The Oath in Darkness - David Annandale

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  The Oath in Darkness - David Annandale

  About the Author

  An Extract from ‘Blackstone Fortress’

  A Black Library Publication

  eBook license

  The Oath in Darkness

  David Annandale

  ‘Do you think she knows what she’s doing?’ Lorn Rekkendus asked.

  ‘It’s a bit late to be wondering that, isn’t it?’ said Harant Dalkan.

  ‘That is not an answer.’ Lorn was not going to be put off by Dalkan’s deflection. He couldn’t blame her. He had been asking himself the same question. It had become far more urgent since they had all arrived at Precipice. The plan, which had seemed a glorious crusade in the abstract, a mission commanded by holy visions, looked like an act of madness now that they were actually in orbit over the Blackstone Fortress. The reality of the thing was far beyond any conception of it. No one should speak of the Blackstone Fortress without having seen it. Dalkan regretted that he had come to this understanding too late.

  They were in Dalkan’s prayer cell aboard the Sanctified Journey, the Rekkendus yacht moored to Precipice. He had prayed more than usual for the Emperor’s guidance since arriving. If he had known its true nature before coming, Dalkan wondered, would he have agreed to Buria’s plan at all? Precipice was a foul place. It was beyond heretical. Humans and xenos coexisted in a cauldron of competing agendas. The clamour of trade, scheming and conflict was overwhelming. It was even louder to the ear of the soul. Every breath Dalkan took here felt like an offence against the Emperor.

  Did Buria Rekkendus know what she was doing? Dalkan wished he knew.

  ‘I believe she does,’ he said to Lorn.

  Buria’s younger sister frowned. She saw through to his camouflaged doubt as surely as if she had pierced him with her third eye. ‘I am not young,’ she said. ‘I have not been for quite some time. I know very well that when I hear someone assert something by saying I believe, then they are trying to convince themselves of the truth of that statement at least as much as they are trying to convince me.’

  Dalkan was silent for a moment, acknowledging the truth of her accusation. Then he said, ‘I have believed in your sister’s judgement for as long as I have been confessor to your house. I have never had any reason to doubt that judgement before.’

  This was true. Rekkendus was a proud house of the Navis Nobilite. The service of its Navigators to the Imperium had been exemplary for ­centuries. Buria’s reign at the head of the family had been singularly successful. It was marked by a combination of rigorous discipline and a willingness to take brave risks in the name of the house and of the Emperor.

  ‘This is not the first time Buria has taken a radical initiative,’ Dalkan said. ‘She has always been right in the past.’

  ‘She has,’ Lorn agreed. ‘That is why I have gone along with her plan this far. But she has never attempted anything quite like this.’

  ‘We knew that before coming here. You knew that before coming here.’

  Lorn nodded. ‘But we have yet to do anything irrevocable. We can still turn back. We haven’t yet descended to the Blackstone Fortress. But she has gone now to meet with our guide. The point of no return is fast approaching.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Viktur about this?’

  ‘Delicately.’

  That went without saying. Buria’s son was impulsive, and he lost his temper easily. He had a habit of making fraught situations worse than they needed to be.

  ‘His view has not changed,’ Lorn went on. ‘His only concern is that our house achieve ascendancy over House Locarno. He would likely be here even without my sister’s visions.’

  Buria was the most powerful Navigator of the three. Her connections with the warp were profound, and Dalkan worried about the long term. House Rekkendus could ill afford to lose her. Viktur was not fit to lead yet, and Lorn was too cautious. Buria spoke and prayed with Dalkan every day. He watched over her spiritual health. It was her physical well-being that worried him. But it was the depth to which she could interface with the warp that had led to the revelations she had experienced, and that had brought them to the Blackstone Fortress. Within the monster, there was a ship. Buria did not know its name or its precise provenance. It was a Navigator’s vessel, though. That, she knew beyond any doubt. It called to her. It shone, it pulsed, it sang with the power of the artefacts within. Something of enormous value to the Navis Nobilite had been lost an age ago.

