Attelus clenched his teeth and finally took out the automated lock pick, then began to push it in...
But he stopped as another idea managed to burst into his hazy mind, and he knelt down.
Faleaseen! Faleaseen, are you there?
There was no answer.
Faleaseen, frig it! I need your damned help, now!
Still silence.
'Damn it, Faleaseen, answer me now,' he hissed.
A groan then echoed inside his skull, it was faint, exhausted, but it was there.
+Attelus Kaltos, I am here,+ she said. +I have been searching the skeins of fate much recently. It is exhausting and...+
She trailed off. +I can sense your mental and physical exhaustion; it is...incredible. What have you been doing?+
Attelus quickly gave her a summation of everything that'd happened since they'd left Scintilla.
+I see,+ said Faleaseen, then she laughed, much to Attelus' surprise. +An elite Throne Agent such as you being stalled by a locked door, now that is funny.+
'No, no, it's not frigging funny,' Attelus whined. 'You know the circumstances are more complicated than that.'
+I beg to differ, Attelus Kaltos, but I do understand the circumstances. I will unlock the scary door for you. Just place your hand against the lock, please.+
Sighing, Attelus did as told.
+Ah, a mon... a human door lock, primitive, but effective, I must confess. I shall use my telekinesis to unlock it and...'
Attelus could hear faint clicking as Faleaseen worked her literal magic. Then came a sudden final familiar click which Attelus felt through his palm.
+There, it is done.+
Smiling, Attelus was about to reply when he was interrupted by the warbling of the auspex in his ear.
'Shit,' he said as he checked the auspex's reader to find two signatures coming his way on the other side of the door. 'Faleaseen, lock the door again, please.'
+Why?+
Because I have two life signs coming at me, fast! And if they find the door unlocked, it'll-
+Yes, I understand, Attelus Kaltos. Hold on. You must keep your hand on the lock, please.+
Attelus clenched his teeth all the harder, trying to ignore the beeping speeding up and the quickly approaching dots on the monitor. He reached for his sword; as much as he didn't want to kill what could be loyal servants of the Golden Throne, he wouldn't hesitate. But hiding the damned bodies, especially when they're in power armour, will be a bastard.
Attelus couldn't hear any clicking over the ringing, but he felt it, along with the sweat streaming down his face. His eyes were plastered on the auspex as the blinking signals came closer.
He now felt the heavy footfalls heading toward the threshold. But then came the final familiar, heavy click, and before Faleaseen could say anything, Attelus had slipped aside the door and into the shadows. A split second before, the door unlocked again and opened.
One Sister of Battle stepped into view; she wore that elaborate power armour but was helmetless, revealing the pale, pinched, scarred face of a woman who might've been in her mid-sixties or anything in between. Her white bob cut reminded Attelus of Elandria, which made him blink and glance his gaze downwards. Her eyes were the hardest-edged Attelus had ever seen, a death stare close to being literal; Attelus would've rather face down Kalakor in an actual sword fight than be on the wrong end of that glare.
The Sister paused just outside the doorway, her bolter hanging from a strap on her shoulder. The Sister took a long inhale through her nose, then walked further onto the landing bay; her stride flowed with a confidence that could only be bred by decades of being a warrior.
Following behind her was a hunched, wizened man in the dark red robes of a scribe. His wiry, black hair encircled a skull so bald it shone in the sun. He was exceedingly pale, almost to like an albino-like degree and wore a pair of red, thick-rimmed goggles which might've been to protect his eyes from even the softest of light sources. In contrast to the Sister's, his gait was a shuffling, limping walk.
Attelus would've liked to stay and listen to what they had to say; he hadn't the time, so, in a split second, he slipped through the threshold and started down the stairway.
Finally, he'd made it inside.
Finally, the gaggle of Ecclesiarchy fools arrived at the bottom of the staircase, but Arlathan only knew due to the sound of their footsteps. He didn't know how long it took them, as he never checked his wrist chron despite truly wanting to, but it had felt like hours.
'Stand!' boomed a deep voice so resonant it reminded Arlathan of Kalakor. 'Lay your eyes upon us, His servants!'
The pilgrims did as ordered, and Arlathan followed suit, thanking the Emperor his knees were finally being spared that pain.
Around two metres away stood the Ecclesiarchs; all of them were withered old men in robes of the Drusian order, crimson with cream lining. Arlathan knew, as old as these men seemed, all of them would be much, much older. The Drusians didn't reject the idea of rejuvenant treatments; they just waited until they were at least in their nineties before beginning the treatments, as old age was another form of suffering they had to endure. They were missing most of their teeth; the remaining ones were brown with rot.
The man in the middle, a man so short he was barely taller than a dwarf, raised his tiny, wrinkled hand to the heavens. Still, despite its diminutiveness of it, the act of the movement held massive significance even to the cynical Arlathan.
