'Tauists,' he blurted, red smog spilling from his nostrils like some ghastly dragon. 'Got hold of a tau propaganda vidslug — we're looking into how. Heretical hogwash. "Greater good" this, "mutual benefit", that. And the idiots believe it — can you image? No place in the Emperor's light for fools like that.'
Mita kneaded her temples, exhausted and headachey. That Kaustus had dispatched this man to fetch her — to rein her in — was obvious, and that he had thus far occupied his time with meandering anecdotes and tales of inconsequence was not helping her mood. She might as well have been talking to the inquisitor himself.
Her patience for her master's obliqueness was rapidly reaching its end.
...buglbuglbuglbugl...
And to make matters worse, it was becoming increasingly difficult to imagine a more irritating sound than the hookah's incessant watery mussitation.
'Why,' she asked, diplomatic to the end, 'are you telling me all this?'
He scowled at her over the ridge of Cog's chest — rising and falling with the shallow sleep into which he had slipped — as if affronted by her ignorance. His mind told a different story, an unsubtle blend of smug superiority and false piety. He was enjoying himself, talking down to his supposed superior like a parent patronises a child.
'Because,' he sniffed, 'last time I checked you were an interrogator of the Ordo Xenos, and — hah — an affiliate of the team that conducted the raid. I thought you'd appreciate the successes of your comrades.'
'Oh, spare me,' she snapped, patience expiring. 'We're on the Eastern Fringes, you fool. The chances are there are Tauist cells on every warpdamned tier. You didn't come all the way from Steepletown to boast about shooting up a bunch of bored idealists.' She crossed her arms and slumped, inwardly annoyed at the ease with which her temper had broken.
The priest's thought patterns changed with frightening speed. Cold, boundless distaste flooded her senses. Briefly, she wished Cog was still awake.
'That sounds an awful lot like rebel sympathy,' he hissed, every word a barb. 'You should have a care, interrogator...'
'I seem to be managing fine so far'
'That is a matter of some... debate, amongst our lord's disciples.'
'I'll bet it is, she snarled internally. Last time I saw the obtuse bastards I killed one of them. She kept the sentiment to herself, this time. An uncomfortable silence settled, broken only by the incessant thought-destroying buglbuglbugl, and as she drummed her fingers against the edge of Cog's sleeping pallet a sliver of enquiry arose in her mind. She knew she should repress it, should control her insolence in the presence of this ghastly little man — who would, of course, relay this encounter word-for-word to the inquisitor — but her curiosity was engorged and, as ever in its implacable face, her objections were bulldozed as if insubstantial.
'Tell me, father,' she said, raising an ironic eyebrow. 'During this... heroic... attack...'
He met her gaze undaunted, her sarcasm wasted. 'What of it?'
'What part did the inquisitor play?'
The priest narrowed his eyes. 'Why do you ask?'
'Indulge me.'
The man worked his jaw, fingers tapping at the pipe's stem. 'He led from afar.'
'He wasn't there?'
'His duties with the governor absented him. He planned the raid beforehand and judged that it didn't require his personal attention. What is your point?'
'And his absence didn't trouble you?'
He glared, mind fizzing with disgust. 'Why should it?'
But deep down, beneath layers of obedience and dogma, through thick walls of blinkered devotion and preconception, Mita could taste it: like a ghost of a flavour, playing across the man's mind.
Uncertainty.
She had touched a nerve.
Kaustus brought us to this world to uncover xenophile cells, to purge the heretics who had placed the word of the alien above the light of the Emperor. That's why we're here, warpdammit.
And finally he has the opportunity to perform his sacred duty, to maintain the mantle of heroism he's been so keen to foster — and he sends his thugs in his stead?
It makes no sense.
What are you doing up there, Kaustus? Sneaking about with Zagrif, as thick as thieves, prowling through treasure-galleries and ancient archives?
What are you up to, you bastard?
'No reason,' she said. 'No reason at all.'
The priest grunted, unconvinced, and Mita smirked, that tiny particle of uncertainty in his mind feeding her distrust, her conviction that all was not well.
