Divination - John French Read online

  Mylasa felt her rage and grief flow out. There was no divide between her and the dreams now. They were here, in the waking world.

  ‘We have to protect her,’ Mylasa’s father had once said when he thought she was asleep. ‘She is… different. And they will come for her one day if we don’t keep what she can do hidden.’

  She had seen the fear in her father’s eyes as he died, and heard his whispered plea to her sister.

  ‘Keep her safe. Please keep her safe.’

  She had heard the overseers preach about the dangers of witches, and known that the warnings were about her. This moment was always going to come. She had not needed the dreams to tell her that. And tonight it had.

  Another figure stepped through the ruin of the door, taller than the others, grey-armoured, face bare above the silver smile of its mask. Mylasa felt grief and rage rise through her and pour from her mind into the world. The air ignited. The metal of the walls blackened with heat. The stacked cloths, blanket and mattress became flame and smoke. The burning wave tore towards the grey-armoured figure…

  And drained into cold nothingness. Mylasa staggered, limbs shaking, terror suddenly taking the place of rage in her heart. She felt her fear trying to pull apart and remake the world into a place where the figure in dark grey was not walking forwards, silver sword held low, eyes unblinking. There was nothing behind that stare, just an abyss, which fell away into a darkness deeper than night. For the first time in her life Mylasa felt her thoughts pound against the inside of her skull, screaming at a universe that would not change, that was as cruel as a sword edge. She thought of her father, who had wanted to spare her this. She thought of her sister, dead in the corner of the room. She thought that she had never asked for this.

  She crumpled to the soot-covered floor, scrabbling backwards, skin burning on the hot metal.

  The figure advanced.

  ‘Why…’ moaned Mylasa Ilk. ‘Please, why?’

  It raised its hand, but it was not the hand that held the sword. A heavy circulate of chrome and polished spikes glinted in the figure’s grasp. Vials of liquid gleamed like jewels on its circumference.

  The figure stopped. Mylasa waited.

  ‘Why?’ she asked one last time.

  ‘Because this is not you either, girl,’ said the figure in a voice she had heard before but did not recognise. ‘Because it was not you curled on the floor of a hab when the hunters of the Black Ships came. Her name was Ilk and she had no other name. After this moment she became one of the thousands sent to Terra to burn so that the Emperor can live.’

  Mylasa stood, looking around her at the still tableau of the hab room.

  ‘I met her on the Black Ship…’ she said carefully as understanding crept through her. This was not her memory. It belonged to someone else.

  She turned to look at the figure on the floor where she had just been. Wide eyes looked up at her from a soot- and tear-streaked face, but the gaze was frozen and unseeing.

  ‘I met her only once. We were put in a cell together, two frightened girls, huddled together in the dark. The null fields must have failed because in the dark I found that I was not alone. Our minds touched. I knew her for what? A minute? An hour? Not much, but enough.’ She paused, and looked back at the witch-seeker who was not a witch-seeker. ‘Enough to remember a life.’

  ‘And who are you?’

  ‘I…’ she began, but the figure moved before she could speak.

  ‘You are not ready to answer yet.’

  And he raised the spiked circulate and pressed it down on her skull. The spikes bored in. Drug injectors thumped, and Mylasa arched her back and opened her mouth to scream as the world vanished again.

  ‘You test her for memories?’ said Josef. ‘But everyone remembers.’ He could feel his frown creasing his face. He was sweating profusely now. The air in the observation room had become close and humid as Mylasa and her examiner filled the cell beneath with ice and static.

  The woman in grey armour did not answer him at first, and he noticed her mouth pinch tight at his question.

  ‘We test for memories of a certain kind,’ she said at last. ‘Not the memories that pile up from living – we look for the deepest memories, the memories that make us who we are, that come to us in dreams and nightmares, and in hope and despair.’

  ‘And you, what? You test these memories for corruption?’

  ‘No,’ said the woman carefully. ‘We test to make sure that those memories are absent.’

  ‘But–’ he began to growl, seeing the horror implied in that explanation.

  ‘She is an eater of lives, preacher. She swallows thoughts, and memories and dreams, and to do that, and remain pure, requires that she have no true core, no real self, no deep memories to rise unbidden from the dark as she wades through the filth of another mind.’

  ‘You did that to her?’

  ‘That is how the Scholars of Nepenthe make their sons and daughters,’ she paused, and Josef thought he saw a brief smile of pride on the woman’s face as she looked at Mylasa. Scabs of frozen blood clung to her floating form. ‘Most telepaths are not strong enough for the process. Most of those that are strong enough die anyway.’

  ‘But not her,’ said Josef.

  ‘Not her,’ said the woman. ‘She has strength.’

  ‘But you test her anyway.’

  ‘The fortress that crumbles may have stood against every enemy until the last.’

  ‘How profound,’ he said.

  Mylasa Verrun gave a lopsided smile, knocked the glass of blue spirit back, and then – slowly, because she was not entirely sure that her hands were following her mind’s commands – turned the glass upside down and put it on the top of the major-domo’s head. Disappointingly the man did not even blink.

