Deathwing

by Neil

  He glanced up from his scroll. ‘It would be a mistake to assume because the predominant level of civilization is primitive that these people have no subtlety or machinery. The complexity of their life may hide many details, and I would advise extreme caution in dealing with them, other than from a position of unassailable power.’

  He looked down and, presentation at an end, began to roll up his scroll. Judit glanced round at the rest of the audience. Inquisitor Rathman, charged with the responsibility of returning the worlds of this cluster to Imperial rule, looked abstracted; gloved fingers twisted his signet ring from side to side as he waited for the scribe to finish.

  ‘A question,’ he said, tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair. ‘The STC source – how much do we know about that?’

  The scribe shook his head. ‘Very little, I’m afraid. The natives refused to talk about it to our agents. But this is a primitive world, by and large. All the libraries of tech-information that we know of were destroyed during the Age of Strife. The odds say that these monks work from records of parchment – but they could contain details of devices long forgotten, bizarre arcana beyond the ken of any – save only the Emperor himself,’ he added piously.

  Joachim, present as head of the detachment of Adeptus Arbites aboard the fleet, shook his head angrily. ‘This whole world is like a can of worms,’ he said. ‘Little warlord wrigglers waiting to go on the hook one by one. Unless there’s a faster way to bag them we could be here forever!’

  The inquisitor shook his head. ‘That’s not acceptable, Joachim. Not at all. We must establish control over this backwater, and swiftly. We need a weak point.’

  ‘There is anarchy down there,’ said the clerk. ‘The scouts could find no integrated hierarchy – kill one warlord, and another will rise to take their place.’

  Judit was staring into space. An opening, she mused; yes, I need an opening. Secret knowledge. A library… The STC library, if there really was one here, would be ideal. Such computerized libraries, relics of the Dark Age of Technology, contained incalculable wisdom vital to the works of the Adeptus Mechanicus – but all the known ones were damaged in some way, and there were so few of them left. If she could find one…

  ‘Our assassin would appear to be lost in a pleasant dream,’ Joachim said drily. ‘Perhaps our esteemed colleague would be prepared to give us the benefit of her insight?’

  Judit turned her eyes on him. For the entire voyage he’d been sniping, little abusive derogations, nasty gibes at the expense of the Assassins’ Guild. Relations between the monolithic Adeptus Arbites and their secretive, independent rivals – the Imperial assassins – were far from friendly. She stared at him, pupils narrowing to the semblance of gunsights, until he looked away.

  ‘There is a weakness,’ she said determinedly, ‘and one which is wide open to action by my team. My team, you understand,’ She looked at the inquisitor, who watched her with saturnine interest. ‘I can deliver this world to you on a platter,’ she said. ‘Along with the library, which won’t be of use to anyone if we wind up bombing it from orbit!’ She glanced at Joachim. ‘It should be obvious that we have a perfect lever to bring them into line, of their own accord. Of course it’ll take a while, but I believe as few as two kills might be sufficient.’

  ‘I hope you can deliver on that promise,’ Joachim said with a smirk. ‘If not…’

  He left it unsaid, but she knew what he was thinking. There were those amongst the Arbites who would love to adopt the functions of the assassins in addition to their own – and augment the considerable power of the Judges within the priesthood. And Joachim clearly felt that the assassins were not entirely to be trusted; as a secular arm they were a sharp but treacherous blade that might twist in the wielder’s hand. Judit had not failed to notice that while she was aboard the flagship Joachim wore his black carapace of armour everywhere.

  Inquisitor Rathman nodded at the scribe, who activated a recorder. ‘Let it be entered,’ he intoned, ‘that on this day Assassin Judit Bjarnesdottir did avow that by action under her leadership she could bring the administration of the planet Hito into line with Imperial governance,’ He looked at Judit knowingly, a lethal twinkle in his eyes; she suddenly felt a shaft of coldness run through her stomach. Yes, the inquisitor knew how to play off the bureaucracy against itself.

