The Cognis
The first time Zelia had been teleported had been disorientating, but not unpleasant. She and her friends had been rescued by Jeremias from certain death on the Orks’ planet, and the journey to the Zealot’s Heart had been over in a literal flash.
This time was different. It was as if she had been plucked from the ship and pulled into a tornado. Lights flashed in front of her eyes and her ears were assaulted by unearthly screams that clawed at her mind. Then, in the blink of a watering eye, it was over. She stumbled, released from the effects of teleportation, nearly falling flat on her face. She blundered into Talen, who gulped air in an attempt not to be sick.
‘That was rough,’ he croaked.
She could only nod in response, her throat parched.
Jeremias’s deep voice cut through the fog in her head. ‘Every journey through the warp is different. Some are more traumatic than others.’
‘The warp?’ Talen parroted, glancing at Zelia. ‘You said travelling through the warp was dangerous.’
She had, back on the refugee ship from Targian. Zelia felt a stab of regret at how confident she had been back then, how superior she’d felt compared to Talen, who had never headed into space before. How quickly things changed.
‘It can be,’ Jeremias said, not giving her the chance to reply. ‘But short journeys shouldn’t leave too many scars, either physically or psychologically.’
‘That’s comforting.’ Talen peered at Zelia. ‘You okay?’
She nodded, stepping off a teleportation pad as grimy as the Zealot’s Heart had been pristine. They had materialised in a gloomy corridor, the air stale but breathable.
‘Is this where your friend lives?’ she managed to rasp.
Jeremias looked around them, his face twisted with distaste. ‘I said he was a contact, not a friend, although I’ve no idea why we didn’t appear in his workshop. Corlak?’
The servo-skull hovered over. ‘The teleportation corridor was diverted here.’
‘To the hallway?’
‘Apparently so, sire.’
‘Then we will need to walk,’ Jeremias said, striding towards a flight of iron stairs that rose up in front of a heavy door. The cyber-mastiff bounded up the steps, and Jeremias led the children up three steep flights. At the top was a passageway bathed in the greasy glow of a flickering lume-globe.
Talen screwed up his nose. ‘This place makes Rhal Rata look good.’
Zelia had to agree. The metal walls were tarnished and the corridor smelled of oil and sweat. There were scum-rat droppings on the floor and dusty spinnerwebs hanging from the low ceiling. It was stuffy too, making Zelia’s shirt stick uncomfortably to her back. Jeremias strode ahead, heading towards an arched door at the end of the passageway. He looked so out of place here, his impeccable clothes at odds with the squalid surroundings.
The inquisitor stepped aside as they reached the door, Corlak sweeping past to rap on the metal with a mechanical frond.
‘Open up for Jeremias Drayvan of the Emperor’s Inquisition.’
Behind them, Jeremias sighed. ‘Really, Corlak. There is no need to be so formal. Nalos is expecting us.’
Even so, when the door slid back, the inquisitor’s red-robed contact dropped into a deep bow, his hunched back cracking. ‘Inquisitor,’ the adept wheezed in a thin voice. ‘It is good to see you again.’
Jeremias didn’t smile. ‘And you, although I wonder why I found myself delivered into a dingy corridor rather than your chambers?’
Nalos wrung his gnarled hands together. ‘I apologise for the inconvenience, sire. I disconnected the teleporter array in my workshop for security reasons. I didn’t want any… unexpected visitors.’
The inquisitor’s eyebrows shot up. ‘I trust you aren’t talking about me?’
‘No, my lord. Of course not. I meant my fellow adepts. They have become… curious of late.’
‘About your work?’
‘Yes, sire.’
The inquisitor hmmed and ushered Zelia and the others inside.
‘What kind of work?’ she asked as Corlak shut the door behind them.
Nalos shot a glance at the inquisitor. ‘You brought children?’
Jeremias regarded the bedraggled bunch with something resembling, but not quite achieving, paternal pride. ‘Extraordinary children, who have suffered much at the hands of the universe.’
‘You have a kind heart, sire,’ Nalos fawned, but the inquisitor waved away the comment dismissively.
