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THE SCHOLA PROGENIUM was a curiously dissonant place; warm and snug in its corridors and rooms, but also grey and uncomfortable, full of roving packs of children lead by tranquil Sisters, but seemingly inimical to everything friendly a joyful. It occurred to me that despite the healthy supply of food and warmth and hygiene, this was perhaps the most impoverished way grow up. And yet, in the faces of even the younger progenae that passed us, I saw a certain indomitable defiance and resilient spirit which at once appalled and reassured me. Here were children as young as four wearing the cold, hard expressions of seasoned soldiers; testament as much to the Imperium’s (and indeed humanity’s) success and might as they were to its ruthless cruelty.

One face stood out, though. Singular among the crowd, one pair of eyes refused to stare hatefully ahead, one mouth refused to adopt the killer’s smirk. As we passed the group with our tightly-uniformed guide, a little, androgynous imp looked up at me, its bulbous and over-large eyeballs flashing hot blue, its shaven head darkened by stubble, its sharply-defined jaw hanging open at me. I thought nothing of the encounter at first and put it to the back of my mind, following the Scion who marched us into a conference room and then left us.

This was an Inquisitorial venue, evident by the sigil polished into the long oak table. It was as warm and close as everywhere else in the Scholem, but this room was plushly carpeted and its walls clad with dark wood. Tellis, Chainbers and Tarne filed in and took their seats at the table while our guide assured us that Østergaard would be with us shortly.

While we waited, I crossed to the viewport and looked out through the inches of armourglass. The view outside was of a staggering spirefield; great curled horns of rock stretching off to the feet of the mountains, which themselves resembled larger versions of the same stony shell-like structures, all of which were lit from behind by the incredible blue of space.

‘As though some god among painters has whipped up the land with his brush!’ Tellis exclaimed, ‘Truly, the galaxy harbours such wondrous multitudes, it seems we waste ourselves on human trifles.’

I smiled at the elegance of the warrior’s observation. Chainbers merely grunted with amused dismissal, to Tellis’ annoyance. Between the two men I sensed a tension that had not been there before, perhaps all was not well. Tarne and I shared a look, evidently it had not escaped him either.

I turned as I heard the door open and the young Scion entered again. He wore the black tunic and fatigues of a Peryton, with his beret and stripes in the vibrant blue of the 201st regiment. He saluted me tersely and announced ‘Inquisitor the Lady Evelina Jannick Østergaard, Mayoress of Mountain House and Matriarch of the Greater Clan Østergaard.’ I found the title conceited and needlessly ostentatious, and clearly intended to intimidate my employees. I took up a stance of calm authority, refusing to doff my cap to the elder Inquisitor. I waited for the Scion to retreat and for the antisonic field to reassert itself before I spoke.

‘Grace upon you, Lady.’ I greeted with easy courtesy as the Inquisitor entered. Østergaard was a smallish woman of three centuries; dressed in a silver-green gown of quite exquisite, if somewhat ancient beauty, in which respect I felt it echoed its occupant. The Inquisitor was shrivelled with age, hunched and wrinkled, with her eyes sunken and perpetually closed. And yet, for all that this diminished her, she seemed to carry an air of fire, slow-burning but inevitable. Østergaard hummed an acknowledgement, her wrinkled cheeks and jowls slowly flexing.

‘I would that our meeting were under less grievous terms, Lady Inquisitor,’ I began, straightening to fall in with the arc of my men, while Østergaard stood defiant, ‘but I must insist that you reveal to me the reason for our sojourn so far out of Imperial space. My time is not an infinite resource.’

‘I have come to you alone, Ingram. I trusted you to afford me the same courtesy.’ Østergaard intoned. Her voice had evidently once been musical and pleasant, but had twisted and deepened with age until it was barely more than a whisper, wet with the phlegm in her throat and always preceded with an audible exhalation which leant her every word a weary gravity. I stood my ground.

‘I chose to disregard that aspect of your request, Lady Østergaard.’ I said boldly, though the words did not seem to disturb the woman’s tranquil façade, ‘I know I am likely to come under threat before long, and I would rather not be without protection just now.’ Østergaard let this hang for a long time before she issued her own warning.

