The being was an unholy thing, made like a man, but gleaming with an inner light. Its voice was soft, its touch was fire. I believe it was a daemonhost of unfathomable power, with the most vile propensity for spite and cruelty. My report will recount in detail the particular abominations this being subjected Seetmol and Ossel to before it destroyed them. I will spare you those dreadful facts here.
Having disposed of Bluchas, it cornered me on an upper landing in the fastness as I was penetrating the inner sanctum of the wyrd-kin 'messiah'. Myweapons did no harm to it, and it laughed gleefully as it threw me backwards down the length of the staircase with a casual flick of its wrist.
Dazed, I looked up as it descended towards me, unable to conceive of a defence against it. I believe I may have clawed around to find my fallen weapon.
That gesture caused it to speak. I report the words exactly. It said, 'Don't worry now, Gregor. You are far too valuable to waste. Indulge me, just a little scar to make it look authentic!
Its talons tore across my chest and throat, and ripped away my rebreather mask. The wounds will heal, they tell me, but they were deep and excruciating. The being then paused, as it saw my face properly for the first time, free from the mask set. Dreadful dark anger flared in its eyes. It said – forgive me, Highness, but this is the fact of it – it said, 'You are not Eisenhorn! I have been tricked!"
I believe that it would have killed me there and then, but for the frontal assault of the Adeptes Astartes Aurora chapter, which tore into the hall at that precise moment. In the mayhem, the being fled, though I cannot even now say how. Whatever the terrifying strength of the Astartes, this thing was a hundredfold more powerful.
Later, on his knees, with my weapon to his head, seconds before his execution, Gaethon Richter begged for 'CherubaeY to return. He wailed he could not understand why 'CherubaeY had abandoned him. I believe he was speaking of the daemonhost.
I trust your Highness can see my trouble. Mistaking me for another of our kind – and an unimpeachably worthy example, I might add – this thing spared my life. It seemed to me, indeed, that it did so with pre-arranged connivance.
Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn is highly regarded, numerously honoured and justly praised as an example of all that is good, strong and dogmatic about our brotherhood. However, since this circumstance, I have begun to wonder, to fear that-
I feel I cannot say what I wonder or fear. But I thought you should know of this, and know it soon. It is my belief that the Ordo Malleus should be informed, if only as a precaution.
I hope and pray this matter will be found empty of truth and consequence. But, as you taught me, sir, it is always better to be sure.
Sealed as my true word by this, my hand, this 2 76th day of the year 337.M41.
The Emperor Protects!
Your servant,
note 46
ONE
I discover I am dead.
Under dark fire, the lair of Sadia.
Tantalid, unwelcome.
As Igrow older, may the Emperor protect me, I find I measure my history in terms of milestones, those occurrences of such intense moment they will never pass from one's memory: my induction into the blessed ordos of the Inquisition; my first day as a neophyte assigned to the great Hap-shant; my first successful prosecution; the heretic Lemete Syre; my elevation to full inquisitorial rank at the age of twenty-four standard years; the long-drawn out Nassar case; the affair of the Necroteuch; the P'glao Conspiracy.
Milestones, all of them. Marked indelibly onto the engrams of my memory. And, alongside them, I remember the Darknight that came at the end of the month of Umbris, Imperial year 338.M41, with particular clarity. For that bloody end was the start of it. The great milestone of my life.
I was on Lethe Eleven under instruction from the Ordo Xenos, deep in work, with the accursed xenophile Beldame Sadia almost in my grasp. Ten weeks to find her, ten hours to close the trap. I had been without sleep for three days; without food and water for two. Psychic phantoms triggered by the Darknight eclipse were roiling my mind. I was dying of binary poison. Then Tantalid turned up.
