Dagover shook his head. The effect was uncanny, a grub squirming on metal. It was difficult to believe his skull was still connected to anything of the flesh. ‘That was my first intention, yes. Doing so is second nature to me. It is what I do with the Deathwatch squads under my authority.’

  He paused, as if gauging Stern’s reaction. She gave him none. She would not let her guard down. If anything, his openness about his work as an inquisitor made her even more wary.

  ‘You said you would know if I lied,’ Dagover said. ‘Do I?’

  Stern did not know if he believed she could tell. She wasn’t sure she believed him at all. She had no doubt that at least some of what he said was true. The question was whether he was being honest in the service of a greater lie. ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘I still think you are a powerful weapon, but your purpose is greater than I supposed. You are the Chosen of the Emperor, and your hour has come.’

  ‘You are deluded,’ she said, and she did not hide her sorrow. Fervent belief or manipulative flattery, Dagover’s words meant nothing. ‘The God-Emperor is…’ She trailed off. She could not bring herself to speak the supreme blasphemy, even if it was true.

  Dagover misunderstood her. ‘None of us can see His will. The Astronomican is gone. The Imperium lies in darkness. Surely you realised this in your travels?’

  ‘I have spoken to no one but Kyganil for more than a hundred years,’ said Stern. On world after world, she had struck, purging the daemons until the local defence forces were able to take up the campaign anew themselves. All of this she did at a distance from the citizens. She and Kyganil were pariahs. They had been for a long time. She had not realised until the Shrine of Saint Aphrania how truly alone she was. How truly alone they all were.

  ‘My ship has not been able to travel in the warp for over a century,’ said Dagover. ‘My journey has been long, though the distances involved have not. I am fortunate that the worlds you have saved have been near-neighbours. But I should not say fortunate. I should say that my journey has been destined.’

  ‘I would expect you to say that.’

  ‘Justifiably.’ Dagover was unperturbed. ‘Yet consider the odds against our meeting. And here I am. Will you tell me why you are here? It is because your stay has been prolonged that we are speaking now.’

  Stern exchanged a glance with Kyganil. The Harlequin remained reso­lutely silent. This was her decision to make. He would not interfere in her interactions with other humans. Stern hesitated. She had little reason to confide anything at all to an inquisitor. Yet this one had come in peace, and was speaking as no other ever had. Except one. Silas Hand, long-dead, whose spirit had also vanished from her visions.

  She could not trust Dagover. She also could not ignore the possible importance of his presence here.

  And the reptile spoke of hope.

  ‘Come with me,’ she said.

  Dagover followed Stern up the stairs along the chamber walls, and then the great spiral of the spire. Kyganil disappeared into the shadows. Dagover suspected he was not far away, and would reappear suddenly if Stern decided the inquisitor was a threat after all. He had known, from the records he had seen, that Stern had an aeldari ally. He had been prepared for the xenos’ presence. He would be happier if he could put a plasma shot through Kyga­nil’s brain and be done with him. But that would ruin what he was trying to accomplish here, so he kept his hands carefully away from his weapons.

  Though the climb was a long one, it was effortless for Dagover. He kept up a steady, mechanical pace. His power armour moved at his will. He was barely conscious of the vestigial flesh within any more. At the same time, watching Stern, he felt the chains of gravity as never before. He knew that Stern deigned to rise through the tower by the mundane intermediary of stairs out of a form of courtesy to him. Gravity had no sway over her. The grace of flight and the fury of annihilation were hers to command. The power was barely contained inside her. Now and then, minute ripples of psychic lightning flowed down her cloak and armour. The sight of her chilled his blood. He had forgotten what it was to experience terror. He savoured the sensation with wonder.

  Stern was silent as they climbed. Dagover did not try to lure her into conversation. She would speak when she was ready. Prodding her would lead to resentment, and resentment would not lead to trust.

