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Innocence Means nothing (Complete)

Started by Merriweather, January 12, 2012, 10:32:38 PM

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Merriweather

[Something I wrote a while ago. Fairly passable]


Innocence Means Nothing



The passage vaulted up towards infinity, black granite alcoves along its length cradling figurines of the pious – their names and deeds forgotten to all but the archives. Candle-points punctured the gloom, revealing the giant murals flanking the penitence chapel; righteous slaughter and glorious martyrdom, ritually highlighted with the blood of the witch. The echo of our footsteps ricocheted off the stone, the rising, cacophonous cadence mirrored by my racing heartbeat. I kept remembering her face on the corner of the record; rounded features and a cautious smile.

I turned to my companion, my sweat slicked undershirt smothering across my spine in protest. He was tall, gaunt, and pallid, perpetually dressed in drab, dark fatigues. I was shorter, thicker, darker, and feminine, but I was still dressed like him – little more than his mannequin.

"Tarin," I pleaded once again. "We don't have to do this."

"No, we don't," he said, his eyes flicking across to me in mild amusement. "No more than we have to execute any of our duties, at least."

"For Pity's sake, she's a child! Surely-"

"She is a witch; her age is irrelevant. Have I taught you anything, Kyana? Innocence means nothing."

We stopped in front of the doors, climbing to the entombed heavens. Tarin leant against one, bored and uncaring.

"There has to be something else you can do besides kill her," I said. Tarin tilted his head slightly, a small, perverse smile worming its way from the corner of his mouth.

"Yes, I suppose so," he said. "I can have you do it instead."

I just stared, my mouth frozen agape, I was still fumbling with a protestation as Tarin presented his pistol to me.

"No, Tarin, No, I can't, I'm too –," I breathed hoarsely

"Too what, Kyana? People of my calling must do things like this, routinely," Tarin said. He pulled out one of my hands and pressed the weapon into my hand, ignoring my terrified stare. "And you said you thought this was your vocation, didn't you?"

"Inquisitor, please..."

"You know how to operate this weapon – activate the aiming module, set the catch to 'live', and centre the targeting aid onto the back of the witch's head. Pull the trigger – the result will be similar to some of the vid-feeds you have watched."

Tarin turned on his heel and began to walk back the way we came.

"Tarin, wait..! Tarin.." I called after him. No response. I stayed there, listless, before finally rallying my resolve. I pulled one of the vast doors ajar and slid inside, closing it behind me.

The Chapel was small, illuminated by the torches inset into the eyes of the Aquila, rearing above the pews haughtily, oil reservoir precariously balanced on its back. The walls were covered in parchment, their careful illumination turning the walls into a mess of colour. Between the two columns of pews, and under the heads of the Aquila knelt a girl; hazel-haired, slightly built. I made out the red inscriptions along the back of her neck, and the soft, rabid fever of her prayer.

My too-small hand strained along the grip of the gun to pull the safety catch up, its soft clink lost under the rumbling slurry of sound. My other hand reached under the barrel and activated the laser-sight, the red dot swaying with each tremble of my hands. My index finger reached forward to touch the trigger and I raised the weapon to point at the girl, the laser point highlighting errant strands of her poorly-kept hair. All I had to do was pull the trigger, but I couldn't. She was another person, and that counted for something. It had to.

I safed the weapon and held it behind my back, walking up behind her. She only noticed me as I sat down on the nondescript pew. She faced me, her lack of expression unperturbed. I summoned the best smile I could.

"Hello, Lira."

"The-the, the confessor said there would be an... an Inquisitor to meet me," she said, syllables sweeping between the stutters. "That I sh-sh-should be glad one would even breathe the same air as me."

"I'm not an Inquisitor, but I work for one," I said, dragging my eyes up from her blood soiled, scarified forearms. "How long have you been here, Lira?"

"I don't know, I think it must've a week," she said, affirming the answer I had already read in her file. "The confessor said a Mass had passed since I... since I..." She trailed off, looking down at the ground before looking at me again.

"Did... How are they?" she said. My guts clenched inwards as she ventured a desperate, imploring smile. I should've lied, but I couldn't. She was a person, and that meant something.

"The people who you-... who were burned died of their injuries," I said quietly.

