by Dan Abnett
‘That’s the case, sir,’ said Voriet. ‘The whole Sark family line has been engaged with Materia Medica for many generations, either as medicae experts or medicae specialists serving the Administratum. In Draven Sark’s case, the former. He retired decades ago.’
‘Whereabouts unknown?’ asked Eisenhorn.
‘Yes,’ said Voriet. ‘But it appears he continued to practise on a private basis. In retirement, he assumed several identities. Sadrane Carnac, Philipo Bosk, Emment Pelet…’
‘Why does a respected medicae take on assumed names?’ asked Macks.
Voriet smiled.
‘The circumstances of his retirement are sealed,’ he said. ‘One may presume malpractice, and a quiet effort to avoid scandal. Draven Sark and his various alter egos have been persons of interest to both the Arbites and the ordos at different times over the last century. He has a history of unfortunate associations. Nothing that could lead to prosecutions, but enough to convince me he walks in the shadows of lawlessness.’
Voriet scrolled through his slate.
‘Some seventy years ago,’ he said, ‘Philipo Bosk was listed as a resident of Gershom, specifically of Unkara Province. He owned property here, paid his tithes, was listed as “retired”.’
‘Where were his properties?’ asked Eisenhorn.
‘Unknown,’ said Voriet. ‘A great number of municipal records were lost during the civil war. All trace of Philipo Bosk vanishes about twenty years ago. But we have picts of him, and comparative recognition cogitation confirms within an error margin of decimal zero-zero-two per cent that Bosk and Sark are the same man.’
‘So, he disguises his identity, but not well,’ said Betancore. ‘A simple verification reveals the truth. That seems clumsy.’
‘Or suggests that Bosk, or Sark, or whatever he wanted to call himself, felt secure,’ replied Eisenhorn. ‘That he was confident he could not be found, even if someone was looking.’
‘If he lived here,’ said Drusher, ‘then he was happy to be known to his neighbours – neighbours like Esic Fargul – by his real name.’
‘Which reinforces my point,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘His neighbours knew his real name. He entertained and was not a recluse. He had influence and an influential circle of friends. The name of his property was known. Keshtre. Yet neither it nor he can be located. His disguise was casual, Medea, because he was clearly able to hide very well.’
‘You should look at his list of known associates, sir,’ said Voriet, sliding the data-slate towards his senior. ‘An influential circle of friends indeed – artists, Administratum officials, men of science, senior military officers, at least one ex-governor of Gershom…’
‘You see my urge for confidence now, marshal?’ Eisenhorn asked Macks.
‘That name in the third column, there, sir,’ said Voriet, pointing to the slate. ‘That was the one that caught my eye.’
‘Goran Gobleka,’ said Eisenhorn.
‘Who’s that?’ asked Drusher.
‘A recidivist,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘A man pursued for years by the Ordo Hereticus. A suspected member of the Cognitae. And the man that Thea Inshabel was looking for when she came here.’
‘What is the Cognitae?’ asked Macks.
‘Some things must remain classified,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘The point is, we have a connection. A link between the elements. Sark resided in the Karanines. Thea’s remains, and the others’, were discovered in the area. Sark knew the man Thea was hunting. He may have offered sanctuary to his friend Gobleka, especially if his home was somehow impossible to detect.’
‘Perhaps not so impossible,’ said Drusher.
Eisenhorn stared at him. Jaff and Voriet looked taken aback.
‘My turn,’ said Drusher. ‘When I encountered Esic Fargul in the woods yesterday, however I encountered him, he said that Keshtre was a fortress near here, but down towards the pass.’
‘So you said,’ said Voriet.
‘We presumed he meant the Karad Pass, north of here, so that’s the area we’ve been looking at,’ said Drusher.
‘And there’s nothing here,’ said Macks.
Drusher opened the old man’s annotated text.
‘Fargul was a keen observer,’ he said. ‘See, how he made notes? The little things he noticed? He also knew a good deal about local history. His family had lived here for a long time. In these margin comments, he uses the phrase “the pass” several times. I didn’t notice it at first, because I assumed he meant Karad. But here, if you look, he refers to flocks massing at the pass before moving up into the hills.’
