Lord of the Night

She was vaguely aware of a tear slipping down her cheek, and distantly — surreally — wondered why it was there. What did it mean?

The words came in a jumble now, refusing to stop, and she felt herself caught up in the same fearful horror as during the trance itself, tumbling and screaming and freezing, all at once.

'I looked into it... the shadow, I mean... and it was like I was falling, straight through the snow towards the ground, and... and something was chasing me, burning me from behind my eyes... Emperor preserve me, it was a pregnant hag — the size of a city — rushing down from the stars... a-and... and she hit the snow and... ohhh... her bones broke and her belly split and...

'...and darkness crawled out from her womb.'

She forced open her eyes long enough to check that the servitor had recorded every word. It watched her without comment or movement, fully prepared to wait forever for her next command.

Sighing, Interrogator Mita Ashyn of the Ordo Xenos allowed herself the indulgence of slipping into a deep, exhausted faint.

'Ah, interrogator.'

'My lord.' Mita bowed formally, keeping her eyes lowered. She hadn't yet grown accustomed to her new master's idiosyncrasies, but had learned quickly that his legendary temper was deployed far more readily amongst those who failed to show the proper obeisance. Given that he insisted upon wearing a mirror-helm with only the narrowest of eyeslits, it was perhaps unfortunate that any interested glance towards his surreal headgear was mistaken for disrespect, which of course invited the full force of his wrath.

Inquisitor Kaustus was not a man to cross lightly.

Mita considered herself relatively safe, just as long as she occupied her view with the tails of his chequered robes and the heavy soles of his armoured feet, rather than his feather-mantled shoulders and reflective mask.

'Stop that,' he snapped, proving her wrong, his voice curiously soft for such an imposing figure. 'I won't have my acolytes bowing and scraping like common peasants. I'm your master, girl, not your Emperor.'

'Apologies, my lord.' She straightened and adjusted her gaze vertically, oozing penitence. Perhaps chest height would be more appropriate.

Behind her, a couple of the i

'I've read the account of your vision,' the inquisitor said, voice dripping scorn, waving a spindly datapad across her view. 'You fainted.'

'It was... unusually vivid, my lord.'

'I don't care how vivid it was, girl. I'll not tolerate my servants passing out at the drop of hat.'

'It won't happen again, my lord.'

'No. It will not.' The datapad dipped upwards — the inquisitor's gaze roving across its spidery text. 'Your account makes for... interesting reading,' he said. 'What does it all mean?'

'I don't know, my lord. There are no cogitators here to deciph—'

'I didn't ask what some Emperor-damned machine would make of it, girl! I asked what you think.'

She swallowed, resisting the urge to meet his gaze. Here, in the splendour of his guest suite at the heart of the governor's palace, he was as terrible and magnificent a figure as the legends made claim.

'Well?'

'I... I think something is coming, my lord. Coming here, I mean.'

'"Something". Is that the best you can do?'

She bristled, fists clenching at her sides, struggling to keep the bitterness from her voice. 'Something from the stars, then. Something massive. S-something dark.'

For a moment there was silence. Dust motes circulated through the hard beam of a hovering illuminator, and at the periphery of her vision Mita could see the retinue shuffling its collective feet. Had her words struck a chord?

Kaustus shattered both the silence and her hopes with one deft exclamation.

'Emperor's blood!' he boomed, voice heavy with sarcasm, 'such detail! How did I ever cope without a witch at my side?'

Predictably the room exploded, acolytes and cowled disciples venting their sycophantic amusement in gales of laughter. Willing herself not to blush — unsuccessfully — Mita supposed she couldn't blame them. In shared cruelty lay acceptance, a bitter lesson she'd been slow to grasp.

For an instant she found herself hating them. Hating him, even, reviling her own master like some undisciplined child... But such thoughts were the gatestones at the head of a dangerous path, and her entire life had been spent studying to ward off such heretical temptations. She willed herself to relax, bore the humiliation with good grace—

—and dug her fingernails so far into the flesh of her palms that blood oozed between her knuckles.

'Enough.'

Kaustus silenced the laughter, tossing aside the data-pad like some broken toy, its ability to entertain spent. An abrupt silence gripped the room and he watched the crowd with narrowed eyes, colossal shoulders squared.

'A mission.'

To Mita, bathed unwillingly in a tumult of psychic emissions, the phrase was like an icy wind. She tasted the hungry anticipation of the retinue, all forced amusements forgotten, minds focused and sharp. She gave them their dues: fools they might be, but they were obedient with it.

'Investigation and salvage.' Kaustus cocked his head towards his staff, barking commands. 'Three teams, three transports. Division pattern delta. Now.'

The entourage divided like a machine, three groups forming in short order. Without the benefit of individual familiarity, Mita could nonetheless detect the more obvious distributions of resource: in each group there hulked the cowled form of a combat servitor, in each a medic fussed with triage apparatus and checked chemical proboscis, in each a hooded priest stepped from figure to figure, administering blessings and prayers.

Kaustus had been collecting disciples his entire life, amassing a crew to shame even the most luminary of fellow inquisitors. With a single command the capabilities and specialisms of the whole had been spliced evenly and instantly, without comment or question or flaw. Even to Mita, still smarting from their scorn, it was a display of impressive efficiency.

She struck what she hoped was an authoritative pose — uncomfortably aware that she alone had failed to fall in. If Kaustus had expected her involvement he gave no sign of it, nodding briskly at each group.

'We rendezvous at gate Epsilon-Six in three hours,' he barked. 'Cold-weather gear, night-sight, fully armed. Dismissed!'

The retinue filed from the suite without a word, and Mita reflected that for all their variety, for all the many characters and histories contained within the group, they operated with parade-ground efficiency to match even the most elite of the Imperial guard's storm troopers.

She realised with a start that she was the last to leave, and that Kaustus was staring at her, gloved fingers toying elegantly with the cruciform ''I'' medallion around his neck. 'Interrogator,' he said, features unreadable. 'You appear to still be here...'

'My lord,' she swallowed, hunting for a diplomatic method of delivering her enquiries, settling eventually for a lame: 'What are we to investigate?'

The anticipated rebuke for her insolence never came. She imagined the man's lips curling behind the mask: the grin of a cat entertained by its struggling prey.