The Absolution of Swords - John French

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  The Absolution of Swords – John French

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  The Absolution of Swords

  John French

  ‘Claims of innocence mean nothing: they serve only to prove a foolish lack of caution.’

  - Judge Traggat, Selected Sayings, Vol. III, Chapter IV.

  I

  Snow had come to Crow Complex as night fell. The ice-laden wind spiralled through the stacked domes and spires, reaching its fingers down into the cloisters to ripple the flames of candles. A trio walked through the ragged light, crimson robes dragging over the stone floor. No one stopped them. They passed like shadows beneath the sun. Most of the members of the complex’s orders had hidden from the cold as the sun had set. Those few hurrying through the processionals saw the bronze hand of the Order of Castigation hanging around the trio’s necks, and moved on. One did not draw the attention of the castigators unnecessarily.

  The first of the trio was tall and slender, and the fall of the robes made it seem to glide over the floor rather than walk. Brass glinted inside its cowl. The second was heavier-set, and walked with head bowed and hands folded into its wide sleeves. A checked band of white and black silk ran around the hems of its sleeves, marking it as the abbot of its order. The last was hunched, fat, and moved with dragging steps. The fabric over its shoulders bulged, and it clinked as it walked. A length of chain trailed along the ground beneath the edge of its robe. To anyone considering if they should check the trio’s progress, this last figure removed any doubts; a weighted penitent was a visible reminder of the price of sin and the cost of absolution.

  The wind tugged at the trio’s hoods as they stepped onto the Bridge of Benevolence. A sheer drop fell away to blackness either side of the narrow span of stone. Snow was already settling on the slabs.

  ‘Sweet tears of Terra,’ gasped the hunched figure, as a gust cut across the bridge.

  The figure in the abbot’s robe turned its head slightly towards the hunched figure behind him.

  ‘Your pardon,’ said the hunched figure, and then muttered to himself. ‘This wind is enough to flay the armour off a tank.’

  The trio passed on across the bridge, and towards the looming mass of the High Chapel. Hundreds of metres tall, and over a kilometre across, its size rivalled the cathedrals of other worlds. Twin doors of iron stood closed at the end of the bridge. Plumes of flame rose from vast braziers set to each side of the archway. Copper feathers cascaded down the face of each door.

  A pair of guards stepped from niches as the trio reached the end of the bridge. Each wore a brushed-steel breastplate over white robes woven with scarlet flames. Both carried lasguns, the barrels hung with saint coins and water vials. The Ecclesiarchy had held no men under arms since the Age of Apostasy, so these guardians were technically separate from the priests whose will and creed they followed. They were of the Iron Brotherhood, pilgrim warriors who had taken oaths to guard the chapel’s sanctity. Of all the souls in the Crow Complex, they were some of the few who would question the right of an abbot to pass where he wished. They levelled their weapons at the trio.

  ‘Entrance to the chapel is barred by order of the prefectus prior,’ said one of the guards. ‘I cannot open the way, even to your order.’

  The trio stood unmoving and silent.

  ‘By whose will do you come here at this hour?’ snapped the other guard. ‘You are not Abbot Crayling. Who are you?’

  ‘I ask your forgiveness,’ said the first of the trio, her voice sharp and clear. The nearest guard blinked, tattooed skulls briefly closing over his eyes. The other opened his mouth to speak.

  The robed woman crossed the gap to the guards in a blur, red cloth spilling in her wake. The nearest guard pulled the trigger of his gun. A fist hit the back of his hand. Bones shattered. He gasped air to shout, as an elbow whipped into his temple. He fell, lasgun slipping from his grasp to the snow covered ground. The second guard was slower, his fingers still scrabbling at the safety catch of his gun as the woman grabbed his collapsing comrade and threw the unconscious body at him. The wind caught the hood of their attacker and the velvet cowl fell back from a slim face beneath a shaven scalp. The second guard toppled, and tried to rise. A boot lashed across his jaw. He slumped to the ground. The lasguns went tumbling down into the abyss beneath the bridge a second later.

