Penitent

by Dan Abnett

  ‘Yes,’ I interrupted. ‘But an eye? You said “the eye”.’

  ‘Deeply symbolic,’ he admitted. ‘The eye has many mytho-symbolic meanings all of its own, but there is one of course, a terrible one, that has a great and menacing bearing on all Imperial fortune.’

  Before I could stop to consider this, and contemplate the ramifications of the Eye of Terror, and the warp, and the Traitor Legions stalking the very planet on which we stood, he had moved on yet again.

  ‘That binary pattern of 1s surrounding a zero eye, mamzel, is a pattern that strongly reminded me of another something – telomeres.’

  ‘Telomeres?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ll simplify,’ he said, with a wry little chuckle. ‘When the cells that make up your body divide, which they do all the time to reproduce, their DNA is copied into the new cell. But the copying process doesn’t copy all of the DNA chromosome – it leaves out the very ends. So your chromosomes have lots of redundant sequences at each end. These are called telomeres. Every time your DNA is copied, you lose a telomere from each end of each chromosome. So as you get older, the number of telomeres in your cells reduces. This is part of the ageing process. If a cell has too few telomeres, it means it has been copied too many times, which means it may include transcription errors in its DNA. So, the cell is no longer allowed to reproduce.’

  ‘So you think 119 is also a coded reference to genetic copies?’ I asked. ‘To clones and–’

  ‘Genetic technologies have been fundamental to the Imperium since the Unification Wars of prehistory,’ he said. ‘They underpin mankind’s martial strength.’

  And hold a very personal significance to me, I wanted to say, but I refrained.

  ‘I pictured the 1s around the zero as telomeres,’ Dance said, ‘and perceived a kind of countdown. As you go from 32,639 to 8,127 to 2,015, in the binary form, the number of 1s around the zero decreases as I just described. When you throw away the last pair, you go from 101 to 0. The end. Death. Perhaps someone has been counting down generations, using this code. Maybe your 119 is just a step in the countdown. Or maybe it’s just a way of measuring the time or generations left until some cataclysm, or some kind of death. 119 is only three steps away from the end…’

  I stepped back from him for a moment, and breathed deeply to centre myself. An encoding of universal knowledge was the alleged function of Enuncia, which had been sought by so many for so long. I had witnessed the power of just a fraction of it, a word. It was the grammar, the grimoire, from which creation could be spelled out. Had someone transmuted it, or hidden it, in a numerical form? Numbers, I had always been told, were a more efficient medium than words.

  My mind swam. Dance had deftly connected a process akin to Enuncia with ideas of ancient distress, a warning, the symbol of the eye, of replicating and eroding genetics, and of a countdown. Gideon had said time was short, and Verner Chase had warned that the hour of the King in Yellow’s triumph was almost upon us.

  I had been a seeker of the truth of things, all my life long, it seemed, desperate to grasp some genuine meaning. And here was meaning at last, here was true learning, all at once in a great torrent, meaning upon meaning, in such quantity as might bowl me down and wash me away. I felt overwhelmed.

  ‘Then we may consider the other meanings,’ said Dance merrily, oblivious to my dazzled affect. He limped back to his chair, took a sip of his drink, and then sat down. ‘The individual numerals in 119. 1 and 9 are both square numbers. So 119 represents three squares, two small ones – 1 times 1 – followed by a much larger one – 3 times 3. Visually, what might that represent? Two sons standing at the right hand of their father? Two daughters standing at the right hand of their mother? In numerology, 9 represents love and self-sacrifice. 11, however, is the mythical Iscariot number, the number of betrayal in ancient world-lore. In the Terran proto-religions, a messianic figure called Yeshu was betrayed by his eleventh disciple. But even that is curious, for mythologically, that betrayal was essential. It was, in fact, a pre-ordained act of loyal sacrifice, for without the betrayal, the divinity of the messiah would not have been recognised. I’ll come back to that. 9 has other meanings, as I’m sure you know, mamzel–’

  ‘Nine Sons who stood, and Nine who turned,’ I said, by rote. ‘Nine for the Eight, and Nine against the Eight, Eighteen all to make the Great Cosmos or bring it crashing down.’

