Incarnation - John French

by Warhammer 40K

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Tens of thousands of people, thousands of miles of passages, dead spaces and holds, there is more than enough space for someone to hide, and then there is…’ her voice trailed off. In her head the cascades of people and possibilities flowed and branched.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Betrayal,’ she said, ‘the chance that we have a traitor amongst us.’

  ‘You think that likely?’

  ‘It has happened before – trade wars and intra-family disputes. We have seen our share of assassins and saboteurs.’

  ‘How would they have got aboard?’

  ‘The kind of enemies we have can afford to play long games.’

  A tapping rang along the pipes. Bal’s pistols were in his hands. Viola raised a hand, listening, and then tapped on the pipe in reply. Silence fell again, and then a figure shuffled silently into the light of the candle.

  ‘Mistress,’ croaked elder Yahdah, kneeling. Shards of metal clinked as she moved.

  Viola held out the loop of cogs and bones.

  ‘What doom has the iron-mother spoken?’ she asked. ‘What have those that listen seen?’

  Yahdah stood and took the lie-catcher. For a second she held it, her expression fixed as though she was listening, then she hung it on her staff.

  ‘There is one who is not a child of the iron-mother,’ said the elder void-speaker, ‘a woman who is an outer-ghost. She moves in the dark, and holds death in her hand. Swift and quick. Her scent and sound is of one from beyond the mother’s skin. Winged beasts follow her. She has killed others of the iron-mother’s children. She seeks ways up to the mistress’ domain. This we have heard.’

  Viola felt herself go cold.

  ‘You know where she is now?’

  Yahdah shook her head.

  ‘Not for one cycle. We sent a warning, but you did not come, and she became air and dust. We listened, though, and the bones of the iron-mother brought us her words as she gave pain to one of your servants. She seeks one called Gyrid, but the servant knew nothing of that name.’ The cold in Viola’s mind and gut became ice. Yahdah lifted a hand and pointed up to the pipe-tangled ceiling. ‘But he knew of the master, of your brother-kin, and told the outer-ghost the path to reach him.’

  ‘Cleander…’ she breathed. Inside, she could feel panic rising even as will and conditioning forced it into a side channel of her thoughts. ‘She is going after Cleander.’

  The old woman bowed her head again. ‘I have spoken all that has been seen and heard.’

  Viola was still for a moment, and then bowed her head.

  ‘My thanks is without measure, honoured elder,’ she said, then straightened, turned, and within a step she was running. This deep in the hull she was out of vox range of the rest of the crew. It might already be too late. Bal caught her up within two strides.

  ‘Guard yourself, mistress,’ called the elder void-speaker from behind them as they ran. ‘The voice speaks of shadows, of ghosts who have crossed the outer dark and returned with false faces – guard yourself…’

  Ninkurra looked up at Cleander von Castellan’s face. It was pale, the beard ill-kempt, and the empty left eye socket made it seem unbalanced. She thought of the details in the files she had listened to as she began this mission. The man looking back at her did not seem the shadow of the deeds and mistakes he had committed.

  ‘This is going to be a simple transaction, duke,’ she said. ‘You are going to tell me where the woman called Enna Gyrid is on this ship, and how to reach her. And for that you can spare your own life and the lives of anyone else you care to mention.’

  Von Castellan smiled. The breath came from his lips in mechanical thumps and gulps.

  ‘I… will… tell… you… what… you… can… do…’

  She listened to each, slow word of the invective that followed, and then she returned his smile and stood.

  The Duke von Castellan lay face down on a chirurgical slab. The skin and flesh of his back had been expertly split and pared back from the bone of his spine and the base of his skull. A chrome servo-skull still remained hovering above the open wound, spraying a mist of contraseptic over the red flesh. Its twin lay on the floor close to the door where one of her hawks had ripped it from the air. She frowned at the exposed spine. Translucent, silver threads tangled through the meat around the vertebrae, threading in and out of the bones.

