Know Thyself

by Andy Smillie

  He pulled off his robe to reveal a dark suit of segmented armour, and set about shedding the rest of his disguise. Unclamping the brass augmentation from his eye and screwing it into the haft of the blade that hung from his waist, he reached into a velvet pouch to produce the last piece of his true attire.

  Running his finger across the debossed ‘I’, the real Corvin Herrold slid the Inquisitorial signet ring onto his index finger and pressed the door release. With a slow, deliberate grinding, the doors came apart.

  Darkness greeted the inquisitor as he stepped into the corridor beyond. No luminators shone, the gloom was total, thick and impenetrable.

  ‘Emperor walk with me.’ Activating the portable luminator on his gauntlet, the inquisitor pressed into the passageway. The door growled shut behind him.

  The corridor was unlike any of the others. The panels of the floor were warped and dented, rusted from disuse. The ventilation grilles had been welded shut. The air was rank and stale, ripe with blood and faeces. The walls were dotted with hatches, each leading to small cells. None were occupied, broken manacles the only clue that they ever had been.

  ‘Where are you?’ Corvin whispered to the darkness as he passed another set of cells, their doors slack on battered hinges.

  Noise from further along the corridor pushed Corvin into a crouch. He held his breath, straining to hear. The noise was indistinct, faint. A less experienced operative might have mistaken it for ambient background noise, emitted from one of the warship’s many systems. But Corvin had supervised the interrogation of hundreds of heretics, put thousands more to death. He was more familiar with the sounds of pain than he was with his own voice. He drew his inferno pistol, its primed muzzle glowing amber-hot, and took a cautious step forwards. The screaming grew in intensity as he approached another set of cells. This time the doors were sealed.

  Corvin listened. Pained, angry cries emanated from within. But there was something else - a hoarse roar that sounded almost feral. A sound like nothing Corvin had heard from the throat of a man.

  The inquisitor reduced the focus of the luminator beam, tightening it on the nearest of the cell doors. He moved up against the wall. The door was fusion-bolted shut; there was no way to prise open the lock. Pressing the nose of his pistol to the first of the two hinges, he fired, melting the bond in a flare of super-heated metal. He aimed down and shot out the second, swinging round to kick the door in an instant later.

  A roar. The sharp rattle of chains. A black-armoured beast rushed at him. Corvin fired twice, recoiling against the wall of the corridor. He heard his attacker slump back, the chains clattering as the tension on them eased. The noise from the other cells intensified, as though the beasts sensed the carnage nearby, or perhaps, Corvin thought with a shiver, they smelled his fear.

  Guiding the luminator into the cell, the inquisitor took his first proper look at the beast within. He grinned in satisfaction. It was as he suspected, a Space Marine. Though not as he had previously known them. The beast was a dark parody of the Imperium’s superhuman champions. Corvin activated his pict-recorder.

  Swollen veins threatened to push through the skin of its forehead and neck. The scleras of its eyes were gore-red, and its throat emitted a continuous growl as it writhed on the floor. It wore black armour emblazoned with blood-red saltires. Tattered, blood-soaked scrolls hung from its pauldrons and breastplate.

  ‘Subject shows remarkable resilience.’ Corvin zoomed in on the gaping holes he’d blasted in its chest, before raising his pistol and shooting it in the face. The Space Marine slumped backwards and lay still. ‘But not to head shots.’

  ‘That was a mistake, inquisitor.’

  Corvin spun around and fired. The opposite wall glowed faintly, scorched by the melta blast.

  ‘To have come here under false pretences, to have killed one of my flock.’ The voice in the darkness was closer this time.

  ‘Show yourself, daemon!’ Corvin tapped his luminator, expanding the beam to encompass the corridor. Appollus’s leering skull helm appeared from the darkness. In terror, Corvin pulled the trigger. The Chaplain was quicker, crushing the weapon between the fingers of his power fist, and shouldering Corvin to the ground. The inquisitor rolled, letting the momentum take the sting from the blow.

  ‘You have uncovered a secret.’ Appollus advanced on him. ‘Our secret.’ The Chaplain let the haft of his crozius slide down his hand until the flanged head hung a few inches from the floor. ‘And like all secrets, its knowing comes with a price.’

  ‘It is you who shall pay the price.’ Corvin unsheathed his sword, energy arcing along its blade. ‘I have summoned my warriors. We will commandeer this vessel, and you and your kind shall answer for your perfidy.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Appollus growled in contempt as the inquisitor retreated. He reached out to tap a pict-viewer on the wall.

  +Recorder 10A9: Bay 17++

  Harahel tore his eviscerator from a shield-warrior’s chest, the weapon’s teeth churning his torso to red mist. The giant Flesh Tearer reversed the grip, driving his blade through the back of a prone figure clad in golden armour. The rest of the Inquisitorial warband lay dead at his feet, now unrecognisable as anything more than a pile of orphaned limbs.

  +10A9: Segment Ends++

  Disbelief held Corvin’s tongue.

  Appollus grinned.

  ‘You are alone, inquisitor.’

  ‘No, traitor, I am never alone. The Emperor stands by my side.’ Corvin’s blade flashed towards Appollus’s throat.

  The Chaplain slipped the blow, smashing his crozius into Corvin’s breastplate. The inquisitor flipped backwards, his armour cracking under the blow. ‘You have spent too long in the shadows. Judgement’s light has found you wanting.’

