Fear And Fire Part 16

Behind her, Ca.s.sandra was in hushed discussion with Miriya. This is a poindess voyage,' she growled.

We've been travelling all night and for nothing. Vaun is lying to us.'

That much is certain,' replied Miriya, but we must know for sure. We shall give him enough rope to hang himself 'I can hear every word you are saying,' said the psyker from across the cupola. 'And it makes me sad. Is there not even the smallest iota of trust in you? In anyone?' He looked direcdy at Verity. 'Even the nursemaid?'

'It would be easier to give you some credence if you could reveal this mystery destination of yours,' said the Hospitaller. 'Come now, Vaun. How much further do you expect us to go?'

The man threw her a weak smile and glanced at a chronograph on the 'nef s bulkhead. 'No further,' said Vaun. We're here. He nodded to the tech-priest. Take us down, cogboy, nice and easy. And douse the lumes. They'll be watching.

"Who will be watching?' asked Miriya, striding for-wards to where the naked sky peeked into the wrecked cabin.

'LaHayn's dogs. He pointed into the darkness. ^Vhat do you see?'

Verity squinted. 'Only the volcanoes.

Vaun nodded. 'As you are meant to. That is the out-ermost lie. The aeronef dropped quickly, just a few metres from the ground now. With his bound hands, the psyker took the adept's claw and turned it so the flyer's tiller moved. In return, the s.h.i.+p wavered side-ways. The battlements are cloaked with clever designs, the points of entry disguised. Look now. Do you see?'

The Sister Hospitaller did and she gasped as a string of cas.e.m.e.nts seemed to appear from nowhere along the surface of the tallest ashen crag.

The Null Keep,' smiled Vaun. 'I've been away too long.

From afar, no human eye or auspex scan would ever have considered the towering structure to be anything other than what it first appeared to be: one more huge volcanic tor, seething with roils of dirty steam and clogged rivulets of sluggish lava. Yet the closer one came to the mount the more it changed to resemble a citadel rather than a natural form. At one time, cen-turies, perhaps millennia ago, the craggy basalt peak had been untouched by the devices of human tech-nology, but now it was a masterpiece of clandestine engineering, a castle made by stealth that stood unde-tected in this barren arroyo. Shafts had been bored into the thick walls of the rock face, connecting the magma voids in the same manner as ants and termites lived within their earthen colonies. These open cham-bers had been emptied of molten stone, sealed seamlessly with a science that was lost to humans in this age, and made habitable. Some of the voids were small things, perhaps the size of a few rooms. Others were large enough to accommodate an Imperial Navy corvette, layered with decking, corridors and internal crawlways.

The slumbering volcanic shaft at the axis of the citadel provided tireless reserves of geothermal energy from mechanisms sunk into the liquid mantle of Neva, venting excess gouts of superheated steam from conduits about the surface of the tower.

Battlements and window slits looked out on the approaches. Cunningly fas.h.i.+oned from the cut of the rock itself, these openings appeared to be natural for-mations. Only on closer examination could the dim glow of biolumes be seen behind them. Spines of obsidian gla.s.s and petrified trees masked cl.u.s.ters of armoured sensor vanes and vox antennae. There were even dock platforms, planes of flat stone that extended out far enough to accommodate something the size of a coleopter or a land speeder.

Every shadowed hollow in the sheer face of the mountainside could be home to a watching sense-engine or a concealed weapon emplacement. It was an oppressive edifice, black and leaking menace into the hot, sulphurous air. The endeavour to create such a structure, the will to hide a secret tower in this barrenlandscape, dwarfed the palaces and temples of Noroc. The construction's original purpose was lost to antiq-uity, but whatever it had been made for, it had been born in secrecy. The walls of the inner chambers masked everything that took place within, patterned with exotic ores that defied the study of the few tech-adepts allowed to survey them. Nothing, no wavelength of radiation, not even the warped energy of the human psyche, could escape the walls of the tower. The silence of the Null Keep was deeper than the vacuum of s.p.a.ce.

