by John French
A column sat at the centre of the grass. Unlike everything else that Cleander had seen since coming on board the Yeshar’s orbital enclave, the chair was a blunt mass of unrefined technology. Wires snaked over and through the metal skeleton of its frame. Pumps hissed and gasped, as yellow slime spattered into crystal vials. Glass spheres spun. Bottles of viscous grey liquid hung from an iron frame above it. Tubes coiled down from the bottles to bury themselves in the flesh that occupied the chair’s embrace.
If Livilla Yeshar had ever looked human, that time was now long past. Flesh sagged in thick folds from an elongated head, hanging down to touch the wasted vestige of her torso. Robes of deep blue, stitched with silver symbols of moons hid the rest of her. A hand sat on the iron arm of the chair like a dead spider. A single cataract-clouded eye was still visible amongst the folded flesh of her face. A metal plate covered what must have been her forehead. Pus seeped from where the edge of the plate met her skin.
‘Welcome,’ said the voice that came from everywhere except the figure on the chair. Cleander looked around. Birds covered the branches of the trees, all of them watching him with one sapphire eye set in silver. The blue-feathered creature that had guided them landed on the back of the chair, and cocked its head as it had before. ‘Now that we have met properly, let us do business.’
Cleander shrugged.
‘If now is a good time.’
Livilla Yeshar laughed with the throats of a hundred birds.
‘You claim a frigate named the Truth Eternal was involved in a grave atrocity–’
‘It was there,’ said Viola, ‘and I have furnished your intermediary with sensor captures of the incident.’
‘And while I could dispute those captures as proof, I am not going to. That this act could be connected with the consanguinity of Yeshar is a matter that causes us distress. So, let us begin with facts. The Falchion frigate Truth Eternal was indeed allocated a Navigator from our consanguinity. The ship was thought by the fleet to be lost with all hands in the Veiled Region a decade ago.’ She paused, and the sapphire bird ruffled its feathers. ‘It was not lost. It was sequestered by a member of the Inquisition.’
Cleander unconsciously shifted the fit of his eye patch, but remained silent. The bird’s crystal eye was fixed on him, glittering with focus.
‘That fact was hidden from the Navy at the order of the inquisitor who took the ship. It was hidden from us at the time as well.’
‘But you knew,’ said Cleander.
‘We came to know,’ said Livilla Yeshar. ‘The inquisitor in question needed a new Navigator, and so came to us for a replacement.’
‘Which you supplied?’
‘Which we supplied, as loyal servants of the Emperor in answer to the request of His anointed representative,’ she said, her chorus voice icy.
‘Who was the inquisitor?’ asked Viola.
‘I think you know the answer to that question.’
‘Talicto,’ said Viola.
The bird shifted its grip on the back of the chair.
‘We have had no contact with the Navigator we supplied or the ship since then. We do not know where it is or have any means of finding it.’
‘But you have something?’
‘The Navigator who first guided the ship,’ said Livilla. ‘He knows where the Truth Eternal went for its first three years of service to the inquisitor. And I can put him at your disposal if we reach agreement.’
‘What do you wish from us?’ asked Viola.
‘Not from you, from your master,’ said Livilla. ‘Protection. We wish his oath of protection. We do not wish to deny him what he needs, but this is a matter that involves others of his order.’
‘You have it,’ said Cleander, without hesitation. ‘For your help, our master will bend his power and will to protect you from anything that might result.’
Viola’s face was a mask of control.
‘There is something else, isn’t there?’ she said softly. ‘If the Navigator you replaced did not die, why did they need to be replaced?’
‘Because he went insane.’ The bird on the chair flicked its wings, and pulled itself into the air.
‘Did mother send you?’ said the chained Navigator as they entered its cell. They had left Livilla Yeshar and her garden, and descended by humming elevators to another level of the enclave. The cell that Yasmin led them to was alone at the end of a long, featureless white corridor.
The face that turned towards Viola as she stepped through the door had no eyes.