  ‘This looks delicate,’ she said. ‘Something best approached with care, and expertise.’ She looked down at the mirror reflection of his face, and brought her shard-blade up next to her cheek, so that he could see it. ‘The records of your life paint a picture of someone who serves himself above all, unless he has no choice. I hope that picture does not turn out to be inaccurate.’

  She lowered the tip of the blade towards the exposed vertebrae.

  ‘Go… F–’ he began.

  ‘Stop!’

  Ninkurra paused and looked over to where the medicae lay on the floor. Blood from the severed stump of her arm spattered her teal robes, and her already pale face was almost parchment white.

  ‘Stop, you don’t need to do that. I can give you what you want.’

  ‘Iaso… no!’ gasped von Castellan.

  ‘Quiet, duke,’ said Ninkurra, and brushed the back of the shard-blade on his shoulder. She looked at the medicae who must be called Iaso, and raised an eyebrow. ‘You know where Enna Gyrid is on this ship?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Iaso. ‘She is in a cryo-suspended coma – the tech-priest needed my help to ensure she was stable. I know where she is being kept.’

  ‘And you can access that area?’

  ‘I am the Medicae Primus, of course I can.’

  Ninkurra smiled, and allowed the hawk on Iaso’s chest to release its talons from her flesh.

  ‘Get up and get yourself clean.’

  ‘Iaso…’ said von Castellan. ‘Don’t…’

  ‘I am sorry, my duke,’ said Iaso, standing gingerly. Ninkurra noticed that the medicae had already sealed the stump of her hand with synth-flesh spray, and a sanguinary clamp ringed her wrist. ‘But as I said before, my oath is to preserve your life, even if that contradicts your wishes.’ She looked at Ninkurra. ‘May I at least close him up? He is chemically paralysed. He will not be able to move.’

  Ninkurra paused for a second and then nodded.

  ‘Quickly, and if he shows any sign of suddenly being able to leap up, he dies first.’

  Iaso nodded, and moved to the table and began her work. Ninkurra watched the flow and surge of emotion and thought on the surface of the medic’s mind. The woman was telling the truth. Ninkurra watched as the arms of the chirurgical array spun over the duke’s back, stitching skin back together under Iaso’s single-minded guidance. After a few minutes, Iaso turned.

  ‘Ready?’ asked Ninkurra.

  Iaso nodded.

  One of the psyber-hawks flittered across the room and settled onto the folded armatures above the Duke von Castellan. Ninkurra formed an imperative and poured it into the creature’s mind.

  ‘Understand,’ she said to Iaso, ‘that if I die then it will rip his throat out and dump enough venom into him that he will be dead before anyone can stop it. If he moves – he dies. If anyone enters this room – he dies.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Iaso.

  ‘Good,’ said Ninkurra, folding the shard-blade with a snap of her wrist. ‘Then let’s go.’

  A candle flared to light, first one, then a second, and then more, until a ringed candelabra hung in the black. Enna watched as the flames grew. The light pushed outwards, painting details as it passed: a corridor with white and red tiled floor and walls; tapestries hanging from the edge of a high ceiling, their colours faded by time; word-covered skulls stacked in narrow niches. Idris stood in the middle of the corridor, frozen in mid-step.

  Beside her stood a thin girl in a hessian smock. She was tall, slim and young, yet no child. She was striding to keep up with Idris, her eyes caught in the moment of glancing up at the inq
uisitor. Enna looked at the young woman, and her own eyes were a mirror of the confusion she saw there.

  ‘That is me…’ she breathed. ‘But when I was that young I was still in the margin gangs on Stilbe. Idris did not find me there until…’

  ‘I doubt you have ever been to Stilbe,’ said Mylasa, stepping into sight. Her bodyglove had become layered armour enamelled in the colour of new vine leaves. ‘I am guessing that Idris took those memories from one of the other Renewed. The mental grafting is exquisite, but they are as false as the rest. This is the start of the truth.’ She folded her arms, the plates of metal and ceramic clacking together. ‘I cannot be sure where this is, because you were never sure either,’ said Mylasa into the silence.

  ‘I was not born here then? This is not where I am from?’