They left the aeronef in a steep-walled chasm, the nervous and s.h.i.+fty Mechanicus priest chained to the landing skid in case his curiosity got the better of him. When the Battle Sisters had secured the adept, Miriya's intent look at Verity sparked a pre-emptive denial from the Hospitaller.

'Do not ask me to remain here, Sister Superior. I have no intention of staying in this lightless cabin while you venture out.

'I have only your safely in mind. began Miriya, but Verity shook her head.

'I have come this far. I will see this road to its end.

Vaun snorted. 'Ah, bravo, nursemaid. You have such tenacity.

Miriya turned her ire on the psyker, barely moder-ating the tremor in her gun hand. 'We are here, witch.

Now tell us, what is this place?'

'You cannot simply be told what the Null Keep is. Vaun said darkly. You must see it for yourself.

Portia snorted. 'For Katherine's sake. For all we know, this could be some elaborate trap. We'll ven-ture inside and find a horde of mutant psykers baying for our blood!'

'If I wanted to kill you, Sister, it would have been simple to reduce this aircraft to ashes. Sweat beaded his brow and with an effort Vaun managed to make a puff of flame snap from his fingertip. 'No, I want you to see this. It will please me no end to watch the truth barge its way into your shuttered minds. Even if you gun me down then and there, you'll never escape the fact that I was right... and your precious church is wrong!'

The woman pulled her bolter, but Miriya held up a warning hand. know better than to let a witch goad you, Portia. Recite the Saint's Lament and reflect upon it.

Her face soured, but the dark-skinned Battle Sister did as she was asked, turning away to mumble the prayer under her breath. Miriya looked to Vaun once more. She could see the neuropathic drugs were beginning to wear off, and she knew that Ver-ity had no more.

'She has a valid point. Why should I trust you, witch?'

'Nothing I have ever said to you has been a lie, Sis-ter Miriya. he replied. 'I see no need to change that now. He paused. The keep is the covert domain of Lord LaHayn. It is here that I spent those lost years of my life-' Vaun threw a look at Verity, '-here that your precious deacon's schemes are incubating. As the nursemaid said, this place is the end of the road. For all of us.

Miriya accepted this with a nod, then with her hands she made a couple of sharp sign-gestures, battle language directives that the other Sisters instantly reacted to. The woman took her plasma gun from its holster and spoke the Litany of Activation to it. She approached Vaun and gave him a level stare. 'You will have heard this from me before, but it bears repeating before we go forward. If you betray us, your life will be forfeit. All that keeps air in your lungs is my desire for the truth. Give me cause to doubt you, and I will give you the screaming, b.l.o.o.d.y end that you so richly deserve.

'Such a compelling argument,' he teased, 'and pray tell, if I do indeed give you the truths you seek, what then? What gift do I get?' 'A chance to repent and a quick end. 'Well. Vaun smirked mockingly. 'I'm convinced. Shall we go?'

There were entrances to the Null Keep, but none of them were less than four hundred metres above the level of the valley floor. Instead, Vaun led them to a place where the oval mouths of steam tunnels opened to the cloudy sky. This is the manner in which I exited the citadel on the day I escaped. Many had attempted it before me and all had been brought back for us to see, their bodies bloated by scalding and their skin falling off in sheets.

You speak of this place as if it were a prison. said Ca.s.sandra.

'It is that, and it is other things as well. A honeycomb of cells exists within these walls, dungeons cut in the solidified magma bubbles, rooms impossible to gain purchase upon...' He shuddered at the memory.

Isabel gingerly peered over the lip of the tunnel and ducked back with a start, blinking furiously. Ach. The heat. It will roast any exposed fles.h.!.+'

Miriya traced the fleur-de-lys on her chest plate. 'Don your helmets. Our power armour will protect us.

Isabel pointed at Vaun. 'What about him? What about the Hospitaller?'

