The chubby one, Prael, fancied himself as something of an authority on everything, but in reality he was an abrasive personality, self-important and priggish. Mendacs doubted that the others seated around the table would have spent any time with him, had this not been a small town where they couldn’t avoid his company and the reactions any snub might create. The dour man, Kyyter, almost licked his lips to see the coin; but the youth, his son, showed a very different kind of greed. Mendacs could see the boy was withdrawn among the men, and starved for anything of interest.
They were chatting amiably now, like good friends known for years and years. It was a gift, to be able to read people as he could. As easy as breathing, Mendacs was deft at drawing others into what seemed like polite, casual conversation. The fact was, people liked to talk about themselves, and they would often do so if only one would give them opportunity and impetus.
Only the boy kept probing at him; and after a while, Mendacs knew it was time to give up a little of his own mystery.
‘I’m travelling the outer colonies all across the Dominion of Storms,’ he explained. ‘I’m a remembrancer.’ He glanced at the youth. ‘Do you know that term, Leon?’
He got a vigorous nod in return. ‘You’re creating artworks for the Administratum. Documenting the glory of the Imperium.’
‘The glory?’ said Ames, with a half-smirk that didn’t mask the true acid beneath it. ‘There’s not much of that hereabouts, I’ll mark you.’
‘Respectfully, I disagree,’ said Mendacs. ‘The golden oceans of grain, the perfect blue of your skies… Oh, sir, there is beauty here. And it would do well for those who walk the halls of Terra to know of it.’
‘You… You have been to Terra?’ Leon asked, awed by the idea.
Mendacs knew he had the youth then. ‘My young friend, I was born there.’
‘Is that so?’ said Prael. ‘Is it like they say?’
He gave a solemn nod, building the drama of the moment. ‘It is all that and more, Esquire Prael.’
‘C–can you tell us about… it?’ Leon leaned forwards intently, hanging on his every word.
‘About what?’
‘About all of it!’ The youth’s excitement crackled. ‘I’ve always wanted to see the Sol system!’
Mendacs gave the boy an indulgent smile, and a worldly, inclusive nod to the other men. ‘I plan to stay here a while. I’m sure I could tell you a few things.’
Behind him, the tavern door opened, and the room fell silent again for a brief instant. Mendacs turned to see a severe-looking man in a mandarin cap and grey robes striding across the floor. People began to turn their chairs out to face him as he crossed to the bar.
‘Oren Yacio,’ explained Ames. ‘He’s the telegraphist here. Brings the regular weekly news broadcast from the wires.’
‘It’s a good place to play it,’ Prael noted. ‘We don’t have wires to individual houses here, like they do in Two-Six or the capital. Anyhow, not like there’s anywhere else for folks to spend an evening hereabouts, neh?’
‘Interesting.’ Mendacs watched as Yacio fed a fat data spool into a console near the bar.
The telegraphist cleared his throat. ‘On this day, news from the core reaches the agricultural colony of Virger-Mos II. This is Terra calling.’ He pressed a control with a flourish, and from hidden speakers in the ceiling, a synthetic-sounding voice began to speak.
Along with everyone else, Mendacs sat silently and listened to the steady stream of pro-Imperial propaganda. All is well. The turncoat Warmaster is being beaten back. There are victories at Calth and Mertiol and Signus Prime. You have nothing to fear. The Emperor will be victorious.
He smiled as he watched them listen, and in a little way he was disappointed. He wouldn’t be challenged here. This would be as simple as all the others.
AFTER THE SPOOL was concluded, the conversation went on about the contents of the broadcast, and Mendacs saw the nothings and the disinformation taken in by everyone in the tavern as if it were the word of unquestioned truth. He feigned fatigue, and it was then Ames made mention that he had rooms to rent. A couple more gold Thrones sealed the deal, and the cheerless man ordered his son to escort the remembrancer back to the dormitory house.
Leon almost fell over himself in eagerness to carry Mendacs’s baggage, and together the pair of them walked back along the mainway. Night had drawn close in the meantime, and the air was crisp and cold.
‘Just you and your father here, then?’ he asked.
The youth nodded. ‘The blackcough took my Ma a couple of seasons back.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Thanks.’ Leon’s head bobbed. He didn’t want to dwell on that. ‘Where in Terra where you born? Was it Merica, or Hy-Brasil? Bania?’
‘Do you know the Atalantic ranges? I grew up in a town a bit like this one, although the landscape was quite different.’ It was an infrequent truth in his arsenal of lies, but then such details always served as the bedrock of a firm legend.
‘I do, I do!’ Leon talked about the great plains of the long-dead ocean and the mountains that bisected it, with the enthusiasm of a devotee. He repeated rote descriptions, and Mendacs imagined that the boy was recalling the pages of pict-books he had read a hundred times over. He began a steady bombardment of questions that carried them all the way down the street. Had Mendacs ever been to Luna? The Petitioner’s City? What was it like to look upon the Imperial Palace? Had he ever seen a Space Marine?
‘I’ve been in the presence of the Legiones Astartes, more than once.’ A primarch, too, although that fact he kept to himself. ‘They’re like gods of war made of flesh and metal. Terrible and beautiful.’
Leon let out an awed, hushed breath. ‘I should like to see them too.’
‘Are you certain of that?’ Mendacs asked, as they entered the dormitory house. ‘Where they walk, only war follows. It is what they are made for.’ The boy would be his barometer, he decided. Through him, he would be able to take the measure of the mood of the community, and by extension, the entire colony.
The youth swallowed hard. ‘I’ve read much about them. I wonder…’ He caught himself and stopped, halting by the door to the guest room.
‘Wonder what?’ Mendacs asked, as he took the key rod from Leon’s outstretched hand.
Leon took a deep breath. ‘How can they fight each other? Brother against brother? It makes no sense!’
‘It does to Horus Lupercal.’
The name actually made the boy flinch. ‘How?’ he repeated. ‘What madness sunders the Legions and makes them attack one another? More than two solar years now, and the conflict rages on with no end in sight. Even out here, word of the war is never far away.’ He shook his head. ‘The holocaust of Isstvan and all that followed could only be the work of one turned insane!’
Mendacs took his bags and entered the room. ‘I would not even try to guess,’ he said. ‘Don’t try to map the thoughts and ways of men to the Legiones Astartes, Leon. They are not like us.’ Unbidden, a note of rare, honest awe crept into his voice. ‘They are an order of magnitude beyond our crude humanity.’
HE CLOSED THE door to the room and stood in silence, listening until he was sure the boy was gone. Then he spent another hour moving around the suite by lamplight with an auspex in his hand, letting the device sniff the air for electromagnetic waves, thermal patterns or anything else that might indicate the presence of a listening device. Mendacs knew he would find nothing, but it was good tradecraft to make the sweep. The habits of espionage were what kept his kind alive, in the end.
He placed his baggage and clothes, settling himself in the room. It was actually better accommodation than he was expecting, modest but comfortable. He recognised the old touches of a woman’s hand, now ill-cared for. A remnant of the dead mother’s influence.