Fear And Fire Part 20

'You'd be dead before you tasted sky. growled the psyker. 'Stick with me and you might live to see day-light. He pointed towards the cable-car train lying unattended at a nearby dock platform. We'll take that to the upper tiers. If we do it quietly, they'll never know it until we're knocking at the door.

The upside?' hissed the bucktoothed lisper. You wanna go deeper into the keep?' He rolled his eyes. The tenders keep us outta those decks for a reason, mate. It's runnin' alive with warp-poison up yon-der!'

'Perhaps. admitted Vaun, 'but not in the way that you can understand it. He gave them a cold smile. 'Trust me, cousins, the only way out is to go through the deacon.

'So you say. retorted the man. 'We're grateful for you throwing the switches an' all, but I reckon from here on in, we'll take our chances.

The psyker took a threatening step closer to the escapee. 'I didn't bust you out as a kindness, little fellow.

You're all in my debt now. You can repay it by doing what I tell you.

The lisping man twitched. Vaun sensed the twinkle in his aura as the escapee coiled up what-ever witch-mark power he had in preparation to strike. 'You're not the boss o' me-'

Vaun did it so quickly that the prisoner had no time to scream, there was just a flash of yellow across everyone's retinas as the fireball flew from his hand and burnt its way into the lisping man's chest. Flames sizzled and popped, the corpse turning about in a wild pirouette before collaps-ing in a heap. The otherex-prisoners staggered backwards, the brutality of the quick murder had taken every one of them off-guard.

The psyker gave his charges a level look, reeling in the enjoy-ment he felt. 'LaHayn's up there. he said, jerking a thumb at the roof, 'and he's holding on to a prize bigger than anything you wastrels have dreamed of. I'm going to take it, and you're going to help me.

'The train, right?' said the gangly woman, ner-vously. 'What're we dallyin' for, then?'

Within moments the cable carriages had cast off and began their slow ascent of the funicular rails. A warm antic.i.p.ation buzzed in Vaun's hindbrain. He couldn't be sure if it was some side-effect of proxim-ity to LaHayn's engine chamber or the rush of his own excitement, but the further they climbed, the more he failed to hold back a predatory grin on his face.

There were fumes everywhere, and the air tasted like sour meat on Ojis's tongue. His trembling fingers searched forward over the metal grid of the elevator cage's floor, tracing through expanding puddles of oily fluid and wet spongy ma.s.ses of what could only have been spilled brain matter. The confessor's legs did not appear to be working, and so with the dignity of his exalted station left far behind, he did his best to haul himself out of the lift. His mind reeled, the chaos that had erupted around him fuzzing his recollection of events.

He had been in the cage, descending into the dun-geon tiers with his adjutants and the handful of servitors he had been able to divert away from the deacon's blockade. The chimes sounded as the eleva-tor arrived in the staging atrium, and then...

Then there had been gunfire and screaming, the detonation of something large and pulpy spattering all over his hood and robes. Black-clad shapes, glitter-ing like sword beedes, brandis.h.i.+ng weapons. An ambush.

This one is still alive. the voice ratded in his ears, as if something had been knocked loose and broken inside his skull.

Strong, gaunt fingers took him by the arms and hoisted him up. The priest's vision swam with pain as his legs turned uselessly beneath him. Bone was poking wetly from his right knee joint. He managed a gasp as his mask was pulled off.

A face gained definition before him. A woman, after a fas.h.i.+on, sun-toned skin marred with grime and lines of blood. She had eyes like blue diamonds and the set of her jaw was cruel. With a start, Ojis recognised her. She saw it too.

'I am Sister Miriya, of the Order of our Martyred Lady, and you are my captive. Answer my questions and you will be granted mercy.

Ojis blinked. His eyes were gummed with gluey fluids. He managed to nod woodenly 'He has the sigils of a confessor on his rosary. said the first voice again, from somewhere behind him. This one was with LaHayn before.

'Yes. said Miriya, studying him carefully. 'Ojis, wasn't it?'

The priest paled. She knew his name as well! This was going very badly. 'Please...'

'What are you doing here?' she demanded. 'Where's the deacon?'

