Shas'o Read online

  ‘They fashioned me into a masterful slave,’ the xenos hissed, ‘a pliable figurehead to bind and blind the fire caste with fool’s glory.’

  ‘But you were the supreme commander of the tau military engine.’

  ‘My authority extended no further than the will of the aun! I was a puppet saviour, my every word and gesture scrutinised and filtered by the water caste, my past rewritten and my future decided by committee!’ The alien’s expression contorted, becoming an abstraction of rage. ‘But I was the fortunate one, gue’la. They caged my dying mentor’s mind in a machine and cast my shadow sister and brother into stasis so their talents would never be lost to the Greater Good.’ It lowered its head, as if drained – or shamed – by its fury. ‘All of them obeyed without question, even Shaserra, who was the fiercest of us all.’

  The Imperium has demanded such sacrifices of its servants for millennia, Mordaine reflected, yet this xenos butcher is outraged by the notion. Does that make him naïve or magnificent?

  ‘Was that the turning point?’ Mordaine pressed. ‘The event that soured you to the Empire?’

  ‘Among the tau loyalty is not so readily broken,’ the alien said softly. ‘There are no turning points, only fissures that multiply and swell until nothing remains of what was. I accepted my comrades’ doom as I accepted my own, but in my heart I began to question.’ The alien’s eyes locked on Mordaine’s own, unsettling in their intensity. ‘And true questions invite annihilating, irrefutable truths.’

  An annihilating, irrefutable truth…

  Mordaine stared at the alien. Its words had echoed the whispering carrion choir that haunted his memories.

  ‘Truth is a betrayer, is it not, Haniel Mordaine?’ O’Shovah said.

  Yes, Mordaine agreed, uncertain why.

  ‘It is time,’ the Calavera decreed.

  Mordaine crawled from his bunk and spooned down the thin gruel his keeper had prepared, knowing it wouldn’t begin to sate him.

  ‘Our supplies were lost with the Guardsmen,’ the Space Marine had explained. ‘I can offer you nothing else.’

  It was a lie, Mordaine knew. Another manipulation. The bastard wanted him half-starved and pliable, yet strong enough to continue the game.

  But what are the rules? What’s winning and what’s losing here?

  ‘I believe it’s him,’ he said listlessly. ‘I believe it’s O’Shovah.’

  ‘With belief comes clarity and clarity forges purpose,’ the Calavera instructed.

  Perhaps that’s so, Mordaine agreed uncertainly. The pandemonium of whispers haranguing him had certainly diminished. No… no, that wasn’t quite right… They hadn’t so much diminished as contracted, coalescing towards a single persistent voice that was at once utterly unknown, yet achingly familiar.

  ‘Your prisoner awaits, interrogator,’ the Calavera said.

  Mordaine paced the confines of O’Shovah’s cell, trying to quell his hunger with motion. It was the fourth day of the interrogation and he was intimately familiar with the hateful space now. He didn’t have much time left. He had to raise the stakes.

  ‘Tell me about the Dawn Blade, O’Shovah,’ he said, almost casually. The Imperium knows nothing of his notorious sword, yet it has come to symbolise our darkest fears about this renegade.

  ‘The Dawn Blade is a potent weapon,’ O’Shovah said evenly.

  ‘But a sword is a strange weapon of choice for a tau, is it not?’

  ‘The be’gel taught me otherwise on Arkunasha.’ The alien’s lips curled sharply. The expression might have been a smile or something else entirely. ‘I killed their leader in single combat with a blade.’

  ‘So you embrace new tactics… new ideas…’ Mordaine suggested reasonably. ‘The gifts of the Ruinous Powers, perhaps?’

  ‘I am not a fool, gue’la.’

  ‘Chaos can make fools of the wisest men, O’Shovah.’

  ‘I am tau,’ the other said with dignity. ‘I have gazed into the abyss of Vash’aun’an, which you call the warp, and faced its poisonous spawn. It holds no sway over me.’

  ‘Are you quite certain of that, Mont’shasaar?’ Mordaine goaded. He nodded at the alien’s twisted expression, feeling a brief, blessed flicker of dominance. How splendid it was to be on the other side of a revelation for once.

  ‘You talk in ignorance,’ O’Shovah said, his nostril slit flaring with anger.