‘He didn’t answer your question,’ Talen whispered to Zelia.
She shook her head. ‘No, he didn’t.’
To say the workshop was cluttered was an understatement. Benches were scattered randomly around the cramped room, their surfaces piled high with the kind of gizmos that usually piqued Mekki’s interest, although for some reason the Martian was hanging back. He didn’t even seem interested in the flashing cogitator terminals that covered the walls or the screens that scrolled with an endless stream of data.
Zelia realised that she had never seen Mekki with one of his own people. Nalos wore scarlet robes trimmed with gold, and much of his haggard face was hidden behind a stark metal grille that covered his mouth and nose. His eyes had been replaced by glowing red irises and he stooped beneath the weight of a dozen or so mechanical arms that were fixed to an arthritic back. His gnarled hands were covered in metal rings and his feet replaced by curved metal claws. Only the skin around his bionic eyes was exposed, his head cowled by a thick hood, but there was no mistaking the curiosity with which he peered at Mekki.
‘What can I do for you, sire?’ he asked, turning his attention back to the inquisitor.
‘I have need of your talents,’ Jeremias replied. ‘In particular, your psychic amplifier.’
That was a surprise. Zelia had heard about psykers – beings who could project their thoughts or read minds – but, to her knowledge, had never met one.
Nalos’s augmented eyes flicked towards them. ‘And what of the children?’
‘They are assisting with my enquiries. I am searching for a villain who seeks to bring ruin to the Imperium.’
Nalos snorted. ‘Such a thing isn’t possible.’
‘Usually I would agree, but unfortunately our quarry has a weapon in her possession that could bring about our destruction if it was left unchecked.’
‘The Omnissiah protect us,’ Nalos muttered, hobbling towards an adjoining room. The door opened and the old adept led them into a chamber with a strange-looking throne at its centre. Not unlike Jeremias’s command chair on the Zealot’s Heart, it sat beneath a web of thick cables and chains that suspended a spiked metal crown which looked worryingly like a clawed hand. A second chair of a similar design was pushed against the wall, an identical cluster of equipment dangling above its high back. A solitary terminal sat to the right of the room, next to a door that Zelia assumed led through to the tech-adept’s living quarters. Dust motes danced in the flickering light of candelabras that floated on buzzing hover-pads, the flames’ soft glow giving the chamber the reverential air of a chapel or sanctuary.
The tech-adept busied himself around the terminal as Jeremias strode over to the chair and ran a gloved hand through the hanging cables.
‘You have made improvements, I see.’
The cowled figure nodded. ‘I have expanded the range, as we discussed.’
‘What is it?’ Talen asked.
Jeremias smiled at the ganger. ‘You have an inquiring mind, Talen. I like that.’ He stepped aside to allow a clearer view of the curious chair. ‘This is the Cognis, a device to supplement the natural abilities of any psyker.’
‘A psyker like you?’ Zelia asked, suppressing a shiver as his crystal-blue eyes rested on her.
‘I am blessed with certain gifts, yes. Is that a problem, Miss Lor?’
‘Not if it helps us find Amity,’ Talen butted in, a little too quickly for Zelia’s liking.
‘And that is the problem,’ Jeremias acknowledged. ‘To locate Captain Amity, I require something that belongs to her, a focus if you will.’
‘Something like this?’ Talen said, pulling a four-pointed compass from his vest.
‘That’s one of Amity’s brooches,’ Zelia said. ‘When did you get that?’
‘When we were attacked by Nettle-Nekk’s sniffler,’ Talen told her. ‘Watch this.’ He spun the star on his finger and it lifted into the air, the metal glowing with bright light.
‘How illuminating,’ Jeremias said, reaching out for the spinning star. ‘May I?’ He plucked the device from the air, turning it over in his hands.
‘Will that be sufficient?’ Nalos asked.
‘Yes,’ Jeremias nodded. ‘This is perfect. Well done, Talen.’
The ganger grinned. ‘Not a problem.’
‘But how will it help you find her?’ Zelia asked.
