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Requiem Infernal – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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I

The Testimony of Asenath Hyades – First Statement
The Exodus Gulf, Vytarn, M40.419.

My revered canoness, it is with some reluctance that I begin this document, but several days have passed since my arrival on Vytarn and I can postpone my oath to you no longer. It is by your leave that I have made the voyage to this haunted, holy world, and by your decree that I must make an account of all that I find here. The first undertaking fills me with joy, for I have long yearned to return to the place of my birth, but I confess the second sits ill with me. To act as a spy, especially among those who opened my eyes to the God-Emperor’s glory and initiated me into our sacred sisterhood, feels like a betrayal. I owe more than my life to the Last Candle. Without its guiding light I would have been lost long before I learned to seek.

Under the circumstances I trust you will understand why I have shunned the convenience of an electro-stylus in favour of quill and parchment. To my mind these time-honoured tools cultivate a gravity of thought that less tactile instruments cannot match. Moreover they engender commitment – a sense that one is making a mark upon the world. If I am to write this account, then let it be both committed and lasting.

I shall begin with some observations about the Last Candle as I knew it in my youth, and as I believe I shall find it once again – a paragon of sanctity that has endured for over a thousand years. Though you and I have talked at length about my former sect, I feel honour-bound to set my views down as a matter of record.

As you well know, my lady, there have always been factions within the greater body of the Cult Imperialis whose traditions or interpretation of the Divine Truth have strained against orthodox scripture. Their deviations may be born of ignorance, arrogance or a sincere striving for enlightenment, but all are imperfect. Sometimes their flaws are harmless, yet we crush them without mercy. Sometimes they are born of malevolence and bred only for harm, yet we allow them to flourish. I have seen worlds where unspeakable cruelties are ennobled in the God-Emperor’s name – martyr festivals where the poor immolate themselves to atone for the sins of their rulers, or flagellation parades that revel in degradation, even ritualised children’s crusades that are little more than mass murder! Such barbarities debase His enduring sacrifice and our own honour, yet it is the Last Candle – a sect that sprang from our own blessed order – that has drawn the Convent Sanctorum’s suspicions!

Forgive me, I know it is not my place to interpret the line between tolerable heterodoxy and heresy, but wherever it lies I do not believe the Last Candle has crossed it, either in error or sin. During the decade that I served with its celebrants I found no cause to doubt their piety. If my old sect has a failing it is surely humility, but in the words of the blessed Saint Arabella, ‘A clever woman provokes envy, hence a wise one evades regard.’

I believe the Last Candle is both clever and wise, hence it has sought to serve the Imperium in solitude, devoting its talents to contemplation and healing rather than glorious crusades or proselytisation. It gazes inward upon the divine!

To understand the character of the Last Candle you must understand the world it has taken for its retreat, for the two are intertwined like faith and fire. Though I have been absent from Vytarn for over twenty years, its storm-wracked oceans and soaring granite isles have never left my heart. There is an empyreal vitality in the chill air – it is always cold here! – that sharpens the senses and exalts the spirit, spurring one to become the best that one can possibly be.

I do not doubt there is also darkness on this world. Indeed I occasionally felt its presence during my youth, like a phantom stain I could neither identify nor dismiss, but it is eclipsed by profound grace. None who have wandered among the seven temple-clad spires of the Koronatus Ring or gazed upon the cathedral-topped mountain that presides over them could doubt the integrity of their architects. Each spire extols one of the sevenfold Virtues Illuminant, while the colossus at their heart is a monument to mankind’s manifest destiny! It is my abiding hope that Vytarn will some day be recognised as a true shrine world of our beloved Imperium. Can such a resplendent realm be anything but holy?

Once again, I ask that you forgive me for speaking so boldly, my lady. I write these words to the sound of thunder – distant yet, but drawing closer with every line – and I confess the prospect of the coming storm incites me to be forthright. There is little in life as electrifying as being at sea amidst one of Vytarn’s great tempests! Our vessel will be sorely tested by the coming maelstrom, as will we who have entrusted our souls to its integrity, yet I welcome the trial!

You are my superior, but you have also been my truest friend and my second candle in the night. Without your faith I would not have survived my third death and awakened into my fourth and finest life. I will discharge my duty of vigilance to the Convent Sanctorum without prejudice or hesitation. If the Last Candle does indeed harbour heresy, as our revered prioress fears, then rest assured that I shall find it. But I believe my former mentors shall prove not merely innocent, but exemplary in their purity. I pray that my betrayal of their trust will also serve as their exoneration.

As if to punctuate the last word, thunder rumbled overhead and the lumen globes hanging from the ceiling flickered, swinging on their chains as the cabin heaved in sympathy with the ocean’s turbulence. The writer slammed a hand onto her journal as it began to slide from her desk. Fortunately the desk itself, along with the other elaborately carved furniture in the cabin, was bolted to the floor. The Exodus Gulf was rife with storms and the ships that ploughed its waters were designed to anticipate such fury. Nevertheless, no crossing was without hazard, and a handful of vessels were lost every year.

‘Exodus will take its toll,’ Asenath Hyades said aloud, though she was alone. ‘May the wrath of His regard sever us from iniquity.’

It had always been thus. Passage to the Koronatus Ring, Vytarn’s hallowed archipelago, could never – must never – be taken for granted, hence the planet’s only space port was situated on the remote Rosetta Isle, forcing visitors to complete their journey by sea. The eleven-day voyage was a sacrament in its own right, demanding a brave heart and a strong stomach, but above all else it was a test of faith, for though the sect’s Absolution barques were solidly built and solemnly blessed it was only by the Emperor’s grace that they prevailed.

The ship’s bell chimed through the squall, summoning the crew’s Exodii monks to the chapel, where they would chant the Litany of Exodus over and over until the storm had been appeased… or taken its toll. The vessel-indentured monks were forbidden to speak except when performing the ritual, though it was said the litany was never absent from their minds.

‘Unto the sea I cast myself, may He know my faith,’ Asenath intoned, finding the words as if she had spoken them only yesterday. ‘Unto the storm I castigate myself, may He feel my fire.’ She hesitated, though not because the final verse eluded her. ‘Unto the infinite I unveil myself, may He judge my sins.’

