The Beast Arises

‘The Lord High Admiral just announced, with Master Udo at his side, that he was recalling the border fleets,’ Vangorich said, taking a chalice of fortified wine from a passing servitor-servant. His nostrils flared for a moment as he raised the wine to his lips, testing for potential toxins out of long-ingrained habit, before he drank it down and handed the empty vessel to another ceremonially-dressed vat-slave.

‘Recalled, yes,’ she said. ‘Redeployed, no. Lansung is amassing an armada in the Glaucasian Gulf, off Lepidus Prime. There will be no deployment of Abel Verreault’s Astra Militarum. The Ecclesiarch will honour his promise to you and declare a War of Faith.’ The operative gestured once more to the High Twelve on their thrones. ‘Just as soon as Lord Udo has completed his endless commendations of the Lord Admiral’s foresight and decisive action. But with the Navy at void-anchorage in Glaucasia and the Chartist Captains pricing all but the wealthiest of the Ecclesiarch’s crusaders out of passage across the rimward sectors, Mesring’s war of faith is no more than a faithless war of words.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’ Vangorich said, his voice tight with anger.

‘Lady Wienand wants your faith,’ the agent said. ‘The threat these dangers pose to the Imperium is beyond your meddlings and the operational scope of the Officio Assassinorum. Allow the Inquisition to fulfil its purpose. Stop creating ripples in the water. Even the best-intentioned actions could compromise our efforts. Trust in our determinations. Our organisation is young but able and best suited to meet this threat in its myriad forms. Leave us to our calling.’

‘And if I don’t?’

‘If you are not part of the solution,’ the operative said, ‘and have no illusions, Grand Master, you are not, then you become part of the problem.’

Vangorich abruptly turned on the agent. A flash of alarm showed in her poise, though she tried to conceal it, and he felt a certain satisfaction at that. ‘It seems appropriate that you should threaten me here, on the chamber floor of the Senatorum Imperialis,’ he said, the coolness of his words at stark odds with the suddenness of his movements. ‘You see, when the Emperor first envisaged the sprawling bureaucracy of such an organisation, many decried the fault in its design: the difficulty in harnessing the trust and concordance of so many factions and parties of interest. What they failed to appreciate was that the Emperor never wanted me to trust you. He never wanted you to trust me. That’s the damnable beauty of it all. Our divisions and contrary motives are the checks and balances that such a large and powerful empire requires to keep it on course.

‘We do face a crisis, that is true. I do believe that the Inquisition has an important role to play in its resolution. But the Inquistion — young, eager and growing in influence — will not use this crisis to grab the power your organisation craves’; for it craves it no less than the ancient offices and institutions already serving their self-interest. Your allies, through their action or omission of action, are endangering Imperial worlds. You will check their ambitions or you will force me to check them for you. In turn, I will be your check, your balance. For the good of the Imperium, the Officio Assassinorum will carry out one of the duties for which it was created and for which it is expertly suited — keeping the rest of the officios honest. Now,’ Vangorich said, turning and heading for the ablutorials. ‘Please excuse me. The wine, you see. It goes straight through me.’

As the Assassin walked through the gaggles of sycophants, towards the antehalls, he stopped a passing servitor-servant and took the final chalice of fortified wine from its silver tray. As he put the rim of the cup to his lips and drank, he watched the servitor mindlessly hold the polished platter at its side — as Vangorich had noticed the chamber drones do many times before. In the mirrored surface of the tray, the Grand Master saw the Inquisitorial agent watching his exit and a second figure, similarly robed and hooded, join her.

Vangorich studied the interloper’s height and build: her slenderness and upright carriage obvious and her step light, even in the heavy robes. He had spent time studying that figure before for knowledge of her weight, balance, ambidexterity and reflexes; all he would need to know to get past her practiced defences and kill her with his bare hands. As she turned and the light picked out the sharpness of her cheekbones, Vangorich knew that he was looking at Inquisitorial Representative Wienand. The real Wienand: ghosting the chamber floor as a busy-body official, while some surgically-crafted double occupied her throne at the centre of the Great Chamber.