The House of Night and Chain

by David Annandale

  ‘What could have done this?’ said Rivas.

  I had seen wounds like this before, on Clostrum. It looked like she had been stabbed by a tyranid’s talon.

  That cannot be. This impossibility I will not accept.

  But look at the wound!

  Other things could have done that. Identifying causes of injuries is not my field of expertise.

  Clinging to the rational was hard. I was staring at the body of my best friend, and all I could think was that the devourers of Clostrum had escaped from my nightmares to kill her.

  Rivas clasped my shoulder. He thought he was seeing grief alone in my reaction. ‘We will honour her,’ he said.

  ‘And avenge her,’ I croaked. I turned away from the table. The emotions I had held off on the drive here were crashing down on me like massive breakers. If I did not stand up to them, I would drown. I stiffened my gait and walked over to Stavaak. ‘What is known?’ I asked him. The militia might have jurisdiction, for now, but I didn’t trust them.

  ‘Not much,’ said Stavaak. ‘A passing patrol spotted her washed up against the riverbank.’

  ‘How convenient,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Perhaps, perhaps not. The patrols are regular. Sooner or later, she was bound to be seen. Even here.’

  ‘How did she wind up here?’ Rivas wondered. ‘Was she coming to see you?’ he asked me.

  ‘Yes. But when I last saw her, she was heading for Silling. She was hoping to learn something we could use against Montfor.’ I spoke quietly. If Stavaak saw fit to share this information with the militia, I would trust his judgement. I suspected they already knew.

  Rivas and Stavaak looked grim.

  ‘If she was killed there, we will find no evidence or witnesses,’ said Stavaak.

  ‘This would be a brazen attack, even for Montfor,’ Rivas said. ‘To my knowledge, she has never had a political rival killed before.’

  ‘To your knowledge,’ I pointed out. ‘And perhaps she has never felt the need to do so before.’

  ‘Have you managed to threaten her that much?’

  ‘I didn’t think I had.’ I felt no pride. I felt sorrow and anger. If I could have wrapped my hands around Montfor’s throat then and there, I would have. I was furious at myself, too. I had plunged into the war in the full knowledge that my life was at risk. If I was honest, the assassination attempt had provided me with a certain dark satisfaction. I was concerned with keeping my family safe. But it was myself I imagined being the principal target. I invited Montfor’s wrath. Let her call lightning upon my head. I would send it back at her a thousandfold.

  I hadn’t thought that she would begin to slaughter the few on the council who dared oppose her. Veiss had been a thorn in her side for decades, and no harm had come to her.

  Until now.

  I should have seen this coming. I should have anticipated the full consequences of my campaign. Instead, I had left an ally to be cut down on the battlefield. I had been careless.

  You were worse than that. You were arrogant. You were proud.

  Veiss was dead because of my pride.

  I would have time for self-recriminations later. This was not the moment for indulgences. ‘Is there any direct action we can take?’ I asked Stavaak. ‘This cannot go unpunished. She will not stop.’

  ‘We don’t even know if this is her doing.’

  ‘It was not by her hand, but it was by her command. Who else had motive?’

  ‘Montfor also had good reason not to do this,’ Rivas pointed out.

  ‘For the same reasons she could not attack you again too soon,’ said Stavaak. ‘She has too much to lose. One mistake and everything would come crashing down. I agree with you, lord-governor. I don’t think you have managed to threaten her enough yet for this to be a sane form of retaliation.’

  ‘She isn’t sane,’ I snapped. ‘So you’re saying that she’s untouchable.’

  ‘For the moment, I believe so.’

  The air inside the tent was too close. I threw the flap open and strode outside. The wind rammed into me. In moments the rain was streaming from my hair and down the back of my neck.

  There was a car by the side of the road, a short distance away from the other vehicles. Beside it, leaning on her cane, was the grey ghoul of the senior councillor.

  My hands balled into fists. I marched over to her against the howl of the wind. She wore a long coat but no head covering. Her hair was plastered against her skull. Water poured from the tubes of her breathing apparatus. She was so still, she could have been another apparition. She stared at me with cold hatred.