  ‘And perhaps you choose your confidantes without caution,’ Mordaine said. ‘He told me the name, you understand… the Calavera.’ He turned his back as the alien searched his face, keeping the lie close to his chest. ‘Mont’shasaar… I know the name, but not the meaning.’

  The prisoner made no reply.

  I’ve hit a nerve as raw as the sword, Mordaine sensed. Perhaps more so… ‘Why are you so afraid of a name, xenos?’

  ‘I fear nothing,’ O’Shovah said frostily, ‘but I have told you already – to the tau a name is everything. To be misnamed is a grievous insult.’

  ‘Then tell me about Arthas Moloch instead,’ Mordaine offered. ‘That’s where you stole your warp-tainted blade, isn’t it?’

  ‘The blade was chosen,’ the xenos said, closing its eyes with finality. ‘And I will not talk of that world.’

  They spoke again the next day and the day after that, until day and night coiled into a single tangle of barbed debate and dreams of debate.

  I fence with O’Shovah in waking and sleep, Mordaine thought or dreamt, so perhaps it’s all one and the same.

  Dimly he recalled the Calavera telling him he had only six days to find his answers, yet surely six days had passed long ago. The windows of the penal carriage were opaque with frost and he had seen nothing of the outside world since his trial began. Was the ghost engine even moving or had it stalled in limbo?

  Are we damned to repeat this shadow play eternally? Mordaine mused, too weary for fear any more. Besides, the wise whisper seeping from his memories – leeching his memories – promised him this wasn’t so.

  Look a little deeper into the darkness and you will see the light…

  And so I step onto the game board once again and I see that the alien’s manacles are gone. He has grown indifferent to the ruse, as have I, for only our duel matters now, though why that should be I still don’t understand.

  ‘This Shas’va you keep alluding to…’ Mordaine faltered, rubbing at his raw eyes. ‘The Inquisition has no record of it. At least none that I’ve seen.’

  ‘The Shas’va is the Path of Fire,’ O’Shovah said. ‘It is my own path.’

  ‘You’ve invented your own philosophy?’ Mordaine asked, intrigued despite his exhaustion.

  ‘I have invented nothing. I seek truth and codify it as I find it.’ O’Shovah paused, judging his next words carefully. ‘My cadre is strong and my enclave is secure in the hands of my fireblades, so I have chosen to enter vash’yatol, the long walk between the spheres.’

  ‘Walk to where?’

  ‘I travel, Haniel Mordaine,’ the xenos said passionately, ‘between worlds and stars and stranger realms that I cannot yet name, passing among the hopes and fears of a thousand cultures like a shadow of smoke, gathering fragments of truth and meaning.’

  ‘And the Calavera is your guide?’

  ‘One cannot be guided on the vash’yatol,’ the xenos said stiffly. ‘Iho’nen is a fellow seeker of truth.’

  ‘So he told me,’ Mordaine said. Then on impulse: ‘Iho’nen… Why do you call him that?’

  ‘It is the name he chose,’ the alien said, then anticipating Mordaine’s next question answered: ‘It is without meaning.’

  ‘How can that be? You claimed meaning was everything in a tau name.’

  ‘He is not tau. The name has no referent.’

  ‘I’ll take a literal translation then.’ Mordaine gave a sickly grin. ‘Humour me.’

&nbs
p; ‘There is no levity in it,’ O’Shovah said, puzzled by the colloquialism. ‘Iho is simply one who eats, but nen…’ It closed its eyes, considering. ‘Nen is the wound that scars both the body and the mind. A betrayal of oneself or a fall from one’s path.’

  ‘Eater of Sins?’ Mordaine ventured, convinced by the taste of it. ‘Not a name I’d put my faith in.’

  ‘It is empty wordplay.’

  ‘You don’t believe that,’ Mordaine said fervently. ‘The Calavera does nothing spuriously. We both know it.’ Impelled by an ambiguous fellowship he leant forwards. ‘How did you meet him?’

  The alien cocked its head, regarding him thoughtfully. ‘I cannot deny that I was troubled by Arthas Moloch, interrogator.’ O’Shovah paused, as if expecting a zealous attack, but Mordaine was silent. Satisfied, the xenos continued. ‘Though I looked upon the abyss as an outsider, unmoved by its allures, the knowledge of its existence alone cast a hungry shadow. Old truths leave deep scars when they are revealed as lies,’ he extended his hands, palms upwards, ‘and the path to new truths is riven with deeper lies. I sought silence and solitude to rediscover my clarity of purpose.’

