by Various
‘Byzanthus is dead, hung an hour ago,’ she said dully, the black orbs of her eyes catching the light of the candle on the altar. ‘He held off the agents to make sure I escaped. None of the others got out.’
‘I did not betray you,’ Yakov told her, kneeling beside her.
‘I know,’ she said, turning to him and laying a hand on his knee.
‘I want to find out what is in that coffin,’ Yakov said after a few moments of silence between them. ‘Will you help me?’
‘I watched them; they didn’t take it anywhere,’ she replied distractedly, wiping at a tear forming in her eye.
‘Then will you go back there with me?’ he asked, standing up again and reaching a hand down to help her up.
‘Yes, I will,’ she answered quietly. ‘I want to know why they died.’
They took the overground route to the old aristocratic household, Lathesia leading him up a fire escape ladder onto a neighbouring rooftop. From there they could see two SSA stationed at the front entrance and another at the tradesman’s entrance to the rear. She showed him the ropeline hung between the buildings, tied there for escape rather than entry, but suitable all the same. Yakov kept his gaze firmly on his hands as he pulled himself along the rope behind the lithe young rebel leader, trying not to think of the ten metre drop to the hard road beneath him. As she helped him onto the rooftop of her one-time lair, a gentle cough from the darkness made them freeze. Out of the shadows strolled a man swathed in a heavy coat, his breath carving mist into the chill evening air.
‘A strange pastime for a preacher,’ he said as he stepped towards them, hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat.
‘Who are you?’ demanded Lathesia, her hand straying to the revolver wedged into the waistband of her trousers at the small of her back.
‘Please don’t try and shoot me,’ he replied calmly. ‘You’ll attract some unwanted attention.’
‘Who are you?’ Yakov repeated the question, stepping between the stranger and Lathesia.
‘An investigator, for the Inquisition,’ he told them stopping a couple of paces away.
‘An inquisitor?’ Lathesia hissed, panic in her eyes.
‘Don’t worry, your little rebellion doesn’t concern me tonight,’ he assured her, pulling his hands free from the coat and crossing his arms. ‘And I didn’t say I was an inquisitor.’
‘You are after the casket as well?’ Yakov guessed, and the man nodded slightly.
‘Shall we go and find it, then?’ the investigator invited them, turning and walking away.
The scene before Yakov could have been taken straight from a drawing in the Liber Heresius. Twelve robed and masked figures knelt in a circle around the coffin, five braziers set at the points of a star drawn around the casket. The air was filled with acrid smoke and the sonorous chanting of the cultists filled the room. One of them stood and pulled back his hood, and Yakov almost gasped out loud when he recognised the face of the governor. Holding his arms wide, he chanted louder, the words a meaningless jumble of syllables to the preacher.
‘I think we’ve seen enough,’ the investigator said, crouching beside Yakov and Lathesia on the patio outside the room. He drew two long laspistols from holsters inside his coat and offered one to Yakov. Yakov shook his head.
‘Surely you’re not opposed to righteous violence, preacher,’ the stranger said with a raised eyebrow.
‘No,’ Yakov replied. Pulling his rucksack off, the preacher delved inside and a moment later pulled out a black enamelled pistol. With a deftness that betrayed years of practice he slipped home the magazine and cocked the gun. ‘I just prefer to use my own weapon.’
Lathesia gasped in astonishment.
‘What?’ asked Yakov, annoyed. ‘You think they call us the Defenders of the Faith just because it sounds good?’
‘Shoot to kill!’ rasped the stranger as he stood up.
He fired both pistols, shattering the windows and spraying glass shards into the room. A couple of the cultists pulled wicked-looking knives from their rope belts and leapt at them; the governor dived behind the casket shrieking madly.
Yakov’s first shot took a charging cultist in the chest, punching him off his feet. His second blew the kneecap off another, his third taking him in the forehead as he collapsed. The investigator’s laspistols spat bolts of light into the cultists fleeing for the door, while the boom of Lathesia’s heavy pistol echoed off the walls. As Yakov stepped into the room, one of the cultists pushed over a brazier and he jumped to his right to avoid the flaming coals. A las-bolt took the traitor in the eye, vaporising half his face.
