were wrenching the sky apart. I had received no word or sign of Ravenor since the catastrophe had begun. I remember my hands were shaking even then.
In truth, I believe I was in shock. From the event itself, naturally, and also from the psychic assaults I had suffered in the course of it. I pride myself on a sharp mind, but there was no sharpness to me then.
Numb, my brain kept returning to the idea that this outrage had been deliberate.
'There is no question/ Voke said from behind me, clearly reading my surface thoughts without my permission. He lifted and straightened a steel chair and sat down on it.
'Accidents happen, warplanes crash!' he cried. 'But these turned and attacked. Their assaults were deliberate/
I nodded. At least one of the Lightnings had crashed into the Warmas-ter's entourage and another had come down amongst the files of the Inquisition. No one yet knew how many of my institution had been slain, but Voke had seen enough of it to know that as many as two hundred of our fellow inquisitors had been obliterated.
I remembered the conversation that had turned around my dining table, the speculations about those powerful forces who would oppose Hono-rius's bestowment.
'Is this the first act in a House war?' I said. 'The Ecclesiarchy, or perhaps great dynasties, trying to thwart Lord Commander Helican's advancement of the Warmaster? His elevation to Feudal Protector would not have been popular with many, powerful factions/
'No/ he said. Though I'm sure that's what many will think. What many will be supposed to think/
Voke looked at me intently. 'Freeing the psykers was the point/ he said. There is no other explanation. The Archenemy struck to cause mayhem and allow the prisoners to escape, and to wound the section of the parade that was most able to contain their escape/
'I won't argue with that in principle. But was freeing the psykers the point itself, or simply a means to an end?'
'How so?'
'Was it an attempt to liberate the psykers… or was this just an act of extreme violence against the Imperium that the release of dangerous psykers was meant to exacerbate?'
'Until we know what was behind it, we can't answer that/
'Could the psykers themselves have done it? Manipulated the minds of the pilots?'
He shrugged. We can't know that either. Not yet. The Warmaster might have been guilty of bravado in displaying his prisoners, but he would have made certain security around them was seamless. I must suspect an outside hand/
We said nothing for a moment. Honorius Magnus himself had barely survived the crash-blast and was undergoing emergency surgery aboard a medical frigate at the navy-yard. No one yet knew if Lord Commander Helican was alive. If he was dead, or if the Warmaster died of his injuries, then Chaos would have won a historic victory.
'I suspect an outside hand too/ I told Voke. 'Perhaps another psyker or psykers, trailing their colleagues here to stage an escape/
He pursed his lipless mouth. The greatest triumph of my life, Gregor, capturing those monsters in the name of the Emperor… and look what it becomes/
You can't blame yourself for this, Commodus/
'Can I not?' He squinted at me. 'In my place, how would you feel?'
I shrugged. 'I will make amends. I will not rest until every one of these wretches is destroyed, and order restored. And then I will not rest until I find who and what was behind it/
He stared at me for a long time.
What?' I asked, though I had a feeling I knew what was coming.
'Ґou… you were close to the scene, as you said to me. Closer than many, and shielded from the worst of the destruction by the bulk of the Spatian Gate/
'And?'
'STou know what I want to ask you/
'You thought you'd start with me. I'm too tired, Voke. I stopped to honour the admiral's tomb/ **
He raised one eyebrow, as if he sensed I didn't really believe it myself. But at least he did me the courtesy of not ripping into my mind with his much more powerful psychic abilities to scour out what truth might be there. We had reached an understanding through our encounters over the years, and were now even when it came to owing each other our lives.
He knew me well enough not to press this.
Not now, at least.
An interrogator hurried into the room.
'Sirs/ she said. 'Inquisitor Roban wishes you to know that we have made contact with one of the heretics/
As far as could be learned, the rogue was an alpha-plus psyker called Esarhaddon, one of the leaders of the coven. Sowing tumult and woe in his wake, he had fled into the hive with a group led by Lyko and Heldane in pursuit. Heldane had managed to contact one of Voke's astropaths with a scrambled summons for help.
Voke, Roban and I headed out into the hive streets with a kill team of sixty that included the four White Consuls. Their squad leader was a
particularly large sergeant called Kurvel. We travelled on foot through the debris and smoke. Gangs of citizens jeered and pelted missiles at us, but the sight of four terrible Space Marines kept them at bay.
Esarhaddon, Voke warned me, was a being of dreadful intellect and not to be underestimated. When we saw the monster's choice of bolt-hole, I understood what Voke meant.
The noble family of Lange was prominent in the aristocracy of Thracian Primaris, and kept an ample summer palace in the east sector of Hive Pri-maris, near to the mercantile quarter where they had made their fortunes.
The palace rose proud of the lowhab streets around it, swathed in its own force bubble.
This had been one of the city areas we had supposed to be secure. With their power and resources, noble houses should have been able to protect themselves for the duration of the unrest.
But not against Esarhaddon. He was inside, with all the resources of the palace to protect him.
We met Heldane on the western approach road to the palace. He had a team of about twenty with him. The street itself was littered with bodies, most of them citizens.
'He's controlling the crowds as if they were puppets/ Heldane said curtly, with no word of greeting. Waves of them keep coming at us, preventing us getting to the garden walls and the servants' annex along there.'
As I may have said, I had little time for Inquisitor Heldane. A very tall, grim man, his face an unsightly mass of scar tissue since an encounter with a hungry carnodon back on Gudran. He'd been Voke's pupil when I had first met him; now he was a full inquisitor, with mental powers, it was said, that exceeded even his old master's. As I saw him there, I shuddered. He had undergone extensive surgery, not to disguise the damage to his face, but to exaggerate it. His skull seemed to have been extended into an almost equine shape, with a snout-like mouth full of blunt teeth, and dark, murky eyes. Fibre-wires and fluid tubes braided his cranium in place of hair. He wore plasteel body armour the colour of blood and carried a segmented power glaive.
'Eisenhorn/ he nodded, noticing me. It was like having a warhorse shake its head