  ‘Let it further be entered that with the power vested in us,’ he added, ‘that we hold her to her promise and instruct her to work in conjunction with Joachim Ahriman of the Adeptus Arbites to ensure that the rule of this planet passes into our hands within thirty standard days. In the name of the Emperor, let it be so.’

  WHEN TENZIG RETURNED to his cell after his meeting with the abbot, he spent an unquiet night worrying about the task which he had been set. Brother abbot had been firm: word of the proceedings of the meeting must not travel any further. Secrecy was essential. As the junior member of the order present, execution of the task must devolve on him; it was an awesome responsibility.

  He lay staring at the ceiling, and remembered the abbot’s words.

  As master of the Order of the Heavenly Virtues, the abbot was wise in the ways of the world, just as the master of the secret arts was educated in the dark sciences of death.

  ‘They come from far away, but we must not assume that they are naive about the sources of power. They will seek us out and try to manipulate the order, to use us as a tool with which to control the warriors. They will try to make it look attractive to us… for they know of our library, do they not?’

  How could they not know, Tenzig had thought? The order’s cunning artefacts were everywhere, beyond hiding in the possession of the selfish nobles.

  ‘So,’ the abbot had continued inexorably, ‘something will be done. They must be led to believe what they want to – that we will do as they wish. They will not believe that if they understand our strengths as well as they understand our weakness. And so,’ he smiled wolfishly, ‘we must conceal our strength. It falls to one of us to stem their representatives’ investigations at the source. One of us adept in the secret arts. Tenzig, you will meet with the Imperials. You will be presented to them as the most august personage of the abbey. The master of the secret arts will be with you; the day of his liberation from pain draws near, and it is better that he should die proudly than by the wasting sickness. And then you will do what you have been trained to do.’

  Lying sleeplessly on his cot, Tenzig seemed to sense his entire life at his fingertips. It was a painful feeling, coming to terms with the embarrassments and grief of a life which had been – if not harsh – at least full of unasked-for surprises. From the farm of his father to the monastery, by way of bloody turmoil during the War of the Marching Sevens, only to find that in this time of peace there was no call for those who wished to rise. Long life and prosperity meant that there were no vacancies for the rank of master, a rank to which he aspired, for it would put his ambition to rest.

  But this was not the holy mission for which he had purified his soul, he reminded himself. This was apocalypse; the future status of the world might rest on his shoulders. Too strong a resistance would bring the wrath of the Imperium down on the shoulders of the people, while too easy an acquiescence would invite tyranny. Responsibility for the secrets of his order was a grey curse, weighing down heavily on his soul until he felt as if the very foundations of his mind were creaking with protest.

  Eventually he drifted into a troubled sleep, from which he was awakened by the thunder of the morning drums. He opened the shutters over his window to the same pearlescent glow they had closed on, the night before – it was never truly dark on Hito, cloud-shrouded from a million suns. And then he offered prayers for guidance. It was going to be a long day…

  THE SHUTTLE CIRCLED the walls of the monastery before it landed, by arrangement, in the valley. Judit watched impassively as Joachim brought it in smoothly, almost contemptuously. The savages – as he insisted on calling them – showed no sign of running in terror; evid
ently they had been warned, at the very least.

  ‘The list,’ Judit told him. Grunting, he powered down the drive unit and released the loading bay door. Unthinkably high above the clouds, the fleet was waiting; but down here there was no sign of it. The isolation was complete.

  Followed by the judge, she made her way down to the bay. The crawler was already powered up. She climbed into the driver’s compartment, followed by Joachim, and the doors latched behind them.

  ‘You told Sanjit what to do?’ she asked, barely expecting confirmation as the engines of the vehicle roared their power behind her.

  ‘I did,’ Joachim said amenably enough. ‘She agreed. Two of us should be enough.’

  ‘And for your part… ?’ She paused delicately.

