Nemesis

Spear bowed, allowing his stolen face to grow saddened. ‘I hope I did not disappoint you. And you were correct, my lord. Sigg was a dupe.’

‘Those murdering swine were not part of the Theoge,’ Eurotas repeated, turning to advance on him once more. His face had lost some of its earlier colour and his gaze was turned inwards.

‘High-Reeve Telemach seemed to think otherwise,’ Spear pressed. ‘If I may ask, why do you disagree with her?’ The killer saw something ephemeral pass over the other man’s face; the shadow of a hidden truth. The understanding was coming up from Hyssos’s captured persona, from the operative’s instinctive grasp of fragile human nature, his ability to perceive the falsehood in the words of a liar. Spear let it rise; Eurotas was going to incriminate himself, if he could only be encouraged to do so. The Void Baron had known more than he had revealed about this situation all along, and only now was it coming to light.

‘I… I will tell you what I… believe,’ said the nobleman, moving to the door to close it. ‘Those madmen on Iesta Veracrux were not just spree killers tormenting and bloodletting to satisfy their own insanity. I am certain now that they were agents of the Warmaster Horus Lupercal, may he rot. They were part of a plot that casts a shadow over the Taebian Sector, perhaps over the whole galaxy!’ He shuddered. ‘We have all heard the rumours about the… things that happen on the worlds that have fallen.’ Then his tone grew more intense. ‘Discrediting the Theoge and blackening the name of our clan is just one part of this conspiracy of evil.’

Spear said nothing, dissembling the man’s words in his thoughts. It was clear now why Eurotas had been so quick to call the matter closed and depart from Iesta Veracrux as fast as decorum would allow. The involvement of Erno Sigg in the murders had been bad enough, but Eurotas had to be sure that sooner or later the clan’s name would become connected to the incident in another, more damning way. He was afraid…

On a swift and sudden impulse, Spear rocked off his feet from where he stood at attention and snatched at the Void Baron’s robes, pulling the man off-balance.

‘What in Terra’s name do you think you are doing?’ Eurotas cried out, affronted at the abrupt assault.

But in the next second his flash of anger died in his throat when Spear pulled up the voluminous sleeve of his robe to reveal a golden chain tight around his wrist, and on it the shape of an aquila sigil. This time he couldn’t resist letting a small smile creep out over Hyssos’s lips. ‘You’re one of them.’

Eurotas shrugged him off and backed away, a guilty cast coming to his eyes. ‘What are you talking about? Get out. You’re dismissed.’

‘I think not, sir.’ Spear gave him a hard look. ‘I think an explanation is in order.’

For a moment, the man teetered on the verge of shouting him down, calling in his personal guard from the corridor outside; but Hyssos’s unerring sense for the hidden told Spear that Eurotas would not. The dead man’s instincts were correct. The nobleman’s shoulders slumped and he planted himself in an ornamental chair, staring into the middle distance.

Spear waited for the confession that he knew would come next; men like the Void Baron lacked the will or the strength to really inhabit a lie. In the end, they welcomed the chance to unburden themselves.

‘I am not…’ He paused, trying to find the right words. ‘The people who call themselves the Theoge came after, do you see? It was we who came first. We carried the message from Terra, in safe keeping aboard our ships, across the entire sector. Every son and daughter of the Eurotas family has been a participant in the Lectitio Divinitatus, since the day of the boon. We carry the Emperor’s divinity with us.’ He said the words with rote precision, without any real energy or impetus behind them.

Spear recalled what Daig Segan had said just before he had torn him open. ‘The Emperor protects…’

Eurotas nodded solemnly; but it was abundantly clear that the light of true belief, the blind faith that Segan had shown in his dying moments, was in no way reflected in the Void Baron. If the nobleman was a believer in the cult of the God-Emperor, then it was only as one who paid lip service to it, because it was expected of him. Spear’s lip curled, his disgust for the man growing by the moment; he did not even have the courage of his convictions.

‘It is our hidden duty,’ Eurotas went on. ‘We spread the word of His divinity in quiet and secrecy. Our clan has been allied to groups like the Theoge on dozens of worlds, for centuries.’ He looked away. ‘But I never truly… That is, I did not…’

Spear watched and waited, saying nothing. As he expected, Eurotas was compelled to fill the silence.

‘Horus is destroying everything. Every thread of power and influence we have, broken one at a time. And now he strikes not only at our holdings, but at the network my forefathers built to carry the word of the Lectitio Divinitatus.’