‘You are guilty,’ said the pariah.
A beam of blackness cut across Anwar’s spirit sight and connected with his forehead. For the first time in his life, he was truly blind. All good sensation was driven out of him, leaving nothing but the pain as his soul was pulled slowly from his body, singing like a raw, stretched nerve.
With his mouth, and with his mind, Anwar screamed. His last psychic shout blasted out from the chapel, stunning everyone it touched for five hundred metres in every direction.
His soul dissipated into nothing. The Culexus shut off her animus speculum. Anwar’s body fell to the ground alive, but Abdulias Anwar had found a fate far worse than death.
By the time his aides and guards reached the chapel, the Culexus Assassin had long gone. She had another psyker to visit that night.
The Navigators’ Quarter was a world distinct from the rest of Terra. Though it was surrounded by the hives of standard humans, it was walled off from them absolutely. To be apart was the condition of the Navigators, on a starship or on the ground. Within the Quarter’s walls were the greatest palaces in the human galaxy, but no normal man might visit these gilded prisons for the Navis Nobilite.
From his lighter, Helad Gibran looked glumly down over the soaring spires of the Navigatorial estates, each house attempting to outdo the other with the height and splendour of its demesne. Glittering pinnacles and gardens were cut through by broad waterways and lakes protected from the polluted air of Terra by ornate domes. Near the centre was the greatest edifice of all, the Paternoval Palace. Currently in possession of House Gibran. It was all so beautiful, so excessive and so claustrophobic.
The lighter pilot zeroed in on the main docking hall of the Paternoval Palace. Its outrageously decorated spires soared overhead, embracing Gibran in their shadows. He shuddered. Gibran was not pleased to be home.
After they landed he rushed through the ritual greeting offered him by House Gibran servants in the hangar, and hurried to a mechalandau. He instructed its simple machine-spirit to take him to his private quarters as quickly as possible.
‘As you wish, Navigator,’ its unpleasant voice burbled. It lurched to its six feet and cantered off down the labyrinthine corridors of the palace, carrying him past lesser members of House Gibran about errands of their own. It was late, and he passed only one other of the mechanical transports. He returned the greeting of Lord Navis Orto Gibran as he approached, declined his offer to talk and take wine, and sped on.
The landau deposited him in the entrance vestibule to his apartments, a high porch and steps set into a tall window of glass that looked out onto jungle gardens. Rain jetting in regimented bursts from sprinklers high in the artificial sky rattled on the window, an incongruously natural sound in those deeps of steel and stone.
The moment he was through the door, his majordomo Erdacian came to greet him.
‘You have been gone long, my lord,’ he said. Erdacian was a Navigator, like all in the Quarter. His third eye was covered over with a strap marked with the sigil of House Gibran.
‘I wish it were wandering through the stars, Erdacian,’ said Helad Gibran. ‘I’ve wandered only so far as the Venusian Lagrange.’
‘My lord,’ said Erdacian, and dipped his head. ‘Shall I order dinner prepared?’
Silent servants came to take Helad Gibran’s outer garments, wash his hands and feet, and spray him with perfumes. Gibran put up with their ministrations impatiently.
‘Yes, and call my companions. I wish to talk of other things than politics for a while.’
‘There is a deal of work for you in your opusarium.’
Gibran sighed with displeasure. ‘I will look it over quickly. Dinner. One hour. I command it.’
‘As you wish, my lord.’
Gibran shook off the last of his servants and made for the large stairway curling around the glassteel atrium of his apartments. Erdacian followed him to the foot of the stairs.
‘What of my Lady Mossa Belisarius-Gibran?’
‘Schedule breakfast for us tomorrow. I shall see her then, not before.’
‘She was most insistent she speak to you as soon as you arrive, my lord.’
‘Tomorrow, Erdacian!’ Gibran called down from the balcony. ‘I wish to look over the gardens for a while. Inform the Paternova’s Master of Admissions that I have returned. If he will meet with me in the afternoon, then I am humbly at his disposal.’
‘My lord.’
Gibran went into his opusarium and shut the door behind him. He rested against the smooth wood, closed his eyes and let out a long, weary breath. The High Lords he could handle, even the Paternova himself, but speaking to his wife tonight was one task too far.
He stood. The lights were off. Soothing green light reflected off the jungle through the room’s large rose window. On the far side of the room was a set of upholstered doors. Beyond them were his bed, his concubines and his collection of fine off-world wines. He was in the mood to enjoy all three. First, he wished to look on his garden, a collection of ancient Terran plants which existed nowhere else.
But to look over the garden, he must stand by his desk. His treacherous eyes were dragged to the piles of work atop it. It was a large desk, but not a scrap of its surface could be seen, buried under a pile of data-slates, documents and flimsies a metre high. His shoulders sagged.
He looked to the exit. He could walk away and pretend he had not seen. He took a step forward, his hand reaching up involuntarily for the door and the pleasures beyond.
He stopped. The stacks of work waited. His warp eye throbbed. He was a fool to come this way. Sentimental, wanting to look upon the gardens. There were no pure pleasures in this world that duty could not spoil.
‘Warp take it all,’ he said. He pressed the button on his vox-cuff. ‘Erdacian. I shall be late for dinner.’
‘Yes, your grace.’
Gibran sat down with a heavy sigh. With a wave of his hand he decreased the opacity of the window until it was totally clear. Artificial rain lashed against it, making the jungle foliage bob with its pounding. At least he might take some pleasure in that.
The work was consuming. It never stopped. If it was not the business of the Imperium, it was the business of his House. He was not the Novator, but he was responsible for ratifying the breeding programmes of his own closest relations. A good quarter of the documents concerned matches and marriage contracts. Many more were reports from Gibran Navigators scattered across space by the war against the Beast. The saddest was the shortest, a list of known and probable losses for his and allied Houses. He held the slate for far longer than it took to read it.
The rain drummed hard on the window. On the other side of the dome encompassing the garden, Sol was slipping out of the smoggy sky.
There was a knock at the door.
‘Damn it! Erdacian! Erdacian! Whoever that is, send him away!’ Gibran bellowed. ‘I’ve got a stack of work here that stretches to Cypra Mundi and back! Erdacian?’ Cursing, he put the slate back on the desk and swore as he chased his vox-link around his wrist. When he pressed it, there was no answer to its musical chime. ‘Erdacian, where are you?’
The door opened a crack, slashing the carpet with a spear of yellow lumen light from the landing.
‘Erdacian?’
Gibran’s hand strayed for the pistol under his desk. His fingers were brushing the holster, when a familiar voice stayed his hand.
‘He is not here, cousin,’ said his visitor.
‘Dovrian Ofar, is that you?’ he said with relief. He relaxed.
‘It is I.’
‘Why did you not announce yourself?’
‘I was passing. I heard you’d come back and, you know, stopped by to surprise you.’ Dovrian shrugged. ‘I rang and rang the bell, but Erdacian was nowhere to be seen. I bring you refreshment where your lax servant has failed.’