  Corvin tried to push himself to his feet, his chest alive with pain. He could barely breathe…

  Appollus yanked the inquisitor up by his hair. Holding him level with the soulless eyes of his helm, he drove a finger of his power fist into his chest, cracking ribs. The inquisitor screamed. ‘Twice you shot my brother. Are you as resilient as he?’ The Chaplain stabbed a second crackling digit into Corvin, eliciting another tortured cry.

  ‘Emperor…’ Corvin’s lips trembled.

  Appollus pulled the inquisitor closer, the visage of his skull helm filling Corvin’s world. ‘He is not listening to you.’

  Harsh light shone above Corvin. He blinked hard in an effort to shake the torpor from his eyes, forcing them to focus. He tried to reach for his face but his arm was pinned. Shock snapped him to alertness. He was strapped into some sort of chair, his arms and legs bound by thick clamps. He struggled against the restraints, crying out as pain stabbed through his chest. His ribs were broken.

  ‘The restraints are for your own protection.’

  The Chaplain. Corvin remembered the skull helm. ‘You go too far, release me or–’ The inquisitor’s jaw cracked as something struck it. His vision swam, clearing to show the face of another Flesh Tearer looming over him.

  ‘Do you know who I am, inquisitor?’

  ‘Y-yes.’ Corvin stuttered, the granite face of Gabriel Seth unmistakable.

  ‘You came here seeking truth, inquisitor.’ Seth gestured to Corvin’s right. ‘Let us show you our truth.’

  Beside Corvin, strapped to another chair, was a black-armoured Flesh Tearer, his armour daubed in red saltires.

  At Seth’s gesture, Balthiel removed his gauntlets. He stepped between the two chairs. Placing a hand on the forehead of the Death Company marine, he turned to Corvin.

  ‘No! No! Wait, no!’

  Balthiel ignored the inquisitor’s pleading and completed the psychic union.

  ‘A cowardly mind is a weak mind. This will not take long.’ The Librarian reached out with his gifts. The Death Company marine’s mind was incandescent. His anger burned, a pyre that called to Balthiel. He dove in
to the flames, until they surrounded him, shuddering at the power in the warrior’s blood. The rage was absolute. The flames licked at his armour, trying to find a way to his flesh. The wards inscribed on Balthiel’s battle-plate held, glowing as they turned aside the fire’s advance. He pushed down to the kindling that had given the fire life. Scooping up a pile of embers in his palm, he sought the inquisitor’s mind. It hid beneath layers of disguises and barriers. Corvin was well prepared, but Balthiel would not be deterred. He tore through the inquisitor’s mental defences with a savagery that would have killed an untrained mind, burrowing down past Corvin’s fears to his very essence. There, among the winds of the inquisitor’s soul, Balthiel let the embers fall from his hand.

  Corvin screamed. His cry became a guttural roar as the rage overtook him. Blood rushed to his muscles, which began to convulse as adrenaline saturated his system. He would tear free from his restraints, kill Seth, wear his skin like a cloak, crush his bones to powder.

  ‘Die!’ Corvin growled, thrashing in the chair. Blood ran from his mouth as he bit off his tongue, one of his legs broke with a sickening snap as he tried to free himself.

  ‘Enough.’

  Seth ordered Balthiel to end Corvin’s torment, and close the psychic conduit he had created. After it was done, the inquisitor continued to spasm, his teeth rattling as he went limp in the chair. The effort of communion had taken a huge toll on Balthiel, who dropped to one knee breathing hard.

  Seth rested a hand on the Librarian’s pauldron ‘Return to your cell, brother. Rest.’

  ‘Yes, lord.’ Balthiel nodded and left the room.

  ‘Watch him,’ Seth voxed Appollus on a closed channel. The Chaplain dipped his head in acknowledgment and went after the Librarian.

  Tears streamed from Corvin’s eyes as he sobbed between laboured breaths. His body trembled. Seth knelt down next to him, his voice little more than a whisper. ‘And you would dare call us traitors. We who channel this anger, this curse, each and every moment in which our hearts pump our father’s blood through our veins. We who endure this torment and yet stand ready to fight for humanity. You. You who cannot handle our pain for a heartbeat dare question our loyalty.’ Seth stood, snapping the restraints from their housings. ‘Leave and pray to the Emperor that you never cross my path again.’

  Inquisitor Corvin Herrold lay among the corpses of his warband, thankful the shuttle’s pilot had been spared. The inquisitor couldn’t stand, let alone steer the craft. His nervous system was shot and his muscles were shivering from withdrawal as the remains of the rage left him. Sweating with effort, he propped himself up. The symbol of the Inquisition stared accusingly at him as he adjusted the ring on his finger.

  Who am I?

  Tears soaked his cheeks as he searched for an answer. Grief pushed him to remove the ring from his finger and toss it away. He looked to the ceiling; the galaxy stared down at him through the translucent hull as they edged away from the Victus. No stars shone. Yet the darkness of the void was as a beacon of light compared to what he’d felt living inside the Flesh Tearers’ souls.

  ‘Emperor save us.’

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Hailing from Glasgow, Andy Smillie is best known for his visceral Flesh Tearers novellas, Beneath the Flesh and Flesh of Cretacia. He also has written a host of short stories starring this brutal Chapter of Space Marines and a number of audio dramas including Deathwolf and From the Blood.

  A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

  Originally published in the Black Library Weekender Anthology (Saturday), 2012.

  This edition published in 2013 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

  Cover illustration by Imaginary Friends Studios

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