by Steve Lyons
‘A lord admiral,’ said Tylar. ‘High up enough, anyway, to rescue me from the draft and set me up with a cushy administrator’s job. Well, you must remember that. I only mentioned it about a thousand times, I think, during our date, trying to impress you.’
‘I… I’m sorry,’ said Arex. ‘It’s just, my uncle, he–’
‘I know.’ Tylar smiled warmly at her. ‘You talked a lot about Governor Hanrik too, as I recall. You certainly didn’t approve of his choice of suitors for you.’
‘We were both so young,’ sighed Arex, ‘and the things we cared about back then…’
‘They don’t mean so much now, do they?’
Tylar eased himself away from her, and immediately she missed the reassuring press of his body. It had been comforting to return to the past, for however short a time, without regret, to learn that even a tiny part of it had survived. It had given her hope. But now, the empty present beckoned to Arex once more.
‘We should get back to it,’ said Tylar, ‘before that overseer returns with his goon friends. Here, I’ll help you clear this pile. If you feel weak again, you can lean on me.’
‘I will,’ said Arex gratefully.
The point of the work was to sift for materials the Iron Gods could use.
Anything with metal content was to be put to one side; gemstones and jewellery too. Every half-hour or so, Arex and Tylar took turns to wheel a barrow full of useless masonry into the silent smeltery. He arranged her loads so that they were lighter than his, though they looked as substantial. She would empty her barrow down one of the lifter shafts, while a group of overseers played cards at a nearby table.
It made Arex angry sometimes that the overseers – mostly Amareth’s friends from before – did less work than she did, and yet got more food. She wondered if they had felt the same way about her, living in the High Spire, wanting for nothing all those years, while they had lived their lives of drudgery. Now, the Iron Gods had elevated a new ruling class in Hieronymous City, and perhaps she deserved this penance.
She slept on a cold, hard floor now in a hab half the size of her old bathroom, shared with four other slaves. They had shuttered the window, but still the green light from the pyramid clawed its way around the edges of the wood.
‘Don’t you think it’s odd,’ Tylar said to her one day, ‘that we never see the Iron Gods themselves? Nor any sign that the fruits of our labour are being taken to them?’
Arex shrugged. ‘If they don’t want the metal,’ she said, ‘then why ask for it?’
‘We have only the word of Amareth that they have.’
She let the pickaxe fall idle in her hands, tempting the overseers’ wrath. She stared at Tylar. ‘What… what are you saying? Why would we be doing all this, if not…?’
‘How did you come to be here?’ he asked. ‘To join this workgroup?’
‘I didn’t know what else to… I couldn’t go back home. I met people who had been to the city gates, and they said they had been closed. Then I saw… I saw others working in the ruins, and I asked them why, and they told me…’
‘They found me,’ said Tylar, ‘and they told me that, if I didn’t join them, serve the Iron Gods, it was their duty to see that I was punished for it. Even so…’
‘Even so,’ breathed Arex, ‘it is a comfort to know… to believe that we are not entirely helpless before this terrible force, that there is some way we can…’
‘But what,’ whispered Tylar, ‘if there is no way? What if the Iron Gods do not care in the slightest if we serve them or not? What if we have been lied to?’
They began to score what little victories they could. They hid metal scraps at the bottom of the barrow and tipped them down the mine shafts so the overseers couldn’t have them. They thought it safe to do this because no one was really watching, until a collection of cutlery in Arex’s fourth load shifted with a treacherous clank and caught the light of a burning brazier, and the overseers surrounded her and questioned her.
They were men in their forties, most of them, ex-miners with unshaven faces that looked like they couldn’t ever have been clean. One of them asked Arex for her name, and she answered truthfully because she couldn’t bear the burden of another lie. The overseer looked closely at her, remembered herface from a newsreel he had seen once, and that was it, her cover was blown.
