Prologue of Volume 1: s/12967125/1/Small-Fish-in-a-Big-Pond-Prologue
Beginning of Volume 1: s/12967139/1/Small-Fish-in-a-Big-Pond-Volume-1-Episode-1-Alackaday
Previous episode: s/12989271/1/Volume-1-Episode-3-Come-with-Me-to-the-Casbah
The gods were silent. Imudon had failed for too many times during the last years. He didn't care much about another escaped captive at first, but the mark attracted a trail he thought he'd left behind centuries ago.
The gods had never liked him, and the feeling was mutual. Back in the wayward days of the Great Revolt, they'd agreed to keep his secret in exchange for the rites he saw as meaningless waste of time. But for the mediation of his meek and tricky First Acolyte, he'd be devoured by the nightmarish forces of the warp or terminated by his own superiors of past.
Imudon harboured subconscious disgust for the First Acolyte, the only one who felt at at home in the nightmarish shrine that was Imudon's shelter and prison. Anchored in the material realm by means of sorcery incomprehensible for human minds, it made everything that came in touch with its spectral walls distort and wither. Millions of slaves and cultists had to be brought there to get their share of the shrine's thirst lest Imudon and his company themselves got consumed by the gods' maw.
His steps soundless as usual, the First Acolyte entered Imudon's place of contemplation and bowed his head with a coy smile. The news he brought had always been but sour. He never forgot to remind Imudon he was about to fall from the gods' grace.
'The captive sorcerer has shed his poisoned blood on the altar along with his Black Legion retinue, my lord, and their master can complain as long as he wishes. The Commissar who fled with the mark a year ago has been brought to the undervaults. Only the Inquisitor remains'.
Imudon hated constant subtle reminders of his failures. The last of his escaped offerings stood between him and the only closed gate of the shrine that promised a chance to leave the place for good. The gods are never eager to let away those they had claimed for themselves. She had to be captured, slain on the nightmarish altars or, even better, brought to her knees before the gods to get their seal and spread their influence further. She will be bound, yet he will go free.
'Go and visit the null. She's despicable and weak, but she can do well if she repeats her cowardly abdication before the faithful'.
Plodia opened her eyes trying not to look down through the bottom of the cage where, meters beneath, cultists had gathered for another disgusting rite. As time was absent there, she may have spent decades if not centuries in these nightmarish walls.
She'd been stupid, she'd been weak. Brought down by the Dark Apostle's blow, she couldn't help crying out what she'd concealed for years. Hatred for the pious neat world of her family, hatred for the Emperor whom she'd viewed as a meaningless symbol of 'decent behaviour' advertised by her homey, shy parents. Vid-logs of the repudiation were hundredfold to any record of her fornication with the damn Panther. Utter disgrace to her children, her forgiving husband, her elderly parents, her friends and colleagues.
It was her blank nature that let her live through this, but her penance had been harder than anything she'd survived. She'd spent hours on her knees in confessions and prayers, first out of mere fear, then overwhelmed by sorrow and shame.
In a simple robe, with a penitent's shaven head, she embarked with Cichlasoma's team to repay her debt in blood in a sanctuary taken by Imudon's forces. When one of the shadows struck, even her ability failed her.
She shivered as the First Acolyte appeared from nowhere in the passage behind her cage. He always came back and would arrive again and again till she agreed to do the Dark Apostle's bidding. Trying to cope with blind, desperate fear, she whispered a few words of a prayer she'd learned years ago. Who but the Emperor can protect her now?