No natural eyes at least, she reminded herself.
Tracks of crusted pus and dried blood marked the hollow cheeks beneath each empty socket. The man’s skin was grey and reminded Viola of the flesh of the blind mutant fish that lived in the bilge-lakes of void ships. His body and limbs were long, too long, as though his flesh were stretched dough. A metal plate had been riveted across the centre of his forehead to hide his third eye.
The cell was an ovoid, its white walls flowing from the apex of the ceiling to the carpet-filled floor, like the inside of a bird’s egg. The Navigator sat on the cell’s only piece of furniture – a long bench upholstered in black velvet. Shackles circled his wrists and led to cleats set in the walls. At a glance Viola realised that the length of each chain meant the man would barely be able to lift something to his lips.
‘It was mother, wasn’t it?’ he said. ‘What are you? New guards? More surgeons? Talking companions? That went so well last time – why not give it another try?’
Yasmin, in quiet attendance at the side of the cell, leant forwards as though to talk to a child.
‘Master Titus…’ she began.
‘Master? Ha!’ snarled the chained Navigator. ‘I should have known it was you, Yasmin. Haven’t you got something useful to do, like dying?’
‘There are people here who wish to talk to you.’
‘I know,’ snapped Titus Yeshar. Then he turned his head so that the pits of his eyes pointed at where Viola and Cleander stood. He opened his mouth, and licked the air. ‘I can smell them… siblings… two flames of different colour, yet on the same wood they feed to make the smoke of their existence… and on the broken walls of fortune… what songs, oh simple night… what songs will you sing to me?’
Cleander rubbed a hand around the edge of his eyepatch.
‘The lady of birds wasn’t lying then,’ he muttered. ‘He is insane.’
‘Mother,’ said Titus Yeshar. ‘So you saw mother? How is she? Still in good feather?’
‘Talicto,’ said Viola. ‘Inquisitor Talicto.’
Titus Yeshar froze for a second and then began to shake. The chains holding his arms rattled.
‘He sits on the throne…’ he said, voice trembling. ‘The throne…’ The grey skin puckered around his eyes.
He is trying to cry, realised Viola.
Then he went still.
‘No…’ he said, and began to shake his head. ‘No, you are not from him. You cannot be from him. He sits upon the throne. A king crowned… You are other – you are the blind who walk with eyes, and see the paths that are mist over darkness.’
‘You served Inquisitor Talicto,’ said Viola.
‘The song sung at night, heard by no one, sung by no one…’
‘We need to know where you took him,’ she said.
‘Three spinners on a hill beneath a bloody tree,’ he crooned, ‘will you sing for me, oh, will you sing for me, you three…’
Viola looked at Yasmin. The intermediary shrugged.
‘The honoured scion of Yeshar is–’
‘Why?’ Titus’ voice snapped out, sharp and clear. ‘Why do you want to know of Talicto?’
‘We want to kill him,’ said Cleander. His lone-eyed stare was fixed on the Navigator. ‘Your master is a monster who stiches abominations from the warp into the minds and bodies
of blameless souls, he has damned planets to mass culling by his actions, he has killed his peers and turned away from anything that might be called goodness.’ Cleander took a step forward and crouched down so that his face was just a hand span from the Navigator’s. ‘And he is the man who left you here to claw your eyes out once you were no longer of use to him.’
Titus shook his head once. Viola watched, ready for him to begin his babble again, but when he spoke his voice was edged with weariness rather than madness.
‘That… that is what inquisitors do. Discard, use, sacrifice.’ Titus Yeshar nodded. ‘But I think you know that, don’t you? I see it in the smoke of your flame…’ He shifted his hands, and the chains clinked. ‘Sing down into the well of night… this lost prince of a crownless kingdom… three spinners in the well, do they sing for me or thee? But…’ Titus gave a blurt of laughter. ‘I have no wings to fly.’ He raised his hands so that the chains pulled taut.
