Penitent

by Dan Abnett

  ‘Your death. Did you stage it? You knew my hope to infiltrate Gideon’s team and regain the book wouldn’t work, because Gideon would see through it. He’d need to see my mind, in order to trust me, and so he’d see the truth. But if I truly believed you were dead, and turned to him in desperation to help, there’d be nothing in my mind to hide.’

  ‘You had to go to him clean,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘You’re a good actor. But gaining his trust was beyond any function.’

  ‘So you staged it?’

  ‘No,’ said Medea. She had reappeared in the doorway and was regarding me with great regret. ‘Beta, we were attacked. We were conducting the auto-séance, and the graels came for us. They razed Bifrost. That was genuine.’

  ‘But you got out?’ I said.

  ‘Barely,’ she replied.

  ‘And then–’

  ‘I realised it was expedient for you to think us dead,’ said Eisenhorn.

  ‘Expedient?’

  ‘I knew you’d turn to Gideon. He would be your only option.’

  ‘Then Harlon didn’t know either?’ I asked. ‘Or surely his mind–’

  ‘He thought we were dead too,’ said Medea.

  ‘I reached out to him only an hour ago,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘Told him to be ready, and to unward and unlock this house.’

  ‘Harlon grieved for you,’ I said. ‘The thought of your death almost broke him.’

  ‘He’s strong,’ said Eisenhorn dismissively.

  ‘He was also right,’ I said. ‘He said, in the end, inquisitors don’t care for the people loyal to them, the people close to them. He said inquisitors were ruthless and cruel, and, ultimately, would use anything and anyone to achieve their goals.’

  I looked at Ravenor.

  ‘All of them.’

  ‘This concept comes as a surprise, Beta?’ Ravenor asked.

  Eisenhorn’s lips curled with an almost-smile.

  ‘It’s never a surprise,’ said Medea quietly. ‘It’s just always a dis-appointment.’

  Eisenhorn glanced at her, then looked away sharply. His almost-smile faded.

  ‘It’s not a criticism, Gregor,’ Medea said. ‘I’ve been with you too long for that. We’re all cruel, all of us. Kara, can you help me with Harlon? I think his ribs are broken.’

  Kara nodded.

  I heard Kys murmur, ‘Good.’

  Medea went to her. Kys was hunched in the chair, shivering. The shock of Ravenor suddenly waring her had left psyk-trauma.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Medea asked.

  ‘Fine,’ said Kys.

  ‘You’re very brave, very loyal, and very dangerous,’ said Medea.

  ‘And very dead, if she tries that again,’ said Cherubael.

  ‘She won’t,’ said Ravenor. ‘A truce. For now.’

  Medea and Kara left the room to tend to Nayl.

  ‘I’m on the verge of finding an alternative means of entering the City of Dust,’ Ravenor said to me. ‘Your words, Beta. Gregor said I should heed you. I am now listening.’

  ‘I’m not certain,’ I replied. ‘Just a notion that occurred to me belatedly, but if I’m right, it would be a better alternative than the King Door.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Eisenhorn.

  ‘You told me that on Gershom, you entered one of the Cognitae’s extimate spaces using Enuncia.’

  ‘That doesn’t work here,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘I’ve tried it multiple times.’

  ‘Because we’ve been looking for a permanent door where just a process would operate as a key,’ I said. ‘The King Door is perhaps just that, but I think it’s too dangerous to try. However, I believe there may be temporary doors, which is to say doors that may be conjured or summoned. I think I did that accidentally, in Feverfugue House. I think the Cognitae knew the method, which is why they could pass freely between cities until the King denied them.’

  I saw the surprise on Eisenhorn’s face.

  ‘Yes, the Cognitae and the King are no longer allies,’ I told him. ‘He has dispensed with their services, and they are on the run from him. From one of them, indirectly, I believe I have learned their method.’

  ‘From Mordaunt?’ Ravenor asked.

  ‘From Mam Mordaunt, yes.’

  ‘What method?’ asked Eisenhorn. ‘What do you need?’

  ‘Can you give me an hour to test my theory?’ I asked. ‘I want to be sure. I’d rather not look like an idiot in front of either of you. If I’m wrong, and that’s entirely possible, we will have to go with Gideon’s plan and risk the King Door.’

