by Dan Abnett
+Carl, perhaps you could rustle up some wine and some food for our guests?+
Carl nods. ‘No problem, sir.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Gideon,’ Myzard says, sitting down again.
‘What about Molotch?’ Nayl asks. Everyone looks around at him.
‘Did I say that out loud?’ he adds. ‘Good. What about Molotch?’
‘What about him?’ asks Fenx.
‘He’s loose. He’s free. He’s out there.’
‘Out where?’ asks Inquisitor Lilith.
Nayl shrugs a shoulder. ‘Out there. In Basteen.’
‘We’ve no reason to suppose he’s here.’ says Fenx.
‘Haven’t you?’ Nayl asks. ‘We have.’
‘Evidence it,’ demands Claudel.
Nayl pauses. I feel for him. He is so loyal. ‘I can’t just do that. It’s—’
+It’s a hunch.+
Myzard stares at my chair. ‘A hunch?’
+Don’t look at me like that, Ermina. A hunch. Yes, a hunch. I do that, and look what I do.+
‘So noted. I trust you. But a hunch?’
+He’s here.+
‘A hunch is not enough.’
+I have… faith.+
Myzard and Fenx exchange looks.
+Molotch must be brought in. He’s been at large for too many years. He’s rabidly dangerous. That’s why I’ve stayed out so long, ignoring your calls. I have to bring him in.+
‘You’re too close, Gideon.’
+That’s why I’m the one to do it.+
‘No, you’re too close, Gideon.’ Myzard repeats. Carl comes back in with a tray of drinks, and Myzard takes one. ‘Molotch is your nemesis. You’re twinned in destiny. Such a long, involved duel you’ve fought, down the years. You’re too close. It’s becoming a disadvantage.’
+I don’t believe so.+
She sips her drink. ‘That’s your prerogative. But I’m telling you this, Gideon, in all frankness… the reason you’ve never brought Molotch down is that you’re too close and therefore not the man to do it.’
+Rubbish.+
‘How many times have you killed him now?’ Lilith asks. ‘Two? Three?’
+He’s tenacious.+
‘He’s nigh-on bloody invulnerable to you,’ Myzard smiles. ‘Molotch isn’t here, Gideon. He’s fled. You’re obsessed, and tired, and too long on the chase. You’re needed elsewhere. Let other, fresher minds hunt Molotch down.’
+You might be right,+ I concede.
‘I am right. Good wine, by the way.’ Myzard puts her glass down.
+I’ll take your word for it.+
‘We are very able, inquisitor.’ says Fenx.
+I’m sure you are, sir.+
‘We will find Molotch and bring him to justice.’ says Lilith.
+Am I allowed to ask how?+
Myzard nods. ‘We have agents active all across the subsector. Some are uncovering strong leads. Fenx and his team leave Tancred tonight for Sancour. In two days, Lilith and her party head out for Ingeran. Six hours later, my interrogator here, Ballack, commands a party to the Halo Stars.’
+You say you have leads?+
‘Currency accounts on Sancour have been traced to Molotch,’ says Fenx. ‘They’ve been accessed in the last month. That’s a strong lead.’
‘I have sourced Cognitae holdings on Ingeran to Molotch,’ says Lilith. ‘Orfeo Culzean has territory there. Someone is trying to dissolve those assets. That’s also a strong lead.’
‘Orfeo Culzean’s collection of deodands was shipped out, via an unnamed cash wafer, to Encage, three weeks ago,’ says Ballack. ‘The collection had been held by the hotel at Petropolis. They were routed as cargo on a bulk trader.’
+I know. Don’t waste your time. It’s a double blind.+
Ballack shrugs. ‘We’ll see.’
‘It’s over, Gideon. You can stop now, and rest,’ Myzard says.
+All right,+ I sent.+He’s your problem now. Just don’t come crying to me when—+
‘Might I have some more wine?’ Myzard asks, holding up her glass.
‘YOU’RE JUST GOING to roll over on this?’ Kara asks after Myzard has gone.
+I think so. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life hunting Molotch?+
She stands beside me in the courtyard of the house. Evening has stretched the shadows out into long, grey lines.