  They climbed past hundreds of vaults. The honoured dead of the Imperium rested here, their final sleep undisturbed as yet by the wars that shook Parastas. The tremors of the volcanic eruptions thrummed through the stone of the great sepulchre. It did not threaten the structure. It underscored its eternal strength.

  Midway up, Stern broke the silence. ‘You said you had no quarrel with Kyganil,’ she said. ‘Yet you wear that cloak.’

  ‘True on both counts.’

  ‘That position is too fraught to be simple pragmatism.’

  ‘Pragmatism is never simple,’ Dagover said. ‘Too often, those who lay claim to it are lying about the matters of faith that have determined their position from the start.’

  ‘I am glad to hear you say that. What is the truth of your position? I can see, perhaps, why not being in the Ordo Malleus means that you do not automatically seek my extermination. That distinction is not enough, however. Be clear, inquisitor. Where do you stand?’

  Dagover had hoped they would not reach this point so soon. Given how Stern had been branded a heretic and a witch, and been condemned to death by the Inquisition, he doubted her views were in line with the most conservative currents of the ordos. Even so, he could take nothing for granted, except, perhaps, the strength of her faith itself. Where faith took her, he could not know. What stances she agreed with, and which she condemned to fire, he could not know. The best he could do was guess, and hope that he did not guess wrong.

  She had asked him a direct question. There was no point in lying, since he did not know what answer would please her, if any. In the past, he had sometimes taken a perverse pleasure in stating outright what many who shared his convictions kept secret. He felt no pleasure now. His convictions had not altered, but the galaxy had, and the new realities held up a painful mirror to his beliefs.

  Well then. If he still believed what he had believed all his life, he must hold fast to his convictions and speak them now.

  ‘I believe the old order of the Imperium cannot stand,’ Dagover said. ‘I believe that too much is stagnant, ossified, and rotting. I believe that gangrenous limbs must be amputated if the body is to be saved.’

  His use of the present tense had a marked effect on Stern. She gave him a sharp look. He had struck home, though he did not know how.

  ‘You are a Recongregator,’ Stern said quietly.

  ‘You have dealt with others of my faction, then.’

  ‘No. Not directly. I know of you, notwithstanding.’ Then even more quietly, as if speaking to herself, she said, ‘I know so very, very much.’ She raised her voice again. ‘You are a destroyer.’

  ‘Of what needs to be destroyed, for the good of the Imperium.’

  ‘This warp storm that seems to have consumed everything. The extinguishing of the Astronomican. Does that give you satisfaction?’

  ‘Throne, no!’ The denial was torn out of him. His voice box struggled to convey the rare expression of emotion, and the sound was a dismal braying. ‘I seek the renewal of the Imperium, not its destruction. We have strayed so far from what the Emperor wished for us. Finding our way back to His dream will mean great sacrifice. But this, Sister Superior… this is not the destruction that leads to renewal. My fear is that this is the darkness we Recongregators foresaw as inevitable if the Imperium were not renewed. My fear is that everything I have done has been for nothing, and that everything is too late. My hope is that you are proof that this is not so.’

  ‘Your hope may be forlorn, Inquisitor Dagover.’

  ‘I don’t think so. You are the Chosen–’

  She cut him off. ‘Do not call me that again. It is not true. If I have been chosen, it is for damnation, because I was not worthy.’

  When they reached the top, Stern approached the eastern parapet with Dagover a step behind her. ‘What makes you think you are not worthy?’ he asked.

  ‘The Emperor has turned away from me.’

  ‘As He has from us all.’

  ‘Our plight is far worse than that.’

  The howls of the heretics rose from far below. The cries circled the peak of the spire. The miserable choir had begun shortly after Stern had made the sepulchre her stronghold. It had not ceased since then.

  ‘They call out to you,’ Dagover said. He sounded impressed. ‘By your actions, you have created an army of the penitent. They have erred, and now they see their crimes against the Emperor for what they are.’

  ‘Do they? Or do they simply fear me?’

  ‘Can you parse the difference between fear and repentance? I cannot.’

