‘HALTING NOW!’
Arbites had noticed the decamping trio, which was what Lex had hoped to avoid.
An abhuman – and a giant, and another man: what made them act so guiltily? That absconding squat might have been overlooked. He wasn’t a big fellow. Squats weren’t worshippers of the Emperor. Their technical skills were merely useful to the Imperium. The squat must have been caught up in the confusion by chance.
A decamping giant as well? And another robust individual too? A trio was more than coincidence. Could this be a case of ringleaders?
Arbitrators were giving chase. Three of them. One for each fugitive, should the three split up. Merely to shoot the fugitives in the back would be to lose a source of intelligence under interrogation in the dungeons of the courthouse. Thus it was as a snatch squad rather than an execution team that the three Arbites pursued.
How it went against the grain for Jaq or Lex to run away as though they were criminals! Those mirror-masks were keeping up a nimble pace across backs and buttocks and heads. The fugitives had a good start and were even gaining distance.
A side alley hove into view – a lane crowded with hectic pilgrims. These ecstatics seemed to imagine that a viewscreen, which they couldn’t see frontally, had lit up with the Unveiling. This must be why the mass of worshippers were cringing in adoration. Ignorant of the truth, the pilgrims elbowed and clawed.
Grimm hurled himself amidst them upon hands and knees. He was a grotesque child scuttling and scrabbling his way through adult legs.
Lex barrelled into the jam of bodies. All of his weight of muscle and ceramically reinforced bone carved a path. Jaq was immediately behind him.
‘STOPPING THOSE MEN!’
Now there was more elbow room – and even open space, merely confined by alley walls. Some pilgrims were still plunging in the direction of the boulevard. Lex cannoned into several deliberately to knock them over. Grimm, up on his feet again, tripped a couple with his big boots. Fallen bodies writhed on cobbles. The trio turned a corner and raced.
They had entered a cul-de-sac. They skidded on animal bones and offal. A dead dog lay butchered and trussed. Over a fire of coals, a second dog was roasting on an improvised spit, left deserted. The proprietors of the barbeque had dashed off towards the boulevard. Had they supposed that the distant detonation of grenades was the popping of celebratory firecrackers?
A
T
first glance, there seemed little choice but to turn tail and collide with the Arbites.
F
OR GENERATIONS GANGS
of children had scribbled their graffiti in this appendix of an alleyway. Names and obscenities in rotund script rolled across the stone walls – and also across an iron door, which they almost camouflaged.
A second glance sent Lex rushing shoulder-first towards the door. Any external handle had long since been broken off. Lex crashed against the iron. Rust cascaded. The door groaned.
A second time he hurled himself. The door yielded with a screech of snapping hinges. He forced it open.
Within was a dingy warehouse. Protected by gratings, some small dirty skylights provided meagre illumination.
What lay piled along all those ranks of plasteel racks? Oh, those were saddles – and bridles, and reins, intended for camelopards. Glance back: lasguns at the ready, the mirror-faced Arbitrators leapt around the corner, into the cul-de-sac. Jaq and Grimm were hardly through the doorway before Lex was heaving a rack of saddles over as a blockage. The Arbites responded by opening fire. Packets of energy exploded against plasteel shelves and tumbled saddles – and winged inside the warehouse too. Outbursts of energy lit the interior stroboscopically as the trio hastened, ducking behind racks, towards a more massive door with a wicket set in it.
This wicket was sure to be locked. Manual bolts secured the greater door. Who would expect anyone to want to break out of the warehouse? Lex heaved a floor-bolt upward, hauled a roof-bolt downward. From behind came the sound of Arbitrators clambering over or through the obstruction.
Give them some pause for thought! Tugging the boltgun from its hiding place behind his back, Lex fired a single shot along an aisle:
RAARKpopSWOOSHCRUMP.
Arbites were highly trained, zealous men. They ought to recognize the characteristic noise of a bolter. Surely this merited a few moments’ reflection. Was that gun a relic of the Ultramarines’ visit decades ago? Was it contraband from off-world? Had some local gunsmith succeeded in jerry-rigging such a weapon?
Perhaps Lex’s action only increased the zeal of the Arbitrators. The trio fled into a road seething with pilgrims who seemed enraged. As Lex fought a way through a torrent of persons, the furious buzz was of murdering mirror-heads – or of mirror-heads murdering. The babble was so confused.