  ‘Take your gloating elsewhere while you still can,’ I said.

  ‘The murder of Councillor Veiss gives me no pleasure.’

  ‘Liar. I will see you burn for this.’

  Her eyes narrowed slightly, the hate in them growing hot. ‘Do not think you can frame me for your crime.’

  ‘My crime!’ I was so astonished that she would attempt such a gambit that I could say nothing else for a moment.

  ‘I had no reason to kill her,’ she said. ‘Councillor Veiss’ death does me no good.’

  ‘Since when does the death of an enemy not benefit you?’

  ‘When that enemy is as popular as Councillor Veiss. Alive, she was an opponent. Dead, she will become a symbol, as we both know very well, one that will serve your interests against mine. You will not prevail, lord-governor. You will be found out.’

  ‘This is beyond absurd.’ I began to wonder if I was hallucinating the conversation.

  ‘As far as I know, she was last seen alive speaking to you.’

  ‘That is your evidence?’

  ‘It might be enough to interest the Inquisition.’

  My jaw dropped open. I stared, unable to believe that she was serious. I didn’t put any stratagem or any crime past her, but she sounded utterly mad. She couldn’t really believe that was a credible threat. ‘By all means,’ I said. ‘Invite the Inquisition to pay me a visit.’

  ‘You are a Strock of Malveil,’ she said. ‘You should be conscious of what that means.’

  ‘I am. And you should be conscious of what I am willing to do.’

  I turned on my heel and walked away. I heard the door of her car slam. Her driver was pulling away just as Stavaak and Rivas came out of the tent to look for me. Stavaak squinted through the rain at the departing vehicle.

  ‘That wasn’t…’ he began.

  ‘It was. She dared to come here to mock us. She actually threatened to accuse me of the murder.’

  ‘Don’t take that threat lightly,’ said Rivas.

  ‘I won’t.’ She should take my warnings seriously too. But I hope she doesn’t. Emperor, let her slip. Let me purge more than the corruption she reigns over. Let me purge her. ‘I will do what is necessary.’

  ‘Meaning what?’ Stavaak asked sharply.

  ‘Exactly what I said.’

  The wind howled around us. We were so far beyond being drenched that we barely noticed the rain any more.

  My mind was filled with images of Montfor’s blood. In battle, I had rejoiced in victories. I had been glad to burn xenos filth, to remove their taint from the galaxy. But I had never taken pleasure in killing. I would enjoy killing Montfor, though. My muscles tensed in anticipation of the strain of tearing flesh. My right palm, the prosthetic with no sensation, could feel the contours of the handle of the blade, the hammer, the laspistol. I knew already the weight of the weapons I would wield. The rain against my face was the splash of the blood of the criminal. I was a coiled spring. If Montfor had returned, I would have attacked her there and then, no matter the consequences.

  ‘Do not destroy what you are labouring to create,’ Rivas warned. He knew me too well. Yet he was looking at me as if I had become a stranger.

  ‘What would you have me do? She murde
red Adrianna! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’

  Rivas said nothing. His pained look was his answer, and it was clear enough.

  ‘Think carefully about what you plan to do, lord-governor.’ Stavaak spoke calmly, but his warning was unmistakable. ‘I want you to succeed. Solus needs you, and it needs you more than ever now. Do not force me to take action against you.’

  ‘You would do that?’

  ‘I always do my duty.’

  ‘Yet you say you can do nothing against Montfor.’

  ‘At this moment, no. I can’t. Let me repeat, we do not know that she was responsible. If I learn that she was, and her actions are destabilising Solus, then, as with Councillor Trefecht, the situation is different. But if you kill her, then you become the destabilising force. I can see your wrath, lord-governor. There would be no subterfuge in your attack. You would gun her down in the Council Hall, if that was where you had her in your sights. And you would risk plunging Solus into civil war. I will not allow that.’

  ‘Then do your duty,’ I snarled. I had no authority over the Adeptus Arbites, but I shouted commands as if I did. ‘Find the evidence of her guilt!’

