Teke the Smiling One

[MolotovKraken]

Teke the Smiling One

Again, in the commune. And in the confusion of the brass reading room, I could not be sure that the laughter of children had not echoed somewhere in the background. ‘Are there children here?’ I asked sharply. Alace Quatorze looked stunned. ‘Children?’ she said. ‘Are there children here?’ I repeated firmly. ‘I–’ she began. She shook her head in disbelief. ‘How could you know? We were so discreet.’ ‘Are there children here, Mamzel Quatorze?’ I said again. She looked almost dismayed in her surprise. ‘One,’ she admitted. ‘Only one of the children. I do not understand how you could know that. Did someone tell you?’ ‘I can hear them,’ I said. ‘I can hear it.’ She rose. She looked aghast. ‘Please. Please, Padua. We must be very careful. We cannot upset the children.’‘I think we should see them,’ said Judika. He had risen to his feet. He still looked pale and ill, and stood in an uncomfortable pose, as though his ribs hurt. But his eyes glowed with quiet fury. ‘You should sit–’ Alace Quatorze began. ‘No,’ he snapped. ‘We thought you were sleeping, Jude,’ I said. ‘I was drifting in and out,’ he said, his gaze not wavering from her. ‘I heard what you said. You’ve questioned her well, Beta. An interrogator would be proud. By offering her information of your own, you’ve got her to give up a great deal about herself.’ I knew I had. Alace Quatorze had clearly been so hungry for information, she had spoken unguardedly. ‘Of course,’ Judika said, ‘you haven’t asked her the most important question of all.’ ‘I have not,’ I agreed. ‘I was just getting to it.’ Alace Quatorze looked quite put out. She began to look from me to Jude and back. ‘What?’ she asked. ‘What?’ ‘The real question, Mamzel Quatorze,’ I said, ‘is how you come to be so astonishingly well informed?’ Her face became tight and pinched. She was angry. ‘You have no idea who you are dealing with,’ she said. ‘Precisely,’ replied Judika. ‘That’s why we’re asking.’ ‘I shall summon my servants. They will–’ Lightburn drew his Lammark Combination Thousander. It made a loud, metallic clack as he thumbed back the hammer. ‘I’m suggesting that wouldn’t be such a dandy idea,’ he said. Shadrake suddenly became alert. His exclamation of alarm woke Lucrea. The burdener swiftly switched his aim to cover the artist. ‘Sit back down, you arse,’ he said. Shadrake obliged very rapidly. ‘Let’s see this child,’ said Judika. ‘You don’t want to do that!’ Alace Quatorze exclaimed. ‘Throne of Terra, are you mad? The children–’ ‘Let’s see him,’ I repeated. ‘Then you can explain your business and who you are, the source of your knowledge and your intentions towards us.’‘You do not want to disturb any of the children,’ Alace Quatorze said. ‘You really bloody don’t,’ agreed Shadrake in a heartfelt stammer. I heard the laughter again, as if it was coming from just outside. The chill knifed at me once more. ‘I don’t believe we have any choice,’ I said. ‘Show us.’

Alace Quatorze took up a vermeil candelabrum and nervously led us out into the hall. She carried the light raised in one hand, and the hem of her long dress lifted in the other. We all followed. Judika and I came behind her. Judika had a laspistol aimed at Mamzel Quatorze, and I was helping him to walk. I had not even picked up the cutro I had borrowed at the basilica. Behind us came the anxious Shadrake and the bemused Lucrea. Renner Lightburn followed, covering and herding them both. Feverfugue was dark. It was late. A few servants appeared, drawn by the activity, and Judika told Mamzel Quatorze to dismiss them in no uncertain terms. She told them to go back, and they did. We walked along a hall where the floorboards squeaked under our weight. Lucrea kept talking, asking questions, until Lightburn told her to be quiet. It was unnaturally dark. Outside the ancient pile, night had swaddled the black trees and created a veil of complete blackness. We could hear twigs and branches scratching at the roof and window panes as the night wind off the marshes stirred the invisible trees. It sounded like rats scuttling. It sounded like children, running around in an upstairs room. We reached a pair of double doors. The candlelight showed the age of them, the worn brass of the handles, the touch-rubbed patina around the finger-plate. ‘Open it,’ said Judika. The strain of standing was making him cough again. I winced every time I heard that hard static-crackle. ‘Constant?’ Alace Quatorze asked. Lightburn allowed the drunken artist to come forwards. He pulled a heavy key from his coat pocket, and opened the doors. We went in. ‘The aula magna,’ she said. It was a large hall. I imagine it had once been a banqueting room, or a formal dining hall, but most of the furniture, especially the main table, had been cleared out. This was where the family displayed their originalShadrakes. The paintings hung on every wall. Alace Quatorze had Lucrea hurry around and light all the candles in the room off her candelabrum. Gradually, as the light grew brighter, we saw the painted insanity of the works around us.