'I was sent to suppress... escape. His cranium ached as he tried to look around. Ojis could make out more dead bodies in the corridor. Whatever had happened down here, they had arrived to late to do anything about it. 'His holiness... in the engine chamber, at the central deep.

'Engine chamber?' repeated a new voice. He saw another woman, clad in white robes, her golden hair in distress. The Null Keep has an engine? But this place is a building, not some kind of vessel.

Ojis felt woozy as he shook his head. 'Not... Not that kind of engine. He licked his lips. 'Please... Help me.

Miriya drew him closer. 'Where is the keep's com-municatory? Speak, heretic!'

Above. he wheezed out the word. 'Can't get there without me. He raised a hand. A fat gold ring glit-tered on one finger. 'I... I have the command signet.

'Confirmed. said the other Battle Sister. 'There is a governance mechanism preventing access to the uppermost levels of the citadel.

Miriya's face soured and she let the cleric drop in a heap. He cried out in pain, but she ignored him. There is nothing so low as a false priest, Confessor Ojis. The G.o.d-Emperor keeps a singular h.e.l.l reserved for your kind.

Ojis looked up at her. 'But... the ecclesiarch is enlightened. He knows the way...' He broke off, coughing.

The way to d.a.m.nation. Miriya replied, pressing a plasma pistol to his forehead. The gun hummed to life.

'No... No. Please. I recant!' burbled Ojis. 'Please, Sister Miriya. You and I, we are both the kindred of the cloth. I beg you!'

Miriya paused. 'You have betrayed the Imperial Church and the G.o.d-Emperor of Mankind. What could you possibly hope to beg from me, heretic?'In a small voice he said: 'Forgiveness?'

The chilling look in her eyes was all the answer he received. Her finger tightened on the trigger.

'Sister, wait. called one of the other women. 'You cannot shoot him.

Ojis sagged, relief flooding him. I'm saved!

'Why?' demanded Miriya.

The other Battle Sister indicated the lock panel on the elevator controls. This device not only requires the key of his signet ring, but also an optic scan. She pointed at the confessor's face with a combat blade. 'Had you shot him with a plasmatic burst, his eyes would have been destroyed. She offered the knife to Miriya.

'You should use this instead.

Miriya accepted the weapon with a gracious nod. 'Thank you, Ca.s.sandra. Please, hold him down for me.

The confessor's body performed one last service for the church: as the lift cage arrived at the top of the ascent channel, she threw it into the elevator bay. The still-warm ma.s.s of corpse-flesh set off the servo-skulls in the guardian niches at the door to the communicatory, drawing their laser fire. Ca.s.san-dra and Isabel used the distraction to shoot down the machines and move in. Inside the cramped chambers, blinded vox-adepts cowered in corners, too terrified to react against the intruders, con-stantly mumbling the message hymns burned into their neural tissues. Thin slivers of watery daylight peered in through observation ports, showing the Nevan sun as it climbed over the rocky crags beyond.

Miriya made the sign of the aquila and addressed the central vox terminal, speaking directly into a bronze mask that turned to present a mouth grille to her. In a clear but fatigued voice, she said a string of hallowed code phrases, prayer lines seemingly chosen at random from the Books of Alicia. The machine knew the cipher, as every communications device in the Imperium did: an emergency Sororitas contact protocol, known only to those of high Celestian rank and above.

'Hear me. she began, 'I seek audience with the honoured Canoness Galatea of the Order of our-'

'Miriya. Galatea's voice crackled back at them through the mask-speaker. She turned the Battle Sis-ter's name into a curse. 'If you wish to confess, the time for that has pa.s.sed. You should consider your-self deserter extremis.

Isabel choked back a rebuke. 'How... How could she answer so quickly? Such a message should take hours-'

'Silence your Sister, Miriya. retorted the Canoness. 'Look to the west. Your censure comes on swift wings, errant one.

Verity pressed her face to one of the window slits. 'I think I see something. Bright glitters in the dawn sky.

She looked back at Miriya. 'Aircraft?'

A reprisal force is inbound to your position, Sis-ter Superior. continued Galatea. 'Once I understood your wilful denial of my orders, I had the captain of the Mercutio scry the area about Metis City from orbit. His sense servitors tracked that aeronef you stole all the way to the wastelands.

