But the Codicium was silent. It always had been. It had never seemed alive, like the other toxic, rustling volumes I have encountered. It had always been just a book. The contents were disturbing, but the book itself…
I wondered now. The moment it had come into my possession, things had started to change. Starting with Cherubael and on, on to the bleak events on Durer.
Maybe it was poisoning me. Maybe it was twisting my mind. Maybe I had crossed far too far over the line without realising it, thanks to its baleful influence.
Perhaps that was a measure of how evil it was. That it was painless. Invisible. Insidious. The moment you touched the Necroteuch, you knew it was a vile thing, you knew you had to resist its seductive corruption. You knew you were fighting it.
But the Malus Codicium… so infinitely evil, so subtle, seeping slowly into a man's soul before he even knew it.
Was that how a servant of the Emperor as great as Quixos had become a monster? I had always wondered why he had never seen what he was becoming. Why he was so blind to his own degeneration.
I opened the drawer of my night stand and put the book inside. As soon as we were clear of Ravello, I would have to deal with it.
I went down to Crezia's study and found the vox-link. There was a hololithic pict unit too, and I tuned that in. Morning broadcasts, weather, planetary news. I watched for some time but there was no mention of any incident in the Dorsay region. I had anticipated as much, but it was still unnerving.
I used the vox and listened in to the Imperial channels, eavesdropping on arbites frequencies, PDF transmissions, Ministorum links. Nothing. Either no one knew what had happened the night before at Spaeton House, or they were staying ominously silent.
I needed an astropath. If I was going to contact anyone, it would be off-world. I had no choice.
I really couldn't trust anybody on the planet.
The flier was still parked in the back courtyard. Phabes had been good enough to run a power cable from the house and the craft's batteries were recharging.
It was hot in the yard. Insects buzzed in the thick spill of flowering bucanthus that covered the side wall.
The mercenary was awake. He twisted his head from side to side as he heard me approach, blind and dumb.
I tore the tape from his mouth and then filled a dish-cup with water from a bottle I had borrowed from the kitchen. I held it up to his mouth.
'It's just water. Drink it.' He pursed his lips and turned his head away.
'You'll dehydrate in this heat. Drink.'