by Dan Abnett
‘Sorry, sir,’ the handler said.
‘Don’t be,’ Revoke replied. ‘I admire vigilance. I was told he was here.’
‘Yes, sir. He’s inside. Please observe the drill.’
‘Of course.’ Revoke stepped past the handler and his chrome-plated cannon-hound and went over to the rack of bare metal drawers screwed to the stone wall. He slid out an empty drawer, and placed inside it his weapon, his hand-vox, his wallet, his chron and every other single item about his person that was either powered or bore writing, numerals or inscriptions of any sort. Then he closed the drawer and took down one of the blunting charms that hung from the row of hooks above the rack. As Revoke put it around his neck, he felt the pendant weight of the heavy lodestone against his chest. More particularly, he felt his precious psy stutter away into temporary exile.
Then he stepped into the airgate. All of the entrances to the Encompass Room were actual starship airgates, imported as brand new units from the yards at Ur-Haven in the Antimar sub. It seemed odd to pace down the cold stone hallways of the lord governor’s palace in Formal A and then step into a vacuum lock of brushed steel and recessed lumin panels.
The outer hatch closed. Revoke felt the prickly gust of the decontamination blowers and heard the vents suck the soot and dust away. Then the inner hatch opened.
To step from ancient fortress into an airgate was one thing. To step from an airgate into this was quite another.
Toros Revoke had been in the Encompass Room more than a dozen times before, but still it impressed him. Circular, over five hundred metres in diameter, it had been constructed from the uppermost four storeys of the palace. Revoke was actually stepping out onto a steel bridge walkway that extended out across the chamber two floors up in the air. The walkway met three others like it that sprouted from hatchways at the other compass points to form a platform above the centre of the room.
Above, the roof space was black, and out of the blackness powerful stab-lamps hung down on chains, like stars in the night sky. Below, the floor of the chamber was a brilliant white expanse like the surface of a sunward moon. This entire floor was patterned with a delicate tracery of black lines and other details, all of them too fine and small to be seen clearly from the bridge. But Revoke knew what the intricate pattern represented. He peered down and saw the small figures of the many geometricians on their knees, adding details to the pattern with their consecrated quills. Only a few small portions of the overall pattern still lacked any detail.
Revoke could see the chief provost standing up on the viewing platform. He hesitated when he realised that Trice was not alone. The Diadochoi was with him.
Trice saw Revoke and nodded for him to join them. Revoke approached with unease. The Diadochoi was spending an increasing amount of time in the Encompass Room of late, eagerly anticipating the culmination of the work.
The Diadochoi was tall and slender, dressed in simple black clothes. His head was bare and, in the Encompass Room, he chose not to wear his public face.
Revoke tried not to look at the Diadochoi’s true visage. The contorted pink flesh, the features fused and melted down like candlewax after a long night.
‘Revoke,’ the Diadochoi gurgled liplessly. ‘Come to me, my son.’
Revoke obeyed. The Diadochoi embraced him and kissed both his cheeks with the wet wound he called a mouth. Revoke could smell nidos and unguent creams.
‘Jader tells me you saved him the other night,’ the Diadochoi lisped.
‘He did, lord?’ Trice said.
‘Against a beast from hell, I hear,’ the Diadochoi said, the heat-blackened stumps of his teeth showing against the pink as he smiled. ‘Any clue yet as to what it was?’
‘We are following some leads,’ Revoke replied.
‘Leave all that to us, lord,’ Trice cut in. ‘Do not trouble yourself with nothings. You must concentrate your mind on the true work.’
The Diadochoi nodded. He took Revoke by the arm and led him to the platform’s rail. ‘Isn’t it beautiful? Quite, quite beautiful. We have made adjustments just this last morning. Recalibrations, according to the refined axes. You see there, where the geometricians are erasing?’
Revoke looked and raised his hand to point. ‘You mean–’
The Diadochoi’s black-gloved hand caught hold of Revoke’s and squeezed it shut with nearly bone-crushing force.
‘Don’t point, Revoke. Not in here. Any gesture can be a signifier. You should know better.’
‘I’m sorry, lord.’