‘No,’ she answers. She looks at me. ‘Because I don’t believe it will take the rest of our lives.’
+Because we’re close?+
‘Because we’re close. You believe so, so does Patience. You feel it.’
+It’s still just a hunch. I have no solid proof. I felt quite embarrassed trying to explain it to Myzard and her people. Trying to justify…+
‘What?’
+Gregor trained me to follow my instinct. But he also warned me against obsession.+
‘He should talk,’ she smiles.
+I’ve been sparring with Zygmunt Molotch for a lifetime, Kara. Myzard’s right. It’s become too personal. I can’t see past it. So I have to let it go. The repair of Eustis Majoris is an obligation I cannot ignore. Every word they spoke was correct. In fact, I think they were quite diplomatic about it, all things considered. I have a duty to the rank I hold. I bested Molotch soundly and should content myself with that. For Throne’s sake, let others waste their days hunting the mad bastard to his doom.+
Kara shakes her head and sits down on one of the stone benches. Over the years I have come to appreciate how gorgeous she is. Not beautiful like Kys, but warm and curved and appealing. I have known her physicality from inside, waring her on so many occasions. She is the closest thing to a lover I can claim any more, although only in the most tenuous, perverse sense. And now she has another in her life. A man who can provide her the simple, human consolations I will never manage. I know she feels this too. She has been far more unwilling to let me ware her lately. I chide myself that I am a fool for feeling cuckolded.
I am surprised and, I hate to admit it, delighted by her persistence.
‘What about closure?’ she asks.
+It’s overrated.+
Kara snorts. ‘Since when? Gregor always chased proper closure.’
+And look where he ended up. That’s not for me. I have strayed as radically as I am comfortable with. I will not plunge on and become a rogue.+
I can taste the disappointment in her suddenly, even though I am not touching her mind. She cannot hide it. ‘What about the rest of us, Gideon?’ she asks.
+What about you?+
‘Did you not consider that we might need closure too? For Majeskus? For Norah and Will and Eleena? For Zeph?’
+That’s low.+
‘But it’s true.’
+Service is its own reward.+
‘Not actually,’ she says, getting to her feet. ‘For you, maybe.’
+I thought you’d be pleased.+
‘Pleased?’
+We’ll be here another week while I get my affairs in order. Then we’ll return to Eustis Majoris. Once there, it will be a long and forensic process of evaluation and report. The team will be non-active. It would be a good time for self-review and reorganisation. For changes. I thought you would be pleased at the opportunity.+
‘Again, “pleased”?’
+I have sensed there is something on your mind, Kara. I think I know what it is.+
‘There’s nothing on my mind.’
+There is—+
‘There’s nothing! Get into my head if you want to! Take a look! But stop inferring from my surface moods! There’s nothing!’
+Very well.+
‘I mean it.’
+I can tell.+
She stares at me. She seems angry. Or is it guilty?
+I won’t probe. I trust you.+
For a fleeting moment, Kara looks let down. She begins to walk away. ‘We need closure,’ she says.
+We got it. On Eustis Majoris, we got it. The rest is just housework.+
‘But you
had a hunch,’ she says. ‘Your instinct told you he was here.’
+Kara, I hate to diminish myself in your eyes, but it’s quite possible I have been fooling myself. History makes me want to finish the business with Molotch and, moreover, I have little appetite for the arduous chores awaiting me on Eustis. This chase has become displacement activity, putting off the inevitable. Yes, I had a hunch. Just a hunch, and sometimes they don’t pay out.+
‘Yours always do,’ she says. Throne, how those words will come to haunt me.
+Not this time. Molotch isn’t here. My hunch is empty air. It’s time we stopped this and got on with something useful.+
FOUR
NAKED, ORFEO CULZEAN lay face down on a suspensor couch, and allowed the inker to finish composing the final deed across the small of his back. Culzean found the tiny prickle and pinch of the inker’s needles quite stimulating. The quiet gave him time to think, space to think. The tiny pain kept his thoughts sharp. His mind was a huge, purring engine, always active, and it benefited from reflection. Time to think, to consider, to pace around a problem and survey it, end to end.