They were even more interested in her then. They wanted to know if she was a spy for the Governor, an accusation she denied angrily. They asked her why she hadn’t been flown out of the city with him, and they picked at her flimsy excuses until she confessed that she had been looking for her boyfriend. Arex burst into tears, then, partly through having had her deepest secret dragged out of her and partly at the memory of stumbling through the wreckage, finding Gunthar’s block razed by the insect swarm, finding herself for the first time in her life alone.
The overseers affected to find this story hilarious. They wanted to know more about this lower-floor dweller who had won the heart of a lady. They made vulgar suggestions about what Arex might have seen in Gunthar, and they laughed all the harder when she insisted he was the sweetest man in the world.
‘Where is he now,’ they taunted her, ‘this sweet love of yours?’
‘He’s looking for me,’ she said stubbornly. ‘Gunthar is looking for me and he won’t stop until we have found each other.’ But she reached for her necklace, her comforter, as she spoke, forgetting for a moment that she had lost this too, found it gone from her coat pocket some time after the insects. She had gone back to search for it, in vain.
‘What do you think?’ asked one of the overseers of his fellows. ‘Do we take her to Amareth? I’m sure he’d like to know we have a royal visitor.’
The cruel, mocking laughter of the others signalled their agreement.
The sun was setting as Arex was half-pushed, half-dragged along the skyway by a six-strong escort. She saw Tylar starting towards her, but discouraged him with a firm shake of her head. There was nothing he could do to help her.
She was surprised to be led into a musty old schola, down several floors and out into an intact courtyard dominated by a single grand building at its far end. A broad flight of marble steps swept up to a doorway that could easily have accommodated a visitor three times Arex’s height. The spires to each side of these steps could have belonged to nothing but a temple, and despite her situation she felt a swell of optimism in her heart, until she looked up to where the Imperial Eagle should have been displayed above the temple’s door to find it there no longer.
The eagle had been chipped away. Arex could still see the outline of its splayed wings, dark against the weathered brickwork, but across this had been painted, in silver, a lopsided image of a leering skull.
Inside, likewise, all Imperial symbols had been removed or defaced. Green drapes had been hung, black candles lit. At the end of the nave, a tall stained-glass window had been smashed and a bed sheet pinned over it, onto which another skull had been daubed, apparently by the same clumsy hand responsible for the one outside. Perched atop the black-shrouded altar was a small pyramid carved from wood, and the overseers approached this reverently, their footsteps echoing from the galleries.
An emerald-cloaked attendant loomed along the transept, and Arex was revolted to see xenos sigils painted on her cheeks and her forehead in ash. She thought a couple of her escorts appeared uneasy with this too, but she couldn’t tell for sure.
A short, whispered conversation ensued before the attendant nodded and swept away. Several minutes passed, then more footsteps sounded, ascending to the pulpit. The overseers knelt in awe, but Arex remained standing, until a sharp baton blow to the back of her knees stole her choice in the matter.
Her eyes lowered for fear of being struck again, she heard her name spoken in a rich, resonating voice. ‘Lady Hanrik, I believe. You may gaze upon my person.’
Arex looked up and caught her breath. She had glimpsed Amareth just one time before, across the smeltery floor, giving orders
to his overseers. She had thought he looked like any ordinary man: perhaps a little taller than most, in his mid-thirties, with a slick of black hair and protruding ears. Now, he towered above her, a spectre wrapped in royal blue, his face concealed by a metal skull mask, which looked like one the overseers had been parading a couple of weeks ago. The mask, apparently, had been taken from the corpse of an Imperial Guardsman, although Arex couldn’t imagine a member of the Emperor’s army wearing such a thing.
Amareth held a staff with moulded plasteel prongs, a makeshift approximation of the one wielded by the giant god that had walked the skies in hololithic form. ‘So,’ he rumbled, ‘the niece of our former Governor has been delivered to my church. What clearer sign could there be that we are the favoured of the Iron Gods?’
‘It was I who recognised her, lord,’ spoke up one of the overseers.
‘Tell me, my lady,’ said Amareth, ‘how came you to be guided to us?’