  ‘Someone will notice,’ said the hunched man. Neither he nor the figure dressed as the abbot had moved. The woman glanced up at him. The x-shaped henna stain running across her face made her eyes seem like polished jade set in copper.

  ‘I will add it to my penance,’ she said, ‘but we do not have the luxury of time.’

  The fat figure grunted, chains clinking as he shifted his weight. The hunch on his shoulders moved. A slit in the side of his robes opened and a fabric-wrapped bundle slid to the ground.

  ‘If we are abandoning subtlety I won’t need these,’ he said, pulling chains from under his robe and letting them rattle to the ground. He knelt and unbuckled the straps around the bundle. The fabric peeled back; oiled metal gleamed within its folds. A pair of bolt pistols etched with gold feathers lay beside a long-hafted warhammer, and a sheathed great longsword. Beneath them were ammo clips and a narrow-bladed power sword. He tossed the bolt pistols to the girl with the painted face. She caught them, checked their action and holstered them beneath her robes. He passed the rest out, and for a second the clink of weapons and harnesses chimed against the wind.

  The man in the abbot’s robe settled the sword behind his shoulders, stepped up to the doors, and pushed a section of the frosted metal. A small door hinged inwards.

  ‘Follow,’ he said, and stepped through.

  II

  ‘You sleep at the other end,’ growled the Pilgrim.

  Cleander Von Castellan sighed. He was starting to wish that they had picked a different infiltration location than this forgotten hole.

  The cavern he now squatted in had not been made for the purpose it now served. Cleander guessed that it had been a water cistern, feeding the thirst of the first monasteries built when Dominicus Prime had been a barely populated backwater. Now it was a store for the tides of humanity that came to the shrine world. Like everything in the sprawl built by the faithful, it had an acquired name that rang hollow to Cleander’s ear. The Garden of Eternity, they called it. Pillars marched into the dark holding up a ceiling of cracked plaster. Crude paintings of trees and vines wound up their sides. Sheets of cloth hung from wires strung between the pillars dividing the cavern into a maze of spaces. The light of small fires and oil lamps cast shadows against the fabric screens. Salt deposits glittered where the rough floor met the bases of columns. Glum, unwashed faces had risen and looked down again at Cleander and Koleg as they had passed. There had been no offers of help or friendly greeting to fellow pilgrims. This was the kind of place that bred despair rather than good cheer.

  They had eventually found a place in the maze of screens. That alone had been difficult. Every space had a claim on it, and they had to exchange cylinders of fresh water to find somewhere. The commerce that clung to almost every inch of life down here in the Warrens almost made Cleander want to laugh. They had to pay an offering of candle tokens at three shrines for directions to the Garden of Eternity. When they had found the entrance, it had turned out to be a rusted iron door set in a crumbling arch beneath a sculpture of the Emperor as provider. Even then a hooded crone sitting just inside the door had held out her hand for a d
onation. Cleander had noticed the blunderbuss welded to the metal struts of the crone’s other hand, and handed over another token. That the thug of a pilgrim who loomed over them had some claim on the bit of ground he sat on did not surprise Cleander. It was, though, getting on his nerves.

  He looked up into the pilgrim’s face. The man’s head was a ball of scar tissue arranged around a snarl of broken teeth. Tattered fur covered his shoulders, adding to the bulk of the muscles beneath. Layers of stained cloth covered the rest of his body. Red veins spidered the yellow of his eyes.

  Cleander tried a smile.

  ‘I am sorry, brother traveller,’ he said. ‘Is something amiss?’

  The big pilgrim raised a hand and jabbed a thick finger towards the other end of the sleeping hall.

  ‘You sleep down there,’ growled the pilgrim.

  Cleander glanced at Koleg, but his companion’s eyes were focused on a point in the distance, his face as blank as ever.

  ‘We have already paid to be here,’ said Cleander, and fixed his smile in place. He could almost see heavy cogs turning in the big pilgrim’s skull.

  ‘You go–’ began the thug.

  ‘No,’ said Cleander. ‘Like I said, we have paid.’ He held the smile in place, his good eye barely flicking as he sized up the thug. Lots of muscle, arms tattooed with tiny, black dots, one for every day spent on pilgrimage to the Crow Complex, a gang brand from Iago running around the left forearm.

