by Dan Abnett
Ravenor was trying to reset his chair's internal horolog. Its jumping readings were nonsense.
"Master!"
Ravenor turned his perception outwards and scanned the location. "I know this," he said.
"The door is locked," announced Angharad. The door stood behind them in the dim cloister, strange and out of place. "It's locked from either side," she added, having tried both.
"Those stars," Ravenor said.
Carl looked up. "I... I don't know them."
"But we should," said Ravenor. "I'm checking them against my data coils, trying to find a match. Wait, wait..."
"We're in the Ordo Malleus chapter house on Gudrun," said Ballack. He turned to look at them. "I wish I could claim some clever insight, sir, but it's written here on the wall."
Ballack showed them the ancient, faded plaque.
"But this is a ruin," said Thonius.
They moved out along the cloister and into the crumbling, stunted wreckage of the chapter house that spread out across an overgrown headland. The place had been reduced to this state many years before. Weeds and climbing plants festooned the tumbled stones, twitching fretfully in the night wind off the sea.
"I was here a year ago!" Ballack cried. "It was intact, I swear, it was intact and-"
"This isn't a year ago, or a year hence," Ravenor said. "I don't know when we are. I think the door is showing us some important consequence of fate. I believe we are in our own future."
"Look-" said Angharad. Across the bay, where the night sea crashed relentlessly against a broken shore, they could see the desolate, empty silhouette of a great city.
It had been dead for many years.
"Great Throne of Terra." Ravenor murmured. "That's Dorsay."
He rotated his chair to face the housekeeper. "Take us back through the door," he said.
"The door is not ready."
"Take us back through the door! Now!"
The door opened and closed behind them again, thanks to the housekeeper's key.
A summer evening waited on the other side. The long, low rake of a recently harvested field stretched down in the easy light towards a bank of hedges, with trees beyond. A slowly fading sky above was ribboned with white clouds that were just taking on the colours of dusk.
A hundred metres away down the field, a plain wooden chair sat forlorn amongst the hewn, dry strands of the crop.
Birds sang, twittering overhead in the twilight and chasing in the hedgerows. A few early stars had come out on the depth of the sky.
A lone figure was toiling up the field towards the chair.
Ravenor turned his own chair and regarded his companions. They stood in front of the locked door, which rose improbably from the field crest behind them.
"Stay here." Ravenor instructed.
"But-" Ballack began.
"Stay here and do nothing unless I signal."
He coasted away across the dead stubble and followed the slope of the field down towards the lonely wooden seat. The figure was approaching, walking up into the twilight air with confidence and effort.
Ravenor approached the waiting chair. He stopped short ten metres away. The residue of the harvested crop, the remaining stalks, had been carefully raked and twisted into a circle around the wooden chair. The circle was five metres in diameter, with the wooden seat at its dead centre. Ravenor recognised the complex weaving and design of the circle's rim.
He hovered outside it, waiting, as the figure approached up the slope.
The figure arrived, stepped into the corn circle, and sat down on the chair. He was breathing hard. The legs of the old wooden chair rested unevenly in the loose soil, and set him at an angle.
"Well, hello," the man on the chair said at last, dabbing at his brow with a handkerchief. He was a portly man in late middle age, dressed in a high-buttoned, green silk suit. His thick dark hair and beard were perfectly groomed. "I was wondering when you'd get here. You are Gideon Ravenor, aren't you? Of course you are. So we meet, finally, face to face."
He leaned forward. "Uh, you do know who I am?"
"Yes," said Ravenor.
"Excellent!" replied Orfeo Culzean. "So, let's talk."
THIRTEEN
Maud Plyton was pacing. Her footsteps rang up and down the docking pool's deck. Lucic watched her with some amusement.
She looked at her link wistfully, but for the umpteenth time decided she shouldn't disturb whatever was taking place in the upper chambers of the House.
She was slipping the link back in her coat pocket when she heard a muffled sound.
"What was that?" she demanded, turning to look at Lucic.
"What was what?" he grinned at her.
"I heard a noise."
