Starquest: Scourge of the Spaceways, page 11
Lord Brandoch said, "You have good eyes, if you can make out anything at that distance. Remember our talk. Keep an eye on Orgulus if he fraternizes with you. Cultivate his friendship. Say nothing of what I have said. And take the name he gave you. It will flatter him."
He saluted crisply. He turned his eyes back to the approaching sled, scowling in his thoughts, showing nothing on his face.
For he had not made out anything in the distance. The vehicle was a black dot against the golden clouds, with running lights blinking port and starboard. He knew Sir Orgulus was aboard because of a dream image he could sense invisibly stirring in his subconscious mind, of which, thanks to his illegal talent of lucidity, he was conscious. He sensed the sheathed blade burning at the hip of Sir Orgulus, glinting like a star.
Flint said to Lord Brandoch, "Sir? If I may, what is that sword Sir Orgulus carries? It is not a standard dress saber."
Brandoch said, "He said he took it from the Templar he dueled and slew, as a prize. It is made of some unknown alloy that the Ancients made. Lord Famine let him keep it, as a reward." The Urnain's voice was soft and thoughtful, but there was a glint of suspicion in his eye.
Flint turned to him and said, "Sir, I shall befriend Sir Orgulus, if he fraternizes with me. If I get written up for a violation, however, I would like you to invent some excuse to intervene, or soften any punishment. I don't want to lose a promotion over this. If he is a true and faithful soldier of the Empress, he would not mind a second pair of eyes keeping him on the straight and narrow."
"And —" Lord Brandoch asked delicately, "And if he is in league with the Templars?"
"Impossible. He killed a Templar."
"But if he were?"
"Sir, I will kill him myself. Sir!"
"I may hold you to that!" Lord Brandoch gave him a crooked smile, and clapped him on the shoulder. And, just like that, the suspicions faded from his eye and were seen no more.
Inwardly, Flint upbraided himself. He was a soldier of the Inquisition now, and his mission was to fight all abnormalities, slay all Templars. The psychic powers of his Sphingali ancestors were self-delusions and fake. And even if they were real, they were psychologically dangerous and against regulations. By asking about the sword, Flint had nearly given away his gift of visionary dreams. He had endangered his career, perhaps his life.
Later, much later, after he had retired to his bunk and fallen asleep, the dream image came again.
He saw the sword of Sir Orgulus unsheathed and hovering. As if the crystal blade were floating on a quiet lake of still water. It shimmered with ruby light. It whispered its name:
I am Nelegoth, the Horror-Blade. I served Sir Albrizach in days gone by.
The blade sank in the water, and as it sank, the ruby light was replaced with gold, and yellow fire from a glad sun in its strength began to shine forth. All the waters burned with golden light, and voices sang in solemn joy.
The song filled him with terror and shame. He wanted to hide from whatever pure, high and perfect being was uttering those sweet sounds.
Then the image was gone. He woke, and his pillow was covered with sweat.
Flint Ansteel — for that was now his name, and would be hereafter — resolved never to dream again.
3. Dark Knight of Centaurus
Galactic Year 12805 to 12806
Sir Orgulus assigned Centurion Flint Ansteel to his own flagship, the HMS Overweening Pride to take command of the drop-troopers on detachment there, the Mandragora Maniple of the Inquisition Deathtrooper Cohort.
The maniple consisted of two platoons. His subordinates were Decurion 20-04-AL of Belladonna Platoon, callsign Skorophor Ail, and Decurion 2-4-XPL of Nightshade Platoon, callsign and Tufir Expel. These men were not from his clone line, but, nonetheless, they were not mother-born, so the three of them understood each other before any word was spoken.
Tufir was from Camp Two, an old line. Two's were always in competition with the arrogant eldest clones of Camp One, and so made particular effort to excel. Skorophor was from one of the youngest lines, Camp Twenty. He had the nonstandard red hair, freckles, and puckish humor of all Twenties, and their love of pranks, which Skorophor knew never to get caught playing, not without a naive greenhorn to blame.
Both men were soldiers as effective, obedient, smart, and lethal and any brace of boarhounds. They would be Flint's subordinates and comrades for decades, closer than sons.
