‘You are very strong-willed,’ she said eventually, and he was not sure whether it was admiration, fear or dislike he smelled – perhaps some combination of them all.
‘Apparently,’ he said.
‘And there is something else within you. I sensed it, as I wove the web.’
‘Is that what you call it?’
‘I saw something like a wolf: large, dark, fierce.’
‘It was something woken when I joined the Chapter,’ he said, not sure whether he should be discussing this with anyone from outside the Space Wolves. ‘A Wolf Spirit.’
‘No. It’s part of your own spirit. Something that separates you from normal people.’
‘It was bound to me.’
‘I suppose that is one way of looking at it. Albeit a primitive way.’
‘Now you are being insulting again.’
She smiled and this time there was some warmth in the smile. ‘I do not mean to be. It is just that when you are a psyker you become very aware of things. One is that the way people see the world is the way the world is – for them. That doesn’t mean that it is the way the world really is in an absolute sense.’
That was a concept of some sophistication but Ragnar thought he could see what she meant. He knew his own view of the world had changed radically since he had joined the Wolves. Once he had seen the world very differently, with the eyes of a Fenrisian barbarian. Now he looked at it with the altered eyes of a Space Marine. Perhaps it was possible that some day he would learn something that would supersede his current view of the world. It had happened once; he had to admit to the possibility that it might happen again. On the other hand, he did not want to follow this line of thought too closely. Down such paths lay heresy, not a fate any Space Marine wished to consider. ‘Perhaps you are right. But do you know what the world is like, in an absolute sense?’
‘You still have not answered my question,’ she said. This time she sounded marginally friendlier and her smile held more warmth.
‘If one method of questioning fails, you try another,’ Ragnar said.
‘And you find another means of evasion.’
‘Truly I do not want to. I am not an archivist. I know there are many millions of runestones kept here in these Halls. Not all of them are catalogued by the Thinking Engines. Some records exist only in runescript inscribed on the tablets of stone themselves. Others are held only in the sagas memorised by the Wolf Priests.’
‘There are gaps in the records of your auto-librams.’
Ragnar was not familiar with the term, but it sounded like she was referring to the Thinking Engines. He nodded thoughtfully.
‘It is the same with us,’ she continued. ‘The machines are old, dating from the Dark Age of Technology, and their systems have been reconsecrated many times by the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Each time that happens, information is lost. There are flaws in the copying process. And, of course, much information is recorded under the individual seal of a specific inquisitor – and sometimes those seals are lost when the inquisitor dies and no one can then access his records.’
Ragnar looked at her. This was the most forthcoming he had ever seen any member of Sternberg’s retinue. Something in her scent told him to be careful. Perhaps this was a trick the inquisitors used, confiding a little information to make the person they were talking to do the same. Not that it mattered very much, he thought. There was nothing here to hide – as far as he knew.
‘And of course, some records are destroyed.’
Ragnar glanced at her in astonishment. ‘Deliberately?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the knowledge in them is deemed too dangerous for anyone to possess – because it might lead to heretical thought or heretical deed or because it pertains to certain things that were not meant to be known.’
‘Who decides that?’
‘The Masters of our Order. Sometimes individual inquisitors. Over the millennia the definition of what constitutes heresy has changed. Yesterday’s blasphemy is today’s orthodoxy. Surely it is the same with you?’
Ragnar just looked at her, mouth open with disbelief. He did not think that this was the way the Space Wolves looked at things at all! He could tell by the way that she tilted her head, and by the alteration of her scent, that even his lack of reply was considered an answer. He had told her something and it was being filed away in her memory for future use. To fill the silence, he said, ‘We do not believe that is the case. We hold with the old ways from the time of Russ. The truths do not change.’
He stopped, realising even as he spoke that the silence had been another inquisitor’s trick designed to make him talk. So simple, but so effective. He stopped again.