I cannot describe the pictures. I do not want to, but even if I did, I would not have the right words. They were of reality distorted by his glass. They were flesh and blood, but rendered as meat, as fluid, as smoke. Grey figures, dark and smooth as slate, coiled and writhed. Their anatomies did not operate in fully human ways, though they seemed human. They seemed primordial, like organic forms locked in some orgy of mindless congress, writhing in the smoke and ooze of an elementally wracked, new-born world. But they also seemed to be places and people that I knew, like memories I could not pin down. I think they were pictures of the world we know as seen from a world we do not. They were images of lust and greed, avarice and appetite, desires manifested as solid things as we never see them. And I am thankful that we never do. ‘What horrors have you done?’ Lightburn gasped. Even Lucrea seemed dismayed by the images. Shadrake looked pleased with himself, but embarrassed at the reaction. ‘I paint what I am allowed to see,’ he said. ‘Then you should not be allowed to see,’ the Curst declared. ‘It is what they want!’ Shadrake wailed. ‘Who?’ I asked. ‘The owners of Feverfugue?’ ‘All of them,’ protested Shadrake. ‘Why have you brought us here?’ Judika asked. ‘To dismay us? Revolt us? Distract us?’ He aimed his weapon at Mamzel Quatorze’s head. ‘Show us this child!’ ‘I will!’ she said. ‘He is through here! We had to come past the paintings to reach him.’ She looked at me sadly. ‘They soothe him,’ she added. She walked to the end of the aula magna’s gallery, and opened another door. I heard her speak to someone.

 

[MolotovKraken]

Then I heard a reply. A voice like soft music, a man’s voice. ‘But of course, Alace, show them in.’ I went to the door with Judika. Beyond Alace Quatorze, I saw a large anteroom. More pictures, the product of Shadrake’s madness, hung there. The room was lit by many, many tapers and glow-globes. The floor seemed to be covered in rose petals, thousands of discarded pink petals, which were scattered and piled in drifts like fallen blossom. There was a large basin on the floor, a ceramic bowl large enough to wash clothes in. It seemed to be full of black ink. Beside it was a very large chair, a high-backed throne of richly upholstered wood, with huge, raised arms. Two long, golden ribbons of silk hung over one of the arms, and curled down onto the petal-strewn floor. A man sat in the chair. He was, it appeared, a very powerful man of impressive physique. He was, it also appeared, naked but for a loin cloth. His body, entirely hairless, was oiled as though he had just stepped from a bathing pool and been attended to by concubines. He had a goblet in one hand, and a book in the other, and was lounging in the throne in the most relaxed manner. The pupils of his eyes were gold. He looked at us. He was already smiling, but the smile broadened at the sight of us to reveal perfect white teeth like pieces of alabaster. I felt Alace Quatorze shudder. ‘Are you the pariahs?’ he asked. His voice was soft and flowed like music. ‘It is such a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Such an infinite pleasure.’ ‘What is this?’ Judika hissed. ‘You said children! Who is this? There are no children here!’ ‘There most certainly is,’ said the man. He rose to his feet, and put the book down. Only when he was standing did we realise how tall he was. He was inhumanly tall. He was larger than any mortal could ever be. ‘I am Teke,’ he said, smiling all the while.

 

[MolotovKraken]

‘Don’t hurt them, smiling one,’ said Alace Quatorze. ‘Of course I won’t,’ said the giant. ‘You Glaws, always so very suspicious. Your father was the same, and his sire before him. Just because we were built for war, it doesn’t follow that we must always act with violence. I was relaxing. I was reading. I am in a gentle mood. Besides, these are the two you said you’d bring for me, are they not?’ ‘I may have told them too much,’ said Alace Quatorze. ‘And I may have to punish you for that,’ said the thing called Teke. His smile remained, constant like a star. ‘So like a Glaw to get carried away with your own significance.’ A sweet smell was filling the room, the smell of petals, I supposed. It was oppressive, almost overpowering. Judika began to cough, and became quite helpless with it. The static crackle was worse than ever. I felt as though Jude was trying to do something – perhaps even attack the giant – but his hopeless cough was preventing him. The giant, Teke, looked at him with a soulful expression, though his smile never wavered. ‘Oh you,’ he said sympathetically. ‘Poor you. What’s your name?’ Judika was coughing so badly he couldn’t answer. ‘Judika,’ I said, hoping to appease the creature. Teke was not in any way threatening, except for his scale and his unnerving smile. ‘It’s too late for poor Judika, isn’t it?’ he asked, looking at me. ‘Too late.’‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘My, but you’re beautiful,’ Teke said to me, regarding me intently. ‘As beautiful as the boy. Those eyes, that mouth. The hard absence of soul. It’s such a shame he’s been spoiled.’ ‘What do you mean?’ I asked again, more urgently. ‘What is your name?’ the smile asked. ‘Tell him!’ gabbled Alace Quatorze. ‘For Throne’s sake, tell him!’ ‘I am Bequin,’ I said.