A centurion was not normally allowed fore of Bulkhead Two into Officer's Country, but during field operations, landings, or meetings with local planetary leaders or chieftains, Orgulus assigned Flint to his retinue as liaison. This gave ample opportunity to fraternize during off-duty hours, without it being so obvious that the officers and men could not courteously turn a blind eye.
As it turned out, Sir Orgulus was a bit of a card sharp, although exactly how he was cheating was never discovered. It was as if Orgulus could see the cards in his opponents' hands, or see the bluffs and feints hidden in their hearts. These unnatural powers of intuition, or observation, or luck, also served him when hunting game or when deploying troops. He seemed to know the position of prey or tactics of rebels before even they did.
The man could also hold his liquor to an unusual degree, and, once, when caught without his helmet during a poison gas attack, Orgulus strode through the cloud without coughing or even blinking, and killed the rebels with an archaic hand weapon from some museum.
This was in the robot-haunted city of Achirdred on planet Achird in the Argo Sector. A group of rebels had hidden themselves among the senile machine-men of the unlit, silent metropolis. Sir Orgulus was reckless while leading the squads through the narrow tunnels, but seemed to know where the enemy ambushes waited, and could find living men hidden amid the smiling masks of many the robotic faces. As Marshal of the Cohort, Sir Orgulus should not have exposed himself to danger, but the men loved him for it.
Flint did, too. Flint was at his side during the most desperate hours of the fighting. Flint was there, and watched Orgulus unlock the ancient mechanism of a riddle-asking antique door guarding the mausoleum where the rebels waited. Flint saw the gush of flame and gunfire rush out, and sweep against armor, and turn their personal force-shields to screaming blazes, as the rebels made their final, suicidal charge into hand-to-hand range. Orgulus drew his sword and strode into the thickest press of the melee, and Flint, space-axe in hand, was at his shoulder.
After the battle, when the shooting and the shouting stopped, the slain rebels were conveniently piled inside a mausoleum, so disposing of bodies meant merely closing the door once more.
Orgulus kept a private collections of elder artifacts, totems, prayer-fans and crystals, relics of martyrs, skulls of beheaded saints, illegal writings and scrolls, and the skullbox of a still-functioning robot-exorcist from the Ninth Age.
Flint was sworn to strictest secrecy, and aided him during hours not logged, covertly to obtain these forbidden treasures by purchase or robbery from smugglers or cultists. One of the artifacts, a forbidden scroll, was obtained by being borrowed legally from an Inquisition evidence vault, but then reported as lost or destroyed. While it was technically against regulation, and carried heavy penalties, Flint reported this to no one.
Flint was fascinated by the ancient books and grimoires and breviaries. Sir Orgulus gave him a three volume collection of Sphingali dream-lore, illegally written down by Riddle-Masters, who were normally not allowed to commit their mnemonic lore to paper. The guards and wards protecting unknown mountains in the cold waste of the northern dreamlands were listed here, as well as gestures and mystic runes needed to quell archons and monoliths protecting its secret.
As Flint turned the pages and studied the curious goetic script and ornate capitals of the syllabograms, he saw descriptions of the disciplines Sphingali warlocks used in ancient days, before the destruction of Algol, to breathe poison or drink venom unharmed. He began to understand how Sir Orgulus could down a bottle of vodka like the roughest trooper without any sign of impairment.
When the exact point came when Flint Ansteel stepped across the line from merely doubtful infractions of regulation, to outright illegality, in hindsight, was invisible to him. It happened so naturally, so easily, he never quite noticed. He was fraternizing with his superior officer, who, after all, was the next man up in the chain of command to whom the infraction should have been reported.
In theory, soldiers of the Inquisition were supposed to report on each other anonymously, and political officers visited everyone periodically for "informant" sessions. But in practice, well run units followed an unwritten rule, brothers who had served in combat together, for all the informers to give each other a clean bill of health.
And Flint had been told by the High Minister of State, Lord War himself, to befriend Sir Orgulus. How and when that friendship became real was something he later wondered about. At the time, it seemed natural.