‘Well I must reiterate it, then,’ she said with calm frankness, ‘otherwise I shall be unable to say what I have to say, for only you must hear it.’ I fixed her with a stare which was as coldly distant as it was inquiring. My rosette emitted a faint buzz and I drew it from my pocket in clear view. The scan I had made for electronic devices was complete and none that were unexpected had been found in the room, the tiny screen on the device showed an isometric map, with the antisonic field generators in the doors, Østergaard’s tiny pacemaker and my rosette itself all shown as green spots emitting waves. With a gesture, I sent my men out. Tarne and Chainbers exited via the door we had come in through, while Tellis went through the one Østergaard had used.

The crone and I were left standing at opposing ends of the table, corresponding to the baroque ‘I’ in its surface. My end was black and glossy, Østergaard’s intricately patterned with gold leaf, the line between a sumptuous, sweeping curve, quite at odds with the geometry of the shape it described. Østergaard was a dissonant soul; a towering presence condensed into a withered, diminutive body. She seemed to see the whole universe at once and to stand quietly defiant before the infinity of space and time with poise and noble bearing. It occurred to me that her eyes, as small and creased as they were, were fixed on my breast pocket.

‘The late Kuznetsov didn’t know either.’ I began, ‘Now I must conclude that in fact very few among the Guryan Ordos are privy to the knowledge that I have been gazetted Inquisitor.’

‘I confess that this is a surprise to me.’ Østergaard answered, ‘You still seem too young to be given such power.’

‘Well, I am thirty-nine, though I don’t look it.’ I said, aware that my age seemed paltry compared to Østergaard’s multi-centennial figure. I calmly pulled a heavy, oaken chair from the table and sat on its plush leather. Østergaard continued to stand and regarded me with disdainful curiosity. ‘What I’m more interested in is why my promotion might have been kept a secret.’

‘It was never Tholt’s style to shout his business at others.’ Østergaard said, gliding over to the window, ‘And there are still those among the Ordos who think you unworthy.’

‘All the more reason for gossip.’

‘People only gossip about things they feel are important,’ Østergaard seemed unconvinced by her own words, ‘you seem to have an inflated opinion of yourself.’

‘I should be so lucky.’ I chuckled, ‘No, I am more of the opinion that people gossip about things they find trivial, to distract themselves from things they find important. A young, upstart Acolyte being gazetted sooner than is prudent seems to me to be just the sort of trivia that is public enough to generate gossip.’

‘Ah, then it’s less an inflated opinion of yourself and more a general misanthropy. That seems more like the work of Dedrick Tholt.’ Østergaard seemed almost wistful for an instant.

‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

‘As you wish. I assumed this business with Anatoliy, rest his soul, would have made you more wary of my generation.’

‘On the contrary, Madam.’ I said, excited to be tickling the edges of the real issue, ‘The capability and morality of your generation, as I have encountered recently, has only served to increase my respect for you.’

‘Well, let us hope our inheritors are up to the job.’ I spotted Østergaard’s reference to her own Acolyte, a pious and scholarly, if overly tentative man of equal age to myself.

‘Ah yes, what of Jerom?’ I asked. I had enjoyed the company and friendship of Abadelius for some time, though at this point I had not seen him since prior to my promotion.

‘He is well. This is, in fact, the reason I called you here.’

‘Hmm, not exactly the reason I came, but go ahead.’ Østergaard turned from the window and frowned at me. She had clearly not expected an Inquisitor to answer her call, and was finding me presumptuous and insolent, which I thought delicious.

‘Jerom is on his first lone assignment.’ Østergaard began at length, departing the window and moving steadily to the opposite side of the table to myself. She sat quietly, straight-backed and with the slight inclination of the head which betrayed her higher-Udolphian lineage. ‘There is a world further into the Carinae cloud which is to be his area of study for the next five years, I’ve just returned from installing him there.’

‘And he needs me?’

‘He needs someone he can trust to escort him down to the surface to conduct his first enquiries. I think you are the obvious choice.’

‘That makes it sound as though you have made the decision for him. And let us not forget that I have just killed your own mentor.’ Østergaard gave an almost imperceptible inclination of her right eyebrow as her response. I met it with a mischievous grin which in hindsight was probably unflattering. ‘I shall go and help Jerom for you, Lady Østergaard.’ I said, taking care to prepare my words, ‘I request in return an answer to one question, however.’

‘Which is the reason you answered my summons, I suppose.’ the Lady turned once more to gaze out of the window at the alien landscape beyond.