  ‘Aha! You know your Heretikhameron!’ Dance exclaimed with delight. ‘Exactly. In 9, we see the primarchs, and like the Iscariot number it symbolises simultaneous sacrifice and betrayal. And so to 19. That, like 11, is laden with mystery. For it is whispered that there were once twenty immortal primarchs, twenty sons, but two were somehow lost. They have never been named or accounted for. They are, some might reckon, the nineteenth and the twentieth. Although, in fact, by designation they were the second and eleventh. 19, strictly speaking, in Legion order formulation, is the number of Corax of the Raven Guard, and it was also once used as an honorary designation for the original master of the Adeptus Custodes, who in the time of wicked Heresy was reckoned an equal and unofficial primarch. And also, of course, the great Militarum General Lexander Chigurin was affectionately dubbed the “Nineteenth Primarch” after his illustrious campaign of victories during the Scouring. But hermetically, mamzel, hermetically 19 is most usually reserved to indicate the missing primarchs. Either of them. It is the number-signifier of the lost, the unmentioned, the nameless, the unspoken, the forgotten.’

  I sat down beside him.

  ‘Do you believe, sir,’ I asked carefully, hiding the fear in my voice, for this was proscribed knowledge of the most dangerous kind, ‘that 119, in some coded way, represents one of the lost primarchs?’

  ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘for various reasons, I am convinced that the hypersigil 119 represents the King in Yellow, and offers a clue to his identity.’

  ‘A missing primarch, sir? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘I believe I am,’ he replied.

  CHAPTER 26

  Configuration 6,337,338

  ‘That,’ said Mam Matichek, ‘is quite enough.’

  She came to me, all of an agitation, and almost yanked me out of my seat by the sleeve, drawing me aside.

  ‘I hoped you might be a calming influence on him,’ she whispered at me, her voice pitched low so that Freddy could not overhear, though I was sure his friends quite underestimated the sharpness of his hearing. ‘I requested that you come here and soothe him. My friend is very fragile. But instead you yammer at him and make him worse. Make him speak of heresy.’

  This last she hissed through clenched teeth, almost soundless in its ferocity. ‘I think you should go now,’ she said.

  ‘That’s interesting,’ I replied.

  ‘What’s interesting?’ she asked.

  ‘That you know it’s heresy,’ I said. ‘That you know, therefore, that what he speaks of is actually dangerous, and not the mere drivel of a madman.’

  Her eyes widened in alarm.

  ‘I didn’t say anything–’

  ‘Precisely,’ I said. ‘You didn’t speak to that. Just now, you urged me not to agitate him. But you didn’t question his agitation. You did not ask, for example, “who is the King?” when Freddy spoke of him.’

  ‘I know the myth,’ she answered indignantly. ‘We all know the myth. You cannot live in Queen Mab and not know the myth!’

  She looked to Unvence for support. The long-limbed clerk had almost plaited himself up in an attitude of discomfort.

  ‘That is true,’ he mumbled. ‘A myth, no more.’

  ‘No, no,’ I countered. ‘You both know it’s more than that. I believe, truly, you’re both worried about Freddy’s health, but you’re also worried what he might say.’

  ‘Well, mam, I don’t care what you believe,’ said Mam Matichek. ‘I think you should go now. I do not think you are what you appear to b
e at all. I took you for a nice young lady with a passing interest in the esoteric, but today – look at you – you come to us barely in that disguise. I see through you, and I will not have it.’

  ‘I think my friend will be the one who decides when it’s enough,’ said Renner. He remained by the door, his tone just the right side of warning.

  ‘What are you?’ Unvence asked us, trembling. ‘Are you Magistratum? Are you of the Baron’s bureau of investigators? Are we to face charges?’

  ‘We’ve done nothing wrong, Lynel,’ Mam Matichek said. ‘We’ve merely tried to provide some easement to a good friend, and instead–’

  She looked at me.

  ‘Please leave, before I summon the bursar and have you removed.’

  ‘My burdener friend is right,’ I said, remaining calm. ‘I’ll leave when I’m done. I bear no ill will towards you, mam, nor to Mr Unvence. For that reason, I will make things plain to you, though I fear it may alarm you more.’

