Lord of the Night

She awoke with no idea how long she had slept. A brief instant of claustrophobic panic gripped her — what if the elevator was sealed? Paused in some door-less cavern? Never to reopen! — but, no, the gentle rumble of its guidance machinery continued apace. Judging by its pitch — almost totally vertical where previously it had skewed along increasing diagonals — she was approaching the apex of the city.

It was a thought that gave her pause. As an outlaw, it occurred to her that travelling to the peak of the hive — where even the stealthiest of intruders couldn't hope to set foot without discovery — hardly smacked of intelligence.

But what else could she do? Lurk in the shadows of Cuspseal forever, growing more hungry and more cold, more confused by the conflicting thoughts that assailed her? Spend her life ru

Spend her life wondering...?

Of course not. Passivity was not in her character.

There were two mysteries that gripped her above all others, and as she settled in her corner, feeling the ponderous machinery of the elevator grinding higher and higher, she happened to cast her eyes upwards seeking some indicator of its progress, and found herself agog. The twin riddles slid together, mixing like accreting puddles of icemelt, becoming a single unified issue, and all at the single glimpse of what was embossed above the door...

The first uncertainty concerned the package, the stolen prize, the Corona Nox. What was it? Why did it matter so much to the Night Lord? Was it truly at the zenith of this grinding shaft that it could be found?

The second confusion was older, an enigma that seemed to have settled upon her bones like a layer of dust, too thick to ever remove. She felt as though she'd been gnawing at it her whole life, drenched in the suspicion and paranoia that was integral to it:

What are you up to, Kaustus?

Two queries. Two struggles, separate but equally as chaotic within her thoughts.

And suddenly they were one. Her eyes fell upon the bronze plaque above the elevator's sealed doors, and everything fell into place.

It showed a shield. A carefully scrawled coat of arms that sucked at her gaze like some awful abyss. She'd seen it before.

A sword crossing a sceptre, set upon a field of snow, surmounted by a sickle-moon and a halo of stars. The heraldry of the Noble House Zagrif.

This was the governor's personal elevator.

So...

Think, Mita! Work it through!

So the Glacier Rats stole something from the Umbrea Insidior... They did so at the request of the Slake collective...

Who had... had...

'Oh, sweet Emperor...'

Who had been commissioned by the agents of the governor himself.

The audacity of the plot astonished her, sent her reeling. Snippets of sound and sight rushed across her mind, making her wince. She'd been so foolish! Why had she not realised before?

'And to what do we owe this pleasure?' the governor had asked, when Kaustus brought her before him. 'Is she here to help us with the lock?'

She remembered thinking at the time: what lock?

She should have remembered! She should have seen!

And then, glimpsed through Pahvulti's eyes, the Night Lord rasping his venom at the cringing Slake collective:

'Where is the package now? Was it opened? Was the seal broken?'

'It was not opened by us. It has been delivered to the customer.'

Oh, she'd been so stupid!

Two enigmas, one solution!

This was what Kaustus had been doing! This was why he had sent his retinue to quell the xenophile cells, rather than attending himself. This was what had kept him, day after day, sealed in the governor's company, dismissing every other thing.

Kaustus had the Corona Nox.

The doors opened some two and a half hours after they had first closed, and they did so upon an occupant ready for anything. She had had plenty of time to dwell upon the epiphany that had snared her. Plenty of time to allow disbelief and denial to seep across her senses, replaced ultimately by a deep, abiding fury.

She'd been right. Her master had been lying to her — to everyone — all along. He'd known the Night Lord was real. He'd known, somehow, that the Umbrea Insidior would come to Equixus. He'd been waiting with eager hands to take delivery of the Traitor Marine's greatest prize.

Why then had he resisted killing the beast? Why had he risked its wrath, its gradual attempts to reclaim what was rightfully its? Why had he done everything in his power to protect the monster?

She'd realised with gathering gloom that her epiphany had simply birthed a new generation of questions, and at the core of her simmering anger the fundamental issue remained ironclad and unaltered:

What are you up to, Kaustus? What are you doing, you bastard?

And so she stepped from the elevator with a laspistol in one hand and her senses on full alert, anticipating attack or flight. What greeted her eyes — and her psychic senses — was therefore far from expected.

There was no one waiting for her.

The elevator had delivered her into the heart of the governor's gallery. Treasures without count extended into the gloom on every side, plinths bathed in hard light bearing jewelled gewgaws and priceless archeotech. And just as her alertness settled and she began to relax, once more the terror consumed her, the overwhelming certainty rushed across her:

The Night Lord was here. He was nearby. He was close!

She stumbled forwards with the pitiful gun primed, feeling ridiculous and naked. The certainty of the creature's presence — a stormcloud at the forefront of her astral senses, lapping froth-slick pollution against her psionic self — was undeniable: the beast's mindscape a unique image that she could have recognised anywhere, at any time. He is here! Emperor preserve me, he's here! And yet... Between each gallery plinth there lurked only an open space. The shadows of the room's perimeter concealed nothing but walls and windows, and for the first time she could remember Mita found herself questioning her senses. She spun and ducked, straining her eyes and ears, all to no avail.

She was so sure! So utterly convinced that her foe was present... and yet, nothing. She followed the pulse of his psychic presence like a bloodhound tracking a scent, and she moved between each exhibit with exaggerated care, all too aware of the servitor eyes tracking her movements from the ceiling, long-barrelled weapons inert as long as she kept her distance. And then there it was.

It occupied the tallest plinth at the torus-room's natural epicentre, surrounded by a wall of blazing illuminators. Even had her senses not directed her to it she guessed it would have drawn her eye like the brightest star in the sky, by reason of its setup and positioning alone. Most peculiar of all, only it, amongst all the wonders of the governor's collection, had no judicious servitor to watch over it.

It was a box. A dull, uninteresting crate, shining with the oily lustre of adamantium. Across its surface ugly runes and obscene scriptures were daubed in red and white, and at its front — spread across the inverse of its hinge in the shape of a snarling skull, borne aloft on great red wings — was a cryptoseal. It was unopened, the beads of its interlocking plates remained meshed together, unprimed by the one word, the one cryptic phrase'code, that would send pins snapping into place in the tiny logic engine within, grinding upon ancient gears and unlocking the whole.