Looking down at it, he blew a deep breath out between his teeth.
How can I do any less than follow their example? They died to honour the ancient accord. They earned the respect of the Deathwatch with blood and sweat. And I had thought to be granted it simply for qualifying. I see how naive that was. The respect of my kin was hard earned on Occludus. By Terra, I died three times to get it!
Let us hope I don’t have to die this time, too.
As Marnus Lochaine strode along a corridor already some distance from Karras’s quarters, a voice sounded in his ear, transmitted there by the tiniest of vox devices.
‘He is angry, then?’
‘Naturally,’ replied Lochaine.
‘Will he overcome it?’
‘Did I?’
‘Didn’t you, brother? How disappointing. You think he will harbour a grudge, even once his power has been returned?’
‘It will spur him on. I believe his performance will benefit.’
‘You see a little of yourself in him.’
There was humour in the voice.
‘Not so little,’ replied Lochaine with a private grin.
‘Any clue as to why the inquisitor is so interested in this one?’
‘Beyond his exceptional record, no. Not yet. He does not seem particularly pliant. Nor is he an outright rebel, so far as I can judge. But inquisitors do not make demands lightly. There may be prophecy involved. The psykers of the Ordo Xenos may have seen something we have not. His futures are so turbulent, so murky. The Librarius cannot read them. We cannot explain it, but whatever has drawn the eye of the Inquisition to Lyandro Karras, it must be significant.’
‘As must the reason these others were flagged. The Ordo did not broker the new accord for our benefit alone. What game are they playing, I wonder. Observe this Death Spectre closely, old friend. He will be trained under Watch Sergeant Kulle.’
‘Kulle?’ said Lochaine. ‘Is that wise? I would have thought, given the pedestal his Chapter places–’
‘There are worse things than a little respect. Of all the Watch sergeants, it is Kulle who has the most experience operating under an Inquisition handler. It is he who can best prepare this Karras for whatever awaits him beyond our walls.’
‘I detest this,’ said Lochaine. ‘Could we not have refused the Ordo’s request? This inquisitor already has two kill-teams at his disposal, and four of the teams assigned to him in the past have been wiped out completely. The Ordo goes too far this time. Handing us a list–’
‘No, brother. We will not refuse them. I had thought the issue resolved between us, but clearly I was wrong, so I tell you again: the new accord takes priority. It will prove its value in time. We may lose another kill-team to those crows, but the Deathwatch as a whole – not just sector-wide, but throughout the Imperium – is gaining a vital source of new blood at a critical time. We both know the importance of that strength now.
‘Let this be an end to it, Marnus. I have spoken with finality. I’ll not retread the matter. Not with you and not with Watch Chaplain Kayphe. I will see you in the Hall of Induction within the hour. There are preparations to be made before these newcomers take First Oath.’
‘My lord’s will,’ said Lochaine curtly.
He dropped the link.
The chamber was vast – a dank echoing space cut deep in the rocky heart of Chiaro. Ordimas gazed in grim wonder as he stood among the miners, not just the men of I-8 but dozens more crews, hundreds of hard-faced, grit-stained men, all unspeaking, expectant, rigid with anticipation.
The chamber had the air of a cathedral, though it was far from grand or elaborate. Its austerity lent it atmosphere, as did the echoes that bounced back from the walls. There was a broad stone platform on the south side, its surface raised about a metre from the floor. A wide doorway gaped open at the platform’s rear, about four metres across and two metres high, thick with inky shadows. Smaller portals led to tunnels that snaked off northwards. It was through one of these that Ordimas and the men of I-8 had entered. Other doorways led to tunnels east and west. The walls and floor of the large chamber were flat and smooth, almost glassy – a telltale sign that they had been fashioned with energy tools. Perhaps the place had once been an assembly area or a mess for the labourers who had toiled here before Arraphel had been bled dry.
Ordimas looked up. The roof – what little could be seen of it in the lamp-lit gloom – was rough, indicating that this had once been a natural cavern. Evenly spaced along the hall’s length, great pillars stretched to that distant ceiling, their sides cut square, the corners chamfered. Iron braziers hung from each side of the pillars, their fires spreading a milky yellow haze in the close air, but giving off little or no warmth that Ordimas could feel. His breath, he noted, was still misting in the air before him. He was glad of his, or rather Mykal’s, thermasuit.
We’re not deep enough for magma heat
, he thought,
but still deep
.