I pray mine do not condemn us, she reflected, though she didn’t think it likely. For all her failings, the God-Emperor wasn’t done with her yet. The dream that had compelled her to return to Vytarn was too vivid and recurring to be anything but a portent. She had a purpose here, even if she didn’t know what it was yet.

The room heaved again, and lightning flared at the portholes. For several heartbeats everything became a stuttering black and white negative of itself. Moments later a barrage of rain struck the vessel, battering the cabin’s outer wall.

Asenath realised she was smiling. It was good to be back home!

Ashamed of her excitement, she returned her attention to the journal. Her smile became a frown as she read her words over. Their tone was unseemly, the proliferation of exclamation marks particularly so. It was unlike her to be so unguarded – so volatile. The storm had certainly played a part in that, but the bigger part was Vytarn itself, especially the prospect of seeing the First Light again. The sacred flame had burned atop the archipelago’s great cathedral for over a thousand years, reputedly lit by the Torn Prophet.

‘Truth is our first and lasting light,’ Asenath recited. ‘Speak only as you see and seek to be, for all else is darkness.’

It was the opening verse of the sect’s gospel, and also the last, closing the great circle of its founder’s vision. Asenath had invoked it every night since her ordination into the Adepta Sororitas at the age of nine, even during the blood-soaked misery of her third life, but its meaning had never felt so clear.

My account is disquieting because it is honest, she decided.

Someone giggled, throaty and mocking.

Asenath swung round, her hand moving to the sculpted candle pinned above her heart as her eyes searched the cabin. The wavering light left shadows at its corners, but they were empty. She was alone save for the stylised Battle Sisters carved into the wood-panelled walls. The armoured warriors glared at her, their enamelled eyes filled with disapproval.

Suddenly Asenath was eager to be gone from here.

I have made a beginning, she decided, closing the book. Even if she were inclined to continue writing, it would be impossible while the cabin was rocking about like a zealot in the grip of a fervour dream.

She offered a prayer to her quill and returned it to its case, placing that in turn into her medicae bag. The quill was a minor relic from her order’s vaults and she carried it everywhere. Its nib had been carved from the incisor tooth of a long-dead prelate renowned for his eloquence, but more importantly to Asenath, it had been a parting gift from her superior, Canoness Sanghata. The mistress of the Eternal Candle had known her troubled Sister would have need of it, just as she had recognised her friend’s need to make this journey, even if she hadn’t understood why.

Would she have agreed if I’d told her the whole of it?

Asenath put the question aside. There were more pressing matters to attend to. Her report was only one of the duties she had accepted as the price of her pilgrimage. The rest awaited her in the Blood of Demeter’s infirmary.

All fifty-one of them…

‘It’s no way for a Breacher to die,’ Feizt hissed, scowling at the rain-spattered porthole by his bunk. ‘Better the Razor had finished us than this groundrat’s death.’

There were mutters of agreement from the Guardsmen gathered around him in the makeshift infirmary. There were always Guardsmen gathered around Toland Feizt, even now, when so few remained alive. Over half the company’s survivors lay in their beds, unconscious or close to it, strapped down to stop them rolling out in the turbulence. Some of the walking wounded were hunched on their bunks, riding out the storm with prayers or meditation as their guts churned about in the tempest, but most had gravitated to their sergeant, clutching whatever handholds they could find as they listened to his latest invective against their fate. In their baggy, white convalescent coveralls they looked more like a band of angry phantoms than soldiers of the Astra Militarum.

‘If I’m going to drown, make it clean!’ Feizt railed. His voice had thinned to a fever-strained rasp, but its anger was undiminished. ‘Drown me in the honest void!’

Even among a company of big men the breach sergeant was a giant, just short of seven feet and sporting a top-heavy frame that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a gladiatorial servitor. All Void Breachers bulked out their bodies with vat-grown muscles and metabolic genhancements, but the process had gone awry in Feizt, twisting his form into a brutish parody of humanity. The accident would have left a lesser man an outcast or at best a prized regimental freak, but Toland Feizt had used it to become a legend.

‘That storm’s hungry,’ he continued. ‘It wants to take us down, brothers.’ Nobody else in the company used the term brothers. Nobody else had the right.

They have always been his, Lemarché thought, watching the group from his bunk by the infirmary door. Even when Captain Froese commanded them, they belonged to Feizt. And they still do, though he is fading fast.

‘We’re not meant… to be here,’ Feizt was saying, forcing the words out between increasingly ragged breaths. His torso was naked save for a swathe of bandages around his midsection. ‘We’ve been had. Cast… down.’

His comrades met this with an uneasy silence.

‘Sister Asenath says there’s a hospital at the Ring,’ Specialist Schroyder offered tentatively. ‘The Last Candle’s healers will fix us up, breach sergeant.’

‘So they say, brother,’ Feizt replied darkly.

‘She wouldn’t lie, sergeant,’ Schroyder insisted.

‘She is Sororitas, yes,’ Breacher Zevraj added, as if that settled the matter.

‘No, she wouldn’t…’ Feizt turned from the porthole, his deep-set eyes glittering in his craggy face. ‘But what if they lied to her?’

‘Who, sergeant?’ Blast Breacher Hörka asked, frowning over his green-dyed beard. After Feizt, he was the biggest man in the company and a fierce fighter, but his talents didn’t extend to more abstract matters. Like thinking.

‘Don’t know,’ Feizt wheezed. ‘But who sticks a hospital in the middle of an ocean… days from the nearest space port?’ He shook his head. ‘It don’t… add up.’

Lemarché considered reprimanding him, but dismissed it. Feizt would be dead before they reached their destination and his ravings would die with him. It was a miracle he’d lasted this long – one Feizt owed as much to their guardian hospitaller as his own outrageous stamina – but he wouldn’t last much longer. There was nothing to gain from disciplining a dying man and perhaps much to lose.

He might even try to kill me for it, Lemarché mused dryly. They all might.

Exordio Void Breacher companies were composed entirely of veteran Guardsmen drawn from regular regiments of the Astra Militarum. They were more akin to the elites of the Tempestus Scions than the common soldiers Lemarché had overseen previously. As their name implied, they specialised in void-based actions – ship-to-ship boarding assaults or engagements in the vacuum of space, where up and down became mere abstractions and violence was wrought in near silence.

