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The Purity of Ignorance – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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The Purity of Ignorance

John French

‘The darkest secrets are those we hide from ourselves.’

- Sebastian Thor, words spoken on the Road to Terra

‘Do you know why we do what we do?’

‘No, sir. That it is not my... I do not need to know.’

‘We do it for the survival of humanity.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Lieutenant Ianthe, Second Squadron, Agathian Sky Sharks, sat at attention, hands on her knees, eyes straight ahead. The man sitting across from her was a priest, his bulk covered by an off-white robe. Crude tattoos spidered the knuckles of his hands, and hard, knowing eyes glittered in the wrinkled lump of his face. He was called Josef, or that was the name he had introduced himself with. Now after half an hour talking with him, Ianthe thought he seemed more senior sergeant at arms than a priest in the service of an inquisitor. But what did she know of the Inquisition?

‘Do you understand what that means?’ said Josef, as though hearing her thoughts in her silence.

‘If we fail, so does the Imperium,’ she said.

‘True, but not the whole truth. We fail and there will be no humanity to be called an Imperium. Not here, not on distant Terra, nowhere. There will just be a thing that was once call mankind, weeping as it eats itself and the darkness laughs. You understand me, Ianthe?’

‘Sir,’ she said.

He cocked his head, and scratched his stubble-covered jaw. She did not move her own gaze but she could feel his eyes moving across her face, searching for something, watching for something.

‘Tell me about your service before this,’ he said at last.

‘Sir?’ she began, and fought to keep the frown from her face. ‘My apologies, sir, but I thought we had covered that.’

He shrugged, muscle and fat rippling under the folds of his robe.

‘Humour me,’ he said.

She listed her record, passing through the last twelve years of her life in clipped bites of information: Karadieve, command of platoon in the assault on the pirate holds; Anac, command forward reconnaissance units, wounded; Grey Klave, command primary assault squadron. And on until her record ran out, and the silence formed again between them.

‘And now you are here, with us,’ he said.

‘Yes, sir,’ she nodded, and then felt her expression twitch before she could stop it.

‘You have something to say – say it, lieutenant,’ said Josef.

Ianthe nodded, licked her lips and then spoke. ‘Is this interview related to the mission, sir? I have been over my record several times, and my appraisal of the soldiers under my command.’

‘It is related to the mission in every way, lieutenant. In every way.’ He paused, watching her. ‘Is there something else you wish to say?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s just that I have never had the honour of serving the Inquisition, sir. It is...’

‘Irregular?’ he finished for her, and nodded. For a second she thought she saw a glimmer of something like sorrow in his eyes. ‘That it is,’ he said, and there was an edge of weariness in his voice. Then he stood, shaking out his creased robe, and rolling his shoulders like a pugilist before turning and moving towards the door. ‘Ready your squad. It is time.’

Spire Mistress Sul Nereid woke with a scream between her teeth. For an instant the nightmare smudged her sight with bloated flesh and blood-covered chrome, and she felt the acid kiss of vomit rise to her mouth. Then it was gone, draining away with her panic as the dawn light filled her eyes. She shifted, feeling the silk padding of the throne at her back, and the smooth silver of its arms beneath her hands. She stretched, smiling. She had fallen asleep in her chair, just as she had when she was a child and used to sneak into the throne room at night. She laughed, and the sound slid out to meet the sun rising behind the crystal walls of her room.

The throne room sat at the tip of the hive spire. Crystal walls set in frames of polished adamantine encircled a single open space within. A flight of shallow steps led from the foot of the throne, each one carved from a single piece of dark wood. The pelts of a thousand white felids had been seamlessly stitched to create a rug that flowed down from her throne to spill onto the open space beneath. Slender columns of ivory rose from the black glass floor, each holding a frozen explosion of gemstones and light, which glittered in rainbow hues as they spun in suspensor fields. Beyond the clear walls the cloud layer ran to the arc of the sun slipping above the horizon; the crowns of cumuli rose above a soft sea of white and folded purple and orange. At the apex of the sky’s dome stars winked against the last darkness of the night. In the far distance the pinnacles of Tularlen’s other hive spires rose from the plateau of clouds like shards of diamond set on cushions of spun sugar. Nereid sighed at the sight.

