by Darius Hinks
Isola snapped off the hololith and the lights rose again. ‘The captain has told you everything you need to know. You have signed the contracts. How soon can you be ready to leave?’
‘We’ll need Taddeus,’ said Audus. ‘I can get you past the Dragon’s Teeth, but you’ll be dead ten minutes later. Unless you take the priest.’
‘This is not a Ministorum crusade,’ said Draik. ‘Why is a priest so essential?’
‘Look,’ said Audus. ‘You can’t imagine how happy I’d be to never see Taddeus again. Even by the standards of this place, he’s repulsive. I’ve had my fill of violent prophecies and bloody visions, but Taddeus knows things. When we tried to reach the vault last time, he knew every turn of the route.’ She looked irritated by the admission. ‘Something was leading him. I’m not saying it was spiritual, or that the God-Emperor was really talking to him, but he definitely knew where to go.’
‘Your mission failed,’ said Isola. She looked at Grekh. ‘That’s what you said, didn’t you? The priests failed to find the vault?’
‘The humans…’ Grekh looked at Audus and hesitated. ‘The humans became confused.’
‘Insane,’ said Audus. ‘Tell them the truth, Grekh. We went insane. We all did. I saw…’ Her words trailed off and she looked awkward, shaking her head. ‘The Blackstone is more than nodes and chambers.’
‘Is that why you ended up in the Skeins?’ asked Draik.
She shook her head, then nodded, then shrugged. ‘I can’t remember how I ended up in the Skeins. I’m not even sure how we got off the fortress.’ She looked at Grekh. ‘But you’re unchanged. And you seemed unchanged then.’
He twitched his head, causing his quills to rattle. ‘I am not like you.’
Draik topped up Audus’ glass. ‘How did the fortress affect you? What did you see?’
She stared into the drink. ‘The past.’ It was clear she did not want to elaborate.
Grekh nodded. ‘To reach the vault you need the priest.’
Draik hesitated. He needed to claim the Blackstone in the name of House Draik, not present it to some deranged Ministorum zealots who would seize it for the Ecclesiarchy. ‘What does he want with the vault?’
‘He doesn’t want the vault,’ said Grekh. ‘He wants something hidden there. A holy relic.’
Draik nodded, pleased. It sounded as though the priest could lead the way to the vault, take whatever relics he liked and leave Draik to claim the real prize.
Isola leant over to him. ‘Even if the priest can reach the vault, he won’t be able to protect you from the madness Audus just described.’
Draik stood and began pacing around the room. He waved the axial interrupter vaguely in the air as he circled the couches. ‘Think, Isola. Our new colleagues are both prepared to risk their lives by going back through the Dragon’s Teeth, as long as we have this priest, Taddeus, in our party. Why would they do that if Taddeus does not really have some way of navigating the fortress?’
‘Captain,’ said Isola, ‘you never struck me as a follower of holy men.’
He gave her a wry smile. ‘He’s an Adeptus Ministorum preacher and I’m as devout as you are, Isola. We must all be grateful we have the light of the Ministorum to lead us in such dark times.’ His tone became more serious. ‘And, if I heard our pilot correctly, this Taddeus had almost reached the Ascuris Vault when they were forced to turn back.’ He stopped before Isola. ‘Almost reached it, Isola. Do you see? Whether it was his faith that got him there or some secret he didn’t share with the others, he clearly knows something. The pieces are falling together.’ He nodded at Audus. ‘We have a pilot who can fly us to the correct docking point.’ He looked at Grekh with a slight bow. ‘And a fighter who has sworn to keep me alive. And now a priest who can lead us to the vault itself, until we are–’
‘Until we’re so insane we can’t go any further?’ interrupted Isola, looking at Audus. ‘Is that right?’
Audus sank back into the couch, massaging her wrist, wincing at the burn marks. She nodded. ‘It’s a fair point. How can we shield ourselves from madness?’
‘Are you insane now?’ asked Draik.
Audus laughed. ‘That’s a matter of perspective.’ She shrugged. ‘The confusion I felt on the Blackstone has gone.’