‘You might think that is the case but I’m sure if you looked closely at the history of your Chapter you would see that it’s not true.’ A hint of challenge was in her voice. He wanted to respond instantly, to contradict her, but he could see that was what she wanted, another trick. He was starting to understand the game. Well, he could play it too. ‘Do you always interrogate people?’
She smiled and lowered her gaze, then shook her head. Her laughter was quiet and self-mocking. ‘You are good at this,’ she said. ‘I see why they gave you to us.’
Clever people often saw subtlety where there was none, Ragnar thought to himself – and then wondered if that was really the case. Was Ranek being subtler than he had imagined by doing this? Was that the reason he had been chosen for this task? Was Ragnar’s presence some sort of elaborate trick, designed to make the inquisitors think one thing, while another happened? Or was it he, Ragnar, who was now being overly subtle? It was enough to make his head spin.
‘Yes,’ Inquisitor Isaan said. ‘I always interrogate people. It is what I was trained to do. Trained all of my life the way you are taught to fight and kill. Trained in such a way that interrogating people is part of my thought pattern and habits. Trained in a way that makes it automatic and unstoppable.’
‘You sound a little bitter.’
‘Maybe I am. A little.’
And maybe you’re not, Ragnar thought. Maybe this, too, is just another pose to win the confidence of the people you are talking to. He began to see how being with the inquisitor was starting to infect his own thoughts. He was starting to think with a subtlety and deviousness that was not normal for him.
‘I am not sure I would like to live in your world,’ he said eventually.
‘Someone has to. Someone has to find the Emperor’s enemies just as someone has to slay the Emperor’s foes.’
‘There is truth in what you say.’
‘Always, if you look for it. That, too, is part of being an inquisitor.’
‘You would know more about that than me,’ he said with decision. Then another thought occurred to him. ‘You are a psyker. Why do you not simply lift the knowledge you need from other people’s minds?’
She smiled again, this time coldly, as if this was a subject she did not care to discuss. ‘Some psykers have that gift, but not I, my talents run in… other directions. Even for those with the gift it is not that simple. A strong-willed individual can resist them. More subtle ones can mask their thoughts or even send false thoughts. And there are other risks…’
‘Risks?’
‘Yes. Those who enter the minds of heretics often become heretics in turn. Their very thoughts are a contagion.’
‘There are more ways of entering the minds of heretics than by simply reading their thoughts. I would have thought that trying to understand them could lead you down the same path. At least, so we are taught.’
‘There is wisdom in that,’ the inquisitor said. Silence fell between them for a long moment.
They walked back to the part of the hall where Inquisitor Sternberg waited for the archivist to do his work.
Ragnar could tell by the way the man was standing that he had not yet got what he came here for. Perhaps it was time to try a distraction, he thought.
> And he believed he knew just the thing.
‘And where are we going?’ asked Inquisitor Sternberg.
Ragnar could hear the beating of the man’s heart, strong and regular. He shook his head and the noise disappeared into the background, became one with the hum of the grav-pod as it flashed upward through the elevator shaft towards their destination.
Questions, always questions, thought Ragnar. It was all these people ever seemed to think about.
‘You shall see in a moment.’
‘This one is not an easy one to get answers from,’ Karah Isaan said. Her hand flickered in an intricate gesture. Some sort of secret sign language, obviously, like the one the Space Wolves themselves used in certain circumstances.
Sternberg shook his grizzled grey head and his smile widened. ‘That’s something of a compliment coming from an inquisitor,’ he said.
Ragnar sensed the change in his scent and studied the man closely. It was an attempt at humour, even friendliness. He was watchful. He felt he was getting the measure of these people now. Even friendliness was a weapon to them, just one weapon in their arsenal, one of the many techniques they used to get information from people. Ragnar did not know why this made him wary. He had nothing to hide. They were on the same side. Both were soldiers in the service of the Emperor of Mankind. Yet there was something about them that made him want to keep his guard up, a sense of duplicity, of hidden motives cunningly concealed, that was alien to his culture and to his experience. Perhaps it was simply part of their exoticness, but he did not particularly like it. And perhaps it was this deeper sense of threat that still tugged at his brain. He did not know why he felt it, but it was there.