Teke took a step towards me, smiling. He made a curious gesture with his left hand, and all the petals in the room flew up from the floor like a swarm of insects, encircled him, and clothed him. Suddenly, he was wearing a full bodysuit of soft pink. The sweet smell grew stronger, like some odour of sanctity. ‘Did you know,’ he asked me, ‘that of all the multifarious species of the galaxy, the human race is the only one in which nulls naturally occur?’ He looked at me. ‘The only one,’ he repeated. ‘Only the human race breeds weapons that can silence the warp.’ I did not reply. ‘You, Bequin,’ he said, ‘you will serve the Children, but Judika will not be suitable. He has come to us too late. The King has already tampered with him.’ Judika’s coughing fit had become so bad that he had fallen to his knees. Mamzel Quatorze was trying to help him. ‘Renner!’ I cried. ‘Lucrea! Please! Help me with Judika. We must make him comfortable. Help me carry him out and fetch him water!’ Lightburn, Lucrea and Shadrake were in the doorway behind us, too alarmed to fully enter. Teke was suddenly beside me. He had moved without me seeing it. He took hold of Judika and lifted him clear off the ground as one might pick up a cat or a child. ‘He can’t leave,’ Teke said. ‘Even hurt like this, he’s too dangerous.’ ‘Let him go!’ I cried. Teke did not, but he shot a look at me. His smile remained, but there was no smile in his eyes. ‘What ails poor Judika so?’ he asked. ‘He is hurt badly, isn’t he?’Holding him off the ground with one hand, Teke tore Judika’s coat and shirt away with his other. He stripped off Judika’s upper garments. We all suddenly saw the wound in Judika’s side. It wasn’t a physical wound. It was a mark, a weal that seemed to run across the fabric of his reality, like a distortion in space rather than damage to flesh. It was awful to see. I wondered what manner of thing could have left such a mark on him. Teke raised the helpless Judika up so he could stare closely at the wound. He sniffed it. He delicately extended an alarmingly long tongue and licked it.

‘Word Bearer,’ he said. ‘They are here, smiling one,’ Alace Quatorze said agitatedly. ‘I have just learned as much.’ ‘Here?’ asked Teke, glancing at her. His teeth flashed white. ‘Those byblow scum are here on Sancour? Sniffing around and hungry, I’ll be bound. One of their blades did this. One of their cursed weapons. One of the edges soiled with the toxic words of their chattering sire.’ ‘Please, let him go,’ I said. Teke looked at me, shrugged diffidently, and simply let Judika go. My friend fell to the ground with a bone-bruising force. He writhed in pain, still coughing. I started forwards, but Lightburn grabbed me and pulled me back. Teke stooped down at Judika’s side. He stroked Judika’s hair. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘Do you persist? What will it take to dislodge it? I thought a fall might have weakened its grip. Must I dash you against the ground repeatedly? Come on. Out you come. Out you come.’ Judika began to shudder and convulse. I suddenly heard the laughter of children all around us. We all heard it. It was like ghosts dancing around the walls of the room, echoes of past lives that haunted the ancient house. A bloodshot light filled the room. It welled up out of Judika. It was the thought-form. It was unmistakably Grael Magent. ‘Oh no you don’t,’ tutted Teke. ‘This is no time for last stands.’ He reached out his right hand without looking. One of the golden ribbons coiled over the arm of his throne whirled up into the air towards him. By the time it was in his hand, it had become a straight, slender longswordmade of chased gold. Still crouched, he whirled it in his hand so he was gripping it blade-down like a dagger, and stabbed it down through Judika. The blade skewered him to the floor. He was pinned like a butterfly, like an insect specimen on a felt pad. The blade must have gone at least half a metre into the ground. I screamed, I think, in utter horror, but my cry was lost in the much more terrible scream that rang out. It was like the one I had heard in the brass reading room. Again, the universe shrieked. Reality squealed. It was even worse than before. The material universe split at the puncture point, and the bloodshot energy of the thought-form boiled, seethed and then blew away like dust.

Judika, impaled, went into horrible convulsions, drumming his limbs on the ground. Then he went limp. His head flopped back and his mouth lolled open. His eyes rolled dead and white. The laughter of children went away, erased in the dying echoes of the scream. Something slipped out of his open mouth onto the floor beside his face. It rolled out, white and wet, like a spit-ball. It was the size of a rose bloom. I realised that the frothy white spittle covering it and trailing from it back to Judika’s lips was cobweb. It crackled as it moved, the web making a hard, crisp sound like vox static. The object uncoiled, parting the web that wrapped it. It was a spider, a blind white thing, an albino relic from some lightless cave. It had come out of Judika’s throat, out of his chest. Its legs waved helplessly. Teke the Smiling One rose and crushed it under his right foot. He ground it into the floor. There was a certain relish to the way he did this. I could hear the static vox crackle of the webbing as he mashed it. ‘May all the Eight perish in such fashion,’ he said. ‘The Eight?’ I whispered, my mind uncomprehending. He smiled his smile at me. ‘Your friend was one of them. Did you not know? He would have made you one too. One of the Eight. Eight for the legs. Eight for the points. And eight because that’s what they ate.’ Teke drew the sword out. He walked back to his throne and let go of his longsword. By the time it struck the throne’s high arm, it was just a strand of golden ribbon again, and it draped across the arm-rest onto the floor. Teke stood, his back to us, and stretched his arms wide, as though he wastired and bored. I ran to Judika, and knelt by him. He was dead. He was already cold. His corpse stank of the thought-form’s psychomagic. A shadow of the bloodshot light clung to him.

