Vaults of Terra: The Carrion Throne

by Chris Wraight

  She felt hands seize her helm and twist it off. The air tasted of sweat and madness.

  The False Angel crouched down, reached for his own helm and removed it in turn. The face beneath was male, human, not obviously distorted by corruption. A single tattoo marked his left cheek, but otherwise the flesh was unmarked.

  ‘You have been hunting us, daughter,’ the False Angel said. Free of the vox distortion, his voice was even, well spoken. An up-hiver, then, not gutter trash from the toil-zones. ‘You have brought us pain.’

  He gave a signal to one of his bodyguards, who brought out a long syringe. Spinoza pushed back against her captors, but was held firm.

  The False Angel brought the needle up to her neck.

  ‘I exist only to protect the righteous and punish the sinful,’ he said, smiling sadly. ‘There is so much you do not yet understand, and it is time you were enlightened.’

  Then he inserted the needle into her neck and depressed the plunger. For a moment she felt only the pain of the wound, and spat into his face.

  ‘The Emperor protects,’ she hissed.

  The False Angel smiled, letting the spittle run down his cheek.

  ‘Indeed He does,’ he said, withdrawing the needle carefully. ‘If you would only let Him.’

  Then the true pain hit. Spinoza felt her back arch, her limbs go taut, and a crushing weight sink over her. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and she saw the roof of the cavern, far, far above her.

  ‘The… Emp…’ she spat out.

  Then the darkness fell, and her consciousness slipped away.

  Chapter Twenty

  The long gallery was high up on the eastern face of the Basilica Torrentes. Narrow panes of stained glass slowly burned with variegated colour as the dawn sunlight pierced the clouds, throwing bars of gold over a thick crimson carpet. The far wall was a mess of gold leaf tracery, piled on top of itself in ever greater profusions of baroque exuberance. Astrological devices clustered about images of warrior-knights placed amid starships set amid fabulous bestiaries, on and on for the two hundred metres of the gallery’s length – a frieze that must have taken decades to complete.

  It was also fantastically ugly, Crowl thought. Revus hadn’t missed out on much, down in the reception vaults keeping a watchful eye on the docked Shade. The inquisitor’s boots sunk deep into the pile of the carpet – an odd sensation, after a lifetime treading the hard asphalt and rockcrete of the lower hives. By his side walked Navradaran, towering over him, his near-silent power armour glinting in the dawn light. The heel of his spear glided over the surface, never once brushing the fabric.

  They were alone, the two of them. The gallery echoed softly, insulated against the roar of Terra’s streets, a gilt-edged haven from the press of the unwashed.

  ‘You have spent a long time in Salvator, Crowl,’ the Custodian said, his voice just as sonorous as before.

  ‘I like it there.’

  ‘You have a fortress.’

  ‘I inherited it.’

  ‘How often do you come to the centre?’

  ‘Rarely.’ Crowl looked up at the windows, each one adorned with the records of battles fought half a galaxy away. Most of the world-names he did not recognise. ‘Not easy to gain admittance, from the outside.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it.’

  ‘But Phaelias did, didn’t he?’

  The Custodian paused before an obsidian plinth, upon which had been placed a sculpture of Saint Katarina of the Miraculous Shroud. ‘Phaelias was a lord of the Ordo Xenos. He earned his privileges.’

  ‘And he wasn’t resident on Terra,’ said Crowl, looking sourly at the overwrought lines of the statue. ‘What was he doing here at all?’

  ‘We had some communication.’

  ‘He was working for you?’

  ‘He was working for the Throne. But we shared certain concerns, that is true.’

  Navradaran started walking again, a heavy, metronomic stride that seemed to match pace with the rhythms of the world itself. If Crowl hadn’t seen him in combat, he might have assumed the Custodian’s movements to be ponderous, but the heaviness was all part of the deception.

  ‘There is a common misconception,’ Navradaran said, ‘that the guardians of the Palace are somehow insulated here, that we see little and hear less. We would be poor wardens if that were so. Your orders are not the only ones to have agents throughout the Imperium – we hear much, in our own way, brought to us on the tides of dreams and the chatter of vox-traffic.’