‘Indeed. I need to know about a task you undertook for Kuznetsov when you were still an Acolyte,’ I said, hoping the old woman would remember, ‘in which you censored and expunged records of an article on bureaucratic inconsistencies by an Adept Orlechka.’

‘What do you need to know?’ Østergaard’s voice was low and wary, her eyes turned on me, but clearly desperate to look away.

‘Why file the manuscript under Xeno-Zoology, when it was clearly more suited to Meta-statistics?’

Østergaard met my stare with steady intelligence, but her sunken eyes were yellowed with age and wet with tears. In her I saw a glimpse of the young beauty she had once been, and when she next spoke, she took me back to that time and to her first betrayal.

ØSTERGAARD HAD BEEN brought, two-hundred and fifty years previously, away from her family on Udolpho. Though she pragmatically took on a new life, images of the sprawling, dark and shadowed hives on that mist-choked world still haunted her. She yearned for Udolpho’s rigid moral order, for the arcane sciences that its people practised, for the short, pale days and even for the long, pyre-lit nights.

She perhaps would not have so romanticised had she actually had any engagement with the lower orders on Udolpho, for truly it is a wicked, desperate place. But Østergaard was, of course, born to a noble bloodline, with nothing expected of her but to love the Emperor and produce healthy offspring. Much to her family’s disgrace (and be assured that they were callously, violently disgraced in the most active sense of the word), Evelina’s wanderlust was tantalised by the arrival of an Inquisitorial party at their house. This party, under a youngish Inquisitor by the name of Anatoliy Kuznetsov, included few intelligent members, being composed primarily of grim-eyed Battle Servitors following a long purgational campaign some months’ travel rimward. Nevertheless, the stories from that campaign, imparted to the wide-eyed girl by Kuznetsov and his advisors drew Østergaard away from her home and from the life which, while perhaps unstimulating and uncomplex, would have been eternally comfortable for her.

Østergaard moved to Guryan even as her household was torn apart, both symbolically by its financiers and literally by its rivals, and she began the work of an Inquisitorial Acolyte, impressing her new Master with her intellect and resilience, winning the support of men like Tholt with her beauty, her perspicacity, her resolve and her piety.

But the girl was always curious by nature, and rebellious in her own way, for that is the very quality which had led her into Inquisitorial service, and when Kuznetsov’s actions began to stray from the centre of the path, his astute and independent young charge was the first to notice.

Østergaard was not given to public protests, though. Instead she towed the line, watched her Master, judged him secretly from beneath his gaze. And so, when she was asked to expunge and archive a censored paper which she couldn’t see as anything but innocent, she did so with a subversive twist; a little out-of-place sign that would not betray her Master, but would put a good investigator onto his scent in the right circumstance. By sealing the paper with her own stamp, Østergaard even invited scrutiny upon herself, such was her conviction.

In the catacombs beneath Distant Glimmer’s Grand Library, the towering data-stacks shifting heavily to permit her entrance, Lady Evelina Østergaard slowly, tenderly slid the scroll into the wrong shelf. Her fingers were long and smooth, her eyebrows thin and high-arched above eyes that glinted in the lamplight that shone from her servo-skull. Moving silently in her elegant gown, Østergaard withdrew into the cavernous, vaulted chamber which echoed with ancient whispers and breathed with winds from nowhere. She glided back to the lift, an elegant silhouette in the white glow that cascaded from the opening. In the moment before the doors slid shut, the woman’s fair, shadowed face took on something of the aged aspect that it would hold when this single, simple, honestly insubordinate act came to fruition.

LOTTIE WAS SAT cross-legged and hunched on the desk in my quarters when I awoke. My assassin had taken to wearing a white bodyglove that she had made herself from spare silken drapes that we had left-over from the decoration of Terezkova’s chambers. The light material slid noiselessly over the girl’s skin and its colour and sheen seemed to do nothing to hamper her stealth. In many ways, seeing her in such clothing made her far more human and real to me, at once robbing her of mystery and investing her with a friendly, approachable quality that made me sleep longer and easier when she was watching.

As grogginess cleared from my senses and I sat up on my hard, old bunk, I became aware of some far-off noise, something like a shout or the barking of an animal. Lottie and shared a look, the shadow’s eyes glinting despite the almost total darkness of the cell. She turned her head toward the open door, as though indicating that I should investigate. I found myself wondering what I kept the Assassin around for if not to look into this sort of thing, but I rose and padded out of my quarters to follow the sounds.

