The Inquisitor

[Lady_Canoness]

The next chapter will start where this one left off, so you may get see what happens after all ;)

[Lady_Canoness]

This is my Awakening

 

The shock at the revelation that I had killed Inquisitor Arachne did not last for long. I am an Inquisitor. Death does not faze me. I stood up and quickly recovered my pistol and the spent casings, and then set about looking for some way of concealing my crime. Doubtlessly someone would have heard the shots – this was, after all, a public hotel – but my Inquisitorial rosette would deter any authority that came to investigate. They would have to contact the Inquisition, and that would take time – enough time for me to destroy any evidence of my wrong doing. If I could contact my people I could even –
I stopped. It was only then that I questioned my own beliefs as of that very moment. My people. How did I know I still had people left? What if what I had seen was true? Could Joyce be dead this instant? Was Odyssey… dead? Was any of it true? Could Inquisitor Frode – the man I thought my friend and mentor – be actively looking for me? What about Lord Inquisitor Artemis? What was his role in this?
I forced the thoughts from my mind. Distractions at a time like this would see me dead sooner than anything, and right then I needed to focus on the present.
I gathered my possessions first, and then I went to the bathroom and hastily cleaned myself in the sink. Afterwards I went to the bedroom.
 Arachne had a day bag, and I emptied its contents onto her made bed before rapidly sorting through them. I found a small ablutions kit complete with hair and body soap, tooth cleaner, clippers and a few other items – I tossed it aside as useless – a pair of note pads which I pocketed for later, three changes of clothes – again, tossed – money, a set of keys, a pack of Catachan cigars, ammunition for a pistol, and some more personal effects. I took the money and the keys and left the rest. She also had a locked hard-case that I found under the bed. After several tries I found the keys that opened it, and popped the lid to find Arachne’s trusty bullpup carbine. She had removed the barrel for storage and had five loaded magazines ready for action, but ultimately I closed the lid, locked it, and slid the case back under her bunk. The weapon was her personal hallmark, but wasn’t something I’d find useful. I concluded my search by hastily going through her cupboards and drawers, but found nothing else that belonged to her. Arachne had spent only two nights planetside and was used to travelling light, so I didn’t expect that I had missed anything of value.
My next act was to strip the bed. Throwing the comforter aside, I pulled the sheets from the mattress and took them with me back to the sitting room where my partner lay, undignified, in a pool of her own blood. Unfortunately I wasn’t about to do her memory any favour - I simply hadn’t the time.
I wrapped her bloody body as best I could in the sheets and dragged her into the bathroom where I dumped her into the king-sized tub. She went in like a sack of meat, and landed with a *thunk*. Her eyes were still open, and stared sightlessly at the ceiling.
“I’m sorry, old girl,” I said, touching her cold forehead and her cheek before sliding her eyes shut. “I am so very sorry. You did nothing to deserve this.”
Cranking the hot water tap on full blast, I then proceeded to fill the tub. It would make a mess and quicken the decomposition of the body, but it was necessary to spoil any forensic evidence. It is the sad truth that my partner’s body could not be treated with dignity if duty was to be served.
I am not a heartless man, though at this moment I must seem as such. I cannot blame you. As you have seen, I killed my partner and I am now in the process of misconstruing the facts surrounding her death by unceremoniously disposing of her corpse. I must seem like a monster. Though do you really think I would do such a thing if I had another option? The truth is that I cared a great deal about Inquisitor Arachne – I even think I cared deeply for her – yet I never let my feelings be known. She was dead by my doing, and I had never told her what she meant to me. Can you imagine that? All the feelings you have for a person, all the ways you think of them, and they will never know because they were taken so suddenly. You are blind-sided by their death. That is me. I never told her that I appreciated her for who she was, and that I genuinely liked her for it. Instead I am dumping her naked body into a tub and covering it with boiling water; hoping that she’ll cook before anyone finds her. Is that how you want to remember your friend? I am not heartless and I am not a monster, but what else can I do? When one is too shocked to feel emotions, one will often revert to what is ingrained. Training, procedure, duty. The cold, hard, unfeeling facts. It is easier not to feel when feeling overwhelms you. For your sake, I pray you never find yourself in my place.
I left the bathroom when the hot water from the tub started to overflow onto the floor. By this point I was numb, hardly thinking about what I was doing, and paying attention to nothing that was not directly in front of me. Imagine if you can the world becoming colourless and filled with nothing but background noise. That is how it seemed to me. When I entered the sitting room again, however, something caught my eye. Blood stains still drenched the carpet and the furniture was still pushed to the room’s sides, but something stood out as being different than before. A mirror was sitting on one of the sofa’s I had moved out of the way for the ritual, perched against a plush cushion. It had not been there before, I was certain – I would have remembered it. Cautiously, I walked towards it. My booted feet padded along the blood soaked carpet with hardly a sound.
The mirror was small, no more than a foot in length and three quarters in width, and had been placed perfectly so that I could not see my reflection in it. It had a wrought silver frame that had recently been polished, and looked so perfect that I was not ready to believe that it had come with the suite. I had never seen a mirror like it in all my life.
Against what could have been my better judgement I reached out to touch it, but recoiled as soon as my fingers brushed against the frame. It was warm – warm as if someone had been holding it not long ago.
I did a quick survey of the room and was careful to check behind all the furniture. I found no-one. The sound of water hitting the tile floor was still coming from the bathroom.
I went back to the mirror and stared at it. Still the angle was not right for me to see my reflection.
From outside the hotel suite I heard voices in the hall. Someone was coming. Soon they were knocking on the door; “Hello? This is the Adeptus Arbites! Open the door!”
I ignored them and picked up the mirror. My hands fit perfectly into the grooves on either side of the silver frame.
“In the name of the Governor, if this door is not opened in three seconds, we shall break it down! One!”
Let him count; I was slowly turning the mirror up towards my face.
“Two!”
Tilting the glass towards my face, I looked at my own reflection. A handsome, black haired and bearded picture of myself stood looking out at me, but there was vomit still on my front and caught in my goatee. I wrinkled my face in disgust – I thought I’d got all of that off. Sure enough, however, I was still a mess. In fact, it looked as if I had no attempt to clean myself at all.
It took several seconds for me to notice the silence. No ‘three’. The men at the door had gone. Odd. I then felt a chill run over me – the running water had stopped as well.
Lowering the mirror, I turned and looked over my shoulder. The bathroom door was closed.
A wave of what can only be described as fear of the unknown swept over me. I walked towards the bathroom door, not noticing that there was no blood on the carpet beneath my feet. I heard nothing on the other side, and when I opened it that bathroom was clear. No body in the tub, no water on the floor. No sign of Arachne being within. A damp towel hung on a rung, and a slightly bloody rag occupied the waste bin beside the sink. I retrieved it. What little blood there was was still damp, but it wasn’t enough to be from a serious wound. A nose bleed perhaps? I let the rag fall back into the bin.
The suite was eerily quiet.
Next I went to the bedroom. The bed was made, but Arachne’s things were missing – both the day bag and the hard case. I did a couple three-sixty turns just to be sure I wasn’t missing anything, and then checked my pockets: no notepads, money, or keys – the things I had collected of hers were gone. I check the pistol at my side – it was fully loaded and the safety catch was engaged.
“What the…?”
I noticed a piece of paper resting on the bed’s pillow. The note scrawled upon it in Arachne’s hand-writing was addressed to me:

“Something has happened that I need time to explain. It’s not safe to stay there. Meet me at Club Expo when you get this. I couldn’t wait.

