Heretic
‘Zelia? Zelia, wake up! Can you hear me?’
She could hear, but couldn’t respond. She didn’t want to. Her head felt as though it had split in two. Something cold and hard was pressed against her cheek. It took her a moment to realise she was lying on a grimy steel floor. But which floor? And who was that calling her name? She recognised the voice, but couldn’t think of his name. She was having enough trouble remembering her own.
‘Zelia!’
‘Okay, okay,’ she slurred, trying to push herself up. Her arms were like jelly.
‘Here, let me help you.’
Strong hands pulled her up. Her eyes opened and for a moment she panicked, expecting her vision to be assaulted by alien colours. Instead, she was greeted by a painful yellow glare which softened into the flickering of floating candles. A face swam into focus. Closely cropped hair. Blue eyes. A scar through an eyebrow that was raised in concern.
‘Talen,’ she whispered. Yes. That was his name. Talen.
He breathed out in relief. ‘Thank the Throne. I thought… well, you don’t want to know what I thought. I couldn’t wake you.’
He sat her up and she looked around. They were in Nalos’s Cognis chamber, a figure slumped in a chair in front of them. Her eyes widened. It was Jeremias. She jumped to her feet, stumbling as a wave of dizziness swept over her.
The inquisitor wasn’t moving.
‘What happened?’
‘It was the psychic amplifier,’ Mekki said from somewhere behind her. She turned to peer quizzically at the Martian, gripping hold of Talen’s arm to steady herself. ‘It overloaded.’
‘Overloaded?’ she parroted, shaking her head. It felt as if it was full of mud. ‘I saw…’
‘You saw what?’ Talen asked.
She wasn’t sure. There had been colours definitely, weird and terrifying colours, but what else? A ghostly figure, looming up behind the inquisitor? She couldn’t be sure. It was slipping away like a dream. She realised that Talen was speaking, and tried to concentrate on his words.
‘Mekki says we were affected by the psychic amplifier,’ he was saying. ‘Like vibrations from an engine. They… confused us, clouding our minds.’
She looked back at Jeremias. ‘Is he…’
‘He lives,’ Nalos wheezed from the controls. ‘But the Cognis is damaged, possibly beyond repair.’
‘No,’ Jeremias rasped, making them jump. ‘We must try again.’
‘We cannot, sire,’ Nalos argued. ‘The psionic field has overloaded, the scry-emitters–’
‘Will be fixed,’ Jeremias growled, looking at Mekki with bloodshot eyes. ‘You… You will assist Nalos. Repair the machine.’
Mekki hesitated, shaking his head. ‘No… I…’
‘You heard the inquisitor,’ Corlak said, swooping towards the Martian, its pincers snapping like the claws of a corpse-crab. ‘You will assist the tech-adept.’
Reluctantly, Mekki joined Nalos at the terminal, which was as blackened as the cables that snaked down from the ceiling.
Zelia took an uncertain step towards the inquisitor. ‘What did you see?’
Jeremias looked as if he was having trouble lifting his head beneath the weight of the helmet. ‘Nothing but Amity’s face…’ he panted. ‘Mocking me. Laughing at me.’
‘So you don’t know where she is?’
It took a moment for the inquisitor to reply, every word an effort. ‘She is nearby.’
‘On Aparitus?’
‘No. In the void. I could… sense that she was in flight.’
‘And the Diadem?’
Jeremias shook his head, sweat flicking from his hair. The cyber-mastiff growled.
‘Calm yourself, Grimm,’ Jeremias wheezed. ‘I am still myself.’
Zelia frowned. What did that mean?
‘I thought my head was going to explode,’ she said, more to herself than anyone else.
‘Me too,’ Talen said, and for the first time she realised how pale he looked. ‘That was insane.’
‘I apologise,’ Jeremias breathed. ‘It must have been psychic overspill. You must have experienced a little of the… discomfort I endure whenever I use my abilities.’
‘You go through all that every time?’ Talen asked.
The inquisitor’s voice cracked. ‘You have no idea. The torment I experience. The… things I see.’
Zelia shivered, but she didn’t know why. Had she seen something herself? No. It was just her imagination. In front of them, Jeremias tried to sit up in the throne-like device.
‘But my suffering is nothing when you consider the generosity of the Emperor. A small price to pay for the gifts bestowed on me.’ The inquisitor looked to Nalos. ‘How long until the next attempt?’
As the tech-adept burbled a reply, Zelia spotted the lume-compass at the inquisitor’s feet. Talen saw it too, and bent down to recover it.
There was a chime from the workshop. Someone was at the outer threshold.
Jeremias looked up, still short of breath. ‘Who is that?’
Nalos’s optical implants whirred. ‘I cannot tell. The feedback has disrupted the pict-feeds.’
The inquisitor barked for Corlak to investigate. The servo-skull buzzed through the workshop and activated the door. It whooshed back to reveal a female Mechanicus adept flanked by three armoured guards. Their faces were hidden behind gas masks complete with luminescent goggles, their muscular frames bristling beneath scarlet robes – but all eyes were on the glowing arc rifles they held in their bionic hands.
‘What is the meaning of this?’ Corlak asked as the adept swept into the room, one of her robotic limbs swatting the servo-skull aside.
‘Show yourself, Nalos,’ she demanded. Her face was largely free of cybernetics. Unlike the other tech-adept, she stood tall, her writhing mechadendrites flexible and lithe like the tentacles of a kraken. Her eyes had yet to be replaced but their silver irises glittered as if lit from within.
‘Quigox,’ Nalos lisped as he hobbled from the Cognis chamber, blocking the doorway so she couldn’t see Jeremias in the chair. ‘You have no right to be here.’ He glared at the tech-guards. ‘And to bring skitarii to my workshop…’
‘No right?’ Her voice was mechanical, devoid of any emotion, her reply a matter of statement rather than a direct challenge. ‘I am a servant of the Omnissiah. You are harbouring a renegade.’
‘Says who?’ asked Talen, stepping past the tech-adept.
Quigox’s head snapped around to face him. ‘You will be silent.’
‘You’ve obviously never met me before.’ As usual, Talen was trying to appear confident, but Zelia could hear the nerves behind his swagger. He ploughed on regardless. ‘What do you mean by a renegade? Who are you talking about?’
The adept sniffed dismissively. ‘I have installed pict-feeds in every building in this city. The deviant was seen entering these chambers.’ She raised a slender finger and pointed past him. ‘And there he is.’
Talen turned to see Mekki standing beside Zelia in the doorway.
‘You think Cog-Boy’s a renegade?’ Talen laughed. ‘Trust me – Mekki’s all about rules and regulations.’
‘Yeah,’ Zelia agreed, placing herself in front of the Martian. ‘Mekki is as loyal as they come.’
‘Is that what the liar has told you? What of his brand?’
‘His what?’
The adept pointed at the circuitry moulded onto Mekki’s skin.
‘His electoos?’ Talen asked. ‘They help him commune with machine-spirits.’
Quigox took a step forward, the skitarii matching her step. ‘They are the mark of the Innovatum Cult that spawned his criminal parents.’
Zelia searched Mekki’s face for answers, but the Martian only glared at the adept. ‘His… parents?’
‘You must leave,’ Nalos insisted.
‘Not without the boy,’ Quigox replied. ‘He evaded justice on Mars. It is the duty of every adept to round up survivors of the Purge and deliver them for trial.’
‘What is to say he is not my prisoner?’ Nalos asked.
The skitarii’s rifles swung up.
‘You have a choice,’ she said dispassionately. ‘Either hand over the renegade or be cut down where you stand.’