by John French
‘Get word to my son’s other associates in the Inquisition. No matter how it is done, ensure that it is done, and that they know that the Yeshar have aided them.’
Yasmin nodded carefully.
‘How much should we tell them about this Covenant and his agents?’
The blue bird took to the wing in a blur of feathers.
‘Everything we know,’ came the reply from the air.
Nine
Enna stopped outside the outer door to the weapon chamber. The remains of fitful sleep clung to her eyes and skin. She breathed out. It had been a week since Covenant had left Gothar, and sleep had eluded her ever since. Now they were less than a day into their warp passage, and the sleep that had finally come had brought dreams rather than rest. She keyed the control to the door. Pistons thumped back into the walls. Severita barred the doorway, pistols hanging in her hands at her side. She met Enna’s gaze with blank intensity.
Enna nodded, and moved to step past. Severita raised one pistol, finger resting beside the trigger guard. Enna paused, looked at the wide circle of the gun’s muzzle, and then up to the other woman’s eyes. They were steady. Enna felt her muscles slide to readiness under her skin. For a moment she thought of saying something, but she was too tired, and too alone to care. She shook her head, looked away, and took another step towards the inner door. Severita’s finger moved to the trigger.
‘Please try to do something you will regret,’ growled Enna.
Severita raised the second pistol. Enna raised an eyebrow.
‘Now, am I to take that as a compliment or a sign that you really don’t trust me?’
‘I don’t know you,’ said Severita, her expression unflinching.
‘Well, if you want to shoot everything that you don’t know, at least it will keep you occupied for a while.’
The inner door hissed open.
‘Mistress Gyrid,’ said Josef as he stepped forward, eyes gliding over Severita’s pistols, and then back to Enna. ‘Something wrong?’
‘I want to see Covenant,’ she said, and felt a stab of pleasure at the twitch in Severita’s face at her use of the unadorned name.
‘Not now,’ said Josef, running a hand over a sweat-beaded face.
‘Let her pass.’ Covenant’s voice came from beyond the open inner door. Enna glanced into the chamber beyond. The light was low, and had the quality of candlelight, though she could see no flames. Racks of shot cannons, cutlasses, mauls, void armour and a profusion of other weaponry hung from racks on the wall. A wide space had been cleared on the floor, and scattered with fine grey ash and sand. Covenant walked towards them. He was stripped to the waist, and his feet were bare beneath pleated trews of black fabric. Sweat sheened his bare skin. Scar tissue and tattoos covered his chest, the puckered skin and ink forming the spread wings, body and heads of an aquila. Serpents writhed in its claws, and fire shadowed its feathers. A faded tattoo of a horned daemon screamed from his left shoulder, the tri-barred ‘I’ of the Inquisition clenched in its jaw. The flat blade of his inactive power sword rested on the other shoulder.
His eyes moved to Severita, and the bolt pistols lowered. Then he looked at Enna.
The silence crackled in the air.
‘You have questions,’ he said, and then turned and walked back into the centre of the room. Josef gave her a hard look and jerked his chin in Covenant’s direction. Enna hesitated for a second and then followed, Josef just behind her. The door hissed shut.
‘This is about what Orsino said about Idris,’ said Covenant. ‘You were close to her, Enna, I can tell. You are very like her, you know.’
‘She never said anything about you,’ said Enna, tasting the bitterness in her voice. ‘None of you, not Orsino, nothing.’
‘She had her reasons,’ said Josef from the side of the room.
‘She did? A decade of keeping her alive, and I find out that I never knew her.’
‘The Inquisition,’ said Josef, with a cold laugh, ‘is built on not telling the whole truth.’
‘Trust, Enna,’ said Covenant softly, ‘is a delicate thing, a dangerous thing. You are one of us. The circumstances that made it so are not ones that we would have chosen, but the fact remains – you serve me. I give you that trust without question.’
‘Why?’ snapped Enna. ‘I know why I am here, because I have nowhere else to go. But why do you let me stay? Why? For her?’
