Hereticus (Eisenhorn #3)

by Dan Abnett

Damn. Given the description of Aen’s death, I had been quite sure poison was the key, perhaps some assassin’s sophisticated toxin that had not shown up on the initial medicae report. But Alizebeth’s snooper was high-grade and thorough.

For one hundred and fifty years, the daemon had plagued my dreams and made each one a nightmare. For a century and a half, it had been in my head, a shadow at the horizon of sanity, a softly breathing shape in the dark recesses of my consciousness.

Vengeance, in my opinion, is never an adequate motive for an inquisitor’s work. I had sworn to make Thuring pay for the death of my old friend Midas Betancore, of course, but the eighty years since Midas’s murder had been filled to distraction with more weighty and more pressing cases.

He’d served at my side for fifteen decades now, for as long as Alizebeth Bequin. Only Aemos had been with me longer. The three of them were my rock, my foundation, the cornerstones of my entire operation. And they were my friends. Aemos provided wisdom and an unimaginably vast resource of knowledge. Bequin was an untouchable, and ran an academy of similarly gifted individuals called the Distaff. They were my greatest weapon, a corps of psychically blank individuals who could be used to block even the most powerful psykers. Bequin was also my emotional rudder. I confided in her more than the others and looked to her for support when I was troubled.

I selected my three primary weapons from the safe: a large calibre bolt pistol, the runestaff handmade for me by Magos Bure of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and the curved, pentagram-engraved force sword that I had commissioned to be forged from the broken half of the Carthaen warblade, Barbarisater.

It hadn’t been possible, because of one case or another, and I’d ended up having to tell him that I adored Alizebeth and wished with every scrap of my being that we could be together. That was the deepest, darkest secret I had been carrying at the time. How things change.

Perhaps the only thing more terrifying than a Battle Titan is a Chaos Battle Titan, the infamous metal leviathans of the arch-enemy. Some are manufactured in the smithies and forges of the warp, their designs copied and parodied from the Imperial originals, sacrilegious perversions of the Martian god-machines. Others are ancient Imperial Titans corrupted during the Great Heresy, traitor legions that have lurked in the Eye of Terror for ten thousand years in defiance of the Emperor’s will.

We were breaking into the edges of the Titan’s memory sphere. I saw such things. May the God-Emperor spare me, I saw such things then.

I stood on the brink and peered into the abyss of the Titan’s memories. I saw cities die in flames. I saw legions of the Imperial Guard incinerated. I saw Space Marines die in their hundreds, scurrying around my feet like ants. I saw planets catch fire and burn to ashes. I saw Imperial Titans, proud warlords, burst apart and die under the onslaught of my hands. I saw the gates of the Imperial Palace on Terra through a blizzard of fire. I saw down through many thousands of years. I saw Horus, vile and screaming out his wrath. I saw the whole Heresy played out in front of my eyes. I saw the Age of Strife, and witnessed first hand the Dark Age of Technology that preceded it. I fell, plummeting through history, through the stored memory of Cruor Vult. I saw too much. I started to scream.

‘Gracious Emperor of Mankind, hallowed be your majesty, bright be your light everlasting, vouchsafe your servant in this hour of peril–’ ‘That won’t save you,’ said a voice. I switched around, but there was no sign of a speaker. ‘Bright be your light everlasting, vouchsafe your servant in this hour of peril, so that I may continue to serve you, great lord, and purify your dominion of–’ ‘It won’t, Gregor. The Benediction of Terra? It’s just words, Gregor. Just words.’

‘But I have more than words for you, Gregor. I liked you, Gregor, of all men, you had a spirit I admired. I worked for you, I spared you more than once… consider that. All I asked in return was that you honour our compact and release me. And what did you do? You tricked me. You trapped me. You used me.’

In my service to the God-Emperor, I have always considered myself a dutiful and faithful soul, but it is strange how the everyday customs of worship become so easily neglected. During that voyage, having stumbled closer to the path of heresy than at any time in my life, I felt, ironically, as if my faith was renewed.

Perhaps it takes a glimpse over the lip of the abyss to truly appreciate the pure heavens above. I felt chastened and virtuous, as if I had survived an ordeal and emerged a better man.

‘Understand this, daemon. Binding you, using you, that has cost me dearly. I hate myself for doing it. But there was no choice. Now I have you enslaved again, I am going to take no chances. The correct containment of you will now become my life’s primary devotion. The history texts will not remember me as a man so driven to accomplish things he got lazy and slack. There is no escape from me now. I will not allow it. You are mine and you will stay mine.’

Aemos knew, though. He knew damn well. As far as I could tell, he knew everything that it was possible to know without going mad.

And that was how I came to tell her everything about the daemonhost. Everything. I did it because of the honour of our oath. I also did it, I believe now, because I wished to unburden myself to a confessor and Bequin wasn’t there. I did it and didn’t even pause to think what might result from it.

Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn is believed to have continued in the service of the Ordos after the events on 5213X, though recorded details of his life and work after that date are conjectural at best. His eventual fate is not recorded in the Imperial archives. There is no archived mention of the being known as ‘Cherubael’.