  ‘No,’ she said, and smiled wider. Behind her the cluster of her friends lounging on the dustsheet-covered furniture giggled. The major-domo reached up and carefully took the glass from his head. A film of sticky blue liquid clung to his shaved scalp. She wondered how the man would react if she licked a finger and wiped it from his skin. She was very tempted to try it and find out.

  ‘Your mother…’ began the major-domo carefully.

  ‘Whatever the walking corpse has sent you to say, the answer is still…’ she reached out and picked up another glass of spirit from a table, and raised it to her lips ‘…no.’

  ‘Your mother has sent me to inform you that your second sister has returned.’

  Mylasa blinked, and lowered the glass from her lips.

  ‘Cordia…’ she said. ‘She is back?’

  The major-domo nodded once, the high collar of his stiff black-and-gold uniform creaking at the movement.

  She put the glass back on the table.

  ‘Take me to her,’ she said. The major-domo nodded again, turned and began to move towards the doors out of the unused staterooms that Mylasa had commandeered for her experiment with the family liquor stores. She followed him, ignoring the calls of disappointment from her friends.

  They passed through the corridors of the manse towards the east wing. Candles floated on suspensor discs beneath the high ceilings. Grim faces looked down from painted walls. Dust rose from the dark red rugs under their feet.

  She had not seen her sister for two years. Cordia was supposed to be learning the void trade on one of the family’s chartered merchant ships. Of all Mylasa’s siblings and half-siblings, Cordia was the only one who had ever been genuinely kind to her. She was the only member of the family whom Mylasa thought of as worthy of the word. If Cordia was back that would mean having someone other than her vacuous supposed friends to talk to. It would mean…

  Wait… wait… not until she is past… and then quickly…

  Mylasa stopped. She blinked, looking around for a voice that she was sure had spoken just behind her left shoulder.


  The major-domo paused and looked back at her. She stared at him, eyes darting around her, sweat prickling her skin.

  ‘Mistress?’ he said. ‘If we could hurry, your mother was most insistent.’

  In her head she felt facts and inconsistencies poke through the fog of alcohol and excitement. Why was Cordia back now? How could she be back now? Why would her mother send for her to see Cordia? The old witch would have taken greater pleasure in keeping Mylasa in the dark than inviting her to greet her sister. Why were they going into the old east wing, rather than the central manse? Why…

  ‘Mistress…’

  The walls were shimmering. The candlelight dimmed in her eyes. ­Echoes filled her ears. The world was looming over her. Shadows coiled around the major-domo. Mylasa shrank back from him. He stepped towards her.

  ‘Follow me, mistress,’ he said.

  His eyes were smudges of fire in her sight that was suddenly like that of a nightmare. Somehow she could see the dagger in his sleeve, and feel the eyes of the figures in the shadows waiting for her to take another step.

  ‘No…’ she said, and took a step backwards.

  The major-domo leapt at her, tugging the knife free of his sleeve. A high guttural word tore from his lips. Figures charged from further down the corridor. Mylasa jerked back as the major-domo’s dagger slashed past her. She was no fighter, but neither was he. She kicked him the only way she knew how, as though he was a door that needed breaking down. He staggered. She turned to run the way she had come. Figures were running down the corridor towards her. Even through the fever smear of this living nightmare, she could recognise servant uniforms. Twisted silver masks hid their faces. Screams followed them. All of them had knives. Snakes coiled down the serrated blades.

  In a lightning flash of insight she knew. A serpent had coiled through her family while Mylasa had been sulking and drowning her youth. Her mother had made the family into something monstrous, and now was trimming away any imperfection in what she had created.

  The wall three paces behind her blew inwards.

  A dust-clogged shockwave picked Mylasa up and slammed her into the opposite wall. Pain ripped the nightmare veil from her eyes. She coughed as dust filled her throat. A cluster of figures in servant uniforms and silver masks came out of the rolling cloud of smoke. Silver edges glinted with murder.

  The nearest masked figure exploded. The detonation spread crimson through the air. Bolt rounds shrieked past. The sound was deafening. Blood and shrapnel tore the world apart around her. Two figures advanced out of the breach in the wall. They fired, moving with tight efficiency. Muzzle flare glinted from burnished steel plates as the lead figure braced and sent a stream of shells into the masked servants. He was bareheaded, a grey beard framing a hawk-like face. The dirty light gleamed off the bronze tri-barred ‘I’ on his breastplate.

  An inquisitor, she thought.

  The figure turned and looked towards where she lay at the base of the wall. She tried to move, but there was the taste of copper in her breaths and a sharp grinding pain in her legs. The inquisitor stepped towards her, dark eyes meeting her gaze. The gunfire ceased, and ringing silence filled the corridor.

  ‘Covenant,’ said the man, and the second man who had come through the breach moved closer. This one was younger, and his features held an intensity that robbed them of some of their handsomeness. He wore armour that reminded her of the pict images she had seen of elite soldiers of the Astra Militarum. The gun in his hands had the blunt shape of something designed without a veneer of art to hide its purpose. ‘This one is alive,’ said the inquisitor. ‘Signal Orsino to send a gunship and medicae. You are responsible for this one. I want her to live.’

