Scourge The Heretic

by Sandy Mitchell

  Estimating that they still had several seconds before conversation could be initiated, Vex looked beyond the platform, absorbing as much as he could of the subterranean world they’d landed in. The scale of it was truly impressive. The vast hole in the roof through which they’d descended covered no more than two thirds of the sinister black lake, the far shore of which was lost in the gloom of the other side, so that from here the dark waters seemed to recede into infinity. Faint pinpricks of light speckled the distant walls, turning them into a miniature starscape, where the ostracised or the desperate scrabbled for specks of usable material, although the seams above the surface had been worked out generations before. The only minerals worth the effort of recovering lay far beneath the waters of the buried lake.

  That was the business of the platform they were standing on. Hundreds like it bobbed all around the edges of the tarn, where the water was still shallow enough for their anchor cables to find a purchase. Further out there was nothing, except the sprawling, dilapidated floating town the locals called the Flotsam, its boundaries changing incrementally every day as another pontoon edged hopefully outwards, or was swept away by bad weather or malign currents. In really bad weather, like the winter blizzards, the entire habitat would stir with the choppy water, complete neighbourhoods sometimes vanishing overnight, to be replaced piecemeal as their waterlogged construction materials were fished out over the weeks that followed.

  Vex gathered that the bodies of the drowned were so frequent a sight that the locals barely noticed them, not even bothering to recover the unfortunate victims of the lake unless their clothing or personal effects seemed obviously worth the effort, or a putrefying corpse had got entangled with the infrastructure somewhere the nearby residents found the stench of its decomposition too much to bear.

  Innumerable watercraft were scudding to and fro around the gargantuan raft, propelled by sails for the most part, and he nodded thoughtfully. Whether or not the leviathans of legend that Drake had referred to really existed, something he was inclined to doubt, but couldn’t dismiss entirely given some of the bizarre sights he’d seen since joining the Angelae Carolus, there were clearly sufficient fish in the murky water to keep the peasantry fed.

  The few mechanically propelled vessels he could make out in the encircling gloom were considerably larger than the sailing ones, flat-bottomed mineral barges for the most part, wreathed in acrid smoke or farting the unmistakable tang of burned promethium. They chugged along with sublime disregard for anything else on the water, scattering the fishing boats ahead of them like a nobleman’s bodyguard shouldering the peasantry aside in a crowded street.

  ‘My lords.’ The man he’d noticed hurrying down the staircase was standing before them now, a faint sheen of sweat turning the patina of grime across his face into greasy mud as he goggled at Horst’s Inquisition sigil with undisguised fear. As the arbitrator snapped the rosette’s case closed, and returned it to his pocket, the man’s eyes continued to follow it as though hypnotised. ‘How may I be permitted to serve you?’

  ‘That rather depends on who you are,’ Horst said, and the man nodded weakly.

  ‘Phyron, my lord. Supervisor of Mineral Recovery for this platform.’ A faint inflection of pride was still audible in the man’s voice, Vex noticed, even through his understandable apprehension. In the hierarchy of serfdom, he was clearly a man of considerable stature.

  ‘Then I’m sure you can be of assistance,’ Vex said calmly, noting that Phyron’s expression barely changed as his gaze moved from Horst’s pocket to acknowledge his presence. That was unusual. Most of the unaugmented tended to look a trifle uneasy the first time they encountered a tech-priest, so it seemed reasonable to infer that this man had had dealings with Tonis on his periodic visits to the mine. ‘We wish to inspect the workings you maintain here on behalf of the Adeptus Mechanicus.’

  ‘Of course, my lords.’ Phyron licked his lips nervously, torn between his fear of the authority the Inquisitorial agents represented and the legacy of generations of unquestioning loyalty to his feudal masters. ‘But you must understand that it may not be safe down there. Technomancer Tonis was always very insistent that no one went into the shaft without him.’

  ‘Your concern has been noted,’ Horst said, in a tone that brooked no argument, and the supervisor nodded unhappily.