  The thug’s patience seemed to run out. He stepped back, tensing to lash a kick into Cleander’s face. The man’s collar shifted down his neck. A circle of faded ink coiled at the base.

  ‘The Tenth Path,’ said Cleander quickly. The thug froze. Cleander reached up to his own throat, careful to keep the movement slow, and pulled his collar down. The tattoo was false, but looked real enough: a ragged halo of ink curled around a bare circle of skin. He flicked his eyes at Koleg. The soldier returned the look without expression and bared his neck to show the same mark. Cleander looked back at the thug. ‘We are seekers of the Tenth Path.’

  The thug looked between them. The other pilgrims sitting nearby had already shrunk back, and made it very clear that they had other things to concern them.

  ‘You,’ said the thug at last. ‘Follow.’ He turned and began to walk towards the far end of the cavern. Cleander stood, lifting the roll of rags holding his possessions and hanging its rope cord across his shoulders. Koleg followed, pulling his coat close about him. The specialist’s face was impassive as always, flint-grey eyes moving over the fabric partitions and huddled pilgrims as they passed. Koleg moved with unhurried care, precise and controlled. The dark skin of his scalp glinted in the firelight, the old surgical scars pale lines around the base of his skull. Unless you had spent years in the specialist’s company, there was little for the eye to catch in his appearance. Most people tended not to notice Koleg, as though he blended with the banality of life. He was also one of the most dangerous people Cleander had ever known.

  They trailed the thug, passing down a corridor between fabric screens. People pulled back from their path, and Cleander could see fear in their eyes in the instant before they glanced away. It was not him that they feared, he was sure. At times he had cowed pirate lords and alien princes, but here and now he was just a man with one eye, a ragged beard and greying hair. Clothed in patched and reeking rags, he looked and smelled just like all of the rest of lost humanity.

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asked the thug.

  The brute kept walking. ‘To see the confessor.’

  Cleander felt his gut tighten, but kept his face impassive. A confessor could be trouble. The firebrand priests of the Ecclesiarchy were often dangerous and likely to deal with those they saw as heretics without mercy or waiting for reasons. It had taken him and Koleg three weeks to get this far. They were walking the Tenth Path, down into the dark. Now it might end not in revelation, but in fire.

  ‘Here,’ said the thug, stopping and pulling aside a panel of weighted fabric. They stepped through. The base of one of the pillars rose from the centre of the space beyond. Worn fabric hung over the rough stone, threadbare carpets covered the floor, and bowls of burning oil stood on poles. There was no sign of anyone else. The thug let the hanging drop, and turned to them.

  ‘What is the truth of the first path?’ he said.

  ‘That there can be truth,’ said Cleander without a pause.

  The thug looked at him, nodded slowly, and then looked at Koleg.

  ‘What is the truth of the second path?’

  ‘That the universe is truth,’ said Koleg.

  The thug stared at him.

  Cleander held himself still. It had taken a lot of work and more than a little blood to learn the replies they had just given. Those words should be enough to take them one more step, but if the thug asked another question they were in trouble. He felt his fingers twitch, feeling the absence of his digi-rings.

  The thug nodded, and moved the hangings covering the base of the pillar. A corroded metal door sat beneath. A heavy lock had been welded to the door and frame. A ragged circle had been burned onto the metal. The thug pulled a key on a leather thong from under his tunic, and slotted it into the lock.

  Cleander took a step forwards.

  The thug paused, hand still on the unturned key. ‘How found you the path, brethren?’ he said.

  A chill ran over Cleander’s skin. He licked his lips, mind racing through all of the intelligence Viola had compiled for them on the Tenth Path. This was not a question that they had encountered. The question might have been one of the cult’s ritual challenges, or it might be simple curiosity. Either way there were more wrong answers than right.

  ‘By many steps, brother,’ said Cleander carefully. There was an extended moment in which he held the thug’s stare. The man’s gaze twitched.