Blood-tight and void-sealed, the Breacher credo went. Spirit-locked to purge!

In the two years he had served with the men of Darkstar Company, Commissar Ichukwu Lemarché had experienced the strangest, most lethal battles of his long career. He had skirmished with aeldari raiders in the airless pits of a hollow moon as it disintegrated around them, and cleansed an infestation of arachnoid vermin from a warship’s hull, trusting his magnetised boots to keep him from falling into the abyss overhead. On one occasion the company had cut through the hull of a pirate cruiser’s bridge, slaughtering the crew without a shot being fired. Lemarché had been entranced when the bodies vented from the breach, writhing and haemorrhaging blood as they spun past him, each telling its own tale. They had been remarkable conflicts and Lemarché cherished every one, even the last, though it had cost him a leg and effectively killed the company.

The Razor…

Of the two hundred and fifty Breachers who had assaulted that crystalline meat grinder only seventy-seven had survived, and many of those had succumbed to their wounds within hours. The men crowded into this seaborne infirmary were the last of them.

Of us, Lemarché corrected himself, though he knew the Breachers would never see it that way. He had mastered their way of war and fought alongside them in a score of rarefied hells, yet he would always be an outsider.

It would have been the same in any regiment, of course, for how else could a commissar fulfil his duty as judge, jury and executioner over his charges? The men and women who wore the scarlet sash had to be outsiders. It was a sacrifice he had accepted without qualms until his assignment to Darkstar Company, where he had finally found warriors worthy of him – men he’d be proud to call equals. In return they hated him, not out of fear, but because his presence implied they were capable of it. He shamed them.

‘You look troubled, commissar. Does your wound still pain you?’

Covering his surprise with a smile, Lemarché turned to the woman standing beside his bunk. As always, her lightness of step impressed him. When had she entered the room?

‘My phantom will haunt me until a new leg puts it to rest, Sister,’ he answered, gesturing at the empty space below his left knee. ‘But I stopped paying attention long ago. It is the boot that went with it that aggrieves me. It was a fine boot.’

To his surprise she returned the smile. It was the first time he’d seen anything except a frown on that pale, serious face. Some men might be inclined to think it made her look younger, perhaps even attractive, but Lemarché felt it only accentuated her severity. Sharpened it.

It wasn’t that Sister Asenath’s face was ugly – too long, too hard and marked by one too many scars for conventional beauty perhaps, but her high cheekbones and dark eyes were undeniably striking. No, it was simply that smiles didn’t belong there.

And most especially not for me, Lemarché added. He knew she despised him, though she was always studiously polite. Her kind often struggled to accept men of his calling.

‘The storm pleases you, Sister?’ he ventured.

Her smile vanished. ‘I merely welcome the God-Emperor’s judgement.’

‘This so-called Exodus?’ Lemarché asked with a nod.

‘You are familiar with the Rite of Crossing?’ She sounded surprised.

‘It is my duty to appraise myself of all the hazards my men face, Sister. Yes, I read the orientation tract before we landed.’

‘And what are your thoughts, commissar?’

‘It is a uniquely… impractical custom,’ he answered. ‘Especially when the travellers are gravely wounded.’

‘Visitors to the holy archipelago are not encouraged,’ Asenath said solemnly, ‘nor is its hospital intended for outsiders.’

‘Yet here we are, Sister.’

‘The Eternal Candle has petitioned your cause, commissar. Both your troops and their injuries are exceptional, hence an exception was made. You are truly blessed.’

‘Indeed, Sister,’ he agreed. ‘Moreover, I was born on a world with equally irregular customs.’ Lemarché indicated the ritual scars etched into his cheeks. He had received them when he turned six and proved himself a warrior. ‘I am not one to judge such things.’

‘An open-minded commissar?’ A hint of mockery in her voice, perhaps?

‘Not at all, merely focused. My jurisdiction lies elsewhere.’ He smiled again, but this time it was the broad, mirthless grin he bestowed upon wayward troopers when he was about to perform his gravest duty – not because he enjoyed the executions, but so the sinners would go to their final judgement fully aware of their absurdity. ‘And you, Sister? What do you make of our hosts?’

‘Their hospitallers are highly skilled,’ Asenath replied. ‘I am certain the Sisters of the Bronze Candle shall furnish you with a fine augmetic to address your injury.’

That isn’t what I asked, Sister.

‘All these candles they have,’ Lemarché said lightly. ‘Silver and bronze and iron, yet they always talk of the last one. And then there is the eternal candle of your own order.’ He indicated the sigil embroidered on Asenath’s white tunic. ‘I confess I cannot untangle one from the other.’

‘All are aspects of the same vessel, for all bear the God-Emperor’s divine fire.’

‘But our hosts are not part of your order?’ he pressed.

‘The Last Candle was lit from the flame of the Eternal, but it casts its own light.’ Asenath bowed her head. ‘If you will excuse me, commissar, I must attend to the others.’

You are not what you seem, Sister, Lemarché mused as she crossed to the bed opposite. He had seen it months ago – within the first moments of meeting her in fact. She and her fellow hospitallers had been waiting on the Asclepius when the remnants of Darkstar Company had come on board, mangled by their encounter with the Razor. During their voyage through the void Asenath had proved to be the most skilled and compassionate of their nurses, though she had always cloaked her kindness in severity. By the time the Asclepius reached its destination the Breachers had come to see her as part of the company. A few even called her Sister Darkstar, though never to her face.

They love you, Lemarché thought, watching the troopers’ faces light up as Asenath made her rounds. She glided through the shuddering room with the lightness of a spirit, stopping beside each wounded man to give what comfort she could.

They love you and they are right to, but they do not really see you, Asenath Hyades.

Their adopted guardian might be walking the path of a healer now, but her bearing and scars spoke of other, harsher roads once travelled. Under that prim white tunic and wimple, Lemarché saw a warrior. That wasn’t unusual in itself, for the women of the Adepta Sororitas moved between the various branches of their organisation as duty demanded, but there was a secrecy about their nurse that troubled him. He saw it behind her every word and gesture, like a shadow trail he couldn’t quite follow, but nothing had disturbed him quite like the storm-born smile she’d let slip tonight. He hadn’t recognised the look immediately, but it had come to him while they talked. It wasn’t the smile of a healer or a fighter.

