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Nightshift Nineteen – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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NIGHTSHIFT NINETEEN

Peter Fehervari

The procession of neophytes marched towards the Cathedral of Ablution in single file, their backs bowed in symbolic toil, their ceremonial brass-headed mops clasped reverently. All wore orange tunics, flat caps and rubber gloves. Most were male, all were young. None were tall, for that would have been a hindrance to their forthcoming duties. Cherub-faced nozzles set into the circular gateway sprayed each supplicant with a fine, sterilising mist as they approached. It stung, but nobody closed their eyes. They had come too far to make such an error.

‘Cleanliness is righteousness,’ Izaq chanted, gazing directly into the spray when his turn came, then welcoming the tears that followed. ‘I weep away my sins.’

A symphony of creaks, rattles and groans answered from the cavernous chamber beyond. The pipes riddling the cathedral’s walls were ancient, but still very active, circulating holy liquids and gases that dated back to Hive Carceri’s foundation, untold millennia ago. That concoction was the spiritual lifeblood of the confederation of priests, adepts, administrators and labourers who maintained the city’s dome. Izaq and his fellow apprentices were about to ascend the first rung of that hallowed company.

‘Ours is the hand that wipes away the stain betwixt the stars,’ he intoned formally, raising his mop to the metal-spun sky, where the blessed Sunlights shone. Sarastus was not a welcoming world. Beyond the great dome lay only darkness and death, so its maintenance was the noblest of callings. ‘We cleanse so others may prosper.’

Izaq shivered with rapture as he stepped into the cathedral. This privilege was the culmination of five years of hard work and harder prayer, for labour was impotent without faith to fire it. He might never see the inner sanctum of the Canopic Congregation again, so he drank it in with relish. The interior was like a vast pentagonal cistern, its ceiling lost in a web of criss-crossing pipes and walkways. A brass altar loomed ahead, wreathed in steam billowing from vents set into its five faces. The order’s symbol – an open hand with a stylised star in its palm – hovered above the altar, rendered in three dimensions by a shimmering green holofield. At regular intervals the star would burst briefly into a staring eye and the hand’s fingertips would blossom with emerald flames.

‘Ours is the eye that spies the blight within the night,’ the initiates chanted. ‘We watch so others may sleep.’

Ten hulking, inhumanly angular figures stood before the altar. Sacred scouring unguents dripped from pipes coiled about their waists, pooling around their boots and filling the air with an astringent tang. Beneath their white robes the Canopic Deacons were reputedly more machine than man, their flesh and bones replaced by plastek and circuitry over centuries of service. Each oversaw one of the hive’s districts and was answerable only to the eternal Arch Deacon itself. Carceri was nominally ruled by a council of magnates representing its core industries, but few of them ever questioned the Congregation’s edicts. Everyone knew who kept the Sunlights burning.

‘Ours is the spirit that fuels the stars,’ the initiates sang. ‘We give so others may beget!’

‘As above, so below!’ the Deacons answered as one, concluding the canticle, then rapped their lumen staves against the tiles, bringing the apprentices to a halt. Izaq noticed he’d stopped with his left foot midway across two tiles. He pulled it back discreetly, mortified by his inattention. He’d been careful not to step on any cracks during the long march to the cathedral, but excitement had finally made him careless. He bit down on his inner cheek and drew blood, as he always did when he broke one of his self-imposed laws. His mouth was perpetually sore, but that was a small price to pay for absolution.

‘Scars are marks of grace,’ his mother used to say whenever he earned a beating. ‘A spotless hide hides an unclean heart.’

The Deacons’ porcelain masks began to glow, softly at first, then brighter. As the radiance peaked they burst into song. The abstract ululation gurgled from their chest speakers like electrified water, making Izaq’s hair stand on end.

I wish you could be here, mother, he mused, entranced. I wish you could see me here!

And perhaps she could. Given her connection to the Golden God-Emperor, was it really so unlikely? The glass charm she’d given him when he joined the order felt cool against his skin. He usually kept it hidden away, but today was special so he’d hung it around his neck by a cord, tucked under his uniform. Personal ornaments were forbidden during Canopic ceremonies, but nobody would notice his transgression. Besides, the charm was holy, so it wasn’t really a transgression.

You belong here, Izaq judged, addressing both the gift and its giver. More than I.

The Deacons fell silent and their masks dimmed. Izaq wondered what lay behind those smooth, featureless ovals. Perhaps there was only pure light. Yes, he decided, that would befit their transcendent nature.

A bell chimed somewhere in the cathedral’s heights and the holographic hand unravelled into a scroll. A ripple passed through it, leaving a list of glowing names in its wake.

‘Denomination sequence initialised!’ the Deacons boomed.

Izaq winced as he found his name midway down the scroll. The order was alphabetical – logical – yet he resented it. How many of his fellow initiates wholeheartedly believed in their cause? How many yearned to service the Sunlights as he did? During their shared apprenticeship he’d often been repelled by their vulgar banter and banal aspirations. True, a few were devoted to their duties, but none shared his vision. His passion.

‘Kneel to receive thy ordained designations, Lightkeepers!’ the Deacons commanded.

The best of us should be first, Izaq brooded as he obeyed. That midway position made his palms itch. It felt wrong. Suddenly the list looked like a tally of lost souls awaiting judgement.

Don’t be foolish, he told himself. Acceptance is penance.

A number flashed up beside one of the names near the top, consecrating that novice’s assignment. Another followed, much further down, then another… The youths waited silently as each was found and numbered in turn, seemingly at random, as if anything in life ever was. Izaq knew better. He’d been taught to know better, by a woman more attuned to the Golden God’s designs than the Congregation’s mentor priests.

‘So it flows,’ he murmured, trying to calm himself. ‘Inside to out, above and bel–’ He fell silent, staring at the digits that had just appeared beside his name. They stared right back, mute yet mocking, gloating in their toxic union – and the one they had forged with him.

SNEDDON, IZAQ – 19

Nineteen? Izaq blinked rapidly, his mind racing as he took it in. ‘1’ was a neutral numeral, neither benign nor malign in itself, yet infused with tremendous potential. A kingmaker, his mother had explained, but a blind one, like the Golden God’s own Prime Arches. It could go either way, as those demigods had done during the Hour’s Heresy that tore the old galactic order apart in an hour exactly.

But ‘9’… That was another tangle of snakes altogether. While ‘6’ was capricious and ‘7’ noxious, either could be harnessed for good work, but ‘9’ was volatile beyond control, poisoning every number it partnered with. And of those partnerships, ‘19’ was the most dangerous.

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