'Things are very seldom what they seem. In my experience, they're usually a damn
sight worse.'
- Inquisitor Titus Drake.
IT GOES WITHOUT saying that, given my profession, I've had more than my fair share
of unpleasant surprises. But to find that the woman I'd spent a pleasant social evening
trying to impress with my half-formed speculations about events she was privy to,
and, it must be admitted, had been quite smitten by (insofar as I've ever been
susceptible to such things1
), was really an undercover inquisitor came pretty close to
the top of the list. And if that wasn't bad enough, the expression of tolerant amusement
on her face at my utter stupefaction increased my discomfiture a thousandfold.
'But I thoughtÖ OreliusÖ' I said, barely making sense even to myself. Amberley
laughed as the Salamander hurtled through the streets back to the fortified compound
where Zyvan had established the headquarters of our expeditionary force. Through the
vox bead in my ear, I could hear the firefight in the Heights continuing. Sulla had
apparently done something stupid, but we were winning comfortably with few enough
casualties for things to be fine without any further interference from me, so I felt
justified in ordering Jurgen to take us back to the staging area as quickly as possible.
Rakel and Orelius quite clearly needed medical attention, which gave me the perfect
excuse, and I supposed it was my duty to see the inquisitor safely on her way as
quickly as possible.
As it turned out, of course, I was to see a great deal more of her before we left
Gravalax, and even that would be just the beginning of a long and eventful association
which was to leave me in mortal peril on more occasions than I care to contemplate.
Sometimes I wonder whether, if I'd had some premonition of who she really was the
first time I saw her, I'd simply have left the room and avoided all the horrors to come
in the ensuing decades, but I doubt it. Her company, on the rare occasions I was able
simply to enjoy it for its own sake, more than made up for all the times I was left
fleeing for my life or facing imminent painful death. Hard as that may be to
understand, if you'd met her you'd think the same, I'm sure.2
'Orelius?' She braced herself as Jurgen swung us around a bend most other drivers
would have thought too tight at half the speed. 'He helps me out on occasion.' She
smiled again. 'He seemed very impressed with you at the governor's party, by the
way.'
'Then he's an inquisitor too?' I asked, my head still spinning. Amberley laughed, like
water over stones, and shook her head.
'Good Emperor, no. He's a rogue trader. What in the warp made you think he's an
inquisitor?'
'Just something a friend said.' I said, thinking that would be the last time I took Divas's
word for anything. But I suppose, to be fair, he hadn't been all that wrong as it turned
out, and he hadn't been responsible for my own febrile imaginings.
'And the guy with the beard?' I indicated the scribe, who was leaning over the lip of
the driver's compartment carrying on an enthusiastic conversation with Jurgen about
the finer points of Salamander maintenance.
'Caractacus Mott, my savant.' She smiled fondly. 'A mine of information, some of it
useful.'
'The others I've met.' I said. I indicated Orelius, who had taken out a medkit and was
tending to Rakel as best he could with a damaged arm. 'What's wrong with her?'
'I'm not exactly sure,' she replied, a thoughtful frown appearing for a moment on her
face. That, I was later to discover, wasn't entirely true, she had her suspicions, but the
truth about Jurgen wouldn't be confirmed for some time yet.
TO CUT A long story short, we made it back to HQ without further incident, and
dispersed to our various duties. Amberley went off with the medicae to ensure that her
friends were properly patched up, although as I was to find out for myself on
subsequent occasions, having an inquisitor hovering in the corner doesn't exactly help
them to concentrate on stemming the bleeding or whatever. I went off for a shower
and a change of clothes, but was still smelling faintly of smoke when Broklaw and the
others returned in high spirits.
'You did well, I hear,' I congratulated him as he disembarked from his Chimera. He
nodded, still a little high from the adrenaline.
'Cleared out the whole nest of them. Minimal casualties, too.' He broke off to return
Sulla's salute, her face was shining as though she'd just been out on a heavy date. 'Well
done, lieutenant. That was a tough call.'
