The Inquisition War

by Ian Watson

  Stalinvast, and the ceremony to be enacted there, was a pivot of cosmic consequence, a stage for vaunting hopes and ghastly fears – which Baal Firenze would invade, because the hydra cabal hoped to purge the galaxy clean not only of the peril of Chaos but also of all aliens too...

  Though how had Firenze contrived to retain the confidence of the Masters of the Ordo Malleus?

  While the land-train proceeded through the desert, Jaq analysed and re-analysed until his soul ached.

  NINE

  Dreadnought

  THE MASTER OF the land-train had been accurate about the fortress.

  Under the two kilometre-high vault of vast Sandhouse, Jared Kahn’s (or rather, Ziz’s) citadel sprawled upward for half a kilometre and more of brick-clad plasteel canted against a pillar and partly enclosing it. Gargoyles jutted; the tusky tooth-crammed homicidal visages of orks. Had green-skinned alien pirates descended upon Darvash and raided Sandhouse at some time in the past? Had this stronghold been a bastion of human resistance? The citadel seemed ancient. Here and there, where sections of facade had loosened and fallen, the metallic under-fabric could be seen.

  Was that substance not plasteel, after all, but adamantium? Difficult to tell in the crepuscular gloom. The towering half-cone of the edifice could probably resist the attentions of a battle cannon – not that the Darvashi would dream of allowing such a destructive weapon inside any of the colossi wherein they dwelled as parasites.

  The citadel was at the southern end of Sandhouse, far from the land-train depot and just two pillars away from the massive perimeter wall.

  Notions of battle cannons were irrelevant. Deceit was the key to entering Ziz’s citadel. Honest guile.

  Soon they discovered wherein lay the error of which the dying assassin had gasped.

  In a colossal fan-vaulted hall, lit meagrely by a few electro-flambeaux and almost a quarter of a kilometre above the gateway, Jared Khan granted his visitors audience.

  Jaq had told the guards at the gateway that he had certain precious information for the ears of their master alone. Cryptically Jaq mentioned an assassin wearing Lips.

  Why, of course the master was intrigued. Naturally he would grant an interview after his visitors surrendered their weaponry. Information was protection. These informants need never emerge from the citadel again.

  None of the guards who escorted the trio lingered in that great hall. What need of guards? Ziz was his own guard.

  When Meh’lindi had last seen the erstwhile Director Secundus of her shrine, he had been a short compact swarthy man, of Grimm’s stature or even more stunted – a lethally dangerous dwarf. Rune-wrought rings upon his sinuous fingers had contained tiny doses of powerful poisons and hallucinogens and paralytic toxins. His natural teeth had been replaced with canines coloured scarlet and black. That pygmy body was omega-dan, by all accounts. No master of martial arts could match it, except perhaps the Supreme Director of Callidus.

  What now confronted her and Jaq and Grimm was literally a killing machine.

  A machine twice the height of Meh’lindi. Its towering hull was made of ceramite – in so far as one could see the actual hull! Upon that resilient casing were hung hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of petite blades. Tiny archaic knives, some of them no larger than a fingernail. These hung like some glistening secondary razor-armour of steel swarf from lathes.

  On one of the monstrosity’s metal arms was mounted a power fist. This could pick up a man effortlessly and wring him dry, compressing him to the width of his spine. The other arm sported an assault cannon with six separate rotatable barrels which might spit hundreds of shells every second.

  Crystal lenses regarded the intruders. A synthetic voice issued from a grille.

  ‘I appreciate your surprise...’

  Meh’lindi seated herself in a double lotus position upon the reinforced plasteel floor. She averted her eyes respectfully or in a convincing semblance of respect. She observed the ritual of obeisance even if no human being nor even a genestealer with its powerful claws could realistically launch an assault on this armoured mass with a hope of scratching it.

  Scratch it, indeed! Irrespective of the impregnable ceramite hull, anyone leaping at this prodigy would be sliced to pieces by those blades.

  Meh’lindi well remembered Ziz’s collection of miniature vintage knives. These had decorated one whole wall in his quarters in the Callidus shrine. Now they ornamented the prodigious machine which confronted her. A pair of slim steel tentacles were coiled like whips below the armpits of those bulky limbs which sported the cannon and the power fist. Surely these whips could unfurl, pluck any knife from its position, and toss it.