The Diadochoi let his hand go. ‘Where the geometricians are erasing, that is the angle of adjustment. Fate gives even as it seems to take away, don’t you think?’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘By morning, the new axial points will be inscribed. It’s all very… promising. Now, what did you want?’
‘I need a word with the chief provost,’ Revoke said.
‘A word.’ The Diadochoi made a wet, gurgling sound that approximated to a chuckle. ‘A word. In here. A word. You’re a witty man, Revoke.’
‘Am I, lord?’
The Diadochoi turned to Trice. ‘See to your business, Jader. I’ll be here when you return.’
Trice took Revoke by the arm and walked him away along the bridge to the airgate. Behind them, the Diadochoi was still peering down from the platform at the working scribes below.
The airgate hatch closed and the air-scrubbers whirred.
‘He seems in a good humour,’ Revoke said.
‘He is. We’re very close now, Toros. That chance discovery at the old sacristy the other day. It’s the piece we’ve been missing. Now we’ve got it, everything is falling into perfect alignment, all our calculations and projections.’
‘The true centre?’
‘Just that. At last. It was no wonder that we couldn’t make things match up. No wonder, indeed, that everything we’d tried before didn’t work.’
‘So…’ said Revoke. ‘We’re close?’
‘Just a few days.’ Trice looked at him. ‘He scares you, doesn’t he?’
‘A little bit,’ Revoke admitted.
Jader Trice smiled as the other airgate hatch opened before them. ‘Be thankful. He scares me an awful lot more than that. So why have you come looking for me?’
They were retrieving their possessions from the rack of drawers. As soon as he took off his blunting charm, Revoke realised the guard nearby could hear them.
‘Not here. Let’s walk.’
‘Ravenor. Empty gods, are you sure?’
Revoke nodded. ‘The shipmaster’s evidence is quite compelling.’
Trice sat down on one of the private suite’s sofas and wrung his hands as he thought. ‘Get me a drink. Amasec. Mollamot. Anything.’
Revoke went over to the cabinet and found a glass and a bottle of eighty year-old nepenthe. ‘If Ravenor is here, and active, it could explain the killing of the cartel’s banker.’
‘Tchaikov?’
‘Yes, and it could also explain the attack on you at the palace.’
‘You’ve still turned up nothing on that?’
Revoke handed his master the glass. ‘We know it was some form of incunabula, some slaved proto-daemon. A killing tool, directed by a psyker. I’ve had the psy-adept arm of the Secretists searching covertly since the attack, but in a hive this size, without wanting to show our hand…’
‘Would Ravenor use a daemon? I mean, really?’
Revoke shrugged. ‘We’ve studied his records through the Officio Inquisitorus Planetia. He’s known to be hardline, but his master was Eisenhorn. And you know what’s said about him.’
‘Even so,’ said Trice, sipping his drink. ‘You told me you’d killed the psyker operating that thing.’
‘I did. Most surely. His name was Saul Keener, a local black market psyker with prior form. Ravenor wouldn’t have been so impetuous as to slave the thing himself. He’d employ someone. He relies on his agents. Still, right at the end there, I sensed another mind. Ravenor himself,
no doubt, looking in to see if the job had been done.’
‘Damn him!’ Trice spat. ‘The Diadochoi mustn’t be told. He’ll go mad.’
‘Of course.’
Jader Trice put his glass down and rose to his feet. He was agitated. ‘When that daemon-thing attacked us, I suspected this faction, that faction, this cult, that coven. All these years, so many accumulated enemies. The one thing I didn’t even begin to consider was Ravenor. He’s meant to be dead!’
‘Akunin has proof otherwise, sir.’
‘You’ve brought him here?’
Revoke nodded. ‘Under the circumstances, I thought I should.’ He got up and waved a control wand at the end wall of the suite. The entire wall became transparent so they could see out into the adjoining ante-room where Akunin waited nervously with his companions.
‘That’s Akunin there?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘The other man?’
‘His name is Siskind. Another shipmaster. An interesting man.’
‘And the big brute with him?’
‘A bounty hunter called Worna. Just paid muscle.’
‘What about that… that runty thing at his feet?’
