I stood by the open windows, looking out from the mansion's first floor across the grey roofs of Lethe Majeure which seemed to coat the hills of the Tito Basin like the scaled hide of some prehistoric reptile. The sky was a magnolia haze, and a light breeze breathed. It was almost impossible now to picture this place beset by the filthy, permanent shadows of the Darknight.
Now, perhaps, I knew why Tantalid had returned. The Ophidian war was over, and his holy mission concluded with it.
'I remember them setting out, don't you?' I asked.
A foolish question. My savant was a data-addict, driven since the age of forty-two standard to collect and retain all manner of information thanks to a meme-virus he had contracted. There was no possibility of him forgetting anything. He scratched the side of his hooked nose where his heavy augmetic eye-pieces touched.
'How could either of us forget that?' he replied. The summer of 240. Hunting the Glaw clan on Gudrun during the very Founding itself/
Indeed, we had played a particular role in delaying the start of the Ophidian Campaign. The Warmaster, or lord militant as he had been back then, had been all but set to launch his purge into Ophidian space when my investigation of the heretic Glaw family had triggered a mass uprising later known as the Helican Schism. To his great surprise and displeasure, the Warmaster had been abruptly forced to redirect his readied forces in a pacification of his very own sub-sector.
Warmaster Honorius. Honorius Magnus they were calling him. I had never met him, nor had I much wish to. A brutal man, as are so many of
his kind. It takes a special mindset, a special brutality, to crush planets and populations.
There is to be a great Jubilation on Thracian Primaris/ Aemos said. A Holy Novena congregated by the Synod the High Ecclesiarchy. It is rumoured that the Imperial Lord Commander Helican himself will attend, specifically to bestow upon the Warmaster the rank of Feudal Protector/
'I'm sure he'll be very pleased. Another heavy medallion to throw at his officers when he's annoyed/
You're not tempted to attend?'
I laughed. In truth, I had thought to return to the Helican sub-sector capital before long. Thracian Primaris, the most massive, industrialised and populated world in the sub-sector, had wrested capital planet status from ancient Gudrun after the disgrace and foment of the Schism, finally achieving the preeminence it felt its size and power had long deserved. It was now the chief Imperial planet of this region.
There was work to be done, reports to be filed and presented, and those things could best be achieved by returning to my property on Thracian, my base of operations, near to the Palace of the Inquisition. But I had little love for Thracian Primaris. It was an ugly place, and I only made my headquarters there out of convenience. The thought of pomp and ceremony and festivals filled me with quiet dread.
Perhaps I would go to Messina instead, or to the quiet of Gudrun, where I maintained a small, comfortable estate.
The Inquisition is to attend in great strength. Lord Rorken himself…'
I waved a hand in Aemos's direction. 'Does it appeal to you?'
'No/
Are there not better uses for our time? Pressing matters? Things that would be more easily achieved away from such overblown distractions?'
'Most certainly/ he said.
Then I think you know my mind/
'I think I do, Gregor/ he said, rising to his feet and reaching into the pocket of his green robe. And therefore I'm fully prepared for the fact that you're going to curse me when I give you this/
He held out a small data-slate, an encrypted message-tile whose contents had been received and stored by the astropaths.
The official seal of the Inquisition was stamped across its front.
THREE
Capital world.
The Ocean House.
Intruders, past and present.
Thracian Primaris, capital world of the Helican sub-sector, seat of government, Helican sub-sector, Scams sector, Segmentum Obscurus. You can read that description in any one of a hundred thousand guidebooks, geographies, Imperial histories, pilgrimage primers, industrial ledgers, trade directories, star maps. It sounds impressive, authoritarian, powerful.