When the men of I-8 had arrived, Yunus had ordered them to park their carts in a broad side tunnel and carry their unconscious prisoners on their shoulders. Ordimas had done a quick count of the autocarts already parked there. Fifty-six of them. Whatever dark business was afoot, it involved far more people than just Yunus’s crew. He couldn’t have imagined at that point just how many would be convening here. Close to a thousand people, surely! Covertly, he studied them.
Most were miners or auxiliary crews, dressed in the thermasuits necessary for working Nightside. Here and there, orange overalls could be seen peeking out from beneath thick padding cinched with tool harnesses.
This must be almost the entire labour force for the local zone.
More unsettling still was the presence of others, people who clearly didn’t belong down here. Among the silent crowd, he saw armed enforcers, robed members of the Ecclesiarchy, Administratum functionaries, even a fair number of civilians. Among this latter group were several dozen women, glassy-eyed, clad in thick woollen robes without marking. They stood together in ordered rows on the left of the platform, as silent as the others. A number of enforcers stood by them, riot-guns and assault stubbers cradled in their arms.
Other enforcers stood guard at the corners of the raised platform. Ordimas thought of that platform now as a stage, and the connection sent his mind back to happier thoughts, thoughts of puppetry and of Nedra.
Let me live to see him again. If I die down here, he’ll think I abandoned him.
He chided himself.
You will abandon him, you fool. As soon as the order comes in, there will be no choice.
Still, while there was time, he wanted a chance to prepare the boy. Any explanation he gave for leaving would be better than none.
Supervisor Yunus had ordered the men of I-8 to place the bodies of their H-6 victims onto the cold, hard surface of the stage-like platform. Still bound and gagged, they were lowered face-down onto the frosty stone. Dozens of other bodies had already been laid out in neat lines. These, too, were bound and gagged, the victims of other crews or, perhaps, the victims of the civs and enforcers who’d come. There were women and men both, but no children. Ordimas could at least be thankful for that.
Some of the victims stirred to consciousness. He watched, hands clenched into fists, helpless to do anything, as they struggled against their bonds, screaming in fear and panic from behind their thick gags. An enforcer on the stage would stride forwards every time this happened and strike the writhing victim hard at the base of his or her skull with the stock of his gun.
A dark pox on these people
, cursed Ordimas,
and whatever bloody cult they follow.
As to the nature of the cult, answers still eluded him. It was not one he had ever encountered before, he felt sure. The Imperium was riddled with strange cults. There were always people ready to follow some false idol or other, despite the consequences. Heretics seemed to spread and multiply like cockroaches, and the only course of action was to stamp them out.
Those around him remained silent, watching the dark doorway at the back of the stage, waiting passively, and Ordimas began to marvel at the patience of the strange congregation. His own was starting to fray. He couldn’t hold Mykal’s shape forever, though another dose of cyanomorphide
[12]
would extend it… If he could only self-administer more without drawing attention.
Something shifted. He felt it before he saw it. A ripple of something ran through the hall, a change on the air, the aura of someone or something approaching. The members of the gathering dropped to their knees. Ordimas, his senses supercharged by fear and tension, dropped with them, a mere fraction of a second behind, so little a delay that no one noticed. No eyes were on him anyway. Not now, for shapes began to appear, filtering from the broad space in the back wall and out onto the platform.
The men that appeared were impressively large, that much was obvious, but their hooded robes hid any sign of features beyond their size. Some walked tall and powerful, their strides easy with animal grace. Others seemed to hunch over and limp, and Ordimas was sharply reminded of his own true shape and of the fact that he was watching all this unfold with eyes set, not in his own face but in the borrowed face of dead, contemptible Mykal.
A dead man I’ll be joining if I’m not careful.
Upright or hunched, the longer Ordimas studied them, the clearer it became that all these newcomers were misshapen. The lay of their robes on back and shoulder seemed to hint at twisted masses of bone and muscle. Surely they were cloaked thus because they were grotesquely deformed, as he was without the influence of his priceless drug.
Normally, on seeing other hunchbacks and malformed souls, Ordimas would feel a spasm of sympathy, of understanding and a kind of unspoken camaraderie. Not so here. Something about these men turned his stomach, and he wondered at that. Something at the back of his mind was repulsed by them, though he could as yet see no exposed flesh.
The strange men took up evenly spaced positions against the wall at the back of the stage. There they stood, as silent and still as the congregation kneeling on the floor. Now the final figure appeared, and the sight of him sent fingers of ice running down Ordimas’s back.