  ‘Then I’ll take you down myself,’ he said, turning and leading the way towards a crane at the end of the platform, its boom jutting out over the turbid water. ‘The shift’s just finishing on number three, so the bell should be up again directly.’

  ‘The bell?’ Horst asked, dropping his voice a little, so only Vex could hear him clearly. ‘What’s he talking about?’

  ‘That, I would imagine,’ Vex said, indicating the point at which a tangle of cables and hoses entered the water. A large bubble rose to the surface, followed by another. A moment later the point below the derrick was a mass of churning froth. The note of the crane’s engine changed, taking a greater strain as its burden lost the supporting buoyancy of the water.

  ‘Golden throne!’ Horst said, impressed in spite of himself. Uplifted by such a powerful display of the Omnissiah’s bounty, Vex could only nod in agreement. A curving metal shell was beginning to break the surface, its exterior pitted with corrosion and tangled with water weeds. As the crane continued to take more of its weight, the note of its promethium-burning engine rising in pitch like a hymn of praise to the Machine-God, the enraptured tech-priest was able to take in the full glory of the construction that it was supporting. Riveted metal plates formed a rounded hull the size of a standard cargo container, the runes and sigils of protection against water and pressure applied to it still legible despite considerable weathering and wear.

  Within moments the metal shell was clear of the lake, and a crew of serfs hurried to a windlass set in the decking, running around it with the unthinking precision conferred by years of repetition. With a grinding of ungreased cogwheels, which set Vex’s teeth on edge, the crane began to slew, bringing its precious cargo inboard. As it did so, a thick hatch in the bell’s outer hull began to open, pushed from the other side.

  The crane operator slackened the cable off, and with a grinding crash that rocked the entire pontoon the diving bell met the deck almost exactly in the centre of a shallow depression hammered into the rusting metal surface by innumerable such impacts over the years. Abandoning the windlass, the deck crew ran out a ramp, which butted up against the lip of the hatch.

  ‘Best stand back a little, my lords,’ Phyron advised as the crew began to disembark, shambling down the incline like barely animate creatures, reminding Vex uncomfortably of the plague zombies they’d faced in the outer layers of Hive Tarsus a couple of years before. All were blank-eyed with exhaustion, caked with mud and dust, their shabby clothing hanging from them like sloughing skins. They lined up, wordlessly, while the deck crew trotted inside the diving bell. A moment later the men reappeared, pushing wheeled skips piled with ore down the ramp, holding them back as gravity began to overcome inertia on the gentle slope. Each truck had a name painted on the side of it, next to a crude pictogram so that the miner it belonged to could pick it out from its fellows.

  Leaving his unwanted guests, with a couple of apprehensive glances in their direction as though half expecting to be called to heel, Phyron walked over to a large counterweighted slab level with the deck, onto which the first ore skip was wheeled by its attendants. A mechanical arm swung lazily against a notched wooden board as the platform sank, recording the weight of the ore it contained, and Phyron reached into a pouch on his belt, counting out a few dull metal tokens.

  ‘Ennis,’ he called, and one of the miners shambled forward, accepting the handful of tallies. From his extensive reading on the subject of the internal workings of the Secundan mines, Vex recalled that at the end of the month the workers would be able to exchange the tokens they received for food and other supplies shipped in by their liege lords, perhaps even a real coin or
two. The miner slurred some routine formula of insincere gratitude, tugged his forelock, and got back in line. ‘Garver.’ The ritual was repeated several times, each weighed skip being wheeled away to a storage shed as soon as its contents were assayed. No sooner had they delivered one to the stockpile, emptying its contents into an echoing metal bin, than the deckhands returned to the diving bell for another.

  ‘Now that’s interesting,’ Horst murmured, pointing to a skip that had just begun its journey down the ramp. Unlike the others it was only half full, and its owner lay unmoving on the heap of rubble it contained. ‘Foul play, do you suppose?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Vex replied, sotto voce. ‘There are dozens of fatal accidents a day in every mine on Sepheris Secundus. I imagine this one was unexceptional.’

  ‘Magger.’ Phyron looked up from the name on the truck, registering the corpse it contained for the first time. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Rockfall,’ Ennis said, shrugging.