‘It was specifically linked to the fortress? It only affected you on the Blackstone?’
‘I suppose so, yes. In fact, we were all fine until Taddeus said we were near the vault.’
‘Then it’s a localised effect, not true mental illness. The Blackstone was projecting thoughts into your minds, protecting the vault. We need a psychic shield. There must be someone in this place who can help us…’ His words trailed off. He turned to Isola with a triumphant expression.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘Do you still have Corval’s card?’
‘Corval?’
‘The Terran noble. The man we met in the Helmsman.’
She took it from her pocket and looked at it, still frowning.
‘Look at the family crest,’ said Draik.
She shrugged, then nodded, comprehension dawning in her eyes.
‘What is it?’ snapped Audus, reaching over and snatching the card.
‘House Corval,’ said Draik, ‘is a Navigator house.’
‘So?’
Isola managed to keep her expression as flat and impassive as ever, but Draik noticed how eagerly she took the card back. ‘Psykers,’ she said.
Draik nodded. ‘If the Blackstone projected madness into your minds, then House Corval may be able to help. The Navigator houses have ways to shield their minds from the dangers of the warp.’
‘But we’re not talking about the warp,’ said Audus.
‘They know how to protect minds,’ said Draik. He took the card from Isola.
Isola shook her head. ‘You’re not thinking straight, captain. We don’t even know this Corval. You’re risking so much.’ She glanced at the others, clearly uncomfortable having to talk in front of them. ‘I know what this means to you, but we don’t know any of these people.’ She placed a hand on his arm. ‘Can I talk to you alone, captain?’
Draik shrugged off her grip, smoothed down his uniform and took a deep breath. No one in the room, not even Isola, could understand what this meant to him. ‘Corval is clearly a man of refined character. And I would hope he recognised the same in me. I’m sure he’ll be willing to offer advice.’
Isola was about to protest again when he glared at her. ‘Ready the remaining men, Isola. Grekh and Audus will take me to Taddeus.’ He frowned, looking at Grekh. ‘Do you know where to find the priest?’
Grekh nodded. ‘He’s not allowed to move his ship. The proctors won’t let him leave.’
‘Of course not,’ laughed Audus. ‘If Taddeus leaves here raving about visions and relics, every ship on the Western Fringe will come looking. The proctors are already worried they’re losing control of the place.’
‘Where is he?’ asked Draik.
‘An Ecclesiarchy barge,’ said Grekh. ‘The Clarion. Moored to Eliumgate.’
‘Good,’ said Draik. ‘And the Corval vessel is moored to the Celsumgate.’ He turned to Isola. ‘I’ll go with these two to the priest and, assuming that meeting goes well, I will then ask Corval’s advice on the madness that Audus described.’
Isola saluted, but hesitated at the doorway, looking back at him.
Draik held her gaze, making it clear that the time for discussion had passed. She nodded and left, crying out commands as she marched down a companionway towards the stern of the ship, flanked by a scrum of rattling servitors.
Audus had stood up and Draik looked at his new companions. Grekh had the crude-looking rifle he took from Bullosus’ ship but Audus was unarmed. He strode into the next room and grabbed a laspistol, handing it to her as he walked back into the lounge.
She stumbled as she took it and Draik noticed how terrible she looked – bruised, gaunt and pale and still wincing every time she touched her chest.
‘Forgive my manners,’ he said. ‘This wretched place lowers one’s standards. You need to eat. And rest.’ He called Isola back in. ‘Audus will remain here. See if there’s anything edible left in the galley. And make sure she has some rest.’ He grabbed a bottle from one of the cabinets, the syrupy, amber contents flashing as he handed it to Audus. ‘This amasec is reasonable. Better than the vinegar Gatto sells, at least.’
He patted down his dress coat, checking his pistol and rapier were in place and that his uniform was uncreased. ‘We’ll return within the hour.’
