On the rough plaster, written in smeared letters that trickled to the ground, were words.
Your god is dead, it read. The hand that had been used to paint it sat at the base of the pillar.
‘Or something worse than heresy,’ said Iacto, blinking back the sudden stab of a headache.
‘What do you mean, your reverence?’
‘I… I don’t know.’
‘Is this… you said you wanted to know about anything significant. Does this…did I…’
He turned and put a hand on her shoulder.
‘You did the right thing coming to me, Loa.’
She nodded, but his eyes had caught on a battered metal can sitting amongst a mass of putrefying entrails, and he thought he might vomit again. He turned away and made towards the safety of the steps up and out of the space.
‘Just the same as before – hunger,’ said Loa. ‘There have been skirmishes for days now since the orders cut their alms. Ten dead this morning over three loaves of bread.’
‘Hmmm…’ He began to walk away, frowning inside the ridiculous breath mask. This new… incident changed everything. When news of it got out, and there was no way it wouldn’t, then things would become unstable, and for all his sins, Abbot Iacto did not like the thought of that at all.
The gunship hatch opened and the wind and snow reached in.
‘It was snowing the last time we were on this planet too,’ muttered Josef, as the air flicked the edge of his robe. He had added a fur-lined cloak on top, and an armoured bodyglove underneath, but the cold blast still stung. ‘Do you think the sun ever shines here, or is it just us?’
Orsino shot him a look, the servo bracing around her neck clicking as she turned her head. He shrugged. ‘Just us then…’
Covenant stood before the opening ramp, his face bare above a red cuirass, and grey storm coat. His sword was sheathed across his back. The mind-linked psycannon on his shoulder was still, its targeting lens steady and focused. Behind him stood Josef and Orsino. The judge wore the full regalia of her office, exo-braced armour under a split black cloak edged with ice-lynx fur. On her head, supported by servo-bracing, was a gilded headdress of an eagle, its claws clutching scales, its beak a lightning bolt. Behind them were Koleg, impassive in storm coat and breath mask; Glavius-4-Rho hunched over to fit in the cabin; and last of all Astropath Epicles, shivering like a leaf despite a swathe of black fur hiding all but his thin face.
‘As much as formality needs to be observed,’ said Epicles, ‘is there any chance this could be over with before half of us, and more importantly I, die of exposure?’
No one replied.
The ramp touched down. Orsino’s black-and-red-clad arbitrators had swept out of the two flanking gunships and were formed up beside the ramp, guns ready and hunter servo-skulls hovering above them. Scanning and targeting beams glittered through falling snow. The engines of all the gunships were still running, ready to launch them back into the sky at a moment’s notice. Another three were circling above, cutting through the rising wind, gun mounts tracing the landing pads and the buildings around them.
A crowd waited at the edge of the pad. Josef could see faces beneath hoods, faces lit by the streaming flames of gas torches carried on iron poles by white-robed bearers. Rows of men and women in the robes of dozens of orders huddled together as though for warmth. From the looks on their faces, though, Josef thought it as much terror as cold.
‘The coming of the Inquisition is like seeing the face of the God-Emperor to some.’ Argento, Covenant’s long dead mentor, had once said that, and Josef had seen its truth many times.
At the head of the throng stood a woman mitred and robed, and bearing a staff topped with a lit candle held under a crystal dome. Gilded chains hung from her limbs, waist and neck, but even bent by their weight he could see the strength in her face before she knelt.
‘In the name of the God-Emperor, we greet and honour His anointed inquisitor and place all under his will, and subject all to his judgement.’
Covenant did not move. On his shoulder the psycannon panned slowly left to right and back, over the kneeling delegation. The targeting lens whirred as it narrowed its focus. Josef followed its movement with his own gaze. There was something wrong, something written in the fear on the faces and their trembling hands. Covenant had seen it, which was why he was waiting. That, and as an emphasis of power.
‘You are whistling,’ muttered the astropath, just loud enough that Josef could hear.
Josef frowned, then realised that he was indeed whistling, quietly but clearly, the tune an echo of times long past.