  Sometimes I can hear the Calavera speaking right through you, O’Shovah, Mordaine realised. ‘And you found a fellow traveller,’ he prompted.

  ‘Iho’nen came to me in the wilderness,’ the xenos answered, ‘and showed me that the wilderness was an entire galaxy.’

  We’re all puppets to that ancient monster, Mordaine despaired, but who’s pulling his strings?

  ‘Tell me, O’Shovah, what truths has he promised you?’

  ‘Those that unite hearts and minds and worlds,’ the xenos declared with dignified passion. ‘I will not go to ground while the galaxy burns, Haniel Mordaine.’

  ‘So you united Vyshodd Hive,’ Mordaine scorned, letting the fleeting fellowship slip away. ‘How noble of you, great Farsight!’

  ‘It was the tyranny of your Imperium that seeded this world’s revolution and made it such fertile ground for the aun. I merely quickened the seed.’

  ‘So you could watch a city die?’

  ‘So I could know its fall,’ O’Shovah corrected, ‘and to vex the intrigues of the aun. Despite their posturing they fear open war with your Imperium. They believe they are not ready. I know they will never be ready.’

  ‘And you are?’ Mordaine mocked.

  ‘I am not. That is why I walk the vash’yatol.’

  ‘So you can figure out how to win your great war?’

  O’Shovah’s expression clouded with an emotion the human couldn’t decipher. ‘Mont’shasaar,’ the xenos said softly, ‘it means the Terror That Burns Dark.’

  ‘I don’t follow you.’

  ‘I do not walk the vash’yatol to learn how to win, Haniel Mordaine,’ O’Shovah said. ‘I walk to decide what I will do after I have won.’

  ‘Your prisoner awaits,’ intoned the Calavera.

  And again… And…

  ‘Inquisitor,’ someone whispered in the darkness.

  Drifting on the shallowest currents of sleep, Mordaine tried to make sense of this strangeness. His existence had narrowed to two voices and a whisper, yet this intruder was neither of these.

  ‘Inquisitor, you must rouse yourself!’ the anomaly insisted.

  Mordaine opened his eyes and saw a vague shape in the gloom.

  ‘Grandfather Death watches over you like a raptor,’ the stranger said. ‘I could not reach you before, but he converses with the xenos tonight.’

  ‘Uzochi…?’ Mordaine wheezed, dredging the name up from somewhere impossibly distant. ‘Armande… Uzochi.’

  ‘Rouse yourself, my brother,’ the man said urgently, glancing at the door. ‘We cannot linger here.’

  ‘I thought he killed you all.’ Mordaine clutched Uzochi’s arm, testing his reality. ‘I thought I was the last.’

  ‘The last but one,’ Uzochi confirmed, ‘and our betrayer has stalled this daemon engine in the Ghostlands to finish his work.’

  ‘I suspected as much.’ Six days trailing into forever…

  ‘Inquisitor, I have hungered to move against the heretics,’ Uzochi said fervently, ‘but I have nothing to touch Grandfather Death.’

  ‘Nothing…’ The presence of another soul in this nightmare, even a madman like Uzochi, energised Mordaine. It was proof that his enemy was not omniscient.

  There must be a means of confounding him, he thought feverishly. Escher would see it and Escher chose me to be his heir. And with that realisation came sudden clarity.

  ‘Captain Uzochi,’ he said, ‘I think there’s a way…’

  ‘Your prisoner awaits.’

  Mordaine avoided the Calavera’s gaze as he rose, taking care to keep Uzochi’s laspistol hidden under his jacket. The weapon would be useless against the Space Marine, but it was an anchor to reality and he clung to it.

  I’ve been fighting on his terms, but today I’ll break the rules of the game.

  ‘How long have we been travelling?’ he asked on impulse.

  ‘We are almost at journey’s end, interrogator,’ the Calavera said.

  Yes, I believe we are, Mordaine agreed.

  Peering round the doorway of an adjoining cabin, Armande Uzochi watched Grandfather Death lead Mordaine towards the alien’s cell. Over the weeks Uzochi had mastered the constricted territory of the train, learning its secret paths and rhythms with deadly care, for his life had depended upon it. Sometimes the grey giant would come looking for him, passing through the carriages one by one and scouring the shadows with his all-seeing eye, but each time Uzochi had slipped away and clung to the outer skin of the engine, shivering in the churning cold until the hunt was over.

