The Oubliette, page 19
‘Only what everyone knows,’ she said. ‘The Old Ceoc turned their eyes from Him upon the Throne, and Ceocan endured millennia of darkness until He led an exploratory fleet to rediscover our planet and bring us back into His light.’ She stirred her tea, acutely conscious of how loud the sound of spoon against ceramic sounded in the tomb-quiet of the athenaeum. Even the air was still, devoid of any stray breeze that might dislodge an errant page. The preacher stirred her own tea in complete silence.
‘Not everyone,’ said Larrichan. ‘Only those with any sort of formal education know even that much. The farmers and fishers are told only what we allow them to know, which is a far more sanitised version of the same story. Surely a child of such wealth as yourself has a bit… broader knowledge of the galaxy?’
Ashielle sipped her tea, trying to gauge how much to tell the preacher. Larrichan already seemed completely unlike every other member of the Ministorum she had ever met. She had the impression Preacher Larrichan was testing her in some fashion.
‘I know our world was settled during the Dark Age of Technology,’ she said, ‘lost for unknown years before the Astartes Legions found us during the Great Crusade.’
‘Is that it?’ Preacher Larrichan seemed unimpressed. The stone half of her face seemed kinder than the flesh. ‘Were you educated in anything other than rote platitudes?’
‘Was my father?’ Ashielle said. ‘When you spoke with him?’
Preacher Larrichan smiled, although she didn’t seem surprised. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Your father was much more willing to speak freely with me than you are.’ She bobbed her head from side to side as if gauging some unknown factor. ‘Although, it took him nearly a year longer to approach me. I suspect he had exhausted other avenues of research, or perhaps done more extensive probing into my own background. Either way, he was more trusting.’
Ashielle kept her face neutral. ‘How do you mean?’ she asked. She was not a veteran of this particular form of verbal dance, but she was familiar with the steps. Both she and the preacher knew more than they were saying, but each had to tread with caution, given the authority of the other.
‘Do you really believe the Old Ceoc turned, en masse, from their devotion to the Throne?’ Preacher Larrichan broached the topic carefully, but Ashielle had been prepared for this.
‘Unlikely,’ she said, choosing her words with care. A verbal misstep could be construed as heresy. Throne, the most conservative of Ecclesiarchy officials would consider the entire conversation heretical already, anyway. ‘I think it’s more likely a warp storm, bureaucratic error, or simply shifting trade routes cut Ceocan off from the Imperium for a time, and while our closest neighbours probably meant to re-establish contact eventually, time went on. Wars were waged. Governors fell. The Imperium restructured. Eventually, the planet was forgotten.’
Preacher Larrichan arched one eyebrow. She lifted her own cup of tea, and Ashielle realised for the first time that the preacher’s right hand was entirely augmetic.
‘Do you believe that the Emperor directed the exploratory fleet to return the planet to the Imperium?’ The preacher’s voice was light, innocuous, though her question was anything but. Ashielle paused, breathing in the scent of the tea, trying to think of the best way to answer.
‘I think,’ she said, slowly, ‘that those who commanded the exploratory fleet which found Ceocan again believed that they did so of their own free will, guided by nothing more than their own expertise. The Adeptus Ministorum tells us that the Emperor is omniscient and omnipresent, however, so I will believe that the actions of those men and women were guided by the invisible hand of Him upon the Throne, if the Ecclesiarchy tells me it is so. Such facts are, after all, their area of expertise.’
Preacher Larrichan tsked in her throat. She set the cup down on her saucer, the augmetic hand guiding the vessel so smoothly the china didn’t even clink.
‘Deacon Phoebian likes to govern with a kind hand, as such things are judged,’ she said, ‘but if a common labourer were to say such things on our hallowed grounds, even she would have them in stocks in a moment.’
‘I am no common labourer,’ said Ashielle, beginning to realise what sort of game Larrichan was playing. ‘Does the Book of Solangia not say, “the weight of duty is borne by the strength of privilege”?’