'I just asked myself what the commissar would have done,' she said. At that point I
still didn't have a clue what either of them were talking about, but I assumed she'd
distinguished herself in some way, so I tried to look pleased. It turned out later she'd
pulled some damn fool stunt that had almost got her killed, but the troopers thought
she was the hero of the hour, so it had all turned out for the best. Besides, it was the
sort of thing I was assumed to have done myself, so I could hardly chew her out for it
when the reports came in, could I?
'And then did the opposite, I hope,' I said, then raised an eyebrow at her expression.
'That was a joke, lieutenant. I'm sure whatever decision you made was the correct one
under the circumstances.'
'I hope so,' she said, saluting again, then trotting off to check on the wounded from her
platoon. Broklaw watched her go with a thoughtful expression.
Sandy Mitchell ´For the Emperorª
'Well, it worked, anyway. Probably saved us a heap of casualties too. ButÖ' He
shrugged. 'She'll probably do well in the end, if she doesn't get herself killed first.'
Well, he was right there, of course, although none of us could see at the time just quite
how far she'd go. Like they say, it's always the ones you least expect.1
After a few more words of little consequence, Brocklaw went off to report to Kasteen,
and I went to look for a drink.
I FOUND IT in a quiet booth at the back of the Eagle's Wing. The place was almost
deserted, in an eerie contrast to my visit here with Divas, but I supposed it was still a
bit too early in the evening for things to be lively, and anyway the solitude fitted my
mood. I'd noticed, on my short walk to the bar, that the streets were unusually quiet,
too, and the few civilians I'd seen had seemed nervous, scuttling away from me as they
caught sight of my uniform. Our show of strength against the rebels in the Heights had
put everyone on edge, and if anything, anti-Imperial sentiment seemed to be gaining
ground.
I can't say I blamed them entirely, either. If I'd been a Gravalaxian, I'd probably be
thinking that the tau might be blue, bald, and barmy, but at least they hadn't blown up
part of the city. My opinion of Grice would have fallen even further for ordering us to
intervene, if that were possible.
As the amasec started to kick in, I found myself brooding over the events of the
afternoon: a hairs-breadth escape from death does that to me, I start to contemplate my
own mortality, and wonder what the hell I'm doing in a job where I'm liable to be
killed pretty much all of the time. The answer, of course, is that I didn't have a choice -
the assessors at the Schola Progenium decided I was commissarial material, and that
was that.2
I was just working myself into a perversely comforting mood of gloom and
despondency when a shadow fell across me and a mellifluous voice asked, 'Do you
mind if I sit here?'
Normally, I'm never averse to feminine company, as you'll know if you've read much
of these memoirs, but right then all I wanted was to be left alone to contemplate the
unfairness of the universe in a self-pitying haze of alcohol. However, it never pays to
be impolite to an inquisitor, so I gestured to the seat across the table and masked my
surprise as best I could. She'd found the time to change and freshen up too, I noticed,
into a mist-grey gown which showed off her colouring to the best advantage.
'Feel free,' I gestured to the waitress, who looked vaguely disappointed as she
delivered our order. 'Two more, please.'
'Thank you.' Amberley sipped delicately at the drink, a faint moue betraying her
opinion of its quality, before replacing the glass on the tabletop and regarding me
quizzically. I tried to pull away from her depthless blue eyes, then decided I didn't
really want to after all.
'You're a remarkable man, commissar.'
'So I've been told,' I waited a heartbeat before smiling. 'Though I can't say I see it
myself'
The corner of Amberley's mouth twitched, with what looked like genuine amusement.
'Oh yes, the modest hero routine. You've got that one off pat, no question.' She
knocked back the rest of her drink in one, and signalled for another, leaving me gaping
like an idiot. Her smile widened. 'What's next? "I'm just a humble soldier," or "Trust
me, I'm a servant of the Emperor?"'
'I'm not quite sure what you're insinuatingó' I began, but she cut me off with a
chuckle.
'Ooh, honest indignation. I haven't seen that one in a while.' She picked at the bowl of
nuts on the table, some local variety I didn't recognise, and flashed a grin of pure
mischief at me. 'Lighten up, commissar, I'm only pulling your leg.'
Yes, right, I thought. And letting me know you can see right through every little
manipulative trick in my repertoire in the process. Something of this must have shown
on my face, because her eyes softened.
