Nemesis

The Sigillite sensed the warrior was about to leave, and he spoke again quickly to waylay him. ‘I am surprised in some measure, it must be said. After all, you are the expression of Imperial strength and nobility. You are the personal guard of the Lord of Earth, as pure a warrior-kindred as many might aspire to become. And in that, I would have thought you of all men would consider the tactics of the Assassinorum to be…’ He paused, feeling for the right word. ‘Underhanded. Dishonourable, even?’

Valdor’s face shifted, but not towards annoyance as Malcador had expected. Instead he smiled without humour. ‘If that was a feint to test me, Sigillite, it was a poor one. I expected better of you.’

‘It’s been a long day,’ Malcador offered.

‘The Legio Custodes have done many things your assassins would think beyond us. The sires and siresses are not the only ones who have marque to operate under… special conditions.’

‘Your charter is quite specific on the Legio’s zone of responsibility.’ Malcador felt a frown forming. This conversation was not going where he had expected it to.

‘If you wish,’ Valdor said, with deceptive lightness. ‘My duty is to preserve the life of the Emperor of Mankind above all else. That is accomplished through many different endeavours. The termination of the traitor-son Horus Lupercal and the clear and present danger he represents, no matter how it is brought to pass, serves my duty.’

‘So, you really believe that a task force of killers could do this?’

Valdor gave a slight shrug of his huge shoulders. ‘I believe they have a chance, if the pointless tensions between the clades can be arrested.’

Malcador smiled. ‘You see, Captain-General? I did not lie. I wanted your insight. You have given it to me.’

‘I haven’t finished,’ said the warrior. ‘Vanus was right. This mission will not please the Emperor when he learns of it, and he will learn of it when I tell him every word that was spoken in this room today.’

The Sigillite’s smile vanished. ‘That would be an error, Custodian. A grave misjudgement on your part.’

‘You cannot have such hubris as to believe that you know better than he?’ Valdor said, his tone hardening.

‘Of course not!’ Malcador snapped in return, his temper flaring. ‘But you know as well as I do that in order to protect the sanctity of Terra and our liege-lord, some things must be kept in the dark. The Imperium is at a delicate point, and we both know it. All the effort we have spent on the Great Crusade, and the Emperor’s works, all of that has been placed in most dire jeopardy by Horus’s insurrection. The conflicts being fought at this very moment are not just on the battlefields of distant worlds and in the void of space! They are in hearts and minds, and other realms less tangible. But now, here is the opportunity to fight in the shadows, unseen and unremarked. To have this bloody deed done without setting the galaxy ablaze in its wake! A swift ending. The head of the snake severed with a single blow.’ He took a long breath. ‘But many may see it as ignoble. Use it against us. And for a father to sanction the execution of his son… Perhaps it may be beyond the pale. And that is why some things cannot be spoken of outside this chamber.’

Valdor folded his muscular arms over his chest and stared down at Malcador. ‘That statement has all the colour of an order,’ he said. ‘But who gives it, I wonder? The Master of Assassins, or the Regent of Terra?’

The Sigillite’s eyes glittered in the gloom. ‘Decide for yourself,’ he said.

3

Before the Emperor’s enlightenment, the Sentine’s precinct house had been a place of idolatry and ancestor worship. Once, the bodies of the rich and those judged worthy had been buried in crypts beneath the main hall, and great garish statuary and other extravagant gewgaws had filled every corner of the building, with cloisters and naves leading here and there to chapels for every deity the First Establishment had brought with them from Old Earth. Now the crypts were cells and memory stacks, armouries and storage lockers. The chapels had different tenants now, icons called security and vigilance, and all the artworks and idols were crushed and gone, a few saved in museums as indicators of a less sophisticated past. All this had taken place a long time before Yosef Sabrat had been born, however. There were barely a handful of living citizens on Iesta Veracrux who could recall any vestiges of a past with religion in it.