Vaults of Terra: The Carrion Throne Page 6

  ‘Now I have you, lord,’ came Hegain’s voice over the comm, just as the Shade angled for the descent, its engines howling and its landing-lights whirling. ‘I will touch down here, just here, if you will it. Doors prepped for opening, watch the descending hatch-cover, if you forgive me for saying it. In all this, I thank Him that you are preserved, by His will. Here I come, steady, steady.’

  Spinoza couldn’t help the smile – it crept like a thief across her face as the sergeant found new irrelevances to list.

  ‘Your timing is exemplary,’ she said. For all that, though, she had failed, and felt it keenly. Crowl would not be happy. ‘Summon the others. We will at least take the corpse, if nothing else. Then home.’

  The body taken from Gulagh’s citadel lay on the slab, cold as ice, its flesh cut open to the bone, and Crowl looked down at it. Gorgias hung unsteadily over the cadaver’s forehead, gazing intently at some detail with its single red eye before clicking away indeterminately.

  A third figure busied himself with the scalpels and the flesh-pins – a skeletal figure, his bones protruding even under a thick covering of velvet drapery. Half-moon spectacles hung from the tip of a long nose, an outsize protuberance in an otherwise drawn face. His eyes were pink, his fingers long and augmented with iron surgeon-nails. As he worked, his breath came in contented whispers.

  Only at the end of a long examination did his head rise atop the wrinkled stalk of a neck.

  ‘So then,’ said Crowl, who during the process had remained silent and contemplative, his hands clasped before him. ‘Your verdict.’

  Courvain’s chirurgeon-philosophical rubbed his chin with those fingers. ‘Killed by a single shot to the torso, aimed from behind,’ he said, his voice like a scraped hiss of torn flesh. ‘Consistent with a single release from an Inquisition-issue augmented lasweapon, hellgun-type. See the burn-marks here? A standard beam is less focused, more diffuse. I can see why Gulagh thought it was one of yours.’ He looked up. ‘You are sure it was not?’

  ‘How long have you known me, Erunion? This is not one of my kills.’

  ‘Then there is the problem. Gulagh has made a mistake, and he will pay for it.’

  ‘Perhaps, though he’s already submitted his records to me.’ Crowl reached for a thick tarpaulin and dragged it over the corpse’s ravaged chest, leaving the face uncovered. ‘He assures me this came in with our consignment. I’ll maintain the pressure, but in truth I believe him. He’s worked with us for years, and this is the first anomaly.’

  ‘Then maybe,’ said Erunion, cocking his chicken-like head strangely, ‘it was a mistake. An honest mistake.’

  Crowl looked hard at the dead man’s face. ‘There are as many honest mistakes on Terra as there are honest men. This one wasn’t living in Malliax. Too healthy. He’s been eating regularly, if not well. His complexion’s grey, not white. I’d judge a mid-spire occupant, lower scribe level.’

  ‘Agreed. Where does Gulagh’s jurisdiction run to?’

  ‘Six grid-zones.’

  ‘That is a lot of hab-units.’

  Crowl bent lower, rolling the head to one side and taking a good look at the cheek. ‘Anything that might identify him?’

  ‘Not much.’ Erunion pushed his spectacles further up his nose, and the iron frames glinted in the low light. ‘Note the depressions around the eye sockets. He’s been using a picter-funnel to concentrate attention on a readout. His muscles are in a minor atrophied state, so he does not engage in manual labour. He shows precipitate signs of scurvy, sump fever and rotskin – which of them does not? – and his palms are indented from the use of cluster comm-link columns.’

  ‘No surface markings, subdermal identifiers?’

  ‘Nothing, which is unusual in itself. If you are right, and he has been inserted into a mortuary batch to hide his origin, then whoever did this would have been able to scrub the more obvious signals.’

  Crowl nodded. ‘Dangerous, though. Gulagh may yet face the trials for it.’