'You could just try being yourself, you know.'
The thought was terrifying. I'd spent so long hiding behind masks I was no longer sure
there was a genuine Ciaphas underneath them any more, just a quivering little bundle
of self-interest. Then an even more terrifying thought hit me, she could tell what I was
thinking! Everything I'd tried to conceal about my fraudulent reputation would be
open to her, and the inquisitionÖ Emperor's bowels!
'Relax. I'm not a psyker. Just very good at reading people.' She watched me sag into
my seat with relief, not even trying to conceal it, the faint amusement still dancing in
the back of her eyes. 'Whatever you're afraid I'll find out is still safe. And it'll stay that
way. Unless you give me a reason to start looking for it.'
'I'll do my best not to,' I promised, picking up my own drink with a shaky hand.
'I'm glad to hear it.' Her smile was warm again. 'Because I was hoping you could help
me.'
'Help you with what?' I asked, already sure I wasn't going to like the answer.
THE CONFERENCE SUITE was less crowded this time, although since two of the others
present were Lord General Zyvan and an inquisitor who was already making it
perfectly clear that she was in charge here, it certainly seemed full enough to me. The
only other person present was Mott, the elderly savant, who sat bright and alert,
occasionally poking at the dent in his leg left by a hasty techpriest who hadn't quite
finished patching him up when the summons to the meeting had arrived.
'Thank you for joining us, commissar.' Amberley flashed me a smile which looked
genuinely warm, although as an experienced manipulator myself, I wasn't quite sure
how far I could trust it. Zyvan nodded a greeting, also pleased to see me.
'Hello again.' Mott smiled, surprisingly clear brown eyes flickering behind his excess
of beard. He evidently hadn't found the time to wash the smell of the fire out of his
hair and robes, or simply didn't care. 'You've caused us a great deal of inconvenience,
young man. Although I suppose you weren't to know.'
'Know what?' I asked, trying not to snap. I'd grabbed a couple of sandwiches to try and
mop up the alcohol I'd drunk, and got Jurgen to find me some recaf, but between the
amasec and the reaction from the day's adventures, my head was still buzzing.
'All in good time.' Amberley smiled indulgently at the wizened sage. 'Caractacus does
tend to skip the dull bits given half a chance.'
'When you get to my age, you don't have the time to waste on them,' he responded,
smiling in return. I realised that this was all part of an easy familiarity between them,
which spoke volumes for the trust the inquisitor placed in him, and the length of their
association. He turned back to me. 'Which reminds me, thank you for coming to our
assistance. It was most timely.'
'My pleasure,' I said.
'Then you have an extremely perverse idea of what constitutes fun. You should get out
more.'
Amberley shook her head, and raised an eyebrow at me, in an exaggerated mime of
exasperation.
'You just can't get the help these days,' she said. I couldn't think of any adequate
response to this, so I said nothing. I'd never had a really clear idea of what an
inquisitor was supposed to be like, although like most people, I had a vague
impression of some scary psychopath who slaughtered their way through the
Emperor's enemies. Amberley, on the other hand, seemed to be the complete antithesis
of this. She had her ruthless streak, of course, as I was to find out during our long
association, but back then, the cheerful, slightly whimsical young woman with the
strange sense of humour seemed about as far removed from the general preconception
of her profession as it was possible to get.1
Zyvan cleared his throat.
'Inquisitor. Perhaps we could get to the matter at hand?'
'Of course.' She activated the hololith, thumping it in just the right spot to bring the
image into focus. 'It goes without saying that everything you see and hear is
completely confidential, commissar.'
'Of course,' I nodded.
'Good. I'd hate to have to kill you.' She smiled again, and I wondered if she was joking
or not. These days, of course, I know she meant every word of it.
'In case you haven't been paying attention,' she went on, 'I'm an agent of the Ordo
Xenos. You know what that means?'
'You deal with aliens?' I hazarded. Back then, I had only the vaguest idea that the
inquisition was divided into multiple ordos with specific areas of interest and
responsibility, but it was a pretty easy deduction to make. Amberley nodded approval.
'Exactly,' she began.