It was an executioner’s smile.

‘Want to die… on my feet,’ Feizt told the impossible woman who had just berated him.

‘You will only die if you choose to, sergeant,’ she replied levelly. ‘I have warned you against making unnecessary movements.’

‘Had to… see it.’ Feizt jerked his head at the porthole. ‘The storm.’ His comrades had slunk away when she’d chided him for being out of his bunk. He didn’t blame them. Nobody could argue with Sister Darkstar.

‘I have kept you alive, sergeant,’ she said. ‘Have I wasted my time? Have I wasted the Emperor’s Charity?’

‘I’m done… Sister.’ Every breath felt like a lungful of broken glass. ‘Seen it… in their eyes.’

‘Do you see it in mine?’

‘Don’t… follow you.’ He was swaying about woozily and the world was swaying with him – no, against him, pulling in too many directions at once.

It’s going to come apart, Feizt realised. Any moment now…

Sister Darkstar stepped closer. ‘Do you see your death in my eyes, breach sergeant?’

‘I…’ In the gloom all he saw under her white wimple were twin black pools. There was nothing in them. How could there be? They would swallow anything that came too close. She was the Void Angel, wasn’t she? Feizt shook his head violently, trying to rattle his thoughts into some kind of order.

Shouldn’t be here, he remembered. None of us should be here. It was the only thing he was sure of anymore, but when he tried to tell her – warn her – the words wouldn’t come.

‘The xenos shards in your chest can be removed,’ she was saying. ‘The Bronze Candle can heal you, but you must keep fighting.’

Never… stopped!

She placed a hand on his bandaged torso. Her touch was like ice, but her eyes were alive now, alight with compassion. That hurt more than the splinters tearing his guts open. It took a moment to realise why. Her pity shamed him.

‘Look to the Emperor’s Light and take strength,’ she urged. Then her expression hardened again, becoming a mocking smirk. ‘Are you a coward, Toland Feizt? Too weak to live? Or will you endure?’

‘Always… have,’ he choked out as his legs gave way.

II

The storm was still raging when Asenath finally left the infirmary. Many hours had passed since its onset, yet she sensed it was nowhere near its zenith. This was going to be a hard crossing.

With a sigh she leant against the corridor wall and let herself sink to the floor, sitting with her back to the wall and her knees drawn up. It was undignified, but she was exhausted, physically and spiritually, by the façade of perfection her patients’ worshipful eyes demanded. She hadn’t allowed herself a single slip or stumble as she made her rounds, either in her stride or her serenity–

The truth, Sister! The harsh thought came unbidden, but undeniable. Your dissembling deceives nobody, least of all yourself.

Asenath closed her eyes, remembering the inexplicable smile she had offered Lemarché – that snake of all people! – and then the way her patience had almost snapped with Feizt. The sergeant was reputedly a hero and she didn’t doubt his strength, but his stubbornness was exasperating. Lemarché had often hinted it might be better for the company if its informal commander passed into the Emperor’s care sooner rather than later, which only made Asenath more determined to keep him alive, but by the Sacred Flame, Feizt wasn’t making it easy for her! She had saved him yet again, though she scarcely knew how, or for how much longer. When she had changed his bandages the gashes beneath had been livid and leaking pus. The Breacher assisting her had gagged at the stench as Asenath cleaned the wounds, but she hadn’t flinched.

No, you cursed! Most vividly and profanely!

And then there was the moan she had uttered when she found Glicke. The trooper had been lying flat on his back, his pillow soaked in the blood leaking from his ears. It was still warm to the touch, meaning he had expired recently, though nobody had heard him die. Perhaps it had been painless…

More evasion! You saw his face. Maybe it was a quick death, but oh, there was pain!

‘Exodus will take its toll,’ Asenath murmured, seeking her earlier conviction, but the phrase rang hollow now, outweighed by Konrad Glicke’s glassy stare. In her heart she knew the Rite of Crossing had nothing to do with his death. Like the six Breachers who had perished en route to Vytarn, he was dead because of the xenos taint in his body. Razorblight, the chirurgeons of the Asclepius had called it.

A fine name for a killer!

‘A foul name,’ Asenath corrected herself.

All the survivors of Darkstar Company had been left scarred by their last, ill-fated mission, but it had proven difficult to gauge the lethality of their injuries. Some had lost limbs, while others had been sliced open with almost surgical precision. The lesions were always stained black with frostbite and laced with a silvery filigree of tiny crystals. The chirurgeons had treated the wounds as best they could, but removing the splinters had surpassed their abilities. Every attempt had caused the shards to shatter, dispersing the affliction further and hastening death. In a few cases, such as the commissar’s, the injuries were localised enough to amputate the blighted flesh completely, but most of the men were beyond help.

Beyond hope!

‘No, never that,’ Asenath denied.

Had chance delivered these men into the care of more dogmatic healers their fate would have been sealed, for the one thing the Astra Militarum was never short of was troops. Even the best were expendable, never mind those who were probably broken beyond repair, but the Eternal Candle was a rarity within the Imperium, even among other organisations of its kind. Compassion was at the heart of its mission.

‘It is often claimed there is only war, Sister,’ Canoness Sanghata had said to Asenath when she welcomed her into the order. ‘Our calling is to prove otherwise, even if we are but a solitary light in the darkness.’ Those words had marked the beginning of Asenath Hyades’ fourth life.

The beginning of a lie!

‘Of my true redemption.’

Yet almost two decades as a healer hadn’t mended the wounds in her soul, nor salved the nightmares they bled.

Are you being tested, do you think?

‘I am certain of it,’ Asenath decided, opening her eyes. ‘This storm is only the outward face of Exodus.’

She forced herself to her feet, but hesitated, unsure where to go. The prospect of returning to her cabin dismayed her. She couldn’t stop thinking about Konrad Glicke. He had been a shy man, never one to brag about his prowess in battle like most of the others. Indeed, there had been a rare gentleness about him. He was among the best of them.