 

[MolotovKraken]

I was already in a heightened, distressed state because of the murder of my friend. On top of that, I seemed to be facing incontrovertible proof that he had been Grael Magent, or that Grael Magent had somehow resided within him. Was that why the thought-form had interceded on my behalf against Sister Tharpe in the attics of the Maze Undue? Was that why it had broken in to save me from Hodi and the mediators? Jude’s warp-wound hadn’t been caused indirectly during the turmoil at the basilica. He had been at the heart of it. Scarpac’s cursed blade had done it. He had hurt himself cruelly trying to rescue me from their clutches. What was he? How had he become this thing? Or how had he come to be its vessel? What did that say about the secret operation, and the candidates, of the Maze Undue? What did that say about me? I began to focus on my tempering litany, trying desperately to hear Sister Bismillah’s voice and calmly focus my mind. I knew I would not survive if I could not. Teke turned back to face us. ‘Now,’ he began. He stopped. I was still kneeling at poor Judika’s side, but I was aiming Judika’s laspistol at the giant in a firm, two-handed grip. ‘Stay there,’ I said. ‘Don’t be foolish,’ the smile said. I rose slowly, still aiming. ‘Stay there,’ I said. ‘Don’t!’ Alace Quatorze blurted. ‘Don’t anger him! Don’t provoke him. My dear, you have no idea what you’re risking–’ ‘Be quiet,’ I told her without looking at her. My focus was Teke. ‘We’re leaving. You will not prevent us.’ ‘Are you really so upset that I killed your friend?’ Teke’s smile asked. ‘He wasn’t your friend, you know. You do know that, don’t you? He was a bastard of the Eight, a hybrid of the King’s inner circle. A eudaemon thrall. He was no friend to you. He and his ilk wanted you to become one of them. It was your destiny.’The smile broadened. ‘It wasn’t going to be a nice destiny,’ Teke said. ‘Though you wouldn’t have been aware of it once you were in it. It would have twisted you so much you wouldn’t have realised it was a living hell. Because of something you ate, you see? I saved you from that.’ ‘Don’t expect any gratitude.’ ‘I won’t,’ he said. ‘I just expect your service. You belong to the Children now. We have other, loftier destinies for you.’ ‘I refuse,’ I said. ‘You don’t get to refuse,’ replied Teke. ‘Oh, my Throne, stop provoking him!’ Quatorze wailed. ‘We are leaving,’ I stated firmly. I began to back towards the door. The smiling giant took a step forwards. At the door, Lightburn swept out his man-stopping revolver and aimed it with a hammer-clack. Shadrake and Lucrea cowered behind him. Now covered by two steadily-aimed weapons, the giant chuckled. ‘A hard-round revolver and a laspistol? Oh my. Whatever will I do?’ ‘Shut up and bleed out?’ the Curst suggested. Teke was looking at me. He took another provocative step. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, Bequin,’ he said. He paused. ‘Well, of course, I do. Very much. Right up to the unthinkable point where it becomes a pleasure for both of us. But I can’t. I’m not allowed to. You’re too valuable.’

He paused again. ‘So put the gun down. I can’t hurt you, but I will detain you.’ He stopped smiling for a second. In less time than it takes for a human heart to beat, I knew that the talking was done. He started to move, a blur. Alace Quatorze screamed. I fired. The las-round, a dart of hard white light, split Teke’s left cheek and left a scorched groove. Lightburn’s first round tore into the giant’s ribcage from the side. Neither stopped him. He reached me, grabbed me, and threw me aside. I fell, rolled and tried to hold on to my weapon. Lightburn was still firing, emptying every chamber of his gun. Flattened lumps of metal, the impact-squashed remains of hisbullets, fell off Teke’s soft, pink bodyglove and rang off the floor like coins. Teke gestured at the Curst. A storm of pink rose petals flew from his arm, reducing the length of the sleeve and baring his skin. The petals swirled at Renner. He staggered and tried to fight them off, but they swept him to the ground. He struggled and fought, trying to protect his face and ears, like a man being attacked by a cloud of angry bees.

Teke was half-turned from me. Still prone, I started to fire again, punching las-round after las-round into his long, broad back. I saw burned black punctures appear like craters on a pink-dust moonscape. He snapped around at me. His smile was back. As he leapt towards me, he reached out his right hand, and a gold ribbon flew into it from the throne. The ribbon became a golden longsword. The sword became a blur. My laspistol became two pieces, the snout and muzzle severed from the grip. The cut edges of the metal were bright and sharp, sliced with impossible precision. He reached for me. I punched what was left of the pistol I was holding into his chest, so that the razor-sharp cut edges sheared into him. It drew blood. Still smiling, he looked surprised. He back-hand slapped me and the blow threw me across the floor towards the door. I heard him padding forwards after me to sweep me up. I set my cuff to dead. He snarled and staggered back, momentarily pinched by my blankness. ‘Run!’ I yelled. Shadrake, Lucrea and Alace Quatorze were already running back through the aula magna. Lightburn scrambled up. The swarm attacking him had turned back into rose petals and had fallen off him, dead. I caught his arm and we ran together. Behind us, Teke raged out a furious cry of frustration. We reached the end of the aula magna’s nightmare gallery, following Lucrea, Shadrake and Quatorze into the rest of the gloomy house. I looked back.