"But they'll go to the Emperor, right?" she said. "I mean, they were saved, weren't they?"

"I hope so."

Lira got up, hobbling back and forth listlessly, the skitter of her footsteps the only thing holding back silence. She walked across to the Aquila, stroking her hand down its bronze coat of feathers.

"Lira –"

"I didn't want them to die," Lira said, looking over her shoulder to me. Her teary stare savaged whatever remained of my composure. "They were cruel to me, and I was angry with them, but I didn't want them to die... I heard the funeral procession go by but I hoped... It doesn't matter."

Silence fell again.

"Why are you here?" Lira said.

"You're dangerous," I said, mind racing to find a way around the truth. "It isn't your fault, but you are. We don't want any more people to get hurt if... something happens again. We... we need to make sure you can't... You can't"

"Suffer the witch to live," Lira finished for me, smiling desolately.

I nodded, unable to speak. I produced my pistol and laid it beside me on the pew.

"Will it hurt?"

"No, you won't feel a thing," I said. "I'm sorry Lira, I should have just..."

"No, it's alright," Lira said. "I haven't had many people to talk to, and I wanted to see what the Inquisition was like – we were only ever told stories."

"I'm sorry for being such a disappointment to you," I said. The humour fell flat. Lira continued on as if she didn't hear me.

"I wanted to become one, one day," she said. "But because it was right, I suppose. I wasn't the best, or the brightest, but I thought if I worked hard enough it would be enough... I'd hoped that if the Inquisition came to see me they might offer me a chance of redemption."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," she said, kneeling before the Aquila again. Her fingers trembled as she splayed them across her chest. I picked up the gun and walked behind her.

"It's not yours either," I said, switching the pistol to my left hand, balling my right hand into a fist and pressing it into the small of my back. I stood side on and unfurled my arm. Point blank, couldn't miss.

"Would you like to say anything?" I stalled desperately. Lira shook her head. I stared along the sights, the back of my target falling into and out of focus.

"What's your name?" Lira said.

"Kyana – call me Ky."

"My friends call me Lirry."

I strangled a sob with the muscles of my throat; the rest of her cohort had been executed – precautionary Martyrdom. I heard her pray, her voice stumbling over the arcane grammar, and straining to pronounce the words. They barely echoed in the chapel, muffled by the streams of parchment rippling on the walls. My eyes closed, my index finger clenching over the trigger.-

I woke. My eyes slowly, steadily cleared, resolving the tangle of pipes above my bed. I pulled myself upright and walked to the basin, cold prickling the soles of my feet and leant forward, bracing my arms on each side of the washbowl, glaring into the mirror. The woman I saw was bleary-eyed, her dishevelled hair falling across her face. She didn't look much like an Inquisitor, like some awful fusion of messiah and avenging angel. The discarded auto-injector on her bedside was the forlorn hope she could do without its contents, the salvation of her conscience.

Maybe it would treat her better once she'd killed him.

#

Kataryx shone below, half translucent, silhouetted against its sun. The planet had changed since I had been there last. The uprising consumed the main city and threatened to spread down the trade route. Virus bombs scoured Cataryx's murky, toxic sky clear – disproportionate, but the new atmosphere was much more amenable to resettlement.

The shuttle slowed, banking gently to one side. The pilot's announcement was lost under a chatter of prayer. Below lay the neatly ranked remains of the planet's Churchmen, and their progena. The Scholum held out against the rebellion, and held devotions on the surface as the bombs fell around them. It has been a site of pilgrimage ever since.

"Isn't it glorious? Such faith... it is beyond my understanding."

My head snapped across to the speaker, the man in the seat next to me. Bald headed, genial-featured, I imagined he had a family, but I didn't ask. It was him, rather than the remains below, that was the seed of the Imperium.

"Yes, beyond mine too," I said.

I leant back into my seat to give him a better look out of my viewport. I'd wished that I could be just another ordinary citizen, like him. All I needed to do cast my seal into the void and land on a planet somewhere, and forget about the last twenty years. The cowardice sickened me, but the desire remained still.

The settlement called itself Purgation – a tumourous swell of rockcrete half a kilometre below. Settlement had metastasized across the planets surface, the linking roads like fracture-marks across the gleaming, glassy ground. The shuttle circled twice before landing, the landing site no more than an area of ground outside – the veneer peeled away to reveal the sandy-coloured earth. We arrived unwelcomed, the few dozen men and women taking their bags from the hold before walking into the settlement. I followed them.

