She decided, against all protocol, not to mention Durham Red for now.
"Hmm." Trophimus frowned. "This judgement is based on the reports of Major Gaius?"
The name, spoken by other lips, sent a blade through her. She stiffened slightly. "My lord, Gaius had been investigating rumours of a blood-cult on the fringes of the Accord for some weeks. He was convinced it was not connected to the Tenebrae, but was linked to some other, far older form of worship." She took a deep breath. "He believed that the cult might centre on the retreat-world of Lavannos, sacred moon of Mandus. It appears he was right."
"He was killed during his investigation."
"Yes, my lord. There is another agent on Lavannos, Major Ketta. Her report indicates that Gaius was butchered by the very cult he sought to expose."
"I see." Trophimus made an odd kind of grimace, as though he was wrestling with some internal dilemma. "I have had a request, Het Admiral. Archaeotech division would like a stay of execution on Lavannos."
"Archaeotech?"
"They also have heard rumours, apparently. Something about important pre-Bloodshed artefacts."
Antonia gaped. "Fleet admiral! We are discussing a dangerous cult here, the murder of an agent of the Accord! How can those imbeciles at Archaeotech even consider trying to stay my hand for the sake of some worthless trinkets?"
Trophimus spread his hands. "My thoughts exactly, Het Admiral. I don't expect for a minute that you will honour their request. I just wanted to make sure you knew about it."
Something in his tone gave Antonia pause. "Why?"
"Admiral, your methods polarise opinion in high command. There are those who consider you an innovative and honourable commander. Others hold a less charitable view."
That was no surprise. It was an open secret that Antonia was regarded as a dangerous throwback by several other admirals. "I see."
"I hope you do." He leaned forwards, and lowered his voice. "I beg you to tread carefully, admiral. There are things happening here, things I cannot discuss. Suffice to say that great changes will face us soon. Do not let yourself be overwhelmed by them, Huldah Antonia."
"I understand, fleet admiral. And thank you for your concern."
"The prompt completion of future reports would be nothing if not a help, Het Admiral." He winked at her and then vanished.
Antonia stared into the space he had left. "Goodbye, father," she whispered.
* * * *
She got back to the bridge with only minutes to spare. Othniel was decelerating from superlight speed.
The holo projectors had been slaved to a forward tactical view: a massive panel of light hung in their air, filled with the raging fires of jumpspace. As Antonia reached the rail, Othniel returned to the universe.
There was a lurch. The jump-shaft vanished, the searing flare of it scanning away to either side as the killship emerged from the tunnel. The prayer-chants changed cadence immediately, becoming strident battle-hymns.
Mandus, the titan gas-giant that gave Lavannos shelter, grew to fill the panel, orange light washing down over the bridge.
A disc of pure black hung at its centre.
"Orientate all antimat batteries for ground-fire," Antonia snapped. "Launch daggerships, Alpha and Beta shoals. Make sure the hunger-guns are woken and active."
She turned to Erastus. "Sub-captain, keep that world in your sights. I want it razed on my command."
"Thy will be done, Het Admiral." He grinned wolfishly. "Just give the word, and I'll burn it apart for you."
"I look forward to that." She put her hand on his shoulder, glaring at the black disc of Lavannos. "In the meantime, have my landing craft made ready, with a platoon of shock-troopers on board. I have a few things to attend to on the surface."
Not long now, my love, she thought grimly.
Not long at all.
12
Open
Durham Red had thought that the worst place she could wake up would be on the wheel, chained to the spokes, head back with a pair of blades around her skull. She was wrong.
She was on her back, lying on something hard and smooth. It was cold. She was shivering uncontrollably, her limbs shaking with the chill, and there was a terrible pain in the side of her neck. Whatever the monks had injected her with had burned through the skin as it had taken her down.
There was a bright light above her. It glared through her closed eyelids, so painful that she had to put up a hand to her face. Moving the arm hurt quite a lot, but the pain began to fade as control returned to her.
