The dark city, p.1
The Dark City, page 1
More tales of the Inquisition from Black Library
• Vaults of Terra by Chris Wraight •
THE CARRION THRONE
THE HOLLOW MOUNTAIN
THE DARK CITY
• The Eisenhorn series by Dan Abnett •
XENOS
MALLEUS
HERETICUS
THE MAGOS
• The Ravenor trilogy by Dan Abnett •
RAVENOR
RAVENOR RETURNED
RAVENOR ROGUE
• The Bequin series by Dan Abnett •
PARIAH
PENITENT
• The Horusian Wars by John French •
RESURRECTION
INCARNATION
DIVINATION
• The Inquisition War by Ian Watson •
DRACO
HARLEQUIN
CHAOS CHILD
ATLAS INFERNAL
Rob Sanders
INFERNO! PRESENTS: THE INQUISITION
Various authors
Contents
Cover
Backlist
Warhammer 40,000
Vaults of Terra: The Dark City
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Epilogue
About the Author
An Extract from ‘Xenos’
A Black Library Publication
eBook license
For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind. By the might of His inexhaustible armies a million worlds stand against the dark.
Yet, He is a rotting carcass, the Carrion Lord of the Imperium held in life by marvels from the Dark Age of Technology and the thousand souls sacrificed each day so that His may continue to burn.
To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. It is to suffer an eternity of carnage and slaughter. It is to have cries of anguish and sorrow drowned by the thirsting laughter of dark gods.
This is a dark and terrible era where you will find little comfort or hope. Forget the power of technology and science. Forget the promise of progress and advancement. Forget any notion of common humanity or compassion.
There is no peace amongst the stars, for in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.
CHAPTER ONE
He walked up to her chambers with confidence. You had to project confidence – to wear it like a glove. Let the thin skin of assurance fade, even by a fraction, and then you were vulnerable.
Latan Zijes had many enemies. That was not unusual. Any person of any consequence on Terra had enemies – the place was a nest of competing egos. Even now, when it felt like civilisation was poised on the very edge of annihilation, the schemes continued, the feuds ran on. Rampant disorder was a cloak behind which many scores could be quietly settled. And if things returned to normal at some stage, well then, who would remember just how things had been done in these most unusual of times?
The ordo had taught him to make a virtue of any weakness, make a weapon out of any setback. It was all a game in the end – a grand, multilayered game, and one he planned, in time, to dominate.
For now, though, he had to be careful. He had risen fast, and that bred resentment. Other players were skilful, patient, and had claws of their own. To be an inquisitor was to be forever surrounded by danger, from within and without the Imperium, and few individuals were as dangerous as the one he was about to meet. She was, in theory, his protector – a powerful advocate on his behalf and a useful name to drop into difficult situations.
But that could change. Recent days had taught them all that. Everything – everything – could change.
Zijes adjusted the stiff collar of his jerkin. He pulled his real-leather overcoat tight over his chest, and patted the artificer Utanya laspistol at his belt. Not that he would be using that, of course – just habit.
He approached gilt-edged doors. Not as overwrought as most of the internal architecture of the labyrinthine Imperial Palace, but still too gaudy for his taste. The two guards had been primed to expect him, and didn’t bother to challenge him or ask for credentials – no doubt he’d been scanned and double-scanned ever since arriving at the fortress, his every breath scrutinised on the long march up the stairwells. By the time they reached for the brass skullform door handles to let him inside, Zijes guessed that his vital signs and heat-image patterns were being busily pored over by a dozen or more menials down in the basements. Reassuring, in a way.
She was seated when he entered. She didn’t get up, but remained poised elegantly on the edge of a velvet-upholstered chaise longue. A selection of armchairs was available for him. He went for a dark blue piece in the Interregnum style, low-slung with iron claw-feet. The walls of the chamber were marble, the floors polished granite. A pair of gold-chased suspensors hung, humming slightly, overhead. Tall windows gave a view out over an overcast, smoke-mottled urban landscape.
The Inquisitorial Representative, Kleopatra Arx, was a slight woman. Her physical appearance was almost an affectation – a suggestion of fragility that had fooled many opponents over the years. Even by the standards of the orders they both served, she was a ruthless operator, capable of acting with swift and deadly resolve whenever the circumstances demanded. The various branches of the Inquisition were not, and never had been, united. The many ordos shared no common bureaucracy or standing militia, and each inquisitor operated entirely independently. To be a representative to the High Lords of that sprawling collection of pathologically driven individuals, each one jealous of their cherished autonomy, was something close to mad hubris. And yet, Arx had served in the role now for a long time. Before the very recent disaster, she had been proposing reforms. They might even have gone through, had she been given more time to work on them.
