by Warhammer
‘I am the signal…’ she uttered, unsurprised at the bitterness in her voice.
Not only had the Valgaast violated her flesh, they had engineered it so she would betray herself and all she stood for. It was a hard pill to swallow, so she put the gun into her mouth instead. Bit down on the barrel, angling it just right so it would blow out the back of her head. One pull. Her life for thousands. It wasn’t suicide. It was necessary. A sacrifice. Stop the signal, end the threat. She would not become an abomination, not for them.
Morgravia closed her eyes, felt her finger tightening on the trigger. Just a little pressure needed…
Then hesitated.
It wasn’t enough. The cult had to burn. Root and branch. It was the only way to be sure they were done.
Easing her finger off the trigger, she gagged, tears in her eyes as she removed the gun barrel from her mouth. The taste of it lingered. Warm metal and cordite. She took a long, shuddering breath and hauled herself to her feet.
Barak and Jana were waiting for her as she trudged back to the rig.
The ex-proctor looked sallow, leaning heavily against the rig, Jana by his side.
‘Where are the others?’ she asked, silently noting the inquisitor’s haggard appearance. ‘I heard gunshots.’
‘Dead. Drover killed the Broker and I killed Drover,’ Morgravia replied flatly, and kept on walking. ‘Take the rig. Get to the gate.’ She dug around in her longcoat, pulling out her Inquisitorial rosette. She tossed it to Jana, who scrambled to catch it.
‘What’s this? And what do you mean they’re dead? What’s happening?’
‘An ending, at last.’ She gestured to the rosette. ‘You’ll need that. They won’t let you through without it. Say you’re my acolytes. That you’re on Inquisition business. They’ll be too afraid to challenge you. Easier just to let you through.’
At least, I hope they will.
Barak stepped into Morgravia’s path as she was passing the rig. He gently clasped her wrist and asked very softly. ‘Why are they dead?’
‘Because neither were what they seemed,’ Morgravia told him, ‘and nor am I, it would appear.’
If Barak thought anything about that last remark he didn’t mention it.
‘We can’t just leave you here,’ he said. ‘I won’t do it.’
‘I walk alone, Barak,’ Morgravia replied. ‘I have to. It’s not safe for either of you. You have to let me.’
He held her gaze for a moment as if gauging her veracity then nodded, letting his hand fall to his side. ‘You’re headed to the church, aren’t you.’
‘In a manner of speaking, I am.’
He nodded at that too, though the tension in his jawline told her he wanted to come with her and avenge the dead from Precinct IX.
‘Be careful,’ said Barak.
‘Just reach the gate. If I fail, it’ll be all that stands between the plague and the rest of the hive. I’d prefer you on the other side of it.’
Barak looked like he wanted to say more but thought better of it. Morgravia preferred it that way. She had never been one for sentiment, and felt nothing of it now. She carried on walking.
‘We won’t meet again,’ she called back. ‘And do not try to find me.’
Because I’ll be dead.
Barak gave no answer. A few minutes later, the rig sputtered and chugged away into the distance.
A lonely figure waited for her in the shadows. It was short and lithe, and held itself with a dancer’s poise, but Morgravia knew better.
A stir of old memories swilled to the forefront of her mind as she looked at Hel. A young girl, nervous and afraid, barefoot as she held onto her mother’s hand. At the temple of the Sanguinous, its huge bronze doors opening. A forbidding darkness and the scent of death. A tiny hand slipping loose from hers, as soft footsteps led up to the threshold. Innocence sacrificed. Silent tears. Darkness all consuming. The doors shut on one life, then open on another. Loss compounded by loss, and magnified.
‘I have found you, Mother,’ uttered Hel, and gave a shallow curtsey.
‘Not just me,’ Morgravia replied. ‘You’ve something else, haven’t you.’
Hel bowed. ‘Have you remembered?’
‘Some.’
‘Follow me then, I know the way.’
Morgravia fought back grief, fought the urge to touch Hel’s face, to feel the innocence she knew had long departed. It was a longing in her, a deep yearning. She betrayed none of this. For she did not understand it, the lacuna in her memories conspiring to elude her.
