I work upon my symphony using a polytonal synthesiser and an auto-wrack. The screams of the flayed humans mingle with the flurry of notes I improvise on the multiple keyboards, but it remains unsatisfactory.
Sileria comes to my chamber and I while away an hour teaching her the pleasures of obedience. I think in her heart of hearts she really desires to be a slave. It is often the secret fantasy of the strong. I make her confess as much under the pleasure lash. She sounds convincing, but it all may prove to be part of the role she has assumed. Sometimes, I see a look in her eyes that spells out the fact that she believes that one day I will assume her part. In this she is sadly deluded, but it hardly seems sensible to tell her this.
I study the maps of the world and order my warriors to strike almost at random. The idea is to keep the humans guessing, to let them project their own patterns on what they perceive, to make plans based on incorrect information and their own fears and prejudices. It will keep them tied down while my true plan unfolds. And, of course, it keeps my warriors sharp and blooded, and swells my coffers with the flesh of the slaves they take.
How much longer must I wait? The gate should open soon. Then we shall see what we shall see.
Chapter Three
Anton looked at the Fist of Demetrius where it lay in pride of place on a great marble slab of a table. He flexed his fingers experimentally and held up his hand in front of his face as if measuring its size against that of the ancient gauntlet. I could tell he was thinking about slipping his hand inside it. He was still that kind of idiot.
‘Don’t,’ I said.
He glanced around. We were alone with the Fist, back on the Lux Imperatoris, in the cluster of luxurious chambers surrounding Macharius’s own rooms. Ancient maps of a thousand systems decorated the walls. Captured banners and pennons spoke of hundreds of victories. Magnetic clamps held the Fist in position. Macharius seemed to like to contemplate it.
We were standing guard, just outside the main chamber. Inside, the inquisitor and the general discussed the next stage of the crusade or, for all I know, debated the finer points of Imperial theology. Of late, many small points of conflict had arisen between them. The ship was making its way to the transit point in preparation for the jump to Emperor’s Glory.
Ivan said, ‘You think this thing really dates from when the Emperor walked among men?’
‘How would Leo know?’ said Anton. ‘Even he’s not that old.’
I looked at it. Macharius and Drake had certainly treated it with reverence. It had that strange old-new look of archeotech, that lack of ageing that only the works of the ancients showed. ‘I don’t know. It looks old, though.’
‘You think it really belonged to Russ? That it might have been in the presence of the Emperor himself?’ There was a hunger in his voice that I recognised, a desire to experience the presence of the infinite, a wish to touch that which had once touched the divine. We are told to take so much on faith, but this might be a physical manifestation of that faith, an artefact of ancient times. Certainly Macharius thought so.
‘How would I know?’ I walked around it. It was a power gauntlet of some sort, made for someone larger than a man. I would have struggled to lift it with both hands. How could anyone have worn it? Maybe it had something in it that made it lighter or amplified the wearer’s strength when it was worn. Many of the weapons of the ancients were magical that way.
‘What does Macharius want it for?’ Anton was doing it to needle me, I felt certain, piling one seemingly naive question upon another, trying to provoke an answer.
‘Why don’t you go and ask him?’ I said. ‘Say you’re having trouble sleeping at night and you won’t be able to rest until you know. I am sure he will listen to you.’
‘There’s no need to be sarcastic.’
‘There’s every need to be sarcastic,’ I said.
Ivan pinged his metal jaw with his metal finger. His gaze went from his artificial hand to the Fist. He held his hand up, palm towards him, fingers spread. One by one, he moved his fingers; I heard the whine of servo-motors as he did so. He was looking at the moving rods and pistons visible in the joints of his hand. I looked at the Fist and saw that they were there, on a larger scale.
‘He’s been collecting a lot of this stuff,’ said Ivan. He was not looking at either of us. ‘Maybe he wants to start a museum or a collection of relics in the palace back on Emperor’s Glory.’
‘Maybe,’ said Anton. ‘But would he really risk his life just to add one more thing to his collection?’
‘Who knows why he risks his life?’ Ivan said. ‘I think sometimes he does it because he is bored.’
‘The idiot is right,’ I said. ‘He particularly wanted this one, and he wanted it now. He came here personally to supervise the attack on Demetrius. There was no need for that. He could have ordered it just as easily back on Emperor’s Glory.’
‘Maybe it has magical powers,’ Anton said. ‘They say many of these relics do – that they can heal the sick, cure the lame… smite daemons.’
Those last words hung in the air uncomfortably. None of us really wanted to be reminded of the daemons we had seen back on Karsk. And yet once again, I could not help but feel that Anton in his idiot way might have stumbled on something. Macharius had been amassing his trove of holy relics since that time. What he had seen in the Cathedral of the Flame had altered him. He had looked into the eyes of a greater daemon back there, something that would have broken the sanity of a lesser man.
Certainly since then Macharius had been changed inwardly if not outwardly. He had become more driven, and much more fanatical than the man we had followed across the treacherous, rebellious hives of Karsk.
‘You think he wants all these ancient holy artefacts so he can fight daemons when he meets them?’ Anton asked. He was looking from face to face now, like a child afraid of the dark seeking reassurance from his parents. The difference was that Anton knew there really were monsters out there in the night.
‘I don’t think that’s impossible,’ was all I could find to say. The doors to Macharius’s inner sanctum opened. Macharius emerged. ‘Best get ready to depart,’ he said. ‘We will soon be making the jump to Emperor’s Glory.’
I wondered if he somehow knew what we had been talking about.
We were in our stateroom when the signal for the jump was given. Warning lights started to flicker red then blue. Klaxons sounded one long blast then one short blast then one long blast. There was an interval of a few heartbeats before it started again.
‘Here we go,’ said Anton. He looked sickly. He had never liked warp jumps. I could hardly blame him for it, no sane man does. I looked out of the great stained armourglass porthole. Already a massive blast-shield was sliding into place over it, like the black disc that takes a bite out of a sun during a solar eclipse.
‘Interstellar jumps,’ said Ivan. ‘I hate them.’
‘You always say that,’ I said.
‘Because it’s always true,’ said Anton. He sounded nervous. It was the only time you were ever likely to hear him so. More even than Ivan he detested this part of space travel.
‘It never gets any easier,’ Ivan said. ‘How many jumps do you think we’ve made? Two hundred, two hundred and fifty?’
‘I’ve never counted,’ I said.
‘Me neither,’ said Anton.