  Erunion giggled, an effeminate sound that made the wattles on his exposed neck wobble. ‘Then he will be flaying his own menials to discover the truth.’ The chirurgeon shuffled towards the end of the slab. ‘But are we in danger of making something more of this than is warranted? Supposition: someone has killed a person of little importance, and wishes to keep the business quiet. The killer arranges for the corpse to appear within a routine morgue-dispatch, one that comes under your seal and is marked for incineration. Further supposition: the only individuals capable of arranging this are also members of an equivalent ordo, inquisitor-rank. No one else would have access to the requisite seals, and certainly no one else would be stupid enough to fake them. Final supposition: your corpses will be destroyed soon, and if you had not paid a visit to Gulagh to oversee your delivery, which I have always said is a strange practice and beneath your dignity, none of this would have been known or cared about, for no other individual, not even of high rank, would have dared or been able to scrutinise the detritus of an Inquisition-ordained episode. Conclusion: this is the product of one of your colleagues’ private disputes, an individual with access to Gulagh’s services, and no profit will come of pursuing it further.’

  ‘I agree with the suppositions,’ Crowl said, tilting the corpse’s head to one side. ‘I don’t agree with the conclusion.’

  ‘No, I did not think that you would.’

  ‘My colleagues’ games are of no interest to me,’ Crowl said, still searching, still probing. ‘But this is my domain here, my realm, and I don’t take kindly to interference in it.’

  Gorgias swept in lower, its residual spine-tail clattering across the slab’s edge. ‘Subdermis auspex contra facies,’ it chirped. ‘Iterum, now-now.’

  Erunion fixed the skull with a cold look. ‘You think I did not scan already?’

  Gorgias’ eye flared up. ‘Stupidus! Again, do it.’

  Erunion, incensed, made ready to swat the skull away with an electro-stave, but Crowl raised a calming hand between them. ‘What equipment did you use?’

  ‘Standard spectrum micro-augur.’

  Crowl gestured for Gorgias to hover down, and the skull lurched back to its holding position over the corpse’s forehead. ‘If your suppositions are correct,’ he said to Erunion, ‘then this subject has been prepared for more than a cursory inspection. Perhaps there was a requirement for haste, though. Perhaps they missed something. Indulge me, chirurgeon – do what the skull recommends.’

  Erunion shook his head resignedly, then limped over to a rack containing an array of arcane devices – brass-vaned and coiled, studded with bottle-green lens apertures, each trailed by thick segmented power cabling. He reached for a handheld augur and yanked it from its cradle, powering up the heavy cells within. Static crackled across the surface as the crystalline viewer clarified. ‘This will destroy what remains,’ he said, stiffly.

  ‘Understood, Erunion. Do it now, please.’

  The chirurgeon placed the device over the corpse’s face and activated the energy field. A pool of green light flooded over the rigid features, picking them out in stark relief. Faint lines of smoke rose from the grey skin, and the stench of burning gradually filled the chamber. Erunion moved the augur back and forth, adjusting the device’s dials as he did so. From behind the slab, over where the cables snaked into a heavy snake’s nest of tangled metal wiring, crystal-housed transistors pinged and chattered, and arcs of force snapped between conductor loops.

  The scan intensified. The dead man’s face began to char, turning black where the beam hit and sloughed from the bone beneath. By the time Erunion had completed the sweep, a heap of ash-dry flakes remained, wedged in the burned skull-curves. He deactivated the augur’s beam and the device wound down.

  Crowl waited patiently, though Gorgias was less able to contain its excitement and began to bob in agitation.

  ‘Put the skull out of its mis
ery,’ said Crowl.

  For a moment longer Erunion said nothing, but peered studiously into the augur’s main viewer. He cycled back and forth across the stored data-screed, searching, comparing, looking for anything out of the ordinary. For a while there was just lurid green light reflected in the half-moon spectacles. Then, reluctantly, the chirurgeon placed a marker on the screen and froze the image.

  ‘So there was something buried,’ he said. ‘An old ident-tattoo, scrubbed from the surface, but not quite erased beneath.’

  Crowl took the augur. A faint image throbbed on the screen, barely visible amid the emerald image-grain. At first he could make out nothing intelligible, but long experience had habituated him to all the runes and markers deployed in his sectors of the world-city.

  ‘So he was a scribe indeed,’ Crowl said, deciphering the marks. ‘Signals operative, if I read this right. Grade quintus, conditioned for orbital comms transmission.’