Chapter XXVI
Faith
The unbelievers burned. They burned all the way to the bone, writhing in their cages, skin blackening, until nothing remained but ash. Those in the pens still awaiting their fate were made to watch. Some wept, others looked on with dull fascination. Most of the prisoners huddled together in groups, some because they were kindred, others out of simple tribalism. Mankind is not meant to live alone. Its evolutionary cycle is driven by the innate desire to propagate. Every man requires a clan. It is primordial, an imperative survival instinct. For alone, a man is weak but together, he is strong.
He is also stupid, thought Cristo, reflecting on these words he had read once. A mob mentality had overtaken the cult; their demagogue, Convocation, the firebrand and stoker of its aberrant beliefs. He promulgated as he murdered and immolated, professing the Emperor’s will and offering those in the flames to the darkness below. What horrors lay in that abyssal deep Cristo could not begin to fathom but the thought of drifting down into it as nothing more than charred bone and ash terrified him. It terrified him more than death or pain, for he was forced to acknowledge that some sliver of him might believe there was something in that darkness. A misappropriation for certain, but he felt it, a confession he had only recently admitted to himself as he looked upon the pit.
A presence. He wondered if those suspended above it, in the moments before their deaths, felt it too.
He kept Karina close. She had said little since regaining consciousness. A part of him wished she had not. At least then she would be spared this hell. Literal fiery fucking hell.
A few factorum workers, bullet-makers and armour-shapers clustered with them.
Clans.
He only realised Celestia had slipped away when it was too late. She stood alone, apart from any tribe, for hers was dead, immolated by fire just like those in the cages, or else devoured by some devolved version of mankind.
They too had a tribe, the cannibalistic creatures. A horde. Though they did not seem to trouble the church. Perhaps that was how Convocation had yoked so many to his cult. He had offered protection, a haven from the dead, and though ignorant of how he had prevailed, he had called it – like so many small-minded men who crave power do – faith. That which cannot be proven, it must only be adhered to, blindly and absolutely, to the destruction of anything raised in opposition to it, however rational.
Cristo reached out, shrugging his way through the crowded pen as he tried to get to Celestia.
‘Blasphemy…’ She said it quietly at first, an appraisal and confirmation all at once. ‘Blasphemy,’ she uttered louder, getting the attention of a masked acolyte who approached the pens, a cudgel gripped easily in her fist.
‘Shut up,’ snarled the acolyte, threatening with the cudgel.
Shoulders straight, chin raised, Celestia faced her down.
‘Blasphemy.’
The acolyte lashed out but Cristo weathered the blow, interceding on Celestia’s behalf.
‘Don’t touch her,’ he snarled, his paternal instincts extending beyond just his daughter. He saw Karina moving up, but warned her off with a look. He was in this now, she didn’t have to be.
The acolyte summoned several of her cohorts, some freshly anointed and eager to vent their fear by inflicting suffering on the helpless.
Cristo was far from that, but he was outnumbered. As if sensing the change in mood, the frightened cattle in the pens shuffled back and a gap formed between Cristo and Celestia, and the rest.
‘Defiance will not be tolerated,’ the acolyte told them in a low voice that promised the violence to come. ‘You must be judged.’
The gate to the pen opened, the guards either side ready with shabby-looking autoguns to scythe down anyone who attempted to flee. The memory of the other attempted escapees still lingered fresh, pinning the prisoners in place.
Cristo was about to step up as the slighted acolyte and her thugs entered the pen but felt a light touch upon his shoulder that kept him back. He turned.
Celestia regarded him, her eyes limpid, her pretty face serene. She gave him just the faintest shake of her head and moved ahead of him to embrace her fate. She almost glided, diaphanous and pure, her defiance a rod of adamantium running through her.
‘I am Sister Celestia of the Order of the Silver Lantern,’ she declared. ‘I am the Emperor’s daughter and in Him–’
A heavy blow sent her to her knees and Cristo cried out, ready to surge forward until Celestia’s shaking hand stopped him. She rose groggily to her feet, a jagged cut across her forehead bleeding into her eye, and confronted the acolyte, who trembled with rage.