  I took the wallet from my coat pocket, opened it, and laid it on the table where they both could see it. Mam Matichek and Unvence gazed at the rosette in quiet terror.

  ‘I am Bequin,’ I said. ‘I serve the Holy Ordos at the command of the Throne. I require your cooperation, and that cooperation will be noted in my report.’

  Unvence covered his gasping mouth with a steeple made of both hands, and took a step back. Mam Matichek uttered a small sound, and sagged as if she might faint. Lightburn helped her to a chair.

  ‘We’re ruined,’ she murmured.

  ‘You are not ruined,’ I said. ‘Your cooperation is required, and I… hereby deputise you as my assistants. Now, how do you know of the King in Yellow?’

  ‘One does not,’ muttered Mam Matichek, gazing at the rosette, ‘frequent such circles as the crowd at Lengmur’s, or keep such company as Oztin Crookley, without hearing of such things. Without learning there is some truth behind the silly myths. We meet, we drink, we… talk of secret lore and magics until we quite believe it. It is all in fun, the illicit thrill of transgressive discourse.’

  She looked up at me.

  ‘Are we all to be burned for our foolishness?’ she asked.

  I shook my head.

  She sighed. ‘I always thought Oztin such a faker, a boaster, a charlatan, pretending he knew forbidden things–’

  ‘He is a charlatan,’ I said. ‘But he, and you, and everyone in this city, I fancy, have stumbled on the truth. More than you know. It is woven into the stones and streets all around us. I seek that truth.’

  I looked at Freddy. He was carefully refilling his glass from the decanter, trying to guide one to the other with his hands. I went to him, took the glass and the bottle, and poured it for him.

  ‘You are an inquisitor?’ he said.

  ‘Does that frighten you?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course. But I’m relieved. You are taking me seriously. No one ever has. I have been mocked and disgraced and accused of madness. But you know. You know it’s not that. You’ve come at last, to take this burden from me, and I am glad to give it up. This is the balm my mind needed, Aelsa, not your coddling, though I know you mean it kindly. This young woman knows I am not mad, and I will answer any question she asks, for she is freeing me from my long struggle with my own soul.’

  ‘How do you know?’ I asked him. ‘How did you connect this to the King in Yellow, Mr Dance? I did not mention his name.’

  ‘You did not have to,’ he replied. ‘He is real, and he is in everything that we are here, woven into the stones and streets, just as you said. But you speak now, of speaking, Mamzel Bequin. You said, “mention his name”. As has been established, I am blind. I visualise numbers, for they matter to me and have always been my friends, but I hear them – of course – as words. One-one-nine. You said that to me, in the Two Gogs. In those words, “one-one-nine”. Inevitably, I have considered another approach, one that can only be appreciated by someone hearing numbers spoken.’

  He grinned, his eyes elsewhere.

  ‘If one expresses one-one-nine as words, mam, it allows us to contemplate an alphabetical order. If you alphabetise all numbers – all numbers – as words, do you know which is first on the list?’

  I tried to think. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Eight,’ he said.

  ‘Eight?’ I echoed.

  ‘Eight,’ he insisted. ‘Eight becomes one, for it is the first place upon the alphabetical list. When numbers are ordered as words, eight becomes one. Now Eight, as we both know, is the name given to those who serve the King. Those who slew Mam Tontelle.’

  ‘So they are known to you too?’ I asked.

  ‘Only as a rumour,’ said Mam Matichek, appearing at my shoulder. ‘It’s a most dangerous secret, and no one speaks of it, or pretends to know, but in our quiet circle…’ She sighed and looked at me. Her expression was a mix of resignation and sadness. ‘Dear Freddy should not be speaking of them aloud.’ She patted the old astronomer’s shoulder reassuringly. ‘These are things that we, even in our private coterie, tend to avoid and ignore for fear of terrible retribution.’

  ‘The Eight killed Mam Tontelle,’ I confirmed. ‘That was them.’

  Unvence let out a little whimper.

  ‘Eight is a number of such significance,’ said Dance. ‘More even than 9 or 19.’

  ‘Eight for the legs. Eight for the points. Eight because that’s what they ate,’ I said. ‘Eight because it is the symbol-mark of the Archenemy.’

  Dance nodded.