  ‘Just so,’ said Erunion, grudgingly, not meeting Gorgias’ triumphant lens-glare. ‘One of millions.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Crowl, taking the image-grab and shunting a facsimile into his armour’s static storage. ‘But these are Chartist guild marks, or my eyes are dying faster than the rest of me. They can be traced.’

  Erunion pushed his spectacles a notch further up, and his pink eyes blinked.

  ‘You asked for my counsel, lord,’ he said sullenly, ‘and I gave it to you. If you choose to pursue this lead then you will surely succeed, for I have never seen a scent you could not run down. But, in truth, I do not think this worthy of your attention. Give it to the arbitrators, if you must.’

  ‘And what use would they make of it?’ said Crowl, handing back the augur. ‘I’ll judge what’s worthy of my attention and what is not. Gorgias, we have a trip to Mamzel Huk in store. My thanks, chirurgeon. As ever, your expertise has been invaluable.’

  The servo-skull thrust up triumphantly, missing Erunion’s head by a finger’s width and causing him to duck in irritation.

  ‘You listen too much to Palv’s ghost, lord!’ he called out as Crowl moved away. ‘What’s left of him is no guide – you know it!’

  ‘Ah, but the best guides are the ghosts,’ said Crowl, carrying on walking, a clucking Gorgias in tow. ‘Sometimes I think they’re the only ones worth listening to.’

  Chapter Five

  As the old sun sank below the western horizon, Terra took on another aspect. The clouds of grey smog deepened to a thick black haze, shrouding the spire trunks and making the myriad lights glimmer softly. Prayer beacons rang out from the vox-amplifiers mounted on every cathedral cupola, and workers trudging from their daylight duties filed into the cavernous halls to attend the sermons of the priest-caste. Lamplighters filled the column-mounted gas-burners along the ceremonial ways, adding to the heat and muck that spiralled up into the distant heavens, a choking blanket that coated the high walls and stained the devotional frescos that lined the transit passages. The sunset bled down to a deep dark red, casting the jagged summits like bloody teeth against the world’s end.

  The noise never ceased. The shrine world of all shrine worlds was a planet in the grip of perpetual tumult, enveloped in the distributed roar of an entire species as it lived, bred, toiled and expired. Ministorum fervour engines emerged from their housings, bipedal monsters of steel and promethium, stalking through the lengthening shadows bleating against the ancient enemy and proclaiming the eternal reign of the Master of Mankind. The furnaces never stopped burning, the cargo-lifters never stopped coming, the prayers never stopped being whispered through cracked, chapped lips.

  Spinoza watched the sun go down from Courvain’s summit, standing up close to an armourglass viewportal. The vantage was not ideal – mightier and taller spires thrust up around the lesser edifice, framing the vista with gigantic walls of blackened adamantium – but the dying of the light could just be made out along the length of a single westward-running canyon, slowly fading to forge embers amid the immensity of its man-made enclosure.

  She heard Crowl enter the chamber, and turned to bow. As the red light slanted across the room, he looked cadaverous, a lean shadow stripped from the urban wells below and brought up choking into the realm of the living.

  The inquisitor waved away her bow and reached for a glass. Crystal decanters were arranged in a chaotic procession on top of a long inlaid cabinet, each one half full and surrounded by a variety of goblets.

  ‘Will you have one, Spinoza?’ he asked, pouring himself something dark blue.

  ‘No, thank you, lord.’

  ‘Crowl. And why not? You’ve been down in the grime – you should have a drink.’

  ‘I am still in service.’

  ‘Unto death, eh? Long time to wait.’ He took a long swig, then refilled the glass. ‘You’re stitched tight, interrogator. I don’t like that.’ He drank again. ‘You’ll burn up quicker than a witch-heap, and that’s no good to me.’

  Spinoza drew in a weary breath. This was juvenile stuff, a tedious attempt to unbalance her. ‘Do you wish to know the results of the day’s labour?’ she asked.

  ‘Hegain briefed me,’ said Crowl, walking over to an anomalously luxurious chair and sinking into it. ‘But let me know if there’s anything you wish to add.’

  ‘Only my apologies. I will do penance.’