'For the most part, anyway.' Mott chimed in helpfully. 'There was that Chaos cult on
Arcadia Secundus, and the heretics of Ghoreó'
'Thank you, Caractacus,' she said, meaning, ''shut the warp up'' so he did. As I was
soon to discover, being a savant meant being obsessed with detail and trivia, and all
the pedantry that went with it. Imagine the worst barroom know-it-all you ever met,
who really does, and is cursed with a tourette-like compulsion to spill out everything
relevant on any topic that comes up, and you're about halfway there. Although he
could be incredibly annoying at times, I found him good company in his own way
once I got to know him. Especially as his gifts included an uncanny intuitive grasp of
probability which we put to good use in a number of gambling establishments over the
years.
Amberley pulled up a star chart on the hololith, which I recognised without too much
difficulty, as it had been reproduced in far less detail in the briefing slate I'd skimmed
through before we made planet-fall.
'The Damocles Gulf,' I said, and she nodded.
'We're here.' She pointed out the Gravalax system, seemingly alone and isolated on the
fringes of Imperial space. 'Notice anything about the topography of the region?'
'We're close to the tau border,' I said, playing for time as I studied the images. She
wouldn't be alluding to anything that obvious, I was sure. Several of the neighbouring
systems were tagged with blue icons, marking them as tau-held worlds. In fact they
almost engulfed our present position, with only a thin chain of friendly yellow
beacons connecting us to the welcoming haven of Imperial space. 'Too close,' I
concluded finally. 'If we had to fight a war here, our supply lines would be far too thin
for comfort.'
'Precisely.' Zyvan nodded approval, and indicated a couple of choke points. 'They
could cut us off here, and here with no trouble at all. We'd be blockaded and
swallowed up in months. While they could reinforce at their leisure from at least four
systems.'
'Which is why we're so desperate to avoid a full-scale war over this miserable
mudball,' Amberley said. 'Keeping it would tie up our naval assets from at least three
sectors just to secure our supply lines, and we'd be funnelling Guard and Astartes units
in from all over the Segmentum. Putting it bluntly, it's not worth the effort.'
To say that I was astonished would be putting it mildly. It had been an article of faith
for as long as I could remember that the sacred domains of His Majesty's Imperium
should never be polluted by the alien no matter the cost. And here was an inquisitor no
less, and the lord general himself, apparently quite happy to let the tau just walk in and
have the place. Well that was fine with me, of course, especially if it kept me out of
the firing line, so I nodded judiciously.
'I can sense a "but" coming,' I said.
'Quite right.' Zyvan nodded, clearly pleased by my astuteness. 'Just letting the little
blue grox-lovers walk in and take the place isn't acceptable either. It would send
entirely the wrong message to them. They're already popping up on worlds all over the
sector and arming to keep them. If they take Gravalax without a fight, they'll think half
the Segmentum is up for grabs.'
'But we could beat them in the long run,' I said, trying not to picture the decades of
grinding attrition that would ensue as the overwhelming might of the Imperium met
the technosorcery of the tau. It would be the biggest bloodbath since the Sabbat
Worlds crusade.
'We could. Eventually.' Amberley nodded soberly. 'If they were the only threat we had
to face.' She widened the view, systems falling into the centre of the hololith, new
ones coalescing at the fringes of the projection field. Several systems were tagged in
red. I recognised one of them as Corania, and then, a moment later, I picked out the
Desolatia system where I'd first been blooded against a tyranid horde over a decade
before.
'In the last few years, tyranid attacks have been increasing in this region of the galaxy,'
Zyvan said. 'But you'd know all about that.'
'I've seen a few,' I admitted.
'There's a pattern.' Mott butted in. 'Still not clear, but definitely beginning to form'.1
'Our greatest fear is that they could be the harbingers of a new hive fleet,' Amberley
said soberly. I tried to envision such a thing, and shivered involuntarily. The hordes I'd
encountered before had been weak, the scattered survivors of hive fleet Behemoth
which had been shattered centuries before, but still dangerous shards of poison in the
body of the Imperium. Even attenuated as they were, they could still overwhelm a
lightly defended world, growing in strength with each one they consumed. The
prospect of facing a fresh fleet with almost limitless resources was, quite simply,
terrifying.