'You don't like me very much, do you?' she smiled, confidence renewed, deliberately provocative.
The priest raised his eyebrows. 'I'm hardly alone in that respect'
'Is that a fact?'
'Oh yes.' Another smile, ghostlit by crimson smog — black teeth making her squirm. 'The inquisitor... struggled, when seeking a messenger willing to find you.'
'But you overcame your personal dislike in the name of the Emperor? Poor, burning little martyr.'
'Such hostility, interrogator. It does not become you'
Her jaw tightened, fists clenching. 'Let me show you what becomes me,' she snarled, half standing.
The man seemed infuriatingly unperturbed by the threat, drawing puffy clouds of rosy smoke from his pipe, its buglbuglbuglbugl grinding further against her nerves. When finally he spoke he glared from beneath heavy-lidded eyes, making no attempt to disguise his contempt.
'The inquisitor is displeased,' he said, sausage-fingers caressing the pipe's mouthpiece. 'Furious, you might say.'
Mita's mouth was opening before she could stop herself. 'Now there's a surprise.'
The man made a show of shaking his head, eyes rolling in their lidded orbits. Red vapours coiled around the edge of his cassock.
'He had hoped your... resentment... your sarcasm... might be tempered by your time away from the retinue.' The spittle gathered again beside his mouth, like froth on a toxic shore. 'It seems not.'
She threw a pointed glare at the door. 'Is that it?' she demanded, impatient. 'Is that the message? Don't let me keep you.'
'Oh, there's more. Much more' ...buglbuglbuglbugl...
'Could you stop that?'
'Stop...?'
'The smoking, It's annoying.'
He leered.
'The inquisitor has requested that I put to you a question. A very simple question.'
'Yes?'
'He requests your counsel. He asks... "What would you do?"'
Mita frowned. The ground had been swept from beneath her.
'What?'
'You heard me. The situation, as it stands. Rumours of xenophilia in the hive, a bogeyman stalking the underworld. In our lord's place, interrogator, what would you do?'
'Is this a test?'
'You know very well that it is.'
Her mind raced.
Passivity or aggression. Submission or challenge.
Every time she had tried to toe the inquisitor's line, every time she had kept her head down, played by his rules, obeyed him without question, she had found herself marginalised, disrespected, held in contempt for some imagined weakness. And every time the fires of rebellion had coiled in her stomach, every time she'd dared to challenge Kaustus's lead directly, to stand up to his bullish ways, she'd engendered a curious sort of respect from him. Was that the way?
Do I swallow my pride and lie — 'I would have done exactly as he has done'? Or do I remain true to my heart? True to my instincts?
There was no contest.
'I would divert all my attention towards the threat in the underhive,' she said, flatly. 'I would prioritise the possibility of a Chaotic incursion far above the existence of xenophile cells. I would commission every force at my disposal — the Preafects, the retinue, the warpdamned militia, if need be — to find and utterly crush the monster in the shadows.' She nodded, as if reassuring herself. 'That is what I would do, priest, in the inquisitor's place.' The man pursed his lips, the hookah
forgotten. 'I see,' he said, presently. 'That is... a shame'
'A shame? I don't unders—'
Abrupt anger blossomed across the priest's mind, shocking her questing senses, his face clouding like a thunderstruck sky.
'How many times?' he barked, black teeth flashing like oil. 'Understanding is not a requirement! The inquisitor demands obedience — that is all! No questions. No warp's-piss assumptions. And no initiative!
'But you asked what I would do! How can I answer without initiative?'
'Ha.' He settled into his chair, a cruel grin curling his face. 'Indeed, yes. Perhaps you are not entirely stupid.'
'I... What? How dare y—'
'I asked you a question, interrogator. There is only one correct answer'
'What answer, damn you?'
The priest steepled his fingers. 'That you are not in the inquisitor's place, and not privy to the information at his disposal, and therefore unable to judge. The only correct answer, interrogator, is that it is an unanswerable question.'