Jaq reeled and clutched at Lex.
‘Somewhere in this mob there’s a telepath. I can sense him! A psyker. He’s terrified. He’s sending out chaotic images—’
Aye, muddled images of the massacre, which had assaulted that psyker’s senses with so much pain and so many death agonies. Pilgrims who possessed any trace of psychic sense were picking these images up. Everyone was already so highly strung. In this road there was none of the desperate mass prostration, as there was on the main boulevard. Voices cried dementedly:
‘Murder!’
‘Mirror-heads!’
Those who shouted could have no clear idea whether “mirror-heads” were engaged in murder, or whether it was essential for themselves to kill anyone who fitted such a description. Hysteria was becoming ever more rampant by the moment, infecting almost everyone, whether remotely psychic or not.
L
EX CRANED HIS
neck. He glimpsed the masked Arbites emerge from the warehouse. Jaq and Grimm only heard the howl of the mob. For several seconds the trio were borne backwards by a homicidal tidal surge towards the Arbitrators. Then they were free. They escaped along a less crowded lane which forked and forked again.
They ran and then jog-trotted until they came to Shandabar’s fish market, where all seemed normal.
A host of stalls occupied several dusty hectares, arcaded on three sides. Under the vast red sun trade was brisk. Fishmongers were bawling the virtues of the harvest from the broad Bihishti and from the nearest freshwater sea – fresh or dried, salted or pickled. A glutinous tangy reek pervaded the chilly air. Of the panic and deaths near the courthouse there was no realization here, no more than there was awareness in any of the glazed bulging fishy eyes peering blindly from slabs and boards.
Grimm panted.
‘Oh my legs! Reckon... that mob... minced the mirror-heads?’
‘Probably,’ said Lex. He scratched at his fist in frustration. ‘It wouldn’t have been right for us to kill representatives of Imperial justice. They were just carrying out their duties. I ought not to have fired that bolt. I apologize.’
‘Why?’ asked Grimm.
‘Those Arbites could have reported the use of a bolter. Could have started an investigation.’
‘With Arbitrators visiting every rental agency on the off-chance of tracing us?’
‘I don’t suppose we really drew much attention to ourselves, considering the mayhem. I’ve noticed big guys on the streets as well as little squirts.’
‘Squats,’ Grimm corrected him tetchily. ‘I’ve spotted a few of us as well. Engineers off starships, probably. Us squats like to travel and see the sights. If I do run into one of my kin I shan’t be doing any hobnobbing, let me assure you. Us three don’t really stand out – not with all these pious lunatics around.’
‘Devout souls,’ Jaq corrected him.
For a brief while the little man hyperventilated. ‘In my book,’ he resumed, ‘there’s generally summat weird ‘bout most pilgrims. Grossly fat, or got a squint, or a goitre size of an apple on the neck. Or a skin disease, or webbed toes kept well hidden. Bunch of freaks, if you ask me.
‘Our book,’ said Jaq, ‘is the
Book of Rhana Dandra
.’
‘Which we can’t read, ‘cos it’s written in Eldar, and the script’s impossible.’
Jaq shrugged. ‘I wonder how much local animosity there is towards the courthouse, aside from sheer dread of the judges? What happened back there was a mere reflex action of goaded animals. I’d guess that the marshals of the court will feel the need to show more presence now. As Grimm says, there’s a whole haystack of people, even at normal times – and only a few needles to probe it with. I rejoice bleakly in the religious rivalries here. Those will sow confusion.’
He pondered. ‘We may need to make contact with criminals – to integrate ourselves, and protect ourselves from the attentions of the courthouse. Crime, after all, is everywhere. We ourselves are similar to criminals.’
Grimm grinned. ‘Cosmic jewel-thieves, eh?’ Jaq was eyeing Lex, who nodded soberly.
‘Transgressors against the Imperium, my lord inquisitor. Seemingly so. Temporarily. Until we understand. Until we can report back to trustworthy authority.’
‘If the Inquisition is at war with itself, Lex, what authority can we trust?’
‘I realize that! My own Chapter is beyond reproach. Yet our Librarians could merely report to the Administratum.’
‘Which would notify the Adeptus Terra. The Inquisition would intervene. But which faction of the Inquisition?’ Lex bowed his head briefly, as if praying privately to his sacred primarch.