'There is an explanation for my every action. insisted Miriya. 'I initiated this very communication to inform you of my location-'

'You disobeyed me,' raged the Canoness. 'You took this world's most wanted man into your own cus-tody.

What possible explanation could you have for that?'

'I have uncovered a conspiracy of which Torris Vaun is only one facet, my lady. Miriya said cau-tiously.

'Within this fortress, the lord deacon is engaged in a dire plan of the highest heresy. I shall willingly give myself to any punishment you will ask of me, but I must insist you first hear this!'

The vox channel crackled for a moment, then Galatea's voice returned, resigned and grim. The transports will be within strike range in less than five minutes, Miriya. You have until then to con-vince me not to kill you.

The Battle Sister began to speak, explaining all that had transpired since the a.s.sault on Baron Sher-ring's mansion.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

Each time he entered the chamber, there was a moment when Viktor LaHayn recalled the very first time he had done so. He remembered the rough hessian blindfold being pulled from his eyes, the strange, directionless green-blue light impinging on his vision. He remembered the hand of the Gethse-menite abbot on his wrist, tight with antic.i.p.ation, but it was the giddy rush of vertigo that came when he laid eyes on the engine that had always stuck with him.

The abbot was dead now, murdered along with the rest of his sect by Vaun, but the great device rum-bled on unchanged, the two great spinning rings of black steel forever turning about the construct's cen-tral axis like spun coins. LaHayn had to stop to look at the thing. The motion of the rings, the slow orbit of the metallic rods within them; their movement made him light-headed. It was a marvel of ancient and losttechnology, the way that the disparate com-ponents worked without touching one another or apparently connecting in any way. The engine was as large as a house, yet it floated above the floor of the chamber effortlessly, steady as a rock. Nothing held it up but the azure glow. The tech-adepts had once tried to explain the method of the sciences behind it, but LaHayn had dismissed them. It was enough for him to know that the engine was the cre-ation of the G.o.d-Emperor.

He approached it. A low fence of bra.s.s bars kept the unwary from getting too close, but the deacon ignored it, scattering a couple of cowering Mechan-icus enginseers as he stepped into the nimbus of the machine's energy field. The adepts clicked and whirred at one another in urgent data streams. Like his tenders, they too were garbed in featureless grey robes.

Once, as with every other tech-priest in his service, they had been loyal members of the Cult of the Machine G.o.d, sworn servants of Mars. But that had been before LaHayn's agents had recruited them, by kidnapping, subornment or by acts of piracy. To a man, they had all protested and straggled against the demands he had made on them - until he showed them the engine. It was pitiful, in a way. Every single Mechanicus he took had willingly bro-ken their oath and pledged themselves to his service the moment they laid eyes on the device. They knew it for what it was: a physical connection to the great works of the Emperor. They had many names for it: the Psymagnus Apparat, Anulus Rex, the G.o.d-Hand...

But LaHayn preferred the designation the Geths.e.m.e.nites had given the device. They simply called it the engine, a fitting name for a device that held the power to remake the stars.

The last days of the G.o.d-Emperor were a mystery to many. His actions in the dark time before the betrayal of the Warmaster Horas were shrouded in mythology and layers of obfuscation ten thousand years thick, but in all the holy tomes that spoke of His final actions before the enshrinement on the Golden Throne, there were mentions of His Works, of the secret machinations He was about in the lab-oratoria beneath the Holy Palace on Earth.

In forbidden tomes, LaHayn had discovered sc.r.a.ps of old creed that the current generation of the Ministorum had declared apocryphal. He collected references to things that flew in the face of the cur-rent beliefs, names that none dared to speak, talk of star-children and the births of new G.o.ds. The dea-con courted death a hundred times over just for daring to possess such knowledge.