In a few moments the one-sided fight was over, all the cultists were dead, their blood soaking into the bare boards. Suddenly, the governor burst from his hiding place and bolted for the door, but Lathesia was quicker, tackling him to the ground. He thrashed for a moment before she smashed him across the temple with the grip of her revolver. She was about to pistol-whip him again but the stranger grabbed her wrist in mid-swing.
‘My masters would prefer he survived for interrogation,’ he told the girl, letting go of her arm and stepping back.
Lathesia hesitated for a moment before standing. She delivered a sharp kick to the governor’s midriff before stalking away, emptying spent casings from her gun.
‘I have no idea what is going on here,’ Yakov confessed, sliding the safety into place on his own pistol.
‘No reason you should,’ the man assured him. ‘I suppose I do owe you an explanation though.’
Slipping his laspistols back into his coat, the man leant back on the wall.
‘The plague has been engineered by the governor and his allies,’ the investigator told him. ‘He wanted the mutants to rebel, to try to overthrow him. While Karis Cephalon remains relatively peaceful, the Imperial authorities and the Inquisition are content to ignore the more-or-less tolerant attitude to mutants found here. But should they threaten the stability of this world, they would be swift and ruthless in their response.’
The man glanced over his shoulder at Lathesia, who was studying the casket intently, then looked Yakov squarely in the eye before continuing quietly. ‘But that’s not the whole of it. So the mutants are wiped out, that’s really no concern of the Inquisition. But the governor’s motives are what concerns us. I, that is we, believe that he has made some kind of pact with a dark force, some kind of unholy elevation. His side of the deal was the delivery of a massive sacrifice, a whole population, genocide of the mutants. But he couldn’t just have them culled; the entire economy of Karis Cephalon is based on mutant labour and no one would allow such a direct action to threaten their prosperity. So, he imported a virus which feeds on mutants. It’s called Aether Mortandis and costs a lot of money to acquire from the Mechanicus.’
‘And the coffin?’ Yakov asked. ‘Where does that fit in?’
‘It doesn’t, not at all!’ the stranger laughed bitterly. ‘I was hiding it when the gravedigger saw me. I killed him, but unfortunately before I had time to finish the burial, his cries brought an SSA patrol and I had to leave. It’s just coincidence.’
‘So what’s so important about it then?’ Yakov eyed the casket with suspicion. Lathesia was toying with one of the locks, a thoughtful look on her face.
‘I wouldn’t open that if I were you,’ the stranger spoke up, startling the girl, who dropped the padlock and stepped back. The investigator put an arm around Yakov’s shoulders and pulled him close, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
‘The reason the governor has acted now is because of a convergence of energies on Karis Cephalon,’ the man told Yakov slowly. ‘Mystical forces, astrological conjunctions are forming, with Karis Cephalon at its centre. For five years, the barrier between our world and the hell of Chaos will grow thinner and thinner. Entities will be able to break through, aliens will be drawn here, and death and disaster will plague t
his world on an unparalleled scale. It will be hell incarnate. If you wish, for your help today I can arrange a transfer to a parish on another world, get you way from here.’
Yakov looked at the man for a minute, searching his own soul.
‘If what you say is true,’ he said eventually, ‘then I respectfully decline the offer. It seems men of faith will be a commodity in much need over the coming years.’
He looked up at Lathesia, who was looking at them from across the room.
‘And,’ Yakov finished, ‘my parishioners will need me more than ever.’
The Lives Of Ferag Lion-Wolf
Barrington J Bayley
Ferag Lion-Wolf, champion of Tzeentch, ruler of five worlds, rose from the slab of sparkling white alabaster on which he slept and prepared to receive his honoured visitor. Young maidens bathed him, anointing his body with pleasant-smelling oils so that he gave off an enchanting aroma. The same slave-girls dressed him in garments of shimmering heliotrope silk, decorated all over with the sinuous symbols of the greatest of the gods, and accoutred him with his weapons.