The psyker shook his head. There is a routine to the outga.s.sing from the core. The temperature falls andrises in a precise rhythm, which I can predict. Keep close to me and I will guide you through, but do not dally. Hesitate in the wrong place and you'll be cooked. Like a suitor asking for a courtly dance, Vaun offered his hand to Verity. 'Stay by my side, dear nursemaid. He ended the sentence with a leer.

Verity. Miriya nodded. It was as much an order as she was going to give.

Loathing rose on the Hospitaller's face as she gin-gerly approached him. 'Have no fear, Sister. said Vaun in a silky voice. 'I promise I will be the con-summate gentleman.

The girl closed her eyes, fighting down the disgust that she felt, and Miriya gave Vaun one final look of warning. 'Portia, with me. Ca.s.sandra, the rear. Isabel, you will keep our erstwhile guide honest. If you so much as suspect he is leading us astray or performing a foul act upon Sister Verity's mind, you have my consent to kill him where he stands.

In a ragged line, they entered the tunnel and ventured inside. Boiling hot streams of scorching air rumbled past them, fogging the visors of their Sabbat-pattern helms with condensation. Miriya toyed with the preysight setting, but the colours were a riot of tumbling reds, whites and oranges, and she quickly became disoriented.

Blinking sweat from her lashes, she pushed on, conscious of the suit's internal mechanisms labour-ing to keep her body cool. The tiny fusion core apparatus in her power armour's backpack showed warning glyphs at the corner of her vision, the tem-perature gauge rising quickly toward the red line.

The Battle Sister kneaded the grip of her gun and pondered Portia's words again. For all she knew, Vaun was leading them into a pit of boiling lava -but to have brought them this far only to take them to certain death? It was not his way. In the days since his escape aboard the Mercutio, Sister Miriya found she was coming ever closer to understanding the mind of the aberrant. Vaun's ego was his driving force, and to merely end her life and that of her squad would not be satisfactory for him. He wanted them to admit he was in the right before they died.

In the back of her mind, a small voice asked the question: and what if he is? Miriya shook the thought away and kept moving.

After what seemed like hours of walking in a doubled-over crouch, they reached an intersection festooned with service walkways. Vaun sagged a little, but directed them on to a service hatch, Portia ventured through and beckoned them into a maintenance room. Relief welled up in each of them as the Battle Sisters took a moment to remove their helmets. Verity was pale and her habit was drenched with sweat. She drained most of her water bottle before she administered a potion to each of them that would restore the balance of their bodies.

There was another door in the room and Vaun walked across to it, peering through a barred slit. The strength that had been missing from his gait was starting to return. 'Here we are,' he said, a curi-ous sadness in his tone that Miriya had not heard before.

The Sister Superior took a look herself, and gasped.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

It was a gallery of obscenities.

The window slit looked out across the inside of a wide-open chamber, criss-crossed with the webwork of a hundred catwalks and pipeways. Complex loops of cabling went this way and that, similar to those in the streets of Noroc but far more sophisticated. Dan-gling from them were hooked arms, some empty, some bearing the weight of platforms or aged metal cubes as big as a tank. Many hung suspended, while others moved in trains towards unknown destina-tions. Among the constant rumble of activity there were odd sounds that might have been screams or electric discharges - it was hard to be sure. As far as Sister Miriya could see, the outer walls of the decks that dropped away into the depths were ringed with cell after cell of greenish, murky gla.s.s, the same sort of capsule that Vaun had been sealed in when he was brought to the Mercutio. An irritable sensation crawled over her skin and she tasted an indefinable tang on the air, a thick, greasy aroma. She wrinkled her face in a grimace.

'You can sense it, can't you?' Vaun asked in a low voice. The despair and pain of a thousand psychics, living and dead. The walls of the citadel are imprinted with it, stained by their anguish.' He shook his head.

'Imagine how it feels to me.'

'My heart bleeds for your suffering, witchkin. she said with disdain.

Human shapes moved on some of the levels. Sister Miriya craned her neck to get a better look, but she was too high up for proper scrutiny. She could make out the doddering metal-meat amalgams of servitor drones, blinded men in what might have been Mechanicus robes, but most of the figures wore habits of drab grey, loose garb that swaddled them and became a blank moon-faced mask over their heads.