And fear. There was always fear in the violent.
‘And in Him do I place my faith. I am His instrument, His sainted sword.’
‘You’re a dead girl, is what you are,’ promised the acolyte, backed up by her fellow cultists.
Celestia remained undaunted. ‘I denounce you,’ she said. ‘I denounce these foul works. I denounce you!’ she cried, and at this the acolyte appeared to pale; whether the Sister-novice’s vehemence had made an impression or something else stayed the thug’s hand, the next blow did not fall.
For a fleeting moment, Cristo dared to believe that Celestia had somehow got through to the mob, that her true faith had returned a measure of their sanity. It was not to be.
Convocation appeared at the head of the aggressors. He gutted the acolyte with Vanquish, prompting a cry of anguish and anger from Celestia, then as the woman lay bleeding on the ground he struck the Sister-novice across the head with the hilt, a blow savage enough to render her half unconscious.
The priest was breathing hard behind his mask like a dog left too long in the sun, trying to marshal his anger in the wake of violence. His gaze went first to Celestia, her crumpled body lying at his feet like a discarded doll, before alighting on Cristo. A glimmer of something hungry and sadistic flashed across his eyes.
‘Take them both,’ he ordered. ‘Judgement awaits.’
They had to drag Cristo. It took four men, the screams of his daughter ringing in his ears with every resisted step.
He was ushered before one of the lecterns, a cosh to the back of his head to make him compliant. Convocation presided, his gaze imperious as he looked down upon them both.
‘Righteous are the just,’ he began, ‘who do not shirk from the Emperor’s light. False prophets have no purchase here, nor do heretics or the followers of aberrant faith.’
Celestia was pushed forward. Her hands were bound and she stumbled.
‘Unbelievers shall be cleansed, purged from the Emperor’s sight.’
She squirmed, her anger muffled by a gag tied around her mouth. It bit deep, the edges of her lip sore and bleeding as it chafed her.
‘Please…’ Cristo slurred, skull throbbing from the blow to the back of his head. A cultist either side held his arms, their attention on their priest. ‘Please,’ he said again, ‘put me in the cage. I am a fallen man,’ he declaimed. ‘I have killed. I am not righteous. I deserve punishment. Take me instead.’
Convocation’s ire had its focus now and would not be swayed. At a subtle gesture, a thug smacked Cristo across the stomach, winding him. He stooped, gasping for breath. He saw Celestia looking back, saw all her youth betrayed in the tears running down her face, in the soft weeping stifled by the gag, in the trembling of her limbs.
‘You are condemned,’ decried the priest, seizing upon the edges of the lectern as he leaned forwards. ‘You are condemned! Do you seek redemption?’ he asked.
Celestia blinked, suddenly confused. She tried to look at Cristo but a rough hand on the back of her neck thrust her face forward at Convocation.
‘Remove it,’ snapped the priest, ‘let the condemned speak. Let her confess to sin so that we might all hear it.’
The gag was removed, a painful wince on Celestia’s face making Cristo’s fists clench in impotent fury. He felt the grip of his captors lessen as religious fervour stole upon them, an incoherent baying erupting from the entire flock.
‘I… I…’ Celestia struggled to form words, every effort to speak rewarded with pain.
Convocation grew impatient, demanding, ‘Do you seek redemption?’
‘I… I…’ A bead of ruby blood trickled down her chin and dripped on her bare feet. ‘I do.’
Convocation leaned back, satisfied with his work. He was about to sermonise when Celestia interrupted.
‘As do all of His true servants,’ she said, ‘those who lead imperfect lives. I seek it. In my every deed, just as I seek it now as I denounce your heresy.’ She scowled. ‘False priest… zealot.’
Silence fell, the baying voices faded to a shocked murmur. Convocation did not react at first, his mask impassive. He took a shuddering breath, made the holy sign of the aquila over his chest, and then calmly pronounced judgement.