  ‘The distinction is irrelevant. They can receive no forgiveness from me.’

  ‘They do not deserve it, of course,’ said Dagover.

  ‘They do not. And I am not worthy to give it. But there is also none to be had.’

  ‘What is your purpose here?’ Dagover asked. ‘You have one, I assume, beyond warring against abominations. You have no lack of choice for worlds afflicted by daemonic incursions.’

  ‘When I came here, I was seeking to regain the Emperor’s favour. No matter the means or the lengths I had to go to.’ Stern spoke quietly. The words were difficult to say. She had told Kyganil everything, but this would be the first time she revealed the terrible truth to another human. She had chosen to do so with the spectacle of the penitent lost before them, a mirror of their own hopeless state. Yet there was something about Dagover that made her want to find hope, even though she knew there was none to be had. As she began to open up, to someone who would fully understand the loss and need she felt, she experienced a shameful relief.

  ‘You think there is something on Parastas that will help?’

  ‘I thought there was. I came here to save the relic of Saint Aphrania. Her skull was in a shrine to the east, there, where the mountains erupt. I came for Saint Aphrania in the hope of salvation. The Emperor came to her in visions, and because of those visions, she led a crusade that reclaimed a score of systems for the Imperium. I sought a miracle from her, Inquisitor Dagover. I hoped, through her, to see the light of the Emperor once more. I sought a renewal of my greater purpose.’

  ‘Which is what?’

  Again, she thought about how much she trusted him. She did not. At all. Did that matter? No. It did not. She had never hidden her calling. Many had not listened, when she had tried to tell them the truth, but that was their failing. ‘I hold within me the collective knowledge of seven hundred Sisters of the Orders Pronatus. Their knowledge and their faith. What they learned of the Ruinous Powers must be preserved. To that end, Kyganil has been guiding me to the Black Library.’

  ‘A xenos construct. You would hide the knowledge you carry from human eyes?’

  ‘There is no safer place for it.’

  ‘You have been a long time in getting to your destination.’

  Stern gave Dagover a sharp look. ‘Do you mock me?’

  He showed his pointed teeth. ‘Only with the intention of helping you see clearly.’

  She refused to be baited, if that was what he was trying to do. ‘The journey has been long because I have lost my way, and so has Kyganil. Too many of the routes he would have taken are closed. And I…’ She hesitated. Dagover gave every impression of being the last person in the galaxy to inspire confidences. Yet somehow, that was what he had coaxed from her. Perhaps it was the fact that he seemed to have no illusions about himself that made her want to share in that certainty. ‘Where I once had visions, I saw nothing. I thought that was because of my unworthiness.’ She raised her arms, letting lightning dance along her fingertips. ‘Because I am touched by the warp. I am unworthy. I am tainted. But I have had a vision once more, and seen the true nature of nothing. The Emperor is no more. The Imperium is gone. Emptiness and cold, consuming and purposeful, comes to devour everything.’

  Dagover was silent. Stern watched him. He looked out over the broken memorials and the desperate penitent below. His withered face was unreadable.

  Stern read it all the same. ‘You are about to try to convince me that I am wrong.’

  ‘I believe you are. I must believe you are. I do not think the darkness that has engulfed the Imperium is a result of the Emperor finding all of us unworthy. I believe the Imperium has been unworthy of Him for a long time. Isn’t it possible that you are cut off from Him not by your failure, but by the warp storm that covers half the sky? Or by this nothing of which you speak?’

  ‘I have encountered warp storms before. They have never cut me off from my visions.’

  ‘You never encountered one on this scale, though. No one has. Every­thing has changed, Sister Superior, but it is not destroyed. I have seen too many planets, planets that you saved, rejoicing in their faith in the Emperor despite the darkness, to believe that. And I believe your goal must change too.’

  Stern favoured his remark with a short, bitter laugh. ‘It has. I have no purpose but to fight, for as long as I can, to avenge the God-Emperor. Only I do not know where and how to begin.’