  Mylasa shrugged. ‘Wherever it was, or is, you were a guest there for some time. Someone left you here as a child. Maybe to keep you safe…’

  Enna turned, looking over the frozen image. The white and red tiles covering the floor were triangles. Something about them made her think of teeth. A mass of iron chains hung from a hook in the corridor wall, like a coat hung up on a peg. Lead weights hung from the chains. Enna could see images of saints and angels moulded into the grey metal. She reached out to touch one in the shape of a serene face, and then stopped, her fingers an inch away.

  ‘I can’t… remember… I have no idea where I am.’ She touched the lead face hanging from the chain. ‘But it feels… familiar.’ She looked at Mylasa. ‘Is there more?’

  ‘Let’s watch, shall we?’

  Idris’ foot completed its frozen stride with a dull clack as it touched the stone floor.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked the image of the girl who was Enna, hurrying to keep up with the inquisitor.

  ‘I am the person who has come to take you out of here,’ said Idris without looking around.

  ‘Did he send you? Where is he, is he waiting for us?’

  Idris’ eyes seemed to pinch tighter for an instant, lines of shadow forming in the youthful face.

  ‘Close by,’ she said.

  Enna watched herself stop, caution stilling her steps and tensing her muscles.

  ‘You are lying. He is not here. Who are you?’

  Idris pivoted, face controlled, eyes focused.

  ‘You are right. He will never be coming back for you.’ The pair paused, gazes locking. ‘But I am here, and you need to trust me. I have been looking for you for a very long time.’

  The memory of Enna shook her head.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked. Her eyes were bright and wide.

  ‘I am called Idris. And you? Do you have a name?’

  The girl Enna nodded.

  ‘Only the one he gave me.’

  Idris frowned, then gave a small smile.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, as though to herself. ‘And what name did he give you?’

  The girl who was Enna shrugged.

  ‘He called me Revelation.’

  The word echoed out. The walls of the memory blurred and stretched. Light spun and reversed to shadow. Enna staggered as the word rolled on and on through her, picking up memories and turning them over like pebbles in a storm wave.

  Revelation…

  Revelation…

  ‘You are looking for revelation,’ said a hermit in the underworld beneath Iago.

  ‘What is this revelation?’ asked Covenant.

  ‘I cannot tell you…’

  ‘Come and see…’

  ‘Revelation…’ muttered Josef. ‘That has a habit of meaning answers we didn’t want to find.’

  And through the swirl and crash of memories, Enna saw the girl that was called Revelation shake her head as she looked up at Inquisitor Idris.

  ‘I am not coming with you,’ she said.

  ‘It was not a request,’ said Idris, and her eyes were suddenly black holes into lightless depths. And Enna screamed, Idris’ mind punching into the thoughts of the girl she had been, as it dragged her into the dark and silence.

  AND SO WE ARE BROUGHT TO SILENCE

  Acia woke on a bed of ashes. It had settled over her in a thin blanket and fell from her as she raised her head. The tunnel was silent, and the cry of her waking echoed through stillness. The light of torches that had followed her through her dreams was gone, and now there was just the true and undiluted dark of this passage beneath the earth. The silence pushed in on her until she found herself about to cry out again, just to hear a sound other than the beat of her heart. Then she stopped herself. The image of the torch bearers running towards her with cries of ‘Witch’ bloomed briefly in her mind’s eye.

  She crawled forwards until her hand touched the hard edge of what must have been an iron truncheon, the metal twisted and fused by heat. She felt herself shiver, and then a wave of nausea drove her back down to retch on the floor. The silence seemed to press closer. The world was spinning.

  She had to get up, had to move. But where could she go now? There was no home waiting for her, no comfort, just running through the dark, with the cries of hate behind her. She should just lie down again. She should–

  She forced herself to stand. Her head swam. She couldn’t even see her hand in front. She would step until she reached a wall, and then work her way along it until–

  Something swooped out of the dark. Talons and needles punched into her throat, as wings beat about her head. Ice and numbness poured through her. She tried to call out but she was falling back to the ash-covered floor.