‘In my experience.’ he said out loud, ‘the Imperium is full of holes, and the trick is to identify those holes and exploit them.’
Working tightly with his steel needles, dabbing them occasionally into the ink pots spread out on the floor beside his knees, the inker grunted acknowledgement. He did not understand Culzean’s words, because Culzean was speaking idrish, a Halo Star dialect he’d picked up in his formative years. The inker assumed his client was murmuring some pain-relieving mantra. People often found the needle work excruciating.
‘I mean, billions and billions of lives, all herded and ordered by a vast bureaucracy. You find the spaces in that, you see. The gaps. You don’t disrupt the system, for that makes you visible. You inhabit the voids within its structure and disappear.’ The inker grunted again.
Culzean shook his head. Fools, idiots. They were all fools and idiots. Except Molotch and Ravenor. And for the benefit of the former and the beguiling of the latter, he was engaged in this present business. It was a task few men could have risen to. But he was singular. And there would be rewards. My, what rewards there would be.
The exclave’s perimeter alarm buzzed quietly. Lucius Worna got up to see to it. The huge, scar-faced bounty hunter, brought into Culzean’s employ by fate and circumstances, had been sitting silently in a dark corner of the room like a stone idol. Culzean thought Worna an impressive specimen, though he preferred to work with more subtle, delicate tools. But there were times when the crude muscle and firepower of a beast like Worna were indispensable.
After a minute or so, Worna reappeared through the door at the end of the long room, followed by Leyla Slade and Molotch himself. The candles flickered in the draft. ‘Leyla! Zygmunt!’ Culzean called, looking up. ‘Busy?’ she asked, grinning. ‘Naked busy?’
‘You are a tease, Leyla Slade.’ Culzean chuckled. ‘The nice man with the needles is almost done.’
The exchange had been made in Low Gothic, and the inker understood it. ‘I am almost completed.’ he said.
Leyla nodded. ‘Making us legal?’ she asked her master in idrish. Molotch looked on.
‘Just so.’ Culzean replied in the same dialect. ‘The deeds to the exclave, transferred to my skin. All legal and above board. This work makes us invisible to the system.’
Tancred’s properly laws were obtuse and ancient. Ownership of land, dwellings, estates and slaves were considered binding only when they were tattooed onto flesh. A man had to have the deeds of his legacy pricked into his skin before the legislature would regard him with any genuine authority. The Guild of Inkers was an ancient and trusted office, and plied their trade in the merchant quarters. When deeds were transferred, existing tattoos were blacked out. To be blacked was to be disowned or disinherited. Certain ruthless and prosperous landowners entered the legislature wearing the dry, rustling skins of those they had inherited from, like capes.
The exclave was a little system of towers and habitats situated on the north end of the central city arm. Culzean had owned it for twenty years, since a certain deal he’d made, but he’d had the deeds held on the skin of a seneschal, a man in his pay. Now he had returned to claim the site, he’d paid the seneschal off, had the deeds blacked, and was having them rewritten on his own flesh. The seneschal had been remunerated well for his service. And then killed and disposed of by Lucius Worna. Culzean was not a man to take chances.
‘We’re almost done,’ Culzean said in idrish.
‘Well, hurry up. I have things I want to talk about.’ Molotch replied. He had wandered around the couch and was examining the inker’s needles. He had also spoken in idrish.
Culzean looked at him. ‘My friend, I had no idea you were fluent.’
‘I’m not. But it’s easy enough to pick up.’
‘From a few sentences?’
‘Orfeo, I believe you still underestimate me.’
‘He’s a wonder.’ Leyla said brightly. ‘And he has a trick with a gun too that—’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘It’s done.’ said the inker in Low Gothic, rising.
‘Thank you,’ said Culzean, gathering up his robes as he stood.
‘There is the matter of payment, sir.’ the inker mentioned, delicately.
‘I’ll cover it.’ said Molotch in idrish. He weighed the needle he was holding and then, very simply, flicked it. It impaled the inker through the right tear duct, sticking out like an unnaturally long eyelash. The inker wavered. An ink-stained tear track ran down his right cheek. Then he fell, dropping onto his knees initially, then folding at the waist so his upper body crashed face first onto the tiled floor. Leyla Slade winced. The face-on impact had driven the needle in up to the stub.