‘Yes,’ said Covenant, ‘for her.’
‘Then what did she do that you had to forgive her for? What did she do that Orsino could not forgive?’
Josef drew a breath to say something, but Covenant shot him a glance and the preacher remained silent. Covenant shifted the sword from his shoulder and gripped it with both hands. The polished blade caught the light, and the bronze daemon snarling above the cross-guard glinted. He turned and nodded at the weapon racks.
‘Choose,’ he said. Enna glanced at Josef, but the preacher’s face was impassive. She looked back at the weapons, at the oiled metal and the shapes that killing took. She stepped forward. She was wearing a black bodyglove, reinforced with plates of crimson ceramite, a good choice for a fight, though not one made deliberately. She raised her hand and ran it along the handles of heavy blades and mauls, eyes finding and assessing each one. Her hand hesitated over a set of serrated knives, but moved on. She smiled when she saw the meteor-hammer on its dust-covered stand: three metres of coiled plasteel chain, a small handle at one end, a heavy metal ball the size of child’s head at the other. She picked it up. The heavy ball clanked to the floor.
‘Well,’ muttered Josef, ‘at least this might be entertaining.’
Enna gripped the handle in her left hand and began to wind the chain around her forearm. The links clinked.
‘You shared a master,’ she said, and glanced at where Covenant waited at the centre of the room. He held his sword with relaxed stillness. She dropped a last loop of chain over her left arm, and gripped the remaining length with her right hand so that a metre of links ran from left arm to right hand. Another metre of chain remained between her right hand and the ball. ‘You and Idris, you served the same inquisitor.’
She yanked the metal ball into the air with a snap of muscle, caught its fall, and began to spin it in a circle above her. The thump-thump vibration of the chain shivered through the air. Covenant bowed his head, eyes never leaving Enna’s and raised his sword above his head.
‘Argento,’ said Covenant. ‘Our master was called Argento.’
Enna nodded and released the ball from its circle. It shot at Covenant, unravelling chain from her forearm as it flew. Covenant snapped forward and to the side, sword slicing down. Enna spun aside. The meteor hammer’s ball snapped back as she turned, twisting like a snake, and now Covenant had to step back, and Enna spun again, whipping the chain faster and faster.
‘Orsino,’ she called. ‘She said something about Thorians, about the ghosts of Argento’s mistakes.’
She snapped the meteor hammer into a reverse arc, pressing Covenant back. He was fast though, stepping back and out of reach with short, quick steps, sword held high.
‘Thorianism is a belief,’ he said. ‘A belief held by some within the Inquisition. A belief that the Emperor is not a man. He is divine. The flesh holding him is a shell. His spirit is eternal. It moves amongst us, shelters us, and searches for rebirth, so that He may walk amongst us again. So that He can save humanity.’
He seemed to step back again as the meteor hammer sang past, but then he was stepping in and Enna’s momentum was pulling her the wrong way, his cut was a lightning flash of steel, and now it was Enna’s turn to dodge. She leapt, scissoring and spinning through the air, the meteor hammer orbiting her as she landed.
‘Isn’t that what many believe?’ she asked.
‘It is,’ said Covenant, stepping back, sword low, ‘but inquisitors have power and res
ponsibility to do more than believe. Thorians do not just believe that the Emperor will walk amongst humanity – they seek to make it come to pass.’
‘That is…’ Enna threw the ball out wide and let the full length of chain unravel from her arm. She spun it above her head, cutting a circle almost as wide as the chamber. Josef stepped quickly back against the wall. ‘That is supremely arrogant,’ said Enna.
‘Why?’ said Covenant. He was standing a finger’s width from the edge of the meteor hammer’s arc. ‘It is a belief and endeavour that inquisitors have followed for millennia. If a divine vessel of the Emperor could save mankind, don’t I have a duty to follow that belief, to find it?’
‘And Idris…’ began Enna.
