‘Perhaps even the Emperor himself…’ muttered Koyne.
Valdor gave them both a searing glare. ‘The Emperor’s deeds are for him alone to decide! And the fleets and the loyal Legions have their own battles to fight!’
Iota nodded to herself. ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘We are to be sent because there is not certainty. The Imperium cannot afford to send warfleets into the darkness on a mere “likelihood”.’
‘We are only six,’ said Kell, ‘but together we can do what a thousand warships have failed to. One vessel can slip through the warp to Dagonet far easier than a fleet. Six assassins… the best of our clades… can bring death.’ He paused. ‘Remember the words of the oath we all swore, regardless of our clades. There is no enemy beyond the Emperor’s wrath.’
‘You will take the Ultio to the Taebian Sector,’ Valdor went on. ‘You will embed on Dagonet and set up multiple lines of attack. When Horus arrives there, you will terminate his command with extreme prejudice.’
‘My lord.’ Efried bowed low and waited.
The low mutter of his primarch’s voice was like the distant thunder over the Himalayan range. ‘Speak, Captain of the Third.’
The Astartes looked up and found Rogal Dorn standing at the high balcony, staring into the setting sun. The golden light spilled over every tower and crenulation of the Imperial Palace, turning the glittering metals and white marble a striking, honeyed amber. The sight was awesome; but it was marred by the huge cube-like masses of retrofitted redoubts and gunnery donjons that stood up like blunt grey fangs in an angry mouth. The palace of before – the rich, glorious construct that defied censure and defeat – was cheek-by-jowl with the palace of now – a brutalist fortress ranged against the most lethal of foes. A foe that had yet to show his face under Terra’s skies.
Efried knew that his liege lord was troubled by the battlements and fortifications the Emperor had charged him to build over the beauty of the palace; and while the captain could see equal majesty in both palace and fortress alike, he knew that in some fashion, Great Dorn believed he was diminishing this place by making it a site fit only for warfare. The primarch of the Imperial Fists often came to this high balcony, to watch the walls and, as Efried imagined, to wait for the arrival of his turncoat brother.
He cleared his throat. ‘Sir. I have word from our chapter serfs. The reports of preparations have been confirmed, as have those of the incidents in the Yndenisc Bloc and on Saros Station.’
‘Go on.’
‘You were correct to order surveillance of the Custodes. Captain-General Valdor was once again witnessed entering closed session at the Shrouds, with an assemblage of the Directors Primus of the Assassinorum clades.’
‘When was this?’ Dorn did not look at him, continuing to gaze out over the palace.
‘This day,’ Efried explained. ‘On the conclusion of the gathering a transmission was sent into close-orbit space, likely to a vessel. The encryption was of great magnitude. My Techmarines regretfully inform me it would be beyond their skills to decode.’
‘There is no need to try,’ said the primarch, ‘and indeed, to do so would be a violation of protocols. That is a line the Imperial Fists will not cross. Not yet.’
Efried’s hand strayed to his close-cropped beard. ‘As you wish, my lord.’
Dorn was silent for a long moment, and Efried began to wonder if this was a dismissal; but then his commander spoke again. ‘It begins with this, captain. Do you understand? The rot beds in with actions such as these. Wars fought in the shadows instead of the light. Conflicts where there are no rules of conduct. No lines that cannot be crossed.’ At last he glanced across at his officer. ‘No honour.’ Behind him, the sun dipped below the horizon, and the shadows across the balcony grew.
‘What is to be done?’ Efried asked. He would obey any command his primarch had cause to utter, without question or hesitation.
But Dorn did not answer him directly. ‘There can only be one target worth such subterfuge, such a gathering of forces. The Officio Assassinorum mean to kill my errant brother Horus.’
Efried considered this. ‘Would that not serve our cause?’
‘It might appear so to those with a narrow view,’ replied the primarch. ‘But I have seen what the assassin’s bullet wreaks in its wake. And I tell you this, brother-captain. We will defeat Horus… but if his death comes in a manner such as the Assassinorum intend, the consequences will be terrible, and beyond our capacity to control. If Horus falls to an assassin’s hand there will be a gaping vacuum at the core of the turncoat fleet, and we cannot predict who will fill it or what terrible revenges they will take. As long as my brother lives, as long as he rides at the head of the traitor Legions, we can predict what he will do. We can match Horus, defeat him on even ground. We know him.’ Dorn let out a sigh. ‘I know him.’ He shook his head. ‘The death of the Warmaster will not stop the war.’
Efried listened and nodded. ‘We could intervene. Confront Valdor and the clade masters.’
‘Based on what, captain?’ Dorn shook his head again. ‘I have only hearsay and suspicion. If I were as reckless as Russ or the Khan, that might be enough… But we are Imperial Fists and we observe the letter of Imperial law. There must be proof positive.’
‘Your orders, then, sir?’
‘Have the serfs maintain their observations,’ Dorn looked up into the darkening sky. ‘For the moment, we watch and we wait.’
EIGHT
Cinder and Ash / Toys / Unmasked
The room in the compound they had given over for Perrig’s use was of a reasonable size and dimension, and the last of four that had been offered. The other three she had immediately rejected because of their inherent luminal negativity or proximal locations to undisciplined thought-groupings. The second had been a place where a woman had died, some one hundred and seven years earlier, having taken her own life as the result of an unplanned pregnancy. The adjutant, Gorospe, had looked at Perrig with shock and no little amount of dismay at that revelation; it seemed that no one among the staff of the Eurotas Consortium had had any idea the building on Iesta had such a sordid history.
But this room was quiet, the buzzing in her senses was abating and Perrig was as close to her equilibrium as she could be in a place so filled with droning, self-absorbed minds. Running through her alignment exercises, Perrig gently edited them out of her thoughtscape, eliminating the disruption through the application of a gentle psionic null-song, like a counter-wave masking an atonal sound.
She absently touched the collar around her neck as she did this. It was just metal, just a thing, secured only with a bolt that she herself could undo with a single twist. It had meaning, though, for those who looked upon it, for those who might read the words from the Nikaea Diktat acid-etched into the black iron. It was a slave’s mark, after a fashion, but one she wore only for the benefit of the comfort of others. It was not a nullifier, it could not hold her back; it was there so those who feared her ability could have her at their side and still sleep soundly, convinced by the lie that it would protect them from her unearthliness. The texture of the cool metal gave her focus, and she let herself draw inward.
The last thing she looked at before she closed her eyes was the chronometer on a nearby desk; Hyssos and the local lawmen had returned from the Iubar several hours ago, but she hadn’t seen any of them since the audience with the Void Baron. She wondered what Hyssos would be doing, but she resisted the urge to extend a tendril of thought out to search for him. Her telepathic abilities were poor and it was only her familiarity with his mind that allowed her to sense him with any degree of certainty. In truth, Perrig’s desire to be close to Hyssos only ever brought her melancholy. She had once looked into his thoughts as he slept, once when he had let down his guard, and there she saw that he had no inkling of the strange devotion the psyker had for her guardian; no understanding of this peculiar attachment that could not be thought of as love, but neither as anything else. It was better that way, she decided. Perrig did not wish to think of what might happen if he knew. She would be taken away from him, most likely. Perhaps even returned to the Black Ships from where Baron Eurotas had first claimed her.