“So you’re one of the new breed then?” he looked up as the door clicked shut behind her, an imperceptible hum signalling the re-engagement of the shields.
The cell was undeserving of the name, the word conjuring up, as it did, images of damp rockcrete walls, dingy lighting, heavy chains and the soft moans of desperate souls resigned to a short existence of deprivation and torture.
By contrast, she stood in the vestibule of what passed, at first glance, for a modest suite of small rooms, bright and well lit, with functional furnishings; all rounded edges and satin sheen. The only thing that made it remarkable were the windows of each room, which gave stunning, unimpeded views of the Imperial Palace, magnificent against the backdrop of the Himalazia mountains bathed in the early evening glow of Sol’s dying light.
They were all contrivances of course; no natural sunlight reached this deep into Terra’s battle-scarred crust, and the palace was still a battered hellscape despite three years of reclamation and rebuilding. The views were armoured screens relaying archived images from long before the siege, and the furnishings and fixtures were made entirely from a substance that shared its heritage with ceramite so that prisoners would find nothing breakable with which to end their own lives and spare their tortured ennui. Every square millimetre had been designed, constructed, and intended to induce compliance and complacency whilst ensuring the absolute impossibility of escape of any sort.
“Welcome! What is it they call you now, Interrogators?” The man’s brow furrowed, “No, that’s not right is it – That’s a rank designation. Inquisitor – That’s it! How barbarically grandiose…”
She said nothing, keeping her face a blank mask, just as she had been taught by her Ordo mentors.
“Well go on then; flash your badge or whatever they call it.”
“Rosette” she stated flatly, withdrawing a small leather case from her tunic and flipping it open to display the symbol of her new-found authority.
He leaned forward and gave a long, appreciative whistle, “Oh, that’s a pretty thing – I’m guessing gene-coded with the kind of data djinn that would make the Mechanicum froth in envy. And, if I’m not very much mistaken, that gem in the centre is also a single-charge, digital laser. Very nice and, given the pristine condition, very new I take it?”
She didn’t rise to the bait.
He applauded lightly, the small sound echoing flatly in the recycled air, “You know, I would’ve had one too if I’d moved in the right circles, rubbed shoulders with the likes of Sindermann or Gaumon, or even the late, lamented Malcador…”
She closed the case and secreted it back into her uniform, knocking loose the pendant they had given her as she did so.
“Ah, but that, by contrast, is a rather hateful thing,” the prisoner sat back and tutted disapprovingly, nodding at the small device, “So, they told you about my ‘charms’ then? I wonder, did they also tell you what that thing is made of?” he feigned a shudder and let out a disgusted grunt.
She stared him down, “Yes. And yes.”
“Oh, don’t look so worried. It’s not like I can wield it as an active skill. ‘Latent empathic ability’ they call it. All it means is that people like talking to me more than most.” He shrugged, “Useful in my previous line of work, but not exactly dangerous. And definitely not worthy of you clutching a null bone pendant like a Catheric rosary.” He looked away from her to the false view of the nearest screen, “So why are you here then?”
“I’d like you to talk to me.” she stated simply.
He snorted, eyebrows arching briefly, before letting out a disgruntled sigh, “Do you? Do you really? I mean, we both know that no-one is ever really going to hear what I have to say, which rather negates my entire reason for being.”
“I will hear it.”
“Yes, but will you learn from it?”
“Of course.”
He snorted derisively, “There’s only one thing you or anyone else needs to learn from all this, and trust me, none of you want to hear it.”
“And that would be?”
“That the Emperor is fallible.”
She took a step forward; he leaned back further and held up his hands, “Alright, alright – I promise to play nice as long as you don’t come too close with that thing. It might not do much to you, but it certainly gives me one hell of a headache…”
She took a small step backwards and folded her arms, “Start at the beginning.”
He gave a short bark of laughter and flashed a self-deprecating grin, “The beginning! My dear, as young as you appear to be, I don’t think even you have that long…”
She cut him off, “Start with your commission as a Remembrancer.”