Thus it seemed natural, when the HMS Overweening Pride made orbit about the sunless and icy glaciers of Noctua, beneath an orbiting ring of miniature artificial suns, to accept the invitation when Sir Orgulus asked him to join in a covert operation.
They were sitting in the ready room of Fort Winterwolf, on the flight deck level, beneath the titanic emanation alignment tower. This fort was as large as a small city, with quarters for civilians and dependents, engineers and specialists. It was an extensive facility, deeply rooted in the bedrock, rising almost to the planetary forceshield forming a roof over the troposphere.
Fort Winterwolf was the traffic hub for sector logistics, but, like so many of the older installations still in use, it seemed to be functioning at less than half capacity, with whole levels cordoned off and unoccupied, machine shops not in use, warehouse decks empty, and warships in mothballs.
The local conscript laborers were albino-pale men of undernourished build — not surprising on a world without sunlight — who called this facility the Malign Tower.
Flint and Orgulus had been playing cards with several of the base officers, including the Exec, but these officers politely dropped out one after another as the watches grew later, the stakes got higher, the whiskey was gone, so that only grog was left, warm and flat.
Finally, at around four bells of the Middle Watch naval time or zero-two-hundred infantry time, only the pair of them remained at the table, with all the chits won from the others stacked high at each elbow.
The chits had each nametag set to 'pay the bearer' so that any depot or quartermaster would honor them, or any civilian, regardless of rank or restriction. In effect, the chits were money, not credits.
It was after lights out, but Orgulus had ordered Flint to switch on the helmet lamps of a row of pressure suits standing in a set of open lockers to their left. The harsh beams made overlapping ovals of light on the table top. Black shadows slanted away to the right.
Flint, staring into the sparkling, slanted, inscrutable dark eyes of Orgulus suddenly knew that the man was bluffing. Flint recklessly pushed all his chits into the kitty.
Orgulus stared at the pile in the center of the table in surprise. "Ah! Well! That is nearly eight months of credit chits, Centurion! Are you going to risk it all? I have two kings showing!"
Flint said, "Match or fold, Marshal. Match or fold."
Orgulus turned over his hidden card: a four of clubs. Garbage. Flint snorted.
Orgulus said, "A pair of kings still beats a pair of duces, Centurion."
Flint smiled thinly and turned over his hold card. It was a joker.
"Jokers are wild. Three of a kind." He scooped the pile of chits toward himself.
Orgulus sighed and shrugged and raised his drinking bulb in salute. "Greenhorn luck!"
"Luck! I knew you had nothing in the hole."
How do you know that? Are you a mind reader?
"No, I am not a mind reader!" Flint said, smiling, taking up his drinking bulb and downing a hefty pull of grog. He had seen this scene last night in a dream, perhaps, but it would not be wise to mention that. Or even to believe in such things. Against regulation.
As Flint brought his bulb down from his lips, he saw that Orgulus was drinking too, mouth full of grog, and realized the other man had not spoken aloud.
The two men stared at each other.
Flint was stony faced. Orgulus swallowed and smiled a thin smile.
The silence grew.
Flint had perhaps had a drink or two too many, because his thoughts were sluggish and weak. He wondered if Orgulus had addressed him silently, using the dream-speech first discovered by ancient Sphingali occultists, which only adapts sensitive to Kirlian energy, and who also were lucid while awake or asleep, could hear. Both the night-speech and the night-hearing were forbidden Templar disciplines.
It was just as much a crime of treason for Orgulus to have spoken silently as it was for Flint to have heard him.
Flint wondered if Orgulus would call out to the nearest legionnaire squadron patrolling this level and order him shot. On the other hand, the legionnaires currently patrolling the undermanned base here happened to be Mandragora Maniple, and were directly under Flint's command. Then again, Flint was a centurion of the Inquisition, and it was his duty to arrest Orgulus, if Orgulus was practicing Templar arts. Then again, again, Templar arts were supposed to be tricks and holograms, not real. But then again for the third time, Orgulus could have Flint arrested for dereliction of duty if Flint failed to arrest Orgulus.
Orgulus said nothing, did not move, but merely gazed at him, lips curled.