"This again? Maud, come on! You're so jumpy. You're getting quite paranoid."
Plyton stepped towards him and brought the heavy combat shotgun up. "I heard a noise," she hissed, "the trill-tone of a link."
"You're imagining it."
"Get up and back away," she told him. Lucic rose, and took a few steps backwards down the dock. Lie left his coat spread out on the decking, the loose jack pieces scattered across it.
Keeping her eyes on Lucic, her gun raised in her right hand, she stooped and lifted the coat by the collar and threw it over on the decking.
"Hey!" Lucic cried. The jack pieces tumbled away across the deck, and most fell through the grille into the water below.
Kneeling, Plyton patted down the empty coat with her left hand, feeling into the pockets, her eyes never leaving the prospector.
"Stuff your 'hey'," she said. Her left hand emerged from a deep pocket holding a worn, old link device. "You lying bastard."
"Oh, come on," Lucic said. "Since when was it against the rules to own a link?"
"Who were you talking to? Who were you signalling?"
Lucic didn't reply. His meagre mouth became tight and pinched below his blade of a nose. "I don't know what you're talking about, Maud." He looked down at the deck.
"Who was it, Lucic?"
He looked up at her again, a broad smile slowly extending across his face.
Without turning, she knew why. She went cold. She felt the muzzle of a weapon press against the back of her head.
"Like I keep saying," said Lucic, stepping forward and taking the shotgun from her, "out here, a man needs all the friends he can get."
Nayl took a strip of dry jerky from his pocket and tore off a chunk with his teeth. He offered the fistful of food to Kys. She shook her head.
"Waiting makes me hungry," he said.
The door had been silent for over an hour. Nayl and Kys idled on the raised walkway, sometimes walking up onto the top platform to take a closer look at the door. The housekeepers had all remained as still as statues.
"So, you and Angharad?" Kys asked.
"It's a private thing."
"A private thing for how long?"
"Does it matter?"
"Will it matter to Gideon?"
Nayl scowled. "I don't want to hurt him, but it's none of his business."
"You must have known it would matter to him, or you wouldn't have hidden it."
"Shut up, Kys. You don't know anything."
"You know I do." She paused suddenly and looked away. "Nayl-"
He was already reaching for his sidearm, but it was too late.
The heavy hatches around the theatre chamber's walls slammed open and figures surged in onto the raised walkway: a dozen grizzled, hard-bodied men in grubby combat armour and fur-trimmed hostile environment suits. They aimed their lascarbines and shotguns with a professional confidence that matched their stony expressions.
Nayl and Kys froze and slowly raised their hands. There was no cover, no room to resist. One of the men pushed the barrel of his carbine into Nayl's face while he reached over and confiscated the bounty hunter's sidearm.
"Who are you?" asked Nayl. None of them answered. Two of them were herding the housekeepers into a tight huddle. Meek, the houseke
epers made no sound or any gesture of resistance.
"Watch the woman," a voice echoed out across the chamber. Nayl and Kys turned. A large figure was walking around the circuit towards them, accompanied by two more hired guns. His carapace armour gleamed like mother of pearl in the lamp light. His head was a mass of livid scar tissue, with a bleached stripe of hair across his scalp. He held a psy-scanner in one gauntleted hand.
"She's telekinetic," he said. He glared at Kys, and waved the scanner at her. "One hint of psy, I'll know it, and you'll be dead."
"Lucius frigging Worna." Nayl growled.
The massive bounty hunter regarded Nayl. "Long time, Nayl," he said. "I see you've fallen on hard times, scrabbling for dung work like this. Working for the Throne, brother. Shit, I'm disappointed in you. Gives our kind a bad name."
"You do that all by yourself." Nayl replied.
Kys stared at Lucius Worna. This was the callous monster who had tortured and mutilated Sholto Unwerth. The last they'd heard of him, he'd been working for the opposition. She had no doubt he still was, and that meant-
"What happens?" Nayl asked.
"Oh, it's happened already," Worna replied. "You tried a little gambit, but we outplayed you. We've won. You've lost. End of story."