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ said the young man called Covenant, and turned away, talking into a vox bead.

  ‘I…’ she began, forcing the words from herself. ‘I do not know anything. I have nothing that I can tell you.’

  The inquisitor’s gaze bored into Mylasa.

  Perhaps,+ said a voice in her head. +But you are more than you seem, aren’t you?+

  ‘I…’

  The drifting cloud of dust froze. The inquisitor’s face became a sculpture.

  The figure of the young Covenant shook himself, and turned back towards Mylasa. He looked at the inquisitor’s still face, and shook his head.

  ‘This is not even a real memory is it?’ he said. ‘It is based on bits of one of Inquisitor Covenant’s memories of Inquisitor Argento, and the moment that his master found the girl who would become Covenant’s fellow apprentice and later inquisitor. Her name was Idris, not Mylasa, wasn’t it? And this dream is something you built from what? Those few recollections of Covenant’s and your own imagination?’

  Mylasa shook her head.

  ‘It is a real memory,’ said Mylasa, standing, the idea of pain and injury falling from her. Her clothes shimmered to green silk, and her hair grew, and turned to burnished copper. ‘It was Idris’ memory of the moment she met Covenant and Argento. She once shared it with me, back when she and Covenant still worked together. She was a telepath too. This memory was of the moment her family ceased to exist, and also the moment when she was saved. Without it, what would have happened to her? The Black Ships? Would she have become fuel for the Golden Throne? Would she have become like me?’ Mylasa stopped, shivered and reached out a hand to run it through the frozen smoke cloud as though dipping it into a pool of water.

  ‘The memory of an inquisitor?’ said the man wearing the dream form of Covenant. ‘You are honoured, it seems.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No, not really.’ She looked around her, blinking. ‘This didn’t end well. Not for any of them. It just took time to reach that end.’ She dropped her hand to her side, and let out a breath. ‘Come on, let’s be done with this. I am tired of dreaming.’

  ‘As you wish,’ said the man, and the image of smoke and people came apart.

  Mylasa fell and she knew that she would fall through countless more dreams of stolen lives until she reached the bottom. Until she could fall no further.

  She thought she heard the voice of Josef, speaking close by, yet far away.

  ‘Why must she not remember her past?’

  ‘Because she must be nothing,’ said a woman’s voice in answer. ‘And what is a person but what they remember?’

  ‘So you took everything from her?’

  And on Mylasa fell towards the infinity of lives that waited beneath her.

  ‘It was the only kindness we could give her.’

  Mylasa opened her eyes. Snow covered the ground beneath her feet. Above her the bare branches of a tree reached up to the light of a full moon, glinting silver with frost. The hills she stood on fell smoothly away, rolling towards the edge of the sky in soft, white folds. The air was sharp with cold. Somewhere, far off, a night-raptor took wing with a cry.

  ‘Mylasa…’ The voice behind her brought a smile to her lips that did not reach her eyes. She pulled the green velvet of her coat closer. The white fur collar pressed against her cheeks. She let out a breath, shivered and jumped slightly, trying to shake some heat into her skin.

  ‘You would have thought that I would have picked a dream that was a little warmer.’

  ‘You like the cold,’ said the voice.

  ‘True,’ she said.

  The man stepped up beside her. His face was slim, the features fine. A smile hung on his lips as he looked up at the frosted tree. He wore a black coat with silver buttons, but his hands were bare. He pressed them together and breathed between the palms. Mylasa glanced at him. He looked young apart from his eyes.

  ‘Where is this?’ he asked.

  She shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know. I have never seen it before.’

  ‘A construct then,’ he said. ‘The tree you once saw on a forest world, the cold from the memory of winter?’


  ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘I honestly don’t know.’

  ‘Something from your childhood…?’

  She gave a brittle laugh.

  ‘Is that what you think? That this is the last piece of personal memory that I keep at the heart of my soul? The lost jewel of who I was before I became what I am?’ She snorted. ‘No, even if it is something from my past, it doesn’t belong to me now.’

  ‘You could be lying…’

  ‘You are a telepath who has just spent a lot of effort digging through my subconscious,’ she said, ‘you tell me.’

  He smiled at her, and there was sincerity in his expression

  ‘A fair point,’ he said. They both turned to look at the silent snowscape.

  In the quiet, she could hear the rustle of the frost thickening on the branches above her.

  ‘Is that it then?’ she asked. ‘You are satisfied that I am free of the taint of self?’

  He turned and looked at her, his eyes moving over the stolen features that she wore in her dreams: the green fabric, the red hair, the knowing smile in a slim face, all the tiny details of a person taken from hundreds of other peoples’ memories.

  ‘There remains only the question – who are you, Mylasa?’

  A heartbeat passed, and she wondered how long all this had taken in the waking world: A second? An hour? A lifetime?

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  He nodded, and raised his hand. Light split the palm.

  ‘Good,’ he said.

  And the snow and night became gossamer thin, and beyond it she could see an image of a steel and glass cell in a world that was not a dream.