Preacher Larrichan smiled, her flesh mouth a mirror of the half-smile of the jade. ‘True, but she goes on to say “privilege shall fail the faithless and the false, the weight of their duty shall grind them to meal”.’
‘Do you believe that I am faithless or false?’ Ashielle asked.
‘Faithless, no,’ said the preacher. ‘Although I’ve yet to meet the politician who wasn’t a little bit false.’
Both women smiled in lieu of laughing at the joke, which didn’t deserve it.
‘True enough in your duty for Solangia’s purposes, anyway. Understand,’ said the preacher, ‘that the Old Ceoc had a history with inhuman influences. Before the Great Crusade, the people of Ceocan had fallen far from the ancestors of theirs who had colonised the planet. They believed that great xenos deities had spirited them away from the world on which they had been born, taken them to live on Ceocan. If there is any evidence of humanity arriving here under their own power, it has long since been destroyed.’
The preacher stood, and clumped her way through the bookshelves. After a moment, she returned, bearing a slim volume of ancient paper.
‘This is the personal journal of Schain Renislaus, a remembrancer with the Thirteenth Legion of the Emperor’s elite.’ The preacher smiled at Ashielle’s wide-eyed expression. ‘Not the actual journal, of course. This was a fairly common text in the more populated parts of the Ultima Segmentum, although it’s fallen out of favour as the Historitors gained power and scope.’
‘I see,’ said Ashielle. ‘And did Schain Renislaus have something to say about Ceocan?’
‘I believe he did,’ said the preacher. ‘He speaks of a world filled with “painted barbarians, who know nothing of Terra and call themselves the Shoke.” He goes on to say that the world is beset intermittently by xenos who hunt the nomadic Shoke for sport. The legionaries set up an Imperial garrison on the planet, and the planet of Shokan became a vital supply of foodstuffs for the crusade fleets.’
‘Speculative,’ says Ashielle. ‘But assuming Mr Renislaus was misspelling Ceocan’s name, that does fit.’
‘Indeed,’ said the preacher. She stood, and gestured for the governor to follow her.
The stacks of books between the door and the preacher’s receiving area were curated, Ashielle realised, and arranged to convey a sense of gravitas. Here, back in what must be Preacher Larrichan’s private area, there was no order she could perceive. Some shelves were devoid of books entirely, and were filled with picks, brushes and other tools that Ashielle could only guess at the function of. Other shelves were filled to the point of sagging beneath the weight of the ancient tomes piled upon them, and stuffed full of yellowed scrolls so brittle with age that she couldn’t begin to guess how the preacher could handle them without the paper turning to dust. The plaster walls, once adorned with frescoes of pastoral scenes and soaring aquilas, had been sacrificed on the altar of necessity. There was scarcely a square inch of bare wall visible, as it was buried beneath a forest of paper. Handwritten notes about ink or paint recipes, book-binding techniques and restoration instructions were mixed in with spare pages that had been salvaged from destroyed books, reference picts for damaged paintings, and cross-reference lists for research projects.
Finally, they came to a stout case set against a back wall. The case itself was decorative, made from iron trimmed with gold, but there were no baroque paintings or decorative reliefs. Instead, the entirety of the black metal surface was covered in gold inscription, which Ashielle recognised as Imperial scripture. This was no display cage like the glass-fronted cases in front. Ashielle had seen similar scripture cases. There was, in fact, one of them in the secret room off the Draper’s Hall in Darcarden.
Unlike the other scripture cases Ashielle had seen, Larrichan’s had no lock. Instead, the preacher placed the index finger of her augmetic hand in the depression where the lock should be. Ashielle could hear smooth metallic clinking echoing from within the lid of the scripture case. Clearly the lock on the scripture case was far more elaborate than the ones that Ashielle had seen before.
The lid popped open with a hiss. Inside were a number of texts and tomes, protected from the corrosive effects of even the air itself.