‘Take her to the cage, where she shall burn for her sins.’
The chain creaked ominously as the cage came down, the old links corroded and black.
At first she did not struggle, but as they took her to the edge of the gantry and lowered the cage to her in which she would be interred, Celestia fought. She cried, and punched and kicked. Cristo fought too but the gun pressed to the back of his neck soon quieted his outward quarrel.
‘Take me,’ he whispered, shedding tears of his own as he watched Celestia thrust into the cage and the door slammed and sealed behind her. ‘Take me.’
She stared dumbly as if resigned to her fate. A dousing of skin and cloth commenced, the reek of petrochem astringent in the church’s cold air. A torch was lit, the crackle of wood and flame like savage laughter.
‘Take me…’ Cristo wept, the zealots deaf to his pleas.
And despite all of her courage, Celestia screamed as they burned her body.
The baying returned, louder and more guttural than before. Men had become beasts and they each turned their faces to the fire, basking in its dark glow. Cristo bowed his head, feeling the presence of the noose, the burden of all his sins pulling him down. He thought of Karina, standing in the crowd, of her watching as he did nothing. He raised his gaze and found his daughter’s eyes in turn. She bellowed, her face twisted in anger and fear.
‘Father!’
The fire blazed, mere moments old, the silhouette of a girl writhing inside it. Her hair and clothes aflame. An endless scream as the cage slowly rose up on its protesting chain…
‘Father…’ Karina roared, louder than the mob, louder than the wailing crowds, ‘give her mercy!’
Stay alive, Karina… Stay alive.
One last look at his daughter, imprinting her image on his mind like a photograph, and Cristo surged to his feet. He threw off the guards, near delirious in their sadistic revels, and lunged for Convocation.
The priest had turned to exult his flock, arms outstretched as if in benediction. An inkling of disquiet had him look over his shoulder at the burly bullet-maker bearing down upon him. He raised his pistol and Cristo felt the shot sting as it entered his body, but by then he was leaping and tackling Convocation off his feet, the pair of them crashing into the fiery cage as it was still rising. A shriek of metal and the chain snapped.
>
The cage, Cristo and the priest fell burning into the abyss.
Chapter XXVII
Arteries
They entered the tunnels through an old outflow, wading through brackish water riddled with the corpses of vermin. A vast network, like arteries in a body, threaded through Low Sink’s grimy underhive and beyond. The air stank here, cloying with sewer heat and the backwash of huge, subterranean generators. The mechanisms were ancient, as large as landed starships, and droned like the voice of some primordial spirit of the deep earth.
Morgravia didn’t believe in such fancies. She didn’t need wild stories to convince her of the uncanny. She knew it existed, only her experiences were not some romanticised folktale; they were blood and horror and the death of worlds. This she knew. Ingrained. The price of her profession. Know the secrets, harbour the secrets, learn to live with them. Insanity, death or damnation rewarded those who could not.
She wondered which she would succumb to first. Perhaps she already had.
The itch in her flesh had abated at least, but not gone away entirely, like a creature slumbering, dormant until roused again. She had followed Hel into the maw of the outflow, old memories churning of poor Oshanti, dying with his back to the wall and two bullets in his gun. Morgravia grimaced at the thought, and the fate she had condemned him to.
As her sodium lamp parted the darkness, she knew these were not the same tunnels but almost certainly a part of the greater network, a tributary. Did the cult operate here? She could not remember, only that they felt familiar.
‘Why are we here, Hel?’ Morgravia asked.
Hel roved ahead, ankle-deep in silty runoff, though she made little sound as she slid through the murk. Pale cadavers bobbed in the turgid water like driftwood. Bloated by putrefaction, with teeth rotted to black stumps and cavernous sockets for eyes, many were too large and too humanoid to be vermin.
‘As the plague worsened they grew complacent,’ she said, neither turning nor slowing. ‘I waited, a rook upon my perch. The pallid did not bother me there. I can be still when I wish to be, as still as the dead. I watched and eventually they revealed themselves, seeking openly, in the dank and the dark. In the forgotten places.’