When they had finished, an officer wearing the uniform designed for the palace staff by Ferag himself entered and bowed, waiting for permission to speak.
‘The chariot of Lord Quillilil has been sighted entering our planetary system, my great and gracious lord,’ the officer announced, once Ferag had impatiently signalled him to continue. ‘It will arrive within the hour.’
‘And is everything ready?’
‘All has been made ready, my great and gracious lord.’
‘Good...’ Ferag purred.
He dismissed the officer and then turned to examine himself in a full-length mirror. He could not help but be pleased with what he saw. Ferag Lion-Wolf had always been a striking figure, even before he found favour with the Changer of the Ways, to give the great god Tzeentch just one of his many titles. Rugged, strong and handsome, Ferag had earned the admiration of all on his home world, as well as on the many worlds where he had fought and adventured before becoming a champion of Chaos.
But now! Ferag was almost beside himself as he beheld the magnificent transformation wrought on him by the Great Conspirator’s marks of favour. In place of his left arm was a powerful, flexing tentacle with twice the reach. His right foot was a scrabbling claw, particularly exciting to behold as it so much resembled the claw of a Chi’khami’tzann Tsunoi or Feathered Lord, the rank of daemon closest to Tzeentch himself! An extra pair of eyes was set in his forehead, above the others but closer together, giving his face a curiously watchful appearance, like the face of a lurking spider. Those eyes could look into someone’s mind and see if plots were being laid there. They could also kill with a single baleful glance. His mouth was also changed. It could pucker into a long tube, half the length of his arm, with which to suck pure magical energy from the souls of others. Tzeentch had given him power and change! And this was not the end of the rewards he was to receive...
Ferag made a magical sign, causing a shimmering oval surface to appear in the air, looking like a vertical pool of water or maybe quicksilver. With his forefinger he traced runes in the Dark Tongue, which could only be spoken in the warp. The runes spelled out his Chaos name, so recently bestowed upon him by his greater daemon patron.
With another gesture he dissolved the writing screen.
And now to welcome Quillilil!
Ferag strode from the lofty-ceilinged chamber and on to the spacious balcony overlooking the extensive palace, looking around him and, as always, taking immense satisfaction in his accomplishments. He was ruler of an entire planetary system within the Imperium of Chaos, called by outsiders the Eye of Terror. Five of the system’s eight planets were inhabited. Several billion beings all lived in dread, in obedience, in utmost respect and adoration, of Ferag Lion-Wolf.
Ferag had designed his palace to resemble what he imagined the heavenly palaces of Tzeentch and his Feathered Lords to be like. Tier upon tier of terraces rose to the cloud layer, sparkling and glowing in iridescent colours. Towers and minarets and convoluted galleries twisted and twined like snakes. But none of it, of course, was restricted by gravity. The towers and galleries jutted out at crazy angles, as if they had been constructed in space or – as was the impression Ferag had striven to create – the vast unknowable reaches of the warp.
His aides and guards gathered around him. It was time for Quillilil’s chariot to arrive. A magnifier had been set up on the balcony. Through it, events in the upper atmosphere became visible as though they were only a short distance away. So they were able to watch as the chariot from the neighbouring planetary system, an elaborate, burnished affair decorated with gold and silver curlicues, appeared in the lemon-yellow sky and swooped through the upper air. Diving for the cloud layer, it descended towards the palace.
Ferag and his aides carefully watched the surrounding countryside, dotted with towns and villages whose privilege it was to share a landscape with their mighty ruler. Yes, there it was! The plot was afoot! Shark-like craft were hurtling over the horizon, three altogether, coming from different directions. In addition, from hidden places nearer at hand, a dozen wild-looking figures mounted on flying discs were soaring upwards, long hair flying behind them, waving weapons.
There was magic at work, or those discs would not have been able to fly here. They were K’echi’tsonae, steeds of Tzeentch, and their proper medium was the warp. Peering closely at the magnifier, Ferag could see the rows of teeth around their rims.