Vaun saw where her attention was directed. The tenders. Such a horrible joke, a soft and compa.s.sion-ateappellation perverted by these heartless cretins.'

The Sororitas considered the witch at her side. Now was the time to be the most watchful of him. By his own admission he had wanted to gain entry to this place, and she had facilitated that for him. Vaun's need to remain in her company was likely waning by the moment, and when the opportunity presented itself, she had no doubt that he would attempt to flee.

The other women had taken water and a brief moment for prayer. Ca.s.sandra approached, her face conflicted. 'Sister Superior, is there any sign of alarm? I am concerned, even though Portia found nothing to indicate any sense-engines that might alert the... the inhabitants.

'Delicate machines do not last long in the humid-ity of the tunnels. answered the psyker, 'and besides, the Null Keep's lines of defence are designed to keep people from leaving, not entering. Unless you decide to clatter about on the lower lev-els or deliver a sermon, we should remain undetected.

Miriya gestured to her Sisters to ready themselves. 'We are intruders in this place, so be wary. Until we are sure of what practices are at hand within these walls, we must conceal ourselves. She holstered her pistol.

'If the need comes, silent weapons only, clear?'

'Ave Imperator. chorussed the women.

The Sister Superior shoved Vaun in the back, towards the door. 'Come, then, heretic. Let us see what spectacle you were so eager to lay your eyes upon.

The psyker gave her a venomous snarl in return. 'My pleasure. I'm sure you'll find it most educa-tional.

Verity let herself be shepherded between Isabel and Ca.s.sandra, moving with all the care she could muster through the myriad pools of shadow on the upper tiers of the chamber. Her mind flashed back to Iona and the Sisters Repentia at Metis: they had done the same, protecting her with calm and flaw-less skill. But Iona was dead, a torched skeleton, and the rest of the Repentia had fallen alongside her. The Hospitaller felt a hard stab of guilt in her chest. She did not want the same fate to befall these women.

Part of her railed at herself from within. Why could she not have simply remained behind on the aeronef?

Or back in Noroc? Better still, why had she not paid her respects to Lethe and then returned to her order's works on the outer moons? Verity felt empty and incomplete, grasping for some intangi-ble form of closure that would heal the wound left by her sibling's death, but as events continued to unfold around her, more and more she was begin-ning to realise that nothing, not even the contrition and execution of Torris Vaun, would close that void. Emperor, grant me guidance, she prayed silently, . beg of you, deliver me from this.

'Observe. Isabel said, pointing. The open area below. It appears to be an exercise yard...'

An actinic green flash blinked down in the enclo-sure and Verity shuddered as a thin screech filtered up a moment later. They killed someone.

Miriya brought them to a halt and observed the area through her magnoculars. She was silent for a while, as if she were trying to make sense of what she was seeing. Verity strained to look with the naked eye, but all she could determine were ant-sized dots moving and swarming - and once in a while the blink of a lasgun discharge.

'A training squad. said Miriya at length. There are... helots, perhaps? They are being used as targets for the ones in chains. Those robed in grey are directing the proceedings.'

The chains are made of phase-iron. said Vaun, his hand straying to his opposite wrist, rubbing at the site of an old injury in recollection. 'It sears the skin when psychic energies are used.

Verity nodded. 'I have heard of this material. It is a rarity, a relic from the Dark Age of Technology.

Vaun sniffed. 'It is not a rarity here, nursemaid. LaHayn has it in abundance. He gestured around at the walls. 'Imagine acid boring into you every time you tried to speak, or breathe, or eat. That's what that d.a.m.ned metal feels like.

The Sister Superior put away her scope and drew back from the edge of the deck. 'We move on.

'What is going on down there?'

A live fire exercise. The captive witches are being taught to kill with their minds. The thought of such a thing clearly disgusted her.

Deeper in the shadows, Vaun pointed towards a section of the chamber walled off into compart-ments.