I could see Teke standing in the bright room where we had found him. My blankness was receding from him. I was far enough away for his psychomagic to return. He clothed himself. The pink petals swirled around him, and formed a new suit of more robust shape. The black oil in the ceramic basin on the floor became a living, gleaming ooze that splashed up his body, wrapped it, and turned several parts of his form glossy black. The two gold ribbons fluttered into his waiting hands and became a pair of long,slender swords. I saw his true form. It was beautiful and awful where Scarpac’s had been grotesque and beautiful, but it was the same. Teke was a Traitor Marine. He was magnificent, like a true predator. Gleaming pink and glossy black and shimmering gold, he sprang after us.

 

[MolotovKraken]

We ran, slamming doors behind us. The old, dark house shook. He was behind us, howling in a feral, sing-song voice. Screams echoed from other parts of Feverfugue, out of the darkness of night and trees that enclosed the place. I imagined it was servants and household staff, woken in terror by involuntary nightmares. ‘We need to get away from here!’ I yelled at Alace Quatorze. ‘Where are your motor carriages kept?’ ‘There’s no time for that!’ she wailed in reply. ‘Teke is too fleet! He is too quick and clever! We’d never even get off the grounds.’ I believed she was right. ‘Why would you consort with a being like that?’ Lightburn raged. He was trying to reload his revolver as he ran, but the effort was doomed. ‘For the gifts he bestows,’ Alace Quatorze cried. ‘For the promises he makes!’ We ran into another room and slammed the heavy doors. I looked at Alace Quatorze. ‘That doesn’t seem enough,’ I said. ‘You haven’t seen the gifts,’ said Shadrake. He was breathing very hard, already out of breath. ‘My family was great once,’ said Alace Quatorze. ‘The name Glaw was respected across subsectors. We had power and influence, but we were brought low. An alliance with the Children could restore our fortunes. Inreturn for our help in the materium, they would favour us in the immaterium. I could–’ ‘You’re insane,’ I pointed out. We doubled back into another wing, hoping to confuse or even shake off the pursuit. The walls were red plaster and the floors were black marble, all picked out by the vague glow of the occasional candle or sconce. Some rooms had furniture, but there was no sign of life or proper habitation. Feverfugue was a structure that resembled a grand home, but only superficially. No actual life dwelt there. It was like a stage set. Screams still echoed from rooms above. We could hear doors being smashed.

‘Is there a way out of here?’ I asked. ‘Can we hide in the woods?’ ‘You cannot hide from him,’ Alace Quatorze said emphatically. ‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘But he cannot hide from us, either.’ I turned to Shadrake, grabbed him, and searched his pockets until I found his sighting glass. He protested feebly, and tried to fight me off. I raised the glass, and, through it, saw the skeletal ghost of the house, the imprint of its structures and walls upon reality, and the folds that these made where they conjoined with other spaces. I saw deranged geometries inside the spatial engineering of the world I understood. And I saw Teke. He was visible as a hot white silhouette. He was racing from room to room, from hall to hall, searching for us. My blankness was, I believe, disconcerting him, and making him unable to trust his transhuman senses and his armour’s formidable sensory apparatus, not to mention the warp-magic that came so easily to him. He seemed frustrated and enraged. He kept stopping to vent his anger on doors or walls or even furniture by shredding them with his twinned blades. He also, I felt with a cold dismay, seemed to be enjoying it. He was enjoying the hunt. It was prolonging the pleasure of achieving the kill. Every time he turned our way, or seemed to sense where we were, I guided us in an opposite or contradictory direction. The glass led me. We were able, several times, to double-back and even pass very close by him, without him realising, sometimes at no greater distance of separation than a wall. We heard him, snorting and hissing, laughing and bewailing. We heard his swords rend and slice. We stayed a few steps away from him, and kept him at bay.Or was he, I wondered after a while, just playing with us? We suddenly found ourselves in a small courtyard. We’d opened a door and it had led us out. It was cold and dark. Black trees hissed against a black sky beyond the black eaves. The air smelled wet. I could see a faint hint of moon-glow behind the trees. ‘Oh, you dangerous witch!’ Alace Quatorze cried. ‘Look what you’ve done! Look where you’ve led us!’

‘Where?’ I asked. ‘You’ve taken us through!’ Shadrake laughed, startled. ‘You’ve taken us too far,’ spat Alace Quatorze. ‘You’ve taken us to the City of Dust.’ I turned and looked at her. ‘That’s nonsense. A myth,’ I said. ‘No myth,’ said Shadrake. ‘If there is a City of Dust at all,’ I insisted, ‘then it is out beyond the Sunderland in the desert. Not here, through a door in your miserable old house.’ ‘But it is, that is the point,’ said Alace Quatorze. ‘In the long ago, Orphaeus moved the twin city sideways, out of line with Queen Mab, so that it stood like a dusty shadow cast by one city into the other. It is the extimate shadow of Queen Mab. It was the first step in his construction of a bridgehead in the immaterium.’ She looked at me with her remarkable eyes. ‘Feverfugue was always said to be one of the crossing points, one of the places where the harrowed paths and holloways actually penetrated through to the other side. That was why I bought the place. I have been searching for the transition point ever since, searching every room and trying every door in that endless maze of a house! For years! And now you just lead us there?’ I didn’t know what to say. It didn’t seem like we were in any kind of other world at all, though I have to confess I had no idea what being in another world might feel like. ‘You are saying,’ I began, ‘we are somehow in Queen Mab’s twin? The secret city?’ ‘Yes!’ Alace Quatorze said. ‘But I wasn’t even trying to–’ I began. ‘Yet you did. See how talented you are?’