  That sounded plausible to Vex. From where he was standing, the dead miner looked as though he’d sustained severe blunt trauma to the head, and his torso was mottled with bruises. In any event, Phyron didn’t seem particularly concerned, merely motioning the nearest of the deckhands towards the skip. Two of them heaved the corpse out of it, and away from the weighplate. The pointer shifted a notch as the additional burden was removed, and the supervisor grunted approval.

  ‘That’s better. He was dumb as a rock, but a lot less valuable.’ None of the miners stirred as their erstwhile companion disappeared over the side of the raft with a faint splash. Phyron counted out a few tokens. ‘Anyone know his family?’

  ‘Ent got one,’ Garver volunteered after a moment of silence. ‘Swept off the Flotsam last blow but one, weren’t they?’

  ‘Tha’s right,’ someone else said. ‘Long of Scobie’s lot, bairns an’ all.’

  ‘Fine.’ Phyron slipped two of the tokens into his pocket, and held out the rest. ‘That’s one more apiece then. He doesn’t need it any more, and I’m sure you’d like a drink in his memory.’

  ‘Well said, guvnor.’ Ennis took the handful of copper, watched intently by the eyes of his workmates. ‘We always says there’s no finer gentleman on the water you could hope to work for than Mister Phyron, doesn’t we lads?’

  ‘Aye, right, happen we do.’ The chorus of assent sounded distinctly insincere to Vex, but Phyron appeared to take it at face value, nodding judicially, with a sideways glance towards the Inquisition agents to make sure his fairness and probity were being properly noted.

  After the task of weighing the day’s delvings had been completed, and the surviving miners had shuffled off towards the boat waiting to return them to the dubious comforts of the Flotsam, the supervisor gestured towards the diving bell. ‘Ready when you are, my lords,’ he said.

  The Tumble, Gorgonid Mine, Sepheris Secundus

  098.993.M41

  ‘What do you want?’ Kyrlock asked, as Mung twitched the grubby curtain aside and stuck his head into the room behind the drinkhole. The bartender shrugged.

  ‘Just wondered if you were getting hungry, that’s all.’ He grinned insincerely, with a nod at Elyra. ‘Not interrupting anything, am I?’

  ‘No,’ Kyrlock said shortly, irritated at the insinuation. His mood had been growing ever more sullen as the day had worn on, the tedium of their enforced confinement growing on him with every passing hour. If something didn’t happen soon, he thought, he’d have to go back into the taproom and pick a fight just to relieve the monotony. Only the reflection that doing so would be really stupid, possibly compromising their mission, had restrained him so far; that, and the fact that until night fell and the customers started to arrive there would be no one to pick on but Mung. He had no objection in principle to beating up his brother, but the scrawny little bartender was hardly a challenge, and they needed his help in any case. So, deprived of the solace of cathartic violence he fell back on brooding instead.

  Elyra hadn’t been much of a companion either. Reluctant to talk about herself, or any of the other Angelae, in case Mung overheard something that cast doubt on their cover story, she’d spent most of the day meditating, or whatever the psyker equivalent of press-ups was, staring into space with a vacant expression that made Kyrlock feel as though something small with too many legs was running up and down his spine.

  The trouble was, he felt trapped. He hadn’t asked to join the Inquisition, any more than he’d wanted to join the Imperial Guard. All his life, other people had been telling him what to do, and now he’d seen for himself that there were alternatives he was beginning to grow sick of it. At least as a forester he’d been left alone for most of the time, able to slip through a few of the cracks in the feudal system, albeit not quite as successfully as his brother had done, reliant on no one else, and with no responsibilities beyond turning in enough raw timber to at least look as though he was meeting his obligations to the baron. Now Horst and the others expected things of him, and momentous consequences he barely understood apparently hinged on the decisions he’d have to make over the coming days and weeks.

  Maybe he should get out while he could, just walk away and leave them to it, go and hide out in the Breaks like he’d been pretending to when he repeated his cover story to Mung. But that would leave Danuld with no one to watch his back if it all went klybo, which he was morbidly certain would only be a matter of time, and how could anyone hope to outrun the Inquisition anyway?