This way. There used to be laboratories and chirurgeries on this level, before the fire.

'Fire?' echoed Ca.s.sandra.

Vaun just smiled and kept walking.

On they went, trailing behind the amoral corsair in a wary line. Verity fingered her silver rosary chain, tracing the careworn letters etched into the surface of the bright metal. She ducked to step through a distorted hatch that had been warped by a ma.s.sive discharge of heat. The carved black stone and steel plate of the outer chamber gave way to the same kind of design the Hospitaller had seen in dozens of s.p.a.ce vessels and Imperial buildings. The crenel-latedcolumns and arched, rivet-dotted beams would have been just as home on a Navy stars.h.i.+p as they were here.

She caught glimpses of disused laboratories, some with patches of dark colour spattered about the walls and the moribund air of decay within. Weaves of gauzy spider webs coated many of the objects inside, sealing them in the past. Other doors were of heavier gauge metal than the hatchways and set with oculus slits and heavy, ponderous gates: con-finement cells. The woman found herself unwilling to peer inside, for fear of what she might see.

Ahead of her, Isabel's body language altered slightly. The Battle Sister was on more familiar ground, the shape of the corridors known to her. Verity had no doubt that Isabel, Portia and the oth-ers had been trained to fight inside such confines. Parts of the floor were uneven, deformed by the same heat-blast as the hatch, and her arm shot out to grab a stanchion to stop her from tripping over. The Hospitaller's hand came back to her coated with a thick layer of slimy ash. She knew at once that it was organic residue from an immolated body. With exaggerated care, she wiped the matter away and shot Vaun a disgusted glare. If he sensed it, he gave no indication.

Portia held a small beam lantern in her fist like a club, using the stark yellow ray it cast to probe into places where the overhead biolumes could not reach. Some of the side compartments of the corri-dor were pitch dark. The light glittered off things made of gla.s.s, sometimes across sluggish pools of stagnant liquid.

Verity's impression was one of neglect, of abandonment.

'The witch spoke truthfully. said Portia. 'I see operating tables and medicae devices. Perhaps the Hospitaller could tell us more?'

Verity bobbed her head in acknowledgment and stepped forward. 'If you could bring your lamp-' A sc.r.a.pe of metal on metal silenced her with a start, and the Battle Sisters froze.

'Someone there. murmured Vaun in faint antici-pation.

Portia pressed the lantern into Verity's trembling fingers and gave Miriya a questioning look. The Sis-ter Superior returned a nod and the other woman slid out of the corona of light and into the darkness. There was another noise, and this time it was unmistakable: the sound of human footsteps, a dithering, unsure movement.

An indistinct outline, no more than the Hospi-taller's height, wavered at the corner of Verity's eye, there in the gloom of the chirurgery chamber. Her automatic reaction was to turn the torch beam upon it. A blank, doll-like face blinked into solidity before her, with black circles for eyes and a slot for a mouth. The white mask merged into the figure's shabby grey over-robes. Caught in the light, the ten-der threw itself across the room at a panel on the far side of the chamber.

Startled by the apparition, Verity could do little but track the robed shape. One hand was within a finger's length of touching the console when Portia faded out of the dark and caught the tender. It hap-pened so quickly the Hospitaller had only flashes: the wet snap of bone as the tender's arm was ruined; a rustle of clothing and the glint of a weapon; glossy black Sororitas armour glittering like an insect's carapace; the ripping crack of a neck breaking, a coughing gasp and a falling body.

'Forgive me. said Portia to the Sister Superior. 'He was attempting to reach this vox lectern. I reacted to stop him raising an alert.

You acted properly. noted Miriya.

Verity swallowed hard. The moment of death had taken hardly a blink.

Portia took the beam lantern back from her rigid grip and turned it on the dead man, using her free hand to peel back the blank mask. A rather ordinary face looked back up at them, the expression of faint surprise still there.

'Hmph. n.o.body I know. Vaun interjected. 'Good kill, though. Very nice technique.