‘The runty thing goes by the name of Sholto Unwerth, sir. Yet another shipmaster. More particularly, the proof.’
Trice looked at Revoke. ‘What do you make of Akunin?’
‘Scared. Scared of us, and scared that, with Thekla dead, he’s now got seniority in the cartel. I can sense he wants out, but only if he gets a massive pay-off to keep him quiet. He sees this evidence about Ravenor as his get-out clause.’
‘Does he indeed? What about this other one? Siskind. You said he was interesting.’
Revoke smiled. ‘Master Siskind reads as ambitious. He’s an associate of Thekla’s who wanted to become part of the Contract Thirteen cartel… except that he didn’t have the funds to buy in. He’s done all the hard work here, sir. He was the one who realised Thekla was missing. He hired Worna to track Ravenor to Eustis Majoris, and brought that proof to Akunin as collateral to buy into the cartel.’
Trice straightened his gold-hemmed robes and put on his game face. ‘This Siskind sounds like my kind of bastard. What about the bounty-grunt?’
‘Does what he does for cash.’
Trice turned to Revoke. ‘Let’s go and talk to them,’ he said.
The men rose as Trice and Revoke entered the room, all except Unwerth, who was curled up in a bloodied ball in kicking-reach of Lucius Worna.
‘Master Akunin!’ Trice announced, hurrying forward and clasping the man by the hands. ‘A thousand apologies for ignoring your many calls! I have been so busy these last few days!’
‘No apologies necessary, chief provost,’ Akunin nodded.
‘No, I must. Revoke here treated you most shamefully. Apologise, Revoke.’
‘I beg the shipmaster’s forgiveness.’
Akunin nodded. ‘There’s no need, chief provost. I only wish to serve. I have brought this piece of scum to your attention. Proof that Inquisitor Ravenor moves against us both. His name is Unwerth. He brought Ravenor here.’
‘Is this true? Is Ravenor here on this world?’ Trice asked.
Unwerth mumbled something and then yelped as Worna kicked him.
‘So, Ravenor, Ravenor,’ Trice sighed, seating himself. ‘The cartel slipped up there, didn’t it?’
Akunin sat down facing the chief provost. ‘Thekla may have been overconfident, sir–’
‘Overconfident? He promised to trap and kill Ravenor for me, and yet Ravenor is alive and Thekla is dead. Overconfident is hardly the word.’
Akunin cleared his throat. ‘Which is why I have come here with this evidence, sir.’
Trice grinned broadly. ‘And for that, I thank you. How will the cartel pay?’
‘Pay, sir? For what?’
‘For messing up. For failing to complete the task I set them?’
Akunin cleared his throat for a second time and sat forward. ‘I’m not sure what you mean, chief provost. Thekla failed you. Him and the agents you sent to help him. They bungled the mission. I’m just here to–’
Trice put his finger to his lips pensively and looked at the ceiling. ‘A moment. Thekla. Wasn’t he the senior member of the cartel?’
‘Yes, he w–’
‘He represented the cartel?’
‘Yes, sir, b–’
‘And now he’s dead, you fulfil that role?’
Akunin nodded. ‘Yes, chief provost.’
‘So you are now the senior representative of the cartel?’
‘I suppose I am.’
Trice paused. ‘The cartel which… entirely failed to serve me?’
‘Well, put like that–’
Trice nodded to Revoke. Revoke drew his laspistol and shot Akunin though the back of the head. Akunin’s corpse slammed face down onto the low table, cracking its glass surface. Revoke snapped his aim up and found himself facing Lucius Worna’s steady bolt pistol.
‘No need for any of that,’ Trice said. ‘Put it away, Revoke. You too, Worna. Master Siskind?’
‘S-sir?’
‘I wish to employ fresh blood as leader of my cartel of traders. The old ones were so unreliable. I rather fancy you’d do a better job. What do you say?’
Siskind smiled. ‘I’d say put the bolter away, Worna.’
Worna obeyed.
‘Return to your ship, and await instruction,’ Trice told Siskind. ‘I’ll have clerks sent up to you with copies of the contracts. This is grown-up stuff now, Siskind. Are you up to it?’