Both shark-craft and riders were converging on the interstellar chariot. Ferag had a consummate sense of timing. He raised a hand, staying his aides who were ready to release a barrage and destroy the raiders. Instead, he allowed the raiders to get closer to their prey.
‘Let me deal with this,’ Ferag murmured in his melodious baritone voice.
When it seemed there could be no help for the descending foreign vessel on its state visit, he pointed with all five fingers of his right hand. The air became charged with power. It crackled. All present felt the waves of prickling sensations over their entire bodies. And from the fingers of master magician Ferag Lion-Wolf there issued streams of raw magic, crossing the intervening miles instantaneously, sizzling, swaying, touching all three shark-craft and the dozen disc raiders.
For a brief moment the great stream of energy flickered around them, and then, in that same moment, they shivered and were gone.
Ferag Lion-Wolf smiled knowingly. Lord Quillilil’s chariot settled itself onto a marbled landing bay further down the terrace. Ferag and his party had already made their way there when the ornate door of the chariot swung open. Flamboyantly clad guards emerged and took up station on either side, glancing nervously around them.
Lord-Commander Quillilil stepped down from the threshold. Unlike Ferag, he had never been a Space Marine, and so was much shorter in stature than the hulking Lion-Wolf. He wore a cloak of brilliant blue. His hands were small, with a shrivelled, talon-like look. In place of a mouth, he had a compact, curved beak, turquoise in colour. A straw-coloured plume sprouted from the top of his otherwise bald pate. His eyes were round and unblinking, and seemed unable to stare in any direction but straight ahead, so that he looked about him continually with sudden nervous movements.
‘My Lord-Commander Quillilil!’ Ferag greeted breezily, spreading arm and tentacle in welcome.
‘My Lord-Commander Ferag!’
Quillilil’s voice was high and chirping. He allowed Ferag to embrace him briefly, then stepped back to gaze at the palace around him. He was clearly impressed.
‘I am happy to have been able to protect you, my lord Quillilil,’ Ferag said. ‘It appears some of your enemies have gathered here.’
Twittering laughter rose from Quillilil’s throat. His eyes glittered. ‘Yes! Subversives from my own planet who fled here some time ago. I knew my visit would flush them out! Why do you think I came here?
You should be flattered, my lord Ferag, at the trust I have placed in you. My chariot is unarmed!’
‘I, too, have used the occasion to my benefit,’ Ferag told him. ‘Your renegades could not have acted without help from some of my own subjects. They are now paying the penalty for their disloyalty.’ He glanced at the surrounding countryside, taking pleasure in knowing of the death and torture being inflicted there.
‘I have prepared a banquet for tonight,’ he continued to tell his guest. ‘You are particularly partial to human flesh, I believe?’
Quillilil clacked his beak rapidly, in eager affirmation.
‘Skinned specimens have been marinading in spices for the past week. Tonight they will be roasted for your delectation. Tomorrow we will discuss a treaty between us. For the present, though, allow me to show you round my palace. But first–’
Ferag raised arm and tentacle and swept them through the air, making magical passes. There came an immense rumbling sound. The huge edifice all around them was coming apart. Towers, terraces, galleries, halls, all separated and began gyrating in the air, performing a gigantic dance. The landing bay on which they stood also took part in the display, whirling lazily through a cloud and back again.
Then, with meticulous precision, everything came together again. Stone block met stone block in silent harmony, mortared together as before. In seconds the palace had reassembled itself.
Quillilil trilled in feigned pleasure. ‘Most impressive, my lord Ferag! And if you will allow me in return…’
He too made an elaborate sign with his hand. Further along the terrace, a jutting arcade detached itself, floated a short distance away into the ether and then began spinning at speed.
Quillilil made delicate pulling motions with his fingers. The minaret ceased spinning and returned to its place with a deep grinding of stone upon stone. There was a gentle murmur of approval from the assembled aides and retainers.
It was common for Tzeentchian magicians to show off to one another on first meeting. But for all his chirpiness, the visitor could not hide the fact that he had been bettered by his host.