4
Draik and Grekh left the Vanguard and hurried out beneath the junk-strewn gantries of Precipice, immediately enveloped by a tide of fumes, heat and noise. They had barely taken a few steps when something detonated over their heads. Draik ducked instinctively, pointing his splinter pistol at the stars. Then he relaxed and holstered the gun. It was just another ship exploding across the void screen – another desperate captain, failing to breach the debris cloud. It was happening almost daily now. Far more often than when Draik first arrived. The proctors had done all they could to stop word spreading but who could keep such a prize secret? And for every ten ships that failed to make it through the debris cloud, one succeeded, demanding a place at an ever-more crowded feast.
The walkways surrounding the Vanguard were thronged with new arrivals and they had to weave amongst swaggering giants and bustling, knee-high crowds. Not for the first time, Draik found himself marvelling at the unifying power of greed. Races and creeds walked past him with a singular purpose, forgetting centuries of enmity as they spilled from their ships and rushed towards the Dromeplatz. There was a bewildering variety of species: the usual colourful mix of hominids – humans and abhumans born beneath a host of different suns – alongside loping, avian monsters like Grekh and glistening, serpentine creatures that slid across the ruined metal, singing in a low, mournful drone that made Draik’s skull ache. Slender figures, swathed in cloaks, rushed through the shifting dark, moving with liquid, inhuman grace: aeldari. Even half-hidden, they made his skin crawl. Sylphic, ethereal and cruel in ways Draik could barely fathom.
As Draik veered away from the aeldari he collided with a huge slab of armour plating and almost dropped his pistol. At first he thought he had stumbled into a piece of salvage – an abandoned bulkhead, perhaps, or a cooling tower – but then the enormous shape turned and looked down at him. It was a metal automaton – an ancient Adeptus Mechanicus war machine, with an assault cannon in place of one arm and a power claw in place of the other. He shook his head, surprised, yet again, by the strange inhabitants of Precipice. The automaton was eight or nine feet tall and it did not follow the design of any Mechanicus machinery he had ever encountered before. The thing had to be a mindless drone, but as it stared down at him through a narrow, horizontal lens in its helmet, it almost seemed annoyed with him. He laughed at the absurdity of the idea and rushed on.
They continued fighting their way through the crush until the south gate of the Dromeplatz reared up before them, a soaring arch of fuselage, skirted by a tidal crush of arguing traders and exhausted crewmen. There were several trading auditoria scattered around Precipice but the Dromeplatz was by far the largest. It was built on several levels and so large that it housed dozens of anchorage points, enabling smaller craft to dock directly to its upper reaches and unload cargo straight into the marketplace. It was dome-shaped, built in crude imitation of Imperial architecture, and it was the crimson heart of the whole station, burning red with the glow of three enormous combustion chambers housed beneath its floor. From Draik’s perspective, as he approached the south gate, the Dromeplatz looked like a red flame, reflected in the vast, ineffable pupil of the Blackstone Fortress.
As they forced their way inside, the noise and heat soared, enveloping them in a sweaty riot of sound and colour. As always, Draik had to pause to take in the insanity of the place before he could press on. The crews that survived a mission to the Blackstone returned with an exotic mixture of cargoes, and most of it ended up in the Dromeplatz. The wonderful and the sublime quickly devolved into the measurable and saleable – commodities to be pawed at and haggled over before being scattered across Precipice. It was a frenzied scene but Draik had recently begun to wonder if all this industry and furious bartering actually achieved anything. The sellers clutched their proctor tokens and the buyers stashed their purchases, but none of them ever left; they were all trapped in the merciless pull of the Blackstone, hoarding their finds until they made that final, fatal trip to the fortress and lost everything they had won. Precipice was half mania and half torpor – for every new captain that docked, another failed to return, cluttering the mooring spars with silent, rusting sepulchres.
Once he had acclimatised to the tumult, Draik led Grekh into the crowd. They were swallowed up in a cacophony of screeches and howls. The stalls were heaped with xenotech and holy relics, but also crates of animals – bizarre, unclassifiable beasts. One of the mysteries of the Blackstone was how such creatures found a way to survive in its cold, lightless chasms. But survive they did, and many of them could be sold for huge sums to collectors. Draik saw a box of singing amphibian creatures, like the one he had seen in Bullosus’ hold. Towering over them, its head bowed, was an enormous canine. It was thirty or forty feet tall and utterly black, merging with the shadows, only its burning red eyes revealing the shape of its vulpine snout.