  Finding the ship and salvaging what lay within would be a colossal victory. It would be a triumph for the house. Dalkan didn’t think Viktur could see much further than that. But to seize something so powerful that it reached across the void to Buria, even from within so dark and malevolent a prison, would mean extraordinary things could be done for the Imperium.

  Buria understood that. If Dalkan could help in any way in the recovery, it was his duty to do so. Buria had made it very clear she did not expect him to come on this mission.

  But I must, he had told her. If you go and do not return, I will have to live wondering if there was anything I could have done to help.

  ‘So we are committed, then,’ said Lorn.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Then so am I.’

  They left Dalkan’s cell. They walked down the passageway that led from it to the observation chamber. There, Viktur was leaning against a bulkhead, looking out of the viewport. Docking tubes stretched out from the hull of the station, spiking in every direction. Most held ships, tethering them in a precarious embrace above the Blackstone Fortress’ gravity well. Below, the triangular end of a colossal arm of the fortress loomed in from the left, filling half the viewport.

  Dalkan did not like to look at it. Yet when he was in this room, he could not tear his eyes from the huge, angular darkness that hid the stars. What looked like small blocks on the surface of the fortress were masses a hundred feet high and more. The construct was, Dalkan thought, the very embodiment of the concept of fortress, but even there, the word was inadequate. As impregnable as the structure appeared, it would be a terrible mistake to view it simply in defensive terms. Aggression was built into every crenellation, every rampart, every wall, and most of all in the monstrous black pyramid at its centre, the pyramid Dalkan was grateful he could not see from this perspective.

  ‘How long has mother been gone?’ Viktur asked. He had been absent himself. He had a black eye, his knuckles were red, and he looked very pleased with himself. Since arriving, he had been spending his time in Precipice’s drinking holes, looking for fights. Even those, from his perspective, served the family name.

  ‘A while,’ said Lorn. ‘She’ll be back with our guide.’

  ‘At last. Time we were about this.’

  Dalkan disapproved of the way Viktur looked at the fortress. ‘Beware your hunger,’ he said. ‘If it is not a desire to serve the Emperor, it is the hunger of pride.’

  Viktur shrugged. He was tall, like his mother, and shared the sharp, hard planes of her face. His blond hair was shaved on the sides, and he kept a lustrous tousling down on his crown. His beard was a small, groomed point on his chin. A headband of embroidered silk covered his Navigator’s eye, and was the only sign he bore as yet of any kind of mutation. He was the conscious projection of Navis Nobilite aristocracy.

  Lorn was quite a bit shorter, though still taller than Dalkan. Viktur was holding on to his youth, trying to deny the inevitable transformations that came for Navigators. She had accepted hers. Her robes, though lightweight, seemed to weigh her down. She di
d not always need the cane she carried, but she did not dare go far without it. Her shoulder-length hair was grey, and her eyes were shadowed with experience and caution.

  ‘Take heed,’ Dalkan tried again with Viktur. It was worrying that he was already so consumed by the promise of power to be found in the Blackstone Fortress. They were going to an evil place. If Precipice was already a moral cesspool, what awaited over in the fortress was something Dalkan didn’t want to imagine. ‘Do not let yourself be corrupted by what lies below.’

  ‘We shouldn’t be corrupted by cowardice either,’ Viktur snapped.

  Before Dalkan could respond, the door to the quarters slid open and Buria entered. She was the most powerful Navigator in House Rekkendus, and her affinity for the warp had taken a heavy physical toll. She had fought against it with juvenat treatments, and had the taut look of coiled wire. An augmetic framework attached to her limbs gave her strength and mobility very close to that of her youth.

  Behind Buria came the guide. Dalkan’s jaw dropped open, aghast.

  ‘This is Dahyak Grekh,’ Buria announced. ‘He will take us where we need to go.’

  ‘Mother,’ said Viktur. ‘Are you mad?’