  ‘I could do with something to eat,’ Elyra said. Her injuries were healing a little, her movements slightly less stiff than they had been, but half her face was still covered by a livid purple bruise.

  ‘Then you’re in luck.’ Mung came fully into the room, a sack across one shoulder, the familiar ingratiating grin still plastered to his face. ‘I managed to bag a couple of rockrats, enough for stew.’ Apparently misinterpreting the expression that crossed the psyker’s countenance, he added, ‘No extra charge.’

  ‘Very generous,’ Kyrlock said flatly. There was no denying he was hungry too, and the food they’d brought with them would last a lot longer if they accepted Mung’s hospitality, but he was in no hurry to taste the rank meat of the rockrats again. One thing about being in the Guard that he’d quickly learned to appreciate was food that was actually palatable.

  ‘No problem.’ Mung rummaged on a shelf in the corner, finding a large knife with a stained and rusting blade, and sat on a nearby crate, producing a rodent the length of his forearm from the sack that he’d dumped on the floor between his feet. Still chatting happily he slit its belly open, flung a handful of guts in the general direction of the slops bucket, and began to skin it. ‘More than enough of ’em to go around.’

  ‘How did you manage to catch it?’ Elyra asked, trying not to look, and Kyrlock felt a flash of surprise that a hardened Inquisition agent could be so squeamish about something so minor. ‘We would have heard shooting, even buried away down here.’

  ‘So would the overseers,’ Mung said, looking up just long enough to grin at her, before decapitating the rat and beginning to joint it. ‘Besides, guns need ammo, which costs, even if you can get hold of one in the first place.’ An expression of sly knowingness slithered across his features. ‘Not saying I couldn’t lay hands on one myself if I needed it, mind, or for anyone else who asked, if the price was right.’

  ‘I’ve got a gun,’ Kyrlock said shortly, his hand still on the stock.

  Mung nodded appraisingly. ‘So I see, nice piece. I won’t ask who lost it, ’cos I know you won’t tell me.’ He shrugged. ‘If you need any shells for it, I can ask around.’

  ‘I’ve got enough,’ Kyrlock said. He’d forgotten just how much his brother could run off at the mouth given the opportunity, and began to wonder if coming here had been such a smart move after all. But the man he wanted to see used to be a regular in Mung’s place, and apparently still was. Finding him anywhere else in the Tumble would have taken far longer, and left them dangerously exposed whil
e they searched.

  Mung shrugged, and began to work on the second rat. ‘Suit yourself, Vos. Offer’s there, that’s all.’

  ‘If you didn’t shoot them, what did you use?’ Elyra asked. ‘Snares?’

  By way of an answer, Mung put down the knife and the half-dissected rodent, and pulled something from his belt. ‘This.’ He handed the Y-shaped piece of laminate to her with a hint of diffident pride. ‘Made it myself.’

  ‘A slingshot?’ Elyra asked in surprise, taking the crude stonethrower, and checking the tension of the elastic cord by pulling on the neatly sewn leather cup in the centre of the line. ‘I haven’t seen one of these in a long time.’ Then to Kyrlock’s surprise, a nostalgic smile appeared on her face. ‘I used to have one when I was a girl. Not as good as this, though, and I was never very accurate with it.’

  ‘You have to have the knack,’ Mung agreed. ‘But once you’ve got it, you don’t lose it.’ Remembering the number of long-range snowballs that had hit him in the face while they were growing up together, Kyrlock didn’t doubt that. ‘And there’s always enough ammunition in a place like the Tumble, just lying around at your feet.’ He stood, scooping up the jointed meat, and leaving the skins where they’d fallen. ‘I’ll let you know when it’s cooked.’

  ‘Your brother has hidden depths,’ Elyra said, once the curtain had swung closed behind him.

  Kyrlock shrugged, obscurely irritated by her apparent approval. ‘Oh, definitely,’ he said. ‘And most of them better left buried, if you ask me.’

  Icenholm, Sepheris Secundus