Osma was like that. Osma was still the same Osma
who had plagued me fifty years before. Except that now he was set to inherit Orsini's role as Grand Master of the Inquisition, Helican sub-sector. Grand Master Orsini was dying and Osma was his chosen heir. It was just a matter of time.
Rorken was dying too, if the rumours were true. Soon, I would be friendless in the high ranks of the Ordos Helican.
Thanks to Rorken's infirmity, I had acquired Verveuk. He was simply a burden I had to carry. His manner, his yearning, his bright eagerness; his damned questions.
I stood in the Minster's warm sacristy, sipping wine and eating thick seed-bread, smoked fish and a strong, waxy cheese locally produced in the Uvege. I was chatting with Rassi, a pale, quiet senior inquisitor from the Ordo Malleus who had become a firm friend in recent years despite his association with the caustic Osma.
A month, you think, Gregor?'
'For this, Poul? Two, maybe three/
He sighed, toying his fork around his plate, his silver-headed cane tucked under his arm to free his hands. 'Maybe six if they each bring a bloody pardoner, eh?'
We laughed. Koth slid past us to refill his glass and cast us a nod.
'Don't look now/ Rassi murmured, 'but your fan club is here/
'Oh, crap. Don't leave me with him!' I hissed, but Rassi had already moved away. Verveuk slid up beside me. He was balancing a dish of game terrine, pickles and salted spry that he clearly had no intention of eating.
'It goes well, I think!' he started.
'Oh, very well/
'Of course, you must have great experience of these sessions, so you know better than I. But a good start, would you not say?'
Yes, a good start/
'Pridde is the key, he'll turn the lock of House Samargue/
'I'm quite sure of it/
'Menderef s work was something, wasn't it? The cross-exam? So deft, so well- judged. The way he broke Pridde/
'I – uh – expected no less/
'Quite something, yes indeed/
I felt I had to say something. Your choice of Pridde. As the first accused. Well judged, well… well, a good decision, anyway/
He looked at me as if I was his one true love and I'd just promised to do something significant.
'Lord, I am truly honoured that you say so. I only did what I thought best. Really lord, to hear that from you, fills my heart with-'
'Stewed fish?' I asked, offering him the bowl.
'No, thank you, lord/
'It's very good/1 said, slathering my bread with it. Though like so many fine things in life, you can quite quickly have too much of it/
He didn't take the hint. The hint would most likely have to be embossed on the tip of a hi-ex bolter round and fired up his nose before he'd notice it.
'I feel, lord/ he said, setting his untouched dish aside, 'that I can learn so much from you. This is an opportunity that few of my status get/
'I can't fathom why/ I said.
He smiled. 'I almost feel I should thank the miserable tumors eating at my Lord Rorken for this chance/
'I feel I owe some sort of payback to them too/ I muttered.
'It's so rare that a – if I may say – veteran inquisitor such as yourself… a field inquisitor, I mean, not a desk-bound lord… participates in a process like this and mingles with lesser officers such as me. Lord Rorken has always spoken so highly of you. There is much I want to ask you, so many things. I have read up on all your works. The P'Glao Conspiracy, for example. I have reviewed mat from end to end, and I have so many queries. And other matters-'
Here it comes, I thought.
And there it came.
The daemonhosts. And Quixos. There is, oh, so much in that that demands the attention of a scholar such as myself. Can you give me personal insight? Perhaps not now… later… we could dine together and talk…'
Well, perhaps/
The records are so incomplete – or rather, restricted. I yearn to know how you dealt with Prophaniti. And Cherubael/
I was waiting for the name. Still, hearing it, I winced.
Cherubael. That's what they all asked. Every last neophyte inquisitor I met. That's what they all wanted to know. Damn their interest. It was over and done with.
Cherubael.
For one hundred and fifty years, the daemon had plagued my dreams and made each one a nightmare. For a century and a half, it had been in my head, a shadow at the horizon of sanity, a softly breathing shape in the dark recesses of my consciousness.
I had done with Cherubael. I had vanquished it.
But still the neophytes asked, and swirled up the memories again for me.
I would never tell them the truth. How could I?
'Lord?'
'I'm sorry, Verveuk, my mind wandered. What did you say?'
'I said, isn't that one of your men?'
Godwin Fischig, dressed in a long black coat, still powerful and imposing after all these years, had entered die sacristy by the rear door and was looking around for me.
I handed my plate and glass to the startled Verveuk and went directly across to him.
'I didn't expect to see you here/ I whispered, drawing him aside. 'Not really my thing, but you'll thank me for busting in/ 'What is it?'
'Paydirt, Gregor. You'll never guess in a hundred centuries who we've turned up/ 'Presuming we don't have a million years, Fischig, tell me/ Thuring/ he said. 'We've found Thuring/
Vengeance, in my opinion, is never an adequate motive for an inquisitor's work. I had sworn to make Thuring pay for the death of my old friend Midas Betancore, of course, but the eighty years since Midas's murder had been filled to distraction with more weighty and more pressing cases. There had not been time or opportunity to spare the months – perhaps years – required to hunt Thuring down. He was… not worth the effort.
At least, that is what Lord Rorken always counselled me when I brought the matter up. Fayde Thuring. An inconsequential player in the shadow-world of heresy that lurks within Imperial society. A nothing who would ran foul of justice soon enough all by himself. Undeserving of my attention. Not worth the effort.
Indeed, for a long time, I had believed him dead. My agents and informants had kept me appraised of his activities, and early in 352.M41 I had learned he had fallen in with an out-world fraternity of Chaos called the Hearthood, or sometimes the Chimes of the World Clock. They practised a stylised worship of the Blood God, in the form of a local tribe's minor swine-deity called Eolkit or Yulquet or Uulcet (the name differed in every source consulted) and for some months had plagued the crop-world Hasarna. Their cult-priest took the ceremonial guise of the swine-butcher or culler who, in older times, had travelled between the communities of