The Scholem was eerie and dark, the only light coming from emergency exits far down the corridor to either side of me. I stopped in the doorway and listened carefully, my own heartbeat seeming loud in the still air. The echo came again, distorted by the distance and the winding passages, but unmistakably a shout. I moved off to the left, quickly and quietly, realising before long that I should probably have taken a weapon with me.

Moving swiftly and silently toward the sounds, I became aware that they were indeed the shouts of children. At first I thought they were the sounds of play, but I shook this impossible notion from my head as I remembered where I was. Surely, I thought, these would instead be the sounds of callous natural selection at work.

‘Fucking shit-eater!’ I heard a high-pitched voice shout as I rounded a corner, ‘Fucking witch-whore!’

The unmistakeable scuffling smacks of fists striking flesh followed, along with cries and grunts of pain. It occurred to me that, horribly, Scholem staff had almost undoubtedly heard the scuffle but had chosen to do nothing. Worse still, as I saw the little tangle of pale limbs in the cold corridor that writhed with violent throes, it occurred to me that perhaps this was not something I should interfere with. In fact, I stood and watched the fight for precious seconds, verging on the conclusion that this scene of brutality was not only right in the circumstances, but in fact that it was a thing of moral goodness.

As I shook the awful, callous thoughts from my mind, allowing my moral reason to come again to the fore, the fight came to a head. The two children before me bit and scratched and kicked and screamed at one-another, limbs moving with the desperate vigour of the mortally threatened animal, coupled with the painfully efficient training of the Schola Progenium. Even as I stepped in to pull them away from one-another, the little creature to my left gave one last kick which sent its foe flying back across the corridor and cracked its head violently against the opposite wall. I flinched back as I neared the pair, becoming aware of a hot charge in the air, and my skin prickled as I reached out.

The right-hand child slid down the wall, leaving a little bloody streak from the back of its skull, but it was still alive, eyes darting and lips quivering. The air grew dense and stifling and clammy and the child then began to gag and convulse and bleed from the nose, it slid down into a prone position, knocking its head repeatedly on the cold deck, writhing and grimacing and arching its back in pain. It gave a quiet, strained grunt, bleeding and drooling and shaking for a long, agonising moment before it finally went limp and died.

The heat receded and I looked worriedly over at the other child, who was now curled up, clutching its bruised skull with both hands having urinated. I knew what had happened, and I knew my mandated course of action, but something, perhaps guilt caused by my former reticence to act, stopped me breaking that child’s little neck. Instead I reach out and took it by the arm, unfolding its tense limbs and bringing it, vacant and dumbly compliant, into a standing position.

Sat on the chair in my room a few minutes later, the child remained silent and sullen, its dead eyes fixed on its toes which dangled a few inches above the floor. It didn’t register me as I approached with a sterile swab, nor did it flinch when the cold fluid ran into its eye.

Once its wounds were clean and I was satisfied that I had done enough, I sat opposite on the bunk for some time, allowing the child to rest and allowing myself to consider my next move. As I looked, I began to think that it was likely that this child was the same one that I noticed among the crowd earlier, though its wide eyes and pale, androgynous aspect were common among the Progena, so it was difficult to tell. When the child finally looked at me for the second time that I realised that it was probably female, owing to the smaller nose and ears and the smoother jawline. When our eyes met she looked away awkwardly.

‘How many times have you done that?’ I asked before I really wanted to. The girl gave no answer, but turned her gaze back to her feet.

‘Do the other students know what you are?’ I asked instead. This time the girl nodded, her legs swinging nonchalantly from the chair, her solemn repentance forgotten.

‘What is your name, girl?’ This time she looked up at me again, searching for a reason not to answer. Here eyes were wide and large and quite blue.

‘Oh-seven-nine.’ she said at last, turning her head and indicating the number and bar-code tattooed behind her ear. I was transfixed by the simple tragedy of this gesture for a moment before I spoke again.

‘Well, Oh-seven-nine,’ I said, ‘I ought to have killed you as soon as I saw you do that, but I don’t feel like killing any children just now, so I’d like you to go back to your dorm and sleep for the rest of the night and tell absolutely no-one that I spoke to you, do you understand me?’ The girl nodded, slid off the chair and made for the door, stopping just before she opened it.

‘Did the Emperor send you?’ she said in an endearingly naïve way. I was taken aback by the question, but happened upon an answer after a moment.

‘Quite possibly.’