Covenant moved as she spoke. The ball of the meteor hammer flew past his face and he sprang forwards. The flat of his great sword slapped the metal ball down like a hand batting an insect from the air. Enna felt the chain jerk in her hand, and her balance shook, and Covenant was cutting towards her in a wide slash that would open her from hip to shoulder.
She jumped back fast, but not far enough, and his second cut was not wide but short and fast. Instinct slammed her to the floor. The blade hissed as it passed above her. She still had the chain in her hand but the ball lay on the floor three metres away, rocking with the force of its fall.
‘Idris believed as I do,’ said Covenant, voice calm.
Enna knew that she had nowhere to go, that the next cut would be the last. She whipped the chain that she still held in her hand. The chain arced up in a wide loop and caught Covenant’s sword as it descended. He pulled back, but she was already rising, already whipping more chain to tangle his blade and arms.
She yanked, and felt his balance break.
‘Then why,’ Enna snarled as she hauled on the chain. They were face to face now, bound by chains, the sword tangled between them. ‘Then why did she never tell me about what she believed?’
Covenant seemed to stagger and then twisted. Enna felt the force of the throw whip through her and she was arcing through the air. She hit the floor, and turned the impact into a rolling throw that flipped Covenant through the air in turn. He landed and they rose together.
He met her gaze. The sword was in his hands, somehow free of entangling chain, the blade levelled at her. She flicked the chain, but Josef stepped forward.
‘I think we will call it a draw,’ he said, ‘before you kill each other.’
Covenant bowed his head briefly, and stepped back. Enna did not move.
‘You have not answered,’ she said. ‘Idris never talked of anything you have told me – why?’
Covenant was very still, then spun his sword and turned to pick up its wide sheath from a weapon rack.
‘Because she killed our master,’ he said softly.
Enna stared at him. He slid the sword back into its sheath, and turned, but his eyes went to Josef rather than her as he spoke.
‘Argento created a saint… or what he thought was a saint. He thought he was creating salvation, and it reached out in the pain of its becoming and tore his soul apart.’ He looked at her. ‘We arrived too late. We… she… did what needed to be done.’
‘She killed him?’
‘What was left of him,’ said Covenant. ‘Him, and the thing he had made, both.’
Josef let out a sigh, and rubbed a scarred and tattooed hand over his face.
‘Seeing the reality of what you believe changes the way you look at things,’ said the preacher.
Covenant nodded.
‘The perspective given to Idris and me was the same,’ he said. ‘Our responses were different. I saw what that power, even in the hands of a noble soul, can do. We cannot bend the forces of the universe to our will. She turned away from the past. I…’
‘You both tried to bury it,’ said Enna.
Covenant looked at her, but his face was as impassive as ever.
‘Is this understanding enough for you, Enna?’
She looked away and dropped the chain that she still had in her hands.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I… I am sorry. You are very different from her.’ She stepped towards the door. Somehow she felt disturbed by the conversation, as though there was a void it had opened in her that she could not see, but could only touch the edge of its precipice.
‘You are not alone,’ said Josef.
‘That’s it,’ she said as she opened the door. ‘I can’t remember a time without her. But sometimes… Sometimes it doesn’t even seem real.’
Lenoa Astropathic Relay hung at the edge of its star’s light. In form it resembled a frozen explosion of dust-pitted metal and stone. Antennae and signal arrays stabbed from its arms, hazard lights winking at their tips. Schools of warships circled it, engine lights bright glimmers against the emerald murk of the storm-touched void.
‘Take us in slowly,’ said Cleander. ‘Transmit our authorisations as soon as we are challenged.’
‘Weapons?’ asked Ghast. Cleander shook his head.
‘Ready alert throughout the ship, but keep the guns cold. They are not going to like us coming close, so let’s not give them a reason to think of us as a target.’
