Rorken's voice sang out above the mayhem. 'Spirit of noxious immate-ria, be gone from hence, for as the Emperor of Mankind, manifold be his blessings, watches over me, so I will not fear the shadow of the warp…'
Holy fire spurted from the Lord Inquisitor's weapon and washed across the warp-spawned thing. Lord Rorken was chanting the rite of banishment at the top of his lungs.
Endor pulled me to my feet and we both lent our voices to the words. There was a tremor that seemed to vibrate the entire ship. Then nothing remained of the vile creature except a layer of ash and the devastation it had wrought.
As penance for the act of transgression that had led to this warp-invasion, Konrad Molitor was charged with rededicating and reconsecrating the violated chapel. The work, overseen by the arch-priests of the curia and the techno-adepts of the Glorious Omnissiah, took all of the first six weeks of our ten-week transit time to 56-Izar. Molitor took his duties seriously, dressed himself in a filthy sackcloth shirt of contrition, and had his retainers scourge him with withes and psychic awls between ceremonies. I thought he got off lightly.
I spent a month recovering from the physiological trauma of the auto-seance in one of the battleship's state apartments. The psychological damage I suffered during that event lasted for years after. I still dream of that geyser of blood, clothed in myriad eyes, filling the sky. You don't forget a thing like that. They say memory softens with time, but that particular memory never has. Even today, I console myself that to have forgotten would have been worse. That would have been denial, and denial of such visions eventually opens the doors of insanity.
I lay upon the apartment's wide bed all month, propped up with bolsters and pillows. Physicians attended me regularly, as did members of Lord Rorken's staff, dressed in their finery. They tested my health, my mind, my recovering strength. I knew what they were looking for. A taint of the warp. There was none, I was sure, but they couldn't take my word for it, of course. We had come close, Voke and I, close to the precipice, close to the edge of irreconcilable damnation. Another few seconds…
Aemos stayed with me, bringing me books and slates to divert me. Sometimes he read aloud, from histories, sermons or stories. Sometimes he played music spools on the old, horn-speakered celiaphone, cranking the handle by hand. We listened to the light orchestral preludes of Daminias Bartelmew, the rousing symphonies of Hanz Solveig, the devotional chants of the Ongres Cloisterhood. He warbled along with operettas by Guinglas until I pleaded with him to stop, and mimed the conductor's role when the Macharius Requiem played, dancing around the room on his augmetic legs in such a preposterous, sprightly fashion it made me laugh aloud.
'It's good to hear that, Gregor/ he said, blowing dust off a new spool before fitting it into the celiaphone.
I was going to answer, but the strident war-hymns of the Mordian Regimental Choir cut me off.
Midas visited me, and spent time playing regicide or plucking his Glavian lyre. I took these recitals as a particular compliment. He'd been dragging
the lyre around for years, ever since I had first met him, and had never played in my hearing, despite my requests.
He was a master, his circuit-inlaid fingers reading and playing the coded strings as expertly as they did flight controls.
On his third visit, after a trio of jaunty Glavian dances, he set his turtle-backed instrument down against the arm of his chair and said 'Lowink is dead.'
I closed my eyes and nodded. I had suspected as much.
'Aemos didn't want to tell you yet, given your condition, but I thought it was wrong to keep it from you/
'Was it quick?'
'His body survived the seance invasion, but with no mind to speak of. He died a week later. Just faded away'
Thank you, Midas. It is best I know. Now play again, so I can lose myself in your tunes.'
Strangely, I came to enjoy Bequin's visits most. She would bustle in, tidying around me, tut-tutting at the state of my water jug or the collapse of my bolsters. Then she would read aloud, usually from books and slates Aemos had left, and often from works that he had already declaimed for my edification. She read them better, with more colour and phlegm. The voice she put on to do Sebastian Thor made me laugh so hard my ribs hurt. When she got to reading KerlofFs Narrative of the Horus War, her impersonation of the Emperor was almost heretical.
I taught her regicide. She lost the first few games, mesmerised by the pieces, the complex board and the still more complex moves and strategies. It was all too 'tactical' for her, she announced. There was no 'incentive'. So we started to play for coins. Then she got the gist and started to win. Every time.
When Midas visited me next, he said sourly, 'Have you been teaching that girl to play?'
Towards the end of my third week of recuperation, Bequin arrived in my apartment and declared, 'I have brought a visitor/
The ruined side of Godwyn Fischig's face had been rebuilt with augmetic muscle and metal, and shrouded with a demi-visage mask of white ceramite. His lost arm had also been replaced, with a powerful metal prosthetic. He was clad in a simple, black jacket and breeches.
He sat at my bedside, and wished me a speedy recovery.
'Your courage has not been forgotten, Godwyn/ I said. 4Vhen this undertaking is over, you may wish to return to your duties on Hubris, but I would welcome your presence on my staff, if you choose so/
'Nissemay Carpel be damned/ he said. 'The High Custodian of the Dormant Vaults may call for me, but I know where I want to be. This life has purpose. I would stay here in it/
Fischig remained at my side for hours, long into the night, by ship-time. We talked, and joked occasionally, and then played regicide with Bequin
looking on. At first, his problems in manipulating the pieces with his unfamiliar new limb afforded us plenty of amusement. Only when he had beaten me in three straight games did he admit that Bequin, in her infinite wisdom, had been coaching him for the past few weeks.
I had one last visitor, a day or two before I was finally able to walk and go about my business uninterrupted by periods of fatigue. Heldane wheeled him in on a wire-spoked carrier chair.
Voke was shrunken and ill. He could only speak by way of a vox-enhancer. I was sure he would be dead in a matter of months.
'You saved me, Eisenhorn,' he husked, haltingly, through the vox aug-metic.
'The astropaths made it possible for us to live,' I corrected.
Voke shook his gnarled, sunken head. 'No… I was lost in a realm of damnation, and you pulled me back. Your voice. I heard you call my name and it was enough. Without that, without that voice, I would have succumbed to the warp.'
I shrugged. What could I say?
'We are not alike, Gregor Eisenhorn,' he continued, tremulously. 'Our concept of inquisition is wildly at variance. But still I salute your bravery and your dedication. You have proven yourself in my eyes. Different ways, different means, is that not the true ethic of our order? I will die peacefully – and soon, I think – knowing men such as you maintain the fight.'
I was honoured. Whatever I thought of his modus operandi, I knew our purposes pointed in the same direction.
With a weak gesture he beckoned Heldane forward. The man's raw, damaged head was no prettier than when I had last seen it.
'I want you to trust Heldane. Of all my students, he is the best. I intend to