'My pilgrims,' said the short priest, whose resonant voice was from him, much to Arlathan's surprise. 'My fellow devoted servants of the God-Emperor! Many of you have been travelling weeks in your Holy pilgrimage; many of you have been upon it for months and many years! You have been following the path laid by our almighty saint in his conquest of our mighty, pure Calixis Sector against the alien menace!'
Arlathan fought the urge to snort, the Calixis Sector? Pure? After only three years in service of the Holy Ordos, he'd learned the Calixis Sector was so full of corruption and conspiracy his arsehole was more pure than the frigging Calixis Sector.
'And His greatness, the great saint Drusus, he is the greatest saint of the Imperium of Mankind!' said the short priest. 'It was he who took control of the Crusade after the death of his predecessor died when the Lord Militant Angevin was murdered by the horrid! Filthy! Dirty! Xenos!'
The short priest's voice had grown more and more shrill between each exclamation of "horrid", "filthy", "dirty", and "Xenos", and foam began exploding from his mouth in a way that reminded Arlathan of one of the water sprinklers in the gardens on the Audacious Edge. Arlathan had to fight back laughter at the thought. He hated to think how the little fool would react if he learned Attelus and the others were in collaboration with the Eldar. Probably died from several heart attacks, his arteries all blocking at once and a rage-fuelled seizure so powerful it'd break every bone in his body. They'd be ground into dust as it'd go on for hours after his initial expiration.
'It was the great saint Drusus, who was deemed so great! So important to the God-Emperor's whim that when he too was assassinated, the great Lord Militant Angevin was assassinated by horrid! Filthy! Dirty! Xenos! Unlike his predecessor, he was brought back! The God-Emperor brought Him back!'
Much to Arlathan's surprise, the little priest's sunken eyes began to shine with tears. Imperial Historians debated the truth behind Drusus' death and supposed resurrection; Arlathan didn't know the details of each theory; he'd meant to ask Attelus about it some time but never got around to it.
The short priest paused dramatically, his gaze sweeping over the crowd; Arlathan had to admit the priest was a damn fine orator; he wished he had a pad and stylus to make notes.
'The God-Emperor brought Him back!' the short priest shrilled so abruptly it made Arlathan and many others flinch as all of the other priests around him nodded sagely. 'What more evidence do you need? The God-Emperor! Brought! Him! Back! But if you need that evidence, if you need even a scintilla of evidence, then your faith is weak! Because faith is most pure when it is unquestioning!'
Again, the Ecclesiarchs around the short priest nodded, and there were a few cries of 'Yeah!' from the crowd of fools around Arlathan.
'Now!' said the little priest as he began limply about. 'Only you of unquestioning, unwavering faith can set foot in this holy shrine, for this is where the great, great, greatest amongst the greatest of the God-Emperor's great saints, the great saint Drusus first set foot on this Holy world when its heretical, foolish people had turned their backs on the God-Emperor! It was here that when the great Drusus stepped on this hallowed ground, his mere presence caused the God-Emperor's spirit to change the heretics! Minds and souls making them see the God-Emperor's majesty! In mass, they rejected their false gods, and they bowed to Him! They bowed to Him. And those who could not accept the truth! They committed mass suicide! Sparing this galaxy of their dirty, FILTHY, dirty presence forever more!'
Many of the pilgrims around cried out in rapturous joy.
'So come, my devoted brothers and sisters! Come and follow us up this sacred staircase to this most sacred of sacred places. Come to breathe in the holy air of holiness! To lay your eyes upon the holy relics! To have the honour of crying out your holy devotions and prayers, so they echo in the holy space!'
The pilgrims roared in approval, and the little priest nodded in approval; he turned, shuffling around for a good ten seconds before his back facing them. He was followed by the rest of the gaggles of fools, and it took all of them almost half a minute until they'd fully turned.
Then the short one took the first step, and it took him almost an entire frigging Emperor damned minute to make it.
It took all of Arlathan's considerable will to keep himself from roaring out a groan so loud it would have echoed throughout the warp itself.
The two Sisters of Battle stomped by in the corridor, their bolters held low, their eyes fixed forwards under brows so furrowed it seemed they'd been glued that way. The light from the stained glass windows projected almost hypnotising patterns of greens, reds, and yellows over their armour before being briefly eclipsed by shadow when passing between the windows.
Attelus slipped out of the shadows and, hugging the wall as close as possible, moved on. The Sisters held as much subtlety in their movement as they did in warfare. Attelus had switched off his auspex a few minutes ago as it was now redundant as all hell.