The sun peeked just above the low walls surrounding the settlement, the crowd disintegrating as I walked to the central plaza. A clutch of light-skinned, stick-limbed children watched me, before being called inside warily by their mother. I lurched across the street to their home, beneath description in its squalor. I stole a glance through the window as I passed – the woman and children squatting around a sparsely laid table. I kept going to the Imperial palace, at the head of the plaza – the only building more than one storey tall. It shared the same indistinct grey prefabrication as the rest of purgation; it was distinguished only by its size and the large, silver Imperial Eagle borne on its face like a medal on a soldier's chest. Two men stood outside, black-clad, with the distinctive half-face helmets of the Arbites. They shuffled warily as approached.

"You trespass on the sovereign territory of the God-Emperor of Mankind. Explain your deviance."

I glanced around – small crowds eddied around the edge of the plaza and seeped into the side alleys, but no one was close enough to overhear me.

"Explain your deviance! You will not be asked again!" the Arbite spat, the second pointed his combat shotgun at my feet. I reached under my shirt and pulled the pendant from my neck. The second Arbitrator raised his shotgun before his face followed its way along the silver chain to the plain symbol, an 'I' transfixed upon three bars - my own personal millstone.

"I am Inquisitor Kyana Olenson," I said, and then turned to face the first speaker. I saw their jaws flush violently under their helmets.

"I wish to see the Commander. Take me to him."

Both snapped their fists against their breastplates in acknowledgement. The first tapped the side of his helmet and spoke quietly into his vox bead, whilst the second gestured for me to follow him inside, opening one of the double doors for me. A clerk inside started to her feet and bowed painfully as I was announced, her yellow robes taut over her obese figure. I was directed up the bare, narrow stairs, an errant servo-skull tracking my progress with its gallows' stare.

The Commander stood before me as if I was inspecting him on the parade ground – hands clasped behind his back and chest pushed out. A wine-coloured desk and chair stood in the centre of the room; partly covered windows offered half-lidded glimpses at the sky.

"Salutations Inquisitor – allow me to be the first to welcome you to this humble outpost on Kataryx. I fear we do not have the means to provide a reception worthy of you, but you are welcome to the contents of my cellar – I can have an orderly gather a selection immediately."

My eyes wandered back to the speaker. He was well-dressed, although his uniform was dishevelled, as if he had hurriedly put it on. He was well-set, young, and spoke confidently, but his nervousness was palpable – few people are pleased to see an Inquisitor.

"My thanks, Commander," I said, raising a hand. "But I'm not here to drink."

"Of course, Inquisitor. Please, feel welcome to take a seat," he said, retreating behind his desk. I sat.

"So, how can I help you, Inquisitor?"

"How go affairs on this planet, Commander?"

He raised an eyebrow at me before his better instincts could restrain him. He leant back on his chair, his fingers tapping nervously on the table.

"I'm not sure what you're after, Inquisitor. This is a recent resettlement -"

"Has anyone taken an interest, anyone important arrived?"

"Inquisitor, I confess I don't know what you are driving at."

"Is there another Inquisitor here?"

"I..." The Commander said, looking down, "I am really not at liberty to say, Inquisitor."

"You are aware of the penalties for withholding information from an Inquisitor?" I said.

"Approximately the same as breaking a promise made to one of them, I believe," The Commander said, holding my gaze.

"Ah," I said, understanding. "Then I shan't try and tax your principles any further. Are you at liberty to tell me if you have been given instructions by any earlier Inquisitor?"

"I was ordered to close the Plain of the Martyrs three cycl- one year standard ago."

"I see – can you provide me with a groundcar and a map?"

"Respectfully, Inquisitor, I was instructed to let no one inside by the highest authority."

"I am not asking you to let me inside, Commander, merely to provide me means of transportation."

"Yes, Inquisitor, I'll have a groundcar at the landing site for you. Will you need a driver?"

"I'll manage," I said, rising from my seat. "Thank you, Commander."

I turned and walked away, and heard him rise in turn, his chair grating against the corrugated metal.