'That's ridiculous! Riddles and warpshit tricks!'
'What is ridiculous,' he hissed, coldness filling his gaze, 'is for a chit of a witch to think she knows everything. There are forces beyond your sight, girl! There are details which only the inquisitor may know. The retinue understands that. Do we assume that we may overrule his judgement without knowing all the facts? Are we so colossally arrogant? No! No, that is a position occupied by you alone.'
She blustered, trying to muster an indignant reply — but his words had cut, and he knew it.
He's right. Emperor's blood, he's right!
The priest leaned forwards, acrid breath washing across her, as if to rub astringent into an already gaping wound. 'The inquisitor hopes you would have learned, during your time alone. There is always more than meets the eye.'
As if to demonstrate he lifted the hookah pipe in one withered hand, thumb caressing the beads of silver filigree at its root.
A blade snapped from its tip like a launching missile, a concealed stiletto spine lurching to a halt and juddering, lancing the air.
'What are you d—' Mita stammered, reactions made sluggish by the priest's accusing words, warning bells chiming slowly — too slow! — in her mind. But even as the threat flourished across her senses a glut of self assurance steeled her muscles. He was just an old man, armed only with a blade.
A voice deep in her subconscious snarled in the shadows. Rip him to shreds!
And then lethargically — like a viewspex display crippled by faulty lightcells, rendering its sanctified image in glacial slow motion — the priest reached out not for her, but for Cog.
'Oh, God-Emperor, no...'
The blade punched into the meat of the giant's throat with a wet thump.
Bracing himself, black teeth bared, the priest sliced outwards, cutting through jugular and windpipe, opening a fleshy crevice in Cog's neck. To Mita's horror he awoke for an instant, and the burst of innocent bewilderment, the flash of contact with her own eyes — questioning, pleading, trusting — would haunt her for as long as she lived.
Time returned to normal with the hot spray of released blood against her face, a geyser of scalding magma, patterning walls and ceiling. She cried out, senses tumbling, thrashing to escape from the sticky eruption.
'Your loyalty should be to your inquisitor alone,' the priest hissed into the dying warrior's ear, harsh voice thick with triumph, eyes flicking up to glower at Mita through the crimson drizzle. 'Not this creature.'
Cog died with a gurgle.
Something snapped behind Mita's eyes.
'No!' she screamed, psychic claws boiling outwards, all self-control gone, slash-stabbing into the ether to shred the priest's thoughts like paper. Red venom covered her vision, rage slipped between her defences like sand pouring through fingers, and she reached out for his brain like a hungry wolf, relishing the terror on his face.
And then corded muscles closed around her shoulders, a gauntleted hand swatted at the back of her head, and the retinue of Inquisitor Ipoqr Kaustus ripped through the connecting wall of the next cell in a riot of dust and fabric, hollering prayers and warcries, shouting for her blood.
She should have known better.
Of course the inquisitor would send backup.
Of course he wouldn't leave it to a withered priest.
She'd failed his test. She should have known that wouldn't be the end of it.
As power swords flickered in the dust and guidance optics shimmered from hooded binox headsets, Mita realised it was probably the last oversight she would ever make.
A gun-metal blade burned itself across her vision, its wielder shouting wordlessly as his stroke descended. Somewhere nearby the sisters of the Order Panacear were screaming, the hooded figures of the retinue pushing past them, ignoring their protests, boiling from the shattered wall hollering curses and orders: all of them impressions of a chaotic environment that swirled into Mita's overloaded senses.
She ducked beneath the swordstroke and spun inside the acolyte's guard, elbowing him in the guts then driving the heel of her hand into his nose as he stumbled, feeling it crackle and puncture his brain somewhere within. A razor-stab of premonition — a frozen image of scorching contrails streaking towards her, like toothy-mouthed maggots — caught behind her eyes, and without conscious thought she seized the tumbling corpse beneath its shoulders and pulled it upright.