‘You can fly again,’ said Cleander. ‘If you can lead us to Talicto’s place of sanctuary, you can fly again.’
Yasmin stepped forward from the side of the room, mouth opening to object, but Viola spoke first.
‘The heir apparent made an agreement to help us – release him to come with us, and we will consider the agreement fulfilled. Refuse, and there is no accord.’
‘I will have to–’
‘Confirm it, but your mistress will give us her son.’ Viola looked back at the chained Navigator. He was humming to himself, the toneless tune repeating over and over again. ‘I do not think her familial feelings outweigh the value of what she is buying.’
Yasmin was silent for a moment and then turned to leave the cell. Cleander stood, and looked at Viola.
‘This may not end well,’ he said.
Behind him Titus Yeshar was stroking the links of his chains.
‘But why ask of Talicto?’ he said. ‘Why ask of him? I am just his ferryman, and I betrayed him once so that he could cross the river. Why should I betray him again? Even spite has limits. My mother has bought you off with false coin.’
Cleander was about to say something, but Viola raised a hand and spoke before him.
‘You betrayed him once?’ she said. Titus Yeshar’s hollow sockets turned to meet her eyes, and she felt his gaze dance impossibly across her face. She had to suppress the feeling that spiders were crawling across her skin.
‘Coin for coin, silver and sweet. Three lights by the grave at night…’
He grinned, but Viola was fighting to keep the sudden cold in her chest from becoming a scream in her ears. Cleander was looking at her, and she could see him make the link a second later than her. His face paled.
‘Who did you betray Talicto to?’ she asked, keeping her voice steady.
‘Places, ways, means, doors and weaknesses,’ said Titus, shoulders moving as though he was shrugging, but the movement twisting his body. ‘Just as you ask, someone has crossed that river already. Crossed the water and made it red. It was a good bargain then, and a bad one now…’
‘Who?’ said Cleander, leaning forward again. ‘Who did you betray Talicto to?’
The thought of what he was about to do gave Lexarchivist Galbus a taste of guilt as he moved through Gothar’s courthouse. The stone floor shook occasionally between his steps, and the glow of flame light from beyond the firing slits flared brighter. The planet really was starting to fall apart now. The inferno cultists had got inside the slums and city walls, and lit fires to match the blaze advancing through the ghost forests. Judge Orsino’s arbitrators had removed the planet’s and sub-sector’s governor for endangering Imperial rule and gross incompetence leading to the imperilment of the Emperor’s tithe. That had helped; the troops were moving through the slums and streets in Adeptus Arbites-supported suppression forces, but it was likely to be too little, too late. The grand conurbation was coming apart in blood and anarchy. The planet, even the sub-sector, would likely follow.
Galbus reached the outer doors of the confinement sanctuary. The arbitrators guarding them reviewed his clearance and let him through. They all knew him by sight, but they were Orsino’s best, and careful to the last. In this case, of course, that discipline would not help; he was authorised to go wherever he liked in the courthouse.
The last doors were multi-layered plasteel. Slaved heavy bolters twitched on mounts above the doors. Beyond them were cells designed to hold the most formidable and dangerous prisoners the arbitrators might detain. While order crumbled into anarchy, they had been given a new purpose: protecting what they held from those outside.
He paused in front of the guns and let the scanning beams play over him. A second later the doors opened outwards, slab edges parting. The guards inside inspected him under levelled guns.
‘I have messages from the judge for immediate transmission,’ he said. The guard waited, checking via vox that Judge Orsino had indeed sent a set of messages. They motioned Galbus forward as the outer door shut.
He had to pass through three more doors before the final door opened and he was looking at a withered figure with empty eye sockets. The astropath waited in mute stillness. It was one of the older ones. That was good; the older they were, the more capable and strong, and Galbus did not want to repeat this act of betrayal if the message did not get through.