Among the weakest, else he’d still be alive!

How many more would die before she could relinquish this burden of care? It had been her suggestion to entrust the wounded to her former sect, for the healing craft of the Last Candle was without parallel, even eclipsing that of its parent order, but she hadn’t planned on becoming their guardian spirit. These broken men were not her purpose here.

But we are only ever crutches or drudges or sweet angels of mercy to their kind, Sister!

‘I have been called to something higher,’ Asenath told herself fiercely.

Aye, there are other kinds of angels to walk among – darker, bloodier, brighter angels to aspire to!

Confused by her bitterness, Asenath tried to pray, but the words wouldn’t come. She needed a point of focus – something tangible to lock on to. The ship’s chapel perhaps? Yes, she would join the monks in their ritual. It would be a pious way to meet her Exodus.

Commissar Lemarché drew the blanket back over Trooper Glicke’s face. The corpse would have to remain in the infirmary for tonight. Moving it with dignity would be difficult during the storm, especially since Glicke’s bunk was at the rear of the infirmary. The Breachers had accepted the death with their customary stoicism, but none save Reiss had seen the tortured look on the dead man’s face.

‘Sister Asenath believes it best that we keep the particulars of our comrade’s passing to ourselves, Lieutenant Reiss,’ Lemarché said quietly to the officer beside him. ‘I am in agreement.’

‘Yes, commissar,’ Reiss replied, but he looked doubtful.

‘You disagree, lieutenant?’

‘I don’t much like it, sir,’ Reiss admitted, running a hand through his crew-cut blond hair. His hand was missing two fingers, yet he was among the fortunate few; none of his wounds were deep, so he was free of the blight. ‘Breachers stand or fall together. We don’t keep secrets. Blood-tight, sir.’

‘An admirable sentiment, but imprudent on this occasion,’ Lemarché said as he secured the blanket’s straps. ‘As you are aware, morale is strained. And given Sergeant Feizt’s worsening condition–’

‘The breach sergeant will pull through. He always…’ Reiss trailed off, realising his impertinence. ‘My apologies, commissar.’

‘Continue, lieutenant.’

‘The man is like a Space Marine, sir. He can’t be killed.’

He is nothing like a Space Marine, Lemarché thought wearily. And every man can be killed, even Space Marines. The alternative struck him as vaguely distasteful.

‘Preacher Murnau used to say the sergeant was Throne-blessed.’ The reverence on Reiss’ square-jawed, blandly handsome face was vexing, especially since he was Feizt’s superior. ‘Every time something puts him down, he gets up stronger. Says scrapping with death has made them brothers, sir.’

‘There is nothing so sour as the bad blood between brothers,’ Lemarché observed, quoting the memoirs of Lord Commissar Artemiev. ‘Nor a feud so bitter and soaked in shame.’

Reiss met this with a blank look. Lemarché sighed. Despite their skill in battle his charges were simple men. Subtlety was wasted on them – as was debate.

‘You will say nothing about the manner of Breacher Glicke’s death.’ He turned his coldest smile on Reiss. ‘Is that understood, lieutenant?’

‘Yes, commissar.’ Said with obedience, but without fear. Lemarché would have expected nothing less from Darkstar Company’s only surviving lieutenant. Reiss was precisely the kind of leader the Breachers needed now – staunch, disciplined and admirably predictable. He just needed to be free of Feizt’s shadow.

‘Inform the troops they are not to disturb Glicke’s body,’ Lemarché said, picking up his eagle-headed walking cane. ‘They can pay their respects later.’ After the cadaver has been disposed of… ‘Make it a matter of health. Tell them Sister Asenath has decreed it.’

‘Understood, sir.’

Lemarché turned away and began the tortuous hobble back to his bunk, keeping his back straight despite the turbulence. Even for this brief duty he had donned his high-peaked cap and black greatcoat over his hospital clothes. It was essential to maintain appearances, but the crude prosthetic limb strapped to his left knee undermined his dignity, clattering with every step he took and dragging behind.

What killed you, Glicke? Lemarché mused. Razorblight never ended in a good death, but the expression frozen onto Konrad Glicke’s face had been something new, born of terror as much as pain. Perhaps Feizt’s ravings weren’t entirely without substance. There was something uncanny about this ocean, particularly since the advent of the storm.

Lemarché stopped by the breach sergeant’s bed. Sister Asenath had arranged for its extension to support the man’s bulk, but Feizt’s feet still hung over the end. His chest rose and fell fitfully as he slept.

‘You have served your Emperor faithfully, Toland Feizt,’ Lemarché whispered. The giant moaned, as if he’d heard the words, but Lemarché knew that wasn’t possible. There was nothing supernal or blessed about Feizt, no matter how much his comrades wanted to believe it, but they wouldn’t accept that until he was gone. ‘Your service is over. Be at peace, brother.’

Lemarché respected the man’s ability, but outlandish notions swarmed about him like treason to an open mind. And then there was the matter of his erratic conduct on the Razor, as if he’d been… lost.

No, Feizt had become too unpredictable to countenance. Once the sergeant was dead Reiss would exert his authority and order would be restored to the company.

Even if the company is little more than a platoon now, Lemarché admitted, and a diminishing one at that…

Asenath hurried along the heaving corridor, clutching the handrails for support. The Blood of Demeter was a massive vessel encompassing seven sprawling decks, but she had quickly learned to navigate its narrow corridors and spiral stairways. Only the bridge and engine deck were off limits, along with the quarters assigned to fellow travellers, and there weren’t many of those.

A squad of Battle Sisters had boarded alongside her party at Rosetta, their ornate grey power armour and specialist weapons identifying them as Celestians, the elites of the Iron Candle. One of the five had been as tall as a Breacher and almost as broad. While the others had gone bareheaded, the towering woman had never removed her backswept castitas helm or stowed her meltagun. The Celestians had kept to their quarters and Asenath had decided against approaching them, sure she would find no camaraderie there.