‘It’s that ridiculous void-farer’s hymn that you inflict on us all whenever the Blessed God-Emperor sees fit to visit you with a scrap of enjoyment,’ said Epicles. ‘I thought you had broken the habit, but maybe it’s just that you are rarely in good spirits in my company.’
‘He sends mysteries to test us, and trials to make us stronger.’
Covenant moved down the ramp. Josef, Orsino and the rest followed. The robed priests and monastic leaders remained kneeling.
Covenant stopped a pace from where the bishop knelt, her symbolic chains pooled on the snow-covered stone beside her. Xilita – that was the name in the files Viola had prepared.
‘What is the darkness that weighs upon this place?’ asked Covenant.
Many of the kneeling figures flinched, and muffled gasps hissed against the snowy wind. Josef watched them. This was not Covenant’s way; he was not an inquisitor who came and used fear to pull petty secrets from the mouths of the masses. He was a scalpel that cut only where it needed to. But he knew the tools and uses of terror and spectacle, even if he chose not to use them.
Bishop Xilita looked up and rose to her feet. Another murmur ran through the crowd. She had not been told to rise. Josef saw her eyes harden as they fixed on Covenant.
‘We should talk where it is less likely that we die of cold,’ said Bishop Xilita, ‘most honoured lord inquisitor.’
Josef smiled in spite of himself.
‘Abbot…’
Iacto was hugging warmth back into himself in front of a fire in his chambers. He turned from the flames as Sister Claudia hurried over to him.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘Fire,’ she said, handing him a spool of parchment. ‘The Western Pilgrim Drift is burning. The archdeacon has ordered a cohort of the guard out, and those pilgrims that can reach the Gate of Bells in the next hour are being given shelter.’
‘What?’
‘Your holiness, should–’
‘Fool,’ growled Iacto, crushing the parchment in his hand. It was probably too late now.
‘His order says that he wanted to be sure that the bishop knew he was taking every step to safeguard the monastery and aid the weak of the blessed Emperor’s flock.’
‘Oh, I am sure,’ he spat. ‘I wonder if he didn’t start the damned fires himself.’ He closed his eyes and shook himself. Behind him, the signal set that was his honour and privilege to use as head of his order clattered out fresh a ribbon of parchment. He barely noticed; it was probably some update on the number of souls saved from the fires that Archdeacon Sul would soon be able to point to as a sign of his piety, beneficence and foresight.
Sul’s move made sense. With so much unrest the shrine guard were the foundation of stability. It was as good a position for Sul as Iacto had seen. How in the name of all that was holy had he not anticipated such a simple play.
But… but Sul had not seen what Loa had shown Iacto in the old cistern. Things were not just bad in the drifts. They were… something else.
Maybe this played into his hands. If it went badly in the drifts, if the shrine guard caused a riot now, then Sul would…
Iacto blinked. His head was pounding again, but he had made a decision.
‘Go and try to stop the guards going into the drift,’ he said.
‘What?’ asked Claudia. ‘How?’
‘Any way you can. Signal Loa, remind
her that I made her and I can cast her down. Get her to stop it any way she can.’
Claudia turned to leave, and then paused and turned back. Iacto was waiting for the pain to fade from his head.
‘Yes?’ he snapped.
‘Why do you want to stop it? If sending in the shrine guards will cause a riot, why stop it? It will ruin him.’
‘Because I have a feeling it might cause more than a riot, and who wants to rule over ashes?’
Loa caught up with the shrine guard cohort as it reached the Gate of Bells. Boots rang on the iron-slabbed floor as they marched in two lines towards the open doors that led out into the noon dark. It was barely past midday but night filled the space outside. The Season of Night began at the peal of midnight’s bell, but the last remnant of daylight was a smudge beyond the snow clouds.
The marching cohort all had round steel shields, with iron truncheons and shot pistols hanging at their waists. Thick fur ringed the wrists and collars of their jackets. One in every five held burning baskets of flame on long poles. Pipes led from the poles to canisters of gas on their backs. They could be used to send a breath of flame out ten paces, but their chief use was simpler – light.
