by Dan Abnett
“Take me back, Gol,” Mkvenner said, his voice husky with rattling fluid.
Kolea shook his head. “Make you better. This will, it will. It will make you all better. It heals all the wounds. That’s what they said. You’ll see.”
“I’m tired. Too tired. I can’t…”
“Don’ you stop now, Ven. Don’ you stop. Hold me tight and I’ll get you there. You won’ fall.”
“Gol, please. Let me die in my bed. Let me—”
He started coughing again. The wracks hit him so hard that he bent over and blood spattered on the gleaming limestone stairs. Mkvenner sank to his knees.
“This is madness,” Mkvenner gasped.
Kolea shook his head. “She’ll fix you better,” he said. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and produced a truly awful plaster effigy of the Saint, a pilgrim nick-nack. Kolea displayed it with huge pride. “Found this. Lucky charm. Lucky lucky. Was Tona’s. In her pocket.”
“Criid?”
Kolea nodded and smiled encouragingly. “Found her hurt. Found it on her. Lucky lucky. It kept her safe Real safe. Keep you safe too. Make you better.”
“Just take me back, Gol.”
“Saint make you better. Water make you better. You’ll see.”
Kolea put the effigy back into his coat. Mkvenner started coughing again. More blood came up and Mkvenner’s wracks became so violent, he passed out.
Kolea bent over and picked the big Tanith up. Grunting with effort, his legs shaking, he continued on down the steps, carrying Mkvenner in his arms.
He reached the bottom, and crossed the pool side towards the deep steps that ran down into the fuming water.
“Make you all better,” he repeated, over and over. Mkvenner didn’t answer. His head hung limply.
Carrying the dying scout, Kolea descended into the water, up to his shins, his knees, his thighs, his waist. The buoyancy of the water collected Mkvenner’s limp form up and floated him. Kolea pushed out, the water up to his throat, keeping Mkvenner on the surface.
Blood stained out in a wide fan around them.
“Be better! Be better now!” Kolea cried out.
He looked up suddenly. On the far side of the pool, a figure had appeared, indistinct in the smoking steam.
“Make him better!” Kolea demanded, trying to keep Mkvenner’s limp body above the water level.
“Make him better!”
“What now? You want me to walk?” Zweil leaned forward in the bathchair Lesp was pushing and stared at the candlelit flight of white steps below them. They could smell the sulphurous water.
Zweil made an effort to turn his head to look up at Gaunt. “Do you expect me to get up and walk down that?” he snarled.
“No,” said Gaunt. “Lesp? Help me.”
Between them, the Tanith commander and the slender orderly gathered Zweil up in a chair-lift between them and started to edge down the stairs. It was hard. Gaunt realised how unreliable his wounded leg was. If he fell now…
Behind them, Dorden shook his head wearily and pushed the empty bathchair to one side. Then he began to follow the others down the steps into the humid chamber of the Holy Balneary.
“Could you stop fidgeting?” Lesp grunted.
“I’m not!” Zweil complained.
“I think you are. This isn’t easy,” said Gaunt. Sweat was beading on his forehead from the effort, and Lesp was panting. Moisture coated every smooth limestone stair, and every step they took was a disaster waiting to happen.
“What… what the feth is happening down there?” Dorden said suddenly from behind them.
Gaunt nearly fell. They were halfway down the white staircase. “Put him down! Lesp, put him down!”
They eased Zweil’s paralysed body onto a step and let go. Lesp had to crouch and hold on to Zweil to stop him slithering away down the stairs. Gaunt rose and looked at what Dorden was pointing at. Below them, in the pool, three figures were standing in the water.
“Wait here,” Gaunt said. Dorden bent down beside Lesp and helped to keep Zweil stable The three of them watched Gaunt stagger his way down to the pool.
Gaunt limped from the foot of the staircase to the edge of the balneary pool. The three bodies in the water were now submerged, one of them pressing hands down on the backs of the others’ heads to dunk them.
Or drown them. Or baptise them.
Gaunt couldn’t tell. He thumped down the bath steps into the water himself.
