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'But that means, if a master didn't do it…' Lathesia started before her eyes widened in realisation. 'One of us did this? No, I won't believe it!'
'You might not have to,' Yakov countered quickly, raising his hand to calm her. 'In fact it's unlikely. The only way we can find out is to go to where Menevon's brother died, and see what we can find.'
'He worked in one of the cemeteries not far from here, just outside the encampment boundary,' she told the preacher. 'We'll take you there.'
She half-ran, half-skipped to the open door and called through excitedly, 'Byzanthus! Byzanthus, fetch Odrik and Klain. We're going on an expedition tonight!'
THE FUNCTIONAL FERROCRETE tombstones had little grandeur about them, merely rectangular slabs plainly inscribed with the name of the family. The moon was riding high in the sky as Yakov, Lathesia and the other mutants searched the graveyard for any sign of what had happened. Yakov entered the small wooden shack that served as the gravedigger's shelter, finding various picks and shovels stacked neady in one corner. There was an unmistakable red stain on the unfinished planks of the floor, which to
«Deathwing»
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Yakov's untrained eye seemed to have spread from near the doorway. He stood there for a moment, gazing out into the cemetery to see what was in view. It was Byzanthus who caught his attention with a waved arm, and they all gathered on him. He pointed to a grave, which was covered with a tarpaulin weighted with rocks. Lathesia gave Byzanthus a nod and he pulled back the sheeting.
The grave was deep and long, perhaps three metres from end to end and two metres down. Inside was a plain metal casket, wrapped in heavy chains from which hung numerous padlocks.
'Why would anyone want to lock up a coffin?' asked Lathesia, looking at Yakov.
YAKOV STOOD IN one of the rooms just down the hall from where he had met Lathesia, gazing at the strange casket. The mutant leader was beside him looking at it too, a small frown creasing her forehead.
'What do you…' she started to ask before a loud boom reverberated across the building. Shouts and gunshots rang out along the corridor as the two of them dashed from the room. Byzanthus came tearing into view from the doors at the far end, a smoking shotgun grasped in his clawed hands.
'The SSA!' he shouted to them as he ran up the corridor.
'How?' Lathesia asked, but Yakov ignored her and ducked back into the room to snatch up his satchel. More gunfire rattled from nearby, punctuated by a low bellowing of pain. As the preacher returned to the corridor Byzanthus smashed him across the jaw with the butt of the shotgun, sending Yakov sprawling over the tiled floor.
'You betrayed us, governor's lapdog!' the mutant hissed, pushing the shotgun barrel into Yakov's chest.
'Emperor forgive you!' spat the preacher, sweeping a booted foot into one of Byzanthus's knees, which cracked audibly as his legs folded under him. Yakov pounced forward and wrestled the shotgun from his grip, turning it on Lathesia as she stepped towards him.
'Believe me, this was not my doing,' he told her, backing away. 'Save yourselves!'
He took another step back and then threw the shotgun to Lathesia. Sweeping up his bag, Yakov shouldered his way through the doorway that led to the sewer stairs as she was distracted. Yakov's heart was hammering as he pounded down the steps three at a time, almost losing his footing in his haste. At the bottom someone stepped in front of him and he lashed out with his fist, feeling it connect with a cheekbone. He spun the lockwheel on the door and splashed out into the sewers, cursing himself for ever getting involved in this mess. Two hundred years of penance wouldn't atone for what he had done. As the sounds of fighting grew closer he hurried off through the drips and puddles with long strides.
YAKOV SAT ON his plain bed in a grim mood, brooding over the previous night's and day's events. He had spent the whole day a hostage to himself in the chapel, not daring to go out into the light, where some roving SSA man might recognise him from the raid on the rebels' hideout.
He had prayed for hours on end, tears in his eyes as he asked the Emperor for guidance. He had allowed himself to get involved in something beyond him. He was a simple preacher, he had no right to interfere in such matters. As his guilt-wracked day passed into evening, Yakov began to calm down. His dealings with the mutants may have been sinful, but he had discovered something strange. The chained coffin, and the murder of the mutant for what he knew about it, was at the heart of it. But what could he do?
