TWENTY-NINE

AT THE CLOSING OF THE WORLD


‘Caffeine?’ asked Medea.

She held out a tin mug to Drusher.

‘Thanks,’ he said as he took it.

‘Took me a while to find you,’ she said. ‘What are you doing up here?’

‘Taking a last look, really,’ he said.

From the old walls of Helter, they could see across the valley. It had been raining since before dawn. Rain tapped off the Magistratum slickers they were both wearing. It spotted the lenses of Drusher’s old spectacles, but he could see well enough. Less than a kilometre away, the forest was gone, the earth scorched smooth. Great clouds of vapour were still rising off the scar.

‘You fly well,’ he said.

‘There was incentive,’ she replied. ‘Besides, it’s what he pays me to do.’

‘You’d do it even if he didn’t pay you,’ he said.

‘There is sadly a great deal of truth in that,’ she said. ‘Magos, you and Macks… You could use some support after this. He won’t mention it or offer it, because, well, you know… but trust me. You don’t feel it yet, but you’ve experienced trauma. Physical trauma. And existential trauma too. There is a confessor I can recommend in Tycho. Better still, off-world specialists on Gudrun, if you’re still planning to leave. They have some experience and are discreet. We’ve used them before. The Houses of the Ordos could offer you some consolation, but I don’t recommend it. You’d open yourself to a different world of hurt.’

He nodded.

‘By rights,’ she said, ‘you both would be considered… contaminated by what you’ve seen. The Ordos would want you restrained from public contact, at the very least. The very least. And even if you speak to the discreet confessors I have recommended, don’t say anything stupid.’

‘Like?’

‘Like mentioning the word daemon.’

‘All right,’ said Drusher.

‘But take a recommendation, please,’ she said. ‘And make Macks do it too. What you’ve seen this last day or so… No one should ever see that. It will scar you, I’m sorry to say. Change you. Maybe for the rest of your life.’

‘I’d be slightly horrified if it didn’t, Mam Betancore,’ he replied. He sipped the caffeine. ‘How is Voriet?’

‘Nayl and Macks have taken him to the infirmary in Unkara. They voxed just now. He’s stable. Young and strong.’

‘Good,’ said Drusher.

‘Eisenhorn wants to see you,’ she said. ‘He sent me to find you.’

‘All right,’ said Drusher. ‘Will he tell me what happened?’

‘Probably not,’ she said.

‘Will you, then?’

She shrugged.

‘As I understand these things,’ she said, ‘it was the Loom in the end. Damaged by the fire, but a volatile mechanism anyway.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ said Drusher.

‘It’s not possible to construct them in real space,’ she said, ‘because of the interference patterns they generate. It was stable only in the extimate fold of the shade hall.’

‘And the…’ Drusher found he really didn’t want to say the word ‘daemon’. ‘And the thing, it opened that up?’

‘Yes,’ said Medea. ‘Reality was no longer overlapping. It was simultaneous. It was just a matter of time before the fabric of… reality… shredded. Imploded. And took everything with it. Keshtre. A sizeable patch of ground and subsoil.’

‘And… the thing itself.’

‘Yes.’

‘Was he counting on that?’ asked Drusher. ‘Eisenhorn, I mean? Was he counting on that happening?’

‘I believe he was hoping. It was the only possible good outcome. Nothing else on Gershom would have stopped it.’

‘Is it still out there?’ Drusher asked. ‘I mean, is it trapped inside the shade hall?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘That extimate fold is gone. Obliterated. An empyrean gravity compression effect that… Well, I won’t bore you with the technical detail.’

‘So it’s dead?’

She shook her head.

‘Things like that can’t die. It’s been cast back into the warp where it came from. It’s still out there… or in there… somewhere. Sorry.’

‘No wonder you recommend unburdening,’ he said. ‘I’m worrying what I will begin to say to the poor confessor I visit.’

He wandered up to the old man’s library. Eisenhorn was tossing books from the shelves into a pile on the floor.

‘We need to burn this place,’ he said. ‘The books, the bodies. Everything. I’ve briefed Macks on how to contain the situation. A cover story. An accident during fleet manoeuvres. Something to keep the governor satisfied. And the Ordos off Macks’ back.’

‘They’ll come looking,’ said Drusher.

‘Without doubt, but eventually,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘And when they get here, they’ll find very little. And a lot of people who know zero.’

‘Is this the part where you reprimand me?’ asked Drusher. ‘Or, I don’t know, burn me along with the books?’

‘No, I wanted to thank you,’ said Eisenhorn.

‘Really?’

‘You did more than was asked,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘And your expertise was invaluable at several key points.’

‘Well, you asked for help.’

‘I believe I owe you passage off-world,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘That was the deal. You’re a clever man, Drusher, and a great deal of purpose still awaits you. A greater career you can accomplish. You should not stay here and waste the rest of your life on a back­water planet that you no longer love.’

‘I’ve found it has more to it than I first imagined,’ Drusher replied.

‘I can’t give you passage,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘Things are complicated and we must leave shortly. But there’s a bag on the chaise there. Take it, with my thanks.’

Drusher walked over to the old chaise, picked up the small leather kitbag and opened it.

‘Right,’ he said.

‘There is an alternative,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘Don’t take the bag. Come with us instead.’

‘With you?’

‘It will be more insane adventures, I’m afraid.’

‘Yes, but with you?’

‘I have very few friends,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘Probably none, in fact. And I can’t call on many people for help any more. I could use a clever man at my side. I’m running out of allies, and where I’m going…’

‘Sancour?’

‘Yes.’

‘The city of Queen Mab?’

‘Indeed.’

‘You want me to go with you?’

‘As I said, magos, I can count the people who now stand with me on the fingers of one hand. You are a specialist, an expert advisor, and you have shown your mettle.’

‘I thought you hated me for pulling you out of that cage,’ said Drusher.

‘I’ve had time to reflect,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘If you hadn’t, it would have ended badly.’

‘That’s what ending well looks like?’ asked Drusher.

‘Often.’

‘But you’re still going on,’ said Drusher, ‘to Queen Mab, on Sancour?’

‘Yes, magos.’

‘Will you ever stop?’ asked Drusher. ‘I mean, will you ever know when to stop? When it’s enough… When it is too much…’

‘I hope so,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘I hope at least I will have wise people around me to advise me so. To be honest though, magos, I don’t think a man like me ever retires. That’s not how it works.

‘I don’t think a man like you retires either,’ he added. ‘I think that’s what you’ve been trying to tell yourself all along. That there’s more to you, more to your life. Come with me, if you’d care to. You have seen things now. You have been tempered by this experience. Everything that follows will be less of a shock.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Drusher. ‘But I don’t think I will.’

‘I thought there was nothing left to keep you here?’ Eisenhorn asked.

‘So did I,’ said Drusher.

Eisenhorn walked over to him and held out his hand.

‘Then thank you for your service,’ he said. ‘We won’t meet again, but I have appreciated your company.’

Drusher shook his hand.

‘You look well, inquisitor,’ he said. ‘Better than you did when I first met you. Which, given what we’ve endured, is quite something. You seem stronger.’

‘I am.’

‘You’ve been tempered by this too, then?’

‘I think so,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘I feel stronger than I have in years. Ready to face the endgame.’

‘Is that a good thing?’ asked Drusher.

‘Yes,’ said Eisenhorn. He smiled.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile before,’ said Drusher.

‘It’s not something I’ve done in a long time,’ said Eisenhorn.