Description
THE SCHOLA PROGENIUM was a curiously dissonant place; warm and snug in its corridors and rooms, but also grey and uncomfortable, full of roving packs of children lead by tranquil Sisters, but seemingly inimical to everything friendly a joyful. It occurred to me that despite the healthy supply of food and warmth and hygiene, this was perhaps the most impoverished way grow up. And yet, in the faces of even the younger progenae that passed us, I saw a certain indomitable defiance and resilient spirit which at once appalled and reassured me. Here were children as young as four wearing the cold, hard expressions of seasoned soldiers; testament as much to the Imperium’s (and indeed humanity’s) success and might as they were to its ruthless cruelty.

One face stood out, though. Singular among the crowd, one pair of eyes refused to stare hatefully ahead, one mouth refused to adopt the killer’s smirk. As we passed the group with our tightly-uniformed guide, a little, androgynous imp looked up at me, its bulbous and over-large eyeballs flashing hot blue, its shaven head darkened by stubble, its sharply-defined jaw hanging open at me. I thought nothing of the encounter at first and put it to the back of my mind, following the Scion who marched us into a conference room and then left us.

This was an Inquisitorial venue, evident by the sigil polished into the long oak table. It was as warm and close as everywhere else in the Scholem, but this room was plushly carpeted and its walls clad with dark wood. Tellis, Chainbers and Tarne filed in and took their seats at the table while our guide assured us that Østergaard would be with us shortly.

While we waited, I crossed to the viewport and looked out through the inches of armourglass. The view outside was of a staggering spirefield; great curled horns of rock stretching off to the feet of the mountains, which themselves resembled larger versions of the same stony shell-like structures, all of which were lit from behind by the incredible blue of space.

‘As though some god among painters has whipped up the land with his brush!’ Tellis exclaimed, ‘Truly, the galaxy harbours such wondrous multitudes, it seems we waste ourselves on human trifles.’

I smiled at the elegance of the warrior’s observation. Chainbers merely grunted with amused dismissal, to Tellis’ annoyance. Between the two men I sensed a tension that had not been there before, perhaps all was not well. Tarne and I shared a look, evidently it had not escaped him either.

I turned as I heard the door open and the young Scion entered again. He wore the black tunic and fatigues of a Peryton, with his beret and stripes in the vibrant blue of the 201st regiment. He saluted me tersely and announced ‘Inquisitor the Lady Evelina Jannick Østergaard, Mayoress of Mountain House and Matriarch of the Greater Clan Østergaard.’ I found the title conceited and needlessly ostentatious, and clearly intended to intimidate my employees. I took up a stance of calm authority, refusing to doff my cap to the elder Inquisitor. I waited for the Scion to retreat and for the antisonic field to reassert itself before I spoke.

‘Grace upon you, Lady.’ I greeted with easy courtesy as the Inquisitor entered. Østergaard was a smallish woman of three centuries; dressed in a silver-green gown of quite exquisite, if somewhat ancient beauty, in which respect I felt it echoed its occupant. The Inquisitor was shrivelled with age, hunched and wrinkled, with her eyes sunken and perpetually closed. And yet, for all that this diminished her, she seemed to carry an air of fire, slow-burning but inevitable. Østergaard hummed an acknowledgement, her wrinkled cheeks and jowls slowly flexing.

‘I would that our meeting were under less grievous terms, Lady Inquisitor,’ I began, straightening to fall in with the arc of my men, while Østergaard stood defiant, ‘but I must insist that you reveal to me the reason for our sojourn so far out of Imperial space. My time is not an infinite resource.’

‘I have come to you alone, Ingram. I trusted you to afford me the same courtesy.’ Østergaard intoned. Her voice had evidently once been musical and pleasant, but had twisted and deepened with age until it was barely more than a whisper, wet with the phlegm in her throat and always preceded with an audible exhalation which leant her every word a weary gravity. I stood my ground.

‘I chose to disregard that aspect of your request, Lady Østergaard.’ I said boldly, though the words did not seem to disturb the woman’s tranquil façade, ‘I know I am likely to come under threat before long, and I would rather not be without protection just now.’ Østergaard let this hang for a long time before she issued her own warning.