Bolter fire exploded across her senses, true to the premonition: throbbing at the air and dazzling her with its phosphor bright muzzleflash. The corpse shuddered beneath her grip, clotted lumps of fat and bloodpaste tumbling forwards like a waterfall, shedding its weight — and its shielding — with every moment. The force of each percussive blow forced her backwards, legs straining, crumpling into a ball. She was being caged. Overborne. Destroyed.
And whilst the gunservitor pinned her down, kept her sprawled against her grisly cover, she could guarantee that the rest of the Inquistor's loyal warriors had split, sneaking along adjacent corridors, surrounding her like wolves around a lamb.
Get up.
That dangerous voice again, whispering its incautious counsel into her heart.
Get up, fool! You're better than this!
The servitor paused to reload — whispering columns of metal sliding a fresh clip into place, smooth actuators ejecting its predecessor on a tide of gunsmoke. Mita seized the opportunity to assess her surroundings, gaze flashing left and right as her head crept above the mangled body's charred shoulder.
Don't die here, Mita. Don't die on the floor.
You're better than this!
Everywhere was smoke, a thick blanket of bittersweet stench that itched at her eyes and clouded her nostrils. The servitor stood foresquare in the doorway, hunched back rising from heavy unjointed legs, head a sunken battery of optics and twitching sensoria that dangled, like a vulture's beak, between and below the line of its shoulders. Beyond it the veiled shapes of the retinue capered in the adjacent room, every action underwritten by the dull tone of a cognis logi, assessing tactics and possibilities aloud. Nearer still, cringing in a corner beside the bloodslicked bed with his robe dishevelled and a strangled prayer on his breath, was the priest.
The split-second of eye-contact was all it took Mita to acknowledge he hadn't intended on finding himself trapped in a room with her.
Footsteps echoed through thin walls at her back, other warriors, taking up position, preparing to close the iron claw around her. You're better than this! The voice was right.
The bolterfire resumed, and now with every impact and subsequent detonation the corpse that covered her unravelled more, hammering at her legs, driving the breath from her body, hurting her.
Concentrate.
The priest. Remember the priest!
She closed herself down. She wiped away the world from her senses. She rose up from her body and slid like a harpoon into the priest's head. He tried to resist, for all the good it did him.
Down, down,
down... Through layers of character and bubble-slick tiers of memory, past instincts and dreams, sliding between secret desires and repressed rages like a rip-blade, aimed at a heart. She closed astral fingers around that slumbering pearl, that black beacon of uncertainty and disloyally she had felt before. A tiny seed, perhaps, the faintest of rebellious sentiments, but fully formed nonetheless. She pricked at his neuroses, swelled his paranoia with an artist's hand, and suddenly — like breaking an egg — she cracked it open and released it.
In his mind, clenching upon itself, protesting at the invader within its bounds, every certainty the priest had ever felt collapsed beneath him. Every faith, every trust, every loyalty: all of them dissolved, turning inwards, burning at his soul.
He could trust nothing.
He could tolerate no one.
The world was against him.
The instinct, of course, was to flee.
He leapt upright with a startled shriek, hookah clattering free of its straps and shattering at his feet. His charge propelled him out from his corner, robes fluttering, and into the path of the servitor. He crashed into its hulking frame even as he crossed the stream of its firestorm, bolter shells shredded him, picking clean his bones. His frail form was gone within instants, reduced to jelly and bonepowder, but it was enough.
Mita arose behind the wailing man from her moist cover with a shriek, hand closing around the discarded powersword as she moved, gliding to one side and lunging with all her might.
Even as the servitor's field of fire cleared, the unexpected obstacle blasted to wet fragments as quickly as it had arisen, a cautionary algorithm chattered against its engine-brain. It was nowhere near fast enough.
Mita cleaved the massive beast in two with a single stroke, punched through the shocked crowd of non-combatant retainers still lurking beyond the door, and was gone.
As she sprinted through the clamouring wastes of Cuspseal, breath catching in her throat, muscles aching, clothes slick with Cog's blood, a single word swam in her thoughts like a leviathan, rising from some twilight realm, absorbing every iota of her mind.
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