  Light filled the tunnel. Blinding white.

  ‘Prospect down,’ said a woman’s voice from beyond the light. ‘She is secure.’

  ‘Conscious?’ asked a man’s voice.

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  Wings beat above Acia, and then whatever it was that had hit her was swooping away behind the light.

  ‘Could you get that null creature away now?’ asked the woman’s voice. ‘I am barely managing to keep my stomach down.’

  ‘No,’ said a second man’s voice. ‘I think it best that he stays for now.’ The speaker stepped closer, moving in front of the beams of light. Panic was flooding Acia, but something was squeezing the thoughts small inside her head. The man squatted down next to her. He wore brushed steel armour under a red cloak. His hair was iron grey, and a beard framed his sharp face. It was the man from her dream before the torch bearers came.

  ‘Can she speak?’ he asked, looking at her.

  ‘In…’ croaked Acia. ‘Inquisitor…’

  The man tilted his head, and she recognised surprise on his face.

  ‘You see, Memnon,’ he said without looking around, ‘she knows.’ He stood, looking down into her eyes. ‘Give her another dose, full unconsciousness. After all she has been through she deserves to sleep.’

  PART THREE

  THE VOICE OF GODS

  FIFTEEN

  Cleander bit off the scream. He could see the reflection of the hawk perched on the arms of the chirurgeon array above him. Its head rotated slowly. He watched it for a second, just to be sure that it hadn’t noticed his arm twitch.

  The sensations had started sometime after the woman had left with Iaso. First had come a feeling like cool air breathing across his skin. Then had come warmth, spreading out from his core. Then had come the pain. Bright pain, shooting up and down his limbs as though razor wire was being pulled through his veins. It had come so fast that he had instinctively balled his fists before he remembered that he couldn’t… and his fingers had twitched.

  At first he had not believed it, then, carefully, he had tried to move them and felt them tap the steel top of the slab. The hawk had shifted its claws above him, and he had gone still. The pain had still been flowing and spreading through him.

  His mind began racing. He remembered Iaso, bending over him as the needles worked to stitch his skin back together. For an instant he had been shielded from the woman’s view. There had been a prick in his arm, so quick that he had barely noticed it. Now, bit by bi
t, control of his body was returning.

  Then he felt himself take a breath. The machine pumping air into his lungs chimed a warning. The hawk’s head twitched. Cleander froze. The bird did not move. Carefully, he matched his breathing to the pump-thump of the machine. He was going to have to think very carefully about what to do next. He had no reason to doubt the woman’s threat that the bird would kill him if he moved. He also had no idea how long he had until he would be able to move more than a finger, let alone move fast enough to live. Once whatever Iaso had injected him with restarted his heart, he doubted the machine currently pumping his blood through him would be quiet for long.

  Slowly, very slowly, he tested his fingers one after another.

  ‘Vox, work, just work!’ she shouted as she ran. Blurred data scrolled through her augmetic eye, cutting in and out. The vox-bead in her ear shrieked a wall of static back at her as she and Bal ran down the passages of the lower decks. The doors to a hoist came into view as they spun around a corner.

  ‘Your brother is guarded?’ asked Bal. He was barely breathing hard despite the fact that they had not slowed as they ran and climbed from the lower to middle decks.

  ‘If someone can get onto the ship, they can get to him,’ gasped Viola, still trying to spark a vox or data link.

  ‘And this Gyrid?’

  They reached the hoist doors. Viola rammed her rings into the control panel. Lights sputtered and blinked. She swore again.

  ‘She is a prisoner on command deck four-five-three. She is being held for Inquisitor Covenant.’ She punched the controls. ‘She is important.’

  ‘And your brother?’

  Viola did not reply. In the cold pathways of her mind, the chances of Cleander still being alive if the intruder had reached him were draining to nothing by the second. Without the vox, she could not raise the household troops. Without that, then she had to follow the path of duty, as she always had done. She had to save Enna Gyrid even if that left Cleander to an unknown fate.