Inquisitor, p.21
Inquisitor, page 21
“NOTHING THAT SAFEGUARDS HUMANITY CAN BE EVIL, NOT EVEN THE MOST STRENUOUS INHUMANITY. IF THE HUMAN RACE FAILS, IT HAS FAILED FOREVER.”
Maybe Jaq was too young by hundreds, by thousands of years, and his intellect was too puny to comprehend the multiplex mind of the Master who was forever on overview, whose thoughts battered in his mind. Or maybe the Master's mind had become chaotic. Not warped by the Chaos it surveyed, oh no, but divided amongst itself as its heroic grasp on existence ever so slowly weakened...
“WHEN WE CONFRONTED THE CORRUPTED, HOMICIDAL HORUS WHO ONCE USED TO SHINE LIKE THE BRIGHTEST STAR, WHO USED TO BE OUR BELOVED FAVOURITE—WHEN THE FATE OF THE GALAXY HUNG BY A THREAD—WERE WE NOT COMPELLED TO EXPEL ALL COMPASSION? ALL LOVE? ALL JOY? THOSE WENT AWAY. HOW ELSE COULD WE HAVE ARMOURED OURSELVES? EXISTENCE IS TORMENT, A TORMENT THAT MUST NOURISH US. EVIDENTLY WE MUST STRIVE TO BE THE FIERCE REDEEMER OF MAN, YET WHAT WILL REDEEM US?”
“Great Lord,” whimpered Jaq, “did you know of the hydra before now?”
“NO, AND WE SHALL SURELY ACT IN DUE TIME—”
“YET SURELY WE KNEW. HOW COULD WE NOT KNOW?”
“-ONCE WE HAVE ANALYZED THE INFORMATION WITHIN THIS SUB-MIND OF OURS.”
“HEAR THIS, JAQ DRACO: ONLY TINY PORTIONS OF US CAN HEED YOU, OTHERWISE WE NEGLECT OUR IMPERIUM, OF WHICH OUR SCRUTINY MUST NOT FALTER FOR AN INSTANT. FOR TIME DOES NOT HALT EVERYWHERE WITHIN THE REALM OF MAN. INDEED TIME ONLY HALTS FOR YOU.”
“WE ARE AN EVER-WATCHFUL GOD, ARE WE NOT? DID YOU HOPE TO GAIN OUR UNDIVIDED ATTENTION?”
“HOW ELSE SHOULD WE SOUL-BIND PSYKERS AND OVERVIEW THE WARP AND BEAM THE ASTRONOMICAN BEACON AND SURVIVE AND RECEIVE INFORMATION AND GRANT AUDIENCES ALL AT ONCE, UNLESS WE ARE MANY?”
“AND YET STILL MISS SO MUCH, SO VERY MUCH? SUCH AS THAT WHICH GUIDED YOU HERE.”
“OUR SPIRIT GUIDED YOU.”
“NO: ANOTHER SPIRIT, A REFLECTION OF OUR GOODNESS WHICH WE THRUST FROM US.”
“WE ARE THE ONLY SOURCE OF GOODNESS, SEVERE AND DRASTIC. THERE IS NO OTHER SOURCE OF HOPE THAN US. WE ARE AGONIZINGLY ALONE.”
Contradictions! These warred in Jaq's mind just as they seemed to coexist in the Emperor's own multimind.
Was another power for salvation present in the galaxy, unknown to the suffering Emperor—concealed from him, though somehow partaking of his essence? How could that be?
And what of the hydra? Did the Emperor truly know of it or not—even now? Might he refuse to acknowledge what Jaq had reported to him?
The Emperor's voices faded from Jaq's mind as time tried to stretch back into shape.
Grimm tugged at Jaq's sleeve.
“Audience is over, boss. Don't you understand?” Yes, Grimm must have heard something—other than what Jaq heard; some simple order. “We gotta go, boss. We got to get out.”
“How can a minnow understand a whale?” Jaq cried. “Or an ant, an elephant? Have we succeeded, Grimm? Have we?” Jaq's own voice rose to a scream in that holiest of chambers, yet somehow it was hardly audible. His words echoed like a flock of screeching, ultrasonic bats.
“Dunno, boss. We gotta go.”
“Out, out, out,” chanted Meh'Lindi. “Away-way-way.”
And then...
EPILOGUE
“So have you finished scanning the Liber Secretorum?” asked the black-robed master librarian.
“Yes indeed.” The man with the hooked chin and piercing green eyes sucked his cheeks in thoughtfully. He too was robed and medallioned as a Malleus man, his face almost hidden by his hood. The two men were shut inside a dimly lit room that was a skull. Save for twin electrocandles illuminating icons of the Emperor in the two niches that corresponded to sockets, only the scanner glowed.