  Evidently this fighting machine did not indulge in target practice with knives within this hall. The metal walls of the hall were pitted but neither by knife points nor yet by decorative hammering. The monstrous machine must occasionally loose off a salvo simply to enjoy the percussion of ricocheting shrapnel.

  ‘Am I not formidable?’ asked the voice.

  ‘So you are, Secundus,’ agreed Meh’lindi. She retained her submissive posture.

  ‘Secundus? Secundus? What is this?’ The power fist flexed its massive metal fingers. ‘Am I not Jared Khan?’

  ‘You are Tarik Ziz,’ she replied. The power fist crushed empty air.

  ‘How can anyone be sure what is within this dreadnought?’

  Indeed, it was a dreadnought such as the fabricators on Mars still strove to fashion after ancient designs for the Emperor’s knights. ‘But, master,’ she said, ‘it is ornamented with Tarik Ziz’s special collection of tiny knives.’

  Ornamented? Are these mere ornaments? One of the whips uncoiled lazily. Its tip wrapped unerringly round the tiny haft of one petite knife. Would the knife fly towards Meh’lindi? What drug or toxin might there be on the burnished blade?

  There was such subtlety in the flexure of that whip. Yet the dreadnought was so brutally bulky. It must weigh many tonnes. How speedily could it manoeuvre within the confines – however ample – of such a citadel? On a battlefield, no doubt. But here indoors? Was this Callidus? Was this cunning?

  One must not underestimate the agility of this machine!

  ‘Indomitable dreadnoughts are rare even among the Chapters of the Space Marines,’ mused the synthetic voice, as if in answer to the unasked question. ‘If the mortal body of a Secundus were failing, yet he wished to avoid the risk of amnesia which rejuvenation often causes – and if he wished to retain his faculties intact! – and if Callidus were enough to obtain such a supremely protective device...!’

  The power fist opened up again. ‘In the womb within this dreadnought a body curls foetally, preserved. Now I am this dreadnought body; and it is myself. So puissant, so invulnerable; much more than omega-dan.’

  ‘That is Callidus indeed,’ said Meh’lindi. ‘It must have taken real cunning to relieve a Space Marine Chapter of one of these treasures.’

  ‘Aye,’ agreed the voice. Did Ziz recognize Meh’lindi yet? Did he realize that she, too, had lived beyond her natural span? Ach, there came a point in time when the most cunning villain must boast of his villainy. ‘Aye, it took years of planning. And the sacrifice of numerous loyal assassins. Who amongst all of the Adeptus Mechanicus knows how to construct one of these dreadnoughts perfectly today? Small wonder that the best are reserved for revered Space Marine heroes whose bodies were beyond repair yet in whom life flickered on indomitably, still striving to serve the Emperor – heroes who now survive to His glory within such a living machine as this!’ His tone, though mechanical, was almost ecstatic in its smugness.

  ‘Great cunning indeed,’ murmured Meh’lindi.

  ‘Aye, and great cunning demands great protection.’ The tentacle caressed a blade. The power cannon rotated slowly, humming. Electro-flambeaux flickered as if in awe.

  Plainly it was not only – nor even principally – the matter of the vile implants which had caused Tarik Ziz to flee into hiding. Ziz had used the resources of t
he Callidus shrine to finesse the theft of one of these sacred antique dreadnoughts from a Chapter of Space Marines! Somewhere in all the worlds, amidst the pandemonium of battle against some overwhelming enemy, a dreadnought had been downed. A skulking team of dedicated assassins had spirited the dreadnought away with them aboard a ship; all because Ziz had ordered it.

  Had the heroic foetal warrior’s body inside the dreadnought even been fully dead? Or had the crippled dreadnought subsequently been opened up to expose that great puissant posthumous foetus and extract it, so that it expired?

  The blasphemy of this.

  Was Jaq sub-vocalizing a prayer?

  Ziz’s private activities in preservation of his own life and memories had vilely injured a Chapter of Space Marines – did they but learn of this, ever? He must have corrupted some tech-priests too, to repair and refurbish and customize the dreadnought to his specifications. Small wonder that the Callidus shrine were patiently seeking for Ziz.

  And they had found him, here on Darvash.