When she caught up with the ones who had dosed her, she resolved, very bad things would happen to them.
She turned aside, away from the light, and opened her eyes. For a moment all she could see was white, and wondered if something had happened to her eyes, but gradually a few details began to resolve in the glare. A wall, a few metres away. A small table or trolley, with bright things gleaming on it. The edge of what she was lying on. Her own bare arm.
Red sat up, hard. She didn't have her clothes on any more.
The bastards had stripped her. She wore nothing except a shapeless gown of grubby white fabric, tied loosely at the neck. No wonder she'd been cold.
Very slowly, she swung her legs around and down.
She was on a long, smooth slab of metal, indented like a shallow sink. There was a rusted drain at one end of it, a stained, bundled towel at the other. Her head had been resting on that. She reached back to the back of her neck, and her fingers came away wet.
What in sneck's name was going on here?
She clambered down off the table and looked around. The light above her was from a bank of lumes, extending from the ceiling on an adjustable arm. The walls of the room were bare, the smooth white stone of the monastery, and the floor was cold tile under her feet. There was a rough wooden table against one wall, a closed door opposite.
The trolley by the table was covered in implements.
Red prodded them gingerly. There was a saw, scalpels and syringes, a heavy-bladed butcher knife. A long, jointed thing like the leg of an insect, a handle at one end, a vicious point at the other. Everything was grimy and stained with rust.
Red pulled the front of the gown forwards, looking down the neck-hole. She breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever loathsome operation had been scheduled for this room hadn't happened yet. Maybe she'd woken too early, but a squad of monks and surgeons could be trooping towards her at any minute, itching to open her up and see what made her tick.
Let them try. She picked up the butcher knife, taking a moment to wipe off the handle on her gown.
The door wasn't locked. She pushed it open and looked outside. There was no one in sight, just a white-walled corridor stretching away in either direction. Doors, just like the one she was clutching, were set into the walls every few metres and they were all closed.
She had to be in the accommodation block, at the eastern side of the monastery. It was the only place big enough to house this corridor. And there she had been, in her room on the floor above this, never knowing there was an operating theatre under her feet.
Dear God, she'd left Judas Harrow here.
She walked out into the corridor and closed the door behind her. Both ends of the passage disappeared around corners, quite some distance away. She began to pad silently along the tiled floor, the knife held blade downwards in her fist.
After a few metres she stopped and listened hard. She could have sworn she had heard something ahead of her, around the corner.
There it was again. The sound of something heavy being dragged along the floor.
She was too open here, too exposed. If they had guns she'd be a sitting duck, and all she had was a butcher knife. It wasn't even balanced for throwing, too heavy in the blade. If she lugged it at anyone she'd be lucky to stun them with the flat of it.
There was a door alongside her. She turned the handle and pulled it open, glancing inside to make sure it was safe.
And realised, in one awfu
l instant, that safe wasn't a word she could apply here.
There was a man in the room. He was upright, leaning slightly forwards, bound by the arms and neck to a heavy wooden frame. He was naked, and his shaved head drooped forwards.
From throat to groin, he was open.
Red clapped a hand over her mouth. The man's ribcage gaped at her, the skin and flesh of his chest sliced and peeled back, fixed to the frame with rough metal nails. His ribs had been spread exquisitely, separated from the sternum and bent to clutch at the air like the petals of some monstrous flower. The organs they had once protected had been teased from their moorings to hang on an intricate collection of wire hooks.
Worst of all, he was still alive. His organs pulsed and throbbed. As Red stared, he lifted his heavy head to her.
He was trying to scream, but his mouth had been sewn shut.
Red slammed the door and backed away, her stomach churning. Was this what had been scheduled for her?
The dragging was getting closer.
She gritted her teeth and headed towards it. No matter if there was an army dragging a body along that corridor, she decided, she would rather face it with a rusty knife in her hand than open another one of these doors.