The Gothic architecture also afforded him many nooks and crannies and alcoves to slide in and out of, making the infiltration almost too easy so far. On his left were the windows, broken up by two-metre-wide pillars. The windows also were about a metre and a half off the floor. It was making the infiltration so far too easy, even with his constant battle against the exhaustion. The likes of Dellenger would find it child's play, for sure. On the right were reinforced wooden doors, which Attelus thought might lead to the Sister's quarters. He wished they could've got a schemata of the building, but they'd proven too hard to retrieve in time.
He had another fifty metres or so before the corridor turned to the right, and he hoped there was a staircase heading to the ground floor, but he couldn't help but think he'd have to loop around to find it. It made sense; it'd make the convent more defensible from attackers coming from both the roof and the bottom. But so far, this building seemed made more like a convent than a fortress; Attelus guessed this was because they put too much faith in the four hundred and fifty metre high cliffs around it and the walls. Which was idiotic; in all honesty, Attelus was nowhere near the strongest or toughest being in the galaxy, and he'd managed to climb it. If he could, the almost inhuman operatives of the Officio Assassinorum or the utterly inhuman Space Marines could scale it with ease.
The sound of echoing footfalls further down the corridor caused Attelus to freeze. He swiftly swept behind the nearest pillar and, showing as little as possible of himself, tilted his gaze around the pillar's edge. He counted three pairs of feet with his enhanced hearing, and three figures did emerge into view. He would've liked to take out his scope to see them better, but he didn't dare. Still, from this range, he could make out that two of them were in the armour of the Sisters of Battle, but one of them was a dark-skinned man who dwarfed both the women in power armour despite wearing what seemed to be a beige singlet and camouflaged military pants. A red bandana covered his head, and his feet seemed silent on the stone; Attelus could tell this easily even over the stomping of the Sisters.
Could this be one of the famous members of the Catachan Imperial Guard regiment? This made Attelus instantly pull his head in. Shit! If anyone could detect his presence, it'd be a Catachan! Just his frigging damned luck! Why was one here? Could he be a member of Soloston's Warband? That was the only explanation Attelus could discern.
'The Inquisitor thinks the work of Imperial Science is going to be what's gonna be needed to heal the sick,' said a deep, resonant voice that had to belong to the Catachan. 'His faith is strong, but that's what he thinks.'
'Tell the Inquisitor,' said a wizened, feminine voice. 'That his "science" is not going to make a difference, that it is going to make things worse as it shows doubt in the God-Emperor's divinity if we just place our faith in Him and make sure all of the sick believe the same the disease will die, as only then will He intervene.'
'Mamzel, Canoness, with all due respect,' said the Catachan. 'I have been in the Inquisitor's retinue for many years, and he's proven time and time again how effective his scientific abilities are. You should think it's a miracle that he just so happens to be on this world at a time when you need him the most. The God-Emperor sent him here to be at the right place at the right time.'
The Canoness snorted derisively. 'Do not be a fool, guardsman. It is merely a coincidence, and "Imperial Science"? What a contradictory term. The Imperium of Mankind is run upon the backs of its warriors and its faith and shall forever do so. Science weakens that faith and thus weakens the Imperium. If it were not for your master being an Inquisitor, I would have executed him for heresy when he put forward such a notion.'
'Yeah, well, I would a liked to seen you try.'
Attelus rubbed his chin, quickly seeing the contraction to the Catachan's statement if this Inquisitor wasn't an Inquisitor, he probably wouldn't have him around to make them fail if they tried to kill him. On top of that, the Inquisitor would unlikely be here in the first place. This Inquisitor had to be Soloston; it was great to have confirmation of his presence already. Or at least Attelus hoped so.
'Oh, be quiet, guardsman,' snapped the Canoness. 'I am not in the mood for that Catachan bravado. All of your kind are heathens and fools who do not value faith the God-Emperor enough, instead of placing your faith in those foolish over-compensatory knives of yours.'
'Mamzel, Canoness, I knew many Catachans who were very faithful, and you know my Catachan Fang is anything but "over-compensatory".'
Much to Attelus' shock, the Canoness giggled. 'Oh, yes, I know that well.'
The footfalls stopped, and then came the sound of an opening door; they were about thirty metres away from him now. 'Sister Satiristine, guard my door, make sure no one enters. Except for trooper Goruan, of course.'
'Yes, mamzel Canoness!' rung out the soft, eager voice of a young woman.
Laughter suddenly erupted down the corridor then the door slammed shut. That was the very last thing Attelus expected he'd hear.
Blinking, Attelus glanced back around the pillar, and there she was, a young woman standing guard, and now she was closer; the sight of her made Attelus hiss through clenched as his blood seemed to freeze then shatter in his veins.
Even seeing her from the profile, he recognised her, especially with that brunette bob-cut.
It was Elandria.