  To wish to inhabit such a device so as to survive with all his memories intact, Ziz must truly be a megalomaniac. To wear – or rather to be – such a dreadnought, Ziz must be supremely paranoid.

  Perhaps justifiably paranoid.

  ‘MASTER,’ SAID MEH’LINDI. She rose lithely, though slowly and discreetly. She was holding the scrap of flesh and skin which she had bitten from the murdered assassin. The scrap had dried. She licked it, reviving the tiny tattoo of the vigilant eye – and held this up towards those crystal lenses looming over her.

  ‘Master, in Overawe I killed a Callidus man. He was following a scent of a rumour. I was following him, for my own reasons. Now he is dead and he cannot betray you.’

  Dead, yes. She had killed her colleague so spontaneously. Yet the man had never been wholly fooled by her – until that final moment. What, fooled by a tale of herself planning to attack this... dreadnought, while enduring dissection! The dead assassin had been trying to determine her true purpose. So as to gain additional information for Callidus, he’d been willing to expose himself. Even in death he had tried to correct her mistake about the nature of Tarik Ziz – in the hope that she might actually kill the apostate Secundus.

  All this while, Jaq had kept his counsel. Now he said to the dreadnought: ‘Tarik Ziz, we have an astropath on board our ship. Our astropath is primed to send a message to your former shrine reporting your presence here if we do not return safely within forty standard days. If anyone attempts to gain entry to our ship, which is sealed and shielded, the astropath will likewise report.’

  A crystal lens scrutinized Jaq. Could crystal seem cunning – and psychotic?

  ‘Forty standard days,’ repeated the voice. ‘What do you wish from me which will take so long? How can I be sure that you will not betray me afterwards, in any event?’

  ‘I swear it by Him-on-Earth, Tarik Ziz. I swear it in His holy name. We have no interest in your quarrel with your former shrine. That is no more to me than a flea in the hide of a cudbear.’

  ‘You must have some momentous mission, inquisitor.’

  Jaq hesitated. Then he summoned a bitter laugh.

  ‘A mission from no one at all, Tarik Ziz! I’m as much of a renegade as you are. What is it which drives the engine of the galaxy?’

  ‘Terror and death,’ suggested Ziz. Perhaps he meant terror of death.

  ‘Also,’ said Jaq, ‘hiding in the cracks of horror, just like a flea on that bear, there is love. Or should we call it obsession? I am in love with – I am obsessed with – this assassin here.’ What a disingenuous avowal! Especially if love consisted in delivering Meh’lindi up to appalling surgery... What a denial, besides, of true fidelity to Him-on-Earth.

  Though expressionless, Meh’lindi bowed her head as if in shame.

  ‘Meh’lindi,’ said the voice, acknowledging her at last by her name. ‘My talented chameleon... You see, I do remember. My faculties are not merely intact, but sublimely amplified.’

  His chameleon.

  What a poignant identification of her! Ziz had been responsible for denying her the expression of that talent which had freed her from herself, allowing her to mimic other roles and thus be more truly herself. Ziz had locked her into one possible option, and one alone: to masquerade as a monster!

  ‘You have worn well, Meh’lindi,’ said the voice, with a hint of angry envy.

  ‘She was in stasis,’ said Jaq dismissively. ‘What I require for my love – or else we betray you – is that you remove the implants from her body. I wish that by using polymorphine she can assume any form – the most beautiful, ravishing forms.’

  Grimm uttered a quiet groan.

  ‘True love, indeed,’ remarked Ziz. ‘Yours might be a romance of legendary proportion, inquisitor.’ Both of the steely whips caressed razor-sharp little knives. ‘How fortunate for you that I have kept up with my pastime of experimental surgery. To remove such embedded, organically fused implants will pose quite a challenge...’

  Surely this hulking dreadnought would not itself attempt such surgery using its tentacles and knives! That would be butchery. When originally Meh’lindi had been operated upon, several specialists had laboured hard and long, using intricate equipment which required the knowledge of many litanies. There had been a radiographer-adept and a chirurgeon, a soporifer-adept and a medicus...

  ‘A challenge to your chirurgeons,’ said Jaq emphatically.

  The synthetic voice gurgled in what might have been a simulation of laughter. ‘Never fear, I brought my sacred toys here with me, and their devout operators.’

  Those peculiar secretive companions of his... Yes indeed.

