Madorthene wore the impressive white dress uniform in which I had first seen him, and the men's blue armour was rich with gold braid and ceremonial decoration.
Madorthene greeted me with a salute and we strode as a group towards the elevators that would carry us up into the command levels of the ship.
'How goes the uprising?' I asked.
'Well enough, inquisitor. We understand the Lord Militant has declared the Helican Schism over and quashed, though pacification wars are still raging across Thracian.'
'Losses?'
'Considerable. Mainly to the population and materials of the world affected, though some fleet and guard units have taken a beating. Lord Glaw's treason has cost the Imperium dear.'
'Lord Glaw's treason has cost him his life. His body rots on a nameless world in the system behind us.'
He nodded. 'Your master will be pleased.'
'My master?'
Lord Inquisitor Phlebas Alessandro Rorken sat in a marble throne at the far end of a chapel-like audience hall two decks beneath the main bridge of the Saint Scythus. I had met him twice before, and felt no more confident now for those experiences. He wore simple robes of crimson over black clothing and gloves, and no other decoration except for a gold signet ring of office on one knuckle. The austere simplicity of his garb seemed to accentuate his authority. His noble skull was shaved except for a forked goatee. His eyes, deep set and wise, glittered with intelligence.
Around him was his entourage. Ten inquisitorial novices of interrogator rank or below, upheld banners, sacred flamer weapons, caskets of scrolls and slates, gleaming tools of torture on red satin cushions, or open hymnals. Flanking them were four bodyguards in red cloaks with double-handed broadswords held stiffly upright before their faces. Their armour was ornate, and the full visors had been fashioned and painted into the likenesses of four apostolic saints: Olios, ferido, Manezzer and Kadmon. The masks were flat-eyed and expressionless and almost naive, lifted exactly from representations on illuminated manuscripts of old. A huddle of dark-robed savants waited nearby, and a dozen cherub servitors in the form of podgy three-year-olds with golden locks and the spiteful faces of gargoyles circled around, scolding and mocking, on grav-assisted golden wings.
'Approach, Eisenhorn/ Lord Rorken said, his soft voice carrying down the chamber effortlessly. Approach all/
At his words, other figures emerged from anterooms along the sides of the hall, and took their seats to either hand. One was Admiral Spatian, an ancient, skeletal giant in white dress uniform, attended by several of his senior staff. The others were inquisitors. Titus Endor, in his maroon coat, unescorted save for a hunched female savant. He cast me an encouraging
nod as I passed by. Commodus Voke, wizened and shuffling, helped onto his seat by a tall man in black. The man's head was bald and hairless apart from a few sickly clumps. His scalp, neck and face were livid with scar-tissue from injuries and surgery. It was Heldane. His encounter with the carnodon had not improved his looks. Like Endor, Voke nodded to me, but there was no friendship in it.
Next to him, Inquisitor Schongard, stocky and squat, the black metal mask obscuring everything but his raddled eyes. He took his seat and was flanked by two lean, supple females, members of some death-cult by the look of them, both nearly naked save for extensive body art, barbed hoods and harnesses strung with blades.
Opposite Schongard sat Konrad Molitor, an ultra-radical member of the ordos I had little love or respect for. Molitor was a fit, athletic man dressed from head to toe in a tight weave-armour bodyglove of yellow and black check with a polished silver cuirass strapped around his torso. His black hair was close-trimmed and tonsured and he affected the air of a warrior monk from the First Crusade. Behind him stood three robed and hooded acolytes, one carrying Molitor's ornate powersword, another a silver chalice and paten, and the third a reliquary box and a smoking censer. Molitor's pupils were bright yellow and his gaze never wavered from me.