FOURTEEN
"So, this is a trap."
Orfeo Culzean gestured around himself with both hands, indicating both the harvested field and the twilight sky. "This? No, this is not a trap. This is a conversation."
"But the Wych House, the three-way door... that was a trap," Ravenor said.
Culzean chuckled. "Trap this, trap that, trap, trap, trap! I suppose it must be the inquisitor in you that makes you so very suspicious all the time, Gideon. May I call you Gideon, incidentally?"
"You may not. I watch for traps all the time because Zygmunt Molotch is supremely gifted at setting them, and he's caught me more than once before."
Culzean thought about that. "Well," he said gently, "if it is a trap, it would be safe to conclude you're not getting any better at spotting them, are you?"
"I've never underestimated Molotch's guile." Ravenor replied. "The only thing I seem to keep underestimating is his talent for coming back from the dead." He scanned around gently. On his seat in the warded ring of corn, Culzean was a blank. There were human life signs in the woods behind him, support, no doubt, but too far away to be an immediate threat. Thonius, Ballack and Angharad remained at the top of the hilly field, watching from beside the door.
"Where is Molotch?" Ravenor asked. "Is he too afraid to face me himself?"
"Where is Molotch? That's the question, isn't it. The big question, the one you came to Utochre to answer. I think the door's done a splendid job of answering you. It's brought you here. Molotch is close by, but I am much better at this kind of negotiation. I don't know how much you know about me?"
"Enough not to underestimate you either. But you're not like Molotch. You're a different breed of evil altogether. A facilitator. A mercenary. A prostitute-"
"Well, let's not bandy semantics, shall we?" Culzean frowned. "This should be amicable. A conversation between peers."
Birds sang high in the darkening sky above them. Their songs seemed painfully innocent to Ravenor.
"You have arranged all this so we can talk?" Ravenor asked.
"No, actually," replied Culzean. He settled back. "It's quite the most curious thing. It arranged itself. Oh, I had to make a few judicious improvements and alterations so it would all run smoothly, but generally, this just happened." His eyes sparkled with enthusiastic cunning. "That's just amazing, isn't it? That's why I decided we had to talk."
"So talk."
Culzean nodded and brushed corn chaff off the hem of his jacket. "To business then. I'll keep it simple. You have been chasing Zygmunt Molotch for a long time, and with due cause, I will admit. If I was an Imperial inquisitor - perish the thought! - I would have made it my life's work to hunt him down too. The pair of you dance and dance around each other, jabbing and sparring, daring and thwarting. You've done it for years. You'll be doing it forever, I believe, unless someone intervenes and brings matters to a head."
"Is that someone you?"
"In part. Working on Zygmunt's behalf, I have discovered some strange facts, Gideon. I found out things I don't think either of you are aware of."
"Such as?"
"The pair of you are bound by destiny. Bound by a single, shared destiny."
"That's merely a fanciful and melodramatic way of describing my ongoing prosecution of the heretic Zygmunt Molotch. If that's the best you can-"
"Whoa, whoa!" Culzean said, raising a hand. "Settle down. I mean it literally, as it happens. Right at the start, the first time you met, something happened that spliced you together in a grand, cosmic design."
"And what is that design?"
"Ah, that's why I wanted to talk to you."
"This is just nonsense. Make your play if you're going to. My people are ready." Ravenor cast out a simple command and, on the crest of the hill behind him, his three companions drew their weapons.
"I don't want to fight you," said Culzean. "That's the point. All the time we're fighting each other we're missing what's really important. And what's really important is Slyte."
Ravenor paused. "You have two minutes, Culzean."
Culzean licked his lips and smiled. "You came all the way to Utochre because you believed it was the only way you'd find out where Zygmunt was hiding. A good plan. A very good plan, in fact, because Zygmunt had the very same idea. When we made our exit from Tancred, Zygmunt decided that the only way he could ever be safe from you, truly safe, was to consult the future and find out your part in it. He wanted coherence too. Isn't that funny? Both of you deciding to take precisely the same course of action?"