  For the first time in years, Dalkan found himself in perfect accord with Viktur. The guide was a xenos horror, a kroot. His bipedal shape was a mockery of the purity of the human form. He was beaked, though his scaled hide was reptilian rather than avian. He carried a long, bladed rifle, and had to duck to get through the doorway. He looked at the humans before him. The bird beak snapped with sharp clicks.

  An inhuman voice said, ‘Soft… klik. Soft and weak. Easily broken. Do well and remember this. You are foolish to be here… klik. Less foolish to hire me.’

  The humans were as weak as their payment was good. It was good that Grekh’s oath was strong, or snip-snap, the Blackstone Fortress would cut them down.

  He eyed them one at a time, seeing what he needed to know. He marked them as his herd, and looked for the weakest among the weak. Easily done. The priest, Dalkan. He was not a fighter. A worthless prey, no value at all in him. He was stupid to have come. He would contribute nothing.

  Worse than nothing. Dalkan radiated disgust and anger. Hostility to the guide, a bad start. Viktur was as bad. At least Buria, the contract holder, was not hostile. Nor was Lorn, accepting her egg-mate’s decision to hire Grekh. And Buria’s will was clearly strong. She had a clear mission below, a good sense of what she was seeking and why. That would help. Lorn and Dalkan showed commitment to her too, another bit of good news. Viktur seemed less focused on Buria, more on himself. He would need to be watched. His judgement would be bad.

  Lorn, Viktur and Dalkan were staring at Grekh. He was used to this. All human interactions began this way. Best they got their staring done before the descent to the Blackstone Fortress.

  ‘We go then?’ said Grekh. ‘My ship is ready. The Blackstone is always ready. Are you ready? Yes or never. Decide now... klik.’

  Viktur was shaking his head. More stupidity. This was not his decision. He had not listened. He was posturing. So much posturing. Humans never tired of it. Wait it out.

  ‘I will not have our name soiled by associating with xenos filth,’ Viktur said. ‘Find another guide, mother. Or I will.’

  ‘There must be another way.’ Dalkan took a step further back from Grekh. He smelled of frightened prey. He was trying to decide whether to attack or fear being eaten.

  He was safe. Grekh was under contract. And there was nothing to learn from the priest’s flesh.

  ‘There is no other way.’ Buria’s words were an edict. She raised a hand. The mechanism on her arm gave the gesture imposing strength and she silenced the others. Good. Good. ‘This kroot has been to the fortress more often, and has gone deeper, than any human guide.’ She rounded on Viktur. ‘You may go by other means if you like. If you wish to die.’ Her voice was hard, commanding hard. All very good.

  ‘Yes or never?’ Grekh asked. For the last time.

  It was yes.

  A metallic scrape, and a change in the feel of the station, something deeper than a vibration but akin to it, that Grekh sensed more than felt. Two threats, immediate and imminent.

  Grekh held up a hand. The Rekkendus party stopped immediately. Even Viktur was behaving with discipline for the moment.

  They were moving down a long hall. Its walls sloped away from the floor at a steep angle. The deck was about fifteen feet wide. The walls went up and up, opening wider and wider. The ceiling was invisible in the dark heights, but from it hung structures that resembled gigantic, squared-off stalactites. At their ends, each was as wide as the corridor. There were rows and columns of them, and they moved with slow, clockwork regularity. With a heavy, grinding shift, the masses exchanged places, creating new patterns. Grekh had yet to find any reason for the movements and the configurations. They were a slumbering machine’s dreaming stirrings.

  There were deep alcoves at apparently random intervals in the hall. The inverted pyramids glowed a faint red, providing just enough illumination to see by, but the alcoves had their own, low ceilings, and were filled with profound shadow. Grekh pointed, wordlessly ordering his herd into the nearest one. He pushed the humans back towards the wall, more than ten feet away from the hall. He waited near the front, invisible from the corridor, but close enough to the mouth of the alcove to see what approached.

