I had sent my agent Leres Phinton, along with Biron Fakal, Loys Naran and two untouchables, to Cartol five months earlier, to gather evidence concerning a death cult in the Kona region. They had reported back regularly. Dear God-Emperor…
I scrolled to the next item. From Thracian Primaris. A private residence in Hive Sixty-Two had been firebombed just before midnight. Eight dead, unidentified. The location was listed as Sixty- two, Up-Hive, level 114, 871… which was the address of the subsidiary office I maintained on the capital world of the Helican sub-sector. Barned Ferrikal, who had been with me for thirty years, ran that place with a staff of seven.
The next. Hesperus. Two men killed in a firefight with juve-gangs. Just before midnight a week ago. They had wandered into the wrong part of town, an arbites spokeman said.
Lutor Witte and Gan Blaek, two of the most capable undercover agents I ran, had been operating on Hesperus for a year, seeking to uncover a Tzeentchian cult that was preying on the juve population of the under-hives.
Next, Sarum, capital world of the Antimar sub. One of my most promising pupils, Interrogator Devra Shiborr, had gone there under my instruction eight months prior to infiltrate and expose a chaotifiliac ring in the central university. She had posed as Doctor Zeyza Bajj, a historian from Punzel.
The news item recorded the death, apparently by suicide, of the promising academic Bajj. Her body, dead for about eight hours, had been discovered in her bathroom at choir bell this same morning.
And then the last, the most shocking. From the Sameter Global News Wire, posted a week ago. The residential home of Inquisitor Nathun Inshabel had been attacked by an unidentified enemy and obliterated. Inshabel was listed amongst the dead.
I sat back. They were all looking at me. Aemos was leaning his chin on his hands and the two women were staring with anxious patience.
They're all dead,' I said. 'Everyone. Every thread of my staff operation. My home here, the Distaff headquarters, and all the agents I had on active work in the field. Every one, everything. All hit at effectively the same hour on the same day of the week.'
My voice tailed off. I was too deeply shocked. Crezia poured me a glass of amasec and took one herself.
All of it, gone. The operation I had spent decades building up, the friends and allies I had drawn together… destroyed in one night. All my visible resources had been identified, targeted and eliminated. Apart from dear Fischig, slogging his way back to meet us, we were all that was left.
I felt disconnected more than anything else. The network of intelligence and active personnel I had built up since the start of my career had been brutally taken from me.
I was alone.
I wanted nothing… nothing more than to see this Khanjar the Sharp face to face and make a reckoning.
I went то bed, the amasec untouched, and slept fitfully. In the small hours, I woke painfully from a dream I couldn't quite remember at first. As I lay in the darkness, the details slowly returned to me. I had been dreaming about the escape from Spaeton. Medea and Jekud Vance had been calling out to me, begging to be rescued. I remembered the sensation of taking Medea's hand, and clutching out at Vance, who couldn't quite reach me. The janissaries shot him down, cutting his body apart with las-fire. His psychic death scream had cut into my mind like a hot wire, and that's what had woken me. Hadn't it?
I woke again at four. The night was quiet except for the click of the mountain crickets.
Something was wrong. I got up, slid the autopistol out from under the mattress and crept out into the landing.
I could hear Aemos snoring in his room, and the distant sighs of Crezia in slumber.
Eleena's door was open.
I looked in. The bed was empty and the quilt cast off onto the floor.
I edged down the corridor with my back to the wall and my weapon raised in both hands, almost as if I was praying. There was a light shafting out from under the next door. The bathroom.
I heard water gurgle and light suddenly flooded me as the door opened.
I aimed the gun.
'Oh god! Golden Throne, sir! What the hell are you d-'
I slapped my hand across Eleena's startled mouth and pulled her into the shadows.
'You scared the hell out of me,' she whispered once I relaxed my grip.
'Sorry/
'I was just going to the bathroom.'
'Sorry. Something's wrong.'
'Gregor? What's the noise?' Crezia's voice floated down the landing.
'Get back in your room!' I hissed.
In a typically Crezia Berschilde manner, she did the opposite. She was pulling on her silk robe as she padded down to join us.
'What is damn well doing on?'
'For once, just shut up, Crezia,' I snapped.
'Well, excuse me all to hell.'
I pushed them both behind me and crept down towards the door of the box room.
'Nice rump/ said Crezia. I was only wearing a wrap.
'Will you be serious just for a minute?' I snarled back.
'Please, doctor/ urged Eleena. 'This is serious/
The box room door was shut and dark.
'See?' said Crezia. 'No problem.'
I felt the doorknob and realised it was loose. Crezia jumped as I kicked the door in, and aimed my gun at the bed.
The empty bed.
Eleena turned on the light. The wispy, fraying strands of Tarl's bindings were still tied to the bedstead. He'd bitten through them or tugged them off.
'Golden Throne, he's gone!'
'Oh no…' Crezia murmured. 'I only loosened his bonds a little.'
'You did what?'
'I told you! I told you I was worried about the constriction. The lividity in his hands and his-'
'You didn't tell me you'd slackened them off!' I raged.
'I thought you'd understood what I meant!'
I ran downstairs. The unlit hall was pale with moonlight that slanted in through the half-open front doors.
'He can't have gone far! What does it matter any way?' Crezia called after me.
I stepped out into the street. There was no sign of any one or anything. The cool shadows of the night spread fluidly across the flagstones.
Tarl, I was sure, was long gone.
I went back inside and Crezia turned on the hall lights.
And screamed.
Phabes was bent over in the corner, like a man who has fallen asleep sitting up.
