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Inferno! Presents The Inquisition – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Mindshackle

Robert Rath

Inquisitor Greyfax of the Ordo Hereticus needs no introduction, but for completeness’ sake I shall provide one regardless. A confirmed puritan, she is known for her pragmatic and merciless approach to hunting witches, and her expertise has proven invaluable in the dark days since the fall of [REDACTED]. However, many of our colleagues have expressed concern about her centuries-long disappearance before returning out of nowhere to take part in the defence of that doomed world. This long absence has been an enduring mystery – until now. While much of this report strains believability, it answers many questions regarding Greyfax’s whereabouts, and speaks of a feud between her ordo and another…

>>Transcript 1

>>Inquisitorial Tribunal Re: Helynna Valeria

>>File No. [REDACTED]

>>Recording Device: Servo-Skull Mem-Unit # [REDACTED]

>>Date: REDACTED

>>Location: REDACTED

>>Questioners: Interrogator Rapal STACCATA [Ordo Xenos]

>>Tribunal Representatives: [REDACTED]

>>Interview Subject: Inquisitor Katarinya GREYFAX

>>DISSEMINATION OF THIS DOCUMENT WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE EXECUTION<<

STACCATA: We appreciate your cooperation in appearing today, Inquisitor Greyfax. Though we do wish this day had come earlier.

GREYFAX: I was busy.

STACCATA: The tribunal issued multiple summonses. Six, in fact.

GREYFAX: Since the woman in question has been dead for two centuries, I did not consider it pressing. By your tone, it seems I was mistaken.

[Pause: 2 seconds]

GREYFAX: Am I allowed to ask who is behind the null field?

STACCATA: The tribunal is anonymous. Procedure, you understand. I will ask the questions, they will judge your answers.

GREYFAX: I see. It will be three members, one from each ordo – that’s standard, as you say – and since you’re in the service of Lord-Inquisitor Varrigan of the Ordo Xenos, I assume he is one. Lady Cataclis will be representing Malleus, given the Mordians in the hallway; I know she favours them. And for the last, perhaps… Derval Bossch? He hates me, so if he heard there was a chance to get some of my skin under his fingernails, he’d take it.

[Pause: 1 second]

GREYFAX: How did I do?

STACCATA: It is my role to ask the questions.

GREYFAX: It is. And I’ll give them a moment to whisper the next query into your micro-bead. But you can drop the null field. I can see on your face I’m right.

STACCATA: Inquisitor, is it true that you are a psyker, that you have had in-person contact with the perfidious aeldari and the loathsome necrons, that you personally battled the Despoiler and set foot on a daemon world?

GREYFAX: Yes.

STACCATA: Then I think we will keep the null field up, thank you.

GREYFAX: If I am suspected of a breach, level your accusation and be done with it. I was told this was about Valeria.

STACCATA: You are correct. And here is the meat of it: we have never established the ultimate fate of Inquisitor Helynna Valeria. That is, until we received a report from an unnamed source quoting you as follows: ‘Valeria is dead. I pulled the trigger on her myself.’

[Pause: 2 seconds]

STACCATA: Is this report accurate?

GREYFAX: It is.

STACCATA: Under what authority did you execute Inquisitor Valeria?

GREYFAX: My authority as an inquisitor. That is to say, absolute authority.

STACCATA: Such an action requires a formal declaration of Excommunicate Traitoris.

GREYFAX: A declaration I made.

STACCATA: It was not received.

GREYFAX: I cannot be held responsible for breakdowns in astropathic communication. I drew up the proper papers.

STACCATA: Despite her… eccentricities and controversies, Valeria was a well-liked and respected member of my ordo.

GREYFAX: A heretic who consorted with xenos.

STACCATA: Greyfax, I know as a puritan you have a dim view of radicalism of any stripe. But in the Ordo Xenos – without the risk of Chaos corruption – it is far less risky and more permissible to engage with enemies. Not all radicals are created equal, inquisitor. But that aside, without supporting documents stating your case, there is reason to call your actions into question.

GREYFAX: So this is about me, after all.

STACCATA: It is about Valeria, and whether she deserved to be purged. You claim to have declared Valeria Excommunicate Traitoris. Why? Start there.

[Pause: 2 seconds]

STACCATA: Let the record state that the subject refuses to answer, a clear admission of fault and–

GREYFAX: Merely collecting my thoughts, interrogator. I began to pursue Inquisitor Valeria in 816.M41, when I received intelligence that she was connected to a necron overlord known as Trazyn, styled ‘the Infinite’.

STACCATA: My ordo has a file. A large one. You need not elaborate on this creature.

GREYFAX: You did not have a file then. This was in the early days, when we knew little about the necron threat. I came into possession of correspondence between the two, and filed my writ of Excommunicate Traitoris.