So you had to respect Arx. You could think she was misguided, or vain, even deluded, but you had to take her seriously.
‘Inquisitor,’ she said, putting a china cup down onto a silver tray. As she did so, a tiny hummingbird flitted from her shoulder and hovered over the fireplace. Its feathers glittered, as did its beady eyes – undoubtedly artificial, the whole thing, but very cleverly made. ‘I am glad to see you alive.’
Zijes settled into the soft seat, crossed his legs and relaxed. He kept his gaze fixed on her while simultaneously entertaining himself trying to spot all the micro-weapons targeted on him. At least four so far, and he wasn’t even looking very hard.
‘Strange times we live in,’ he said. ‘I once thought I’d miss the best of the action by staying on Terra.’
Her gaze was steely. She never seemed to blink. All the time, that damned metal bird flitted back and forth.
‘You know things are broken, of course,’ Arx said, folding her hands over one another in her lap. ‘You may not understand just by how much. Where were you?’
‘When it happened? Kameriba zone nine. Took me a while to get back here, after your message got through.’
‘I don’t doubt it. So, I’ll not sweeten this for you.’ She spoke frostily, precisely. ‘The Cadian warfront is gone. You know that, yes? You can see for yourself the effect that has had. Half of Terra lost to insurrection, much of it long planned, some of it spontaneous. A psychic storm has hit. It will be the labour of a generation to repair the damage, assuming we survive the next few weeks.’
Zijes smiled bleakly. ‘A cheerful picture.’
‘It gets worse. The Astronomican is down. Our fleets are becalmed. So we are blind and we are crippled, just when the ancient walls that kept our greatest enemy away have been breached at last. If the scale of this present crisis were known outside these confines, then we would swiftly lose any hope of restoring order.’
Zijes’ expression never altered, but even for him, inured to shock by a career spent among heretics and monsters, her words bit deep. The Astronomican is down.
‘It can be restored,’ he said, more of a statement than a question – to contemplate otherwise was impossible.
‘We must hope so. Every effort is being exerted. Restoration should be a matter for my esteemed counterpart, the Master of the Mountain, but he is dead. His staff are either dead too, or driven mad. Master Kerapliades has assumed control of what remains, supported by warriors of the Adeptus Astartes and tech-priests from the Mechanicus. The whole thing, though, to be perfectly candid, is a bloody mess.’
Zijes took that in. ‘Throne,’ he said. ‘I had–’
Zijes smiled again. ‘Which you’re not going to do.’
Arx put the cup down with a soft clink. ‘You will be briefed on what we know. It’s not much, but it will demonstrate why I cannot let this be controlled by others. Every institution on this world has been rocked by the storm. Many souls have died, and many more will die in the days to come. Franck, the old Master, was hardly powerless. He was present, in his own domain, when the effect hit. He must have known a storm was coming, and yet proved unable to preserve himself. I wish to know why. I require someone trustworthy to make enquiries.’
‘Someone under your control.’
‘The opposite. A free agent. Though I could still be in the position to reward such an agent, were they to provide me with what I need.’
Zijes raised an eyebrow. ‘Going after a High Lord’s affairs,’ he said. ‘Hardly risk-free.’
‘But important. Because there’s another thing.’ Arx raised a slender finger, and a hololith of a woman’s face spun out of the air between them. ‘Another strange death. Inquisitor Adamara Rassilo – too sensible to have got herself killed for no good reason, and yet she too is gone. I had her dealings looked into. Difficult, at the moment, to find anything out of importance, but I do know she was responsible for the recent placement of several interrogators here on Terra. One name struck me in particular – a promising newcomer named Luce Spinoza. Heard of her?’
‘No.’
‘No reason why you should have. Except that I spoke to the Space Marine sergeant responsible for securing the Mountain after the worst of the trouble. An admirable example of the type – I recommended his promotion. He could tell me little about causes, but did confirm the presence of individuals there – inside the Fortress, right at the same time as the Master was killed. An inquisitor, Erasmus Crowl, and members of his entourage. What were they doing there? No one can tell me. They were allowed to slip away, apparently. Forgivable, given all else that was going on, but it leaves a loose end.’
Zijes nodded. ‘Spinoza was Crowl’s interrogator?’
‘Correct.’ She sat back, interlocking her hands again. ‘So we have two erased persons, both of them powerful, both of them capable, and one name linking the two. There is no sign of Crowl. His base of operations is known, and Spinoza may be there still, but it is set far into the uncontrolled zones now and hard to access at the best of times.’
Zijes thought on all that. ‘Hardly unusual for an inquisitor to be present when disaster occurs.’
‘They were there ahead of time,’ said Arx. ‘They raised the alarm. Something else – some separate trail – took them there. Something, I believe, connected to Rassilo’s disappearance.’ The hummingbird zipped back to her shoulder, landing lightly. ‘Or not. It should be looked into, just to be sure.’