'Then let's pray you're wrong,' I said. Unfortunately, as we now know, she was right
twice over, and the reality was far worse than even my craven imaginings.
'Amen.' Zyvan made the sign of the aquila. 'But if she's not, those ships and men will
be needed to defend the Imperium. And it's not just the ''nids''Ö' He trailed off as
Amberley shot him a venomous look. Clearly I wasn't supposed to be let in on
everything.
'Necrons,' I said, jumping to the obvious conclusion. I pointed out the tomb world I'd
been lucky to escape from a couple of years before. 'Not the friendliest of xenos. And
cropping up more frequently of late, if these contact icons are anything to go by,' I
indicated a couple of others in the same purple script.
'That would be pure speculation, commissar,' Amberley said, a clear warning tone
1 In hindsight, these were clearly the precursors of Hive Fleets Kraken and Leviathan, the bulk of which had
still to be detected at this time.
Sandy Mitchell ´For the Emperorª
entering her voice, but Mott nodded enthusiastically.
'A two hundred and seventy-three per cent increase in probable necron contact over
the last century,' he said. 'Only twenty-eight per cent fully confirmed, however.' That
would be because the majority of contacts left no survivors, of course.
'Be that as it may,' Amberley said, 'the fact remains that the resources we would
expend fighting a war for Gravalax are likely to be needed elsewhere, and if we're
forced to use them now, we would be fatally weakened.'
'Which still begs the question of who would be insane enough to try to provoke such a
war, and what they could hope to gain by it.' I said, eager to show I was paying
attention.
'Precisely what the inquisitor was sent here to find out.' Zyvan assured me.
'Not exactly.' Amberley killed the hololith display, probably to stop me from making
any more uncomfortable guesses about what might be lurking in the outer darkness.
'Our attention was drawn to the increase in tau influence on Gravalax, and the
activities of certain rogue traders who seemed to be profiting from it. I came to look
into that, and assess the loyalties of the governor.'
'That's why you had Orelius pressuring him for trade concessions,' I said, the coin
suddenly dropping. 'You wanted to see if he had any influence with the tau.'
'Quite right.' She smiled at me, like a schola tutor whose least promising pupil has just
recited the entire catechism of abjuration. 'You're really quite astute for a soldier.'
'And your decision?' Zyvan asked, carefully not taking offence at the remark.
'I'm still considering it,' she admitted. 'He's certainly weak, probably corrupt, and
undeniably stupid. He's let the alien influence take root here far too deeply to be
dislodged without considerable effort. But he's no longer our primary concern.'
'You mean the conspirators?' I asked. 'Whoever's trying to provoke a war over this?'
'Precisely.' She nodded, favouring me with another smile, which, perhaps due to
wishful thinking, looked remarkably like praise. 'Another astute deduction on your
part.'
'Do you have any clue as to their identities?' Zyvan asked. Amberley shook her head.
'There's no shortage of enemies who would stand to gain from weakening the Imperial
presence in this sector,' she said, with a warning glance at Mott, who seemed on the
verge of listing them. 'Not least the tau themselves.' He subsided with visible
disappointment. 'But whoever it is it undoubtedly working through the xenoist faction
here, and the PDF units they control. Fortunately, the Guard seem to have drawn their
teeth without dragging the tau into it, for which we can all be thankful.'
Zyvan and I took the implied compliment without comment.
'How is the investigation into the ambassador's murder going?' I asked. 'If you find the
assassin, you find the conspirators, don't you?'
'Probably.' Amberley shook her head. 'But so far we don't have a suspect. The autopsy
showed he was killed by an imperial bolt pistol at close range, but we already knew that,
and half the guests at the party were carrying one. Our best lead is still the xenoist
connection.'
'Or it was.' Mott chimed in with a censorial glare at me. 'Until this young man set fire
to it.'
'I'm sorry?' I gazed at him in confusion.
'So you should be,' he said, without rancour. Amberley sighed.
'The local Arbites have been keeping tabs on the most vocal xenoist groups. One of
them used to hold meetings at that warehouse, so we went to check it out.'