  ‘Something has happened, then, hasn’t it?’

  Navradaran turned to face him, still moving. His winged helm burned a deep gold, its lenses catching the dawn light and glittering like rubies. ‘Say what you came here to say. My duties are many and the day will be long.’

  Crowl reached into a pouch at his belt, withdrew the vox-capsule and handed it to the Custodian. ‘Listen to it. It’ll tell you what happened to Phaelias. He says much about what he thinks has been happening. He mentions Quantrain. You know the name? Everyone seems to. He’s here, somewhere. I must find him.’

  Navradaran stowed the bead within his armour and kept walking. ‘Quantrain is a powerful man. What are the accusations?’

  ‘That a weapon has been brought to Terra, and that members of the High Council are involved.’ Crowl smiled dryly. ‘He was serious. He was very concerned about it, and I think you know why. In any case, we have to speak to him. There’s blood all over the hab-zones, some of it inquisitors’. Quantrain would have the nerve, and the power, to do this. You have the testimony, listen to it.’

  Navradaran reached a greater window, set under a tall arch. The panes were open, letting tox-pungent air waft in from over the temple roofs. He walked out, and Crowl followed him. The two of them stood before the balcony railing, looking east at the rising sun. Pale shadows crept across the sea of spires and cupolas, a meagre lightening of what remained a grey and soulless vista.

  ‘You think I can deliver you Quantrain easily,’ said Navradaran. ‘You are mistaken.’

  ‘Where is he, then?’

  ‘I do not follow every courtier around, and the lord inquisitor’s reputation gives me no reason to track him.’

  ‘That’s why he can do this. He’s got his agents active in the underhives – my interrogator ran into one of them. Phaelias said this weapon – or warrior, or whatever – has gone wrong, has got out, and they’re hunting it just as we are. You know what it is, don’t you?’

  ‘I give you my word I do not.’

  ‘Then what do you know?’ Crowl’s exasperation made him strident. ‘There’s no purpose in keeping secrets from me now.’

  The Custodian’s cloak lifted in the breeze. Ahead of them rose the campaniles of a soaring, aquila-crowned cathedral, one of dozens, its interior flickering from devotional fires and its chimney stacks active from burned offerings.

  ‘There is a certain irony,’ he said, ‘in an inquisitor saying this to me. You are an unusual man, Crowl. You are an unusual example of your breed.’

  ‘That’s been said by others. Tell me.’

  For a moment longer, the gilded helm remained silent.

  ‘It was Phaelias who came to me,’ the Custodian said finally. ‘He had been hunting a rogue trader named Naaman Vinal out in the Laurentis subsector. Phaelias believed Vinal had been misusing his Letter of Marque to acquire proscribed xenotech weaponry for his own arsenal, rather than for delivery to the Mechanicus depots at Laurentis Prime, and so had placed him under interdict. Locating him was not trivial, and Phaelias was never able to substantiate the matter of the accusation, for when he finally caught the trader’s galleon off the Torquatus Nebula, the ship was empty, stripped of all life and drifting without power. The hull was badly damaged with energy patterns Phaelias recognised as used by xenos corsairs, and his first instinct was to record the loss and move on. Only f
urther analysis revealed underlaid Imperial-signature damage, and so he quarantined it for scrutiny.’

  Crowl listened carefully, committing every point to memory.

  ‘Beyond the contradictory damage traces, there was nothing,’ said Navradaran, ‘save for a ciphered communication log sequestered in Vinal’s personal store. It remains unclear how this survived when all else was scoured – it may have been Vinal’s intention to preserve it. The contents could not be retrieved, but the intended subject could – a senior astropath named Cassandara Glucher working in the service of the Speaker of the Chartist Captains. For a rogue trader to be in personal contact with such an exalted official at regular intervals was unusual enough for Phaelias to make the warp stage to Terra, where he discovered that Glucher had been dead for five years. Any attempt to discover the circumstances of her demise met first with obfuscation and then with hostility.