  ‘An hour?’ asked Eisenhorn.

  ‘If that. I know time is precariously short.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Eisenhorn said.

  ‘The King’s scheme, whatever it may be, is about to come to fruition,’ said Ravenor. ‘A matter of days or hours. This I discovered from a Cognitae perfecti.’

  ‘And not just that,’ I added.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Eisenhorn growled.

  ‘It means the aeldari,’ hissed Kys.

  ‘Oh, that’s the stink in here,’ said Cherubael. ‘I could not place it.’

  ‘What the hell have you done?’ Eisenhorn asked Ravenor.

  ‘I needed allies,’ said Ravenor.

  ‘You had one right here!’ Eisenhorn snarled, slapping his own chest.

  ‘Don’t pretend for a moment–’

  Eisenhorn rose sharply and strode across the room to face the Chair. ‘We are allies now, barely, because I engineered it. But you could have extended your hand to me any time. Any time. I was the fugitive, you were the hunter. The truce was yours to call. The help was yours to ask for. You know I would have responded. But no, you call on your xenos friends?’

  ‘I needed allies,’ said Ravenor. ‘The Ordos have no reach here. I contacted the Ancient Empire ten months ago and informed them of my concerns–’

  ‘That’s not what you told us,’ said Kys. Her eyes were narrow.

  ‘Ruthless,’ I murmured. ‘Even with the truth.’

  ‘I told them of my concerns,’ Ravenor continued. ‘And they sent assistance, according to an old agreement. But–’

  ‘But?’ asked Eisenhorn.

  ‘They have taken the initiative,’ said Kys. She got to her feet. ‘They agree with the threat assessment, and have embarked on action of their own. And he can’t call them off.’

  Kys looked at Ravenor with almost as much loathing as she had Eisenhorn.

  ‘Can you?’ she asked.

  ‘We have a week,’ said Ravenor.

  ‘Until what?’ asked Eisenhorn.

  ‘Five craftworlds,’ I said.

  ‘Mother of shit,’ said Cherubael, and bobbed closer to the ceiling.

  ‘I do not command the aeldari,’ said Ravenor. ‘They operate on their own recognisance. This is a threat to them too.’

  ‘You don’t command them, but you call them and they come,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘Throne of Terra, Gideon. Did you learn nothing from me?’

  ‘Too much,’ said Ravenor.

  ‘You were always such a cocksure little–’

  The cattle dog barked loudly. From the end of the room, Deathrow said something I couldn’t make out.

  Eisenhorn nodded. ‘Yes, you’re right. Bequin, go test your theory. You don’t have to be present while we continue this discussion.’

  ‘And I have no wish to witness it,’ I replied. ‘I could use Patience’s help.’

  Kys seemed surprised.

  ‘Go with her,’ said Eisenhorn.

  Kys looked at him with an unfathomable expression. Her kine blades sucked out of the wood panels where they were embedded, and flew back to neatly pin her chignon. She followed me to the door. As we left, we heard the voices of Eisenhorn and Ravenor rising in heated debate.

  In the hall
, Nayl was sitting awkwardly on a ladderback chair as Kara bound his ribs.

  ‘What’s going on in there?’ asked Medea.

  ‘The same thing that’s been going on for years, I’d imagine,’ I replied. ‘I’d stay out of the way for a while.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Beta,’ Medea said to me. ‘I’m sorry I hurt you. The pretence–’

  ‘I’m sorry too,’ I replied, without a smile.

  ‘I didn’t know,’ Nayl said through pain-gritted teeth. His eyes were pleading with me. ‘I really didn’t. Beta…’

  ‘Leave her be,’ Kys said to him. ‘For the record, I’m not sorry I hurt you. How many times have you changed sides now?’

  He lowered his face to avoid her stare.

  ‘Come with me,’ I said to Kys.

  I began to clear away the little scent bottles and jars that stood in front of the oval mirror. We were in the small upstairs room beside my little bedroom, where Kara had helped me prepare to perform as Violetta Flyde for the final time.

  ‘What do you want my help with?’ Kys asked, watching me from the doorway.

