Thorn wishes aegis, rapturous beasts below.'
'Aegis, arising, the colours of space/ Betancore responded immediately and correctly.
'Rose thorn, abundant, by flame light crescent.'
A pause. 'By flame light crescent? Confirm.'
'Confirm/
'Razor delphus pathway! Pattern ivory!'
'Pattern denied. Pattern crucible/
'Aegis, arising/
The link broke. He was on his way. He had taken the news of Vibben's death as hard as I expected. I trusted that would not affect his performance. Midas Betancore was a hot-blooded, impetuous man, which was partly why I liked him. And used him.
I moved out of the shadows again, my sidearm raised. A Scipio-pattern naval pistol, finished in dull chrome with inlaid ivory grips, it felt reassuringly heavy in my gloved hand. Ten rounds, every one a fat, blunt man-stopper, were spring-loaded into the slide inside the grip. I had four more armed slides just like it in my hip pocket.
I forget where I acquired the Scipio. It had been mine for a few years. One night, three years before, Vibben had prised off the ceramite grip plates
with their touch-worn, machined-stamped engravings of the Imperial Aquila and the Navy motto, and replaced them with ivory grips she had etched herself. A common practise on Tornish, she informed me, handing the weapon back the next day. The new grips were like crude scrimshaw, showing on each side a poorly executed human skull through which a thorny rose entwined, emerging through an eye socket, shedding cartoon droplets of blood. She'd inlaid carmine gems into the droplets to emphasise their nature. Below the skull, my name was scratched in a clumsy scroll.
I had laughed. There had been times when I'd almost been too embarrassed to draw the gang-marked weapon in a fight.
Now, now she was dead, I realise what an honour had been paid to me through that devoted work.
I made a promise to myself: I would kill Eyclone with this gun.
As A devoted member of his high majesty the God-Emperor's Inquisition, I find my philosophy bends towards that of the Amalathians. To the outside galaxy, members of our orders appear much alike: an inquisitor is an inquisitor, a being of fear and persecution. It surprises many that internally, we are riven with clashing ideologies.
I know it surprised Vibben. I spent one long afternoon trying to explain the differences. I failed.
To express it in simple terms, some inquisitors are puritans and some are radicals. Puritans believe in and enforce the traditional station of the Inquisition, working to purge our galactic community of any criminal or malevolent element: the triumvirate of evil – alien, mutant and daemon. Anything that clashes with the pure rale of mankind, the preachings of the Ministorium and the letter of Imperial Law is subject to a puritan inquisitor's attention. Hard-line, traditional, merciless… that is the puritan way.