Teke the Smiling One stood in the doorway behind us. He was leaning against the door frame, arms folded, two golden ribbons fluttering from his waist harness. His pink and black armour, edged with delicate filigrees of gold, was as beautiful and ornate as a piece of jewellery. His smile was perfect. ‘Access to the Yellow King’s extimate bastion has long been desired by the Children,’ he said. ‘You have provided us with it. Within just hours of knowing you, Bequin… sweet Mamzel Bequin… you have already performed an extraordinary service for us.’ He stepped out into the darkness to join us. His huge armoured feet crunched upon gravel it was too dark to see. I heard the servo motors sigh and whirr inside the panels of his armour. ‘Perhaps you will lead us to the rest of the Eight? Or find the fastness location of the King himself. My master Fulgrim would very much like that. The King is more of a threat to us than anything the False Emperor can devise.’ I raised the sighting glass. ‘What can I see if I look at you?’ I asked. I gagged, and almost vomited. I snatched the glass away and broke the view. Exposed by its lens, Teke was neither beautiful nor smiling. ‘Let’s go,’ Teke said, ‘just you and I. The others can stay here. I have no interest in them one way or another.’ ‘Will you let them live?’ I asked. ‘I won’t kill them, if that’s what you mean.’ I took a deep breath, and then a step towards him. ‘Beta, don’t!’ cried Lightburn. ‘It’s all right,’ I said to him. ‘He can take me if he’ll spare you.’ ‘Oh, he likes you, doesn’t he?’ said Teke, smiling at the Curst. ‘Do you want to bring him too, as your plaything?’ ‘Spare them and I’ll come with you,’ I said. Teke nodded and led me back into the house. ‘Wait!’ Alace Quatorze cried. ‘What about me? I arranged all this for you! I worked so hard to achieve it! I secured Feverfugue and the pariahs! How can you just–’ Teke looked at her disdainfully.‘In one hour, without even knowing she was doing it, she has led us through the house-maze and found a backdoor to the City of Dust. How many years have you been trying and failing to do that, Glaw? How many?’ ‘But–’ ‘The Glaws were once something to be reckoned with,’ Teke smiled. ‘Pontius especially. I always did like him. Great achievers, by human standards. But you, Alace, you’re really not much. Just a rather sad footnote to the family line.’ ‘No!’ Alace Quatorze cried. I followed him into the candle-haunted hallway. ‘Where do we go?’ I asked him. ‘Back through the maze into Queen Mab,’ he said. ‘There I will summon my kin, and we will begin to plan our assault on the King’s extimate bastion through this unexpected and secret access. He will never see it coming. He will never expect that a precious product of his programme will be turned against him.’ ‘I am not his product,’ I said. ‘I used to think I understood my place in the world, and the role that had been intended for me, but now I think I truly don’t belong to anybody. My destiny is not fixed. I am not the King’s, nor am I the Inquisition’s, and I am certainly not yours.’ ‘Oh, I think you are,’ he replied. ‘You belong to the Emperor’s Children now.’ ‘There’s only one thing I’m really certain of,’ I said. He paused and turned to look back at me. His white smile gleamed in the candlelight. ‘What might that be?’ he asked. ‘Being outside,’ I said. ‘Just breathing in the air of a different world. I realised something.’ I looked straight at him. ‘I’ve remembered what the word was,’ I said.

 

[MolotovKraken]

I spoke the word. The force of it struck Teke and hurled him away from me. He looked surprised for a moment. Then he vanished in the astonishing shockwave of fury that followed the pronouncement, and crashed through several walls. They splintered and shattered like glass. I didn’t know how long he’d stay down for. I doubted he was dead, though the word would have slain a lesser being. I felt utterly spent, as if saying the word had sucked all the vital energy out of me. I doubted I could say it again for a while, if at all. ‘Renner! Hurry!’ I yelled. He ran to me and we started to flee. Shadrake and Lucrea came after us. Of Mamzel Quatorze, there was no sign. ‘She went away,’ Lucrea said. ‘She ran off into the night outside.’ The other night. The extimate night. ‘Did you not want to go that way too?’ I asked Shadrake. He shook his head. He was scared. He had seen many things in his corrupted life, but something about the darkness outside had been too much for him. I think he was crying. I used the sighting glass again, and tried to follow my way back through the labyrinthine structure of the house. Perversely, it was harder to do it deliberately than it had ever been to do it by accident. After some twenty or twenty-five minutes, we reached a hallway that I feltsure I recognised. It was very hard to tell if we had crossed back. It was even harder to tell if we had ever crossed over in the first place. Everything seemed too fantastical and made up of lies, though when a being like Teke the Smiling One tells you something, you tend to lend it some weight.