The only other traveller she had seen at the port was a tall man clad in the rough-spun grey cassock of an itinerant preacher. He had been hooded, but she could imagine the face under the cowl. It would be a ferocious visage, shaven-headed and sporting a bristling beard, the features scrunched into a perpetual scowl of censure, the eyes piercing and alert for sin. The Ecclesiarchy cultivated many such faces, and rightly so, but there was no call for them on this holy world and she had no desire to see another in the flesh.

‘I am tired of them,’ she admitted.

She could hear the sonorous chant of the Exodii now. The chapel must be just ahead. Asenath added her voice to the litany and her sombre mood sloughed away. Around the next corner the corridor ended in a pair of brass doors carved with the rampant waves of Exodus. An attendant in a high-collared robe stood before them, his headdress fashioned into a ship with a wooden candle for its mast. His round face was powdered chalk-white, his lips rouged with cobalt and pierced with a score of rings. As she approached, Asenath saw the golden bangles were sewn together, effectively sealing the man’s mouth. The custom was unfamiliar and faintly distasteful to her, but she had been away for two decades. Some changes were inevitable.

She offered the attendant the sign of the Candlelit Aquila and he mirrored it with a sinuous flourish, his long, black-lacquered nails clacking when they met.

‘I would join the Exodii in their devotions,’ Asenath said formally.

He bowed his head and opened the doors, revealing a large heptagonal chamber with an altar at its centre. Touching her sigil, Asenath entered and drank in the holy space, impressed by its splendour. Each wall was draped in a silk tapestry depicting one of the Seven Virtues embodied as a saint. The doorway was incorporated into Veritas, the foremost of the Incarnates, represented by the sundered, sexless figure of the Torn Prophet.

‘Truth is our first and lasting light,’ Asenath whispered to the abstraction of the sect’s founder. It was more tormented than the images she was familiar with, its spiritual rending accompanied by a kaleidoscopic splatter of viscera as its robed form was sundered. Inside the darkness of its still-intact cowl, the founder’s single eye glared, swollen and bloodshot with concentration. She didn’t like the rendition at all, but there was no denying its impact.

Revelation through excruciation!

Irrespective of their individual traits, all the Incarnates carried a stylised candle, its flame wreathed in a halo of expanding circles. Hidden backlights shone through each of the woven candles, lending them the illusion of life and washing the chamber in soft light.

Asenath’s gaze swept to Clementia, the virtue of mercy that her own order venerated. As always, it was manifested in the Bleeding Angel, a slim woman in the white tunic and wimple of a Sister Hospitaller, but this was unlike any depiction she had seen before. The saint’s candle was raised in both hands like an offering, its six concentric haloes dividing her face into segments that looked like they might come apart if she made a sudden movement. Blood dripped from the candle into her cupped palms and spilled over to pool around her bare feet. The surgical instruments of her craft hung from her belt like a butcher’s tools and a wet loop of intestinal coils dangled from her medicae bag. Her lips wore a benign smile that her wide, screaming eyes belied.

Mercy is twinned with malice, for one succours the other, sister.

Nauseated by the thought as much as the image, Asenath decided against studying the other tapestries too closely. Evidently the artist who had furnished the Blood of Demeter was drawn to grotesquerie. Regrettably such impulses were not uncommon across the Imperium, but she was dismayed to find them at work on Vytarn.

She turned to the altar, where a single, plain candle burned. Seven figures knelt around it, their shaven heads bowed as they chanted. In contrast to their garish attendant, the Exodii monks wore simple loincloths and collars of black iron. Chains snaked from their manacled throats to hooks along the altar’s rim, binding the monks to their worship. Their naked bodies were emaciated, yet as Asenath drew closer she sensed a wiry strength about them, as though they had passed the point of starvation and attained some deeper vigour.

Once again, this was something new. The Exodii had always observed strict fasting, but never to such extremes. Moreover, these celebrants bore the telltale scars of self-flagellation, a custom her current order decried, both on grounds of health and faith. And then there was the stench of unwashed flesh wafting from them… Mingled with the incense pervading the chamber it was somehow worse than the reek of Feizt’s wounds. Asenath gagged reflexively and the monks looked up, moving as one.

Their eyelids were sewn shut.

The only sight they are allowed is the candle’s faint light. It shines through their fastened flesh like a dying sun. An artful contrivance, is it not? The mirth that accompanied this insight repelled Asenath more than the mutilations themselves, which only encouraged the spiteful train of thought – Oh come, you didn’t do this to them, dear Sister!

The monks swung their heads about sightlessly, seeking the source of the disturbance, though they never faltered in their litany. Asenath backed away, quashing the urge to apologise for her intrusion, certain it would only agitate them further.

They will soon forget you. Their souls are too shrunken to care for anything but their penance.

As she retreated, Asenath caught sight of the Bleeding Angel again and froze. The woman in the tapestry was looking right at her, her lips twisted into a fanged grin. A serpentine tongue curled from her mouth and her skin was covered with delicate scales. Yet, hideous as these aberrations were, they were the least disturbing of the changes, for the face was hers.

Something clutched at Asenath’s robe. She glanced down and saw one of the monks had followed her, stretching his chain to the limit. With a hiss of revulsion, she stumbled backwards, breaking free of his grip, but he kept groping blindly at the empty air, his lips still mouthing their penance. Unwillingly Asenath’s gaze flicked back to the tapestry. The Bleeding Angel had reverted to her previous incarnation.

Don’t always believe what you see, Sister, her sly inner voice advised. Trust what you know!

The attendant showed no disapproval as Asenath left the chapel and retreated along the corridor. Though she was eager to escape the vile place she kept her pace dignified until she turned a corner.

‘How?’ she asked herself as she quickened her step. The sightless wretches in the chapel were symptoms of the Imperial Creed at its most debased and cruel. They symbolised everything the Eternal Candle had taught her to reject – everything the Last Candle had once also rejected. How had her former sect fallen so far so quickly?

Perhaps not so far, nor so quickly…

In hindsight, there had been warning signs at Rosetta. The ancient harbour town had been a shadow of the vibrant place she remembered, its elegant buildings poorly maintained and its citizens furtive. Squads of Battle Sisters in the slate-grey armour of the Iron Candle had stood watch at the twin ports of space and sea, their faces hidden behind jutting visors. The sect’s militant order numbered less than a thousand Sisters so Asenath had been surprised by their heavy presence at Rosetta. The warriors’ place had always been at the Ring, standing watch over the holy flame.