[Pause: 1 second]

GREYFAX: Finding her was not difficult. Her feud with Emil Darkhammer over the Dimensional Forge had been loud and public. She was not even bothering to hide. I tracked her to the Eastern Fringe, breveting a company from the 55th Kappic Eagles to serve as a storming party when we took her ship, the Farsailer. Her retinue… made it difficult. She had a kroot mercenary and an ogryn. Illicit weapons that took a heavy toll on the Eagles. In the end, we took her alive.

STACCATA: Why?

GREYFAX: Because I wanted to question her myself.

The 55th Kappic Eagles were good troops. They were survivors. Lethal, loyal and adept at missions where human assets had to be recovered by force. Qualities that made them ideal for Inquisitorial work.

But what Greyfax liked most about them was their resilience. As products of the same schola system that had produced her, they didn’t go all weak-kneed when things got strange – and Greyfax knew that when it came to a renegade like Valeria, things could get very strange indeed.

‘You are relieved, Tempestor Daraq,’ she said, nodding at the fire-team of Eagles standing before the door. They wore their helms, and their shoulder-mounted monoscopes tracked her as she approached. ‘I suggest you retire to the end of the gangway.’

Daraq unsealed his helmet and pulled it free, so she could see his strong-jawed face. He always did that when speaking to her, as a mark of respect. Letting her look into his remaining eye. ‘Are you certain, inquisitor?’

‘I think I can handle an unarmed heretic, don’t you?’ she said, letting a little of her psychic essence slip. She saw Daraq’s dead eye twitch, and his breath smoked as the humid shipboard air went icy.

‘We will be ten paces away,’ he said, donning and resealing his helm. He cocked his head to the four behind him. ‘Keep your weapon packs live.’

Greyfax stood aside to let the bulky warriors past. The steel door they’d guarded had an internal lock, one without keyhole or electronic pad. Nothing to exploit or subvert.

She reached out with her essence, turning the tumblers with her mind, sliding the chunky deadbolt pins back into their housings.

The doors slid open. She stepped in and slammed them shut behind her.

‘Did anyone else make it?’ the prisoner asked.

Helynna Valeria was sitting on the ground, one shackled arm propped on her knee. She didn’t look at Greyfax as she spoke.

‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

‘My retinue. Did anyone escape?’

‘Not the ones who stayed to fight,’ Greyfax said. ‘The kroot abandoned you, as all xenos scum eventually will, when one is foolish enough to trust them.’

Valeria shook her head. ‘Lokh was a mercenary – he agreed to fight for me, not to die for me. We were very clear on that arrangement.’

Valeria looked bad. The left side of her face was a swollen bruise from where the Tempestor’s shock maul had knocked her cold. Her blonde hair, pinned up in a bun, had started to come loose. Her Naval coat and tailored robes were singed from the heat flash of las-bolts dissipating in her aeldari force shield.

She looked every inch the rogue trader that she so often pretended to be – and she looked defeated.

Greyfax knelt so she could meet her rival’s gaze. Fixed Valeria’s faraway stare with her own eyes. ‘Are you ready to confess?’

‘Confess what?’

‘That you are a heretic. A xenos-loving traitor who has turned her back on her own kind.’

‘What kind would that be, exactly?’

Greyfax blinked. ‘Humankind. You have abandoned humanity.’

Valeria laughed. ‘Only one person in this room has abandoned humanity, Katarinya, and it isn’t me.’

‘Play all the word games you like. You kept congress with heathen xenos, used forbidden weapons and sacred archeotech to kill loyal servants of the Imperium–’

‘The grav-pistol did make a mess of your Scions, I’ll admit.’

‘–and have served an alien overlord as his agent.’

Valeria flinched, a movement so small Greyfax would not have caught it had she not been trained in interrogation. A small muscle tic around her right jawline, like a repressed frown.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Valeria. Her slate-grey eyes gave away nothing. Like all inquisitors, she’d had training in resisting interrogation – good training. Even the most cursory nudge from her will told Greyfax that the woman’s mental defences were too strong to breach with telepathy. Not that Greyfax would need to go to such extremes.

Greyfax pulled the data-slate from the pouch at her hip and activated it. ‘“Dear lady,”’ she read. ‘“Let me express my fulsome appreciation for your most generous gift. It is so very rare to discover another of my own kind that appreciates my work…”’

‘You have no idea what you’re reading.’

‘Do I not? Because he speaks of a gift. A gift of five regiments of Catachan Guardsmen who were rerouted from their original deployment on Jeveza and subsequently disappeared from record.’ She opened the document and turned the slate towards the prisoner. ‘Whose Inquisitorial seal, do you suppose, was on that order?’

‘You don’t understand…’

‘You know I really thought you’d be smarter, Helynna. A rosette override, especially on an order of this magnitude, leaves a paper trail.’

‘They weren’t a gift, they were a strike force. I was trying to kill him.’

‘He says they were a gift.’

‘You take the word of a xenos over that of an inquisitor?’

‘A xenos abomination says one thing, a heretic traitor claims another.’ Greyfax shrugged. ‘Quite the dilemma, don’t you think? If only I had an easy solution.’

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