Sorry,

A.”

I reread the note twice just to make sure I wasn’t seeing things that weren’t actually there, but every time it read the same. Inquisitor Arachne was alive and waiting for me at a night club. How was that possible? Could that be what she was going to explain? Why wasn’t it safe, and why could she not wait?
As if in response to my question, I heard the unmistakeable blast of a shotgun and the loud crash of someone kicking in the front door.

I dove to the ground instinctively and drew my pistol, and, as an afterthought, rolled under the bed. I heard at least four sets of separate feet stop into the suite and quickly spread out in different directions. They weren’t speaking, and I can tell you now that that was a bad sign. They were good, probably professionals, and were in the process of conducting what would surely prove to be a very thorough search.
At least of them had a shotgun. I had a pistol and was trapped underneath a bed. It would be a matter of seconds until they found me, and when they did… well, I might as be holding onto the other ‘firearm’ that’s between my legs. In short, I had seconds to live.
Though I still had the mirror.
Not knowing what else to do, I looked at it. The footsteps didn’t go away.
S***.
“No-one’s here.” Someone in the bedroom with me was saying.
“Did you check under the bed?”
I caught my breath and held it.
“First place I looked.”
“Well then, it looks like this one got away.”
“Fast motherf***er…”
“Yes, but with a victim like this the killer shouldn’t be too hard to trace.”
Listening carefully, it sounded as if the four attackers had turned into two, that Arachne was dead again and they’d found her in the tub, and that I had evaded capture under the bed. My heart was hammering inside my ribcage so loud that I thought the entire building – let alone the room – could hear it. My head was spinning something fiendish as well. What was happening?
“Have 2 platoon secure the entire building as a crime scene, and get 1 platoon started on questioning,” one of the two voices was saying I guessed he would be the one charge.
“Roger that. Do you want the girl out of the tub?”
“No,” by the sound of it, the voice in charge had stepped into the bathroom. “We’ll leave it as we found it until the docs get here.”
“Understood,” the second voice and footsteps started to move further from me – I assumed to carry out the others orders. “By the way, did you get a look at her c***? It’s got its own sunbeam. Crazy what these ganger scum will dream up!”
The commander didn’t say anything in response as his underling buggered off, and it was in that moment that I decided I wouldn’t kill him. I was angry – enraged even – that my partner was being treated like this, but at the same time I was very, very confused. I had just read a note proving that Arachne was alive, and yet I was now hearing that she was still in fact dead.
Rolling out from under the bed I noticed that my pistol was again empty, though I still had the mirror. I pocketed both and crept to the bathroom door to peek inside. An Adeptus Arbites commander was standing hunched over the tub with his back to me, and he was poking at Arachne’s partially submerged corpse with a stylus in one hand while he kept the other in a closed fist behind his back. She was very dead alright, and starting to smell in the rose-coloured hot water.
I crept up behind the Arbites man without behind heard and used my empty pistol as a club before easing his deadweight to the floor. I heard no commotion from outside the suite, so I guessed that I had not been detected.
What now? Now I needed to escape, but the Arbites men had spoken of at least two platoons deployed throughout the hotel – upwards of sixty armed men, and I had a gun that was empty. Though I also had the mirror.
I looked in the bathroom mirror. Nothing changed.
My hand drifted to the mirror stashed in my pocket. I must admit I was spooked. The mirror appeared to alter reality, but how and why? Was it just a dream? What happened when I did it? And what… ? Well, I’m sure you can appreciate my situation. It is not wise to tamper with what one does not understand – and doubly so when a psyker is involved. The mirror could be from anywhere, and lead to anything, yet here I was fooling around with it.
It took some convincing, but eventually I withdrew my hand from my pocket and holstered my spent pistol.
Searching the Arbites commander, I found a radio unit and a laspistol. I took both, and quickly moved from the suite to the hall. I was challenged almost immediately by a helmeted guard posted outside Arachne’s room:
“Hold it right there! This is a secure crime-scene. Who are you?”  His weapon was holstered, but one handed rested on it while the other was held up to block me. There were two other guards further down the corridor, and they turned at the sound of my challenger’s voice. Spectators for now, but backup if he needed it.
I decided to play it cool. Looking into the guard’s eyes, I slowly raised the captured radio to my mouth and made a show of pressing the transmit button. “Sir,” I said slowly, pronouncing every letter, “I am being… ‘held up’ by one of your officers. I was under the impression that I could move freely.”
The man in front of me was starting to lose his confidence. Maybe he didn’t see me enter the room in the first place? Was it worth jeopardizing his career? No, it was not.
He quickly stepped aside; “Sorry sir. My mistake, sir.”
I walked past without further delay. I had startled him, but when he thought about he might come to the conclusion that I really shouldn’t have been there after all, and I didn’t want to be around when he made that conclusion or when his commanding officer came-to in the bathroom. I made a hasty escape, but was blocked on the ground level by the members of 2 platoon. This was no good.
Ducking into the lobby’s lavatory, I camped out in a toilet stall and considered my options.
I could try to fight my way out: I had the element of surprise in my favour, but I was vastly outnumbered and outgunned. I could break through the perimeter at its weakest point, but I didn’t think I would get very far before the rest of the Arbites got me.
I could use my Inquisitorial badge of office and demand that I be let through. That would work, and I would not be followed, but questions would be asked that could bring undue attention to myself. Arachne was too easy to identify, and a warrant for my arrest for questioning would likely follow. It would be safer if the Arbites were allowed to think that the Inquisition had nothing to do with it – they might not even identify Arachne as an Inquisitor as she did not exist on any public record, and they already seemed to be leaning towards a gang-related investigation.
I could try sneaking out and evading the attention of the perimeter guards. Dangerous and risky. Their routine orders could be to shoot on site, and if they succeeded in capturing me then my identity as an Inquisitor would soon be known.
Another option was to hide-out inside the hotel, though I was afraid that I had already shot-that option to hell. Having their commander be assaulted at the scene of a crime was a great way to have the hotel turned upside-down.
Then there was the mirror. I didn’t like it, but it could be the simplest solution. I could use the mirror, and if I still had Arachne’s note I could track her down at that night club, Club Expo, or I could look into the status and whereabouts of my team.
What would you have done in my position? Remember, dear reader, that hind-sight is twenty-twenty. That I am here and able to write this for you now suggests that whatever I did was successful in so much that I survived, but ask yourself – is survival the only measure of success?
I used the mirror.
At first nothing appeared to have changed: I was still sitting in a bathroom stall, and the mirror was still in my hand. When I checked, however, my pistol was once again loaded, my front was still a mess, and Arachne’s note was in my pocket. A small victory.
I read the note again to make sure nothing had changed – nothing had; she still wanted me to come find her at Club Expo – and let myself out of the toilet stall. I emerged into the quiet bustle of the hotel lobby in the mid-afternoon. A few patrons lounged about at the bar and the restaurant, and a couple of porters helped a guest with their luggage. The only person who seemed to notice me was the concierge, and by the contemptuous look on her face she thought I had too much to drink too early. I didn’t stick around for her to form a second opinion. There were no Arbites, however, and I quickly exited the hotel through the front door.
No-one on the street paid me any mind, and I made a brisk pace for the nearest commuter skytrain station where I also planned to extend my activities to include properly cleaning the vomit from my front. I had gone only a few blocks before I noticed that I had picked up a tail. They were about twenty paces back and not doing a very good job of disguising themselves. Two men dressed in dark, bulky clothing were definitely following me. Their indifference to being low-key in the crowd told me they were probably armed, and were equally willing to passively follow me or actively do something worse – neither of which alarmed me. Still, it was time to lose them.
I sped up my pace and started to look for a way out. To my right were building facades, store-fronts, and opening alleyways. To my left was the heavy downtown traffic. The options were overwhelming.
I eventually chose the entrance to an underground garage, and quickly ducked inside.
Do you think I am mad? Parking garages are large, open spaces where echoes carry for great distances and where witnesses are few and far between and easily dispatched. Worst of all, there are seldom more than a handful of escape routes that are easy to block from the surface. It is the equivalent of walking into a dead end, and with men tailing you ‘dead’ can really mean dead.
My dear reader, you only think I am mad because you are approaching this from the perspective of a victim. I am not. I walked into the parking garage because I am not a victim.
The moment I was off the street I started to run – the echos of my footfalls would be inaudible to my pursuers above and time was of the essence. No doubt they would be running after me once they knew their game was up.
I drew my pistol, and waited for them at the bottom of the down ramp behind a corner.
I did not wait more than a few moments.
The second man down got a bullet in the head from no more than five metres. The gunshot echoed like a thunderclap, and he dropped like a stone. The first one turned and saw me hiding in the corner. His gun was drawn but not up – too bad for him. I shot low and drilled him twice in the abdomen. He fell with a scream and I was on him in a flash; kicking his weapon away before stepping over him and going back the way I had come.
Why didn’t I finish him off?   
A corpse is quiet, requires no medical attention, and can be dumped with minimal fuss – if you’re desperate or callous enough to do so.
A wounded comrade makes noise, requires medical attention (sometimes urgently), and takes at least two men to move – which effectively takes two more men out of the fight with him. 
Wounded men are therefore more valuable than dead men under most circumstances. Wounded men who have been left with an active radio – you will notice I didn’t search my victims or try to remove their means of communication – are also great for sowing fear and confusion. Soon his comrades will be wondering what happened, as a man who has been shot twice in the gut is much more likely to be concerned with his own survival than my escape.
At least I hoped as much as I left the garage and rejoined the foot-traffic on the side of the road.