  ‘Not much. But I wanted to get you out of that room. I was afraid if you stayed, you’d try to kill someone again.’

  ‘Hah,’ she said, saying a laugh rather than laughing. ‘I told you Nayl would be the weak link,’ she remarked. ‘I told you. Still too much the heretic’s man.’

  ‘And I told you that you misjudge the quality of his loyalty,’ I replied. ‘He didn’t know, until an hour past…’

  ‘And how quickly did he turn, eh?’ she asked. She snapped her fingers. ‘He could have warned Ravenor. He could have warned us all. But no. One word from his old master, and he disarms the house to let them in.’

  ‘Nayl’s old enough to see the merit of a collaboration,’ I said. ‘And he’s in a difficult position. Torn–’

  ‘We’re all torn,’ said Kys with contempt. ‘You’re all torn. Kara, even Ravenor. Eisenhorn looms, and you all bow in his shadow. Yet you see what he brings with him? A daemon. A traitor-bastard of the Alpha Legion.’

  ‘Gideon’s hands are hardly clean either,’ I said.

  She sighed.

  ‘A whole life spent in his devoted service, and he still dismays me,’ she said quietly. ‘Aeldari xenos? For Throne’s sake. They are as bad as each other, I think. I have used up my days believing I serve the Throne above all, but this is the filth I am dragged into.’

  ‘Me too,’ I said. ‘That’s something I might have said of my own life. Nothing wears an honest face. Those we admire disappoint us, or betray us. What truth may be found is uglier and more cruel than our worst expectations.’

  ‘You sound more cynical than I do,’ she said.

  I looked at her. ‘You have been made uneasy by Gideon for a long time, haven’t you? You’re loyal to him, but you struggle with his approach.’

  ‘He uses people,’ she said. ‘Literally. And because of that armoured shell that houses him, one easily and often forgets that he is all too human.’

  Angry voices echoed from the house below us.

  ‘Listen to them,’ she growled. ‘Friends, enemies, both at once. Each of them knows that time is fleeting, yet they waste it in argument, about this and that, and a long and stupid history that matters to no one except them.’

  ‘I am the one that will keep you true,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said that to me. As we walked to the Gogs. It struck me so, I remembered it clearly. No matter what, you are true… to the Throne, if nothing else. Like me. Like, in his way, Harlon. Kara is too loyal to Gideon, and Medea too bound to Gregor. And it is impossible to define the loyalty of an enslaved daemon, or an Alpharian twin with his own agenda.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ she asked, stepping forward, curious.

  ‘I’m saying we were both born orphans, Patience Kys. We have never known true parents to honour or obey. We’ve both had surrogates, and they have been fallible, and so we have learned to answer to ourselves before anything.’

  ‘I do not even know my real name,’ she said.

  ‘Nor I,’ I said.

  ‘So… How do we proceed, no-name?’ she asked.

  ‘As before,’ I said. ‘We find the truth, however ugly. We find it for the sake of the Emperor. And once we have it, we present it to our warring masters and, perhaps, the stark truth of it will be enough to shake them out of their damned squabble so they might stand together and face down the darkness.’

  ‘How can I help?’ she asked.

  ‘You can help me clear these bottles away from the mirror,’ I said.

  She made a quick gesture with her hand, and the many bottles, ­phials and jars rose off the dressing table as one. Another flick of her hand, and they all flew sideways and scattered in the corner of the room. Some smashed, filling the air with intense perfumes.

  ‘Next?’ she said.

  I sighed. ‘Never mind,’ I said.

  I sat down in front of the mirror, and ran my hands around its frame.

  ‘You learned something, didn’t you?’ Kys asked, standing at my shoulder and watching me. ‘From Dance?’

  ‘And from Mam Mordaunt.’

  ‘More than you’ve told them?’

  ‘I want to be sure,’ I said. ‘A life submerged in lies has made me reluctant to speak of something until I know it to be true.’

  ‘How… how stark and ugly is this truth?’

  I glanced at her face in the mirror.

  ‘The King in Yellow may be one of the mythical lost primarchs,’ I said.

  I watched her reflected reaction.