  ‘After several months of enquiry he finally came to me. I will not disclose the reason for our acquaintance, and there is much detail on Phaelias’ enquiry that was never clear to me, but he had seemingly made alliance with the Provost Marshal and had arranged for those searches. I put this down to some game within the Council – it would not be unusual for one High Lord to seek to embarrass another, and there is well-known animus between the Marshal and the Speaker. But the accusation was striking – that whatever Vinal had acquired had passed into the hands of agents working on behalf of a High Lord of Terra and was making its way under secrecy to the Throneworld. That was the last time we spoke, he and I.’

  ‘And you did not place much credence in his testimony.’

  ‘Many plots come to our ears.’

  ‘But now something has changed.’

  ‘You can see it yourself.’

  ‘Cargo was landed at Skhallax from a void-hauler,’ said Crowl. ‘There had been fighting – I saw the damage – and it’s made the tech-priests frenzied. This is no longer supposition. It is here, and it is loose, and Quantrain was prepared to kill to keep the trail hidden.’

  ‘Quantrain will be found, but you surprise me, Crowl – he is of your order, and you tell me you cannot locate him?’

  ‘I’ve been in Salvator a long time. Here’s the nub of it – you told me yourself of the Feast reaching the Gate. I didn’t know why then, but Phaelias said the same thing. That’s the fear, isn’t it? There are gangs organising the underhives and a billion pilgrims marching towards the causeways, and no one could possibly screen them all. It only takes one to reach the Gate, and there’s no Angel to guard it, and something has been brought here that will light the inferno, and you can’t find it in time.’

  Navradaran took his gauntlet from the balcony’s railing. He turned away from Crowl, radiating distaste. It might have been impolitic, thought Crowl a little late, to invoke the name of a Holy Primarch quite so lightly.

  ‘You speak of things you do not understand,’ the Custodian said. ‘Perhaps you have been in the shadows for so long you have forgotten what it is to perceive the light.’

  Crowl watched him go. ‘So what now?’ he called after. ‘You’re leaving the hunt to me?’

  Navradaran turned.

  ‘You are not a fool, Crowl, so do not act like one,’ he said. ‘You speak of the Gate and show your ignorance. There are uncounted mortals alive this day who would willingly die to witness it, and here you stand in blasphemy and ridicule.’

  He started to walk again.

  ‘I will not make the offer again,’ Navradaran said. ‘Follow me now, and I will show you where the Angel stood. Perhaps that will cure you of your levity.’

  When she awoke, Spinoza found herself restrained by her ankles and wrists, bound tight to a heavy iron chair. Her temples throbbed, and her veins felt sluggish, as if her blood had somehow been thickened.

  She blinked a few times, and the worst of the dizziness went away. She tested her bonds, one by one, but they were fast. They had taken her armour from her, and she wore only her padded shift and greaves. A metallic taste lingered in her mouth, and swallowing it away was difficult. She could feel bruising across her back, her neck, the left side of her face.

  ‘You woke up fast,’ came a voice from the darkness. ‘They told me it would take a few more hours, but I thought you’d defy them.’

  Spinoza squinted into the gloom. It took a few more moments for her vision to clarify. When it did, she saw that she was in a narrow chamber, the walls and floor cut from naked rock. The only light came from an old stained lumen tube that barely kicked out a candle’s worth of illumination, keeping them swathed in semi-dark. There were heavy iron doorways cut into the walls.

  Standing in front of her was the man, the False Angel. He had taken off his mask and his robes, and wore standard Imperial garb – a dark grey tunic over a black bodyglove, a half-cloak, worn synthleather boots. He was standing at his ease, leaning against the far wall, his legs crossed at the ankle.

  Spinoza tried to salivate, to get her jaw moving. Her heart was beating too fast, her breathing too shallow. The words of the old litanies began to cycle through her mind, steeling her.

  He is eternal. Through Him, I endure all things.

  She was under no illusion as to what was coming next. She had seen the lithocasts, the autopsy reports, the cadavers brought in from the underhives.