The figures surfaced in a rush of bubbles and spray. Kolea. Mkvenner.
And her.
“What the hell is this?” Gaunt cried.
The Beati, dad only in a white shift, smiled at him, wiping away the water that dripped down her face from the fringes of her bowl-cut hair.
“The water heals, Ibram,” she said.
Just the sight of her stilled his fears. He stopped where he was, the warm water rocking against his legs.
Mkvenner turned and splashed his way towards him.
“Ven?”
Mkvenner got up on the steps and sat down, soaked through. He started to laugh.
“Ven? Are you all right?”
Mkvenner was laughing heartily, as if at some enormous cosmic joke. A man in his condition surely shouldn’t be able to laugh so violently. Unless…
“I told you,” said Kolea, splashing up to the foot of the steps and clambering up beside Mkvenner. “Didn’t I tell you? Heals everything. That’s the thing about this place, it—”
Kolea paused, and looked around, blinking in the wet air. His gaze finally found Gaunt’s face.
“I—” he said. “Sir, I think I may have missed something. How did I get here?”
SIX
PERTURBATION
“Bad day coming!”
—Unidentified preacher, Herodor
“Say that… again, if you please.”
Lord General Lugo exuded power and authority in his white, high-collared dress uniform, but his tone didn’t match his appearance at all. He sounded positively nervous.
“I said, lord, that I apologise for attending this function late, but I was delayed by an extraordinary event in the Holy Balneary. Before my eyes, the Beati performed a sacred miracle. Two, in fact Sacred miracles of healing.”
Gaunt paused and allowed the silence to last. The room, a high-tier ballroom in Old Hive that Lugo’s staff had requisitioned for the banquet, was full of formally attired officers — Herodian PDF, life company, Regiment Civitas and Tanith — who were all staring at Gaunt and the lord general. They’d been standing around, sipping preprandial amasecs and chatting, when Gaunt entered, and they’d heard every word.
“A miracle? What miracle?” Lugo asked, edgily. Biagi and Kaldenbach were nearby, and Gaunt could see Rawne, Mkoll, Daur and Hark in amongst the gathering. Behind the huddle of officers, servitors and household staff putting the finishing touches to the long table ceased their activity, as if realising something was in the air.
“Two of my troopers went to the Holy Balneary tonight. One, Mkvenner by name, was at death’s door. He was wounded on Aexe, and had never made a full recovery. The other, Sergeant Kolea, had been left a mental cripple during action on Phantine. It was a chronic condition that no amount of surgery could fix. As I understand it Kolea had taken Mkvenner down the balneary. It was an art of comradeship. I think Kolea’s simple mind had seized on what he had been told about the holy waters and so he believed he was doing the right thing.”
Lugo’s eyes narrowed as he listened.
“When I arrived,” Gaunt went on, “they were in the main pool, and the Saint was present. She was with them, in the water, almost as if she was…”
“…baptising them?” murmured Biagi.
“Just so, marshal,” said Gaunt. “When it was done, both men were healed. Completely healed.”
“You must be mistaken, sir,” said Kaldenbach.
Gaunt shook his head. “I admit, truth and falsehood seem to keep switching places with each other here on Herodor
, but I know what I saw.”
“Were you alone in witnessing this, Gaunt?” Lugo asked.
“No, sir. It was also witnessed by my chief medic, an orderly named Lesp, and by Ayatani Zweil.”
Lugo and Biagi exchanged quick glances. Gaunt could see the disguised unease on both their faces.
“When did this happen?” asked Lugo.
“An hour ago, sir.”
“And only now do you come here and tell me?”
Gaunt paused. “Ayatani Zweil made me conversant with the etiquette concerning such events. I made haste to summon the senior ayatani, the provosts of the Ecclesiarchy, and the first officiary, so that the miracles could be corroborated and documented, and entered into the holy record, informed church and state before you informed me?”