 

[MolotovKraken]

‘I am protected,’ said Blackwards. ‘Those sell-swords will not stand a chance against what lies in this house,’ I replied. ‘You will not be taking us to your clients.’ ‘I will not have to,’ he replied, and casually clicked a small vox-pulser. I felt an ultrasonic tingle. A nasty blue-white light bloomed beside him, twinkled and expanded. As it grew, a second light did the same the other side of him. They were teleport flares. They bloomed, they swam, they shimmered, and then they fused into solid, concrete forms. A stink of ozone filled the air as the light faded. Scarpac the Word Bearer stood on Blackwards’ left. Another of Scarpac’s host stood on his right. ‘My clients will come to me,’ said Blackwards. The Traitor Marines surged forwards to seize us. Though their speed was equal to that of Teke, their movement was markedly different. They were brute fury, like tanks or charging aurochs. Teke had moved with the fluid grace of a serpent. Lightburn and I turned and ran from them, yelling at Lucrea and Shadrake coming up behind us to do the same. I lost my grip on the sighting glass and it fell to the floor. There was no time to go back for it. Lucrea saw the menace at once, but Shadrake was too far gone with pain and distress to react fast enough. Scarpac simply punched the artist out of his way. He punched him aside and did not even break stride. The impact of the huge fist was so great, however, that blood and tissue spattered the wall, and poor Shadrake was neither in one piece nor alive when he hit the floor.There was another blistering flash of light, and a third Word Bearer materialised in our path. We were boxed between the three of them. And suddenly, we were caught by Teke the Smiling One too. I cannot say where he came from, except, perhaps, the shadows. He howled a death-song as he ran at the three crimson brutes. His golden longswords slashed the air.

The nearest Word Bearer turned, the one most recently arrived. He began to raise his boltgun, but Teke was right on him. The warrior of the Emperor’s Children, resplendent in pink and black, put one long golden blade clean through the Word Bearer’s shoulder, taking his arm off entirely. The boltgun fired twice as the hand went into spasm, and the shots blew vast holes in the wall behind us, peppering us with grit. Teke’s other sword cut through the Word Bearer’s helm diagonally, removing a section equivalent to about one-third. Blood and brain matter burst into the air as the head came apart. For good measure, Teke kicked the dismembered Word Bearer out of his way. Scarpac was waiting to meet him, his cursed blade drawn. They clashed with a fury, raking and cracking at one another with their swords. Scarpac, for all his brutish manner, was impressive. With his one, heavy blade he managed to fend off the lightning-fast strikes of Teke’s pair. The other Word Bearer tried to risk a shot at the warrior of the Emperor’s Children, but dared not hit his commander. He put up his bolter, drew a sword, and joined the battle. Now Teke was fighting two of them off, a golden sword fighting each one. I had never seen combat of such a pitch. It was too fast to follow. The transhuman reactions and speeds were appalling. Their matched strengths were such that every blow, including every parry, produced a concussive shockwave that pummelled every human in the vicinity. It was titanic, in as much as it was like something from the most ancient proto-myths. It was like the warfare the gods engaged in before man was ready to be created. It was like a glimpse of the terrible war of wars that had riven the stars at the time of the Heresy, the monumental War of Primarchs, because of which the galaxy had burned

 

[MolotovKraken]

The frightful war between the Traitor Marines was splintering the plaster and threatening to burst throughinto the main hall. Some of the heraldic gesso plaques were falling off the walls and shattering on the hall floor. Sister Bismillah led us outside, her arm around me. Lightburn followed, comforting the sobbing Lucrea. Outside, it was cool, and the very depths of the night. A wind stirred the ancient woods, but it was just a hushing sound. It was so dark we could not distinguish sky or ground, or trunk or branch. Behind us, the ghostly frontage of the house was just visible. From inside came terrible sounds of violence and pulses of light.

More explosions rattled the air behind us. We felt the heat of them as a warm wash of air. I heard bolter fire. One of the Traitor Marine factions had, I believe, called in reinforcements.

 

[MolotovKraken]

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We went deeper into the Salleys, moving north towards the Undergate district. The amber light from the smelteries on Emberyard lit the night sky. A couple of times, purse gangs had tailed us, but lost interest when they saw the imposing mass of Lightburn. He caught my arm and stopped. ‘You hear that?’ he asked. ‘What?’ ‘You feel that?’ ‘Just the wind,’ I said. ‘It’s getting up. Rain is coming.’ ‘I’m not so sure,’ he said. ‘For a few streets now, I’ve had the feeling we’re being followed.’ ‘Yes, the yard gangs,’ I said. ‘No, not the yard gangs and chancers,’ he replied. ‘I know what it feels like to be tailed by them. Something else.’ ‘I didn’t feel anything,’ I said. It started to rain suddenly. The drops fell fast and heavy. Then it became a really fierce downpour. The water frothing in the gutters was black with street muck. Thunder rolled. We ran for shelter in the mouldering arch of an old building. We stood, peering out into the curtain of rain. ‘I hope this lets up, or we’ll be soaked,’ he said. I nodded. I wondered how much further we had to go. ‘Holy Throne,’ he murmured, very quietly. ‘Beta, look.’ I looked. A handful of tiny, bright objects were floating down the rainwater brook that had formed in the street gutter beyond the arch, bouncing and swirling on their way to the culvert. They were pink rose petals. ‘Oh no,’ I said. We turned to run. A gleaming smile hung in the rain behind us.

