‘And on mine,’ she pointed out. She was startled to hear about Machtannin. She guessed Vangorich had been at work. ‘I make no accusations,’ she continued. ‘I have no interest in a pointless battle. And if you think I organised assassination missions while making my way here, then I must be very formidable.’
‘I don’t think what happened was at your command,’ Kober said. ‘I do think the deaths had something to do with you.’
‘If they did, and I am responsible, and acted in a criminal fashion, then I will have to answer for my transgressions. But I have not been charged, and I have not been stripped of my rank. Events are moving fast. We need to react to them. Or would you rather the Inquisition follow the model of the High Lords and disable itself through internal politics?’
‘I’m aware of current events. Can you appreciate the reasons for Inquisitor Veritus’ concerns? A wrong move now could doom the Imperium.’
‘Agreed. That is why I am here. Have you examined Terra’s tactical situation lately? Now by your leave, Castellan, we will proceed. I have work to do.’
‘You’re presuming a lot,’ said Kober, but he stepped to one side.
‘I have to.’ She walked forward, Rendenstein following. The auspex array of the doors recognised her identity and standing, and they opened before her.
The Inquisitorial Fortress made use of the caverns below the polar ice cap, but it transcended them. The honour of the Inquisition demanded more than a network of underground chambers. The Fortress’ construction had seen the excavation of grandiose spaces, some larger than a grand cruiser. In them had risen walls and spires and turrets, and the greatest towers rose through the continental crust. From the surface, they resembled another glacier-cloaked mountain chain. Some of them did rise through hollowed-out peaks, while others were peaks in their own right. Prison and mailed fist, sanctuary and labyrinth, the fortress turned secrecy and power into the architecture of stone and metal.
Beyond the doors, a vaulted corridor, short and wide, led to a great rotunda. The space was ten levels high. Primary passageways, many of them served by light maglev transport, opened off the levels towards all the wings of the Fortress. The rotunda’s roof was a dome. At its centre, a silver skull looked down in judgement. Its omniscience was represented in radiant lines, and the background of the dome was a pict feed of the sky above the Fortress. The effect was of standing outside, beneath the void, exposed before the gaze of the Emperor.
Inquisitors, serfs and servitors moved along all the stages. More than a few of Wienand’s peers stopped to look over the balcony at her arrival. A few nodded. Others just moved on. There was a lot of traffic on the fifth level, heading east towards the Iron Watch.
Wienand heard Kober’s footsteps behind her. She and Rendenstein stopped to wait. Wienand gestured to the activity on the fifth level. ‘I imagine I’m the cause.’
Kober nodded. ‘You know what has to happen now.’
‘I would have demanded it.’
‘One thing I will never question, Inquisitor Wienand, is your honour.’
‘Thank you.’ She quieted Rendenstein with a look.
‘With your permission?’ Kober asked, moving their interaction to the safe ground of formality. When Wienand made a slight bow, he led the way forward.
Stairs spiralling up the rotunda’s perimeter took them to the fifth level. From there, they travelled by maglev. The train was an open set of steel pews mounted on a simple platform. It took an hour to reach the Iron Watch, and another hour still before they stood outside the entrance to the Camera Stellata. Kober stopped, and Wienand preceded him inside.
The Camera Stellata was the Octagon writ large, with a full complement of suppressive wards and psychic field dampeners. It was the site of great conclaves, but more than free debate took place here. Condemnation, punishment and execution were the possible, and frequent, outcomes of the deliberations.
The Octagon’s shape emphasised the equality of the participants. Its centre was empty, so the focus moved from point to point with the currents of the debate. The Camera Stellata had a centre. Wienand walked along a black marble walkway and took her place where it ended, at a lectern mounted on a circular dais. The lectern was cast in bronze, its stand was the withered body of an enemy of the Imperium, bent beneath the weight of the accusation brought down by the winged skull that formed the lectern’s top. Standing there, Wienand was orator and accused.
The chamber was a great sphere. The lectern’s dais was suspended in the centre of the space. It was ringed by tiers of seats mounted into the walls. Those above the lectern were reserved for the senior inquisitors.
She turned to face her judges. ‘Good. We’re all here. We know the situation. We are out of time. The High Lords’ greatest folly yet is under way as we speak. Do any of us expect that venture to end in anything other than disaster?’ She shook her head, establishing the question as rhetorical. ‘We can now count off the hours before Terra is bereft of most of its Astra Militarum defence to go along with the absence of the Navy.’ She took a breath. ‘I have never underestimated the threat the Ruinous Powers present to the Imperium. I won’t start now. But I also know how to recognise a danger that is immediate. Fellow inquisitors, the orks are here. Now. It is clear to me, as I’m sure it is to you, that we have been left with only one option as a response. I won’t insult you by trying to convince you of its necessity, because there is nothing else left to do. So I am invoking that measure now, officially, before you all.’ She turned around, sweeping the assembly with her gaze. ‘So,’ she said. ‘We have work to do.’
And she walked out.
Rendenstein was waiting outside the entrance. Her eyebrows were up. ‘So that’s how it’s done,’ she said. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the uproar that followed Wienand’s exit.
‘Authority derives a lot from perception,’ Wienand said. ‘So I used it.’ She headed down the passage towards the maglev transport. Her next stop was in another wing of the Fortress, and many levels down. She tried not to think about how much distance the Armada would have covered before she could even reach Somnum Hall.
‘We won’t be stopped?’
‘If we are, we are. If we’re not, we’re already wasting time.’
While they waited for the train to return to the Camera Stellata’s stop, Wienand thought Rendenstein looked troubled. ‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘After you went in, the Castellan relayed some information.’
‘Something you were supposed to pass on to me?’
‘He seemed to want me to know it. I don’t think he cared what I did with the data. It’s part of the latest briefing to have gone Fortress-wide.’
The train arrived. They boarded. They were the only passengers on this leg.
‘So?’ Wienand asked.
‘Intercepts from a Black Templar action in the Ostrom System. The intelligence is sketchy, but it appears an ork star fortress has attacked a system in the vicinity of the Eye of Terror.’
Wienand absorbed this. ‘Kober believes they’ve opened up a second front?’
‘Yes. That the forces of Chaos are now involved.’
‘Well,’ Wienand said. ‘Well.’ She nodded to herself. ‘That will be next, then.’
‘What will be?’
‘That concern, in whatever form it takes.’
‘I see.’
The train slowed as it neared a junction with another large corridor. Inquisitors waited. They’ll stop me or they won’t, Wienand thought. ‘Tell me what’s bothering you,’ she told Rendenstein. She wanted nothing unsaid between them if things went wrong in the next few seconds.
‘If the Ruinous Powers are part of this war…’
Wienand finished the thought for her. ‘Is Veritus right after all?’
The train came to a stop. The inquisitors boarded. A number of them had servo-skulls in attendance. These hovered low on the benches beside their controllers, recording muttered dictation as the train picked up speed again. Wienand recognised one of the new arrivals, Miliza Balduin. Wienand had met her during a joint investigation on Antagonis. She was inflexible, but fair-minded. The inflexibility meant she was a bad politician, and Wienand suspected this was why she wielded less influence than her age should have brought her. She sat in the bench ahead of Wienand and Rendenstein, then turned to appraise Wienand with a flat stare.