Siskind nodded. ‘What about Unwerth?’
‘Leave him here with me.’
Siskind and Worna departed. Revoke knelt down beside Unwerth.
‘What do you get?’ Trice asked.
‘He knows little. Ravenor was careful. But he definitely brought Ravenor here. And he was paid to do it secretly.’
‘If Ravenor’s here secretly, it means he knows he’s out on a limb and can’t trust anyone, not even the local ordos. Which, of course, is very wise of him. He’ll be operating on… what’s it called?’
‘Special Condition, sir.’
‘Just that. A virtual rogue. And therefore infernally dangerous.’ Trice took a deep breath. ‘No more covert play, Toros. Unslip the psykers, unleash every secretist. Find Ravenor and burn him for me.’
Four
Zael paused with the glass of cordial halfway to his mouth, and looked upwards. The glass slid out of his fingers and smashed on the floor between his feet. He didn’t seem to notice it.
‘Zael?’ I asked.
‘Didn’t you feel that?’ he asked. ‘I mean, you must have, it was so bright.’
I was about to reply when it hit me. A flash-flood of psy-power. Distant but immensely powerful, swirling across the hive. I was getting it real-time. Zael, foreseeing, had sensed it about to happen.
Masked in careful deceits, I reached my mind out. The vast psy-scape of Petropolis, to me a blur of dull colours and mind-forms, was punctuated by five specks of light that rose up over the stacks and spires, bright as supernovae.
Five psykers of great potency had just gone bodiless and were projecting themselves out over the city-hive. They were hunting, searching for something. I saw pearls of fire spit out from some, dripping across rooftops, from others, beams like searchlights, tracking back and forth.
There was no clue to their identities, but I was sure that none of them was the pysker I had seen with Trice outside the diplomatic palace four nights earlier. I estimated I could handle any two of them, but all five together? They exuded a brute confidence and skill that reminded me of a devil called Kinsky.
I could not allow them to sense me. At my instruction, Frauka made himself untouchable, obscuring me, Zael and Miserimus House from view.
I found Carl in the kitchen. He was raiding the larder, piling a plate with cuts of meat, cheese and slices of swoter-bread from the boxes of provisions we’d brought in. He already had a go
ose’s drumstick clamped in his mouth.
‘What’s going on?’ he mumbled through it.
‘Something big,’ I transponded. ‘I need you back at your station.’
He glanced for a moment at the pile of food on his plate. ‘Leave that,’ I said. ‘You can come back for it.’
Carl put the plate down, but kept chewing at the drumstick as he followed me down the hall. It wasn’t like Carl to eat with such gusto. He normally picked at his food, and exhibited dainty table manners. He was also forever going on about careful diet and the trimness of his figure.
By the time he’d got back in front of his cogitators, he’d stripped the meat off and tossed the bone into the wastebasket. Still munching, he wiped his greasy mouth across the back of one hand and started at the screen.
‘Something’s going on all right,’ he agreed, typing at the keyboard and pulling up different displays of data.
‘There are at least five psykers active right now,’ I said.
Swallowing the last mouthful, he code-typed his way through further digitised information. Realising both his hands were oily and slick from the drumstick, he casually wiped them on the front of his soft, cream litten-silk shirt.
‘Lots of Ministry activity. Magistratum too. Some kind of alert,’ he said. He reached up and picked a fleck of goose-meat from between his teeth with his fingernail. ‘Sir, this is far, far more than the creeping backwash scans they’ve been running since the attack on Trice. This is all-out open season. They’re looking for something, looking hard.’
‘Any ideas what, Carl?’
He shrugged. ‘The Ministry traffic is coded. Encrypted, actually. I can’t break it. Throne, it’s the strangest code I’ve ever seen. Like they’re not even using words.’
‘All right, back down. Have they found our graft in the Informium?’
‘Not yet, sir.’
‘Nor should they, but keep watching in case they do.’
I swung my chair round to face Zeph Mathuin.
‘Pack us up, Zeph,’ I said. ‘We might need to exit in a hurry.’
He nodded.
‘Zael can help you.’