  But today I am the hunter, he thought.

  The Space Marine reached for the cell door.

  ‘Wait,’ Mordaine said. ‘I must gather my thoughts first.’

  The Calavera turned and the interrogator took an involuntary step back.

  Not backwards, you fool! Mordaine chastised himself. He needs to be looking the other way. He walked past the giant, feigning deep contemplation.

  ‘Your prisoner awaits,’ the Calavera called to his back.

  ‘Then let him wait a little longer,’ Mordaine said lightly. Denying that dismal, eternal phrase made his heart soar. ‘After all, he’s only a prisoner.’

  ‘A prisoner of singular importance.’

  ‘Then why is he wasting time with me?’ Mordaine swung round with Uzochi’s laspistol in his hand. Doubtless Escher would have abhorred such melodrama, but Mordaine was drunk on defiance. As he expected, the Calavera was unperturbed.

  You’re so sure of yourself, aren’t you? Mordaine thought with mounting anger. How long have you been haunting the galaxy, spinning lies and pulling strings to bring down great men like Aion Escher?

  ‘Your weapon is ineffectual,’ the Space Marine observed.

  ‘Is it?’ Mordaine asked, pressing the barrel against his own temple. ‘I’m neither blind nor stupid.’ Though I’ve been both too many times before! ‘You want me alive or I’d be long dead.’

  Over the giant’s shoulder he saw Uzochi steal into the corridor.

  Predator or prey? The exultant Iwujii mantra spun through Uzochi’s head, cycling over and over as he crept towards Grandfather Death. Blade or blood? The weapon in his hands was heavy, abundant with sacred fury. Man or boy?

  The inquisitor’s advice had proven sound. Trawling through the nobles’ storage berths, Uzochi had found real treasures among the empty relics of wealth – a cache of antique armaments that had probably seen little use in their masters’ hands. Casting aside exquisite blades and pistols, he had finally stumbled upon a bulky object wrapped in velvet. His breath had caught when he tore aside the cloth and saw the meltagun. The weapon had been inscribed with gold filigree, but such frippery wouldn’t dimi
nish its wrath. Even an elder nightmare like Grandfather Death would succumb to its purifying fire.

  Predator or prey…

  ‘You used me to get to the grand master,’ Mordaine accused, keeping his eyes locked on the Calavera – holding his gaze for once. ‘I know Kreeger was your creature, along with the assassin that killed Escher, but I was the lynchpin, wasn’t I?’

  A sigh bled from the bronze skull, low and liquid. To Mordaine it sounded perversely like satisfaction.

  ‘The assassin was not mine,’ the ancient whispered. ‘The grand master was mine.’

  Mordaine stared at him, trying to make sense of the answer. ‘That’s a lie,’ he denied. It has to be, otherwise there’s nothing left.

  ‘We infiltrated the Damocles Conclave almost two decades ago,’ the ancient continued. ‘Its remit is of interest to us.’

  ‘We…?’ Mordaine was still reeling. ‘No… No, the grand master was an honourable man. He was nobody’s pawn.’

  ‘Indeed not,’ the Calavera agreed. ‘Aion Escher was a significant and valued piece. A cardinal at the very least.’

  ‘You expect me to believe…’ Mordaine faltered as he saw Uzochi halt a few paces behind the Calavera and level a massive-barrelled gun. ‘Wait!’ Mordaine cried urgently, hoping to stall them both while he rallied his thoughts.

  The Shark hesitated, his gaunt face twitching as he glared at his ally.

  By Sanguinius, the man has found a meltagun, Mordaine realised. It surpassed his best hopes. He can send this devil’s soul to the warp! But if he does I’ll never know the truth…

  ‘Wait,’ he repeated. ‘If not you, then who? Who commanded Escher’s murder?’

  ‘The grand master acquired many enemies during his tenure,’ the Calavera said. ‘Perhaps agents of the Tau Empire or a rival faction within the Inquisition… Or perhaps someone opposed to his true loyalties.’ His implacable eye seemed to fix directly upon Mordaine’s soul. ‘His loss would be regrettable.’

  ‘Would…? Escher is dead. I saw him die myself.’

  ‘Yet a mind may outlive its vessel if the eventuality has been prepared for,’ the Calavera said, ‘and if a psychically resonant host has been nurtured to fill the void.’