I made it to the skytrain station without further incident, though I loitered around for a bit just to make sure than no more tails showed up. By that time I had cleaned up nicely and had bought a bargain grox wool coat from a street vendor to better alter my appearance. The large shopping bag also made me look even more like the commuter I was so desperately trying to masquerade as. After an hour, and several cardboard cups of cheap caffeine, I was sure I was alone.
My next objective was to rendezvous with Arachne at Club Expo, but in all honesty I didn’t know where the night club was. A small search turned up an information terminal – advertised as one of the city regent’s new initiatives to increase the economic prosperity of the downtown core – and with a stroke of luck I located the night club to be no-more than a twenty minute train ride away. I therefore bought a ticket, and shuffled in to a departing skytrain car with the rest of the citizenry.
‘Skytrain’ may sound romantic, but I assure you it is not. Like everything else in this city, it is grey, metal, and bleak. The city itself, Dunsmold, is the sub-capital of the planet Triton. It is an ancient city – meaning ancient and crumbling architecture, little-to-no coherent city planning, and a mass of city politicians who have a hard time justifying their existence. The downtown core, for example is split into three somewhat distinguishable districts: the administration buildings which have stayed the same for centuries; the mercantile district, built over top of an ancient space port; and the entertainment district, which rose out of the remains of a decaying factory district like a brilliantly coloured phoenix rising from dead ashes. There is life in the city, but it is unorganized and chaotic, with some elements staying the same for generations while others grow wildly and organically to prop up sections of city as they fall into ruin. A crumbling munitorum building may be vacated because of the bureaucratic nightmare of trying to getting it repaired, only to have a private enterprise move in and breathe new life into it and the surrounding area.
The Inquisitorial Fortress in Dunsmold is another prime example of the city’s crumbling, anti-romantic state. It sits there in the middle of the administration district like a concrete toad, and periodically gobbles up lesser structures and adds to its considerable mass. I have read that the Fortress itself (conveniently going without a formal designation – no doubt adding to its imposing nature, or so some think) began as a fraction of its current size, and that it is thanks to intimidation and other brutish practices that nearby buildings are slowly annexed and put behind the Fortress’s ever expanding curtain wall. And, just like a gluttonous toad camped out in its swamp, it projects a quiet, indomitable fear upon those closest to it. Buildings are left empty once they get too close to the Inquisition’s Fortress as the citizens give it a wide berth, and these too are in turn swallowed up. The toad gets even fatter as it squats in its swamp.
Am I too critical? Should I stand firmly behind the ethos of the organisation I serve? I will allow you to make your own judgement.  

 
After twenty minutes exactly, I stepped off of the skytrain and slipped into the crowd heading towards the station exit. I was in the entertainment district now, and everything around me seemed designed to not allow me to forget it. 
Blinking neon signs for clubs, bars, theatres, and card-houses were everywhere, music from dozens of sources crept alluringly into the air, and lights of every colour illuminated everything from every angle. It almost completely hid the skeletal remains of chimney stacks that loomed over the skyline, as well as the stains of heavy industry that marred the buildings and structures below. It was as if an explosion of life had sprung up inside a tomb. The sight was strangely beautiful.
People thronged everywhere, and even though the sun was barely beginning to set in the sky I found myself caught up in the nightlife of an exuberant population that dressed in garish colours and fashions. Laughter and mirthful shouting was everywhere as the celebrations of excess swirled like a tornado through the crowd. I walked past a night-club where two young women were engaged in love-making on the pavement outside to the cheers of a gleeful audience, while on the opposite side of the street a glass building façade displayed the lights and acrobatics of a circus show within. There was an aquarium advertising the terrors of the deep, and next to it a brothel that exclaimed its services to include the bizarre yet erotic in the form of specially enhance sex-servitors. I walked for at least twenty more minutes and witnessed a myriad of the weird and the wonderful, before at last coming before the humongous converted shell of a manufactorum that proudly bore an immense blue neon sign reading ‘Club Expo’.
There was a line to get in that stretched around the block.
I went to the front and bribed the trio of guards at the doors with three times their daily wage, then bribed the guard supervisor with twice as much to escort me inside without my belongings being checked. Inquisitor Arachne’s idea for a rendez-vous was rapidly becoming expensive, but I knew I had to see her and was willing to do whatever it took in the meantime.
“Just this way, sir,” the guard supervisor opened the inner door for me with a smug grin, “enjoy your time at the Expo.”
Inside was a colossal dance club, and the music was fast and furious as more than six separate dance floors – two of which were held suspended in the air by narrow walkways from the second and third floor – bumped and weaved in time with the beat. The lights were dazzling and noise was deafening. Blue was the cardinal colour and bathed the interior in its glow as I walked through swaying crowds towards the nearest of twelve bars. I didn’t intend to drink, but I guessed I would find Arachne near to one if she was waiting. There were tables and booths close to the walls, and I scanned the patrons for my partner. I had to assume that I would recognize her, but I could take nothing for granted since that last time I had set eyes on her she was a corpse.
The atmosphere inside the club might have been warm and jovial, but I couldn’t help but feel decidedly chilled.