  ‘Where are the others?’ she croaked.

  ‘The assassin and your storm trooper sergeant are alive. So are six of the others. The rest were killed in the audience chamber, but you must not hold that against my people, for you killed many, many more of them. Indeed, all told you took a very heavy toll.’ He pushed himself from the wall and walked closer. ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Luce Spinoza, interrogator, the Ordo Hereticus.’

  The man smiled. ‘Name, rank, ordo. And that is all you will tell me, yes?’

  ‘I am an agent of the Holy Orders of the Emperor’s Inquisition. They will come after me.’

  ‘Not tonight. Not for some time, given the madness that infects this world. For the time being, interrogator, we are alone.’

  Spinoza looked up at him. Her breathing was coming under control. The worst effects of the drug were beginning to drain away, replaced by a more honest, bodily pain.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked, lifting her bruised chin.

  The man squatted down before her, coming to her level, resting his elbows on his knees and tucking the fingers under his chin. He had a weathered face, with defined muscle mass and smooth skin. This one had not grown up in the lightless habs.

  ‘The name I was given at birth? Salvor Lermentov. You know what they call me now? The False Angel. Ridiculous. I have no idea where it came from – a kill-tag from the arbitrators, most likely. We used it, though. We turned it into something they could believe in. That is what this is about – belief.’

  Spinoza’s eyes narrowed. Quietly, she tested her bonds again, tensing up against the chair’s weight. ‘You believe nothing. I’ve seen what you do.’

  Lermentov smiled dryly. ‘What we do? I’ve seen what you do. Your hands are the bloodiest, interrogator.’

  ‘We do what we have to and take no pleasure in it. Your rites are abominations.’

  ‘Rites.’ Lermentov looked amused. ‘You mean that screed back there – sin and righteousness. Forget it. It means nothing. We use it keep them motivated. After ten thousand years of superstition, they can only think a certain way. We make do with what we have.’

  Spinoza began to push her back gently against the chair, probing for weakness. There was no trace of madness in the man’s speech. He was measured, dry, careful, which was unwelcome for many different reasons.

  ‘Here is where you tell me you are innocent of all crimes,’ she said, playing for time, wondering where Khazad and the others were being held.

  Lermentov placed his palms together for a moment, holding them as if in pray
er. ‘No, not all. There were crimes. But not the ones you think we are guilty of.’ He got up again. ‘How long have you served on Terra, inquisitor? I do not think long. You do not have the look about you.’

  ‘It matters not what–’

  ‘It matters.’ Lermentov’s eyes briefly flickered with anger. ‘Around us, above us, in the habs, people are dying. They are dying in agony, interrogator, and it is drawn out. They are made to experience pain that I can only begin to…’ He broke off, searching for the words. ‘And you believe we are to blame.’

  ‘It was confirmed by members of your cells.’

  Lermentov laughed bitterly. ‘Yes, your fine techniques of truth-seeking. Let me guess – they begin with denials, and then you bring out your instruments, and soon they are telling you anything you want them to, and at the end you read your bloody transcripts and comfort yourself that you’ve unearthed this great conspiracy beneath your feet.’ He shook his head, contemptuous. ‘If I wished it, interrogator, I could bring in the skin-saws and the nerve-pins and before the hour was done you’d tell me the Emperor Himself was a daemon of the deepest abyss.’

  ‘That is heres–’

  ‘You are wrong about us. You were wrong at the beginning and you are wrong now. All of you, hunting our members and torching our meeting places, never getting closer to the heart of it. Even when you took us alive you learned nothing, because you asked the wrong questions. How could you get it so, so wrong?’ Lermentov came closer again. ‘Because the people down here have learned to fear something more than you. It matters not how many of us you take into your fortresses, because there are more waiting who know that the enemy is not some abstract theological construct, but is here, now. So they look for someone to protect them, and they know that the arbitrators will not do it, and that the lords of the High Spires will not do it, and so it must come from themselves. And so we are arming ourselves and we are organising and we are growing in power, ready to order the underhives as they should be ordered.’