So, Arex told her tale, in as few words as she could, and Amareth listened, then, when she had finished, he nodded sagely and said, ‘It was not through capricious fate that you were spared the ravages of the insect swarm. The gods must surely have a purpose in mind for the Governor’s kin.’
‘But I…’ she protested, tongue-tied. ‘That was before. My family’s wealth means nothing now. I’m just like the rest of… like everybody else.’
Amareth let out a deep-throated chuckle. ‘Oh no, my lady, you are not like the others. Not while your uncle’s forces lay siege to the gods’ own domain.’
‘To the city, you mean? They’re still fighting for us? I didn’t know.’
Arex had hoped, though, especially after the rumours of the Imperial Guard’s presence, and her delight in having that hope realised must have sounded in her voice, because an overseer at her side grumbled, ‘They are wasting their ammunition. They must have heard the voice of the gods, as we all did. They know their power.’
‘Indeed,’ agreed Amareth, ‘and yet Talmar Hanrik has chosen to stake all our lives on a futile act of defiance.’
‘He’s trying to save us!’ protested Arex.
‘We have no need of his salvation. The Iron Gods protect those who serve them. Isn’t that why you chose to join us, Lady Hanrik?’
‘I joined you because I thought… When did they speak to you? When did they tell you they desired our service? You speak of their voice, and yet I heard that too, and no one could have found any meaning in that noise. How do you know–?’
‘Now,’ continued Amareth, ignoring her, ‘we have the means to prove our worth. We have you, Lady Hanrik – and, once you have been presented to the Iron Gods–’
‘You’re insane!’ Arex felt a baton prod to her ribs, and an overseer warned her about speaking to ‘Lord Amareth’ that way. Undeterred, she went on, ‘You think you can use me as a hostage? You can’t
imagine that will work! My uncle will–’
‘As much as Governor Hanrik might disdain the rest of us, he must certainly value his precious niece’s life. He will have no choice but to–’
‘Look around you,’ cried Arex. ‘Open your eyes, all of you, and look! Your “Iron Gods” have destroyed our homes, they’ve killed our friends, and you… you think you can deal with them? You think you can buy their favour? They–’ This time, the baton prod was backed up by a stun charge. Arex’s legs gave way, and she would have fallen had the overseers not caught her, holding her like a rag doll.
‘Leave me,’ instructed Amareth. ‘I will commune with the gods, pray for guidance in this matter, and for this I must have solitude.’
‘You weren’t appointed by them, were you? The Iron Gods have never spoken to you except in your own head.’ Amareth had turned to leave, but Arex’s weak voice pulled him back. She knew she was tempting another shock or worse, but she didn’t much care. Once they had marched her into that green-glowing pyramid, it would be too late for words. ‘Don’t you see? You were right about me. I’m afraid of them, as we all are. I can’t fight those horrors, so I thought… I thought, at least, if I did as they wanted, I wouldn’t be harmed. I understand how you feel, why you’re doing all this, but if there’s still hope, if the Emperor’s forces are fighting for us–’
‘Leave me,’ repeated Amareth, ‘but ensure that two overseers have sight of Lady Hanrik at all times. She is to be quartered in the schola. In fact, it is time we brought the rest of my flock into the buildings around this courtyard. Let them see the new homes we have prepared for them, and their new house of worship.’
And he did turn and leave then, disappearing back beneath the pulpit’s lip, but his commanding voice carried back over his shoulder:
‘Services begin at dawn tomorrow.’
The lectorum had been cleared of desks and chairs. A broad window overlooked the newly reappointed temple, and there were a few surprised whispers as the other slaves noticed its silver-painted skull, luminous in the moonlight.
Arex, for her part, was just relieved to shrug her heavy mattress off her back, let it hit the floorboards in a cloud of dust. She was gladder still that Tylar had found his way to her. Two overseers stood sentry in the doorway, the furthest they had strayed from her side all night, so at last she had a chance to confide in her new friend freely.
‘Amareth is mad,’ she declaimed, ‘completely and utterly mad. He thinks he can bargain with his Iron Gods, and he’s willing to betray the Emperor Himself to do it.’