He had just decided to confess all to Prelate Kodaczka when footsteps out in the chapel attracted his attention.
Stepping into the shrine, he saw a figure kneeling before the altar, head bowed. It was Lathesia, and as he approached she looked up at him, her eyes red-rimmed from weeping.
'Byzanthus is dead, hung an hour ago,' she said dully, the black orbs of her eyes catching the light of the candle on the altar. 'He held off the agents to make sure I escaped. None of the others got out.'
'I did not betray you.' Yakov told her, kneeling beside her.
'I know,' she said, turning to him and laying a hand on his knee.
'I want to find out what is in that coffin,' Yakov said after a few moments of silence between them. 'Will you help me?'
'I watched them, they didn't take it anywhere,' she replied distractedly, wiping at a tear forming in her eye.
'Then will you go back there with me?' he asked, standing up again and reaching a hand down to help her up.
'Yes, I will,' she answered quietly. 'I want to know why they died.'
THEY TOOK THE overground route to the old aristocratic household, Lathesia leading him up a fire escape ladder onto a neighbouring rooftop.
From there they could see two SSA stationed at the front entrance and another at the tradesman's entrance to the rear. She showed him the rope-line hung between the buildings, tied there for escape rather than entry, but suitable all the same. Yakov kept his gaze firmly on his hands as he pulled himself along the rope behind the lithe young rebel leader, trying not to think of the ten metre drop to the hard road beneath him. As she helped him onto the rooftop of her one-time lair, a gentle cough from the darkness made them freeze. Out of the shadows strolled a man swathed in a heavy coat, his breath carving mist into the chill evening air.
'A strange pastime for a preacher,' he said as he stepped towards them, hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat.
'Who are you?' demanded Lathesia, her hand straying to the revolver wedged into the waistband of her trousers at the small of her back.
'Please don't try and shoot me,' he replied calmly. 'You'll attract some unwanted attention.'
'Who are you?' Yakov repeated the question, stepping between the stranger and Lathesia.
'An investigator, for the Inquisition,' he told them stopping a couple of paces away.
'An inquisitor?' Lathesia hissed, panic in her eyes.
'Don't worry, your little rebellion doesn't concern me tonight,' he assured her, pulling his hands free from the coat and crossing his
«Deathwing»
Edited by Marc Gascoigne & Andy Jones
arms. 'And I didn't say I was an inquisitor.'
'You are after the casket as well?' Yakov guessed, and the man nodded slightly.
'Shall we go and find it, then?' the investigator invited them, turning and walking away.
THE SCENE BEFORE Yakov could have been taken straight from a drawing in the Liber Heresius. Twelve robed and masked figures knelt in a circle around the coffin, five braziers set at the points of a star drawn around the casket. The air was filled with acrid smoke and the sonorous chanting of the cultists filled the room. One of them stood and pulled back his hood, and Yakov almost gasped out loud when he recognised the face of the governor. Holding his arms wide, he chanted louder, the words a meaningless jumble of syllables to the preacher.
'I think we've seen enough,' the investigator said, crouching beside Yakov and Lathesia on the patio outside the room. He drew two long lasp
istols from holsters inside his coat and offered one to Yakov. Yakov shook his head.
'Surely you're not opposed to righteous violence, preacher,' the stranger said with a raised eyebrow.
'No,' Yakov replied. Pulling his rucksack off, the preacher delved inside and a moment later pulled out a black enamelled pistol.
With a deftness that betrayed years of practice he slipped home the magazine and cocked the gun. 'I just prefer to use my own weapon.'
Lathesia gasped in astonishment.
'What?' asked Yakov, annoyed. 'You think they call us the Defenders of the Faith just because it sounds good?'
'Shoot to kill!' rasped the stranger as he stood up.
He fired both pistols, shattering the windows and spraying glass shards into the room. A couple of the cultists pulled wicked-looking knives from their rope belts and leapt at them, the governor dived behind the casket shrieking madly.