The sullen priest overseeing their passage had brushed off her questions with vague talk about discontent among the port folk. Discontent? There had never been discontent on the Candleworld! From the humblest ocean harvester to the Canoness Illuminant herself, all Vytarni were baptised into the Last Candle at birth and united in its light until death.

Blinded by its light!

‘I didn’t want to see the shadows,’ Asenath admitted. She turned a corner and stopped, staring down the corridor in surprise. The chapel and its gaudy sentinel lay ahead.

Waiting for you?

With an unbecoming grunt Asenath turned and retraced her steps, irritated by her error. The corridors were poorly lit and panelled with dark wood, which made them gloomier still, but she knew their layout. Doubtless her mind had been wandering.

‘Compose yourself, Sister,’ she chided herself.

Mercifully the storm had calmed and she was able to pick up her pace. As she walked, her thoughts returned to the scene in the chapel. She had seen such barbarities often during her service to the Convent Sanctorum, but what could have brought about such a diametric change here? And how deep did it run? Could there be some substance to the Convent’s suspicions about her old sect? Might the–

Her stride faltered. She could hear the familiar chanting up ahead. Reluctantly she turned the corner. The attendant’s vacant gaze awaited her, and beyond it the open doors of the chapel.

Asenath cursed, more from confusion than anger and swung round, this time concentrating on every turn she took, but within minutes she was facing the chapel once again. She froze, one hand going to the symbol pinned to her tunic, the other to the quill case in her satchel, seeking the comforts of faith and friendship.

Is this your test, do you suppose?

‘It must be,’ Asenath agreed, backing away.

Praying aloud, she retreated yet again. The corridors looked identical, unbroken by anything save the brass-ringed portholes on the outward-facing walls and the elegant lumen globes dotting the ceiling. For the first time she noticed the absence of any doors along her path. Along any path she took. And where was the stairway she had descended to this deck?

Is it hiding… or did something take it away?

As Asenath passed another porthole something snagged her attention and she doubled back to peer outside. Her breath caught as she absorbed the scene beyond the dirty glass. Lightning was meandering through the dark sky like paint dripping down a canvas, its lazy-bright light illuminating a horizon of slowly creeping waves. Something rumbled past overhead, sending vibrations through the floor. It took Asenath several seconds to recognise the distended sound as thunder.

If the storm runs down to stillness you’ll be frozen in its eye forever.

‘Never,’ Asenath swore. As she spoke her breath frosted the glass with ice and she realised the temperature was dropping, slipping rapidly from cool to cold to freezing. Shivering, she backed away from the stagnating vista and pressed on until she heard the chanting once more.

‘No.’ She turned back, determined to deny the inevitable, but after a couple of corridors it was waiting around the corner again.

And again…

And again…

And forever-after, dear Sister!

With a chill that eclipsed the cold, Asenath realised the distance to the chapel was diminishing with her every attempt at escape, as if space and time were contracting around her – shepherding her towards her fate. The Bleeding Angel would be waiting there, unbound from her tapestry and incarnated in harrowed flesh. She would be only too eager to share her secrets with a fellow sister of mercy.

‘I won’t go back!’ Asenath shouted, defying more than just the chapel.

Then you must break out!

She swept round the next corner then leapt back swiftly, trying to outflank the trap. A spiral staircase beckoned where there had been an empty corridor only a moment before. With a cry of triumph, Asenath leapt for it, grabbing the bannister as she bounded up the steps two at a time and surged into the stairwell above. If she could reach the next level maybe she would be free…

You think it’s so easy?

The next level never came. The stairs went on and on, corkscrewing up through a circular shaft of interlocking brass panels and vertical lumen strips. She imagined the steps uncurling somewhere up ahead, slotting into place like the parts of some clockwork contraption, always just out of sight, but matching her desperate charge step for step. Ignoring her aching muscles, she rushed on, trying to catch the elusive point of generation…

You can’t outrun yourself, Sister! And if you hide, you’re already there.

Soon she had climbed beyond the possible limits of the ship, further even than the heights of its sensor-encrusted watchtower, yet there was still no end in sight.

Nor will there ever be!

Shuddering, Asenath fell to her knees, her wracked lungs burning as she fought for breath in the frigid air. The shaft creaked and swayed around her like a tree in a gale. Was it still growing despite her surrender? She imagined it extending in both directions simultaneously, assembling an infinite abyss above and below.

As within, so without…

‘My Emperor, enlighten me… in my darkness,’ Asenath gasped. Her hands trembling, she pulled the quill case from her satchel and kissed it. ‘Unveil the flame… of Your will.’ Her numb fingers fumbled at the latch, her voice gathering strength as the prayer took hold in her heart. ‘By Your light I shall walk without taint. By Your will I shall wield the Sword of Justice. By Your mercy–’

She broke into a despairing moan as the case flipped open and she saw the blasphemy inside.

The only lasting light is the one you kindle yourself, little Sister.

The blessed quill was covered in blood.

The light that burns black within!

Her world went out.

In their spineless mediocrity, the Imperium’s grey regents condemn us to a wasted land where ignorance is crowned a virtue and rapture is damned as immortal sin. With empty words and enfeebling icons of piety they bind us to the banal, tugging our chains as we scrabble about in the rubble of our forsaken dreams for scraps of delight. To live by their laws is to die a lie within a lie! Break the chains that bind! Wreak and reign free as you will and wish to be!

III

With a shriek of fury Asenath surged out of the darkness into a maelstrom of wind and rain. High above, vast bells swung back and forth like pendulums, spilling golden light as they chimed. The Censer Bells! She was on the ship’s upper deck, hurtling towards the edge at breakneck speed. Frantically she tried to halt her charge, but her feet skidded on the slick floor and she spun into the railings ahead. In the same moment the ship lurched, tumbling her upper body over the barrier towards the waves far below.

‘Come then!’ she yelled, exhilarated by her own terror.

Just before she slipped past the point of no return, something grabbed her tunic and hauled her back onto the deck. With a snarl she tore free and spun round, instinctively dropping into a fighting stance to face her rescuer. A hooded figure in a grey robe stood a few paces away, its legs braced for balance. Hazily she recognised the warrior priest who had boarded at Rosetta.