‘Well I must reiterate it, then,’ she said with calm frankness, ‘otherwise I shall be unable to say what I have to say, for only you must hear it.’ I fixed her with a stare which was as coldly distant as it was inquiring. My rosette emitted a faint buzz and I drew it from my pocket in clear view. The scan I had made for electronic devices was complete and none that were unexpected had been found in the room, the tiny screen on the device showed an isometric map, with the antisonic field generators in the doors, Østergaard’s tiny pacemaker and my rosette itself all shown as green spots emitting waves. With a gesture, I sent my men out. Tarne and Chainbers exited via the door we had come in through, while Tellis went through the one Østergaard had used.

The crone and I were left standing at opposing ends of the table, corresponding to the baroque ‘I’ in its surface. My end was black and glossy, Østergaard’s intricately patterned with gold leaf, the line between a sumptuous, sweeping curve, quite at odds with the geometry of the shape it described. Østergaard was a dissonant soul; a towering presence condensed into a withered, diminutive body. She seemed to see the whole universe at once and to stand quietly defiant before the infinity of space and time with poise and noble bearing. It occurred to me that her eyes, as small and creased as they were, were fixed on my breast pocket.

‘The late Kuznetsov didn’t know either.’ I began, ‘Now I must conclude that in fact very few among the Guryan Ordos are privy to the knowledge that I have been gazetted Inquisitor.’

‘I confess that this is a surprise to me.’ Østergaard answered, ‘You still seem too young to be given such power.’

‘Well, I am thirty-nine, though I don’t look it.’ I said, aware that my age seemed paltry compared to Østergaard’s multi-centennial figure. I calmly pulled a heavy, oaken chair from the table and sat on its plush leather. Østergaard continued to stand and regarded me with disdainful curiosity. ‘What I’m more interested in is why my promotion might have been kept a secret.’

‘It was never Tholt’s style to shout his business at others.’ Østergaard said, gliding over to the window, ‘And there are still those among the Ordos who think you unworthy.’

‘All the more reason for gossip.’

‘People only gossip about things they feel are important,’ Østergaard seemed unconvinced by her own words, ‘you seem to have an inflated opinion of yourself.’

‘I should be so lucky.’ I chuckled, ‘No, I am more of the opinion that people gossip about things they find trivial, to distract themselves from things they find important. A young, upstart Acolyte being gazetted sooner than is prudent seems to me to be just the sort of trivia that is public enough to generate gossip.’

‘Ah, then it’s less an inflated opinion of yourself and more a general misanthropy. That seems more like the work of Dedrick Tholt.’ Østergaard seemed almost wistful for an instant.

‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

‘As you wish. I assumed this business with Anatoliy, rest his soul, would have made you more wary of my generation.’

‘On the contrary, Madam.’ I said, excited to be tickling the edges of the real issue, ‘The capability and morality of your generation, as I have encountered recently, has only served to increase my respect for you.’

‘Well, let us hope our inheritors are up to the job.’ I spotted Østergaard’s reference to her own Acolyte, a pious and scholarly, if overly tentative man of equal age to myself.

‘Ah yes, what of Jerom?’ I asked. I had enjoyed the company and friendship of Abadelius for some time, though at this point I had not seen him since prior to my promotion.

‘He is well. This is, in fact, the reason I called you here.’

‘Hmm, not exactly the reason I came, but go ahead.’ Østergaard turned from the window and frowned at me. She had clearly not expected an Inquisitor to answer her call, and was finding me presumptuous and insolent, which I thought delicious.

‘Jerom is on his first lone assignment.’ Østergaard began at length, departing the window and moving steadily to the opposite side of the table to myself. She sat quietly, straight-backed and with the slight inclination of the head which betrayed her higher-Udolphian lineage. ‘There is a world further into the Carinae cloud which is to be his area of study for the next five years, I’ve just returned from installing him there.’

‘And he needs me?’

‘He needs someone he can trust to escort him down to the surface to conduct his first enquiries. I think you are the obvious choice.’

‘That makes it sound as though you have made the decision for him. And let us not forget that I have just killed your own mentor.’ Østergaard gave an almost imperceptible inclination of her right eyebrow as her response. I met it with a mischievous grin which in hindsight was probably unflattering. ‘I shall go and help Jerom for you, Lady Østergaard.’ I said, taking care to prepare my words, ‘I request in return an answer to one question, however.’

‘Which is the reason you answered my summons, I suppose.’ the Lady turned once more to gaze out of the window at the alien landscape beyond.