He tried to push that thought aside. Perhaps it was the nature of their work. Inquisitors were the investigating agents of the Imperium, trained to detect threats to the security of the human realms, hidden and unhidden. They lived in a world of concealment and secrecy, of duplicity and darkness. Living in that sort of world must have some effect on them, help turn them into what they are.
‘Why will you not answer?’ Sternberg asked. He smiled as he said it. This was all part of the game for him.
‘I think you will realise why when we get there.’
‘It’s some sort of surprise, then,’ Karah suggested.
‘It is difficult to conceal anything from two such clever inquisitors as you,’ Ragnar said with just a trace of irony.
‘Humour? From a Space Marine? Who would have expected that?’ said Sternberg. There was a trace of irony in his voice too, Ragnar noted.
At that moment the gravpod stopped. The light within flickered from red to green. A soft chiming note sounded and the door swished softly open. They walked forward into a massive chamber, part of a natural cavern in the flank of the Fang, one side of which had been walled off with translucent crystal. The only illumination came from the inside of the grav-pod and the cold light of the stars visible through the armourglass of the window. The sky was black. The moon was visible.
‘Is it a projection?’ Karah asked. ‘It is daytime, yet the sky is as dark as night.’
‘I think I understand,’ Sternberg said softly, ‘and I think I know why our young friend did not tell us where we were going.’
He stepped forward into the room and the other inquisitor followed. As they advanced towards the edge of the room, Ragnar was rewarded with their gasps of wonder and the change in their scents that told him they were genuinely astonished. In a way it was gratifying to think that he could still show two such far-travelled and cynical souls something that would excite their sense of wonder. It also meant that he felt some kinship with them, for there was something special about this place which always astounded him too, no matter how many times he came here – and he had come here often since he had become a Blood Claw and authorised to enter certain of the restricted areas of the Fang.
He joined them at the window, and looked down upon the world. Quite literally, the whole horizon was filled by the curved mass of Fenris. It shimmered against the cold darkness of space. This part of the mountain, high up near the peak, projected right above the atmosphere, and gave a view over a vast swathe of the polar continent of Asaheim. Below him he could see the swirling of clouds, the lesser mountains, the glaciers and the lakes as if laid out on a slightly arched map. The slopes of the mountain tumbled away beneath them to vanish into a sea of clouds far below.
‘I have often heard it said that the Fang is one of the true wonders of the Imperium,’ Sternberg said in a voice hushed and full of awe. ‘And now I understand why.’
‘It is truly beautiful,’ said his female companion. From their scents Ragnar could tell they were both sincere.
‘Thank you for showing us this place, Ragnar,’ Sternberg said. ‘For as long as I live I will remember this moment.’
Ragnar felt his smile vanish suddenly. He did not doubt that what the inquisitor said was true. It was also that he felt that nothing the inquisitor saw would ever go unrecollected. Ragnar suspected that they were trained to remember everything the way he was trained to fight.
Memory, too, was one of their tools, he thought. No – one of their weapons. He could see he was going to have some difficulty trusting these people.
The clear, bell-like tone sounded in Ragnar’s ear. He came instantly awake, moving from strange dreams of off-world conflict to the dim shadowy light of his cubicle instantly. Responding to his movement the glowglobes brightened. He reached for his comm-net earpiece, which lay on the hewn slab of rock beside the pallet on which he slept. He pushed it into place then pressed the subvocaliser into position on his throat.
‘Ragnar. What do you want?’
‘I have found the thing your off-world friends were looking for.’ The archivist’s voice sounded high and cracked, even over the fuzzy tones of the comm-net.
‘I will notify them at once,’ Ragnar said.
‘You do that.’