These astropaths had been attached to the now removed governor. They were the link between this world and the wider Imperium. Separated by vast distances, there were only two ways that information moved between worlds: on ships that passed through the warp, and by the craft of the astropaths. Psykers who had been soulbound to the Emperor, astropaths could cast a message through the warp as psychic shouts of sensation and symbolism. Other astropaths could hear the message in their dreams and deconstruct their meaning. Prone to error and loss, it was all that bound the Imperium together.
‘Honoured one,’ he said, with a slight bow.
‘You have…’ the astropath wheezed, her ribs heaving as she took a breath. To Galbus she looked like she was hovering half way between life and the grave. ‘You require me to perform my function.’
‘Five messages,’ said Galbus. ‘All require vermillion level ciphering.’
He set a series of four sealed message cylinders down on the floor. The astropath picked up the first, opened it and pulled the sheet of copper from within. She began to run her fingers over the raised symbols pressed into its surface, muttering under her breath.
Galbus paused as he pulled the fifth cylinder from his robe and guilt tugged at his thoughts for a second. It was not the guilt of deception. Technically he was a factotum of the Adeptus Administratum, the Imperium’s vast bureaucracy, and only attached to the Adeptus Arbites for purpose of record keeping and facilitating correct procedure. What he was doing did not betray his position or the organisation he was a part of. That distinction would make little difference to Judge Orsino, though. Nor would the fact that he was following an imperative that served a power greater than both her and the organisation she served. The root of his guilt was personal: her trust in him weighed against an oath he had made a long time ago. The tension between them was where the kernel of guilt lived.
He set the cylinder down in front of the astropath. She picked it up, opened it, began to read and hesitated.
‘This message is marked for carmine level enciphering… and the reception… This is most unusual, Lexarchivist. I would expect Honoured Justice Orsino to give me such a message directly from her hand.’
‘These are unusual times,’ said Galbus. ‘Judge Orsino is not able to come in person, but I am here to impress on you the importance of these messages being sent swiftly.’
The astropath paused, fingers dancing over the message punched into the copper sheet. Galbus waited, trying to stop his heart from beating its way out of his chest.
‘Yes,’ said the astropath, eventually. ‘Yes, of course. It sha
ll be done.’
‘Excellent,’ said Galbus, and left the chamber. He would have to create a reason to return later, once the messages had been sent. The astropath was just suspicious enough of his message that she might say something, or check Galbus’ explanation. He could not allow that. It would need to be something fast acting, and unlikely to raise suspicion. There were varieties of poison that would be suitable. That act, like his betrayal of Orsino’s trust, was something that he would pray on, but it would not stay his hand. A servant to an inquisitor, whether overt or hidden, could not afford the luxury of pity.
Yasmin watched the rogue trader until its engine flares were a spec at the edge of sensor range. She removed the holo-monocle, and let out a breath. The trees stirred around her, leaves whispering on warm currents of air. A blue bird landed on the nearest twig, and cocked its head, fixing Yasmin with a yellow eye.
‘They are within an hour of translation to the warp,’ she said to the bird.
It flicked its feathers.
‘He told them everything…’
‘Did you think he would not, mistress?’ asked Yasmin. ‘If I may, that was the point, was it not?’
The bird shifted on its branch.
‘What if they fail, my dear? What if we have just squandered the protection that Titus’ knowledge gave us? We have kept what he knows to ourselves because it is dangerous. A war between inquisitors is not something to be caught in the middle of.’
‘Again, mistress, and with respect, you knew that when you let them take your son.’
‘I did… oh, I did. Preservation… that is what I live for. The House is all – the House must endure in blood and tradition and power. And we are caught in this dispute, and no matter which side triumphs, we must endure.’
Yasmin waited. The trees were quiet, the leaves stilled by the vanished breeze. She had always served the Yeshar. From birth she had been lavished with education, expectation and training so that she could enact the will of this dynasty of mutants. She had been born so that she could inherit this duty from her mother. In every sense, it was what she lived for. But there was something in this moment of decision that made her uncomfortable about what she was going to be asked to do. It felt like choosing a way to die.