‘Peace, Sister!’ he shouted over the wind, raising his hands. ‘If you were answering the Emperor’s call I’ll not stand in your way again!’

Without another word he turned and walked away, heading for the cover of the stairwell, then stopped under the metal awning. Her breath coming in harsh gasps, Asenath watched as he produced a lho-stick and began to smoke. Had he been there when she’d burst onto the deck like a madwoman? He must have been…

What did you see, preacher?

She shivered as her adrenaline-charged fury drained away. The rain had already drenched her to the skin and her weariness had returned with a vengeance, but that was the least of her concerns. Questions swirled about her like a second storm. How had she found her way up here? Or escaped the trap? What–

Not now! Don’t think! Just leave while you still can.

Seemingly lost in thought, the priest paid no attention as Asenath approached the stairwell. She was tempted to slip past him without a word, but that would have been unforgivable under the circumstances.

‘My thanks, preacher,’ she said solemnly. ‘I believe I owe you my life.’

‘I am merely a hand of the God-Emperor, Sister. It is by His mercy that you live.’ There was a pause as smoke curled from beneath his hood. ‘But you are most welcome.’

‘I sought the open air to pray,’ Asenath said, ‘but alas my diligence did not encompass my own steps.’ It sounded unlikely even to her, yet he didn’t dispute it. ‘I am fortunate that our paths crossed,’ she added.

‘Nothing is chance, Sister.’

‘True enough, sir.’ Asenath turned towards the stairs then hesitated. No, she wasn’t ready to attempt them yet. What if the trap snapped shut again when she set foot on the first step? What if there was no way out this time?

Go now, before he questions you!

‘What brings you to Vytarn, preacher?’ she asked on impulse.

The priest was silent for some time, seemingly considering his answer. ‘A book,’ he said finally.

‘Then you are embarked on research? You have chosen well. The Perihelion’s librarium is unrivalled in this sector.’ To her surprise she wanted to talk.

You want to confess, fool!

‘So I have heard,’ he replied.

‘The Last Candle has dedicated itself to the contemplation of the God-Emperor’s blessed word for over a thousand years,’ she continued. ‘Reverence through reflection, reflection through elucidation.’

‘The Gospels Illuminant?’ The priest turned to regard her, though his face remained hidden. ‘You know this planet well, Sister?’

Deny it!

‘The Candleworld is my spiritual cradle,’ she said. ‘I was ordained into the Adepta Sororitas here.’

‘Among the hospitallers of the Bronze Candle?’

‘I served with them for a time, but the greater balance of my service was with the Battle Sisters of the Iron.’

‘Then you are a warrior?’

‘No longer.’ She indicated her humble healer’s garb. ‘It has been many years since I wielded a weapon.’

‘You still have the look about you,’ he observed. ‘It lingers in the eyes, Sister.’

‘You have me at a disadvantage there, sir.’

‘Forgive me, I have been discourteous,’ he said, pushing back his hood. His face was nothing like she had imagined. Instead of the customary beard and baldpate of his kind he was clean-shaven and his hair was bound into a short ponytail with a leather cord. Though it was completely white and there were wrinkles around his eyes Asenath struggled to guess his age. His complexion was ashen, almost anaemic, yet there was a weather-beaten vitality about his lean features that spoke of strength rather than sickness.

Or perhaps strength through sickness, Asenath gauged, recognising the haunted look in his grey eyes. For a moment she thought there was a third eye lodged between them, but it was only a circular scar, so pale it looked silver in the storm light.

‘It is an old wound,’ he said, noticing her attention. ‘I used to keep it covered, but I learnt better.’

‘We bear our true wounds within,’ she observed. ‘If we hide them they fester.’

‘Indeed… Sister…?’ he replied, turning the acknowledgement into a question.

Say nothing! Names have power.

‘Asenath,’ she answered.

‘You are a wise woman, Sister Asenath.’

‘Merely old.’

‘Not so old, I’d venture.’ He smiled, showing a hint of lho-stained teeth. ‘Besides, one begets the other – the years give with one hand and take away with two.’

‘You make it sound like a poor trade, priest.’

‘Just an inevitable one.’ His manner was becoming notably less formal the longer they spoke. ‘And no, it’s not a bad trade. Wisdom surpasses strength of arms in the war we wage.’

‘Hearts and minds are best conquered with words,’ she agreed. It was Canoness Sanghata’s favourite aphorism.

‘Oh, wisdom cuts much deeper than mere words, Sister!’

‘That depends on the words,’ Asenath said solemnly. ‘Not all are equal.’

‘No, they are not.’ He was silent for a moment, then he indicated the sigil on her tunic. ‘You are not with the Last Candle anymore?’

‘I have been gone from Vytarn for over twenty years. Truthfully I feel like a stranger here.’ It felt good to say it aloud.

‘Perhaps that’s for the best, Sister. This is a strange place.’

‘But a holy one,’ Asenath added.

Do you still believe that?

‘Maybe so,’ he said. ‘You look tired, Sister Asenath.’

‘The Rite of Crossing has been trying,’ she admitted.

‘Yes, it’s quite a storm.’ He looked up at the convulsing sky. ‘But I’ve always liked storms. That’s why I came up here.’

Asenath remembered her own excitement at the tempest’s onset. That seemed like a lifetime ago now.

Are you so sure it wasn’t?

No, she wasn’t sure of anything at the moment. She could barely stand, never mind think straight. She needed sleep, no matter what awaited her on the stairs or in her dreams.

‘I trust we shall meet again, preacher,’ Asenath said. He didn’t reply so she entered the stairwell, then turned. ‘You didn’t give me your name.’

‘Did I not?’ he replied distantly. ‘It’s Jonah, Sister. Jonah Tythe.’

Click here to buy Requiem Infernal.

For my brother, Zoltan, who got the cool name and ran with it. Without your pestering encouragement I’d never have finished my first story and the Dark Coil would remain an undiscovered truth.

A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2019.
This eBook edition published in 2019 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Marta Dettlaff.
Map and Chapter icon by Daniel Havardi.

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