‘But why her?’ asked one of the officials.
Gaunt glared at him. ‘Because she’s the only one of you that could knock on my door and not make me want to shoot them in the face. So use that advantage.’
‘This is highly unorthodox, my lord,’ said Biota.
‘Apparently, that’s my reputation,’ said Gaunt. ‘Run with it and let’s see where it gets us.’
He turned to Kolea.
‘With me,’ he said.
Jan Jerik tapped his fingers on the head of his cane as he waited for the freight elevator to ascend. They could hear it grumbling and clanking its way up from far below.
Corrod stood with him in the dank chamber of the lift-head, a chamber seated deep in the basement crypts of House Ghentethi. They were the last to descend. His men, and those who had arrived with his second, Hadrel, had already gone down, escorted by house footmen and the subordinates of the clave. All told, Corrod’s company numbered sixty-four, all scrawny, emaciated and filthy individuals who had seemed barely able to lift and load the crates of equipment Jan Jerik had provided for them. A singularly unimpressive mob, Jan Jerik concluded. The gear and uniform his people had procured, most of it standard-size trooper fit removed from an abandoned Munitorum depot in Albarppan, wouldn’t fit them. They’d look like children dressing up in adult clothes. Jan Jerik’s disappointment and unease had risen considerably. They were vagabond heathens clad in rags, stooped and bone-thin like the victims of famine, weak and frail. Beggars. They all reminded him of beggars. He hadn’t expected beggars, and he hadn’t asked for them. These wretches wouldn’t be physically able to conclude the endeavour, and he doubted they’d make good on any promises. The deal was sour, and he should never have made it.
Still, the clave’s thermal junction, far below, was quiet and out of the way. A good place to divest himself of this mistake. Five minutes before, he’d spoken quietly with one of his subordinates, out of earshot of his guests. His staff were set and ready. They’d make short work of the business, and dispose of the corpses in the geotherm vents.
Jan Jerik had pulled on a work-suit and protective boots for the descent. He carried a glowglobe set in a lantern holder. When he’d buttoned up the work-suit, he hung his keys and ciphers on the outside.
‘Why do we go last?’ Corrod asked.
Jan Jerik shrugged. ‘Just a custom of the house, sir,’ he said. ‘The ordinate always comes to the workface last, once his crews have prepared the area. A protocol.’
‘Damogaur,’ said Corrod.
‘I’m sorry?’ said Jan Jerik, looking up.
‘You called me “sir”,’ said Corrod. ‘I hold the office of damogaur. That is the correct form of address.’
‘Of course.’
‘A protocol,’ said Corrod.
Jan Jerik smiled thinly. Corrod was watching him. His eyes were dull and lifeless. The weather-beaten skin of his face had shrunk back to every promontory of cheekbone and jaw. His neck was like a reed, and his throat the slack, wrinkled wattle of a nonagenarian.
‘A military rank?’ said Jan Jerik. The elevator finally arrived, rattling into place. He stepped forward and dragged open the folding metal shutter of the cage.
‘Yes,’ said Corrod.
Jan Jerik ushered him into the freight car, and Corrod shuffled past him. The ordinate closed the cage, secured the lock latch, and pulled the lever down to the indicator for the lowest level. With a lurch and a whir of cable gears, the car started its descent.
‘I hadn’t realised,’ said Jan Jerik.
‘What?’
‘That things had gone so badly for… for your forces. I now see why you would be so desperate to engineer a deal with men of, uh, Imperial leanings.’
‘Your leanings seem quite fluid,’ remarked Corrod.
Jan Jerik shrugged. ‘Our loyalty is always to Ghentethi,’ he said. ‘Ghentethi before all. Our house has stood, like many of the dynastic claves, since the early times of settlement. We consider ourselves independent, and ally with those who will benefit us most. My dear s– damogaur. You know well that the mastery of Urdesh has changed many times over the centuries. The Throne, the rimward tribes, and back, and forth. We have worked with and for the Sanguinary Brood as often as we have distant Terra. Indeed, in some golden eras, past gaurs have favoured us more than the Throne or the forge-priests of Mars have ever done.’
The elevator continued to rumble down into the darkness.
‘What did you mean?’ asked Corrod.
‘Mean?’
‘Your comment… that you see now why we are desperate?’
Jan Jerik smiled. ‘Oh, I meant no offence, damogaur,’ he said. ‘Merely an observation. I was expecting warriors. Soldiers. Strong and able men. But your forces are clearly so depleted that they send us old men. Veterans, I presume. I doubt not your courage, but you are a flimsy bunch. Presumably all that could be spared. I am sad to see the might of the tribes so wasted and reduced.’
‘My lord Anarch has sent his best to accomplish this deed,’ said Corrod, without emotion.
Jan Jerik chuckled. ‘Rather my point, damogaur. If you are his best, then woe betide the Anarch’s host. I had heard that the Guard had the measure of you, that the war had swung hard to the Throne on this world, and others. I had no idea that it was quite so parlous. Just dregs remaining. I am surprised the Administratum hasn’t broadcast this jubilantly to raise the public mood. That the Archenemy in these parts is reduced to a tattered relic, and that the fire is gone from them.’
Corrod looked at him almost blankly for a second, then shuffled across the car and threw the lever into neutral. The elevator halted abruptly, between levels. It rocked and creaked gently on its cables.
‘What are you doing, sir?’ Jan Jerik snapped. ‘Have you taken umbrage at my words? Have I offended you? Well, then, forgive my spirit and my honesty. Let us resume.’
Corrod turned to face him.
‘We came to you in guise, ordinate,’ he said. He grimaced slightly, his lips curled back from his dirty teeth for a second, as if suffering some quiet anguish. ‘We entered this city masked, so that we might pass unheeded. You have made a misapprehension.’
The ordinate chuckled, nervously.
‘I crave your pardon, then,’ he said lightly. ‘Let us continue on. The lever, sir–’
‘I wish to reassure you, ordinate,’ said Corrod. He grimaced again.
‘No need, no need! Let us–’
Jan Jerik stopped speaking. His eyes and mouth opened wide, and he took two or three involuntary steps backwards.
Corrod’s eyes had lit. They shone with an ugly yellow light. There was acute intelligence in them now, and a predatory precision. He began to twitch, his thin arms pressed into his ribs, elbows bent, hands spavined into shaking claws. His lips drew back from his teeth in a snarl, and his mouth slowly opened under tension, as if he was screaming silently.
Neon tears began to well and drip from his eyes, the same luminous yellow that glowed inside his sockets. His skin began to ripple. Jan Jerik could see muscle, fibre and bone shift and undulate beneath the surface, bending and poking, twitching and pulsing. He heard a series of ugly cracks, the snap of bones and the click of joints, that made him flinch.
Corrod was growing taller. The weak, slack musculature was filling out and growing taut. Ribs stretched, and vertebrae rattled like beads. The dirty rags he wore tore in places across his shoulders as he grew within them. He tilted his head back in a rictus, mouth wide, spittle flecking from his brown and broken teeth. Neon tears ran from his hollow cheeks. His jaw clicked forwards.
‘The Emperor protects!’ Jan Jerik whispered. His voice shrunk to nothing.
‘No,’ said Corrod. ‘He does not.’
The alchemy was done. Corrod towered over the ordinate, staring down at him. He was more than two metres tall. His limbs were longer. He was still cadaverously lean, a tall, thin spectre, but the muscles were hard under his fat-less flesh. His nose had all but receded into a cavity, and his mouth had extended like a snout, with a long, narrow chin. The teeth, top and bottom, were a tangled mess of canine points, some as long as the ordinate’s little fingers.