"Inquisitor?"

"Yes, Commander?"

"The pilgrims that come here bring a lot of money to this planet – without the site, we only have a few relics here, and word of mouth is spreading. We need that money – rationing out the remaining food is getting tighter and tighter, and if it gets much worse..."

"I promise I'll do what I can, Commander."

I left.

I walked down the alley, fingers closing around a hard object pressed between the walls the slimy fabric inside my coat. Ingots of Adamantium often served as a currency, and were worth enough to buy a family a month's supply of food, even at Kataryx's inflated prices.

I turned towards the house I passed earlier. Its sole window was open, the curtain barely swaying in the still air. I pushed the ingot over the sill as I walked past, hearing it crack on the floor inside, the feeble 'Ma, Ma' of a child serving as its echo. I ran to the end of the alley and rounded the corner, peeking to look back the way I came. A woman stumbled out, ingot held aloft as she looked around – I ducked back as she looked my way. The edicts of the church were clear what should be done unearned wealth, but I willed her to keep it all the same. I leant back out to see her look across into the plaza before walking back inside. I tried to smile, the expression killed in its genesis by the reproachful whispers of my conscience.

#

The sun had fallen further, a sallow blush in the corner of the darkening sky. The headlamps lit a corridor of ground before me as I drove into the night. I could my mind drowning in my tiredness, but even if I wanted to sleep, I couldn't. The narrow path of light was eviscerated by a mess of stark shadows, and I braked. The car came to rest, the interior lights throwing the cockpit into red relief. The door opened up like a birdwing, and I stepped outside. This area had been one of the most mildly affected, and the paper-thin glass veneer crackled under my feet. I pulled the bag across to the pilot's seat and opened it, pulling the weapons out one by one and fastening them to my body. A sword, a dagger, a grenade, a pistol – all of them Tarin's once. I drew the autopistol and loaded it, activating the small glowlamp under the barrel. I swept the light across the ground.

The Plain of the Martyrs had a small cordon wrapped around it – I ducked under it and stepped inside. The sun had fully set, revealing the galactic disc salted across the night. A small trail of skeletons led the way from the singular entrance to the Scolum – had they been stragglers, or did their nerve break? I walked along the patchy line to the two blocks of heat-charred remains, separated down the middle by a nave. The skeletons increased in size as I walked forward – despite the caustic atmosphere, they had ordered everyone by age. There was a slight gap before another rank of larger bodies – most likely the priests. The whole spectacle was led by a single figure. I circled around to face him, noting the small Aquila pendant around his neck, the individual links fused to a single, rigid band.

The Cardinal didn't look so holy now, with his skeleton sprawled in a sunken heap. The Scholam could have sheltered them, but he chose suicide. I could see the whole display – the torch falling upon sprung-apart ribcages, all upright; like braces of hands clawing for beatification. I imagined them manipulated into synchrony like so many dolls. Were they asked to sing through liquefied lungs, pray through acid-slaked lips?

I stamped through the skull and kicked forward, the brittle bone shattering and drawing its own jagged mush in the glass. I aimed the pistol at the skull of one of priests, but thought better of the desecration, and walked away. The entrance to the Scholam was a slit in the ground – the stairs trampled into an indistinct ramp. The heavy airlock doors mated badly, the doors passing each other like over-biting teeth. I wrapped my hand around one of the doors and pulled it open, the artifice groaning its protest. I swung inside and let go, the door clattering back into place.

"Merry Michelmas, Miss Olenson."

The voice came from above, age cracked and tinny. My pistol flicked up to reveal a single vox-grating on the roof.

"Tarin," I spat.

"Clever girl," he sneered, reprising his role from all those years ago. "It has taken you a long time – I trust that imbecile of a Commander made sure you knew where to find me?"

"He is a good man. He keeps his word, even to scum like you."

"Oh, I'm sure he kept his word. Like you do – you insinuate, withhold the truth and mislead, but you always keep your word. What is it about moral cowardice that you find so appealing?"

The vox clacked off – unneeded except to give him the last word. The small chamber I was in used to be the airlock. The second set of doors opened, snapping shut behind me as I stepped inside. Darkness fell again, accompanied by a slowly rising squeal of augmetics to my right.