Gaunt nodded. “I wasn’t aware miracles were a military matter, lord. Ayatani Zweil told me that being a site of proven miracles would greatly increase Herodor’s significance as a sacred place This made it a matter for the Imperial Church. All Imperial subjects are legally obliged to inform the Ecclesiarchy of wonders and portents. And of course, it adds provenance to the authenticity of the Beati herself.”
“She needs no provenance!” Lugo snapped.
“Sir, I don’t understand,” said Gaunt. “The Saint is reborn here on Herodor and she has proved her divinity by performing genuine miracles. That surely is a cause for universal rejoicing. Why do you seem angry?”
Lugo stiffened and looked around, suddenly aware of the image he was projecting. He forced a smile. “You misunderstand me, my dear colonel-commissar. I am just… astonished. Miracles, as you say, are beyond our understanding, beyond the remit of normal life, and I confess I am alarmed by anything that does not fit into the pragmatic, physical world of soldiering. I’m sure my brothers here will agree?”
There was a general murmur of assent from around the room.
Lugo looked at Gaunt. “I’m not ashamed to admit that the notion of miracles terrifies me. Gaunt. The unseen universe exerting its power over our material lives. That sort of… magic is so often the stock in trade of our archenemy. So, please forgive my tone just then. Of course it is a cause for joyful thanks.”
It was an excellent recovery, Gaunt had to give him that much.
“I will go to the first officiary at once, and consult with him about how we should proceed.”
The assembly saluted as Lugo strode out, Biagi at his side. Then the chatter renewed, urgent.
“Is this true?” Hark asked softly, as he reached Gaunt’s side.
Gaunt nodded.
“But Kolea was—”
“Permanently crippled, I know. Dorden doesn’t know what happened. It’s quite scared him.”
“And Lugo too.”
“That’s different,” Gaunt said. “I think Lugo’s scared because he was in control of his game here until five minutes ago and now he most definitely isn’t.”
The scars were still there: old, pink, smooth, knotted across the back of the head from the base of the neck up to the crown. The hair had never properly grown back through the crumpled tissue, and Kolea had kept his head shaved.
“Let me see it once more,” he said. Ana Curth paused and then lifted the hand mirror again. Kolea craned his eyes sideways to study the marks on the back of his skull.
“A real mess.”
“Yes, it was,” she said. She put the mirror down because her hands were trembling and she didn’t want to drop it. “Just a few more tests,” she said, hoping she sounded breezy.
“Haven’t you done enough?” he asked. She met his eyes and swallowed. There was a light there, a human spark back in them that hadn’t been around since that day on Phantine two years earlier. It was like he’d risen from the dead, and though she was overjoyed to have him back, it terrified her. It was beyond her professional expertise to explain it.
“Why don’t you sit down?” he suggested. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
She laughed, stupidly delighted by the awful joke, and sat on a wooden stool facing the bedside where he was perched. The infirmary was quiet though those patients still awake had heard what was going on and were whispering from cot to cot. From nearby came the soft whir of a medical resonancer as Dorden ran the machine over Mkvenner’s torso for the umpteenth time. Dorden glanced up from his work, saw Curth looking at him, and shrugged. They were both spooked. They’d seen plenty in their days with the regiment but nothing like this.
“How much do you remember, Gol?” she asked.
He frowned, his lips pursed, for a brief second resembling the brain-damaged Gol Kolea, struggling to remember someone’s name or what he was supposed to be doing.
“With any clarity, I remember a street in Ouranberg, in the habs of the Alpha Dome. Criid was down. Hurt. Enemy fire. Those damn loxatl freaks. I remember the impacts of their flechette blasters. That distinctive sound… the hiss, the rattle of the shrapnel barbs. I went to get Tona. She was with Allo and Jenk, and they were dead. She’d caught shrap in the arm and the side. It looked bad. I picked her up and started to run. I…”
“What?”
“I don’t remember anything after that. It’s just a blur from there. You know how when you’re swimming and you dive down, and sounds from above you become all muffled and hollow? It feels like my memories since then are like that. Vague, out of focus. When my head came back up out of the water in that pool all the sounds flooded back and I remembered who I was.”