  ‘Then think on this. Is my presence here not a sign from the Emperor, a sign that He still has a path for you to walk? I, too, have lost much of my certainty. My path narrowed until all that remained of it was finding you. Having done so, I am at a crossroads. I must find my way forward. I think that, perhaps, I begin to see what it might be. My task may be to help you find your way again.’

  ‘That is a very convenient epiphany, inquisitor,’ said Stern.

  ‘It is,’ Dagover admitted. ‘I do not expect you to take it on faith.’

  If he was joking, she was not amused. ‘Do not trifle with me about matters of faith,’ she warned.

  ‘That was not my intent. Quite the opposite. But come with me. We will fight for the Imperium, and the Emperor. For its renewal, and in His name, and by His will, not in their memory. Again I say that I have caught up to you at this juncture for a reason.’

  It was Stern’s turn to be silent now. She thought over Dagover’s argument. He was being insistent that their meeting was fated, that there was still something to fight for. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe there was another way of interpreting her vision of the nothing. Dagover was here, now, offering hope at the precise moment she needed it most.

  Would she be a fool to accept? Would she be playing into his grasp?

  What grasp? What could he force upon her?

  It was not what he could force upon her. It was what he could manipu­late her into doing.

  But she was wary. She knew what he was. The more foolish choice would be to reject the possibility of hope he offered.

  ‘I will travel with you,’ she said at last.

  ‘I am glad.’

  She looked out over the wailing damned below, towards the thunder of the volcanoes. She had destroyed many abominations, but she had not ended the incursion on Parastas. There was nothing that could be saved here. But there was desecration that could be prevented. ‘What is the nature of your vessel?’ she asked.

  ‘The Iudex Ferox is a battle cruiser.’

  ‘Is it still combat worthy?’

  ‘It depends on the nature of the combat. It still has some of its capabilities.’

  ‘Can it still carry out Exterminatus?’ Stern asked.

  Dagover regarded her for several seconds, absolutely still. When he laughed, it was the sound of vocal cords scraped over a saw blade.

  Stern walked through the great hall of the sepulchre with Kyganil. She stopped before each of the relics she had saved during the months of the struggle on Parastas. She kneeled, murmuring her thanks to the Emperor and His saints. ‘I am unworthy of your blessing, Father of Mankind,’ she whispered. ‘I do not ask that you hear or answer. I ask only that I be proven wrong about what I have seen. I ask only for a true purpose in your name.’

  One of the relics was another skull. It was the head of Cardinal Fehervald, whose preaching enflamed the faith of a hundred worlds. After his death, the touch of his skull had been seen to heal wounds. The head was a relic of inestimable worth. She lingered before the reliquary chest after praying, hoping that she was making the right choices.

  ‘Are you reconciled to these objects’ destruction?’ Kyganil asked. ‘They are the markers of the acts of your culture.’

  ‘Reconciled? No. I acknowledge that inevitability, though.’

  ‘I wonder about the value of this temporary salvage.’

  ‘There are no venerated objects in aeldari culture? No relics whose destruction would cause you pain?’

  Kyganil bowed his head, accepting the point. ‘I am thinking of our circumstances, and those of this world. One way or another, the preser­vation of these relics was always going to be a passing thing, a small collection of moments. A brief turn against the tides of fate, and no more.’

  ‘Measured by eternity, is that not true of any salvation?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Then why fight to preserve anything at all?’

  Kyganil looked sorrowful. ‘True. That is the question we perpetually confront.’

  ‘We cannot act with the view of our impact upon eternity, old friend. There is already too much that seeks to make us despair.’

  Stern turned back to the remains of Cardinal Fehervald. ‘I saved this when I could, because to leave it to ruin would have been a sin. A tomb of oblivion will now come for all these relics, and I will give them the respect of a proper farewell.’

  Kyganil nodded again, and they walked on through the rows of salvage.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53