The Absolution of Swords - John French Read online

  He limped on to the arch, before turning and looking back. Koleg stood where he had been before, face unreadable in the light of the cooling fire.

  ‘Are you coming?’ asked Cleander. After a second Koleg gave a nod and followed him.

  IX

  Gul turned his head, blinking at the sunlight. Blue sky curved in a dome above him. The chair beneath him was carved from driftwood. Slabs of smooth stone ran away from him until they met the sea. Waves lapped against the stone edge, sending spray into the air to cool the warm breeze. Beyond that, the sea was a wide band of deeper blue beneath the sky. He knew where he was, knew that if he looked behind him he would see the tower of Solar Truth rising from the land like a shard of broken glass. He also did not know how he could be there. It had been three decades since he had last been in this place, since he had left his home to follow his faith. He turned to look behind him.

  ‘This is very pleasant,’ said a voice in front of him.

  His head snapped around. A woman sat in front of him. At a glance she looked young. Red hair rose in the wind around a slim face. Her eyes were dark, her mouth tilted in a smirk. A silver carafe and two crystal goblets of amber wine sat on a stone table between them. He noticed that the goblet nearest the woman was almost empty, as though she had been drinking from it for a while. The green silk of her robe shimmered in the sunlight as she picked up the goblet and brought it to her lips.

  ‘Try it,’ she said. ‘It is worth it.’

  Gul frowned. Memories of the chapel on Dominicus Prime pushed into his thoughts, the flash of gunfire, and the sound of screams rose, but they seemed distant, unconnected to him and unimportant.

  He picked up the goblet and took a sip.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ he breathed. ‘They never let this vintage out of the arch-prior’s personal cellar.’

  ‘Oh, we have the means to get almost anything we like,’ said the woman. ‘But in this case I got it from you, Aristas.’ He looked up at the sound of his first name. The woman smiled, and gestured at the sea and sky around them. ‘Just like I got all of this from you.’

  Gul stared at her.

  ‘Who–?’

  ‘You can call me Mylasa,’ she said before he could finish the question. ‘Do you like it? It was one of the few places in your head that you remember with happiness. Seemed like a good place for you to have this moment. Shame it could not be longer, really.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I – or should I say we, because what is life but not being able to do anything without it being at someone else’s bidding – have just searched your mind, prior. I have stripped down all of the memories I could find, and where I needed your help, I have inflicted pain and nightmares on you until you told me – there I go again, of course I mean us – until you told us everything we needed to know.’

  Memories came into focus in his head.

  ‘Covenant...’ he breathed. ‘You are with the inquisitor.’

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded, and took a sip of her wine. ‘And before you ask, the pain and the screaming are over. We are done. You are done. I removed the memories of what I did. This is a... oh, I don’t know... a gift, a kindness to ease my torturer’s soul.’ Mylasa put her goblet down on the table, filled it again, and took a gulp, then sighed.

  ‘If you have inflicted pain on me, but I cannot remember it, then what is to be my true punishment?’

  ‘You are a heretic, prior, but you are not an evil man. There is actually a difference, but don’t tell anyone. You are just a fool and very unlucky.’ She looked over her shoulder at the waves rolling across the sea.

  ‘So the chapel, Lumn, Covenant, it all happened?’

  ‘Some time ago, in fact,’ said Mylasa. ‘It took a while to make sure that we had every detail of what you knew.’

  ‘The Tenth Path...’ he said. ‘I had no idea. I don’t even...’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But innocence proves nothing, as someone very perceptive once pointed out. You were used, prior, and so you suffer.’

  ‘By the man who came to me before,’ he said, ‘by the man who claimed to be an inquisitor.’

  ‘Oh, he was an inquisitor,’ she said, and he noticed that the smirk had gone from her lips. ‘Inquisitor Goldoran Talicto, in fact – Scion of Gorgonate Collegium, Scourge of the Nine Stars of Nix.’

  ‘But...’

  ‘There are truths in the universe, prior, truths so big that to know them is death or madness. The first truth is that every whisper of daemons that thirst for souls and torment – those whispers are just a shadow of the greater truth. There are creatures that wish to enslave mankind, creatures so powerful that it is easiest to call them gods and their avatars, daemons. To know this truth is to be condemned to death, prior.’

  Gul felt cold prickle his skin despite the warmth of the sun.

  ‘How can that be true?’

  Mylasa continued as though she had not heard his question. ‘The second great truth is that those who are meant to protect us from such forces are divided as much as they are united. And sometimes – once upon a blessed rare age – one of them falls to something worse than divergent opinion. They become a slave to their own view of mankind’s salvation.’