  Cleander yanked the bedroll off his shoulder. The thug’s fist lashed out. Cleander ducked, hand scrabbling at the roll of rags in his hands. The thug reached under the layers of his tunic and pulled a length of chain from his waist. Barbs glittered on the edges of the sharpened links. The thug swung. Cleander ducked again, hand reaching inside the bedroll. The weapon hit the floor, and snapped back into the air. Koleg was moving behind the thug. The chain whipped out. Cleander jerked aside. A barb caught his right shoulder and bit deep. The thug yanked, and Cleander lurched forwards, pain rushing through him. Blood spread across his tunic from his shoulder.

  Cleander could see Koleg stepping up behind the thug, right hand wreathed with blue lightning. The thug’s lips pulled back in a grinning snarl. Rows of hooked metal teeth glinted in his mouth. He yanked the chain again. Cleander went with the force of the pull and slammed his knuckles into the thug’s throat. The man staggered, choking. The barb ripped from Cleander’s shoulder. Fresh pain burst through him, but his hand had found the grip of the needler hidden inside his bedroll. He pulled the pistol free as the links arced down again.

  Blue arcs enveloped the thug’s head. His body jerked, muscles spasming, jaws clamping down on his tongue. Blood poured down his chin. Cleander saw Koleg’s fingers closed around the base of the man’s neck. The polished armatures of the shock-gloves shone as they discharged power.

  ‘You shoot now,’ said Koleg.

  Cleander brought the pistol up and squeezed the trigger. The gun’s hiss was lost under the crackle of electrical discharge. The toxin sliver hit the thug in the right eye and he dropped, muscles still twitching as he hit the floor.

  Cleander stepped back, breathing hard. Shadows were moving behind the fabric hangings. Shouts echoed off the cavern ceiling. Koleg dropped to one knee and pulled grenades and weapons from under his coat, laying them on the floor in neat rows.

  ‘That was not optimal,’ said the soldier.

  ‘At least we know we found the right place,’ replied Cleander.

  Cleander ripp
ed open the rest of his bedroll. Objects tumbled out as blood scattered from his wounded arm. He grabbed a falling injector with his good hand and smacked it into his shoulder next to the wound. The cocktail of numb, spur and blood coagulant poured into him an instant after the needle punched through his skin. He let out a sharp breath. Koleg looked up at him, and tossed him a compact filter mask. Cleander caught it and shook the straps free. Koleg already had his mask on, his eyes hidden behind a slot visor set in a white ceramic faceplate. A short chrome cylinder projected from each side of the mask’s chin.

  ‘How long until they find us?’ asked Cleander.

  A shadow loomed next to one of the hangings. A chain blade roared to life, and sliced down through the fabric. Cleander brought the pistol up and put two needles into the shadow. The figure dropped, ripping the hole wide as it fell, chain blade growling in its death grip. Another shape was moving behind it. Cleander could see the shadow of a handgun. He shot again, heard a noise from behind him and spun, putting another shot into a silhouette.

  ‘Secure your mask,’ called Koleg, his voice flat and metallic as it came from his own mask’s speakers. He held a pistol with a short, tubular barrel. The broken breech of the weapon was wide enough to swallow a shot glass.

  Cleander pulled the mask over his head, the rubber seals pressed into his face. The world beyond the photo-visor became a twilight blue. More shadows were moving beyond the screens. He heard the clunk of a gun arming.

  ‘Secure,’ he shouted, hearing his own voice echo flat from his speaker.

  Koleg nodded, dropped a grenade shell into the pistol launcher, and closed the breech with a flick of his wrist.

  Gunfire ripped through the fabric screens. Cleander dropped to the floor as the bullets sawed through the air above him. The torn hangings swayed and his eye caught the flash of muzzle flare. He sent three needles into the space behind the flash, and the gunfire stopped. Koleg, unmoved, aimed the pistol launcher up and pulled the trigger. The grenade thumped into the air, hit the ceiling above and burst in a grey cloud of gas. The spent casing spun to the ground as Koleg cracked the launcher, and dropped another grenade into the breech. He fired again, the shot arcing high over the fabric hangings, then again and again, in a quick, remorseless rhythm.