“Where and when was this recorded?”
“Hidden Master, it was delivered under inexplicable circumstances to the then-Master of our Ordo a century ago. That was soon after Jaq Draco was declared a renegade for his exterminatus of Stalinvast, and disappeared. As to where this was recorded... perhaps on Earth?”
“The Assassin? The Navigator? The Squat? What of them?”
“A Meh'Lindi certainly existed, as the present Director of Callidus Assassins can confirm. But that is all the Director will acknowledge; and that she vanished from view, presumed dead. The Officio Assassinorum will admit nothing regarding the experimental surgery. Maybe that proved to be a fiasco, of which they wish to obliterate all memory. Or maybe it has an extreme security classification. Thus supposedly nothing in their records links her to Jaq Draco. The Navis Nobilitate cannot, or will not, authenticate the existence of a Navigator by the name of Vitali Googol. They have too much independence, in my view! Maybe Googol was the person's poetical sobriquet. Maybe Draco invented the name, if indeed he did not invent everything, other than the exterminatus which certainly occurred. As regards the visit to the throne-room of His Terribilitas, no member of the Custodes reported anything—though surveillance instruments malfunctioned strangely at this time, perhaps due to mischievous sabotage.”
“The Squat?”
“Grimm's a common name, and this Squat was of no importance to the Imperium.”
“What of Captain Holofernest and Inquisitor Zilanov?”
“Why, Inquisitor Zilanov executed that captain for dereliction of duty.”
“For drunkenness?”
The librarian nodded. “There was... trouble on board that Black Ship. A rebellion among the passengers, some of whom were possessed. Zilanov died too. Draco could possibly have known of this before the Liber came to our attention, and therefore before it was composed. If Draco composed this at all! Why did Draco avoid the first person in his story, unless he was lying? Did he even compose it?”
“Our Ordo denies that any such project exists under our own aegis?”
“All Hidden Masters at the time denied belonging to such a cabal. Baal Firenze, who declared Draco a renegade, volunteered for Deeptruth, Metaveritas. Nothing relevant was learned. Proctor Firenze became as a baby thereafter.”
“He was re-educated?”
“Oh yes, Hidden Master. He redeveloped a personality, anew. He was rejuvenated, trained all over again as a dedicated Inquisitor.”
“Harq Obispal?”
“Aliens ambushed and killed him shortly after the events which the Liber purports to describe.”
“How convenient.”
“His murderers were believed to be Eldar.”
“Ah? Indeed? That's known for sure?”
“Not for sure.”
“Our Ordo has never discovered any trace of this hydra on any world?”
“None. We track down any distorted whisper, yet we, gain no hard evidence at all. Naturally, if Draco's account is correct we could hardly expect to find material traces...”
“So the Liber may actually have been a weapon aimed at Baal Firenze by some enemy to discredit him; to sabotage his career and his very identity.”
“Aye, or to sow distrust amongst the Hidden Masters of our Ordo, and thus to undermine us all.”
“Or to sow doubts about the Emperor himself, blessed be his name.”
“That too. Truly, all is whelmed in darkness and the Emperor is the only light. Of course, Draco's narrative isn't only of negative value. We now use the stasis coffin as an adjunct to interrogation, where time isn't of the essence...” A note of doubt crept into the Librarian's voice. “You are newly a Hidden Master, and naturally you must research the secrets of our Ordo now. Would you let me admire your tattoo just once again?”
The green-eyed man said, “Why certainly.”
When the visitor to the Librarium Obscurum drew back his sleeve, the librarian only had an instant to note the digital needle gun fitted to the Hidden Master's slim finger... before the librarian's face stung, and toxins convulsed his whole frame.
The librarian's body flopped on the floor, muscles pulling every which way. His bowels had emptied stinkingly; blood poured from the old man's nose and mouth. The visitor started to giggle hectically. He needed to bite on his sleeve to silence himself. His teeth ravaged the cloth as if a hound had caught a hare, or in the way that someone who was experiencing inner agony might seek to distract himself from a sensation or spectacle that he found abominable. The librarian was already dead; it was only a corpse that twitched.
The visitor left the first page of the Liber Secretorum displayed upon the screen; and beside it he tucked a Tarot card—of an Inquisitor whose featureless face was a tiny, psychoactive mirror to whoever would next look at it.
Wrinkling up his jutting nose, he slipped away out of the skull room.
The Inquisition War had begun; though in another sense it had begun years earlier when Jaq Draco first uttered the words, Believe me. I intend to tell the truth...
Ian Watson, Inquisitor