Teke the Smiling One stepped out of the darkness so we could see him. The rain streamed off his pink and black armour. His two gold ribbons fluttered from his hip. ‘I have been looking for you,’ he said. He held up Shadrake’s sighting glass like a lorgnette. It had a crack in it where I had dropped it. ‘I have been looking for you for a while. You left me at Feverfugue. You hurt me with that word. I had to fight those animals. Fight them. They cut me. I hurt them back.’ He looked at me. ‘I thought we had an understanding, Mamzel Beta Bequin,’ he said. ‘I thought you understood that you belong to the Children now.’ ‘Please…’ I began. ‘You belong to the Children. I have come to take you back so that we can continue our business together.’ Still smiling, he raised a warning finger. ‘No bad words now. No pariah tricks. Come with me. Or I will kill him and maim you.’ I truly wished I had the word, but since I had said it to him in the ancient house, it had fled from my memory again and could not be recovered. He took a step towards us. He reached out his hand to me. Where the rain ran off his gleaming armour it looked like blood. Lightburn snatched out his revolver and aimed it at Teke.‘Renner, don’t!’ I cried. ‘He will kill you.’ ‘If I don’t, I’d better just kill myself!’ Renner snarled back. ‘Would you do that?’ asked Teke. ‘Could you? Save me the effort?’ Then Teke vanished. Something smashed into him from the side and ripped him out of our line of sight. It was as though he had been ploughed down by a runaway tram. Lightburn and I flinched at the impact and ran to look.

Deathrow the warblind had the monster on the ground, his hands around Teke’s throat. Deathrow was almost as big as the warrior of the Emperor’s Children. He was systematically bashing the Traitor Marine’s head against the pavement of the filthy slum alley. Rain hosed down over them both. I heard the buzz of his optic visor. Teke rallied and smashed the warblind off him with a formidable punch. The impact of powered fist on plate armour made a sound like a safe door slamming. Deathrow left the ground and smashed into the wall behind him, cracking ancient, soot-frail bricks. Teke was up, rushing the warblind. His ribbons were swords. His smile became a killing rictus. The cattle dog bounded out of the side street and stormed into him, seizing his left wrist in its massive jaws. The warrior of the Emperor’s Children howled out in dismay. It was not a cry of pain. He simply seemed revolted at the thought of being touched by a vermin dog. He lashed out and sent the animal flying across the yard. But the dog had bought Deathrow time. The killgang chief had drawn his oil-dark broadsword. He came at Teke and they clashed. The huge, oiled blade met and blocked both of the darting golden longswords. Sparks flew. I heard both warriors grunt with effort as they traded potentially lethal strokes and thrusts. Teke had the clear advantage. The killgang chief was supernaturally strong. I knew this well enough. But he was not in the same class as the Traitor Astartes. Teke would kill him. He would outstroke and outfight him. His swordsmanship was far greater. The Smiling One landed a terrible, scouring blow that seemed to rip part of Deathrow’s visor and face-plating away. Deathrow’s head snapped to the side. I saw fluids spurt into the rain. Cables tore out and fizzled. Deathrow staggered backwards, leaking blood, the side of his head mangled. Teke closed for the kill.

But he paused. He had seen something. Something had stopped him in his tracks. I realised he had glimpsed Deathrow’s face behind the ruptured visor. ‘How–?’ he began. The distraction was momentary, but the Smiling One had dropped his guard. Deathrow plunged his sword into the gap. The oiled black blade went through the Traitor Marine’s belly and shredded out through the back plating of his armour. Blood spattered onto the wet pavement behind him, black as pitch. Shorn servos shorted out. Teke screamed. This time it truly was pain. It was pain and outrage and horror. Teke tore himself off the blade impaling him, and lurched back across the yard. Black blood was gushing from his wound and mingling with the rain. His face was ashen. He was still smiling. He turned, and the night took him. It was as if the blackness and the rain had conspired to become a curtain to allow his exit. Teke left no trace behind but a few pink rose petals floating on the gurgling pools around the drain.

 

[MolotovKraken]

Deathrow sank to his knees, breathing hard. He kept his back to us. He raised his hands to his face and tried to push his damaged visor back together. I took a step towards him. The cattle dog trotted up and stood between us. It glared at me, but not unkindly. ‘Deathrow?’ I said. The dog growled. Beta. ‘Can I help? You are hurt. Let me…’ The dog growled again. A negative. ‘You saved us. You saved me again.’ The dog remained silent. ‘I am pleased to make your acquaintance this day,’ I said. I looked at Lightburn. He gestured urgently at me to follow and get away. I stopped and looked back at Deathrow. ‘You’re one of his, aren’t you?’ I said. ‘You’re one of Eisenhorn’s specialists. He sent you to shadow me.’ There was no answer. ‘Didn’t he?’ ‘Yes,’ said Deathrow. ‘Who are you?’ I asked. He rose to his feet and turned to look at me. I saw that the visor was smashed and hanging off, and part of the scarred and ridged tissue of his face was torn away. But it was a mask. There was another face beneath it, a face that Teke’s blow had partially exposed. I could not see it clearly, but even in the gloom I could tell that it was handsome and noble. ‘Who are you?’ I asked. He looked at me for a moment. ‘I am Alpharius,’ he said. He turned, and he and his dog were quickly lost in the downpour.