Yakov's first shot took a charging cultist in the chest, punching him off his feet. His second blew the kneecap off another, his third taking him in the forehead as he collapsed. The investigator's laspistols spat bolts of light into the cultists fleeing for the door, while the boom of Lathesia's heavy pistol echoed off the walls. As Yakov stepped into the room, one of the cultists pushed over a brazier and he jumped to his right to avoid the flaming coals. A las-bolt took the traitor in the eye, vaporising half his face.
In a few moments the one-sided fight was over, all the cultists were dead, their blood soaking into the bare boards. Suddenly, the governor burst from his hiding place and bolted for the door, but Lathesia was quicker, tackling him to the ground. He thrashed for a moment before she smashed him across the temple with the grip of her revolver. She was about to pistol-whip him again but the stranger grabbed her wrist in mid-swing.
'My masters would prefer he survived for interrogation,' he told the girl, letting go of her arm and stepping back.
Lathesia hesitated for a moment before standing. She delivered a sharp kick to the governor's midriff before stalking away, emptying spent casings from her gun.
'I have no idea what is going on here.' Yakov confessed, sliding the safety into place on his own pistol.
'No reason you should,' the man assured him. 'I suppose I do owe you an explanation though.'
Slipping his laspistols back into his coat, the man leant back on the wall.
'The plague has been engineered by the governor and his allies,' the investigator told him. 'He wanted the mutants to rebel, to try to overthrow him. While Karis Cephalon remains relatively peaceful, the Imperial authorities and the Inquisition are content to ignore the more-or-less tolerant attitude to mutants found here. But should they threaten the stability of this world, they would be swift and ruthless in their response.'
The man glanced over his shoulder at Lathesia, who was studying the casket intently, then looked Yakov squarely in the eye before continuing quietly. 'But that's not the whole of it. So the mutants are wiped out, that's really no concern of the Inquisition.
But the governor's motives are what concerns us. I, that is we, believe that he has made some kind of pact with a dark force, some kind of unholy elevation. His side of the deal was the delivery of a massive sacrifice, a whole population, genocide of the mutants.
But he couldn't just have them culled: the entire economy of Karis Cephalon is based on mutant labour and no one would allow such a direct action to threaten their prosperity. So, he imported a virus which feeds on mutants. It's called Aether Mortandis and costs a lot of money to acquire from the Mechanicus.'
'And the coffin?' Yakov asked. 'Where does that fit in?'
'It doesn't, not at all!' the stranger laughed bitterly. 'I was hiding it when the gravedigger saw me. I killed him, but unfortunately before I had time to finish the burial, his cries brought an SSA patrol and I had to leave. It's just coincidence.'
'So what's so important about it then?' Yakov eyed the casket with suspicion. Lathesia was toying with one of the locks, a thoughtful look on her face.
'I wouldn't open that if I were you,' the stranger spoke up, startling the girl, who dropped the padlock and stepped back. The investigator put an arm around Yakov's shoulders and pulled him close, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
'The reason the governor has acted now is because of a convergence of energies on Karis Cephalon,' the man told Yakov slowly.
'Mystical forces, astrological conjunctions are forming, with Karis Cephalon at its centre. For five years, the barrier between our world and the hell of Chaos will grow thinner and thinner. Entities will be able to break through, aliens will be drawn here, and death and disaster will plague this world on an unparalleled scale. It will be hell incarnate. If you wish, for your help today I can arrange a transfer to a parish on another world, get you way from here.'
Yakov looked at the man for a minute, searching his own soul.
'If what you say is true,' he said eventually, 'then I respectfully decline the offer. It seems men of faith will be a commodity in much need over the coming years.'
He looked up at Lathesia, who was looking at them from across the room.
'And,' Yakov finished, 'my parishioners will need me more than ever.'
«Deathwing»
Edited by Marc Gascoigne & Andy Jones
WARPED STARS
Ian Watson
ON JOMI JABAL'S sixteenth birthday he watched a witch being broken in the market square of Groxgelt. The time was the cool of the evening. The harsh blue sun had set a while since, however the night with its star-lanterns was a couple of hours away as yet.