I found her on the third floor occupying a single standing table. She was leaning on it and stared into nothingness with a lit cigar between her fingers and half-empty glass set before her.
She looked different. A long, dark coat with a turned down collar hung from her shoulders and dark coloured cargo pants tucked in to knee high strapped boots made an outfit I had not seen before, and she had buzzed her hair to white walls on the sides and while throwing the top and back into a coiffed mane that reached to the nape of her neck.
Her head turned as I approached – providing me with a full view of her spider tattoo – but she did not smile.
“Come on,” she downed the remnants of her drink in a single gulp as I leaned my elbows on her table, “we’re going someplace we can talk.” 

[deathspectersgt7]

This chapter is the best yet.A great read .

[Brother-Sergeant Bohemond]

wha-

 

Reading this makes me yearn for the honest simplicity of the Black Templars! I am hoping this gets explained at some point :P

[Aqui]

wha-

Reading this makes me yearn for the honest simplicity of the Black Templars! I am hoping this gets explained at some point

All will be revealed

Good stuff as usual

[Lady_Canoness]

Thanks guys ;)

 

You had to know that I wasn't about to get rid of Spider/Arachne so easily! On another note, nothing about the Imperial Inquisition should ever be simple - otherwise you wouldn't need Inquisitors in the first place!

 

The story arc we are on right now will be the principal one, though we will see other bits and pieces of Inquisitor Solomon Wright's story as well. 

[Lady_Canoness]

This is my Dilemma

 

 

Arachne led me away from the noise and excitement to an inconspicuous door marked ‘Employees Only’ and secured with a punch code. Checking over her shoulders, she did something to the lock and tugged the door open. On the other side was an employee staircase running parallel to the wall. A sign with an arrow pointing upwards was labelled ‘Roof Access’ while a downwards arrow read ‘Exit’. We went down, our hasty foot-falls ringing against the metal steps, and travelled to what must have been a basement floor underneath the club.  Arachne moved quickly and with a confidence that said she had been here before as she navigated us through a small maze of storage lockers and service rooms. At one point we intruded upon a startled couple just as the man had his hands up the girl’s shirt, but Arachne ignored them as we marched through and left them scrambling for some decency.
“Where are we going?” I asked once we’d left the couple behind and Arachne continued to march on at a blistering pace.
“Somewhere we can talk without risk of being overheard,” she said without looking back. Given the romp we’d just intruded upon, such a place wasn’t here.
I followed her out of Club Expo and down a narrow side street in the entertainment district. It was remarkable how much the area changed once off the main roads, and garbage and debris littered the streets away from the shining neon lights. Only a few people walked here, and none of them sported the bright colours or flamboyant fashions I’d seen earlier. I had to question Arachne’s logic, for without a crowd to blend in with we would surely be noticed. I mentioned as much in a hushed whisper, but she told me not to concern myself with it; she had it all planned-out. Turning a corner, she led me down a sous-avenue – one of the underground roadways left over from years past that dots Dunsmold – and indicated that we were not far now.
Down here was a whole different type of entertainment. A literal underground, if you will. Lining the narrow streets were all manner of strange storefronts with names like ‘the Black Street Market’, ‘Lotus Ink’, and ‘Wracked Irons’ which displayed bizarre goods and eclectic accoutrements the likes of which I found… curious, to say the least. 
“In here,” Arachne pushed open a door labelled ‘Five Fingers Café’ in a gothic font. A chime rang, and I followed her inside.
It was a small place with no more than a half-dozen tables, and as we entered that afternoon every table was full. None of the patrons looked up, but the girl behind the counter flashed Inquisitor Arachne a knowing look and moved silently in the direction of the back room. We followed her through a tiny kitchen and refrigeration unit to the very back of the café where she held aside a black curtain and admitted us into a candle-lit wood-walled room with three tables and rustic décor. Arachne went inside with a nod in the girl’s direction, which the girl returned, before the girl caught my eye with a grave look. She was about seventeen, I assumed, with short blonde hair and overly shadowed eyes that gave her the appearance of some type of ghoul. What instantly caught my attention, however, was the small spider pendant she wore around her throat.
The curtain swept closed behind us, and I heard soft footfalls as the girl went back to the front of the café.
“What happened at the hotel?” I asked, pulling out a chair from one of the round wooden tables and sitting opposite to my partner.
She didn’t answer immediately, and extracted a small disc-shaped object from within her coat that she set on the centre of the table. A small circle of dim white light about five feet in diameter suddenly appeared around us, and I mentally cursed my own impatience – it was an anti-eavesdropping device, and I had just forfeited information if anyone was listening. *If* anyone was listening.
Arachne folded her arms and leaned heavily on the table, bringing her face to about a foot away from mine and hunching her shoulders. “Have you heard of brain mines?” she said.
I had, and indicated as much. They were nasty little devices that someone had dreamed up to ambush psykers. They weren’t formally manufactured by any one source – most being hand crafted by insane ‘artisans’ hidden in the dark places of the Imperium – but all took the shape of small contraptions that projected their psychic charge into the warp and waited for a psyker to use their abilities within its range. Brain mines are expensive and exotic weapons that are far from mainstream; the implications of one being used against us are… well, you can guess, can’t you?
“One was placed in our hotel room,” she pulled a small, wrecked piece of what looked like scrap metal from inside her coat and set it beside the anti-eavesdropping device. “It went off, nearly killed me, and must have knocked you unconscious. When I came to you were still out, so I found it and left. My guess is that whoever planted it was going to come back and finish what they started. I’m sorry I left you, but if someone did come back they might have killed us both had I stayed.”
I swallowed and fingered wreckage of the mine. I didn’t really know what to think. What Arachne said didn’t really surprise me, but I didn’t know what to think. Where to begin, even?
I decided to tackle one mystery at a time – I would not mention the mirror here.
“The mine,” I asked, “what happened after it was triggered? Did you see anything? Is there anything about who put it there?”
The girl returned with two steaming mugs of caffeine and put them down on the table between us. She didn’t seem at all surprised by the circle of light she had to walk through to get there.
“It’s a brain mine,” my partner said roughly once the girl had left, “it’s not something you’re going to find lying around in any old armoury. It’s got to be an Inquisitor’s.”
To her it was obvious, and in a way it was, but also it wasn’t.
“Perhaps,” I said, sipping from my mug before setting it down on the table’s surface, “but Inquisitorial agents aren’t exactly in short supply around here. There’s a fortress not more than five miles away with more than ten-thousand employees – a good number of whom could have access to this type of technology, and who could be acting on the orders of any Inquisitor who opposes Lord Artemis. Or – ” I held up a warning finger as I paused mid-sentence for another sip of caffeine, “ – it could be any of the numerous individuals targeted by Artemis’s little scheme who had decided to use the presence of an Inquisitorial fortress as cover. If any of the people listed in the dossiers are even half as threatening as Artemis claims, you can be assured that they have the means to pull something like this off.” I leaned back in my chair and sunk my hands into my pockets as my partner fixed me with a hard gaze. “It’s not like were in the middle of nowhere with only one other Inquisitor nearby who happens not to like what we are doing and who also happens to be sitting around with an empty case shaped like a brain mine and an insane psychopath on staff who enjoys making nasty devices.”   
I could feel my heart rate rising for no apparently reason while I spoke with her, but let us not forget that I’d just dumped her bloody corpse into a bathtub not more than a couple hours earlier. The vision of her lifeless, dead eyes hadn’t quite left me – even when I was looking into them at this very moment.
“It could be anyone,” she agreed, “we won’t know without alerting them either.”
She sucked on her caffeine and waited for my response, but when none was forthcoming her eyes grew concerned. My silence apparently spoke volumes, though she had no idea what really happened and I didn’t really know what I would tell her.
I settled on the easiest approach.
“I saw something when I was unconscious.” I said.
Her face darkened; “What was it?”
I thumbed my brow absentmindedly. I hadn’t spared much thought to what I had seen once I had woken to find the mirror and Arachne both dead and alive. “Artemis and Frode. I saw both of them – they were against me – and I saw two of my agents perish. The thought that it could be real is terrifying.”
“That’s it?”
“Should I have seen more?”
She frowned. “No, but visions can mean anything. They could be subconscious fears or fantasies…” she shrugged, “or they could be real.”
Not exactly comforting.
There was little she could say: I could not recollect my visions in the necessary detail, and she was guessing at best. The kill-squad that appeared after she’d left, however, was much more tangible.
“These things have some sort of feedback receptors,” she motioned towards the mine. “They would have known whether or not I’d survived.”
That explained some things: when I’d killed her – *if* I’d killed her – whoever was behind the mine would have known she was dead, and the gunshots would have alerted the Arbites; when she survived, however, our adversary would have known something was wrong, and whoever had been tailing me would have been working for them. I didn’t think for a second that we were in the clear, however. Tails can be lost, but whoever set the mine knew where Arachne’s hotel was and perhaps knew what we were attempting. They also knew me by sight, and therefore they likely knew more about me than that. They would be watching my hotel, and potentially have eyes on my agents. Odyssey, Joyce, and Mercy could be in danger.
“I have to contact my people before we do anything.” I said, finishing my caffeine. From her expression Arachne disapproved, but she’s also a loner, and knew that she didn’t understand my concern – both personal and professional – for my agents.
We parted ways and agreed to meet again in four hours’ time at the skytrain central station. She assumed that someone would be looking for us and wanted a place with numerous exits and the ability to be lost in a crowd. I was a little more critical, but in all honesty my thoughts dwelt primarily with the welfare of my team, and the mirror I had in my pocket. Knowing that my partner was dead in another reality put a definite damper on things.

