'I know. I would tell you if I could. But in order to learn certain things, I have been forced to make promises.'
To the eldar?'
'I cannot even confirm mat. I am not proud of the promises, but I will honour them.'
'Then what can you tell me? You said that things had been revealed to you.'
'One of their kind has foreseen a great darkness ahead of us all. It is so abrupt and acute that it has twisted and altered the skeins of probability that the eldar read. It was revealed to him in a sequence of connected visions. One of those was the destruction of the Distaff. When that came true, I was shaken. It proved the visions were not fanciful.'
What else has he seen?' I asked.
'A living blade, a man-machine, bestriding a long-dead world and preparing to strike a blow that will spill human and eldar blood alike/ he said. 'After that… nothing.'
I looked down at him. 'Nothing?'
'Nothing. That vision is the most distant thing he is now able to see. It's no more than six months from now. Beyond that, he has been unable to glimpse anything at all/
Why?'
'Because there is no future left to see/
SEVEMTEEN
Psychoarchaeology.
Ghul.
The Barque of the Daemon.
Gideon's message to me proved that he already knew the name Khanjar the Sharp, but as we talked, I discovered he knew very little besides the name.
'Nayl and I tracked the janissaries after they fled Messina in an effort to discover who had hired them. It was well hidden. The Vessorine take great pains to protect the identity of their clients. There were false trails, payments from bogus accounts and via holding companies. But we wormed it out eventually. Khanjar the Sharp/
Which meant what to you?'
'Nothing… except that he was the individual who had ordered the systematic destruction of your operation… and that his name featured prominently in a number of the farseer's visions. We believe Khanjar and the man-machine from the climactic revelation are one and the same/
'Khanjar the Sharp is Pontius Glaw/1 said.
He was astonished and excited. The revelations had said nothing of Glaw. The Khanjar guise had masked his true identity from the eldar.
Why target you?' he asked.
'Self-preservation. I am one of the few people who knows he still exists. In fact, I'm sorry to say, he exists because of me. He was also searching for something that he believes I possess/
'Like what?'
I had no choice but to tell him everything. My dealings with Glaw, Maria Tarray, the Malus Codicium…
'You weren't joking when you said you weren't the puritan I once knew/ he said.