The saffron-hued gas-giant still bulged hugely in the wispy sky, shouldering high above the horizon like some mountainous desert dune. Its light gilded the tiled roofs of the town and the dusty, hoof-printed street.
That golden giant in the sky seemed to be such a furnace, such a molten crucible. Yet, unlike the sun, it dispensed no heat. Jomi wondered how that could be, but he knew better than to ask. When he was younger a few whippings had deterred him from excessive curiosity.
His Pa's punishments had been well intended. Boys and girls who questioned were perhaps on the road to becoming witches themselves.
A trumpet would sound from the watchtower after the golden giant did finally sink out of sight. That braying screech signalled curfew at the onset of darkness. Thereafter, mutants were said to prowl the black streets.
Did mutants really roam Groxgelt by night, hunting for victims, seeking entry into the homes of the unwise? It struck Jomi as a convenient arrangement that the townsfolk were thus exiled to their houses during the cooler hours. Otherwise the taverns of Groxgelt might well have remained open longer. Workmen might have caroused till late, and thus be tired when dawn came, grumpy and lethargic at their labours during the hot day.
Oh but mutants certainly existed, without a doubt. Witches, hoodooists. Here was yet another one, bound upon the wheel. Two hours till darkness…
'This witch uses a cunning trick.' Reverend Henrik Farb, the preacher, proclaimed to the crowd from the ebon steps of the headman's residence. 'He can hoodoo time itself. He can stop the flow of the time stream. Though not for very long… so do not run away in fear! Witness his punishment, and mark my words: the witch looks human, but in truth he is distorted. Beware of those who seem human, yet are not!'
Farb was a fat fellow. Beneath his black cloak, leather armour bulged in a manner that, had he been a woman, might have been described as voluptuous. Womanly, too, was the jade perfume phial dangling from one pierced nostril, intercepting the odours of manure and of bodies on which sweat had barely dried. The tattoo of a chained, burning daemon caged within a hex symbol writhed upon one chubby cheek while he spoke, guarding his mouth and porcine eyes from contamination. Usually the preacher wore loose black silks on account of the heat, which was only now draining away. For combat with evil, though, he must needs be suitably protected. A bolstered stub gun hung from the amulet-studded belt around his rotund waist.
'Destroy the deviant!' shouted one fervent voice.
'Break the unhuman!' cried another.
'Kill the witch!'
Farb eyed the brawny, half-naked executioner who stood beside the wheel gripping a cudgel. As usual, the agent of retribution had been chosen by lot. Most townsfolk might sport wens, carbuncles, and other blemishes of their burnt skin, but few were feeble.
Even if so, a puny executioner would only take the longer to perform his task to the tune of jeers and mocking cheers.
'Aye,' declared Farb, 'I warn you that this witch will try to slow down his punishment - stretching it out till nightfall in the vain hope of rescue.'
Spittle flew from the preacher's lips as if he was one of those mutants who could spit poison. Such a mutant had been rooted out a few months earlier, gagged, and broken in this selfsame square. The front ranks of Farb's audience pressed closer to the ebon steps, as if a drop of spray from the preacher's lips might keep their vision clear, their humanity intact.
Farb turned to the standard of the Emperor, which flanked him. The townswomen had painstakingly embroidered in precious wires an image copied from the preacher's missal. When Farb genuflected, his audience hastily bent their knees.
'God-Emperor,' chanted the preacher, 'oh our source of security. Protect us from foul daemons. Guard the wombs of our women that wee mites are not twisted into mutants. Save us from the darkness within darkness. Oh watch over us as we carry out your will. Imperator hominorum, nostra salvatio!' Sacred words, those last, powerful hex-words. Farb snorted through one nostril, spat saliva at the crowd.
Jomi gazed at the standard. That age-old Imperial face was a mask of wires and tubes, which the metallic embroidery persuasively evoked.
'Begin!' shouted Farb.
The wheel, which was powered by a massive, firmly-wound spring, started to turn. It carried the witch around, his limbs bent into a half-hoop. The executioner raised his club.