  ‘And Inquisitor Talicto is one such–’

  ‘He used you to protect one of his projects. The Tenth Path were sheltering and nurturing a psyker that they had bonded to a host that acted as a conduit for the... things from the warp. It was crude, and luckily was largely a failure.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ he said.

  ‘We know, and we know everything that you did to protect the Tenth Path. Those details will help us to condemn Talicto in the sight of his peers.’ She raised her goblet as though in a toast. ‘You have served the Emperor well.’

  ‘Is that why you are talking to me?’ he asked. ‘As thanks from Covenant?’

  She laughed, covering her mouth as though choking on her wine.

  ‘No, I am doing this myself. Covenant would tell you none of this.’

  ‘But why tell me anything?’ he asked.

  ‘Because if you know secrets, sometimes it is good to tell someone who will never be able to break your trust.’

  Gul frowned. He was feeling dizzy. The sun was warm on his skin. He could smell the salt spray from the sea.

  ‘And what is this? A dream? An illusion?’

  Mylasa looked at him for a long moment, and then stood, turning away to face the sea.

  ‘Drink the wine,’ she said. ‘It is really very good.’

  X

  It is done,+ said Mylasa. Cleander flinched at the sound of the psyker’s thought-voice. He would really rather have not been there, but Covenant had insisted that they all gather in the cell where they had been keeping Prior Prefectus Gul in the weeks since Dominicus Prime.

  Cleander glanced at his sister on the other side of the room, but Viola was looking at Covenant, her face emotionless beneath the plaited ivory of her hair. Covenant himself stood at the foot of the slab, robed in grey. Josef stood next to him, the preacher’s face mottled with fading bruises, a servitor hovering above his shoulder, gently pulsing blood into his neck through transparent tubes. That Josef was alive at all was a miracle, but perhaps that was the benefit of piety. Koleg leant against the wall to the side, posture and face utterly unreadable. Severita knelt to the side of the prior, the hilt of her sword clasped between her hands, head bowed. The low sound of the ship’s engines rumbled through the quiet. They were all waiting, he realised.

  ‘He’s dead?’ asked Josef, eyes on the body of the prior shackled to the steel slab.

  Yes,+ replied Mylasa. Cleander looked at her reflexively, and then turned away, with a wince. Metal encircled the psyker’s neck and head. Bulbous tubes hissed steam into the air, and bundles of wires snaked between blisters of chrome. Her face sat in the mass of machine
ry like a strangled pearl. Withered limbs hung from the machinery like the mane of a jellyfish, hovering just above the ground. Static crackled around her in oily flashes.

  ‘One less for the edge of your sword, Severita,’ said Cleander, hearing the hollow sneer in his voice. The penitent sister did not bother to look up from her prayers. ‘Was he expecting another form of forgiveness, I wonder?’

  He died without pain, and with a memory of kinder times,+ said Mylasa. +In this age that is absolution enough.+

  ‘Something for us all to aspire to,’ snorted Cleander.

  ‘We have what we need,’ said Covenant. Every eye in the chamber moved to him. He was still looking at the body of the prior. ‘A conclave of war has been called on Ero. Talicto will be there. And there will be a reckoning.’ He looked up, eyes moving slowly over each of them around the slab, and then turned and walked away. The others followed after a second. Cleander lingered, looking down at the dead heretic.

  ‘A kindness...’ he muttered, and snorted. ‘I think I would rather take the cruelty of life.’ He shifted the eyepatch over his empty socket and walked away, leaving the dead to silence.

  About the Author

  John French has written several Horus Heresy stories including the novels Praetorian of Dorn and Tallarn: Ironclad, the novellas Tallarn: Executioner and The Crimson Fist, and the audio dramas Templar and Warmaster. He is the author of the Ahriman series, which includes the novels Ahriman: Exile, Ahriman: Sorcerer and Ahriman: Unchanged, plus a number of related short stories collected in Ahriman: Exodus. For The Horusian Wars, he has written ‘The Absolution of Swords’, ‘The Purity of Ignorance’ and ‘The Maiden of the Dream’. Additionally for the Warhammer 40,000 universe he has written the Space Marine Battles novella Fateweaver, plus many short stories. He lives and works in Nottingham, UK.

  Inquisitor Covenant must hunt down the daemon at the heart of a planetary conspiracy, but how high a price will he and his team pay to defeat the evil, and are they even aware what the cost of success will be?

  A Black Library Publication

  Published in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd,

  Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

  Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

  Cover illustration by Clint Langley.

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  ISBN: 978-1-78572-668-2

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