This moment, this perfect moment, had been hers ever since she had inherited the spire throne from her father. He had treasured both the view and the position it represented, clutching both close to him even as he had fought the doom that claimed him at last. It had been a sad end, but it did mean that the pleasure of waking to this world was Nereid’s now.

‘Are you hungry, mistress?’

Saliktris’s voice came from just behind and beside her throne. She half turned her head, enough to catch the impression of the majordomo standing just on the edge of sight, clad in plum and crimson velvet, his smile an echo of her own. He was always there, just where he needed to be.

‘I am...’ she replied, and shifted on her seat, tilting her head to one side as she thought. ‘But...’

‘Some music...’ said Saliktris, smoothly.

Nereid’s smile widened.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That is it. The arrangement from last night would be...’

‘Perfection,’ he said, and her smile widened. Others might object to a servant talking so freely with their betters, but Saliktris always knew what to say, and what she wanted. She did not know what she would do without him.

The spire throne was no doubt something that many coveted. The House of Tears, the Extrabati and their Mechanicus backers, the Sons of Lupolis, and all the other lesser power blocs regarded this seat, and the power it represented, with a hungry eye. That jealousy had been one of the poisons that had marred her ascension, that and the riots burning in the factory core of the hive, and the Administratum’s suddenly inflated tithes of manpower and materiel. Apparently there was a war, and Tularlen had to feed every scrap of flesh and wealth into its gullet.

No matter that it was draining the wealth of the hive houses, no matter that discontent was curdling to violence in the drone masses, no matter that it could not be done, the Imperium demanded and would not be denied. Nereid shuddered as the memory rose in her mind, and her mouth twisted as though she had just bitten into a rotten fruit.

The expression and memories faded, and she smiled again.

‘Mistress...’ whispered Saliktris, and she looked up.

The ensemble players appeared as her smile bloomed. They filed out into the space beneath the throne, thirty-six men and women robed in white, their instruments gleaming in the brightening day.

‘Do you wish for dancing?’ asked Saliktris, and all she had to do was nod.

Two of the thirty-six players stepped forward, their limbs trailing tapers of silk that shimmered like the inside of a seashell. They halted, and stretched their limbs, becoming statues poised on the edge of movement. The first notes rose from the instruments, blending as layers of melody harmonised from tuned strings, silver flutes and taut drumheads. They began to sing, voices rising to meet the swelling chords of the instruments.

Nereid closed her eyes and tilted her face back as the sound pulled her senses up through the greyness and into a world of unfolding glory. This was what the dull words of preachers never could convey; this was what it was to touch the divine.

She opened her eyes just as the dancers started to move.

‘Wait,’ she said. The dancers froze, bodies suspended in mid-movement as though they hung on strings in defiance of gravity. The music from the ensemble did not cease, but circled through harmonies, holding just beneath the peak of its ascent.

Nereid turned her head slightly to the right, and a mirrored platter appeared, heaped with glistening fruit, each one a jewel taken fresh from its tree. A chalice sat beside it, the wine within almost black in the daylight brilliance. She reached out, took the chalice and raised it to her lips. Warm liquid kissed her mouth, filling her nose with sweet scents and the promise of endless days of laughter. She plucked a fruit from the platter and popped it into her mouth. It burst, and the flavours of the wine and the juice briefly warred before fusing into a taste that slid through a thousand shades of sweetness.

Nereid swallowed, and breathed out.

‘Now,’ she said, and raised the chalice to her lips again, ‘dance.’

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2016
This eBook edition published in 2016 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Stefan Kopinski.

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