Through all his gathered secrets, he traced one thread, unravelling it from the tapestry of the G.o.d-Emperor's clouded legacy. That strand of causality spanned the light years that stretched from Terra to Neva, undeniable proof that this distant world was touched by His hand, just as it was coloured by the pa.s.sage of the warp. It was plain to see once the pieces were a.s.sembled, and the priest-lord saw it with s.h.i.+ning eyes. The engine was the Emperor's bequest to humanity, to Viktor LaHayn himself. Like a sentinel, it had waited here beneath the stone walls of the Null Keep, waiting for one with the breadth of vision to know its purpose and awaken it. There was absolutely no doubt in Viktor's mind that he was that man.

The deacon came as close as he dared to the spin-ning rings and held out a hand, letting his fingertips enter their aurora. Trickles of force s.h.i.+fted through him, and he became a prism for their light. It was a gentle caress, the merest fraction of the true energy inside. He could feel the primitive matter of his brain struggling to comprehend the power of it, and always, the same fleeting sense of something magnificent just beyond his reach. If only...

Not for the first time, LaHayn let himself drift and dream about what it would be like to know such capa-bility. To have the power to become one with the machine... To touch the distant mind of my G.o.d... The enormity of that idea struck the breath from him.

'Soon.' The words fell from his lips. 'It will come to pa.s.s.

He retreated beyond the cordon and found a tender on his knees, the cleric's face flat against the floor so he would not lay eyes upon the holy workings of the engine. 'My lord deacon. said the priest, 'word from the high crags. A force of strike approach in skir-mish formation. The sensor servitors read them as bearing the mark of the Sororitas.

His lips thinned. 'How many?'

Ten, perhaps more. Their silhouettes match the con-figurations of troop transports and armour carriers.

LaHayn swore an oath so base that the tender flinched. 'My hand has been forced. The Sisters of Battle are too narrow-minded to accept any expla-nations of our mission here. He sighed. 'They cannot be allowed to interfere. You are to decant the pyrokenes. Deploy them in defence of the keep.

The tender dared to look up. 'How many, my lord?'

'All of them. The time for half-measures is over.

Orders were relayed; commands became deeds. In the primary chambers where the ebon basalt vaults held ranges of gla.s.s cubicles, the hanging cable guides and open crane claws turned to the work of unlocking the psyker pods from their mountings. Ferrying them in the same steady, patient manner as burrowing insects would convey precious eggs within a colony mound, the machines took the huge fluid-filled beakers to exit chambers and tipped the contents upon the dark rock floor. One by one, LaHayn's slumbering army of witches was being rudely awakened, and in the depths of their doctored minds, anger lit fires that the tenders directed towards the oncoming enemy.

Within the motion of this activity, in among all the moving carriages and turning cogs of the keep's cableways, a singletrain of cargo trailers moved against the flow, pa.s.sing upward unseen toward the closed tiers.

The pilots brought their craft through the treacher-ous rocky straits surrounding the Null Keep, keeping low to avoid the desultory puffb.a.l.l.s of anti-aircraft fire from bolter emplacements on the upper battlements. Canoness Galatea had not considered opening a channel to the citadel with any request for surrender, those within could clearly see the black and silver livery of the transport flyers and they knew who it was that approached. If the denizens in the keep had wanted to sue for peace, they had ample opportunity to ask for it - not that it would have been granted.

The razor-cliffed valleys leading to the tower of black stone were narrow and forbidding. Galatea had consulted with the Seraphim commander Sister Chloe during the flight from the staging area, and via hololithic conference with the sensors officer aboard the Mercutio, a rough and ready plan of a.s.sault had been drawn up for the attack on the keep. Stealth, it seemed, was the key strength of the location - but once that advantage had been squan-dered, it was no more or less defensible than the dozen other castles and strongpoints that her order had broken in the past. She hid it well, but there was a small fraction of the Canoness that was thrilled by the prospect of battle. Too long in the high realms of Neva's moneyed society cla.s.ses had made her feel distant and removed from the true purpose of the Sisterhood, and the glory that was to be taken in punis.h.i.+ng the disloyal.

Her intention was not to lay waste to the tower, but to break the lines of defence and take those within as prisoners of the church. She numbered the lord deacon and the errant Sisters of Miriya's unit among her quarry - it would be easier for her troops to gather everyone and return them to Noroc for a full Inquisitorial inquest rather than attempt to sort through the web of accusations here. Whatever the outcome today, it would mean that Neva's church and state would be forever changed in the aftermath.