The air stank of ozone and machine oil. The sound of great pistons made the air vibrate. Huge arcs of Universal Fire leapt from massive conduction coil to massive conduction coil. A nimbus of light surrounded the great Thinking Engine. Iron Priests bellowed chants designed to propitiate the ancient spirits trapped within the machine and bind its power to their purpose. One of them tapped something on a keyboard so old that most of the ceramite keys had been replaced with others carved from black basalt or whale tusk ivory. A junior Iron Priest slapped cooling unguents onto the machine from a ceremonial urn. Ragnar guessed that if the Engine grew too warm, the spirits within would grow angry and seek to escape – but that was only a guess, he really knew very little about the mysteries of the Machine Spirits. He was glad to leave the whole ritual in the capable hands of the Iron Priests, Emperor watch over them.
One of them fed a smooth black runestone into a brass orifice in the machine. The lights grew brighter, the scents more intense.
Suddenly there was a sound like a small bolter starting to fire and from a slot in the side of the machine a long scroll of parchment began to unroll. Ragnar could see that runic characters covered the page. Ragnar hoped that the archivist was correct. He risked a look at the small slab of black marble which had been dropped into a restraining slot on the machine’s side. Even as he watched, the runes along its top, which had previously been invisible, lit up, shedding a light that reminded Ragnar of molten steel. All they spelled out was a cryptic mass of numbers and letters.
The scroll unwound for an age. Ragnar looked over at Sternberg and Isaan and smelled their impatience. The man in particular seemed almost feverish. There was a gleam in his eye which made Ragnar think of someone whose weird had come upon him. Or perhaps of someone who was approaching a long cherished goal. Beads of sweat were visible on his forehead. The woman hid her impatience better but Ragnar could see she was tense. She pressed her palms together and closed her eyes. Her lips moved slightly and Ragnar knew she was muttering the words of a prayer or meditation exercise. He did not understand the
words but the tone was unmistakable.
Eventually the scroll stopped unwinding and the Iron Priest stepped solemnly forward. Making a gesture of benediction in the direction of the engine of the Ancients, he tore the paper loose, rolled it up gently and handed it to the archivist. He, in turn, unrolled it on the metal-shod desktop, studied it closely and then stamped it with the seal he kept at his belt.
The old archivist nodded once, cackled loudly, rolled it up again and handed it to Ragnar. ‘This is what you are looking for,’ he said. Before Ragnar could reply, he turned and walked away. Ragnar handed the scroll to Inquisitor Sternberg. The man unrolled the scroll, looked at it, smiled sickly and handed it back to Ragnar. The Wolf was suddenly aware that the metal masks of the Iron Priests were all watching him. He was uncomfortably aware of their scrutiny. He gently unrolled the scroll and studied it. The words had all been burned onto the page in some peculiar fashion but they all seemed perfectly clear to him – then in a flash realisation came. The scroll was written in Fenrisian runescript, which the inquisitors could not read.
‘Would you like me to translate this for you?’ Ragnar asked. Sternberg nodded. ‘It might take some time. The language is archaic and poetical. Some of the terms look a little obscure.’
‘By all means take whatever time you deem necessary,’ the inquisitor said coldly. ‘We have plenty of it.’
Ragnar could hear the sarcasm in his voice and smelled his anger and his impatience. He knew he had better get to work quickly. Every second of delay might mean thousands of lives lost to the plague.
Ragnar sat cross-legged in his cell and ciphered out the words. The story had all his attention now. It was a record of a campaign fought against the alien eldar some two thousand years before, written by the long dead Space Wolf, Brother Jorgmund. Ragnar was struck by the fact that of all the great inventions with which the Emperor had gifted humanity, writing was perhaps the most important and the most under-rated. By using it he was communing with a man dead for nearly two millennia, hearing his words, grasping his thoughts. It was a minor miracle to which he had never before given thought.
The Space Wolf Omnibus - William King Page 35