‘So, it seems we were right after all,’ said Tylar, shaking his head in despair. ‘Amareth tells us he can hear their voices, and we… so desperate are we for a slim thread of hope, for someone to guide us, that we believe him. We delude ourselves.’
‘He can see a new order coming,’ said Arex, ‘and he is seizing the chance – the fantasy – to be more than he once was. I’ve heard the overseers talking. There are other workgroups like this one – other churches, I should say – across the city.’
Tylar nodded. ‘They boast that this is the largest of them, over a hundred slaves, as if it were a competition.’
‘It is,’ said Arex. ‘Amareth wants this church, his church, to be the only one, with himself installed as its High Priest, and he thinks–’
‘Now, he thinks he has something his gods want, and he thinks he can barter it for their recognition – for real, this time.’
‘He doesn’t understand, doesn’t see that we are nothing to them!’
Arex sank down onto her mattress, pulled her knees up to her chest. The room was quieting down as the other slaves finished laying out their meagre belongings and rested their weary bodies. She was thinking of her Uncle Hanrik; all those years he had spent trying to protect her, almost smothering her.
She had been so ungrateful to him, for the life he had given her. If she hadn’t been searching, like Amareth, for something more, she wouldn’t have been in this predicament now. She had found her adventure, at last, and there was nothing exciting about it – and the worst of it was that, in the Iron Gods’ clutches, she would be endangering more lives than her own, and perhaps Hanrik had foreseen this.
He had served in the Imperial Guard, Arex remembered. He had sent his three sons off to war. Doubtless he had known, far better than she did, what lurked in the shadows beyond the God-Emperor’s blinding light.
Tylar leaned in closer to her, whispered in her ear, ‘Do you still have faith?’
‘In the Emperor? Of course I do, but I know I have failed Him. In my fear and confusion, I have knelt before the prophet of a false god. I have assisted His foes.’
‘We can still serve Him,’ Tylar insisted. ‘He has shown us the way.’
‘You mean…?’
‘Amareth can’t be allowed to carry out his plan. The Imperium is still fighting for us, and if the Governor’s resolve is weakened by his actions–’
‘But what can we do?’
‘We can escape,’ said Tylar. ‘We can get you away from here.’
‘But the city,’ protested Arex, �
��the city has been sealed. How can we–?’
‘There are plenty of places we can hide. As long as we can keep you out of Amareth’s hands, that is the main thing. Then we only have to wait until these Iron Gods have been vanquished, as they surely will be, and our world reclaimed.’
‘If only it were so easy,’ lamented Arex, ‘but Amareth won’t let me go. You know he has his men watching me, and even if we were to evade them, they would never cease searching for me. Far better if I had never come here, if I had been killed by the insect swarm. Far better, in fact, if I were to die right now.’
‘You mustn’t think like that,’ hissed Tylar, and he put his strong arm around Arex’s shoulder, held her. ‘After all you have been through, and survived, you should have no doubt that the Emperor wants you to live. He wants you – He wants us both – to fight for Him, and fight for Him we shall… somehow.’
Chapter Fifteen
Gunthar had been issued with a shaving kit, at last.
It had arrived three mornings ago, along with his body armour. The morning of his meeting with the Governor and the senior officers, although he hadn’t questioned the coincidence. He scraped shaving foam from his chin, splashed his face with freezing cold water from the cracked white basin in the corner of the bunkroom and carefully cleaned and stowed his disposable razor so as to preserve its edge.
As he turned from the basin, he glimpsed a face he did not know in the mirror, and the sight of it caused him to hesitate. Drawing closer to the glass, Gunthar wiped away a stray smear of soap and inspected the visage before him.
His tousled black hair, of course, he had lost on his first day of service. He wore a military buzz-cut now, which changed, or rather exposed, the shape of his head. He had shed some weight, too, and his cheeks had a hollow look to them. A livid purple bruise beneath his left eye further distorted the image from the familiar.
It was more than that though.