‘We tell the people that the world was brought joyfully back to the Imperium upon Reunification.’ The preacher straightened, and held one finger aloft as if correcting herself. ‘Rather, we tell that to the children of families wealthy enough to afford a private education.’ She resumed shuffling through the papers with painful slowness, carefully moving each stray note or piece of correspondence from one pile to another.
‘Is that not the case?’ Ashielle asked.
‘Is it ever?’ The preacher turned, hefting a large folio from the case. ‘Here we are,’ she said, before Ashielle could answer her rhetorical question. She gestured to a workbench, where she spread the folio out across the work surface.
The glossy pages were unlike anything Ashielle had ever seen – a treasure trove of artworks from before the Reunification. Picts of displays, shrines and art exhibitions. She drew her hands back sharply before her fingers touched the paper. Ashielle looked to the preacher, who nodded, and she began leafing through the pages.
‘This is an installation,’ she said.
The pict showed a triptych of paintings, lit from beneath. The paintings were beautiful, in the hinged Marcorellian style. Of greater interest to her was the background. The walls behind the painting were fitted wood, and on the left edge of the frame she could make out a dividing screen. Ashielle had seen such architecture in paintings and sculpture, but never in real life.
‘Where was this pict taken?’
The preacher smiled. ‘A city on Ceocan, about a day’s ride south of Ystrode.’
‘There is no city south of Ystrode,’ said Ashielle, closing her eyes and recalling her geography. Ystrode and Kostoveim were on separate continents, but it was all part of her planet, and she prided herself on knowing it well. ‘Just scrubland until you reach the ocean.’
‘That may be true, now,’ said Preacher Larrichan, ‘but at the time of Reunification, there was a thriving community there.’
Ashielle had been to Ystrode, once, and had seen the desert to the south of it. There were no resources there, no buildings. Nothing but scrubland for miles. If there had ever been a city there, it had to have been razed to the ground.
Of course, that’s exactly what would have happened, wasn’t it? The Imperium did not do things by half measures. Its attention might be slow to adjust, but when it had fixed its gaze on a target, there was little and less that could be done to stop its inexorable advance. The very idea that a planet could exist self-sufficiently outside their domain was heresy. The notion of leaving any evidence that it had done so? Intolerable.
‘The Old Ceoc resisted Reunification,’ Ashielle said. Each pict she paged through showed her more of the art and culture that had been lost. How many of these sculptures had been destroyed? How many spirited away? She saw examples of architecture that could no longer be found anywhere on Ceocan. Paintings that had been burned for venerating a hero not sanctified by the Ecclesiarchy. Thousands of years’ worth of history, crushed beneath the conqueror’s boot.
‘Of course they did,’ said the preacher. ‘They had new masters, by then.’ She extracted one of the picts, and laid it out for Ashielle’s viewing.
The pict showed a wall fresco, a grand mural picked out in small coloured shells, the largest no bigger than a fingernail. The mural showed a grand house, a temple or mansion of some kind, in cutaway view. Inside, a man in a grand headdress presided over a legion of bowing human figures: a priest or king of some type. More troubling was the figure next to him, at his right hand. The second figure was humanoid, picked out in glossy black shells. Small green lines, an abstraction of glowing runes, covered its body.
The preacher showed her more pictures of the same mural. Outside the temple there was a city of tiered towers, distinct in their stacked, multiple-eaved design. Images of Ceoc people running through the streets, clustering together in the light of massive bonfires. Between the buildings, skitterlings cavorted. These beings did not merely take to the background, as all images Ashielle had seen did. They wielded blue flame against foolish sword-wielding soldiers. They carried wailing children into the night. They stared out of the wall, directly at the viewer, their eyes picked out in red lacquered shells.
‘The Ceoc people dwelled on this world for thousands of years, alone in the darkness,’ said the preacher. ‘But then the skitterlings came.’
‘What are they?’ Ashielle asked. ‘Nightmares made flesh?’ She stared at a pict of a woven blanket, divided into panels, which told a pictorial story of a family offending a king and being condemned to be dragged away by skitterlings.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Larrichan. ‘I believe they’re scouts or espionage specialists for the sport-hunters that plagued the planet before the Crusade.’