  Joachim snorted. ‘For my part, I won’t sneer at them to their faces, or curse them. So this abbot person—’

  ‘The abbot,’ she said with marked self-restraint, ‘is possibly the most powerful person on the planet. You know what it is within our power to offer him? Imperial justice is only called for if he defies us.’

  Joachim’s hands, sheathed in slick black gloves, flexed as if at a throat. Good, she thought. Just as long as your prejudices continue to blind you; just as long as you don’t ask any more questions about the ignorant natives…

  ‘So are we agreed? We don’t want to kill him arbitrarily. We merely wish to instil an… appropriate attitude among the natives.’

  Joachim laughed coarsely. ‘You should have been a diplomat,’ he said. ‘The famous black widow…’

  And you, she thought venomously, as she steered the crawler towards the tall walls of the monastery, will make a beautiful corpse!

  The gate-captain stared down from the walls of the monastery at the vehicle that was approaching; his eyes narrowed, as if he was ranging it. His smile was not a pleasant one. People who came to the order flaunting their power usually left it in small pieces. The holiest shrine of the most powerful sect on the planet was not to be treated lightly.

  Below him, the vast gates slid open on their runners, teams of sweating slaves pushing them out of the path of the crawler. It rolled forwards smoothly, drifting to a halt within the outer wall. Similar meetings were taking place at four other cities around the continent, to conceal the singularity of this particular one. The gate-captain stared down at the metal carapace, then slapped the tympanum beside him; rushing to avoid the lash, the slaves began to slide the doors shut again.

  ‘THE WALLS,’ JUDIT murmured, ‘they’re quite thick. Not just ceremonial. Suppose people hereabouts have a different attitude to the priesthood?’

  Joachim snorted. ‘From what? Priests are priests. Commoners don’t mess with them, whatever. If there’s anything I’ve ever learned, that’s it. Why mess around?’

  Judit bit back her reply and glanced at him slyly. Yes, but these priests are no servants of the Emperor. They have knowledge that is priceless by the standards of their world. So why are they left alone? If Joachim couldn’t figure it out, she wasn’t going to help him.

  She set the crawler brakes and left the power on standby. Not that they’d have much chance of making a quick getaway; she’d seen the power-bows on the walls, and the automatic rifles.

  Symptoms of a tech incursion. Joachim cracked the hatch and lowered the ramp; and out they stepped, onto alien soil.

  A party of black-robed men was approaching them, their faces almost chalky-white beneath their cowls. Junior clerics swinging censers preceded them, aromatic smoke falling gently in the still air. It was humid but cool, as if they stood on clouds. Judit waited just ahead of Joachim to greet them, keeping her hands concealed in her cloak. She bit the inside of her cheek, feeling the familiar excitement: the rush of action. Every nerve on fire as her syn-skin sensed her mood and responded to it, interfacing with her nervous system and feeding her amplified senses with data.

  The monks stopped just before they reached the crawler and stood there expectantly. ‘Greetings,’ Judit said in the native tongue, surprised at the ease with which the words came – earlier, she had donned a hypno-casque in order to learn the local language. ‘I am the Imperial representative. I have come to speak to your abbot, as agreed with our earlier contact.’

  The monks seemed slightly confused by the presence of a female. Presently one of them spoke. ‘Where is the one who came to us before?’ he asked in a clear, high voice.

  ‘He was a messenger of low importance,’ said Judit. ‘I am an Imperial diplomat, and it is my honour to talk to your leaders.’

  The monk nodded. ‘We are in turn honoured by your estimable presence,’ he said mellifluously. ‘If you would be pleased to come this way…’

  Judit moved in the direction indicated. Joachim followed her, his eyes roving contemptuously over the natives. None of the monks were armed – but that meant nothing. She felt her hair twitching at the thought of it. Monks with guns could only mean trouble. Monks without guns could mean anything.