I span and pointed my weapon at the sound. The body hung from its metal cage like an over-ripe fruit. Its cavities swelled and sank in lieu of breathing, feed tubes salivating onto the ground. Its arms were lopsided; one atrophied and feebly clutching the wall, the other swelling around the assault cannon mangled onto its forearm. The barrels accelerated into a blur as the weapon pointed at me.

I fired, the gun pushing back into my hands. The first shot punched a red hole into its shrivel-skinned torso. I pulled the trigger again and again, the bullets cutting channels where grey-green fluid pulsed out of its deflating body. I saw the cannon pointing down at me, its keening cry drowning out my thoughts. My pistol ran dry and I released the magazine –

Kri-kri-kri-kri-kri-kri-

I looked down the empty cavalcade, and then into its stare. Shock registered on its brutalized face, but I dismissed the impression – just a servitor. The assault cannon still whined. I pushed a new magazine into the pistol and racked the slide, the sound of my heart dimming in my ears.

"That's a good one," I whispered in the dark.

I pointed the pistol at its head and fired, the second round glancing off its forehead before the weapon jammed.  I cast the pistol aside and walked away; the weapon tracked my progress, still spinning.

"You should have given it some bullets," I said.

"Why bring you here just to shoot you, Kyana?" Tarin's voice was backed by the gentle strains of an organ.

"Cease these games! Am I going to have to check every single Organum to find you?"

"What if I move? Why don't you play too, or have you forgotten since you don't need an excuse to avoid the hymnals? Perhaps you could do a fugue – you always liked them: formulaic, staid, predictable." The falling passage rolled into a dissonant chord.

"Save it – I'm not here for a recital."

"Why are you here, Kyana?"

"Meet me in person and I'll tell you."

Tarin laughed shortly, the sound a series of slowly dying echoes. I descended a narrow column of spiral stairs and walked into one of the grand halls. The tables were set, the food reduced to a black gristle ringing the plates. The liquid in the stop-bottles rippled, clapping footfalls following moments later. I turned to face the sound, reaching inside my coat for the hilt of my sword.

The woman was dark and tall, a white flaxen dress draped over her slip of a figure. She moved shyly, light sandals snapping between her feet and the floor with each step. But it was her features that held my eyes and stopped my mind.

Because they were my own.

"Apologies for not using my own person, Kyana, I hope this one is an adequate substitute?" Tarin said in High Gothic. The girl continued her course unperturbed, looking up at me.

"Greetings, Inquisitor," she said, her voice little higher than a whisper. I stared at her.

"My name's Kyana," I said finally.

"Funny, mine too." She smiled at me, waiting for my response. None came.

"Follow me, Inquisitor."

"What have you done, Tarin?" I hissed into one of the voxes as we passed it, wording it in High Gothic to leave my guide ignorant.

"I am told that creating a body from a genetic code is a relatively simple feat – the Magos was most compliant, providing he could have a couple of copies for himself. He informs me you are an excellent physical specimen." Revulsion ran me through, pushing my guts toward my spine.

"Why? You made these people, what, to be your accessories? You're sick."

"So I'm seldom told. And no, not my accessories, but your replacements – I made a lot of mistakes with you, Kyana, and so I needed fresh canvas. Your companion was one – pretty pathetic, barely worth the mind-wipe. You met another one at the entrance – it was also defective."

"It has a gender."

"Not after it was neutered. And considering how many holes you put in it, I imagine it should be referred to in the past tense."

"I'm not your puppet, and my body isn't your canvas."

"Then why, little Kyana, do you dance so prettily whenever I pull your strings?"

My guide led me along a flight of stairs, naked in the void of the cavern. Torches were set in pairs on wrought-iron poles along the stairway, their light just revealing a honeycomb yet to be filled with skulls. We were moving back towards the surface, to places the Progena were forbidden to go. There were no vox-units, sparing me from Tarin's commentary.

"How long have you been here, Kyana?" I asked, in the lower tongue. She looked over her shoulder at me, faintly surprised.

"Four cycles, my lady."

"Just here, in this complex?"

"Yes, my lady. It is my duty to serve."

"What happened before you came here?"

"Respectfully, my lady, I would prefer not to say." She sped on ahead up the steps.

"What happened, Kyana?"

