I expected Gladus to come, or at least send some kind of message. He might be detained or delayed, or caught up in his own noble business. But I didn't think he'd ignore me. I searched the evening crowds for
some trace of his long-haired, bearded form, his grey robes, his barb-capped staff.
'He's not coming/ said Ungish.
'Oh, give it a rest/
'Please, inquisitor, I want to go. My dream…'
Why don't you trust me, Ungish? I will protect you/ I said. I opened my black linen coat so/she could see the laspistol holstered under my left arm.
Why?' she fretted. 'Because you're playing with fire. You've crossed the line/
I balked. Why did you say that?' I asked, hearing Pontius's words loud in my head.
'Because you have, damn you! Heretic! Bloody heretic!'
'Stop it!'
She got to her feet from the courtyard bench unsteadily. Pilgrims were turning to look at the sound of her outburst.
'Heretic!'
'Stop it, Tasaera! Sit down! No one's going to hurt you!'
'Says you, heretic! You've damned us all with your ways! And I'm the one who's going to pay! I saw it in my dream… this place, this hour… your lie at the altar, the circling birds…'
'I didn't lie/ I said, tugging her back down onto the bench.
'He's coming/ she whispered.
Who? Gladus?'
She shook her head. 'Not Gladus. He's never coming. None of them are coming. They've all read your pretty, begging letters and erased them. You're a heretic and they won't begin to deal with you/
'I know the people I've written to, Ungish. None of them would dismiss me so/
She looked round into my face, her head-cage hissing as it adjusted. Her eyes were full of tears.
'I'm so afraid, Eisenhorn. He's coming/
Who is?'
The hunter. That's all my dream showed. A hunter, blank and invisible/
You worry too much. Come with me/
We went back into the Cathedral of Saint Ezra Outlooking, and took seats in the front of the ranks of carrels. Evening sunlight raked sidelong through the windows. The statue of the saint, raised behind the rood screen, looked majestic.
'Better now?' I asked.
Yes/ she snivelled.
I kept glancing around, hoping that Gladus would appear. Straggles of pilgrims were arriving for the evening devotion.
Maybe he wasn't coming. Maybe Ungish was right. Maybe I was more of a pariah than I imagined, even to old friends and colleagues.
Maybe Gladus had read my humble communique and discarded it with a curse. Maybe he had sent it to the arbites… or the Ecclesiarchy… or the Inquisition's Officio of Internal Prosecution.
'Two more minutes/ I assured her. 'Then we'll go.' It was long past the hour I had asked Gladus to meet me.
I looked about again. Pilgrims were by now flooding into the cathedral through the main doors.
There was a gap in the flow, a space where a man should have been. It was quite noticeable, with the pilgrims jostling around it but never entering it.
My eyes widened. In the gap was a glint of energy, like a side-flash from a mirror shield.
'Ungish/1 hissed, reaching for my weapon.
Bolt rounds came screaming down the nave towards me from the gap. Pilgrims shrieked in panic and fled in all directions.
The hunter!' Ungish wailed. 'Blank and invisible!'
He was that. With his mirror shield activated, he was just a heat-haze blur, marked only by the bright flare of his weapon.
Mass panic had seized the cathedral. Pilgrims were trampling other pilgrims in their race to flee.
The backs of the carrels exploded with wicked punctures as the bolt rounds blew through them.
I fired back, down the aisle, with tidy bursts of las-fire.
Thorn wishes Aegis, craven hounds at the hindmost!'
That was all I was able to send before a bolt round glanced sidelong into my neck and threw me backwards, destroying my vox headset in the process.
I rolled on the marble floor, bleeding all over the place.
'Eisenhorn! Eisenhorn!' Ungish bawled and then screamed in agony.
I saw her thrown back through the panelled wood of the box pews, demolishing them. A bolt round had hit her square in the stomach. Bleeding out, she writhed on the floor amid the wood splinters, wailing and crying.
I tried to crawl across to her as further, heedless bolt-fire fractured the rest of the front pews.
I looked up. Witchfinder Arnaut Tantalid disengaged his mirror shield and gazed down at me.
'You are an accursed heretic, Eisenhorn, and that fact is now proven beyond doubt by the carta issued for you. In the name of the Ministorum of Mankind, I claim your life.'
TWENTTY-ONE
Death at Stezra's. The long hunt. The cellof five.
Precisely how he had found me was a mystery, but I believe he had been on my tail for a long time, since before Cinchare. The fact that he had come to Saint Ezra Outlooking at that hour and that day convinced me that he had intercepted my communique to Gladus. And he might have triumphed over me, right there, right then, if he'd but pressed the advantage and finished the job with his boltgun.
Instead, Tantalid holstered his bolt pistol and drew his ancient chainsword, Theophantus, intent on delivering formal execution with the holy weapon.
I fired my laspistol, powering shot after shot at him, driving him backwards. His gold-chased battle suit, which gave his shrivelled frame the bulk and proportions of a Space Marine, absorbed or deflected the impacts, but the sheer force knocked him back several paces.
I jumped up, firing again, and retreating down the epistle side of the cathedral, towards the feretory. Bystanders and church servants were still fleeing. Its iron teeth singing, Theophantus swung at me. Tantalid was barking out the Accusal of Heresy, verse after verse.
The psychic sting shocked him into silence, but he was generally protected by psi-dampers and ignored my next will-driven order to 'desist' completely.
The chainsword revved around and I threw myself aside as it cleft a bench pew