 

My team was housed at a low-rate hotel near the spaceport that catered primarily to spacers on temporary lay-over.  It had a capacity of one-hundred units with an attached bar and strip-club which kept the traffic fairly constant, and it was the sort of place where no-one asked questions about a man’s business and the Arbites rarely bothered to tread. In other words, it was a good place to hide people without raising any alarms.
My people had signed-in two days previously under false identities, as is protocol, but at the time I hadn’t felt any other security precautions were necessary. No early warning devices were established, no secondary rendezvous were implemented, and there was no back-up. I had only brought Odyssey, Joyce, and Mercy with me to the surface and I had been confident in their ability to not stir any disturbances. I now found myself praying that my confidence was not in fact cleverly disguised hubris.
Travelling by skytrain, I disembarked by at the bustling spaceport stop forty minutes after leaving my partner. Keeping with the crowds I meandered a bit until I felt confident that I hadn’t picked up a tail, and then took the long way around to leave the spaceport proper and make my way inwards towards the hotel. My initial reconnaissance of the area turned up nothing suspicious, and after another half-hour I entered at the bar.
Everything was as I expected as I climbed the small set of steps and pushed open the swinging double doors. I could hear the din of conversation from within , and it only grew louder as I entered the hazy parlour and discretely scanned my surroundings as I counted my paces towards the square bar located in the middle of the room. Most patrons were typical freighter-types – gruff, burly, and unwashed, disguising their smell with the potent lho that they smoked – while a number of others scattered around the tables appeared more to the likes of free-traders and merchantmen. The former (and dirtier) were the louder and more numerous group, completely absorbed in themselves and paying attention to little else aside from the drink and the bared flesh that paraded on pedestals elevated from the crowd. The latter group, however, demonstrated more self-control and were therefore more of a threat to my presence.
Let me explain if this fact is not immediately apparent. The big brute, drunk and surrounded by his friends, wears his emotions on his sleeve, and is therefore predictable. Insult him, and he’ll try to kill you. Threaten him, and he’ll challenge you. Placate him, and he’ll be your friend for all of a minute before forgetting you ever existed. Avoid him, and he’ll ignore you.
The sly, sober and ever watchful merchantman is another beast entirely. Firstly, you likely won’t know by sight whether he is inebriated or not – and even then it likely won’t make a difference.  Secondly, he is far less predictable. Insult him, and he is as likely to flee from you as he is to draw a concealed weapon and shoot you dead. Threatening him will likely garner the same results. Placating him won’t do any good either – he won’t be your friend, and he won’t forget that you exist. Avoiding him is also bad – he’ll still be watching you. Merchantmen, you see, are far more dangerous than you or I would initially believe. Let me digress a little further and tell you why.
I have already established that they are unpredictable; add to that that their loyalty is to themselves and their profits and nothing else. Further, add that their livelihood comes from keen observation of people, places, and things, and rapid action based upon those observations. They live by exploiting weakness and opportunity, and the successful ones are highly proficient at both. Finally, note that the shrewd merchantmen live lives of deception. Nothing about them is as it seems, and they consciously display only what it is they consider being to their advantage. They are a foe not to be underestimated.
Does that remind you of any other profession? It should. 
It is for that reason I kept a careful eye on the merchantmen and free-traders as I weaved my way across the room, and kept a count of how many sets of eyes rested on me and for how long. I did nothing to attract further attention to myself, and even purchased a drink before making my way out of the bar to a small, quiet lobby with a check-in counter, waving my key in the direction of the receptionist, and hastily jogging up the narrow creaking stairwell to the third floor.
Nothing looked out of place when I entered the third floor hall. It was narrow and deserted, though I could hear voices and the sounds of pulp entertainment as I walked along the ratty carpeting.
My people were in room 318 at the end of the hall.
I stopped outside the door when I realized that the lock was broken. Reaching into my pocket, I closed my fingers around my pistol and flipped off the safety. With my other hand I lightly tested the door. It was un-barricaded and opened easily.  
I slid the pistol from my coat and peered inside.
It was as I feared, and I closed my eyes with a reserved curse. They were dead.
I should have known this would happen.
I stepped inside and closed the door softly behind me. The small living room was in tatters, but I didn’t stop to look until I had secured the bathroom and bedrooms and made sure that I was alone.
They had been taken by surprise; Odyssey had dropped face-up, her body twisted as if in caught in the middle of turning around to face whoever was at the door. There was no weapon in her hand and no anger in her face. Her eyes stared up at the peeling paint on the ceiling. Joyce was slumped down in an armchair – pools of sticky blood congealing on his clothing and on the upholstery beneath him. His arms were still resting on the arm rests – he had not moved in his defence.
Squatting in the doorway between the bathroom and sitting room, I exhaled deeply and rested my head in my hands – letting my pistol rest on the floor. This was getting to be overwhelming. Arachne, Odyssey, and Joyce all in one horrific day? My head swam, and I wanted to be sick. I was surrounded on all sides by a horror that held me helpless, and I could not escape for even a moment.
Remember when I told you that duty can overcome one’s emotions and wipe away all sentiment in times like these? It is true, but the trick is to stay active – to stay busy – to get caught up in the moment. It dulls the pain, but it doesn’t eliminate it. It always comes back to you. Every soldier who has ever told you that he feels nothing as he kills is a liar. Every hero that claims to sleep soundly at night is hiding the truth. Every Inquisitor who says he immune to the evil he faces is deceiving you. Every death one sees, every life one takes, every evil one witnesses leaves its mark. All of it is felt. It wars within you – your normal, innocent self and the part that is stained in spilt blood – and though you can delay it at times or even hold it at bay, it always comes back and takes its toll. And it continues to do so until there is none of the innocent left and your entire being is soaked in blood. At that time it is with you constantly. It becomes you. It is you.