"From each to their own true place; from the highest to the lowest all shall have their purpose."

"I want an answer, not an aphorism."

"I wouldn't bother – I doubt she knows herself." A nearby vox blazed to life. The woman nodded meekly in acquiescence, then turned away and walked along the passage.

"What did you do to her?" I asked - returning to High Gothic again.

"Nothing much, really – she barely managed the first year of your regimen. Oh, she is marked, by the way, on the base of her neck. Not my doing, not personally, but that – how did you used to put it? Doesn't matter." He trailed off into a chuckle, before clearing his throat.

"So, Inquisitor, what are you going to do about it?

I closed the distance to my guide, pulling my sword from its scabbard and holding it back, the point hovering behind my heels. I gently parted her hair with my left hand, the circle marked on the skin beneath smiled back malevolently. She looked over her shoulder at me.

"Inquisitor?" She said, before her face rose into a smile. "Oh, did He tell you about that?" She nodded over her shoulder, before her smile evaporated under my stare. I could see her eyes follow the line of my arm, then widening as they caught sight of my sword. She started back.

"Wait!" I said, gripping my sword with both my hands. She turned to run and I dived forward, the sword stabbing through her chest, scratching against her spine. I let go of the weapon and she crumpled to the ground, mewling softly. I crouched down in front of her. She was still stunned, her hands clasped around the sword protruding just under her breast. The muscles of her chest entered into spasm, stealing her breath from her half-open lips. There was a prescribed benediction to commend the soul of a dying witch, but I couldn't bring myself to speak it – she wouldn't understand the words.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I had to – you don't have time to understand, but the mark on your neck was wrong, evil... It wasn't your fault, but sometimes even innocent people need to be hurt. I'm going to punish the person who did it, I'll punish Him, I promise. I'm sorry."

She looked at me, her eyelids gradually falling shut.

"How... How will find him without me?" she rasped, blood burbling down her cheek.

"It's alright, I know where to go," I said, understanding racing through my mind. "Thank you for showing me."

"It's my duty to serve," she said, smiling through red-streaked teeth. Then she died. I pulled my sword out of her body, got to my feet, and ran.

The passages lay derelict, unlit, outlines of silhouettes whispered against the dark. The scatter-shot of my footsteps rang as I nearly lost my footing around a bend. I pushed on, cool air cutting through my lungs. I ran past the faded, crackling paintings of the walls before looping my left hand around the heavy door and hurling it open. I burst inside. The Aquila glowered at me regally through ember-prick eyes, the parchments rustling like waves on a shore. Light fell on the chapel as the lamps flared into life.

"Tarin! Come out!" I shouted, sweeping around the door. The sound stopped dead. A single white square of paper was folded over the corner of the foremost pew. I went over to it and sheathed my sword, pulling the paper up and opening it with my left hand, revealing a small pit in the stone. A single entry lay on the record:


Lira Mellada, 14, Purged with flame for witchery.


- My eyes snapped open at the shriek. Lira looked at me, eyes petrified, before sobbing into her arms. The pistol tumbled out of my swaying hands. I turned and fled, running as far as my lungs could sustain me before collapsing, crying into my palms.

#

"Come out!" I shouted, sprinting down the corridor with sword drawn. "I'll kill you even if I have to call down Exterminatus on this rock! Tell me where you are! Tell me where you are! Tell me where you-"

"Are?"

I span to the sound behind me. Tarin stepped out from one the alcoves, a trio of candles held under his face projecting a distorted shadow onto the concave wall behind him. His hair had receded slightly from his coarser features, but he still wore the same clothes, and bore the same weapons. Like my own.

"Here I am, here I am, now you've found me," he said, his age-cracked voice imitating a children's rhyme. My hand curled around the hilt of my sword.

"I'm glad you are so jovial!" I said, voice breaking over the words. "This little merry dance, the people you have killed, and for what? Because you can?"

"Because I should. I am aware Inquisitor's doing what they should as opposed to what warms their feeble grasp of conscience is an alien concept to you, but I had hoped a decade or two might have helped you grow up."

I , snapping my arm straight beside me. Tarin threw the candles aside with a sweep of his arm.

"See? So predictable. Still so juvenile."

"You haven't aged well yourself."

