I call out to Carl, apologising and placating. "I'm sorry," I say. "I'm sorry," over and over again. Carl's anguished spectre vibrates itself into smoke with a wild frenzy, the last shreds of it burning and discorporating into a thin sludge of acrid mist.
Once he is gone, the solar becalms and falls silent, apart from the buzz of the flies. Outside, the storm rages on, and we can hear other sounds in its cacophony. First, a purring roar, that comes and goes with the incessant thunder, and then an immense grinding sound, as if the hog's back peaks are writhing against one another.
"We've no choice but to flee," says Molotch.
+I doubt Slyte will let us go. Even if we escaped this rock, where would we run to? Slyte's reach will be considerable.+
Molotch looks at me. I can tell his mind is still racing. I can also tell it is churning nothing but frustration and helplessness.
Angharad turns, raising her sword. Figures are grouped behind us in the terrace doors, framed by the flapping drapes. Belknap and Kara support the wounded Maud Plyton between them.
"Ravenor?" Belknap utters in surprise.
"Oh gods!" Plyton gasps. Her mind is a seething knot of pain, but I feel her intense relief through it. The unexpected sight of me gives her hope for a moment.
"It's good to see you, all three of you," I say.
A bow-wave of almost unbearable emotion swamps my mind. Kara runs forwards, leaving Belknap to support Plyton, and falls across the front of my chair, hugging it tightly. She is weeping.
+Kara.+
"You're alive!"
+Kara.+
She is inconsolable. I try to soothe her, but someone has hurt her. Someone has imprisoned her and tortured her. My poor Kara. There are so many things in her mind: grief, joy, relief, surprise, love, shame. She believed me to be dead and she can barely deal with the fact that I am not.
+Kara, it's all right. Kara, who did this to you?+
She clutches my chair tighter, her tears leaking out over the metal casing. "I'm sorry!" she wails. "I'm sorry!"
+Hush, Kara. It will be all right. Who did this to you?+
I reach into her unguarded, fragile mind to see, to soothe. Culzean had a hand in this. Behind him, I see an older memory of Siskind and Worna, and blanch at the inhuman desecrations they performed.
+I will find Siskind, I promise, Kara, and I will-+
I stop. Behind the toxic memories of Siskind and the brute Worna, other figures lurk: Carl, and Kara herself.
I read her deepest secret self, the white hot centre of her torment.
+Oh, Kara.+
"I'm sorry, Gideon!"
"What is she talking about?" Belknap demands. His love and concern for her burn like a molten ingot in mind space. He sets Plyton down on a couch and comes over. "Kara? Ravenor? What?"
"I knew it was Carl! I knew it, and I hid it!" she wails.
"Carl blocked your memories," I say. "I can see the scars."
She looks up at me. "Before that. I knew. I knew and I hid it. He made me promise not to tell you. He made me promise not to tell anyone. He just needed time-" She wails again and becomes incoherent.
"What is she saying?" Belknap asks me.
"When did you know?" I ask. "Kara, when did you know?"
"Eustis Majoris. At the Sacristy."
"She was there," says Molotch softly. "She must have seen it all."
"Why did you hide it? Why didn't you tell me?" I ask.
"I owed him so much," she murmurs. "He cured my... I was dying. He cured me. He saved me. He begged me to keep his secret for just a few months, to give him time to study, to find a way to beat it. I couldn't say no. He saved me. What kind of daemon does that?"
"The cunning kind." I reply, "and that's the only kind there is."
"But-" she begins.
"You knew?" asks Belknap.
"What?"
"You knew? You knew Thonius was the daemon and you covered for him?"
Belknap takes a step back from us. He is a man of strong, simple emotions. What I read in him now is revulsion and betrayal. It is painful, and total. Everything he is thinking and feeling is driven by his focused devotion to the holy God-Emperor. It is the cruellest and ugliest emotion I believe I have ever read, made crueller and uglier because it is sincere.
"He saved me!" Kara stammers, looking up at Belknap with tear-reddened eyes.
"A daemon saved you?" he replies. For a moment, I fear he is going to strike her. I take no chances. I shove him back with my mind and make him sit down on the couch beside Maud.