The upper levels of the Dromeplatz had been built from huge sections of rocket boosters and fuel tanks, salvaged from the debris cloud; even these distant balconies were crowded with stalls and traders, swelling precariously across the narrow walkways that stretched from liftport to liftport.
Traders swarmed around Draik, drawn by his elegant attire, spotting a man of wealth. ‘We’re not here to buy!’ he cried, waving them away and pressing on through the centre of the atrium. ‘Let me through!’
‘Drukhari!’ hissed someone, prodding at Draik’s splinter pistol and offering an insulting price for the weapon.
Draik looked down to see a pair of grinning, familiar faces – ratlings, only three or four feet tall, but with gaunt, scarred faces and the battered wargear of Astra Militarum Auxilla veterans. Draik had dealt with them before and found them to be even less trustworthy than most of Precipice’s inhabitants.
‘Hands off, Raus!’ barked Draik, gripping the gun and scowling at the one who had touched his pistol.
They backed away, sniggering, but before Draik could take any more steps a mass of emaciated wretches crowded around him, barring his progress and proffering their pitiful wares.
Grekh gripped his rifle in both hands, but Draik shook his head. ‘Do not start another fight.’
He fished a token from inside his jacket, then, when he was sure all the abhumans were watching, he flipped it through the air, sending it spinning back towards the south gate.
There was a stampede. Dozens of them bolted after the coin, leaving Draik’s way clear.
He strode on, picking up as much speed as he could so that, when the crowds pressed back in on him, he was able to shoulder them aside and keep moving towards the north gate.
He did not pause to look at any of the trading posts, knowing how distracting they could be, and in just a few minutes he had nearly reached the exit. Like its southern counterpart, the north gate was a graceful arch of engine casing and, half hidden as it was by the fumes, it looked worthy of a place in the most beautiful Terran palace.
‘Draik!’ yelled someone from the other side of the auditorium.
He stopped and looked back.
Draik cursed as he saw the lumpen, porridge-like features of Grusel Bullosus. The bounty hunter was on the far side of the hall, separated from Draik by the crowds but using his massive bulk to barge th
rough the crush.
‘I don’t have time for this,’ snapped Draik, looking back at the north gate. They were minutes away from leaving the Dromeplatz, but not if he had to stop and fight an enraged bounty hunter.
Heat washed over the side of his face, accompanied by the brittle clap of a firing mechanism.
He whirled around in time to see Bullosus topple back into the crowd, clutching his arm, spouting a crimson geyser as he fell from sight.
Grekh’s rifle was pressed to his shoulder, still smoking.
‘Grekh!’ snapped Draik as the din in the hall slipped up a tone. Precipice was always on the cusp of anarchy. Only the proctors’ threats of summary execution maintained a fragile peace. The sound of gunfire in the Dromeplatz was enough to trigger a storm of curses and accusations.
Draik watched helplessly as the scene descended into chaos. Insults were answered with punches, and punches escalated into flashing knives. It took less than a minute for the first shots to ring out, followed by the crash of overturned stalls. The colossal canine reared on its haunches and dislodged some of the suspended walkways, sending bodies and gantries hurtling through the air to smash on the flailing crowds below. One of the falling gantries crashed onto a pile of crates and unleashed a flock of winged eels. The eels exploded into flight, filling the air with noise and movement as they thrashed against the side of the dome, confused by the crystalline walls and screaming as they struggled to escape the crossfire. A stray shot hit some fuel drums and a plump blossom of flame rolled across the deck plating, igniting clothes, skin and hair.
Grekh made an awkward attempt to mimic the bow he had seen Draik perform.
Draik stared at Grekh in disbelief as flames crossed the hall.
For a moment he was too stunned to move, then a familiar sound rang out through the din, snapping Draik into action: the clanging, tuneless bells of the proctors’ heavies. He focused his augmetic eye on the walkway beyond the south gate. Sure enough, there was already a wall of metal thundering towards the Dromeplatz.
