Spinoza looked down at her for a moment. It was hard to know how to reply.
‘You will get my requests in due course,’ she said, turning. ‘Until then, you have your work.’
The Nighthawk’s engines throbbed arrhythmically as it powered out from under the Fortress Arbites’ shadow. Like the other two, it had taken bolter hits on the way in, and would require lengthy remedial work in Courvain’s tech-bays before reuse. All three of them, flying in formation through the towers, were half-empty — most of Hegain’s troops, including the sergeant, required medicae attention and had remained in the precinct-fortress until that could be completed.
The sun hung low in the western sky, a filmy red disc burning like a sore among the smog-curtains. In the distance, where the colossal Mechanicus enclave of Skhallax City entangled itself with the basilicas of the Order of the Ebon Chalice, palls of ashen smoke were rising in thin columns. Looking at them through the Nighthawk’s narrow viewports, Crowl couldn’t tell whether they were sacrificial fires or residue from the forges. Probably both — right now the entire world seemed determined to burn whatever it could find.
Far to the north, past Skhallax’s burn-off chimneys, he could just make out the greater mass of the Outer Palace zones, where the march of the hab-spires was replaced by the Ministorum’s temples and ceremonial plazas, piled atop one another like coralline outgrowths, suffocating the old under the accretions of the new in a maze of competing holiness.
Of course, ‘new’ was a relative term. No cathedrals had been built on Terra for over four thousand years. Keeping the old ones from falling in on themselves was task enough for the millions of Ecclesiarchy work-gangs, toiling eternally in the crypts and the aisles and the slowly sinking foundations while the priests swung censers and slaughtered offerings on their ancient altars.
‘I wonder, Revus, if anyone noticed,’ mused Crowl, watching the hump of the Palace’s distant parapets slip out of view, ‘when we stopped building.’ Revus, sitting opposite him in the Nighthawk’s cramped interior, grunted something noncommittal. Gorgias, dormant for the moment, hovered inert at the rear of the chamber, occasionally bumping into the inner hull-beam as the craft moved.
Crowl turned to his captain. The red light slanting in through the viewports made his face look more damaged than it was. ‘Oh, don’t take it so hard. I think he actually liked you.’
Revus grimaced. ‘I thought they never left the Palace.’
‘So did I.’ Crowl sat back in the metal harness, pulling his cloak over his knees. ‘And what do we make of that — a Custodian outside the walls, hunting a missing brother of the ordo. I don’t think I quite believe it.’
Revus nodded, and rubbed his jawline. The bruising was steadily creeping across his stubble-hard chin, making the pale flesh look more tattooed than it was.
‘And who cares about Hieron Valco?’ Crowl went on. ‘Seriously, who cares about Hieron Valco? There must be a hundred bodies washing around down in the sewers that never get found. And now we chase down one, just one, and the bloody gods of old come back to stalk us.’
‘Rhadamanthys,’ said Revus.
‘What?’
‘Rhadamanthys. A name. I found it in Valco’s hab-unit.’
‘Did the arbitrators take that from you?’
‘No.’
‘That’s something, then.’ Crowl thought on it for a moment. ‘The orbital quarantine, that’s what the Custodian was interested in. Maybe we don’t need Valco’s complete records. Maybe that’s all the information he thought was important. It’s a ship.’
‘Heard of it?’
‘I’ll have a scan run of transporters waiting for dispatch. You never know.’ Revus nodded. ‘You’re sure? It could be a person.’
‘Or a weapon, or pet canine, but, no, no, it’s a ship. That’s what Valco did. That’s all he did, his whole life — recording ships. Getting killed was the most interesting thing that ever happened to him.’
‘And by someone who could get the body into an Inquisition morgue.’
‘You think it was Phaelias?’
‘No idea.’ Revus winced a little as the Nighthawk banked, cutting the restraint-straps into his wounds.
‘Nor I,’ said Crowl. ‘But I shall have to enquire further about this inquisitor, in whose name so much effort has been expended.’
‘Maybe Spinoza knows of him.’
Crowl gave an equivocal expression. ‘Maybe. I’ll ask her.’
Outside, the sky was steadily darkening. It was still hours before dusk, but the pyres were beginning to have a cumulative effect, ushering in an unnatural sunset to precede the real one. Calls to prayer blared out across the fading skyline, tinny from the vox-augmitter banks used by the priests, overlapping one another and mingling with the dolorous clang of great bells.
‘Have you told her yet?’ asked Revus.
‘Told her what?’
‘Why you wanted her.’
Crowl drew in a long breath, and listened to the fervent clamour. ‘I don’t know why you think I would.’
Revus didn’t look like he agreed, but made no objection. Ahead of them, the hive-spires flanking Courvain came into view, grimy brown against the smear of the ash-filled sky beyond. The Inquisition fortress itself hunkered down between them, dark as tar, shunned by the otherwise congested air traffic lanes.
‘We lost two of Hegain’s command,’ Crowl said, his voice low.
‘I know.’
‘If they have living relatives in service, let me know.’
‘I will.’
‘And yourself, Revus? They told me you were not mistreated.’
‘I’ll be fine.’
Crowl nodded, still looking out of the viewports. Courvain was looming before them now, its turrets glinting from the pyres, its armoured windows gaping like pits into nothingness.
‘I’ll think about telling her,’ he said, watching the hangar doors swing in closer. ‘When all this is over.’
Spinoza studied for the next three hours, locked in her cell, surrounded by the sheaves brought up from the archives. Huk was right — Quantrain appeared in a vast number of cases. He had been decorated for service many times, always in ceremonies held in the Inner Palace. The hierarchy of the Inquisition was an exercise in gathering obscurity — the more senior an operative became, the less they were visible, retreating into a subtle world of quiet conversations in gilt corridors and rumoured interventions over formal dinners. Quantrain had reached this apotheosis, it seemed — a player of the great games within the Sanctum Imperialis itself, operating through a network of capable agents, no doubt furthering a gradual move on the ultimate goal of a place on the High Lords’ council table as Representative.
If Quantrain was an arachnid-like figure, then his aides were all too visible, Gloch foremost among them. Perhaps, given a dynamic enough master, she could aspire to similar levels of notoriety. Despite all the coded jealousies in the files, it was clear to her that Gloch was admired. Quantrain was admired. Tur had been, too.
The chime at her door went off, and she jerked her head up, dragged from soporific and dangerous thoughts. How long had it been since she’d slept?
‘Come,’ she said, pushing the paperwork aside and rising from her study-unit.
The door hissed back to reveal a familiar silhouette, just as dark, angular and rangy as it ever was. At least the damned skull wasn’t hovering over his shoulder, although perhaps that demented soul spoke more truth than either of them.