"Sit down." I instruct him. "I will deal with this."
"But she-"
"Sit down, Belknap, and shut up!"
"I'd do as he suggests, if I were you," says Molotch. A smile curls his asymmetric lips. Even now, despite the dire circumstances, he can't stop himself from enjoying the ruin this whole affair has reduced my people to.
"And why the frig would anyone ever listen to anything you have to say, Molotch?"
Eight needle-sharp kine-blades hover in a spread, less than a finger's length from Molotch's pale face. He swallows. The solar's end door is open, and Nayl stands there, aiming his autopistol down the length of the chamber at Molotch. Nayl is battered and hurt, one eye half-closed and swollen. Patience stands beside him, murderous concentration on her face.
"Oh look," says Molotch, with fake enthusiasm. "They're all here."
+Let him be.+
"Gideon?" Kys questions, hesitantly.
+Let him be! Harlon, put away your gun!+
"What's he doing here?" Kys asks.
I pull her kine-blades away from Molotch's face and discard them on the floor. +The same as us, trying to live until tomorrow. We have pooled our resources.+
"I hope the frig you know what you're doing," says Kys.
She hurries to Kara and holds her, peeling her off my chair. Nayl crosses to Angharad and they embrace, kissing.
"So," says Plyton from the couch, with an enforced brightness to mask her pain, "we got a plan yet?"
"No." Molotch and I answer together.
The mountains shake. Elmingard shudders. A roar comes out of the night, so loud and throaty it bruises our souls. It is part scream, part wail, part howl, part bellow, a drawn-out ululation of huge volume that blots out the fury of the storm.
It is the roar of a predator, the voice of a billion billion-year-old predator that has just woken, and realised it is hungry.
FOURTEEN
Kara rose to her feet, breaking Kys' embrace. She wiped her cheeks. She dared not glance at Belknap for fear of seeing the look in his eyes.
"Get out of here," she said. "Get everyone out of here, Gideon."
"Kara-"
"Get out of here while you still can, all of you. I'll-"
"You'll do what?" Ravenor asked.
"I'll hold him back, as long as I can."
"How?" asked Kys.
"I'll talk to him. I'll talk to Carl. He trusts me. I can slow him down."
"No," said Ravenor. "I've already spoken to him. Carl is trying his best, but he's lost to us. Any tenuous control he once had has gone. He's dead and Slyte is in control. In full control."
"Gideon is correct," mumbled Culzean, propped up against the foot of the chest of drawers, his life's collection of precious papers littered around him, scorched. "I've seen Slyte. Like a mockery of Thonius, using his form, twisting it. Such power, such radiance." He brushed flies away from his face. His skin had taken on the pallor of a corpse. He was sitting in a puddle of his own blood.
"That wasn't Slyte," sneered Molotch. "That was just Slyte's way in, his harbinger, like a limb extended through a door. Thonius, powers rest his soul, is Slyte's conduit. What we saw in the Sacristy that night, Orfeo, and what you undoubtedly witnessed tonight, was just the tip of the iceberg. You know what an iceberg is, don't you Orfeo?"
"Of course."
"Thonius is just the gate. The rest is coming through."
The awful, primordial roar shook the r
oom again. The flies billowed up.
"Listen," said Molotch, almost enraptured by the sounds of the warp. "Here it comes."
"Let me try, Gideon," said Kara. "Please, let me try to talk to him."
"No, Kara," Ravenor replied.
"Please! Let me-"
Without warning, she went into some kind of shock, and collapsed across the front of his chair, her limbs spasming. Kys tried to hold her steady. Despite himself, Belknap rose to help.
"I've got her," Kys told him.
Gideon, Kara's mouth said.
Kys pulled back, unnerved. Kara rose, her eyes closed. Ravenor knew at once that someone, something, was waring her.
Gideon. Please. This is my last chance.
"There is no last chance, Carl," Ravenor said. "I've explained this to you. Let Kara go."
Oh, please, you don't understand. Kara's mouth moved slackly, as if language was an alien, unfamiliar material passing through it. The blow flies settled on her face in increasing numbers, and scurried in and out of her mouth. They covered her eyes like scabs. I only have a few moments left. I'm hanging on by my fingertips. He's eating me, Gideon, he's eating me up!