Flint said grimly, "So this is some sort of test, is it? A loyalty test."
Orgulus said, "Test? What test? What makes you say such an odd thing?"
"You're wondering whether I heard your thought, or if what I said was just coincidence."
"How can you tell if I am thinking that, unless you are a mind reader after all?"
"It is clear from the way you are smirking."
Orgulus said, "Come now! I am an officer of the Empress! Gentlemen never smirk!"
"Then what is that odd look on your face?"
"Ah! This is my genial and winning smile! I wager I could charm an enemy Shrine Maiden with it!" And his smirk grew more odd and twisted. Perhaps Orgulus had had too much to drink as well.
Flint was angry at this foolishness. If Orgulus did have illegal Templar powers, he should be killed. But Lord War himself had ordered Flint to befriend him, and discover any treason. Flint barked, "So! Do I pass? Or are you going to have me shot and recycled?"
Orgulus spread his hands in a generous gesture. "Ah! Well! If I have my loyal underlings shot for winning five card stud, no one will play with me. But if you can keep a secret, there is a bigger game I want you to join, playing for higher stakes."
"You are plotting treason?"
Now the odd smirk, or the genial smile, or whatever it was, vanished from the face of Orgulus. His features were starkly serious. "Ah! No. We are plotting against treason. This is a precautionary move against a man who, at the moment, is gone, and whom we do not trust so entirely when he comes back."
Flint scowled. What man was gone? Gone where? Coming back from what?
Orgulus leaned closer, and lowered his voice, "We have few and precious spindizzy warmoons. Nine in service, one has been in repair seven years after deadline and seventy billion credits over budget. This last one, an armed and equipped mobile planetoid fortress — a weapon that makes a superdreadnaught look like a schoolboy firecracker — is to be made available to an auxiliary ally to commit acts of piracy behind enemy lines."
Flint said, "Auxiliary crapsack! The Empire needs every last man and chargepack for the war effort. Allies? What allies? Everything in the galaxy is ours. Everything in the globular cluster is some savage world not worth conquest. There is no ally."
Orgulus said, "You know Xerophage Blight, Lord Famine? This is an old comrade of his. Long retired. We are undertaking certain, ah, extensive measures to bring him out of retirement. Practically a brother."
"And giving him a warmoon?"
"Yes."
"Insane. What flatheaded braindead dogchuck ordered such a thing?"
"Ah! Well … it was the Empress."
"Whose each glorious word we live and die to obey! Hail the Empire!"
"Hail the Empire!" answered Orgulus dryly, waving his palm in a negligible version of the regulation stiff-armed salute. "In this case, however, by 'the Empress' I mean the Regent, Lady Venom, grandmother and guardian of the Empress. Acting in her name. Now, just between you and me, the Imperial Court is not a welcoming and cooperative environment. First thing I was told when I was brought into the Inner Circle was — if you want a friend, buy a dog. It looks as if the war is not — this is strictly between you and me, Centurion, strictly hush-hush — not going as well as projected."
Flint nodded, unsurprised. "We all know the official reports go through the civilian psychological conformity office of the Inquisition before public release. To maintain morale. The official reports tell of victory upon victory."
Orgulus chanted in a singsong voice, and mimicked the melody of the patriotic anthem that began Pure Hearts so Faithful: Loyal am I! — Except the words were barrack-room talk: "Puke-heaps of porkpie piled so high: Layer on layer. Lie upon lie!"
Flint said dourly, "Hail the Empire."
"Well. Hail the thrice-buggered Empire. The only game in town. But not a gentleman's game, like I was saying. Not a nice game. There are many recriminations circling the court, and no one knows what to make of the Empress, and Lady Venom does not let anyone see or speak to her."
This agitated Flint more than he let show on his face. "She's a prisoner?"
He could picture the fair face and willowy form of the graceful girl as if she were before him, standing with straight spine and dignity, hiding any sign of terror, as shadowy figures and false friends closed in about her, cutting off any escape, lowering gates and locking doors. The image greatly disturbed him, like seeing a delicate songbird drooping in an iron cage, or a rose in a coal cellar, starved of sunlight.