'And found a bit more than you bargained for,' I chipped in helpfully. She nodded.
'That we did. We found a way down to the under-city.'
'Definite surprise there.' Mott chipped in helpfully. 'Although given the amount of
relatively new tau-influenced architecture in the city as a whole, finding one wasn't
totally unexpected.'
I suppose I must seem naive, but up until this point it had never occurred to me that
there wasn't an under-city - part and parcel of growing up in a hive, I suppose. You
see, most imperial cities are millennia old, each generation building on the remains of
the last, leaving a warren of service tunnels and abandoned rooms under the latest
level of streets and buildings, often tens, or even hundreds, of metres thick. Mayoh,
being so sparsely populated in imperial terms, didn't have anything like so thick a
layer beneath it, but I'd just taken it for granted that it was bound to have the same
labyrinth of sewers and walkways below its citizens' feet as any other urban area I was
familiar with.
'Seems like a good place to plot sedition,' I conceded.
'Ideal,' Amberley agreed. 'As we found to our cost.'
'We were ambushed,' Mott said, 'though not before determining that the tunnel system
is extremely extensive.'
'Ambushed by who?' Zyvan asked.
'Ah. Well, that's the question.' Amberley cocked her head quizzically. 'Whoever they
were, they were well armed, and well trained. We barely got out alive.'
'Tomas and Jothan didn't,' Mott reminded her, and her brow darkened for a moment.
'Their sacrifice will be remembered,' she said, in the reflex way people do when they
don't really mean it. 'They knew the risks.'
'More PDF defectors?' Zyvan asked. I shook my head.
'I don't think so. My aide and I got a good look at several of them. They were
definitely civilians.'
'Or in civilian clothes,' Mott suggested. 'Not necessarily the same thing.'
'In either case,' Amberley said decisively, 'we need more information. And there's only
one place we can get it,' I began to develop a familiar sinking feeling in the pit of my
stomach.
'The undercity,' Zyvan said. The inquisitor nodded.
'Precisely. Which is why I require your assistance.'
'Anything at all, of course.' Zyvan spread his hands. 'Although I don't quite seeó'
'My retinue is out of action, lord general. And I'm not stupid enough to undertake an
expedition of this nature entirely alone.' Well, anyone could see that. 'I'd like to
Sandy Mitchell ´For the Emperorª
request the use of some of your Guard troopers.'
'Well, of course.' Zyvan nodded. 'You can hardly rely on the loyalty of the local PDF'
'Exactly.' She nodded again.
'How many do you want?' Zyvan asked. 'A platoon, a company?' Amberley shook her
head.
'No. We'll need to move fast, and light. One fire-team. And the commissar to lead
them.' She turned those dazzling eyes on me again, and smiled. 'I'm sure a man of your
formidable reputation will be up to the challenge.'
I wasn't, you can take my word for it, but I couldn't refuse a direct request from an
inquisitor, could I? (Although if I'd known what I was getting into, I'd probably have
given it a damn good try.) So I nodded, and tried to look confident.
'You can rely on me.' I said, with all the sincerity I could fake, and from the grin
which quirked the corner of her mouth, I could tell she wasn't fooled for a second.
'I'm glad to hear it,' she said. 'I gather your regiment has had a great deal of experience
in city fighting, so I'm sure they'll be ideal.'
'I'll ask for volunteers,' I said, but she shook her head.
'No need.' She skimmed a dataslate over the table-top to me. I stopped it, a
premonitory tingle beginning in the palms of my hands. 'You've already assigned
some.'
I glanced at the list of names, already knowing, in the way you can see the avalanche
start even before the rocks begin to slide, what I'd read there. Kelp, Trebek, Velade,
Sorel and Holenbi. The five troopers on the planet I'd least trust to watch my back,
unless it was to stick a bayonet in it. I lifted my head.
'Are you sure, inquisitor? These troopers are hardly the most reliableó'
'But they are the most expendable.' She grinned at me, the mischievous light back in
her eyes. 'And I'm sure you can keep them in line for me.'
It was official, then. This was a suicide mission. I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry.
'You can count on it,' I said, wondering how in the name of the Emperor I was going
to get out of this one.