"I can't help you, Carl."
You bastard! You bastard! Kara Swole's mouth cried. All the years I served you, and this is how you repay me? Save me! Save me!
"For Throne's sake!" cried Nayl. "Do something!"
"Can't you help him, Gideon?" demanded Patience Kys. "Please!"
"I can't," said Ravenor simply. "I can't and I shouldn't, and I won't."
Everyone stared at him, even Molotch.
Then kill it! Kill me! Banish it! Banish it! Give me peace!
Kara Swole swayed. Crawling flies covered her from head to toe.
"We can't banish it. We haven't the means, and this location is not right for-"
Don't be such an idiot! Of course you have the means! You brought a hole in the warp here with you! You can make this the right time and place!
Ravenor paused. Revelation seeped through him. He looked at Thonius' unwilling avatar in grief and gratitude. +Oh Carl. The things you know.+
Manic laughter filled the air. As one, the flies lifted off Kara and she fell heavily onto the solar floor.
"Help her, Patience." Ravenor voxponded. He turned to Molotch. +The door. He means the door, Zygmunt. We can make our own damn rift!+
Wonder crossed Molotch's face. "Oh, of course," he said. Then he frowned. "You brought that thing here?"
+Yes.+
"There's preparation time, you realise-" Molotch began.
+Get what you need.+
Molotch hurried to the far end of the room and began a violent search of Culzean's collection. He found a small leather case and started to fill it with parchments and other objects.
Ravenor turned to Kys. "Does your link still work?" he asked.
"I think so."
"Call to Sholto and request his aid. If he doesn't want to come, tell him I understand. We'll do this anyway."
She nodded.
"Get everyone down onto the landing and tell him, if he's willing, to meet us there."
"Let's go!" she cried. She scooped up Kara and headed for the terrace doors. Belknap gathered Plyton to himself and, despite her protests of pain, headed out into the storm.
Nayl, his weapon in his hand, remained beside Ravenor.
"You too, Marlon."
"I'm fine where I am," he replied.
"What about me?" Culzean whined.
"Angharad?" Ravenor directed.
"Do I have to?" the Carthaen asked sourly.
"Please."
Angharad sheathed Evisorex in her cross-shoulder scabbard and walked across to Culzean. He squealed as she lifted him.
"Shut up."
He didn't. He couldn't. Blood dribbled out of him. She carried him like a leaking sack back towards the terrace doors.
"Molotch?" Ravenor called.
"Almost there, almost." Molotch stopped riffling through the junk and looked back at Ravenor. "I know this won't make you very happy, but we'll need blood, human blood."
Ravenor psyked up an unbroken saucer from the floor and held it under Culzean. It filled quickly.
"Making use of available resources." Molotch smiled. "How very practical."
He paused. He looked up at the end wall of the solar behind him.
"Oh shit-" he started to say.
The windows blew in like grenade blasts. Rain and wind swirled into the room. The lamps went out. The ancient predator roared again, the concussive force of its voice shaking everything. They could all hear the distant, gigantic grinding sound, like cliffs scraping against cliffs.
Molotch staggered backwards, clutching the leather case.
The solar's end door swung open and red light shone in. The thing that had been Thonius entered, naked, lit from within, fire flaring in its mouth. Its bare, black arm swung, weighted by its bunched talons. A carpet of cockroaches and other iridescent black beetles scuttled into the solar around its feet. Backing rapidly away from the daemon, Molotch slipped on the scurrying insects and fell.
Slyte approached him, grinning. Its talons rippled out.
"Move!" Nayl urged, heading for the terrace doors. "Leave him!"
"We can't go without Molotch! He has everything we need!"
Angharad dropped Culzean on the floor. The facilitator screamed. Sweeping out her sabre, she leapt between the daemon and the fallen heretic. Nayl yelled out her name. He opened fire at the glowing figure. Ravenor's chair started firing at it too. The heavy rounds bounced off the burning, black-taloned thing.
Angharad's sword did not. She took off its head in one stroke. Pressurised black ichor squirted up out of the severed neck with such force it spattered the ceiling. The thing clawed at her with its jet-black hooks. She took its bone arm off, and then cut it entirely in half.