  I stalked away.

  ‘Maeson!’ the cardinal called.

  I didn’t stop. I was seething.

  ‘At least let my driver take you back.’

  ‘I’ll walk!’ I shouted, and kept going. I raged at Stavaak’s caution, even though the rational part of me, struggling to make itself heard past the roar of anger and sorrow, knew that he was right.

  I walked through the storm. Wind and rain lashed my face so hard I thought I might bleed. The world around me was a smear of vague silhouettes and endless grey. Reality had faded until it was nothing but ghosts. Nothing mattered, I thought. Everything would be washed away. Only my anger was strong, a flame that could not be doused, a fever that must burn until it consumed me or destroyed Montfor.

  I was chilled and exhausted when I reached Malveil. Katrin and Zander had heard about Veiss. I did not want their condolences. I wanted revenge. I wanted justice.

  I needed to speak with someone who understood and believed everything that I was experiencing at Malveil. Rivas believed, but did not understand. No one else even believed.

  Eliana. I need to speak with Eliana. I thought this as if we had spoken outside my dreams. I felt sure that soon, we would. That was, surely, where things were heading.

  This was what I told myself when I retired to my tower, cutting myself off from the rest of the house for the night. This was the one light of hope I reached for in the midst of the roiling thoughts of vengeance.

  The storm had followed me into my sleep, shrieking through my mind, turning my blood cold, then hot, then cold again. I thrashed in the bed, blown back and forth by the whistling shriek of the wind outside as it tried to pry its way through chinks in the rockcrete walls. When I woke, I was tangled in sweat-soaked sheets.

  My skin was burning. My tongue felt thick and dry. I sat up, and my head swam. The fever raged through my blood, and I was a furnace. Yet the fever was not just in me. Heat radiated from the walls. I lit the lumen globe and stared blearily around me. The room pulsed in time with my heart. I reached out and placed my palm against the nearest wall. In the next instant, I snatched my hand away. The surface felt like taut skin, trembling with disease. It was damp, too, with a thick, gelid sweat.

  I heard vomiting. The sound was huge, as if the house itself were being ill, the hallways turned throats expelling the liquefied accumulations into the unused rooms. It also sounded personal, as of a single individual in the grip of ferocious disease, throwing up with such violence that their body was turning inside out.

  The retching and thick splashes turned my stomach. I breathed through my mouth to combat the nausea and staggered up. I weaved back and forth, dizzy, as I made my way to the door. Once again, I was being summoned. There were revelations at hand. I must attend to them. An urgency of action drove me forward, though I did not know what I was being called upon to do. Nor did I know who was calling.

  ‘Eliana!’ I cried as I fumbled with the door. She did not answer.

  The heat was suffocating. It came in pulsing waves, squeezing my head and stomach. I could barely stand. When I finally got the door opened, the buzzing of a swarm of flies roared into my face. I choked, clapped one hand over my mouth and nose and waved the other frantically. I squinted to keep the insects out of my eyes, even though I could not see them. The light was dim, and the air squirmed, so thick that breathing felt like inhaling insect eggs.

  I stumbled down the stairs, bumping against walls that had become heaving flesh. Their sweat pooled on the staircase, making footing treacherous. I reached the first-floor hall, desperate for its greater space, desperate to breathe something clean. The air was even worse. It stank of rot and loosed bowels. The buzz of the flies was deafening. I beat at nothing, frantic and repulsed. The vomiting sound became a retching scream followed by panicked choking, and then the liquid scream again.

  Behind the bedroom doors, my children were calling for me. Their young voices were high with terror. This was what I had been summoned to do. I must get them out while there was still time, before we were consumed by the sickness that had seized Malveil. Katrin was desperately trying to be brave, but her voice was trembling, and Zander’s little cries were frantic with incomprehension and fear. I called back to them. I almost vomited as I shouted, and acid burns scraped my throat. I tried Katrin’s door, and then Zander’s. The handles were coated in slime. Pustules burst under my grip, releasing centipedes that curled around my fingers, swelling my joints with their venomous bites. I lost my grip and hammered helplessly against the door that held Zander prisoner.