Ghast saluted, and moved to carry the orders out. The sounds of the bridge were subdued, the crew speaking rarely and, when they did, in low voices. Cleander knew it was because of him. The crew followed his mood more closely than they followed his orders. It had taken them longer than it should to reach the relay station. The storms had pressed close, and the Dionysia had both fought against and run with the winds of the ether as they howled from the edges of the Storms of Judgement. Now they had arrived, they would have to wait for Covenant to meet them, or move on to the next pre-agreed rendezvous. Neither the thought of waiting nor of plunging the ship back into the storm-churn did much to lift Cleander’s mood.
‘They wouldn’t fire,’ said Viola. Cleander did not turn, but kept his eye on the image of the astronomic relay.
‘Wouldn’t they? Not with most worlds within a reasonable jump from here gone dark, or screaming as they die? They are the last beacon relay this side of the Storms of Judgement. I think I would be tempted to fire on a ship arriving unannounced no matter who they claim to be.’ He shifted the patch over his left eye-socket, and felt a cold grin part his lips. ‘But that might just be my likeable personality.’
He felt Viola glance at him sharply, but ignored it.
The murmur of the bridge filled the silence. Cleander’s mind slid back to what Titus Yeshar had told them. It couldn’t be true. Could it? Could it…? True or not, they had exhausted the ship’s two astropaths trying to get the information to Covenant. The storms had swallowed those sendings with no sign that they had been received. What did that mean?
He had never been so tempted to break his bargain with Covenant and run.
‘What’s that?’ Viola’s voice broke the flow of his thoughts. Cleander glanced at the sensor image. Three defence monitor ships had broken from their path around the relay station.
‘Escort in?’ he ventured, but he was unconvinced even as he spoke.
‘Looks a lot like they are on an intercept course,’ she said. ‘They are being careful.’
He nodded.
‘Transmit our credentials again,’ called Cleander to Ghast. ‘Make it clear that our only intention is to hold station for a rendezvous, and then we will be on our way.’
A warning horn sounded.
‘Engine signature!’ shouted Ghast. ‘Large ship, light cruiser class. Close, very close. They are in our wake. Throne, they are cutting us off!’
‘Monitor craft increasing speed, guns live.’
‘Duke von Castellan, sir!’ A signals officer shouted from the signals trench beneath the command dais. ‘We have a signal, direct and clear.’
‘And?’ snapped Cleander.
‘It
’s addressed to you, sir,’ called the officer, ‘by name.’
‘Let me hear it.’
A thump of static and a trio of vox-fidelity servitors twitched straight in their seats. Their mouths opened, spit drooling from silent tongues as the vox transmission soaked into their brains. Then their tongues and vocal cords synchronised, and they spoke.
‘Duke Cleander von Castellan, by the will of the Emperor as incarnated in his holy Inquisition, you shall cut your engines and submit to the authority of His servants.’
The servitors began to repeat the words. Cleander gestured and the transmission cut out.
‘Who are they?’ asked Viola into the space left by the words. ‘And how did they know we were here?’
‘Light the guns, and pour fire into the engines,’ shouted Cleander without answering. Both questions were filling his mind, but for now they meant nothing. All that mattered was getting away. ‘Flip us over and run.’
‘We should charge the warp engines,’ said Viola.
‘You want to take that power from what, engines or guns?’ Cleander snarled. He felt Viola’s expression harden without having to see it.
‘The cruiser is almost on us,’ called Ghast, and Cleander could hear the blended shock and admiration in her voice. ‘Throne, she’s fast.’
‘Hostile targeting system lock detected,’ droned one of the lex- mechanics in the sensor system trench.
Manoeuvre sirens screamed as the Dionysia’s thrusters fired, and the ship’s prow flipped over. The hull growled with strain. Cleander felt competing gravitic forces thump through him. Nauseating storm colours filled the forward view screens. The thrusters fired again, catching the ship’s spin. Force whip-cracked through the ship.
‘Full speed, now!’ shouted Cleander. The turn had been perfect, a thing of beauty, but until they were running, the Dionysia lay still in the void.