‘So?’ asked Jaff.
‘If they were massing at the pass,’ said Drusher, ‘they would already be in the hills. Karad is north of us, deep in the range. He meant somewhere else. To Esic Fargul, “the pass” was something else.’
Drusher pushed the annotated text aside and opened the geographical history.
‘In fact,’ he said, ‘it’s so obvious it’s a little embarrassing. Here… “Unkara” is derived from the Old Fent word for crossroads. Unkara Town is a crossroads… because it was founded on the best navigational transit point south of the Karanines. It is a major pass between the Karanine foothills and the southern uplands. A more significant pass than Karad, in fact. We don’t think of it that way, because there’s a town there now, but to an older local man like Fargul, that would be “the pass” and would require no further clarification.’
‘So, we’ve been looking in the wrong area?’ asked Voriet.
Drusher nodded. ‘I believe we have. Keshtre is not north of us towards Karad, it’s south of us towards Unkara Town.’
Audla Jaff sniffed.
‘Interesting,’ she said. ‘But if that’s what you have to share, magos, it’s comparatively minor. You have used a paltry scrap of expertise to leverage far more information from us.’
‘Well,’ said Drusher, ‘that’s what good investigators do, isn’t it, Master Nayl?’
‘I think,’ said Nayl, covering his amusement, ‘we should go back to the maps and see what’s south of us.’
‘There’s nothing south of us either,’ said Jaff, annoyed.
‘Actually, I think there is,’ said Drusher. ‘I hadn’t finished, Mamzel Jaff. I happened upon this too.’
He put the third book in front of him. It was an old volume of a larger format, its green card cover faded by the years.
‘This was in the library,’ said Drusher. ‘It’s Esic Fargul’s sketchbook. He was carrying it the day I met him.’
‘Yesterday,’ Nayl reminded him.
‘Whatever day yesterday was, Master Nayl,’ said Drusher. He opened the book. Its pages were age-spotted and frail. Many loose leaves and sheets of paper had been stuffed into it, held between the covers by the tie ribbon. Drusher turned over drawings of the deep valley, of trees, of pools and tumbled stones, overgrown.
‘He liked this country,’ said Drusher. ‘He drew it a lot. Sometimes, the same location over and over. He liked the river. He also liked the old fortresses. He made many studies of them. Especially the ruined ones. Look at this.’
He pushed one sketch onto the table so they could all see it. It showed two broken stones in a woodland clearing.
‘The note at the bottom says “Ballion Fortress”. It’s clearly nothing more than a few stones. But to Fargul, it was a fortress still. Ballion is not on any of the maps, but it is listed in the indices of several histories as a Karanine fort. So, Fargul, with his love of local lore, knew the old sites even when published history had forgotten them. Now look at this one.’
Drusher spread the sketchbook open. It was a fine graphite sketch of a mountain pool, fed by three brooks and overhung on the rising side by huge blocks of tumbledown stone swathed in moss.
‘I watched him draw this,’ said Drusher. ‘It’s where I met him.’
Eisenhorn got up and limped around the table to Drusher’s side. He hunched over, one hand on the tabletop, and studied the sketch.
‘Your auto-
séance, sir,’ said Drusher. ‘It did not conjure the old man from his grave at random. It conjured him to tell me something important. I just didn’t know what until now. See what he wrote beneath the drawing?’
‘Ruins beside pool,’ Eisenhorn read out. ‘Keshtre watch gate.’
‘I thought the old stones were a southern watchtower for Helter,’ said Drusher, tapping the picture. ‘But they are, in fact, a northern watchtower of Keshtre.’
‘This was in the library all along?’ asked Eisenhorn.
‘Yes,’ said Drusher. ‘Sark really was Fargul’s neighbour.’
Eisenhorn straightened up. For a second, he placed his hand on Drusher’s shoulder. Drusher wasn’t sure if the inquisitor was simply seeking support as he rose, or if he was fleetingly expressing some form of appreciation.
‘This was in the library all along?’ he repeated. He was looking at Audla Jaff.