He was tall, this figure that strode smoothly out of the dark doorway, and his robes were of a bluish purple rendered almost black in the weak light from the wall sconces. In his hand he carried a long stave of gleaming metal, dark gold in colour, with a red gem set in a headpiece shaped like three curving claws.
Like the hand sign they use,
thought Ordimas.
His face was striking: utterly hairless, the skin smooth and pale with a bluish tint and a waxy sheen. It was an ageless face with no wrinkles or scars, but with none of the softness of youth. Ordimas could not guess how old this man was. He seemed at once both ancient and yet just entering his prime. But it was his eyes that were most remarkable. In the dim yellow light, they seemed to glow by themselves, like those of a wolf or cat.
I’ve seen that before.
Those eyes swept the crowd from end to end, assessing all they saw. Had those eyes lingered a fraction of a second longer on Ordimas? Or was it just his imagination?
He felt his stomach clench with fresh fear.
Dimly, he became aware of something in his mind. Nothing overt. Nothing violent. It was a subtle thing, the brushing of a psychic veil so light that its touch might be mere fancy. Then it was gone.
The august figure on the stage – among these others, he could not be mistaken for anything less than a supreme aristocrat – raised his staff and called out in a clear, crisp, pleasing voice, ‘Thou art the children of the Master. Gather, ye, to this sanctum and give Him praise.’
The men and women on the chamber floor crossed their arms over their chests, each hand making that now-familiar three-pronged sign, and intoned in one droning voice, ‘As we love, so we come to serve.’
The tall man nodded and lowered his staff. ‘All are one under the Master. All are loved. All are treasured. By His gift alone shall the time of peace and happiness come. We are His people, and His benediction has spared us from disease, madness, hunger and fear. He has raised us up, so that we might bring others into His light.’ Here, he gestured to the bound figures that lay on the stage behind him. ‘Thus, you have brought these men and women here today, that they might awaken to new hope and come to know the Master’s boundless love. Like you, they shall be granted life everlasting that they might better contribute to the coming of the Master’s divine kingdom.’
Ordimas consciously opened his senses to everything – the sights, the smells, the sounds. He took it all in, knowing that his opticom was recording it all. This was why His Lordship had sent him down here. This cult was the reason he had been assigned to Chiaro in the first place.
And the children in the marketplace… That’s where I’ve seen such eyes. I was not mistaken. They’re a part of this somehow.
He glanced sidelong at the group of robed women waiting by the stage.
By the saints, don’t let it be that.
Three of the bound captives on the stage had come awake again during the tall man’s speech. They thrashed and kicked helplessly, desperate to break their bonds, driven by raw, mortal dread. The enforcers at the corners stepped forwards to pacify them, but a wave of something rippled through the air of the chamber once again. Ordimas had the sudden inexplicable urge to move backwards, but the command was not meant for him. He stood where he was while the enforcers on stage reacted. They bowed low and retreated, leaving the bound figures to twist and vent their muffled screams in utter futility.
At another mental pulse, the cloaked men at the back of the stage moved forwards. They stooped over the kidnapped victims and reached down, then hefted them up, one victim over each broad shoulder, and turned to filter back through the dark doorway. The number of victims was odd, so the last of the robed figures carried only one body. Ordimas watched that hulking, misshapen man as he hauled his limp human cargo towards the dark portal. Just for a second, one of those long robe sleeves slid back, and Ordimas caught a brief flash – a glimpse, no more – of pale blue flesh, of fingers ending in curved black claws with a wicked gleam. Then the figure moved beyond sight, off down the tunnel and deeper into the maze beyond.
Mutants?
thought Ordimas. Once again, he focused his gaze on the tall, strange man with the stave.
A psyker leading a mutant cult, harvesting people and converting them somehow? No. Something is missing. The miners and these others… They show no sign of mutation. What makes them obedient? If it was just a matter of psychic force, I’d be feeling it, warded or not. How is he controlling them?
There was also the matter of the strange children to consider: the three-month gestation period, the eerie eyes, the cold, inhuman way they eschewed any normal childlike interaction. That didn’t tie up all too cleanly with rogue psykers or mutant cults.
How are they linked to this?
Ordimas was to have his answer all too soon, and, in later moments of reflection, no matter how much he burned with the shame and horror of it, he could not forget what he did in that cold stone hall, deep in the rock of a cursed, doomed planet.