“It’s been two years.”
“Two years?” he gasped. “Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me where I’ve been. Tell me what happened.”
She breathed out and looked at the floor. “It was a loxatl round. It hit you in the back of the head and… and there was nothing we could do. You nearly died. You have to understand, Gol…”
“I understand you did your best.”
“No, I mean… this isn’t normal. You’d lost a considerable percentage of brain tissue. Your personality was destroyed. You could barely answer to your own name. You were just a shadow. An empty body.”
“And now I’m not.”
She stared at him. “Gol, I’ve scanned your skull with the infra-ometer and the mag resonator. There’s no change. Your brain is still as damaged as before. There’s been no real reconstruction, just basic tissue healing. There is absolutely no way you should be… cogent again like this.”
Kolea reached up and ran his fingers over the mess of scar-tissue.
“You said it was a miracle.”
“It is. In the strictest, most literal sense of the word. You and Ven both.”
“That scares you.”
“Yes, it does.” He blinked at this and looked away. Curth jumped to her feet.
“Oh, Gol! no! Don’t misunderstand me! I’m only scared of the unknown. Dorden’s the same… God-Emperor, everyone is!”
She reached out and hugged him tightly, pecking a quick kiss on his cheek before pulling away again.
“But we’re fething glad to have you back.”
He smiled. The old smile. The one she’d once been rather keen on.
“Tell me the rest,” he said. “Where is this place again?”
“Herodor,” she said.
“And before that we were where?”
“On Aexe Cardinal. Trench war.”
He nodded slowly. “I have a vague, muffled recollection of mud and water. And bombardment. Huge bombardment. Who’s been leading the squad?”
“Criid,” Curth said and laughed when he opened his mouth in surprise. “First female sergeant Things have moved along a bit in two years. Jajjo made scout.”
“Our first Verghast scout? Oh Holy Terra…” Kolea murmured, genuinely moved and proud. “About gakking time.”
“Muril almost made the grade too. She was in the program, and Ven says he would have recommended her to the specialty.” Girth’s face darkened. “But she died on Aexe.”
“Who else?” he
asked quietly. “Get it over with. Who else have we lost while I was in the dark?”
“So… can I go?” asked Mkvenner.
Dorden was packing up the instruments and glanced over at him. “You seem astonishingly unmoved by this, Ven,” he said. He was trying to disconnect the power lead from the base of the resonator paddle, but his mind was everywhere and he couldn’t remember how the lead-lock worked. He had to put the device down quickly so Mkvenner wouldn’t notice his distraction.
Mkvenner shrugged. “You say I’m fit?”
“Rudely healthy. There’s no trace of any internal bleeding. There’s not even a residue of blood pooled in your abdomen.”
Mkvenner started to pull on his black vest. “So I can go?”
“Do you know what just happened?”
“Yes,” said Mkvenner.
“Well, I fething don’t! Explain it to me.”
Mkvenner shrugged again. “It is my honour to serve the Imperium of Man, and in so doing the God-Emperor who protects us all. Tonight, in his infinite wisdom, he spared me, and he did so through the instrument of his chosen one. I’m not going to argue with that. I’m not going to be scared by that, either.”
“Yes, but—”
“There are no ‘buts’, Dorden. We fight the archenemy because we believe in the Holy Truths. Terrible things happen, unnatural things, warp-magic things, and we accept them because we believe. Now a good thing happens and you think we should question it?”
Dorden frowned. “No, put like that.”
Mkvenner looked up. There were sounds coming from outside Voices.
“Stay here,” Dorden said, and walked towards the infirmary exit.
A crowd was gathering in the torch-lit hall outside the hospital facility. Dorden saw huddles of ayatani and esholi, groups of ecclesiarchs and adepts, even a few infardi. Most of them had prayer beads, pilgrim badges, ampullas of holy water or placard boards with pictures of the Saint pasted onto them. Some were incanting, or swinging incense burners. Many carried votive candles.
“What is this?” he asked.
“We want to see the Miraculous,” said one ecclesiarch.