It is a fate I have accepted knowingly. It is a sacrifice I am willing to make. I am willing to sacrifice my soul to keep yours intact. Only space marines can claim to be unaffected by death and bloodshed, and that is because they have already sacrificed much more. They have no humanity left to lose.
I sat there for some time. I did not weep, nor did I think of anything in particular. I was exhausted by death – I felt as if it had drained me.
Eventually I stood up and examined my agents’ bodies. I counted numerous entry wounds in each, and at least two dozen bullet holes riddling the room behind them, but very few exit wounds. The shooter had broken through the locked door and sprayed the room – judging by the amount of damage there may have been two shooters, but it could have simply been a large capacity magazine. Spent shell casings littered the floor just inside of the doorway, further suggesting that someone stepped inside and emptied a magazine. The casings themselves were from low-velocity sub-sonic 10mm slugs – specially designed for close range and low-penetration, with minimal noise production: assassin’s weapons.
Speaking of which, Mercy was nowhere to be found.
I only realized this now.
I looked around. There was no sign of her anywhere. None of her effects, and no sign of a third person. She was out there, somewhere, and had to be alive.
I stood up and drew the mirror from my pocket, though I did not look at it yet. I knew that if I looked in it Arachne would be dead, but what else?
I stepped in to one of the bedrooms and sat on the bed. I set my pistol beside me and lay the mirror across my lap. I closed my eyes.
I felt so very, very tired.
Opening my eyes, I peered down into the mirror and saw my own face looking back at me. I looked as bad as I felt.
There was movement behind me on the bed.
“Hey Sol…” Looking over my shoulder, Odyssey stretched her arms and smiled as if she were just waking up from a long nap. She wore an undershirt and long khaki-coloured cargo pants with bare feet. No bullet holes. She touched my arm – I jumped at the softness of her fingers. My lover laughed – a warm, beautiful sound. “When did you get here?”
I turned so she could not see the look on my face and pocketed the mirror. In the living room I could hear James Joyce having a murmured conversation with Mercy. Beside me on the bed, my pistol was empty.
“I…” I hesitated, hearing the voices in the other room stop to listen, “I just dropped in. To see you.” I smiled weakly at my lover, and she touched my face – sleepiness still playing across her eyes.
“I’m glad,” she said.
I wish I could have said the same, but in reality I knew that my world had just been split in two.

[deathspectersgt7]

A excellent read with dinner I think I know who is responsible. But can't wait for the next installment.

[Aqui]

A excellent read with dinner:thanks: I think I know who is responsible. But can't wait for the next installment.

Possibly, but knowing Lady C, nothing is as it appears!

[deathspectersgt7]

Nothing is as it seems.

[Lady_Canoness]

Cheers guys ;)

 

You'll have to wait and see what unfolds!

[Taranis]

Another good read as usual. With the Inquisition nothing is simple. And the mirror isn't helping. :)

Captivating.

[Lady_Canoness]

This is my Teacher
 

I first met Inquisitor Magnus Frode some years ago, when I was but a junior Inquisitor. He was, and is still, an Inquisitor who likes to keep a low profile, and I had not heard of him before the day I met him in person during the Seven Day Conflict on Macedon Minoris. Never heard of it? I am not surprised. How about the Week War? Again no? I am still not surprised. The Imperium, being the unimaginable size that it is, has more wars per hour of daylight than you or I can count on both hands and feet – and probably the hands and feet of every person you know.
This war – as everyone agrees – was unimportant. Yes, people died and a planet was at stake, but it was just one planet amidst an empire of over a million worlds. Very unimportant indeed.
You don’t believe me? Why not? Because if it was so minor why would Inquisitor Frode as well as I be summoned to it?
Observe the official record:
The war lasted six days, seventeen hours, twelve minutes, and… forty-two seconds before the secessionist high command surrendered unconditionally.
Over 20 million troops were deployed on the secessionist side – the traitorous Macedonian 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 9th infantry divisions – supported by over 900,000 armoured units, 12,000 close air support units, and an air-force of 9,000 fighters, interceptors, and bombers. The traitors also had control of 4 out of 5 orbital stations.
Loyal to the Imperium was the Macedonian 3rd and 4th divisions – though they had been savaged by the secessionists and were barely holding on. They were reinforced by the Mordian 8th and 21st Armies, and 61st Vendolan Armoured Brigade. In orbit were the battle-cruisers ‘Solar Might’, ‘Vigilant’, and ‘Equites’ from the Imperial Navy’s newly formed Hellenic Sector Tactical Task Group (TTG).
According to the official record, the Imperial Navy’s decisive destruction of the orbital stations on the first morning of declared war, followed by the rapid deployment of the Mordians and Vendolans in a pincer formation around the secessionist capital, formed a tightening noose around the enemy high command which strangled their will to fight in just seven days.
Glorious.
Do you doubt the official record? To do so would be… unwise.
You still doubt it? Good. You should.
What the official record fails to mention is that fifteen Inquisitors under the leadership of Lord Inquisitor Claudius Pike had been operating on Macedon Minors for months prior to the arrival of the Imperial Navy, and that by the time the first Mordian boot touched Macedonian soil the secessionists were already defeated – it just took seven days for the entire secessionist movement to realize it. You might also be interested to know that it was not the secessionist high command that surrendered, but the assistant-adjutant to the Lord High General, and only after he had personally dispatched every member of the sixty man command staff. I won’t go into detail, but you should know that the Callidus temple of assassins can be devastatingly effective.
Why was the Inquisition interested in Macedon Minoris to begin with? That is officially classified, but unofficially the Macedonians were trucing  with witches and needed to die.
What was my role in this? Relatively minor. I was a junior Inquisitor, remember? Along with another junior-ranked Inquisitor, one Ms. Melanie Carver, I was ordered by Lord Inquisitor Pike to serve and obey Inquisitor Frode for so long as it was deemed necessary to track enemy force movement and communication patterns. It began as a minor role, and remained minor for the duration of my time on Macedon Minoris. Or at least that is how it is documented in the Inquisitorial Archives.