‘You think they came back?’
‘It’s possible, although the few surviving elements of pre-Reunification history don’t show anything like the sport hunts from Renislaus’ third-hand accounts.’ The preacher flipped through a few more picts which showed other art pieces, each of which depicted similar scenes to the first.
It took everything Ashielle had not to laugh in triumph.
‘The Imperium banished them, though,’ she said. ‘During the Reunification, they must have.’
Preacher Larrichan nodded. ‘You see this orange blade this ruler is depicted with?’ she asked. ‘And here, this shows a house with orange stones set in the roof being passed over by the skitterlings. If I’m correct, these are slaenite crystals. Known to be mildly psycho-reactive, and prized in Geller field technology.’ The preacher must have seen the inquisitive look coming across Ashielle’s face. ‘The slaenite crystals on Ceocan are occluded and of poor purity. The ones in our solar system’s asteroid field are abundant and of far greater quality.’ She turned over another page. ‘However, I do believe even locally-sourced crystals would be sufficient for someone familiar with warpcraft to use them to create a shield or protective device to prevent extra-dimensional incursion.’
‘A shield against the invaders?’ said Ashielle. ‘If they aren’t from here, then it stands to reason they must arrive somewhere.’
‘There you are,’ said the preacher. ‘And their means of entry were sealed with slaenite crystals. I doubt the crystals would be sufficient themselves – it would likely also have taken rituals infused with mighty warp powers.’
‘How could such a monumental task be undertaken?’ said Ashielle. ‘How would the Imperium have known?’ She rubbed her thumb across the cap of her missing finger idly.
‘If you notice, the motif of a leader commanding or working alongside the skitterlings is common,’ said Larrichan. ‘And always while brandishing a token of office made of slaenite. I suspect that the skitterlings had some form of compact with the tribal leaders of the Old Ceoc. When the Imperium of Man came calling again after so long, the most powerful of them would have been disinclined to cooperate. The new system had seen them accrue much power and influence.’
Understanding dawned on Ashielle. ‘But when the Imperium of Man came calling again after so long, the least of these leaders, or perhaps their avaricious subordinates, saw an opportunity for advancement for themselves. Betray the ancient covenants of their people,’ she nearly retched as she realised she was almost using Jaezubiel’s exact phrasing, ‘and rise to positions of power in the aftermath.’
‘A reasonable assumption,’ said Larrichan. She fixed Ashielle with a hard look. ‘I suspect, however, that it’s possible that some of those loyal supporters of the Imperium chose not to build a wall, but rather a prison, trapping one or two of the skitterlings in our world.’
Ashielle returned her stare, giving away nothing. ‘That would be the gravest folly,’ she said. ‘No ward can hold forever, after all. Such disastrous short-sightedness would eventually spell danger for someone down the line from them.’
‘Too right,’ said the preacher. ‘Your father had a similar concern, oddly enough.’
‘Do you think these slaenite talismans still have the power to command such creatures?’
‘If their material form was part of the covenant, then most likely,’ said Larrichan. She smiled, a little wistfully. ‘However, it should be noted that the talismans of rulership were considered grand heresy. The last known example was the Spear of Fortunes, but that was destroyed in late M37. So far as I know, only one such relic has survived the years.’
Ashielle looked at her, expectantly, but the preacher only dropped her gaze. The governor felt her heart sink. She had come all this way, only to find that the scholar didn’t know. Then she realised that Larrichan had not dropped her gaze in shame, but rather to stare at Ashielle’s hand.
Or more importantly, her signet ring.
Ashielle lifted the hand, gazing at the dull silver of the band, the flat amber stone set atop it. It was much clearer and purer in colour than any slaenite crystal she’d seen before. She had always taken it to be amber or a rich topaz. It had never occurred to her that it might just be merely a stunningly clear example of a common mineral.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Preacher Larrichan, you’ve been most helpful.’
The preacher inclined her head. Ashielle was beginning to suspect that the cleric was incapable of bowing at the waist.