  Spindle drones passed, their movements a scuttle and a float as they were propelled by their three insectile legs. Their cyclopean eyes scanned forwards, and they ignored the alcove.

  Silence fell. Grekh did not move from his position. The second threat was still growing.

  ‘What are we waiting for?’ Viktur hissed. ‘They’re gone?’ He pushed forwards.

  Grekh shoved him back. Viktur kept trying to assert authority. He made noises about wanting to lead the party, even though he did not know where they were going, or what he was doing. It was all just more posturing. Grekh had no patience for him.

  ‘How dare you touch me?’ Viktur said. ‘I’ll have your head.’

  ‘Do be quiet,’ said Buria.

  Grekh said nothing. If Viktur wanted to forge on ahead, abandon the party and remove himself from the shield of Grekh’s oath, then let him do it. Grekh would be happy to let him become the fortress’ prey. Much as he felt contempt for the human, though, Grekh had no wish to eat him. It would be bad meat, and full of lies.

  At least Viktur was stopping short of putting Grekh in the position of having to decide what the oath commanded – not harming any of party at the possible cost of losing them all, or killing one to save the rest.

  So far, the advance into the Blackstone Fortress was going well. They had avoided any skirmishes. When Grekh was on his own, the right kills could add to his knowledge of the structure. But when he was a guide, a successful mission was going in and out without disturbing the sleep of the great beast.

  ‘Why can’t we go?’ Viktur insisted.

  ‘Change,’ Grekh hissed. This was not something he should still have to explain.

  Dalkan understood. The priest moaned in fear. He was proving to be a different kind of problem. His muttered prayers had become more and more intense the further the party ventured into the fortress. Grekh wasn’t sure how much more the priest’s mind would be able to take. He was living a nightmare. That wasn’t good when one could not wake.

  The changes that convulsed the interior of the fortress had already happened a few times. Each time, Dalkan’s reality crumbled badly. But he was still mobile. He was not mad yet. He had done nothing to take him outside of Grekh’s protection, whether the priest wanted it or not.

  The change came. The corridor stretched wide, the opposite walls receding rapidly from the alcove. The great stalactites locked into their current positions, and then descended. Lorn clapped a hand over Dalkan’s mouth, muffling his wail. The colos
sal shapes came down like closing jaws. At the same time, the alcove rose. It passed the dropping stalactites fast enough to generate a violent gust of wind. The teeth almost ground together. For several moments, Grekh and his herd could see nothing but the crimson glow of the masses. Then the alcove jerked to a halt that knocked Dalkan to his knees.

  Where before the change the party had been moving through a long, narrow cavern, now Grekh looked upon a plateau. The ceiling was still invisible, concealed in blackness. The walls had vanished too. The stalactites had detached from the ceiling. Their bases formed broad surfaces separated by zigzag patterns of crevasses. There was still the red glow, and the gaps between surfaces were only a foot or so across. A careful leap, Grekh judged, was within the capabilities of every member of the herd.

  The question was the direction to take. They had risen at least a hundred feet in the last few seconds. The landscape had changed.

  Grekh turned to Buria. He had never seen what she had come to find. As long as she had a direction to go, he could take them down that road. This was the largest alteration of the fortress’ interior they had yet encountered, but Buria did not hesitate.

  ‘There,’ she said, pointing.

  There was no port or starboard, bow or stern inside the Blackstone Fortress. For Grekh, there was in, and there was out. Buria needed him to take her further in.

  He obeyed.

  They moved through the vastness of the chamber. They all felt exposed, but Grekh kept the pace steady and careful. Any of his herd that rushed would die. He made his charges pause at the edge of every crevasse, and focus entirely on their leap. It took half an hour before they finally saw another wall. It had a doorway canted at a strange angle.

  During the crossing, Grekh became uneasy. The fortress had not ­quieted as he had expected after the last upheaval. The sub-sensory hum continued. There was more change coming, and he couldn’t tell how close it would be, or when it would occur. The forces that were triggering his instincts were too vague. Or they were too broad.