  ‘Yet I think I shall assist in the surgery,’ added the voice. ‘Who else but I knows best what was originally done?’ The dreadnought raised a massive foot and Grimm flinched back. The abhuman was afraid of being squashed like a bug.

  ‘I am filled with exhilaration by this opportunity to complete my experiment at last!’ declared the voice. ‘Existence has been a mite tedious lately, even with all my knives to appreciate and their histories to recall. How shall I best demonstrate my enthusiasm? Have you had opportunity to admire the sand dancers of Darvash?’

  The dreadnought began to turn.

  It stomped around in a circle, picking up speed.

  The reinforced floor reverberated thunderously as the killing machine whirled, stamping its feet. It was dancing gargantuanly and grotesquely. Its massive steel arms rose like burly wings. The power fist pointed one way. The assault cannon, the other. Let the dreadnought not open fire over the heads of the three stunned spectators while it gyrated around, or they would be deafened, then disabled by the ricocheting spray. Extended, the steel whips lashed the air. The dreadnought was a monstrous animated idol. Surely they must be its worshippers.

  Perhaps this bizarre display was a warning that the dreadnought was by no means cumbersome. Or else it was proof that Tarik Ziz was deranged.

  The dreadnought ceased its dance.

  ‘Forty days.’ The voice sounded calm and calculating now.

  ‘As I recall, the original implantation took six painstaking hours. Even if we use liberal applications of sanitas balm to promote speed healing, we must allow a week for recuperation from dissection and for postoperative scrutiny. I also presume that you did not travel here from your ship in less than a week. What contingency plans do you have, inquisitor, should a hurricane delay you seriously?’

  ‘It won’t, your magnificence,’ piped up Grimm. ‘Our land-train captain tossed the bones.’

  The dreadnought regarded the squat as a cud bear might eye a fire-ant.

  Jaq said hastily: ‘Our astropath is briefed for all eventualities.’

  As he said this, Jaq even believed it. Just so, on an earlier occasion during their intrusion into the Emperor’s palace, he had pretended to be an inquisitor and then had realized, to his wonderment, that he was indeed just that, and none other.

  ‘Our astropath is remark
able,’ he added.

  ‘I DON’T THINK you oughta go through with this,’ Grimm muttered to Meh’lindi, once they were in the chamber hung with silks and carpeted with furs which Ziz had assigned as their hospitality suite.

  Jaq frowned at the draped walls and at the glow-globes, and tapped his ear prudently.

  ‘I am but an instrument,’ murmured Meh’lindi. ‘An instrument... of love.’ Indeed this was true. She was trained as a courtesan as well as an assassin. ‘Do they not say,’ she added softly, ‘that love is often a torment?’

  NEXT DAY, IT was Meh’lindi’s old nightmare revisited – replayed in the setting of a plasteel cavern so brightly lit that light itself seemed like a scalpel blade.

  Wearing masks impregnated with frankincense for antisepsis, Jaq and Grimm watched from behind a screen of stained glass. This made what transpired within the operating theatre appear devotional, a sacred ceremony. Truly it must be so were it to succeed.

  The fragrant masks hid most of the expression upon Jaq’s face, and upon Grimm’s, except for the horror in their eyes. In Jaq’s case this must, to an observer, surely seem proof of his supposed mania for Meh’lindi.

  Jaq was determined to watch, to scarify his soul. Grimm made a gruff show of being technically minded. The squat kept his eyes on the operating machines and not upon the subject of their operations.

  Robed and tattooed, a tech-adept sat high on a lofty examinator machine, wired into its circuits. Brass-banded snouts scanned Meh’lindi as she lay spread naked upon the grooved table. From lens-eyes sprang holograms of her bloodstream and nerve network and skeleton, and, fluorescently, the glow of her implants.

  In an arachnid-like soporifer-machine sat a wizened adept. He was monitoring the trickle of metacurare which immobilized Meh’lindi and blocked all sensation in case she flinched.

  With one natural eye squinting obliquely at the holograms, and a magnificatory lens-eyes peering downward at her flesh, a servo-gloved chirurgeon manipulated the laser-scalpels dangling from a gantry.

  Incense lazed in the brilliant light like some vastly more diffuse and mutating hologram of what might have been Meh’lindi, grey with shock.