  The inner wall, unlike the outer, had no large doors. Instead, a third of the way around the walls from where the crawler had entered, the monks led her to a small portal. As she passed within she noted that it was of hardwood bound in iron, and it was thick, but nothing like as thick as the walls. She glanced up, and her boosted vision noted the narrow slits in the ceiling. Monastery, hell, she thought, this is a fortress!

  Joachim was becoming increasingly twitchy. This was the first mission he had gone along on without massive fire support. Good, she thought. Maybe for once you’ll see what it’s like to do an honest day of work… It gave her a warm glow of triumph to see him discomfited.

  They passed out of the inner wall of the monastery and came into a vast open space in the shape of a pentagonal figure. At each corner tall towers reared high into the sky, and yet there was a squat solidity to them that screamed fortification. In the distance, Judit could see monks going about their daily business; the party she was in the midst of seemed to attract no particular attention.

  ‘How much further have we to go?’ she asked. The monk with the high-pitched voice looked at her curiously, but censored his reply.

  ‘Not far,’ he said. ‘The abbot will receive you in the white tower yonder.’ He pointed out to her the tallest, most massive tower in the complex; it tapered to a needle-like spire, yet it possessed no windows less than ten metres from the ground.

  They proceeded in silence to the foot of the tower. At this point, the censer-bearers stopped; they turned as one to face the east, and raised their voices in a strange chant. Joachim reached out and gripped Judit’s arm. ‘What’s that?’ he whispered.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shook off his hand in irritation. ‘Some ritual. The star rises in that direction on this world, doesn’t it? Even if they never see it.’ Joachim nodded imperceptibly and stood, listening, while Judit’s mind ran in overdrive.

  Presently the door at the foot of the tower swung open on a hallway lit by torchlight. ‘You may enter now,’ said the monk. ‘We are forbidden from the tower,’ Judit looked at him askance, but no further guidance was coming: his face was a shut book. She stepped forward, and entered the belly of the beast.

  Within the tower the evidence of siege readiness was, if anything, greater than without. Even Joachim must be noticing this, she realized. The man who thought that the ideal defence was a strike force of Space Marines and a sterilized planet at the other end, no matter how delicate the prize to be won. Paper and bombs! Which of these narrow steps were mounted on concealed pivots? What of the polished, creaking floor? She felt a creeping admiration for whoever had designed this tower. You could lose an army in a frontal assault on this heap, unless you stood back and bombed it out. The opener of the door beckoned them in silently, then led them up the treacherous steps in perfect safety.

  On the landing at the top of the second flight of stairs the monk paused and rapped twice on a sliding door. It slid open with a hiss of well-greased runners, and he bowed deeply before turning to desce
nd the stairs. ‘You may enter,’ said a voice from within. Joachim caught Judit’s eye and nodded imperceptibly. All right. He knows what to do. Contented and ready, she stepped across the threshold.

  TENZIG LOOKED UP, breathing in shallow, controlled sips to calm his racing heart. He straightened in his chair. ‘You may enter,’ he called, as authoritatively as he could. Standing by his side, the master of the secret arts nodded approvingly, then froze into stillness.

  Tenzig sweated in the heavy, embroidered robes that had been prepared to impress the ambassadors, trying to look dignified. There were two of them; the minimum requisite number for the display, should it be necessary. And here they came.

  The diplomats entered. With a nervous flop of his heart, Tenzig thought: why, one of them is a woman! That was not something to which he was accustomed – not something he worried about unduly however, celibacy being no part of a Hitonian monk’s vows. They were both dressed from head to foot in a tight, form-fitting black garment that glistened like oil on water; and above that, a cloak and boots and other accoutrements of an exotic nature. She, the leader, was nondescript, short-haired, instantly forgettable; unlike her companion, who affected a bush of flaming red hair, and a face of brutal demeanour. That one is meant to look like the warrior, Tenzig thought, instantly deciding to concentrate on the woman.

  The master opened his lips. ‘The brother abbot will receive you now if you should speak your rank and praenomen,’ he said stiffly. Tenzig sat attentively, fingers clenched within his deep, long sleeves.