I was going to answer, but the strident war-hymns of the Mordian Regimental Choir cut me off.
Midas visited me, and spent time playing regicide or plucking his Glavian lyre. I took these recitals as a particular compliment. He'd been dragging
the lyre around for years, ever since I had first met him, and had never played in my hearing, despite my requests.
He was a master, his circuit-inlaid fingers reading and playing the coded strings as expertly as they did flight controls.
On his third visit, after a trio of jaunty Glavian dances, he set his turtle-backed instrument down against the arm of his chair and said 'Lowink is dead.'
I closed my eyes and nodded. I had suspected as much.
'Aemos didn't want to tell you yet, given your condition, but I thought it was wrong to keep it from you/
'Was it quick?'
'His body survived the seance invasion, but with no mind to speak of. He died a week later. Just faded away'
Thank you, Midas. It is best I know. Now play again, so I can lose myself in your tunes.'
Strangely, I came to enjoy Bequin's visits most. She would bustle in, tidying around me, tut-tutting at the state of my water jug or the collapse of my bolsters. Then she would read aloud, usually from books and slates Aemos had left, and often from works that he had already declaimed for my edification. She read them better, with more colour and phlegm. The voice she put on to do Sebastian Thor made me laugh so hard my ribs hurt. When she got to reading KerlofFs Narrative of the Horus War, her impersonation of the Emperor was almost heretical.
I taught her regicide. She lost the first few games, mesmerised by the pieces, the complex board and the still more complex moves and strategies. It was all too 'tactical' for her, she announced. There was no 'incentive'. So we started to play for coins. Then she got the gist and started to win. Every time.
When Midas visited me next, he said sourly, 'Have you been teaching that girl to play?'
Towards the end of my third week of recuperation, Bequin arrived in my apartment and declared, 'I have brought a visitor/
The ruined side of Godwyn Fischig's face had been rebuilt with augmetic muscle and metal, and shrouded with a demi-visage mask of white ceramite. His lost arm had also been replaced, with a powerful metal prosthetic. He was clad in a simple, black jacket and breeches.
He sat at my bedside, and wished me a speedy recovery.
"Your courage has not been forgotten, Godwyn/ I said. 4Vhen this undertaking is over, you may wish to return to your duties on Hubris, but I would welcome your presence on my staff, if you choose so/
'Nissemay Carpel be damned/ he said. 'The High Custodian of the Dormant Vaults may call for me, but I know where I want to be. This life has purpose. I would stay here in it/
Fischig remained at my side for hours, long into the night, by ship-time. We talked, and joked occasionally, and then played regicide with Bequin
looking on. At first, his problems in manipulating the pieces with his unfamiliar new limb afforded us plenty of amusement. Only when he had beaten me in three straight games did he admit that Bequin, in her infinite wisdom, had been coaching him for the past few weeks.
I had one last visitor, a day or two before I was finally able to walk and go about my business uninterrupted by periods of fatigue. Heldane wheeled him in on a wire-spoked carrier chair.
Voke was shrunken and ill. He could only speak by way of a vox-enhancer. I was sure he would be dead in a matter of months.
'You saved me, Eisenhorn,' he husked, haltingly, through the vox aug-metic.
'The astropaths made it possible for us to live,' I corrected.
Voke shook his gnarled, sunken head. 'No… I was lost in a realm of damnation, and you pulled me back. Your voice. I heard you call my name and it was enough. Without that, without that voice, I would have succumbed to the warp.'
I shrugged. What could I say?
'We are not alike, Gregor Eisenhorn,' he continued, tremulously. 'Our concept of inquisition is wildly at variance. But still I salute your bravery and your dedication. You have proven yourself in my eyes. Different ways, different means, is that not the true ethic of our order? I will die peacefully – and soon, I think – knowing men such as you maintain the fight.'