A steady stream of pilgrims was coming through the gate the other way, rag-swathed, heads bowed and dusted in snow. Some clutched bundles that must have been their whole worlds. They moved aside for the passing shrine guards, but kept moving forward into the light and shelter beyond the gate. Some of them looked around as Loa jogged up to the head of the column, but looked away quickly when she glanced back.
‘What are you doing here, Loa?’ growled Gorda, as she reached the front of the marching column. ‘This is not your duty.’
‘You need to wait,’ she said. Gorda turned her masked face to glance at Loa but did not stop moving towards the open door. Silent bronze bells hung in the recessed arch inside the door.
‘Wait? Why, do you have new orders?’
‘The bishop has not been consulted about this,’ said Loa, still breathing hard from the run from the other side of the complex.
‘The archdeacon has given the writ – we go five hundred paces out, and when the sacred hour of mercy is past, we make sure that the less lucky stay out there, and unless you have a fresh message from his hand, you need to get out of the way or get in line,’ snarled Gorda.
‘This is a bad idea, Gorda,’ she shouted above the wind.
‘It’s an order,’ Gorda shouted back. ‘I made oaths, and you don’t get to drop that when you don’t like where they take you. You never did understand that. Now piss off and let me do my duty.’
They were at the threshold of the Gate of Bells. The torchlight streamed above them, and she saw fur-swathed members of the Order of the Key waiting ready to haul the four-metre-high doors shut. The wind hit her as she kept pace with Gorda. The cold sliced through the joins in her armour, and the leather and fabric beneath. The snow was falling heavily, now, carpeting the paved road as it sloped down from the door. The lean-tos and piled shacks of the drift rose up beside them, stacked against the stone of the monastery walls like the remains of scrap and rockcrete beasts who had climbed one atop the other and then collapsed from exhaustion. More pilgrims were staggering up the road. In the distance, Loa could see a wide smudge of fire glow beyond the blizzard.
She paused, biting her lip, then cursed to herself and hurried after Gorda as the shrine guards marched down the road.
Loa glanced back up the road, and could just see the torches burning beside the Gate of Bells. The shacks around them were silent and dark, without a sliver of light or a thread of smoke from a fire burning on a cold night. The glow of the greater blaze was just visible above the roofline. But she could smell it, thick and heavy, the smell of burning plastek and wood barely diluted by the cold air.
The wind was pouring down the snow-filled road, throwing clumps of snow at them. Loa paused for a step, looking up and around. Then she caught up with Gorda and caught the other senior’s arm.
‘You came out here in case the door shutting caused trouble – but where are the pilgrims? This place looks deserted. There should still be people trying to get to the doors or get away from the fire.’
Gorda shrugged free of Loa’s hand, but signalled to stop the column, and looked around. The sound of the wind filled the silence, and the snow the dark.
‘Where are they?’ asked Loa again. She was not just speaking now because Iacto had sent her. She felt as though a shadow had slid into her skin with the cold. A spill of fabric stirred in the slit opening cut into a shack wall. Two stories up a door swung on its hinges as the wind breathed snow into the space within. ‘Where is… anyone?’
Gorda turned as though seeing the pilgrim drift for only the first time. Nothing moved except at the wind’s touch. Loa glanced back at the torch light and the door. A few pilgrims were still struggling up the slope, but the flow was slackening. She should have stopped some of them and asked what was happening in the drift. She wondered suddenly if it was the fire they had been running from.
She was suddenly wishing that she had not agreed to Iacto’s offer to help her become a senior in the shrine guard. She wished that she had not listened to that part of her that wanted to be the one giving orders, not receive them. It had been a false ascent, and she had just swapped one set of obligations for another.
‘There was supposed to be a pestilence…’ said Gorda, as though answering Loa’s thoughts.
‘Then where are the sick?’ said Loa. ‘Thousands of souls in this drift and only that many have gone through the gate. It’s the eve of the Season of Night – they should be fighting to get inside the walls.’
Gorda did not answer, but kept looking at the faces of the silent buildings.