Jeremias pushed aside the tails of his coat and sat in the chair. ‘I have the ability to track people through items they have recently touched.’ He placed the compass on the arm of the seat and removed a leather glove, which he passed to Corlak. ‘Think of it as a bloodhound following a trail. It’s how I found you.’
Zelia frowned. ‘Really? Using what?’
Jeremias ignored the question as Nalos lowered the crown over the inquisitor’s head. Zelia couldn’t help but notice the look of discomfort that flashed across his usually stoic face as little metal prongs snapped down like pointed insect legs to clamp onto his forehead, holding the apparatus in place.
‘Doesn’t that hurt?’ Talen asked.
‘They do not pierce the skin,’ the adept snapped in reply.
‘That’s not what I asked.’
‘There is no need to concern yourself on my account, boy,’ Jeremias told him before shifting his attention to the tech-adept. ‘Are we ready?’
‘Indeed we are, sire,’ Nalos wheezed, hobbling back to the terminal. ‘Nobody touch anything. Nobody at all.’
‘Do you think he means us?’ Talen whispered to Zelia as Grimm began to growl. The metal dog was hunched as if about to pounce.
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘Grimm gets… protective whenever I attempt this,’ Jeremias said as lights flashed on the helmet. ‘It is nothing to worry about.’
Zelia wasn’t convinced. The cyber-mastiff looked ready to rip the inquisitor apart. The cables crackled with lightning as Nalos flicked switches and twisted dials. Zelia felt the hairs on her arms bristle, nausea rising in her chest.
‘What’s happening?’
‘The Cognis is amplifying my mind,’ Jeremias replied, his voice echoing as if they were suddenly in a much larger chamber. He was staring ahead, looking straight at them as he reached for the compass.
No. That wasn’t right. He wasn’t looking at them, he was looking through them, as if they weren’t even there.
Grimm’s rumbling growl intensified, to be replaced by a harsh bark as the inquisitor’s fingers curled around the brooch, his eyes rolling back in their sockets.
‘Ugh,’ Talen groaned, holding his head. Zelia turned to ask him if he was all right before losing her balance. She stumbled, only to be caught by Mekki.
‘What’s happening?’ Zelia stammered, her head throbbing in time to the energy that danced along the cables.
‘The inquisitor is projecting his mind beyond the confines of Aparitus,’ Nalos intoned as he manipulated the controls. ‘His consciousness is stretching across the void.’
‘It hurts,’ Talen gasped, gripping his head as if he was trying to stop his brain from escaping its skull. Zelia could sympathise. Her own head felt as though it was about to explode. The pressure was intense.
‘More power,’ Jeremias shouted over Grimm’s frantic barking. ‘I need more.’
Zelia’s knees buckled and she collapsed to the floor, her mind on fire. Colours danced across her vision. Colours she had never seen before. Colours that shouldn’t even exist.
‘Stop…’ she pleaded, clasping her hands over her ears. There was so much noise, pressing down on her, filling her mind. The bark of the cyber-mastiff. The screech of the machinery. Jeremias calling for more power. Nalos shouting that they needed to shut down the machine.
Yes, Zelia thought, shut it all down. Please.
She looked up at the inquisitor and screamed. Jeremias sat in the chair, his hand clenched around the lume-compass, a shadow rising up behind him. The shadow was like every nightmare she had ever experienced rolled into one, a disgusting mound of flesh with a wide drooling mouth. Its skin was the colour of rotting fruit, and broken antlers sprouted from its bloated head. When Jeremias spoke, it spoke too, its voice deep and wet and diseased.
‘More power. More power now!’
Zelia couldn’t drag her eyes away from the vision, even though the sight of it made her sick to her stomach. The hideous face split into a leering smile, pustules blooming over the spectre’s vile flesh.
‘Give me more!’
She heard the tech-adept argue, only to be overruled, Corlak barging Nalos aside to twist a dial. The pressure in her head intensified, the impossible colours blurring, the monster behind Jeremias swelling like a blister ready to burst.
‘More power,’ the inquisitor bellowed. ‘More po–’
Sparks rained down from the web of cables and Jeremias arched his back in the chair. The apparition screamed and so did Zelia. She screamed and screamed until everything went dark.