"No, I haven't - age catches up with us all, alas," Tarin smiled winsomely. "It's why I've been trying to find a successor – carrying the torch forward, if you will."

"Only as far as the pyre," I sniped. Tarin ignored me, walking in a circle to my left. I turned and tracked him with the point of my sword.

"I hoped that I could teach my protégé the importance of a sound, careful judgement, and how not to fall to the wayside of false humanism, with heresy trailing after. Don't you realise how your words and actions can kill so many, to change the face of a planet, a desert into glass?"

"It was you who virus bombed Kataryx."

"Yes, unfortunately – although at least some good has come out of it, besides the resettlement..." Tarin paused, looking down before raising his smiling features back up. "It has brought you here, and I need to speak to you. Because you're an Apostate, aren't you Kyana?"

I stayed silent. Tarin began to laugh.

"Ha! Of course! Can't lie, can we now? Not that it matters – your silence is condemnation enough." Tarin laughed gaily, triumphant. "All those little pauses, those turns of phrase, I understand now. It's a pity you were as deficient in faith as you were able at misdirection; you might have made an excellent Inquisitor."

"It's not hard to be exemplary compared to you," I snapped. Tarin sighed theatrically and drew his sword, pointing it at me.

"Kyana Olenson, I find you guilty of pernicious heresy in the most high office of the Inquisiton, and you are stripped of your seal and position immediately."

I lunged at him, but he swerved aside, and I had to back away to stop his sword striking out my guts. I pushed another strike aside with the flat of my blade and barrelled into him, slamming us both against the wall. I felt the point of his sword scratching against my calf. I caught his fist as he tried to punch me. I pressed forward, the pressure forcing the crossguard of his sword into his ribs. He pushed back and I gave way, pulling him over my leg and tripping him. Tarin scrabbled to his feet as I pulled my sword back to kill him – he had his weapon raised, I could bat it aside as I struck.

I froze in half swing, my left forearm spitted through with a sword, glowing blue. The power field deactivated and Tarin tore the blade out between the bones of my forearm. Blood soaked through my sleeve, making it glisten and stick to my skin. I swiped at him but he stepped back along the corridor, out of reach. I followed as light-headedness made my vision sway. I collapsed against one of the alcoves after casting my sword at him. It landed short.

I grasped my good hand around the wound; the pain flickered in time with each tremble of my fingers. It dulled into a pulsing ache as my eyes narrowed, and then shut. A jab in my arm pulled me back from the edge of slumber. I squinted at the white auto-syringe held in a black glove.

"Need me for a show trial?" I said – my voice sounded faint, weak, indistinct. Was it due to my ears, or my tongue?

"No." My eyes travelled along his arm and shoulder into his face. Why was he smiling?

"What, a servitor?" Cold kissed my skin as feeling returned to my left hand.

"The mind-wipe might cause some mental damage, but besides that... An amnesiac with a war-pension?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know the penalties for Inquisitors found deficient by their peers, but if you like, I can commute that to something less. A second chance at life, if not in the Inquisition. I could even have you returned here. What do you think?" His voice sounded different; quieter, softer, more paternal. He pitied me.

I moved my right hand to my other forearm, closer to the dagger under the pit of my arm.

"I think... I would like that." I lied, feigning weakness in my voice. "What now?"

Tarin got me to my feet – I offered a facsimile of a smile as I flexed my elbow, drawing my hands closer to my weapon.

"We'll get in whatever you took to get here, and then a shuttle elsewhere. I doubt you want to stay here."

"No."

We faced each other – I fell forwards deliberately. He condescended magnanimousness as he caught me and set me aright, ruffling the sleeve of my coat. I grasped around the hilt of the dagger as he turned away.

"Tarin?" I asked meekly, pulling the dagger clear.

"Yes, Ky-" He stopped as his eyes followed my arm across to the knife-point. His hand swung across to his coat but I struck first, stepping forward and thrusting the blade up into his armpit, pulling it across his side. I grappled him to the ground, his crippled right arm recoiling against the ground as he fell. I pushed his left shoulder into the floor. Our eyes met again and I smiled.

"Fuq you," I said.