Until Inquisitor Melanie Carver, I had never made love to a superior. Yes, she was a junior ranked Inquisitor, but according to the chain of command that had been drawn by Lord Inquisitor Pike, she was above me in our service to Inquisitor Frode. And that was how she liked it. She came onto me quickly, and by our first night working together she was already straddling my midriff and making me sweaty and breathless as I lay face up on my cot. I was powerless to resist her, and I liked every minute of it. I was young, horny, and helplessly, stupidly, infatuated with this beautiful woman. Can you blame me? I was stuck in my thirties with a mind full of knowledge and nearly void of experience (though good luck telling me that then) and this woman seemed hopelessly drawn to me and my firm, athletic build. She fit me like a glove, and had firm, hand-sized breasts that were intoxicating to the touch and demanded squeezed. And the way she handled me? Well, it was very encouraging – and incidentally very good for my morale.   
Have I mentioned how easily young men can be manipulated through sex?
I did not realize that I was being used until it was shoved right in front of my face like a dish served cold.

Her skin was pale and cold to the touch by the time I got to her. Her lips were drained of colour, her eyes glassy and lifeless, and the murderous reek of poison was starting to fill the sleeping area.
The anticipatory erection I had been nursing while on my way to see her went flaccid without my realizing it.
“That was meant for you.”
I spun on my heels so fast that I nearly fell over, and I stumbled back warily as I saw Inquisitor Frode emerge from where he had been standing in the corner of the dark room.
I was shocked. So distracted was I by the sight of Carver’s corpse that I completely failed to notice the senior Inquisitor, and I assure you that is not easy to do. Inquisitor Frode is a giant. Standing a head and shoulders taller than the tallest man I have ever met – and once again as broad as the broadest – Magnus Frode has the unique ability to fill up a room with his presence. You notice him. Everything around him feels smaller, and less substantial. Even the air feels thin when he is around. He takes up your entire sight. His face is chiselled as if from granite. His brow is like a cliff, and his neck is like a tree trunk. His skin is ghostly white, and a shock of platinum hair is slicked back along his scalp so that you can hardly see it. His eyes are deep and haunting like black caverns.
Do you get the picture? This man is not the kind of man you want to be surprised by – his appearance alone is overwhelming. 
Standing like a mountain over me, he asked me to sit – I sat, on the cot that used to be Melanie’s. He remained standing, the body of Inquisitor Carver between us. She was fully clothed, but had collapsed onto my bed with a look of surprised terror on her face. The same look was likely occupying my face at the time.
“That poison was meant for you,” he said again, in his low rumbling voice.
I was starting to recover my senses, albeit slowly, and I asked him how he knew.
“Inquisitor Carver was working against me from the beginning,” he said. From his tone, it sounded as if he was neither surprised nor concerned by that fact. “She intended to kill you with poison in such a way that it looked like my doing, and then kill me after she ‘survived’ my assassination attempt.” He looked at her with complete dispassion. “She was acting under the orders of Inquisitor Pike.”
“What? Why? How do you know?” I may have said more, but the gist was the same.
His dark eyes cut into me, and he breathed deeply through his nose. “Keep your friends close, Inquisitor Wright, but keep your enemies closer,” he told me. “Tomorrow we will pay a visit to Lord Pike.”
“We!? What do you mean we!? What does this have to do with me?”
The words he then said are words I will never forget for as long as I draw breath: He said; “You are my friend. If you want to live long enough to understand why, then you will stay close.”

Inquisitor Frode is a wise man, and under his tutelage I have learned much of the wisdom in keeping friends close and enemies closer.
Why, you ask? Why keep your enemies closer than your friends? It is a hard lesson to learn.
Is it to keep them in striking distance? No, my friend, it is not. If you have ever fought someone, you’ll know that keeping them at an appropriate distance is paramount – and that distance is usually where they are just far enough away for you to still be effective. With a sniper rifle that could be anywhere from six-hundred to sixteen hundred metres. With a sword, one meter or two. And it is generally accepted that there is a ‘too close for comfort’. When your enemy gets close, it is just as easy for you to strike them as it is for them to strike you. Would you take that chance?
Is it so you can watch them? Wrong again. Watch from too closely and you will miss the larger picture. And have you ever noticed how people tend to watch you if they notice you watching them?
The trick of keeping your enemies closer than your friends is to learn from them.
True enough, we learn from both our enemies and our friends, but consider what we learn. Friends learn to prolong a friendship with one another. Enemies learn how to best one another. If friends fail in learning from one another, a friendship ends. What a pity. If enemies fail in learning from one another, one of them loses – and in my position losing usually equates to dying. What a pity.
Which do you think is a better motivator?
Frode believes that enemies are just as important – if not more important – than friends when it comes to which is more beneficial to a life. Never have a friend and you will be a lonely, cold, calculating individual. Never have an enemy and you will not understand what it is like to hate or be hated, or how to act when your life is in danger, or how to think with murder on your mind.
For you, a mild-mannered individual who has no need for thoughts of death in your daily life, friends may seem far more important than enemies. And you may be right, when thinking about your life. But for an Inquisitor, a soldier, a politician… enemies can be invaluable. Know this, for there is more truth to it than you may believe.   

An unmarked shuttle craft arrived at our listening station the following morning. Inquisitor Frode collected me as soon as it touched down, and we left together several minutes later without so much as a word passing between us. From my window I watched as the shuttle lifted off and left the tiny dot of our encampment behind to be swallowed up in the Macedonian desert. I had hardly slept the night before. Do you know that feeling when your heart jumps into your throat and you wonder whether your entire world has just come crashing down around your ears because of nothing more than your own stupidity? Wait, don’t answer that. I don’t care to know.
We were headed to Scarmount; the Inquisition’s covert base of operations here on Macedon Minoris, and a twelve hour flight from where we have been stationed. Frode and I did not exchange a single word for the entirety of it. Maddening.
Scarmount had been a noble estate before the secessionist uprising. Palatial in size, it sat atop a mountain range of a different name, and was only accessible by air or by gondola that wound its way up from far beneath the clouds. Before the war it must have been remarkable and I can imagine the owners living in peace and happiness, but by the time the Inquisition arrived, several months after the onset of hostilities, the secessionist forces had already paid a visit, and as we drew closer the small black specks hanging from the buttresses and balconies turned out to be twenty-eight members of the Scarmount estate. They had been hanging so long in the thin air and sunlight that their skin had dried to parchment, and human beings had been turned into macabre husks with fine rags hanging from their bones. We cut them down shortly after we landed, and the dried remains bounced and came apart as they rolled down the mountain side. One had been little boy – dressed in clothes that he didn’t expect to die in – his life cut short as the rebels hurled him crying over the ledge of a balcony with a twenty foot length of rope fastened around his neck. I remember his arm came off as we dropped him. It got stuck in some crag. We found his room with toys littered all over the floor, and his mother, older sister, or someone else close to him hanging naked from bed-post with her toes barely brushing the floor. Inquisitor Carver reckoned that the rebels had likely beat her as she suffocated on the rope that broke the skin of her neck. Her last visions would have been of her attackers’ faces snarling with animal lust in the innocent surroundings of a little boy’s room. Lord Inquisitor Pike ordered her body burned after we’d cut it down. It was the most human thing I experienced that day, come to think of it.

