‘There were once four of us,’ he reminded her.
There were four founding members of the Inquisition, thought Wienand, but his being one was impossible. Even so, he must have been heir to that line, and the system of the four lords was long defunct.
‘You’re older than I thought.’
‘Much older,’ he said. ‘I…’ He blinked. ‘I… Wienand?’
‘Veritus? Are you all right?’
He gave her a puzzled look, then his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell from the bench to the thin, artificial soil.
Wienand knelt by him. Veritus’ face was pressed into the ground, sealing shut his nose and mouth. She tugged and tugged at his armour, but could not right him, so she rocked him back and forth until she could get to his head and turn it to one side. When he was breathing again, she spoke urgently.
‘Vox-bead, activate.’ Her wrist chimed. ‘This is Wienand. I’m in the Botanicum, the Park of Oak. I have a medical emergency. Veritus is down.’
Chapter Seven
The opening of the warp
Deep in the fortress of the Iron Warriors was the Astropathicum. The name bore no relation to the meaning of the word as Zerberyn understood it. Imperial astropathic stations were very different in character.
The Iron Warriors’ sole telepath hung in her upright coffin, imprisoned by cables trailing from her skull like a shock of thick hair. Serfs from both brotherhoods worked around her, adjusting the power feed from the cables and monitoring her vital signs. The woman was not a true astropath, but a witchborn taken from their slave stock, a natural psyker, unblessed and unprotected by the Emperor. She was naked, emaciated and filthy, but deadly. The banks of crackling machinery around her were there to contain her powers.
‘Green, green, no more seen,’ she whimpered. ‘The roar goes on, and on. Loudly, quietly. Two brothers cease their fight for a time, exhausted. Red stars for eyes, two apiece.’ She giggled.
Zerberyn’s astropaths were dead. She was all they had, not that she was much use; the Iron Warriors’ witch had not made any sense in all the time they had been on the moon of Immitis.
Zerberyn listened to the witch’s babble. She still made no sense, but the fortress was changing around her. Fresh ferrocrete covered scars inflicted on the complex by the cyclical tidal tugging of Immitis VII, the gas giant the moon orbited. Zerberyn felt that pull himself when the giant planet rose, four times a day. New machinery salvaged from ravaged worlds and ships had been integrated with the ancient systems. The halls hummed with the quiet work of technology. Air filtration meant the air was purer, and this was only one of a hundred small alterations that was changing the fort from a semi-derelict to something resembling a Chapter fortress. Zerberyn was beginning to feel at home there, surrounded by Traitors. He saw them now as more than just despicable foes. They were capable warriors and builders, and though there were methods the Iron Warriors employed that he would never have dreamt of using himself, he was beginning to see their utility. That concerned him.
Someone drew near, and his thoughts fled like clouds before the wind.
Epistolary Honorius’ psychic presence filled the room, pushing at the crazed, fluctuating gifts of the witch as a fortress wall opposes the air. His physical presence was barely less imposing. The Librarian was never out of his Terminator battleplate. A wise precaution, thought Zerberyn. The Iron Warriors could grow tired of their alliance at any time.
‘First Captain, you called for me?’
The Librarius serfs genuflected to their master and went back to their work. The woman sobbed, her metal-faced handler shocked her with the savage throw of a switch, and she screamed.
‘Brother-Epistolary. A word in private.’
Black eyes gazed impassively from Honorius’ ageless, snow-pale face as he swept them over the serfs. ‘Leave us!’ he called.
Immediately the serfs began to shut down the equipment. They bowed and departed. The psyker’s overseer, one of Kalkator’s creatures, remained.
‘You too,’ said Honorius. His voice was sepulchral, his lips permanently downturned. ‘Begone.’
‘My master told me no one was to be alone with the witch.’
‘Go,’ said Honorius, with a power that could not be denied. The overseer hesitated, then left, cowering under the Librarian’s disapproval.
‘Are we alone?’ asked Zerberyn.
The Epistolary’s eyes closed. Eidolica bred men with pale skin, Honorius was among the palest. There was the merest hint of pink to his lips; without that he could have been a marble figure on a tomb.
‘No one hears us,’ he said dolefully.
Zerberyn pointed at the witch, moaning in her restraints and rolling her head. ‘The Green Roar abates. The witch speaks nonsense still, but I believe that is what she is trying to say. Is this not so?’
Honorius inclined his head but once. ‘It is, First Captain.’
‘Something has happened in the wider war. Victory must be close to hand. Have we any word from the Last Wall?’
‘None intelligible, First Captain. My Librarians are not astropaths, but we sense something, a shift in the warp. They receive fragments of messages where before there was nothing. Communication becomes clearer by the hour.’
‘We will be able to send our own messages soon?’
‘Yes, brother-captain. If the brothers of the Librarius work together, it can be done within a day or two, no more.’
Zerberyn turned back to look at the witch. His eyes narrowed. ‘And can we do so without it being intercepted?’
‘You intend to betray the Iron Warriors?’ said Honorius.
‘I intend to be cautious, Brother-Librarian. Do you disapprove?’
‘You are the First Captain. I will do whatever you command,’ said Honorius. ‘The message will not be intercepted.’ Honorius bowed and made to depart. Zerberyn halted him.
‘Honorius, you knew Oriax Dantalion.’
‘I did,’ said Honorius.
‘What would he have made of our allies?’
‘Dantalion was an inflexible and furious man,’ said Honorius. ‘He would have hated the Iron Warriors, as the enemies of the Legion and traitors to the dreams of the Emperor.’
‘And what do you make of them, brother?’
Honorius looked sidelong at Zerberyn. ‘I think that the Iron Warriors are useful, my lord.’
Zerberyn nodded. ‘I concur. Perhaps they can be saved, turned back onto the righteous path. Prepare a message. As soon as you are able, send it. Inform the Last Wall of our location, tell them to come in peace and bearing the markers of truce. It is time we readied ourselves to return home.’
Chapter Eight
Vangorich decided
The final time Wienand went to meet Vangorich at the Sigillite’s Retreat, she abandoned the code of coloured smokes and contacted him openly. And she went armed.
Although she had refrained from voxing him until she was a few hundred metres from the forgotten garden, she had no chance to lay an ambush, for when she arrived Vangorich was sitting on the bench. He smiled sadly, shut his book — the same one he had been reading the last time they met — and set it down.
‘We won’t be able to use this place again,’ he said, ignoring the laspistol she was pointing at his head. ‘I suppose you knew that, contacting me on open vox like that. Everyone will know about it. Such a shame, it took me years to find it. It’s a piece of history I shared with nobody but you. Never mind. It is time I came out from the shadows a little. I always thought the Cerebrium would make a fine personal office. I will take it on; it is a beautiful room. If no one objects, of course.’ He seemed to focus on her properly for the first time. ‘Your actions, and that gun, suggest you are less than pleased with me.’
‘What did you do to Veritus?’
He feigned surprise, and that enraged her. Her finger twitched on the trigger, and it was all she could do not to shoot him in the face then and there.