It was very close, now. The dragging was wet, laboured, mixed with a dull scraping. Hoarse, wheezing breath, and a sudden slapping sound. Two slaps, then a drag. A breath. And then the same, but closer.
There was nothing being dragged. Whatever it was, was dragging itself.
Red moved back from the corner. She couldn't look, couldn't see what that awful, tortured thing might be. She turned away.
The corridor was full of tendrils.
They were on her in seconds, billowing around her, slimy and corpse-cold. Before she could bring the knife up dozens of them were knotted around her arms, her legs. More wrapped around her head, forcing it back until her vertebrae cracked with the strain. She howled.
There was one tentacle bigger than the others, as thick as her arm. It levelled a viscous end at her, stayed waving, hovering, curled like a cobra ready to strike. Red tried to turn her head away, but the other tendrils held her tight, tearing her hair out by the roots. Fluid dripped from the big tentacle, sliming down her face.
Teeth erupted from its sides, saw-blades of pale bone, and it snapped forwards. Red felt it hammer into her mouth, past her jaw, the teeth ripping into her throat as it wormed its way down…
* * * *
And screamed herself awake.
"It's this place," said Godolkin dully. "It makes you dream."
Red looked madly about, panting. There was no monastery around her, no tentacles. She had her clothes on, or what was left of them. She didn't have a knife in her hand.
The real situation, if indeed this was real, was not much better.
She was bound, chained, heavy cuffs clamped tight around her wrists, locked to what felt like a cold metal bar that was lying along her shoulders, behind her neck. It was forcing her head forwards, so she couldn't see much of what was around her, but what she could see was black Lavannos stone. Behind her was a wide pillar and it was to this that she—and Godolkin, at least—were tied.
Her ankles were cuffed to another bar, joined to the top one by a vertical beam. The bonds were very, very strong.
She rattled uselessly. "I guess you've tried to get out of this," she growled.
"I have."
"Bugger."
"My sentiments exactly," muttered Harrow, from somewhere to her left.
Red twisted, trying to see him, but her head was too far forwards. "Jude? Are you okay?"
Harrow snorted. "Apart from being drugged, locked up in my room, then hauled out, beaten up and drugged again, I'm doing quite well, thank you."
"Godolkin?"
The Iconoclast shook his chains experimentally. "I have seen better times, Blasphemy, but I am unharmed. However, I do feel the situation is unlikely to improve."
"That's right," Red grated. "Keep your chin up." She yanked her head around, working her shoulders under the bar until she could see a little more to her right. There wasn't much to see: just stone walls, a low, wide doorway, some candles. "Anyone know where we are?"
"You are very close to immortality, Durham Red."
She knew that voice. "Well, if it isn't the abbot of Earl Grey. Have you come to let us out?"
"I'm afraid not." He came through the doorway, stooping slightly to get through. "I hear you've been having bad dreams."
"No more than usual." She wondered if he would get close enough for her take a bite out of him, but a second later more monks began filing through, all of them carrying frag-carbines. Which put paid to that notion.
"Really? It sounded quite unusual to me." The abbot smiled warmly. "It's quite an honour, you know. He doesn't speak to everyone."
Red blinked at him. "Who?"
"The Mighty One. The Mindfeeder. Him."
"Oh, I see! That brain-eating monster you've got in the drive chamber."
"In the drive chamber." The abbot seemed faintly amused at that. "Yes, my dear. Him."
"I didn't dream at all," said Harrow.
Godolkin had, thought Red, although she thought it probably wouldn't be a good idea to say it. "So, now me and tentacle-boy have had a chat, do I get to be a monk?"
The abbot raised his eyebrows and nodded to her. "Very perceptive. That is how we are usually chosen, yes. But I'm afraid in your case, that won't be possible. After all, I've gone to very great lengths to get you here, holy one."
"Abbot, it was I who called the Blasphemy to this world, not you."
The abbot sighed. "Godolkin, my old friend. You, with all your dreaming, would have made quite a good brother. Just not a very bright one." He walked around to face the Iconoclast, partly out of Red's limited view. "Getting her here has been something we've been working towards ever since the fall of Pyre. We couldn't find her, but we found you. On Cassita Secundus."