‘I thought you’d been through every book in the library, Mam Jaff?’ asked Garofar.
‘I hadn’t got to every single volume,’ said Jaff sharply. She restrained herself. ‘I was working methodically. There were still a hundred or so volumes to be assessed. I clearly hadn’t got to that one yet.’
She looked at Eisenhorn.
‘My sincere apologies, sir,’ she said. ‘You know my work to be thorough and–’
Eisenhorn raised his hand.
‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘Let’s find the house this ruined gate belongs to.’
THIRTEEN
Gates of Keshtre
Drusher buttoned up his old coat and wandered into the yard to join the others. It was late morning, and the sun was out. Most of the party were checking their walking gear or their weapons. Eisenhorn stood apart, talking to Betancore.
As he approached, Drusher overheard the end of their conversation.
‘I still say you need to rest and leave this to Voriet,’ Betancore was saying.
‘Not an option, Medea.’
‘Then at least give me a few hours to find a decent ATV to–’
‘I can walk. The ground is too steep and the forest too dense for a vehicle.’
‘Then I’ll walk with you every step of the way–’
‘No,’ Eisenhorn said. ‘I want you at the landing zone, prepped. We may have need of heavier support.’
‘Gregor, we don’t have the sort of heavy support that–’
‘I know we don’t have him, Medea. Throne knows I wanted to bring him, but these days he’s too wayward. It would have taken all my effort just to keep him in line. We’ll have to manage without.’
Medea Betancore glared at her master uncertainly, then noticed Drusher approaching.
‘Magos,’ she nodded. She looked back at Eisenhorn.
‘I’ll see you later,’ she said.
They left the gatehouse and walked down-range into the forest. The sun had raised a mist from the forest floor, and it fumed like smoke through the glades. Macks and her deputies led the way in a loose line, followed by Nayl and Voriet, with Eisenhorn, Jaff and Drusher bringing up the rear. The progress was leisurely, mainly held back by the speed of the inquisitor’s progress.
‘You didn’t have to accompany us, magos,’ said Jaff.
‘Well, I feel I’ve come this far,’ replied Drusher lightly. ‘I’d like to see the rest.’
‘Do you know what the rest is?’ she asked.
‘No, mam, which is why I want to see it.’
‘A man should sometimes be careful about what he wants,’ said Jaff.
Jaff moved on ahead, leaving Drusher to keep pace with Eisenhorn.
‘She’s right,’ Eisenhorn said. ‘You may regret this, magos.’
‘Because it’s going to be dangerous, sir?’
‘Yes,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘There is a chance you won’t survive the experience. Or worse–’
‘There’s a worse?’
‘Always. That you may survive it and wish you hadn’t. That the memories will haunt you for the rest of your days.’
A redbeak trilled in a nearby tree.
‘Tell me about the case,’ said Drusher.
‘The case?’
‘Goran Gobleka. The Cognitae. I may as well know as much as possible, so I can be of as much use as possible. I’m hardly a security risk if I’m going to be dead or insane by the end of the day.’
‘The Cognitae are a secret order,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘You might think of them as a cult, or coven. Their organisation is very old. It may even predate the founding of the Imperium. Certainly, in the last few centuries, it has enjoyed a resurgence in these subsectors. The Cognitae are a pernicious threat to the very foundations of our society. They are ruthless, and they employ dangerous levels of intellectual rigour.’
‘What do they want?’ asked Drusher.
‘What does anybody want?’ replied Eisenhorn. ‘Power. Mastery. Control. They believe that the domination of our culture, and indeed the liberation of our species, lies in the use of forbidden knowledge. Lore that is heretical in nature and too dangerous for man to know. The secrets of the Archenemy, and the wisdom of the warp.’
‘Do you mean… magic?’
‘That is a misleading term, but, like “ghost”, it will serve as far as you’re concerned. The Archenemy of man has the means to unlock and control the very fabric of reality. The Cognitae wish to acquire that ability for themselves.’
‘And you’re hunting them?’