‘But… now?’
‘Absolutely now.’ Arx leaned forward, placing her elbows on her knees, looking at him intently. ‘We are on the edge of destruction, inquisitor. I look out of these windows, and all I see is our future unravelling. While the Beacon remains dark, no armies are coming to save us. We do not even understand the nature of our catastrophe.’ Her face was bleak. ‘Knowledge. The tiniest scrap of it. Why was Crowl at the Mountain? Why did Rassilo die? Has something been missed, right at the top, for too long? I wish to know these things.’
‘Without being seen to be involved.’
‘We will survive this. We will go on to restore it all, just as it was, and the Imperium will remember the names who steered us back into supremacy. I will remember them. Just as I will remember those who failed to rise to the occasion.’
Zijes laughed. ‘No need for that, Representative – you paint an intriguing enough picture. Show me what information you have, and I’ll look into it for you. If Spinoza is as new to this as you say, we’ll make a nice pair.’
‘I would not underestimate her.’
‘I won’t,’ said Zijes. He got up, seeing that the meeting was over. ‘I never do. That’s the game, is it not? Play it hard.’
‘It’s not a game,’ said Arx, still seated.
‘Of course not. Just a figure of speech.’
But it was, in truth. That was how he liked it. And now a new one was starting up, which was something to be very happy about indeed, because this was how reputations were made, and this was how narratives were controlled.
He had risen fast, had Latan Zijes. But there was space to rise yet further.
‘Is that the one?’ asked Luce Spinoza.
‘It is,’ replied Aneela.
The two of them had come to the spire in a black Nighthawk gunship bearing the livery of Courvain, one of only two that the citadel’s lexmechanics had managed to render usable again. Its engines stuttered as it held position two hundred metres up on stubby wings, kicking out spots of soot from the outtakes. Aneela and Spinoza manned the cockpit; the crew hold was filled with a squad of storm troopers primed for rapid deployment.
The cockpit viewers scanned across a scene of accelerated destruction. Directly ahead of them was the flank of a large horn-shaped hab-spire, blackened by the fires that had raged within it for days. Transitways and access viaducts needled out from its ruptured hide, connecting it with the neighbouring towers, all of which were in a similarly ravaged condition. Few lumens were lit, and the skies were the colour of engine oil, churning incessantly with heat-whipped storms.
Out in the open, on a narrow landing stage sited just in front of one of the spire’s many gaping intake maws, stood a single-person flyer. Its cockpit windows were smashed, its engine panels wrenched open. Three prone bodies lay under the shadow of its cracked wings, swiftly decaying in the hot air. Refuse was everywhere, skittering across the asphalt in skirling gusts, but no living subjects were visible on the scopes. The riots had lasted a long time in these zones, but now their energies were ebbing at last, leaving behind a sullen world of fear and uncertainty. Hundreds of thousands of souls still cowered inside that single colossal spire complex, now terrified and alone, cut off from the benevolent instruments of Imperial order. If the still-active cults didn’t get them, then the looters would, or their thirst, or hunger.
Help would not be coming, Spinoza knew, for a long time. This zone – Jaeda Novus – was too far from the core, a long way from where any kind of control was still being exerted. She’d heard the injunctions from Arx’s people, and knew that assets were being pulled back to the Sanctum all across the globe. She’d even wondered whether, given what had happened, she had better respond to those now, and lend her support to the efforts being made within the Palace confines to get a grip on whatever strange disaster had befallen Terra. She had been tempted. If Crowl had truly left them for good now, running down his obsessions without heed for any wider considerations, then perhaps that was the only thing left to do. Forget Courvain, that half-ruined heap of ouslite. Forget the band of eccentrics and misfits who shambled around in its corridors, and get back into places where chains of command were properly defined and respect for institutions ran strong.
Not now, though. Spend long enough in a place, even one as decrepit as Courvain, and you started to put roots down, become entangled in promises, take on obligations. And some obligations, given what she’d done – given what she’d been forced to do – were impossible to shift now.
‘Getting movement signals from just inside,’ Aneela reported, holding the gunship steady. She was a fine pilot, Aneela. Spinoza was good herself, but Crowl had known how to pick his close staff, quietly assembling an entourage that, for all their surface unimpressiveness, knew what they were doing. ‘Nothing, I would think, lord, you couldn’t handle.’
Spinoza glanced at the augurs, took in the data, and nodded. ‘Bring us in for the drop, then pull up and await my signal,’ she said, reaching for her laspistol. ‘Sergeant?’
‘All is in readiness,’ came Hegain’s voice from the crew hold, accompanied by the click and snap of weapons being primed.