Godolkin made an exasperated hiss. "The pilgrim who recommended the retreat to me. He was one of yours."
"Of course he was. Actually, he was going to fill you full of drugs and have you shipped here, but you came so willingly of your own accord that he didn't have to bother. Once you were here, we knew you'd never be broken into revealing Durham Red's location, so it was a matter of getting you to call her." He was walking around the pillar, back towards Red. "I have a certain connection with him, you see. I can influence the dreams a little."
Red flailed a foot in the abbot's direction, but didn't even get close. "What about the cryo-tube, you snecker?"
"That, my dear, is called 'baiting the trap'." He rapped the wall with his knuckles. "This stuff flows like water if you get it hot enough."
"You planted the tube," said Godolkin quietly. It was probably starting to dawn on him how badly he'd been duped. "Everything else?"
"Everything else."
"The reliquary?"
"A store room."
"I have been a fool."
"Yes, yes you have. But console yourself, Matteus Godolkin. It took a very long time for you to fulfil your purpose. I had almost given up hope of you ever reaching out to her. The cryo-tube was my last chance."
"Where did you get it?" Red asked.
The abbot faced her. "Strangely enough, I do have a passing interest in archaeology. It's what I did before I came here. The tube was one of my prize finds."
"Pity you didn't find mine first. Then I'd have had your throat out, and saved everyone a lot of snecking trouble!"
"Temper temper…" The abbot gestured to two of the other monks. The men scurried out of Red's view and came back holding several long bars of the same metal she was chained to. She watched as they eased one bar through the one behind her ankles. She hadn't even realised that one was hollow.
Another bar slid behind her head. Once Godolkin and Harrow had been put through the same treatment, there was a heavy, metallic sound from deep inside the pillar. Red felt something unlock behind her, r
eleasing the bars and frame from the pillar's surface.
The full weight of the construction was suddenly hanging off her shoulders. She groaned, and felt herself tipping back. Before she could fall, four monks had darted forwards and grabbed the ends of the long poles. In seconds they had hauled her up, carrying her between them.
With gravity no longer pulling her down, her head was able to tip back, which felt good for a moment. Then it hit her.
Her head could go back. Sneck, they were going to put her on the wheel.
"No! Get me off of this thing, you snecking bastards!" She flung herself about on the frame, or tried to, but the chains were so short she couldn't get any momentum. The monks staggered a little, then laughed among themselves and set their feet a little wider. Red felt herself being lifted into the air.
The abbot was going out through the doorway. The monks began to follow, taking Red with them. She could hear Godolkin and Harrow being carried the same way.
The doorway led into the wheel room.
Red was dragged up the side of the thing, between the spikes set into the rim, and over onto the spokes. The poles locked down into braces, fixing her firmly in place. Her head lolling back, she got an upside-down view of the abbot watching her. "You sick bastard!" she snarled. "Did you come up with this thing?"
"Oh no. This has been here ever since Saint Lavann. He saw it in a dream, I believe." He reached out of her view, and when he came back he was holding a set of the horrible, bladed tongs. "It's only fitting that I give this gift to you, Durham Red," he told her calmly. "It's your mind that will wake Him, you see. He's asleep right now, dead and dreaming, but when your thoughts join with all the others He has fed on, He'll wake up." He leaned towards her, and whispered. "You really are a lucky girl. Oh, the dreams you'll have!"
"I'll dream of kicking your arse all the way to hell, you scumbag," she hissed.
He smiled, and raised the tongs. "Yes, I'm sure you very probably will."
The monk next to him exploded.
The man had been hit with a plasma charge, set at full heat. His body fluids flashed into steam, blasting his body apart in a shower of blood and pulverised meat, painting the abbot crimson from head to foot and blowing him across the decking. Red heard the tongs fly from his hands.
Durham Red: The Unquiet Grave Page 16
