaimed.
‘We’re dying right now,’ replied Nayl.
There was a chattering, rattling thump, and the light above them dimmed considerably. The gears and mechanisms of the Loom suddenly spun down and slowed.
The animations collapsed to the deck as though the invisible wires that had been supporting them had suddenly snapped. They heard the separating bones of the skeletal one clattering and bouncing away down the steps.
‘What does that mean?’ asked Macks.
‘Don’t question it, Germaine,’ said Drusher. ‘Move, before they get up again.’
They hurried Voriet past Blayg’s body, towards the steps he had approached from. Nayl paused, squatted and picked up Blayg’s autorifle. Gingerly, he poked at Blayg with the weapon’s stock. No electric crackle. He reached on and took some spare clips from the corpse’s pockets.
‘Hurry up!’ said Drusher.
‘I’m coming,’ Nayl growled. Hefting the combat weapon, he turned and ran after them.
Gobleka shut the cage door with the locking un-word. Smoke threaded the air, hanging like gauze under the lighting rigs.
Inside the cage, Eisenhorn was on his knees, staring dumbly at his cuffed hands. He slowly raised his head and looked at Gobleka.
‘You know what to do,’ said Gobleka.
Eisenhorn didn’t reply.
‘I know this is all unfamiliar,’ said Gobleka. He crouched down to peer through the bars. ‘You’re not used to your mind working this way. Don’t fear it. It’s just revelation. True understanding is always terrifying. You’re seeing the way things are. You’ve come home to the place that created us all. It’s been calling to you since before you were born, and you’ve been too scared… too indoctrinated by lies… to answer. You can now. It’s very freeing.’
‘The warp…’ Eisenhorn whispered.
‘That’s right,’ Gobleka smiled. ‘You don’t need to know anything any more. The warp is in you, and it will show you everything. How to live. How to think. How to master this world, and every world. It’ll show you how to work the Loom. It will teach you the language you need. The words that you must speak. Just open your mind and they’ll flow to you.’
Eisenhorn’s lips began to move. No sounds came out. He looked like a child learning to read.
‘Make the Loom turn,’ said Gobleka. ‘Make it spin. I need you to harness its power and extinguish the fire. We must make the Loom safe. That’s our first priority. Secure Keshtre, and save the Loom. Let the words come. It’ll be an easy task for a man like you.’
Eisenhorn’s lips were moving faster. He was starting to murmur. Gobleka heard the
first syllables sounding, and it felt like a jolt in his sternum. More, fully formed un-words began to flow from Eisenhorn’s mouth.
Davinch had already backed away to the edge of the gantry and was looking on with great concern. He’d scooped up Gobleka’s suppressed autorifle, and was clutching it tightly. Gobleka rose and retreated too. Eisenhorn was speaking quite clearly now. The un-words were coming out of him fast and precise. Each one stung at Gobleka’s flesh.
He’d never heard the litany of Enuncia vocalised so clearly. The magos had mastered it and harnessed its power, but it had always appeared a struggle for him, a constant effort to maintain mastery. Sark had often stumbled or muttered, his weavings interrupted by inarticulate screams or yelps. Eisenhorn was confident and unhalting. He was almost instantly fluent.
In the cage, Eisenhorn closed his eyes and tilted back his head.
Crusts of rime crackled as they formed around the bars of the psychometric cage. Snakes of green electrical discharge danced around the metal grille of the gantry deck around its base, leaping up to bite at the bars or coil around them like climbing tracedy. One struck upwards and hit a lighting rig, blowing out a set of lamps in a loud burst of sparks.
‘Look at him,’ breathed Davinch over the sound of the un-words and the fizzle of the discharge.
‘Almost immediate command,’ replied Gobleka. ‘Gods, that speaks to considerable preconditioning. Just as I suspected, he wasn’t just suitable, he was ripe. He’s been one of us for a very long time. A heretic long before the ordos declared him such.’
The agony hit Eisenhorn. He shook, and his body stiffened into a savage rictus, his back arched, his wrists pulling uselessly at the chain of the cuffs.
He did not stop speaking.
Something lit inside him. A harsh radiance began to swell, spearing out from his core. Within seconds, he was shining like a lamp, a figure made of light not flesh, his old black clothes a vague silhouette in the glare.
There was a thump and a series of rattling clanks. A chattering sound, a chirring, a cackling, ticking hum. The gears of the Loom around them began to turn. The cogs began to spin.
The Loom roared back to life.
TWENTY-FIVE
Chaopterae Metalepta