‘Indeed. I need to know about a task you undertook for Kuznetsov when you were still an Acolyte,’ I said, hoping the old woman would remember, ‘in which you censored and expunged records of an article on bureaucratic inconsistencies by an Adept Orlechka.’

‘What do you need to know?’ Østergaard’s voice was low and wary, her eyes turned on me, but clearly desperate to look away.

‘Why file the manuscript under Xeno-Zoology, when it was clearly more suited to Meta-statistics?’

Østergaard met my stare with steady intelligence, but her sunken eyes were yellowed with age and wet with tears. In her I saw a glimpse of the young beauty she had once been, and when she next spoke, she took me back to that time and to her first betrayal.

ØSTERGAARD HAD BEEN brought, two-hundred and fifty years previously, away from her family on Udolpho. Though she pragmatically took on a new life, images of the sprawling, dark and shadowed hives on that mist-choked world still haunted her. She yearned for Udolpho’s rigid moral order, for the arcane sciences that its people practised, for the short, pale days and even for the long, pyre-lit nights.

She perhaps would not have so romanticised had she actually had any engagement with the lower orders on Udolpho, for truly it is a wicked, desperate place. But Østergaard was, of course, born to a noble bloodline, with nothing expected of her but to love the Emperor and produce healthy offspring. Much to her family’s disgrace (and be assured that they were callously, violently disgraced in the most active sense of the word), Evelina’s wanderlust was tantalised by the arrival of an Inquisitorial party at their house. This party, under a youngish Inquisitor by the name of Anatoliy Kuznetsov, included few intelligent members, being composed primarily of grim-eyed Battle Servitors following a long purgational campaign some months’ travel rimward. Nevertheless, the stories from that campaign, imparted to the wide-eyed girl by Kuznetsov and his advisors drew Østergaard away from her home and from the life which, while perhaps unstimulating and uncomplex, would have been eternally comfortable for her.

Østergaard moved to Guryan even as her household was torn apart, both symbolically by its financiers and literally by its rivals, and she began the work of an Inquisitorial Acolyte, impressing her new Master with her intellect and resilience, winning the support of men like Tholt with her beauty, her perspicacity, her resolve and her piety.

But the girl was always curious by nature, and rebellious in her own way, for that is the very quality which had led her into Inquisitorial service, and when Kuznetsov’s actions began to stray from the centre of the path, his astute and independent young charge was the first to notice.

Østergaard was not given to public protests, though. Instead she towed the line, watched her Master, judged him secretly from beneath his gaze. And so, when she was asked to expunge and archive a censored paper which she couldn’t see as anything but innocent, she did so with a subversive twist; a little out-of-place sign that would not betray her Master, but would put a good investigator onto his scent in the right circumstance. By sealing the paper with her own stamp, Østergaard even invited scrutiny upon herself, such was her conviction.

In the catacombs beneath Distant Glimmer’s Grand Library, the towering data-stacks shifting heavily to permit her entrance, Lady Evelina Østergaard slowly, tenderly slid the scroll into the wrong shelf. Her fingers were long and smooth, her eyebrows thin and high-arched above eyes that glinted in the lamplight that shone from her servo-skull. Moving silently in her elegant gown, Østergaard withdrew into the cavernous, vaulted chamber which echoed with ancient whispers and breathed with winds from nowhere. She glided back to the lift, an elegant silhouette in the white glow that cascaded from the opening. In the moment before the doors slid shut, the woman’s fair, shadowed face took on something of the aged aspect that it would hold when this single, simple, honestly insubordinate act came to fruition.

LOTTIE WAS SAT cross-legged and hunched on the desk in my quarters when I awoke. My assassin had taken to wearing a white bodyglove that she had made herself from spare silken drapes that we had left-over from the decoration of Terezkova’s chambers. The light material slid noiselessly over the girl’s skin and its colour and sheen seemed to do nothing to hamper her stealth. In many ways, seeing her in such clothing made her far more human and real to me, at once robbing her of mystery and investing her with a friendly, approachable quality that made me sleep longer and easier when she was watching.

As grogginess cleared from my senses and I sat up on my hard, old bunk, I became aware of some far-off noise, something like a shout or the barking of an animal. Lottie and shared a look, the shadow’s eyes glinting despite the almost total darkness of the cell. She turned her head toward the open door, as though indicating that I should investigate. I found myself wondering what I kept the Assassin around for if not to look into this sort of thing, but I rose and padded out of my quarters to follow the sounds.