Inquisitor Frode and I touched down at Scarmount in the evening, and as the hatches opened he uttered the first words I had heard from him all day; “After you, Inquisitor Wright.”
No one met us on the landing pad, and we proceeded unescorted into a large sunroom where several power generators had been set-up. The shuttle cut its engines behind us, and I watched as the pilots dismounted and walked in a different direction – their conversation cut off by the loud humming of the generators. I followed Frode through the sunroom, careful to step over the cables that snaked across the floor and out the large wooden doors that connected the sunroom to the rest of the estate. The generators needed proper ventilation, something that could only be provided by the sunroom’s numerous shot-out windows.
Inquisitor Frode and I proceeded through the estate to the library, which had been converted into a command and control centre to better serve our purposes. A large holo-display depicting the planet of Macedon Minoris dominated the centre of the room, and secondary displays were set up on the second, third, and forth levels of stacks – all of which pointed towards the hovering globe and indicated something-or-others with blinking symbols on the globe’s surface.
“Frode!” I heard a voice from somewhere in the library, and craned my neck to see Lord Inquisitor Pike peering down at us from the forth level of the library; “What in the Emperor’s name are you doing here?”
Now, dear reader, you are likely wondering what a Lord Inquisitor is doing high up in a library stack, apparently, doing his own work and research. Yes? You are probably wondering where the army of clerical staff, servitors, acolytes, and general duty lackeys are, because clearly a Lord Inquisitor would have people at his disposal. Isn’t doing his own work beneath him? My dear reader, welcome to the operational side of the Inquisition: in other words, the side of the Inquisition where we are actually covertly at work in hostile territory. Believe it or not, Inquisitors are (for the most part) just as human as you are, and therefore are just as vulnerable to things like death (if that is not already apparent). In truth, very little separates the Inquisitors at Scarmount suffering the same fate as the pervious occupants. Yes, we are armed, and yes we would put up a fight, but there are only fifteen Inquisitors on the entire planet, and, in the interest of secrecy, very little in the way of support staff. If the secessionists did find out about us, we would be killed, and it is just as likely that our bodies would be hung from the balconies for the next people to find.
So why did Lord Inquisitor Pike not bring is entire support staff with him? Because the more people you have the more resources it takes to sustain them, and the more resources it take the more attention you draw, and the more attention the you draw the more likely you are to be discovered. At the time, Scarmount had three Inquisitors residing there, and a support staff of seven – including both shuttle pilots. In total, they required one supply drop per month to keep them operational.
Do you see my point? In the interests of secrecy, even a Lord Inquisitor will end up doing his own work.
Now, where was I?
Inquisitor Frode, his giant, rough-hewn face tilted up towards Inquisitor Pike, spoke slowly in response as the Lord Inquisitor looked down on us. “Why don’t you come down here so we can speak face to face, Lord? Shouting does not become us.”
Lord Pike seemed to agree, and in the few moments it took for him to reach the floor of the library I stole several glances in Frode’s direction. I didn’t know what he wanted from me, and I didn’t know what he had planned. What I did know was that somehow I was involved.
“Alright, Magnus,” Lord Pike addressed Frode by his first name, “what are you and Inquisitor Wright doing here?”
The giant Inquisitor looked down on his superior. Pike seemed used to Frode’s presence – something I could not claim even though I’d spend the last twelve hours trapped in a shuttle with him. “You expected to see someone else, correct, Lord Pike? Inquisitor Carver? She is dead.”
If Claudius Pike was surprised, then he didn’t show it. One does not become a Lord Inquisitor by being easily red by others. “Magnus, come with me.”
He led us out of the library, through the living room, and into the dining room. He uncorked a bottle of amber coloured alcohol, produced two glasses – one for himself and one for Frode – and poured a couple of stiff drinks. Lord Pike then motioned for us to sit. We did. 
Both men drained their glasses, and Pike poured a second round. I watched.
Frode sat like a boulder on one side of the table, his giant forearm rested on the table’s surface while two fingers and a thumb of his massive hand held his glass. Lord Pike sat opposite him, dwarfed by the other man, but his hard-worked and age-worn appearance maintaining a perfectly calm sheen.
“Your attempt on my life failed,” Frode broke the silence. Pike nodded, conceding the point. “Carver is dead because you failed, but if you had succeeded then Wright would be dead. How do you justify this, Pike?”
Lord Pike’s expression suddenly durned venomous; “And you would have done it yourself, wouldn’t you, Magnus?” he spat. “In my place, you would have flown to the listening station – twelve hours both ways – and shot me dead where I stood, is that correct? Do you realize what is at stake, Magnus? There is a whole world I am responsible for! This goes beyond you and me!”
“And yet you summoned me here, half-way across the sector, just so that you could kill me,” Frode was beginning to sound angry – his voice becoming dangerously low. “You waste the talents of two Inquisitors in a menial task, and ultimately waste the life of one just for your scheme.”
“Are you thick?” Pike retorted. “My mission here is crucial. I won’t jeopardize it based on personal feuds.”
They continued to argue, adding drink after drink to fuel the fire, while I sat petrified in stunned silence. I was listening to two senior Inquisitors – one of whom was an Inquisitor Lord – debate about how one planned to kill the other. What else can I say? I was completely dumbfounded. These men were enemies and their hatred and contempt for each other knew no bounds, yet their dedication to duty prevented them from risking the mission in order to settle personal matters. Both men were armed – I had seen the pistols at their hips with my own eyes – but neither would shoot the other: Frode would not endanger the mission by killing its lead, and Pike would not compromise his position by gunning down a subordinate in cold blood. And Carver was dead. 
What had driven them to hate each other so? I never did find out, but eventually the drink ran out and Inquisitor Frode quickly produced a hip-flask and filled their drinks anew. Both man drained their glasses in a single gulp and slammed them to the table. They argued some more – their words ultimately going in circles – before Frode dismissed himself and Pike watched him go with hate-filled eyes.
I left on the shuttle with my future mentor moments later, and we lifted off into the night.
A week passed before Lord Inquisitor Pike fell ill. Two weeks later he was bed-ridden. Three weeks later he died of natural causes.
Inquisitor Frode and I attended the private funeral service held aboard the Battle Cruiser ‘Equites’ after the Week War was over.
Official cause of death was listed as ‘unknown flu-like symptoms resulting in cascade organ failure’.
Inquisitor Frode never spoke of Pike again.