It was difficult for the Canoness to countenance the idea of a senior ecclesiarch in league with psyk-ers, but worse treacheries had been known to happen.

The flyers split from formation and began a rapid deployment, dropping to skate their landing gear across the black sand without slowing to a hover. Drop ramps yawned open and Battle Sisters threw themselves out, trailing descent tethers that would slow them and prevent the women from breaking their necks on landing. Other s.h.i.+ps disgorged the flat ingots of tanks. Galatea saw the bulldozer blades of Repressors grinding forwards and the black shapes of Immolators bearing down on the keep's outer perimeter. Units of Sister Retributors and Sister Seraphim went with them, the lightening sky making their armour glitter.

Chloe's voice crackled in her ear. 'My lady, we are about to deploy. Engagement commences on your mark.'

'Begin. she said into her vox pick-up. At that word of command, her flyer dipped towards the ground and the Celestians in her personal guard made ready to disembark. It happened quickly: the s.h.i.+p sc.r.a.ped dirt with a hollow howl and Galatea threw herself out of the gaping hatchway. Then in a flood of hot downwash from the thrusters, the angular shape was powering away and the Canoness came to her feet surrounded by walls of black stone and women hungry for battle. 'Press forward,' she began, but a thunderous salvo of fireb.a.l.l.s cut into the air ahead of the tanks, drowning out her voice with their pa.s.sage.

'Flamers?' said one of the Celestians. 'Inferno guns, perhaps?'

There was a familiar taint in the air, a greasy thick-ness that made her gut coil. 'Not flamers. she growled, 'witchfire.'

Close to the keep, hidden gates were rolling open and out of them streamed figures in mad, violent disorder.

To a man, they were all ablaze, pulling streams and spheres of unnatural flame from their bodies to hurl at the Sisters.

Galatea crossed herself with the sign of the aquila and began firing.

The way down from the communicatory was nowhere near as swift or as simple as their ascent had been.

The elevator cradle steadfastly refused to operate at Verity's increasingly frustrated com-mands, and finally the Sisters were forced to descend to the lower tiers of the keep by the zigzags of steel staircase that ran alongside the lift shaft. They moved in near-silence, never speaking, with only the occasional grunt of pain from Isabel to punctuate their pa.s.sage. They went down and down for what seemed like uncountable numbers of steps.

At random, clatters of moving metal or distant explosions would find their way into the shaft and filter to their ears. The sounds seemed vague and second-hand, the dim echoes of a battle being fought by others.

Eventually, the stairs spread out to a shallow deck of corrugated metal and bare, open grids. Verily made the mistake of glancing down at her feet and her stomach knotted tight inside her belly. In the ruddy gloom, it appeared as if she were standing on thin air, the access shaft dropping away into abyssal depths below her boots. She looked away, taking care from that moment to keep her gaze steady at head height.There was a balcony at the edge of the deck; saw-tooth bays along one side allowed small cable cars festooned with guide-lines and metallic cogs to dock there. They resembled smaller versions of the omnibus-carriages from Noroc, even down to the protruding runner board at the rear and the handle-operated switching gear. Other docks were empty, home only to gently twitching bunches of cable.

Ca.s.sandra studied the bronze dials set into the nearest of the cable cars. The tenders must utilise these carts to travel around the keep's interior.' She plucked at a row of rocker switches, each labelled with a string of text in High Gothic. 'Destinations within the tower are listed here. Some are locked off.'

'Show me,' Verity watched Miriya drift closer. Cas-sandra pointed out switches with fine bra.s.s cages over them and lock-imprints where a signet was to be placed. The Battle Sister fished Ojis's severed fin-ger from a compartment at her belt and tested it in the locks - the switches obediently opened.

This one...' said the Celestian, picking a cable car. 'The late confessor has kindly provided us with pas-sage to the restricted tiers of the citadel.'

Isabel's voice wavered with suppressed pain and reflexively Verity went to her to check her dressings.

'Were not the Canoness's directives clear, Sister Superior? Forgive me, but did she not say we should attempt to link up with the landing force outside?'