He leaned forward and tapped an index finger against his temple. "It's because you think the same way. Bound in destiny, remember?"
Ravenor didn't reply.
"We arrived at Utochre about three weeks ahead of you. I made the appropriate arrangements, and secured us a consultation at the Wych House. And what was the first thing we found out when the door opened? That you were coming to the Wych House too, hell-bent on the same scheme. That took me aback, I can tell you. Zygmunt, for his part, was delighted. He was all for setting a final and very nasty trap for you. And we've established his penchant for traps already. But I talked him out of it. The whole thing fascinated me, piqued my facilitator's mind. I think along different lines to Zygmunt, you see. We perceive different patterns, which is why we complement each other. Zygmunt saw it all as moves in a great game, you and he as pieces on a regicide board, one stratagem out stepping the next, blah bla-blah. But I was scared."
"Scared?"
"Of the implications. There are coincidences and there are coincidences. A great deal can be dismissed on the basis of your shared history and experiences. You have similar knowledge, similar talents and, although it's a blood rivalry, you walk in similarly dark places. Both of you simultaneously decide to come to the Wych House? I can accept that. Coincidence. But what brought you both to Eustis Majoris? What brought you to the other worlds where you've clashed?"
"We're antagonists, Culzean. I'm hunting him. It's not hard to grasp."
"What about Tancred? Of all the places in the sector, you tracked him to Tancred. We left no trail that you could have followed. What brought you there? A hunch?"
Again, Ravenor didn't answer.
"I'm right, aren't I?" smiled Culzean. He stroked his beard. "A hunch. A hunch here, a little intuition there, a handful of happenstance and accident. Doesn't it scare you too, just a little bit?"
"What's your explanation? And don't say shared destiny."
"This is what I decided to find out. I sat down with Zygmunt and interviewed him over a period of days. He'd told me of your past encounters already, but I wanted to hear them from him again, every last detail. He kindly and patiently told me everything, and that's when I saw it. Clear as day
. The way the two of you had been bound."
He rose to his feet and walked around the wooden chair, staying within the corn ring. "You have been bound by the forces of the warp, Gideon, bound together to accomplish a great task. Neither of you realises you're being used. Left to your own devices, I doubt either of you would have ever realised it. Apart, perhaps, for one brief, gurgling moment of insight as death claimed you. The warp has chosen you, selected you both carefully, and set you about its work. Without realising it, as you wage your sporadic bloody squabble down the years, you are acting as facilitators. As midwives."
"For Slyte," Ravenor said.
Culzean clapped his hands. "Sharp as a new crown! I knew I wouldn't be disappointed in you, Gideon. Yes, for Slyte. The Ruinous Powers want Slyte to be born. Don't ask me why, because they don't copy me on their meetings-" Culzean snorted at his own words. "But you can bet it's going to be bloody horrible."
"The birth of Slyte was predicted," said Ravenor uneasily. "The Fratery predicted it. You were there, Culzean. The hour has passed. The prophesy was unfulfilled."
"Was it? Was it really?" Culzean looked at Ravenor as if he knew something. "Or has it already happened? Or... look at it this way, Gideon. The birthing of a daemon in our reality is likely to be a long and protracted labour. There will be complications. If, let's agree for a moment, you and Zygmunt have been obliviously working towards this end since the first day you met, then the birth pangs have lasted, what, sixty years already?"
"Sixty-six, if you're right."
"Not an easy birth," Culzean mused, "not an easy birth at all."
"How are you suggesting the Ruinous Powers bound us, Culzean? Explain how I could have been used by the Archenemy for so long without realising it? I am no one's pawn."
"Please, no pawn ever realises he or she is a pawn," said Culzean. "And look at you. You've broken from the Ordos, gone rogue, and come to Utochre hunting heretical divination. You're not exactly pure."
"How did the warp bind us?" Ravenor repeated.
Culzean waved his hands in frustration. "At your first meeting, Sleef Outworld. I haven't got time to fill in all the blanks for you, Gideon. You're smart. You figure it out. We've got more important things to consider right here."
