The First Heretic

‘Is this creature toxic?’ asked Sylamor.

‘It is dangerous,’ the Word Bearer allowed. ‘When I say these instructions are for your safety and sanity, I mean those exact words. Do not look at it. Do not even look at its reflection in any screen or monitor. If it speaks, focus on anything but its words. And if you feel nauseous or afflicted in its presence, leave your station at once.’

Sylamor’s laugh was patently false. ‘You are unnerving my crew, captain.’

‘Just do as I ask, please.’

She bristled, not used to being given orders on her own deck. ‘Of course, sir.’

‘Don’t act so offended, Janus.’ The Word Bearer forced some warmth into his voice, which his helm’s vox- speakers immediately stole and twisted. ‘Just trust me.’

When the doors finally opened, the first thing to wash over the bridge was the smell, which caused several of the human crew to gag.

Commendably, only one turned around to see what entered, escorted as it was by a full squad of Word Bearers – and that one soul was Captain Janus Sylamor.

In accidental defiance of the promise she’d made only minutes before, she turned to the opening doors and saw the creature framed in the light of the illumination globes in the corridor behind. The first heave of bitter sick hit her teeth and lips so fast she didn’t have time to open her mouth. The rest spread onto the floor as she went down on all fours, purging her stomach of the morning’s caffeine and dry rations, and painting the decking with her bile.

‘I warned you,’ Argel Tal said to her, without taking his eyes from the creature.

Her answer was to heave some more, ending with a string of saliva hanging from her lips.

Ingethel wormed its way onto the bridge, leaving a discoloured smear in its wake. The tap, tap, tap of the staff’s base on the metal floor acted as accompaniment to the sound of its slick flesh slithering across the deck.

Officers abandoned their posts by the captain’s throne, stepping away with undisguised disgust and covering their mouths and noses. More than one vomited into their hands as Ingethel drew nearer, though for the creature’s part, it seemed to notice none of this. Its malformed eyes stared dead ahead at the storm taking over the occulus.

Sylamor rose to her feet again, after taking Argel Tal’s offered hand.

‘What have you brought onto my bridge, captain?’

‘It is a guide. Now with the greatest respect, Janus, wipe your mouth and do your duty. Next time, perhaps you will listen to me.’

She was familiar enough with Argel Tal from fleet command meetings to know that this curt treatment wasn’t like him at all. Of all the Word Bearer commanders, he’d always been the most approachable, and the most inclined to hear the concerns of the human officers.

She said nothing. Instead, she nodded, breathing through her mouth to hinder some of the obscene reek that only fuelled her nausea. The foulness of the stench wasn’t the worst part; it was the familiarity of it.

As a young girl on Colchis, she’d survived an outbreak of rotten lung in her village, and had been one of the few left to witness the arrival of a coven of mortuary priests from the City of Grey Flowers. Over the course of a single day, they’d erected a great pyre to cleanse the dead before scattering their ashes across the desert. The smell of that funeral pyre had never left her, and when it resurfaced now, it was all she could do not to choke at the creature’s stench.

A curious drip, drip, drip ate at her attention, drawing her glance to the deck by the creature’s sluggish body. A greasy, opaque plasm dripped from the muscled folds of its serpentine lower half, bleaching the steel decking where it fell.

‘Full speed ahead,’ said Sylamor, and swallowed before another purge took hold.

Orfeo’s Lament trembled – ever the eager huntress, ever the keen explorer – and increased her pace. The storm swelled in the occulus before them as they cruised closer to its edge.

‘Have the flagship’s augurs managed to measure the afflicted area of space?’ she asked.

Thousands upon thousands of solar systems lie within the Great Eye.

She froze, cheeks paling. ‘I... I heard a voice.’

‘Ignore it,’ ordered Argel Tal.

You could sail your mortal craft for a hundred lifetimes within its depths, and see no more than a shadow of its full glory.

‘I can still hear it...’

Argel Tal growled, deep and low, his head tilted towards the creature. ‘Do not toy with their lives,’ he said. ‘You have been warned.’

None of them will survive this journey. You are a fool to believe they will.

‘Did... did it just say...’

‘It said nothing,’ Argel Tal interrupted her stammer. ‘Ignore the voice. Focus, Janus. Attend to your duties, and leave all else to us. I will not let the creature harm you, or anyone in the crew.’

She does not believe you.

‘Be quiet, false angel.’