"Evisorex thirsts!" she cried as the daemon fell apart, reducing to dust, its red glow evaporating.
"You see?" Angharad said, cocky with triumph. "Sometimes a good sword is all you need."
Behind her, Molotch clambered to his feet. "You stupid bitch. Weren't you listening? That wasn't Slyte. That's Slyte."
The entire end wall of the solar collapsed, brought down by an advancing cliff of wet beige flesh. Mottled, lumpen tentacles reached out, flapping and snaking, from the gigantic mass. Some ended in sucker mouths, foul beaks of clear cartilage that snapped and yawned. Others were tipped by what looked like grasping human fingers. Vast, oozing orifices opened and closed between the roots of the whipping tentacles, and black-tipped transparent teeth, like giant quills, interlaced and clattered. Fetid gases exhaled through the pulsing orifices. The daemon-bulk stank of spoiled meat and disease.
The solar gradually disintegrated, its walls giving way under the crushing weight.
Angharad slashed her blade at a suppurating wall of daemonic flesh three times her height. She tore huge gouges into the bruised, glistening meat, and sheared off several tusks and tentacles. Wretched brown ichor gushed out of the wounds.
Nayl yelled her name again, firing his weapon. Molotch was already fleeing, Ravenor was backing rapidly out through the collapsing frame of the terrace doors. Culzean, lying in the path of the monster, scrambled helplessly.
He squealed as the first of the dripping worm-limbs found him. They seized him with their beaks and suckers, and constricted around his body. Their touch spread virile corruption. Accelerated decomposition overtook Orfeo Culzean while he was still alive. He rotted in seconds and dissolved into a mass of wriggling worms and maggots.
Another writhing tendril, as fat as a man's arm and as white as a sea-floor mollusc, snapped around Angharad's neck and snatched her off her feet. She was sucked into one of the open maws in a single, gurgling inhalation. The flailing, pallid tentacles around the gulping orifice suddenly flushed bright red.
Evisorex clattered to the floor.
Nayl, in blind rage, ran forwards to where she had been standing a sec
ond before. He took up the fallen blade and hacked at the shuddering bulk, as if he could somehow cut it open and drag her back out.
Ravenor had moved clear of the collapsing chamber out onto the terrace. Molotch was with him, holding the leather case to his chest.
"Go, Zygmunt. Make things ready," Ravenor said.
Molotch nodded and ran off down the terrace steps. Ravenor looked back.
+Harlon!+
Nayl just yowled back in answer, chopping with the sabre. He couldn't see what Ravenor could see.
The towering wall of daemon flesh ploughing through the solar was just a small part of a vast mass manifesting on top of Elmingard, a mountain of infected meat, growing all the time. Towers and roofs collapsed under it. In the sheeting rain, it was hard to define any real detail of the mass except for the black, blistered bulk of it. lagged tusks, as big as tree trunks, covered its upper flanks like battlements. Vast pseudopods, hundreds of metres long and dozens in girth, rippled and danced up into the sky above from the apex of the mass. The cyclone of storm clouds, many kilometres across, rotated around the dancing limbs like a crown.
Ravenor gazed up at the abomination the warp had disgorged onto Elmingard.
"Oh Throne help us," he said.
FIFTEEN
"Stop," pleaded Iosob. "Stop it. Stop it. It's making my head hurt."
"Shut up," said Molotch.
"Stop. Make him stop. Kys, make him stop." The girl looked up at Patience. "Please."
"Shhhhh..." said Kys. "It's all right."
"But he's spoiling my door. He's spoiling it."
"He has to do this." Kys told her softly.
Molotch was using a stick of chalk to inscribe runes and patterns on the door and the wall around it. He'd already got Kys to hold one end of a length of twine so that he could measure out distances along the wall and the wet flagstones and mark them out accurately.
He was working furiously, copying certain symbols from sheets of parchment that were beginning to disintegrate in the driving rain. The symbols were ugly. Kys didn't want to look at them. They made her skin crawl. She stayed at his side, however, because the only alternative was to look up at the gargantuan horror bestriding Elmingard, and that was a far more disturbing prospect.