  ‘Throne save us all,’ she whispered. ‘But you’re not certain?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘So what’s this game with the mirror about?’

  ‘The other part of the conundrum,’ I replied. ‘The way into the City of Dust. Mam Mordaunt, and the Cognitae… and many others, I imagine… make use of quizzing glasses to spy and gather intelligence. We did so at the Maze Undue.’

  ‘Mirrors?’

  ‘Mirrors, glass, lenses,’ I said. ‘Freddy Dance is blind, yet through the perfect lens of an astronomical scope he saw other stars. That’s what made me think of it. With the correct glass, one may see truly, not with the eye, but with the mind. In Feverfugue House, I chanced briefly on the City of Dust. I could never repeat the feat. But the night I did it, I was using a cursed sighting glass that showed me the way. The glass never lies.’

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘Something Dance said.’

  ‘Mirrors, glass, lenses,’ she mused. ‘You think they’ll show you the truth?’

  ‘No, more than that,’ I said. ‘I think some glasses do more than quiz. I think they open doorways. I think that is the method we have been missing all along.’

  Kys seemed impressed.

  ‘Glass can have properties,’ she admitted. ‘Cursed glass. Glass tempered by the warp. Like flects.’

  ‘You know of those?’

  ‘I have had some experience,’ she replied.

  ‘I found Mam Mordaunt in Stanchion House,’ I said. ‘She had many quizzing glasses there, a collection. They were how she surveilled and remained so well informed. But confusion overtook us, and in the midst of it, she vanished. I thought at first she was dead. Disintegrated. But I now think she escaped, using a means familiar to her.’

  ‘Through a quizzing glass?’

  I nodded.

  ‘And you think that why?’

  ‘She claimed to have two methods of exit, one she was loath to employ. But in the end, I think she was forced to take it. Her life was imperilled. If she had a means to flee, to step away, why was she afraid to use it?’

  ‘Because of where it led?’

  ‘Because of where it led,’ I agreed. ‘She could step throu
gh a glass and leave Stanchion House, but only to the City of Dust. The King has renounced the Cognitae, and seeks to purge them, so the City of Dust is the last place she wanted to go.’

  ‘In all ways, the last place,’ Kys said.

  I sat back in frustration.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Kys.

  ‘This glass is no good,’ I said. ‘I know a little of the craft of quizzing, and this glass won’t work. It is, I fear, just an ordinary mirror, and it won’t respond.’

  ‘So we need… a special one? One made for such work?’

  I rose to my feet.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And I think I know where one may be found.’

  We went back downstairs. The house had fallen silent, the argument subsided.

  There was no sign of the daemon or Deathrow. Through a side door I saw Kara, sitting silently as she watched over Nayl. He was coiled on a couch, fast asleep.

  Kara didn’t see us. With Kys at my heels, I walked down to the drawing room. We would tell them what we knew. It would be enough, I hoped.

  In the drawing room, Eisenhorn stood facing the Chair. Both were entirely silent and still, as though some divine force had set them fast as statues. I noticed a rime of frost glittering on the carpet and the upper surfaces of some furniture. I stepped towards Eisenhorn.

  ‘Do not disturb them.’

  Medea stood in the hallway behind us.

  ‘Don’t,’ she advised. ‘Their vicious argument continues. They have merely taken it to a psykanic plane.’

  ‘They are arguing still?’ I asked.

  ‘Fiercely,’ Medea said.

  ‘Idiots,’ said Kys.

  ‘They have many matters to unpick,’ said Medea sadly. ‘Lifetimes of friendship and enmity, trusts broken, crimes imagined and real. They cannot work as one until things are swept clear between them.’

  ‘They’re still idiots,’ said Kys.

  ‘And they will never resolve it, not in a hundred years of rowing,’ I said. ‘For they are too alike, and yet too different. One bound by a code of duty, the other by a higher calling, one Throne-loyal yet unwise, one heretical yet true.’

  ‘And both idiots,’ said Kys. ‘And they lack trust of any kind. They trust no one, not even themselves, for they are shamefully aware of their own transgressions. This is what the Ordos do to men. They cannot trust each other. They will never trust each other, and this dispute will never be resolved.’