  ‘If you really want, but I won’t demand it.’ He turned the glass in the light, watching as it caught the last rays of the ruby sun. ‘You lost a subject, something got in the way. It happens. Hegain told me you were capable down there, and I trust his judgement. Tell me, though – what was the thing you hunted?’

  ‘I have not had time to analyse the data.’

  ‘For the Throne’s sake, Spinoza, sit down. Tell me what you made of it – I’m not recording this for scrutiny.’

  She walked over to the chair opposite and took her place. Thirst nagged at her – she had not taken much sustenance since returning from the underworld, and suddenly refusing a drink seemed like a poor option.

  ‘Fast,’ she said. ‘Well trained, in good condition. How common is cameleo armour here?’

  ‘Rare.’

  ‘Then well resourced too. My escort thought they were aiming a weapon, though I did not see it and the subject did not stay to fight.’

  ‘Why would they intervene in your business?’

  ‘I judge they were a member of this cabal. We have only seen the foot-soldiers so far – they could not have organised so completely without more formidable troops.’

  ‘Possibly. Or maybe they were monitoring them, just as you were, or maybe monitoring you. Or maybe something else. This dreadful planet, eh?’ He took another sip. ‘Here’s the important thing – what are you going to do about it?’

  ‘I have one more location known for cabal gatherings, taken from the abhuman. I have scheduled another raid, this time in force. We will shut it down and take whatever we can. We will not be quiet. If they show up again, as I expect them to, we will be prepared, and I will engage.’

  Crowl thought on that, swilling the goblet before him. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Though we’re no closer to learning what they strive for. So far, they’re like any of a hundred cults I have broken here – meeting in the shadows, whispering to one another, talking of a new order and freedom for all. They say they have weapons, and that is something, but for what? I feel a blindness with these people.’

  Spinoza felt her impatience rise. ‘They associate without sanction,’ she said, as calmly as she was able. ‘They pledge allegiance to this False Angel, whoever that is. That is crime enough.’

  Crowl looked amused. ‘True,’ he said. ‘And their deaths are richly deserved. But do not assume they’re both mad and stupid, Spinoza. We’ve captured two of their lesser lights and killed two dozen more, but still the leaders remain elusive. Perhaps they give these lackeys to us – they can afford to. Conside
r what they long for most urgently, for they’ll not wait for us to come to them. They’ll be thinking, praying to whatever gods have turned their souls. We are part of those plans, so must move beyond them. All we have is a name – the rest, thus far, is worthless.’

  Spinoza realised her fingers were pressing hard into the armrests. ‘I have what you gave me, lord. Perhaps you will offer some guidance, if you feel progress is not swift enough.’

  ‘Your plan’s sound, Spinoza – I trust you.’

  She nodded, suppressing the irritation that boiled away inside her, and tried to frame the words suitably. ‘Very well, lord.’

  ‘Crowl, please. But I see that you’re unhappy.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘And a poor liar, which is a disadvantage in this profession. Tell me what irks you.’

  She wanted to say, You do, lord, with your impiety, your lack of resolve. ‘I only wish to see the cabal broken.’

  Crowl sighed, and reached for the decanter again. ‘You think I’m too cautious. I don’t blame you. You haven’t been here long, and I know what Tur was like.’ He drank again, a long draught. ‘I look at you and see myself, a century ago. I’d have been angry then, too. I’d have wanted to reach for the flames and fan them. Burn the whole world down, I’d have said, if it only catches a few of those we need to kill. It does you credit, Spinoza, and it amplifies my respect for you, but you’re wrong if you think I’m motivated by pity. I’ve lived here long enough to know what works.’

  He leaned forwards, resting his arms on his knees.

  ‘Fear is like any other weapon,’ he said. ‘It can be exhausted. When you next go into the hive-spires, look at the people. They are afraid, terrified, all of the time. Every waking moment they’re gripped by anxiety. They fear the alien. They fear their neighbour. Any second of any day they might be hauled down to the scrutiny cells by an arbitrator or a priest or – Throne help them – one of us. They’re numb to it. We are numb to it. We forget what the fear of the guilty looks like, for we have made innocence impossible.’