‘One way or another, for most of my life, I have worked to eradicate their evil,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘In the last two decades, I have begun to unravel what I believe is a significant initiative on behalf of the Cognitae. An endeavour to achieve something of great magnitude.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know, magos. They hide well. They work in secret. They recruit very effectively. They establish secret scholams on many worlds, institutions where they raise and train prospective members, radicalising them in the process. I have uncovered several, and learned scraps. I piece those scraps together. Whatever they are working towards, it is momentous. Lilean Chase–’
‘Who’s she?’
‘A key member of the Cognitae. One of their adepts, brilliant and misguided. Perhaps their leader in this quadrant. My hunt is for her in particular. A heretic of the most toxic kind. My intelligence suggests she works towards, or perhaps for, something called the Yellow King. This may be a person, or an entity, or simply a condition… A state of power and enlightenment. She must be found and stopped.’
‘And this Goran man?’
‘One of the scraps, magos,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘Part of the Cognitae network. He seemed lower priority, which is why I assigned Thea Inshabel to follow his trail. I fear she found something more. I fear Goran Gobleka was not low priority at all.’
‘This magic stuff…’ Drusher began.
‘Don’t dwell on it, Drusher.’
‘It is beyond my remit anyway, sir,’ replied Drusher, ‘but your man Nayl, he spoke of… uh… words of power. Words that can somehow break it.’
‘Words may break it, but they also form it,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘One of the Cognitae’s most cherished goals is to unlock and rediscover Enuncia. This is a language of power, a pre-human language, that can literally manipulate reality. Apart from a few words and letters, no one knows it entirely. Lilean Chase has spent most of her life trying to decode it and build a working lexicon.’
‘But you use it?’
‘We use our enemies’ weapons against them,’ said Eisenhorn.
‘So you’re not above heretical knowledge yourself?’
‘It is the curse of the ordos, magos. We need to know the Archenemy so we can prevail against him. That is why we stand in the shadows, why we walk alongside mankind and not as part of it. We are tainted by the knowledge we must use. It drives most of us to our dooms, eventually.’
‘To your graves?’
‘Or worse,’ said Eisenhorn.
‘Why do you do it?’ asked Drusher. ‘And don’t say �
��because someone must” or anything like that.’
‘Why are you a magos biologis, Drusher, when that calling has apparently given you a life you resent?’
‘Because I’m good at it,’ said Drusher.
‘Yes,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘It’s sad, isn’t it?’
They reached the pool. But for the low blanket of mist in the surrounding area, it was much as Drusher remembered it from the previous day. Nayl, Voriet and the deputies went ahead to scout, leaving Macks and Audla Jaff with Eisenhorn and Drusher.
Eisenhorn limped to the old, mossy stones and began to examine them. He took off his gloves to run his bare hands across their surfaces.
Drusher watched the birds in the nearby trees for a while and counted off eight species. Then he wandered over to join Eisenhorn.
‘Do they know you’re hunting for them?’ he asked.
‘Who?’
‘The Cognitae? This Chase woman?’
‘Yes, magos.’
‘And it would seem, from the fate of your poor associate Thea, they knew you had come close here.’
‘It would.’
‘Are you familiar with the white tile spider?’ asked Drusher.
‘Pretend I’m not,’ replied Eisenhorn.
‘It’s small, but venomous. An arachnid. Black, but with a small white square on its abdomen, hence the name. Elusive. It is preyed upon by a number of small lizard species. It has a habit of killing greenback beetles, which the lizards consider to be a delicacy. It does not eat the beetles. It leaves them dead, near its lair. This attracts the lizards, who feed on the beetles and slowly become paralysed by the venom the white tile has injected into their bodies. Once the lizards are helplessly inert, the white tile emerges and kills them. It kills and feeds upon its own mortal enemy, creatures many times larger and more powerful than itself.’
‘That was an analogy, wasn’t it?’ said Eisenhorn.
‘The bodies you’ve found here in the Karanines,’ said Drusher. ‘That appears to me to be the oddest fact of all. Whatever’s afoot here, whatever secret endeavour, why leave them where they can be found? Why draw attention where no attention was being paid?’
‘You think this is a trap, magos?’