‘Coins would have sufficed,’ Culzean said mildly. Lucius Worna chuckled a deep, dirty laugh.
‘I would like to have a proper conversation with you, Orfeo.’ Molotch said, taking a seat.
‘That sounds ominous,’ Orfeo replied. ‘Drink?’
‘Secum.’ said Molotch. Orfeo nodded to Leyla. ‘For all of us,’ he said.
‘What about-?’ Leyla asked, glancing at the inker’s corpse, kneeling as if in prayer.
‘I don’t think he needs anything.’
‘I meant—’
‘I know, Ley. We’ll clean up later. Zygmunt here has things on his mind.’
Leyla brought the secum in heated drinking kettles. Culzean sipped, and arched his back a little to relieve the pressure on his raw tattoos. ‘What’s on your mind, Zygmunt Molotch?’
Molotch smiled. His smile, like his face, was woefully asymmetrical. ‘Let me begin by saying I am in your debt. There’s no question about that. You pulled me out of Petropolis when my plans came apart, and for six months you have protected me. I was telling Leyla this earlier. I owe you and I appreciate it. There’s no guile here. When I can, I will reward you handsomely.’
Culzean nodded politely. ‘And the “but” is?’
‘I fear we are about to clash, you and I,’ said Molotch. ‘I broach this topic in the hope that we can avoid such an eventuality. But we will clash, sooner or later.’
‘Your reasoning?’
‘By any reasonable scale, I am an abnormal intellect. An alpha, a plus alpha. With due respect, judging from the time we have spent together, I see you are too.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You are a genius, Orfeo. The Cognitae would have been proud to own you.’
‘Again, thank you. Are you trying to get me into bed, Zygmunt?’
Leyla chuckled.
Smiling again, Molotch shook his head. ‘We are both manipulators, schemers, plotters. We both discern patterns where others see only nonsense. We can create and drive extravagantly complex ploys and see them to fruition. In short, we are, I fear, too much alike for it to be healthy.’
Culzean sipped from his kettle again, and then set it down.
‘I agree with everything you’ve said so far. Go on.’
‘If we work together, we could do unimaginable things. But we are not together in this. You call the shots. You do not confide in me. To begin with, this was expedient. Now, it has become a handicap. There is a real danger we will conflict, and tear each other apart. What I’m saying is, we need to be frank with one another.’
‘Frank is good.’
Molotch rose to his feet. ‘I’m not playing, Culzean. Since Petropolis, I have been your cargo, your trophy. I am valuable to you. I imagine you could earn a tidy sum by delivering me to all manner of interested parties. That is something I would not tolerate.’
‘Really?’ asked Culzean, sitting back, aware that, behind him, Leyla Slade had risen quietly and Lucius Worna had taken a step closer. ‘You know, Zygmunt, that sounds ungrateful. I pulled you out of the furnace, but now I’m not useful any more?’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘That’s how it sounds.’
‘It sounds like it sounds. I believe we could do great works together. But as partners. Not like this.’
Culzean got up and faced Molotch. Slade closed in beside him. ‘You are alive because I made it so,’ Culzean said. You have evaded capture and execution because I made sure of your safety. I have watched over you, schemed to protect you. Worked hard to—’
‘I understand—’
‘Ravenor would—’
‘Ravenor has been behind us every step of the way!’ Molotch snarled. ‘Every step! He has followed us and hunted us and haunted us everywhere we’ve gone these last six months! He—’
‘That’s the point,’ Culzean said, quietly.
‘What?’
‘That’s the point!’ It was one of the few times Leyla Slade had ever heard her master raise his voice.
‘Where better to hide than in that bastard’s shadow?’ Culzean asked softly. ‘You are the most wanted man in the sector, Zygmunt. Where do we go? In, towards the core? Not with your face on every tracking warrant and wanted list. What about out, into the Halo? No… because there’s nothing out there! All we could do is hide! To work our magic, you and me, we have to stay inside the system. That’s what I’ve been doing. Ghosting Ravenor’s every move. Staying in his shade, in his blind spot. Your great enemy is hiding us by his very presence.’