His hating stare softened as the blood pulsed from his armpit to soak his clothes, and his struggling soon ceased. I sat up, pulling his coat aside to reveal the laspistol neatly holstered by his belt. I removed it and stood, jamming it into a pocket. I picked up his sword and sheathed it, clumsily tying it over my coat Just-perceptible trembles passed along my thighs and into my legs. I kicked Tarin in his side, his torso swivelled before falling flat again. A small pool of blood seeping from his clothes - he would soon die. I retrieved the discarded auto-syringe and played with it, listing on my feet. I'd won, but it didn't feel like victory.

I discharged the syringe into his shoulder, and dragged him to the chapel.

#


He came to an hour later, pushing onto his front with a pained groan. The Chapel was lit with lustrous, guttering flame. The Aquila statue, glowered disapproval, but I didn't care. Tarin picked himself from his sprawl to his knees, cursing under his breath. He looked frail, feeble and old, cupping his free hand underneath his limp arm.

"Emperor's Mercy..."

"I wouldn't speak so soon."

He spun to face me, shuffling backwards in surprise. He met my gaze, standing upright. Malice smouldered in my smile.

"So, what now, heretic?"

The sword ignited in my hand, casting the right side of my body in cyan relief. It thrummed a gentle menace as I passed it through the air.

"All these years, all your little games at my expense, the killings, the inhumanity and the lies, and here we are. Doesn't time fly."

"You're a liar," He sneered weakly. "You couldn't even succeed in following your own pathetic apology for a moral code." He bowed his head and crossed his hands in the Aquila as I charged. Even now I could see a small grin worming into his features – he thought he was going to die cleanly as a martyr. I reversed my grip and drove the pommel of my sword into his stomach. He fell gasping, clawing forward into a foetal ball.

"I didn't save your life to let you die that easily," I spat. It was ecstasy watching him writhe in mute agony on the ground. Fatigue had passed, but my breathing was still heavy and ragged. I traced a slow circuit around him, my footfalls forming a steady beat for my words.

"You've helped me realize something. There are some people who don't deserve to be told the truth, or to be treated humanely, because they ceased to be human a long time ago."

Tarin clapped slowly.

"Spare me the platitudes."

I pulled him to his feet in and slammed his shoulders into the plinth, his body so much dead weight. Fear alighted on his face before he set his expression. I pulled out my dagger and pushed one of his eyelids open with the fingers of my glove.

"Why should I!" I screamed. "When did you ever spare me anything?" I pushed the point closer and closer to his eye, his hand wrapped around my wrist barely offering resistance.

"Remember this, Tarin? How Inquisitors shouldn't startle? You immobilized my eyes and drew it closer and closer in. Did you enjoy turning me into a shaky, pissy wreck? Did you get a kick out of burning that girl I should have shot, too?"

"It was necessary – damn it, Kyana, you wanted to be an Inquisitor! You could have walked away!"

"I hate you!" The knife-point quivered in my grasp. "That's it? You made clones of me to play with whilst I was gone!

"I had to!" Tarin shouted. "You needed to know -"

"The things I needed to know you never told me! What did you want from me?" I felt tears running down my cheeks. "You taught me how to kill, to hurt, to lie, and to hate, and here I am, the fruit of your labours. You never even told me your name!"

"It's Andreus. Please, Kyana, I love you, let me-"

"Liar!"

I drew the blade of the knife across his eyes and cast him to the ground. He screamed in pain, clutching at his face. I stood over him, my hands curling into fists reflexively.

"You lied to me, you manipulated me, and you hurt me. And now it's my turn."

I fell upon him and beat him until I tired. He was a tatty, crumpled mess at the end, crying mutely as he lay supine on the floor. It wasn't like I had always known him, and that frightened me, somehow. I lifted the large, concave bronze dish off from the back of the Aquila and poured its contents over him, I hit it over his arching back and cast it aside, two cymbal-crashes fading soon to silence. I walked back into the short nave and clasped my left fist behind my back, drawing my laspistol and unfurling my arm – just as I had been taught. Tarin shakily turned to me, leaning back against the plinth of the Aquila.

"Don't you regret any of it?" I said, crying openly. "Any of it at all, I was a child, for Pity's sake!"

Tarin's head turned to my voice – for the smallest moment, I saw his superior sneer return.

"Innocence means nothing, Kyana."

"Tell that to the guilty!"

I pulled the trigger, and watched him burn.