  ‘Father!’ Katrin’s voice, nearby. Zander echoed her. Their cries came from my right, not from their bedrooms at all. At the same moment, I smelled smoke.

  I saw them at the head of the stairs. Zander had his arms wrapped tightly around his big sister, his face buried against her waist. Katrin was pointing down the stairs. ‘He’s setting the house on fire!’ she shouted.

  I ran to the stairs and caught a glimpse of a figure charging through the hall with a flaming torch. The smoke was getting thick, and the heat of fire added itself to the heat of fever. I was about to pick Katrin and Zander up and carry them down, but if the man below attacked, I would be unable to fend him off. I could barely stand as it was.

  ‘Take Zander’s hand,’ I said to Katrin. ‘Hold tight. Follow me carefully. If I tell you to wait, you wait. If I tell you to run, run for the door as fast as you possibly can.’

  She nodded. She was pale, though her cheeks were flushed. The sickness had her in its grasp too, but she was being strong.

  I started down the stairs as quickly as I could. The vomiting sound, I now thought, was the house reacting to the murderous intruder, seeking to hurl him out even as he wounded it with fire. This was Montfor’s doing. She was attacking to end us all, me, the children and the house. Rage gave me strength, though I slipped on the sweat and crawling vermin on the steps. The banister squirmed in my grip, pliable as muscle, porous as sponge.

  My lungs rattled with larvae. I could barely move through smoky air as thick as quicksand, yet I made it to the ground floor. The torch-bearing figure burst out of the librarium, flames high and bright behind him. He was a blurred silhouette. I couldn’t see his face. He ran for the main doors, and I followed. I had to stop him. If I didn’t, I knew what he would do once he crossed the threshold. He would shut the doors and seal them, trapping us in the conflagration.

  ‘Run!’ I shouted. I could not look to see if the children obeyed. All my concentration was focused on staying upright and catching the intruder.

  He stayed ahead of me, reached the entrance and hurled the doors back. The storm was still strong. The wind and rain roared into the hall. I ran into the blast after the intruder. He disappea
red into the darkness, and I stopped running when I reached the drive.

  The explosion threw me to the ground. My children’s screams fell into its roar. A wave of fire washed over me, the pain a burning lance on my back. Helpless, I howled. The thunder of the explosion faded, and I vomited, retching until only a thin string of bile-dark drool dripped from my lips. I pushed myself up. Smoke and dust stung my nostrils. Another howl building in my chest, I turned around to face the destruction and the bodies of my children.

  The house was intact. It was quiet. There were no bodies. There was no smoke, no roar of flame.

  Yet my ears were still ringing from the blast. My back was hot from the burn.

  You should be past questions. Accept this, and learn what it might mean.

  I went back inside. The floor was wet from the rain, but there was no slime anywhere. The heat of the fever was gone. I pushed the doors closed, locked them and cautiously headed back to the first floor.

  Purged. The house is purged. It warned me of the intruder, and I chased him out, saving the house and the children.

  But the flames…

  What he would have done. We stopped him.

  My head was clear, my legs steady again. I could breathe easily. The stench had evaporated. There was no trace of the illness.

  Or of my young ones.

  I started to call for them, but the silence of the halls and a sudden suspicion stopped me.

  They’ve gone back to their rooms. The danger has passed, they saw you had saved them, and they’ve gone to bed.

  Oh, have they now?

  On the first floor, I tried Zander’s door. The handle was dry. The door opened easily, and I padded inside. My eyes had adjusted to the dark, and I could just discern the adult Zander under the bedcovers. He was sleeping.

  Or so he wants you to think.

  I stood beside the bed for a full minute, motionless, waiting for him to think I was gone and betray himself. He didn’t move, his breathing deep and steady. I left him and tried Katrin’s room. She, too, gave every appearance of being asleep. Her discipline was stronger than Zander’s. If she broke, though, he would give himself away immediately. So I stayed there for a long time, in the dark, absolutely still, hands clenched in anger at the deception.