The Beast Arises

Veritus did not know this. At this moment, he had only Machtannin’s reassurance. Veritus knew that there was no love lost between Machtannin and Wienand — what he was uncertain about was how fully Machtannin appreciated the threat of Chaos. Veritus respected the record of Machtannin’s battles, but he didn’t know the depths of his commitment now.

Veritus left the Octagon a few minutes later. He made his way towards his quarters along Proscription Way. It was one of the narrower arcades of the Imperial Palace, less than ten metres across. The vault was so high and the skylights so few and grimed by centuries of smog, that daylight never reached the floor. The passage was a land of perpetual evening. The lumen globes were spaced such that there was enough light to see by, but a walk along the Way was a journey through degrees of shadow. The flagstones of the floor were engraved with devotional sayings. The erosion of millions of footsteps had worn them away until they were patterns of faint lines, fragments of words and suggestions of meaning.

Thought was being erased from Proscription Way one pedestrian at a time, but it was preserved and given rigour in the gothic honeycombs that lined the passage. The ground floors were emporiums selling prayer scrolls, altar icons and exegetical texts. The Way ran north-south, its gentle sinuosity carrying on for kilometres, its thousand merchants vying in solemn and twilit quiet for the attention of the faithful. Scholars lived above the vendors. They were the writers of tracts, the commentators of texts, the explorers of devotion. They laboured with the industry of obsession.

Veritus liked the character of Proscription Way. The scholars had only half the truth. There was no mention, in any of their texts, of the Ruinous Powers. But the faith they extolled was a necessary, if not sufficient, defence against them. The people who lived and worked here were fighting the war, even if they didn’t realise it.

The las-fire came in a cluster of shots. The first seared his cheek. His instincts reacted before his conscious mind, reflexes taking over. He brought up his left arm to protect his head. The second shot creased his scalp. He lunged to one side of the arcade. The third shot burned down the side of his temple. Then he was against the wall, looking for the origins of the fire. There were too many windows, with too many people visible in silhouette. None were looking at him, none were armed. The sniper had stopped shooting.

Veritus waited, his laspistol drawn. Nothing. The nearby pedestrians had scattered, crouching in doorways or behind stalls. The sniper’s aim had been excellent. His armour was untouched. His wounds throbbed and he smelt burned flesh. If he had been just a bit slower, if the sniper’s first shot had not been spoiled by whatever random event had intervened…

No targets, no further attack. He started moving down the Way again, moving backwards until he went around a curve and the point of ambush was out of sight. He turned around and strode down the passage, monitoring all sides for threat. His temple throbbed with anger even more than it did from the wound. He was furious with humiliation. He had been turned into a figure of ridicule: power-armoured, but in full retreat. But he couldn’t attack what he could not find. He hadn’t even been able to gauge the angle of the shots. Even if he could level both sides of the Way, the assassin would be long gone.

He tried to think past the rage. The tactical situation had changed. He couldn’t be sure that Wienand had instigated the attack but even if she hadn’t, she had friends who dared act on her behalf. Who were they? Too many possibilities. His own position now looked more precarious. He reconsidered the deployment of his forces.

Vangorich let three hours go by before he ventured onto Proscription Way. He found Ferren Reach in a book-lined cell on the fourth floor. The sniper had put his rifle away and resumed his scholar’s habit. Reach was the same age as Krule, but looked much older, even older than Vangorich. His face was a map of wrinkles deep as canyons. His hair and beard were lank, grey, and long. His stoop and his shuffle were convincing, but they were false. The body beneath the robes was supple wire, capable of remaining motionless yet alert for days. He squinted as if through cataracts.

He didn’t break the act even before the Grand Master of the Officio. He was standing by the shelves set into the wall to the left of the door when Vangorich walked in. He looked up from the manuscript he was holding. He didn’t look pleased. He nodded once, which was what passed for a salute from Reach.

‘So?’ Vangorich asked.

Reach looked back down at the book and turned the page over. ‘First time I’ve shot to miss,’ he said.

‘You made it convincing, I’m sure.’

‘He’s counting his blessings.’

‘Well done.’

‘Feels like a loss. Don’t like losses.’