‘Divide by lines,’ shouted Loa to the cohort waiting behind them. ‘Shields up.’ Gorda did not countermand the order and the blocks of men and women spilt into ranks, facing out to the edges of the street, shields touching, iron staves ready. The guards with the fire poles took up positions a step behind the line.
‘What’s that?’ asked Gorda, pointing to the left side of the street at a wooden and rusted metal flight of stairs. A walkway of planks ran along the flaking building. Some fabric had been attached to the post at the top of the steps, and was whipping and snapping as the wind caught it. Loa stared at it. There was something wrong about it, but she could not tell what.
‘Go and look,’ said Gorda to one of the guards at the end of the line. The man moved up the steps, slinging his baton but still holding his shield.
Loa looked to the other side of the street, trying to shake the feeling rattling her skin as the cold dug deeper. She stopped, her eyes fixed on an alley opening between two buildings. There was something moving beyond the snow swirl, something coming closer.
‘We need to get back to the gate,’ she said, but her voice was dry and low.
The guard arrived at the top of the steps, and reached out for the flapping piece of fabric.
Loa’s hand found the scatter pistol at her waist.
The shape in the alley mouth was a blot of colour, growing brighter as the light from the flame poles touched it.
Red… It was someone in red.
The guard on the stairs had hold of the piece of fabric and tugged it out so that the wind caught it.
The figure in the alley stepped closer. It was hunched and shuffling as though old, or carrying something under its red rags.
‘Stay where you are,’ called Loa.
Gorda’s head jerked around.
Loa’s gun rose.
The wind caught the fabric in the guard’s hand and snapped it out like a flag. It was not cloth though. It was wet and slick, and had empty holes for eyes and mouth.
The red figure stopped in the alley mouth.
The guard at the top of the steps screamed, and pitched back.
And the red figure was straightening up, red cloth sliding from it like a shedding skin.
Loa’s sh
ot pistol roared.
A cloud of lead hit the thing that was still unfolding from under its red robe, and in the gun’s flash, Loa saw something that looked starved and withered, its flesh streaked with blood and hung with hooks. But its face… its face was old and wrinkled, and its mouth was sewn shut. The shot punched it backwards and it was falling, limbs tangling in red rags.
A shout echoed out behind Loa. She twisted.
Figures were standing on the roofs and in the mouths of every alley and door. Red rags, streaked with crude dyes, flapped in the wind. Metal masks hid some of their faces. Others were bare to the freezing air, wrapped in barbed wire and streaked with blood. They were silent for a second, unmoving in the after-echo of Loa’s gunshot. The lines of shrine guard seemed frozen, the whole scene a pict image through which snow fell.
Then the figure that Loa had shot levered itself off the ground.
Loa aimed and fired.
A new hole tore into it.
The figures in red shouted and leapt forwards. Some of the shrine guards had drawn their pistols. Scattered shots rang out.
The thing in front of Loa jerked forwards, famine-thin limbs juddering. A heat haze blur surrounded it. Loa broke the breech of her shot pistol. She could smell burning hair and incense. The shells dropped into the breech and she snapped it closed as she raised it to fire. The thing gripped her as the shot punched into its gut. It rocked in place but did not let go. Someone had stitched the tips of broken knives onto its fingers. She could feel them digging into her armour. Loa felt her thoughts fray. She was only dimly aware of the sounds of fighting all around her.
The thing held her up to its face. Wisps of hair blew around it. It looked at her. Its pupils were black slits in amber. It opened its mouth, ripping flesh and stitches. The smell of sweetness and burning poured out with its breath. Cracks of flame were spreading across its skin.
‘Help me…’ it gasped. ‘They said… he said it was truth.’
And then it came apart in a wave of fire and lightning.
Josef felt the warmth fold around him as they stepped out of the biting cold into a stone-lined passage that led off the landing platforms. Candles burned in thousands of niches cut in the wall. Covenant was a pace in front of him, walking beside the bent-backed bishop. The high priest was saying something about pilgrims, and food supplies.
Incarnation - John French Page 12