S
O AT LAST
they reached the vast sandy area outside the complex of domes which was the Occidens Temple. A few thousand expectant pilgrims were already camping. Thousands more milled. There was a heady aroma of incense and of grilling fish kebabs – no sooner cooked over braziers than sold – and of spiced wine, and of bodies. Acrobats performed atop tall poles for all to see. Fortune tellers fanned versions of the Imperial Tarot. Cripples begged for alms.
It was possible to wend one’s way to the fore, in a slow journey of well over a kilometre. This the trio did.
A
ROUND THE TEMPLE
stretched a strong plasteel crush-barrier manned by armed deacons. An elevated walkway draped with rich brocades ran from the top of the temple steps out to a splendid platform overlooking the barricade.
At a gate in the crush-barrier, a deacon was soliciting sumptuous offerings for the opportunity to enter the temple – which was otherwise closed to worshippers now that the unveiling was imminent. An armed sexton would guide those who paid lavishly. These privileged persons would behold the actual sacred aumbry cupboard where the True Face was kept.
Tomorrow – on the eve of the unveiling – offerings must be twice as sumptuous as today.
Here was the origin of the rumour which had caused hundreds of deaths and injuries. Someone had misunderstood; and the misunderstanding had been compounded.
A fat bald man, accompanying his squint-eyed daughter, had handed over a fat purse of shekels, which were being counted. For most pilgrims the cost of admission was too steep, whatever special virtue might accrue.
Jaq was consumed with curiosity – with an inquisitor’s desire to know, and know. From a pocket he produced a small emerald of the finest water.
Rather than spiriting Jaq’s offering away out of sight, the deacon held it up to the light. Did he suppose such a jewel was false? Even in the dull light of the red sun, the sparkle said otherwise.
Grimm dragged on Jaq’s sleeve. Amongst the crowd a tall woman, grey-gowned and hooded, was peering intently. ‘Meh’lindi...’ gasped Jaq. It was her. Her ghost. Within that shading hood the face was—
No, that was not Meh’lindi’s face. He mustn’t delude himself. The features merely bore a resemblance. And the height, the lithe stance. Already the woman had turned away so smoothly that she might never have been watching at all. She was distancing herself amongst the throng, losing herself. Already she was gone from view.
‘That lady was eyeing our sparkler,’ said Grimm.
‘Forget her,’ Jaq said distractedly. The woman hadn’t been Meh’lindi at all. Of course she hadn’t been. Meh’lindi was dead, gutted by the power-lance of a female Phoenix Warrior. As to the resemblance, why, there were only so many possible permutations of physical appearance amongst human beings. Billions of variations certainly existed on the human theme – yet in a galaxy of a million populated worlds trillions and trillions of people seethed. Somewhere in the galaxy there must be several people who appeared to be identical twins of Meh’lindi. Dozens more people must bear a striking resemblance to her.
No one could truly match Meh’lindi. No one!
T
HE SEXTON WHO
guided the trio was a wiry weasel-faced elderly man. A laspistol was tucked in the girdle of his camelopard-hair cassock. ‘On entering our temple, first of all you are encountering—’ A portico crowded with the carved and crumbling tombs of previous high priests, hundreds of them.
In a huge colonnaded atrium beyond, a forest of incense sticks burned soporifically. Sweet smoke ascended through vents in the domed roof. This chamber resembled a colossal thurible. Further beyond was the basilica, patrolled by armed deacons. ‘Fifty side chapels being dedicated to fifty attributes of Him-on-Earth—’ Innumerable candles were burning. Millennia of smoke had deposited a coating of soot and wax on most surfaces. The great hall was a place of light, yet because of the soot the dominant impression was of darkness crowding in upon effulgent lumination to quench it.
‘Paying attention, travellers, to the great wall-mosaic depicting our blessed Emperor’s defeat of accursed Horus the rebel—’
This mosaic was actually kept clean of wax and smoke. It had been cleaned so many times that its details had almost been erased. That fat man and his squinty daughter were gaping at the mosaic, while their escort waited impatiently.
Next was an oratory for private prayers. Jaq and Lex only bowed their knees briefly. At the rear of the oratory hung an ancient curtain interwoven with titanium threads. That curtain was so frayed, save for the tough titanium, that one could see through it mistily into the sacristy beyond.
Through the curtain, and through a resplendent grille-gate, ‘—being of arabesque tungsten, the grille.’