The Scholem was eerie and dark, the only light coming from emergency exits far down the corridor to either side of me. I stopped in the doorway and listened carefully, my own heartbeat seeming loud in the still air. The echo came again, distorted by the distance and the winding passages, but unmistakably a shout. I moved off to the left, quickly and quietly, realising before long that I should probably have taken a weapon with me.

Moving swiftly and silently toward the sounds, I became aware that they were indeed the shouts of children. At first I thought they were the sounds of play, but I shook this impossible notion from my head as I remembered where I was. Surely, I thought, these would instead be the sounds of callous natural selection at work.

‘Fucking shit-eater!’ I heard a high-pitched voice shout as I rounded a corner, ‘Fucking witch-whore!’

The unmistakeable scuffling smacks of fists striking flesh followed, along with cries and grunts of pain. It occurred to me that, horribly, Scholem staff had almost undoubtedly heard the scuffle but had chosen to do nothing. Worse still, as I saw the little tangle of pale limbs in the cold corridor that writhed with violent throes, it occurred to me that perhaps this was not something I should interfere with. In fact, I stood and watched the fight for precious seconds, verging on the conclusion that this scene of brutality was not only right in the circumstances, but in fact that it was a thing of moral goodness.

As I shook the awful, callous thoughts from my mind, allowing my moral reason to come again to the fore, the fight came to a head. The two children before me bit and scratched and kicked and screamed at one-another, limbs moving with the desperate vigour of the mortally threatened animal, coupled with the painfully efficient training of the Schola Progenium. Even as I stepped in to pull them away from one-another, the little creature to my left gave one last kick which sent its foe flying back across the corridor and cracked its head violently against the opposite wall. I flinched back as I neared the pair, becoming aware of a hot charge in the air, and my skin prickled as I reached out.

The right-hand child slid down the wall, leaving a little bloody streak from the back of its skull, but it was still alive, eyes darting and lips quivering. The air grew dense and stifling and clammy and the child then began to gag and convulse and bleed from the nose, it slid down into a prone position, knocking its head repeatedly on the cold deck, writhing and grimacing and arching its back in pain. It gave a quiet, strained grunt, bleeding and drooling and shaking for a long, agonising moment before it finally went limp and died.

The heat receded and I looked worriedly over at the other child, who was now curled up, clutching its bruised skull with both hands having urinated. I knew what had happened, and I knew my mandated course of action, but something, perhaps guilt caused by my former reticence to act, stopped me breaking that child’s little neck. Instead I reach out and took it by the arm, unfolding its tense limbs and bringing it, vacant and dumbly compliant, into a standing position.

Sat on the chair in my room a few minutes later, the child remained silent and sullen, its dead eyes fixed on its toes which dangled a few inches above the floor. It didn’t register me as I approached with a sterile swab, nor did it flinch when the cold fluid ran into its eye.

Once its wounds were clean and I was satisfied that I had done enough, I sat opposite on the bunk for some time, allowing the child to rest and allowing myself to consider my next move. As I looked, I began to think that it was likely that this child was the same one that I noticed among the crowd earlier, though its wide eyes and pale, androgynous aspect were common among the Progena, so it was difficult to tell. When the child finally looked at me for the second time that I realised that it was probably female, owing to the smaller nose and ears and the smoother jawline. When our eyes met she looked away awkwardly.

‘How many times have you done that?’ I asked before I really wanted to. The girl gave no answer, but turned her gaze back to her feet.

‘Do the other students know what you are?’ I asked instead. This time the girl nodded, her legs swinging nonchalantly from the chair, her solemn repentance forgotten.

‘What is your name, girl?’ This time she looked up at me again, searching for a reason not to answer. Here eyes were wide and large and quite blue.

‘Oh-seven-nine.’ she said at last, turning her head and indicating the number and bar-code tattooed behind her ear. I was transfixed by the simple tragedy of this gesture for a moment before I spoke again.

‘Well, Oh-seven-nine,’ I said, ‘I ought to have killed you as soon as I saw you do that, but I don’t feel like killing any children just now, so I’d like you to go back to your dorm and sleep for the rest of the night and tell absolutely no-one that I spoke to you, do you understand me?’ The girl nodded, slid off the chair and made for the door, stopping just before she opened it.

‘Did the Emperor send you?’ she said in an endearingly naïve way. I was taken aback by the question, but happened upon an answer after a moment.

‘Quite possibly.’