  ‘So that’s coded there too,’ I said. ‘Hidden in plain sight in the number 119.’

  ‘Twice,’ said Dance, ‘suggesting perhaps a mathematical process. One to the power of one, representing, symbolically, eight to the power of eight.’

  ‘Chaos to the power of Chaos?’

  ‘A number not to be taken lightly,’ he said.

  ‘So what of the 9?’ I asked. ‘If 1 and 1 are eight and eight, what is the phonetic value of nine? Where does that place in your alphabetical list?’

  ‘Well, Mamzel Inquisitor,’ he replied, ‘that depends on the length of the list. Eight is always the first on the list, no matter how many numbers are included. But the position of nine varies, as does nineteen and one hundred and nineteen. We need to know the length of the list to be certain.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, feeling rather stupid. ‘The alphabetical placement changes the more numbers you include. So where would it fall on a list of numbers between, say, one and one hundred and nineteen?’

  ‘You think too small, mam,’ he replied. ‘119 is a hypersigil that is meant to be decoded. The number entire, one hundred and nineteen, is perhaps too obvious. Whoever made the sigil expects us to use the parts of it that we can unlock to unlock the rest. And the pair of 1s are constants. If they each represent eight, then they are always eight. Their place on the list never changes. So we can trust them. And multiply them as I suggested. Eight to the power of eight.’

  ‘Giving us?’

  ‘A very large number,’ he said. ‘Sixteen million, seven hundred and seventy-seven thousand, two hundred and sixteen. That’s not a prime number. In binary, it’s 1 followed by twenty-four 0s. It’s about as un-prime as a number can be. In fact, to the magos mathematicae, it’s known as a humble number. If the alphabetical list is that long, and I think it is, then nine comes at…’

  He paused, for a very brief moment, as he thought.

  ‘At the six million, three hundred and thirty-seven thousand, three hundred and thirty-eighth place.’

  ‘And the significance of that?’ I asked, trying not to be fazed by the speed at which he had made that computation in his head.

  ‘Well, it’s not prime,’ he replied, with a shrug. ‘Beyond that I don’t know. I think it’s time for me to see your cipher, mam. The mystery text to which 119 is the key. Perhaps I can determine the significance fr
om that.’

  ‘I’ve brought it with me,’ I said, and took the commonplace book out of my coat. Dance took it eagerly, running his hands around it, and putting it to his nose to sniff it.

  ‘Freddy can’t read, my dear,’ Mam Matichek called out.

  ‘I know,’ I said, and glanced at the old astronomer. He was still quite occupied with the book. ‘He can’t read the book, I agree,’ I replied, ‘but Mr Unvence can.’

  ‘What good is that going to do?’ Mam Matichek asked.

  I looked at Unvence.

  ‘Let us not, for now, dwell on how I come to know this,’ I said, ‘but I am aware of your connection to Mr Dance.’

  Unvence frowned at me, dubious and scared in equal measure.

  ‘I won’t tell a soul,’ I promised, ‘but I do need your help, sir.’

  ‘What does she mean?’ Mam Matichek asked. ‘Lynel? What does she mean?’

  ‘Lynel,’ I began, with a look towards Unvence, ‘may I call you Lynel, sir? Lynel is Freddy’s way of seeing, and has been for a long time. Aren’t you, Lynel?’

  Unvence seemed ready to bolt for the door.

  ‘Type D-theta-D, passive and singular,’ I said. ‘You were never tested, were you?’

  The shipping clerk couldn’t bring himself to reply.

  ‘No one needs to know,’ I said. ‘You have my word. The word of the Ordos. Will you help me?’

  Lynel Unvence cleared his throat. He was, when it came to it, remarkably brave, or else remarkably devoted to his friend. Mam Matichek was looking from him to me and back, in turn, quite fuming.

  ‘I will, mamzel,’ said Unvence.

  ‘Thank you,’ I replied.

  ‘Help her how? Lynel?’

  I placed my hand on her arm to gently restrain her, and we watched as Unvence sat in the chair beside his friend. He arranged his long legs as comfortably as the table-height would allow, produced his pince-nez from his pocket, and put them on. Then he took the commonplace book from Freddy’s hands, and set it on the table in front of him. He opened it and regarded the inside cover.