His face clouded and the smile withered on his lips, “Not even going to attempt to charm it out of me then? Fine.” He scowled at her, “I was a writer, a documentarist assigned to the mighty 14th Legiones Astartes, the Dusk Raiders as was, back in ‘99, shipping out with the first expeditionary fleets at the beginning of the Emperor’s Great Crusade…”
“To clarify, you mean 799.M30. Nearly 220 standard years ago.” The incredulity was implied despite the even tone of her voice.
“I know, and I don’t even look a day over 40 standard…” he gave her a sidelong smile that, in any other setting, would have been described as ‘raffish’.
“You would have me believe that you managed to pass yourself off as a Remembrancer, in a Legiones Astartes expeditionary fleet, for over a century and a half, without anyone becoming even remotely suspicious?”
“Ah, you see that’s the great thing about the Astartes – When you’re a near-immortal, transhuman killing machine you kind of lose touch with the mortal norms. Far too easy to forget that most humans can’t live past 80 standard without augmetics or juvenat treatments, neither of which I was ever going to afford. We just blend into the background to them. I also made sure I was mediocre enough not to garner too much attention elsewhere.”
“Say I believe you…”
“Oh please, we both know you do – You’ll have done your research, recovered from whatever’s left. It’s not like I went to that much trouble to cover my tracks. As I say, transhumans; worst possible judges of age. It’s why you’re really here – I can fill in the blanks that you can’t. The Rangdan Xenocides, the two no-one, and I mean no-one, ever speaks about. All the rest of it that’s been lost to the flames or hidden by other branches of your paranoid kin. You want as complete a record as possible, even if no-one will ever be allowed to see it.”
“Continue…”
“Well what is it you actually want to know? I mean, there is quite a lot to get through: I spent the next dozen or so decades attached to what would become the 4th ‘Great Company’ after that bastard Mortarion took over.” His voice became quieter, face sinking into a sullen, unattractive cast, “That’s where it all went wrong you know. That’s where the real problem lies. That’s why they’re all dead…”
“What problem?”
“The Primarchs. They’re the real reason it all went to shit. Worst thing that ever happened to the legions. I’ll never forgive him for that…”
“Forgive who? The Emperor? Horus?”
“No. Mortarion. Odious little bastard.” he looked up at her, “You know just before he arrived they were truly glorious. I mean you cannot begin to imagine. I know your archives show them in either the early storm-grey livery of Unification or the off-white and green of Barbarus, but there was a sliver, just a sliver mind, a small chunk of time in between where they were still the Dusk Raiders, still masters of their own destinies, exemplars of the Imperial ideal resplendent in white, gold and red. You should have seen them…”
He sighed, “They’re all dead now of course, Temeter and the others.”
“There has never been an accurate tally of the…”
He cut her off, “Oh please, you’re not the first one to visit me and we both know the only thing that you people barter with is information. I’m never going to see the light of day, and solid food would require utensils that I might use to kill myself. Absurd that you trade in the one thing that you’ll go to any lengths to stop anyone else having. So I know. Don’t insult me by saying otherwise. The ones that have come before you showed me the records. I know your lot have already scoured the killing fields of Istvaan III and recovered the idents from every scrap of warplate you could find. Pieced together every fragment of data. Hell, there isn’t a nanosecond of that horror you don’t know.”
“Your point?” she said coldly.
“They were my friends damn it, as much as any man can call one of them friends. So of course, I will quite happily talk to you, I will tell you about my good and dear friend, Ullis Temeter, or the redoubtable Huron-Fal, I will tell you about the glorious battles of the 4th, about the Dusk Raiders as they were and should have been. And then, when you’ve allowed me to pour out all that knowledge and indulged my sorrows, I’ll reward your efforts by telling you what you really came here to know…”
He watched her tense, eyes narrowing, an ugly, predatory gaze replacing the previous non-committal demeanour, “You’ll tell me everything you know about the Black Shields and the rogue knight you escaped with: These ‘Contritum’ and the so-called, ‘Woe-Waif’.”
“Yes, I’ll tell you about them, you won’t listen, and your accursed ‘Scouring’ would be better spent searching for other prey, but I will tell you…”