A/N: Chap 6 review responses are in my forums as normal, thank you for reading! Politics and family drama tend to impede investigations. And, having seen how the lower half live, a glimpse at the top.
Chapter Seven: Hominem ad Imaginem Suam
Lyta woke with a startled gasp. She looked for the portrait of the woman named Taylor Hebert, but instead saw the stern, stained glass gaze of the Emperor of Mankind staring down at her. Only then did it come to her that she was laying on the floor of the chapel of Black 299 Quad 4, Gimel Spire of Botan Hive.
A thought impulse to her ocular timestamp confirmed that only moments had elapsed. She sat up and stared at her shaking hands; wondered at the shivers that shook her body from the inside out. The ward runes on her armor gave no indication of Warp exposure.
Her mind felt raw and numb from the impossible vision and all the impossible things she saw and heard with it. She had no idea who that man, Stein, was. But she knew who Malcador the Hero was. The Sigillite. The founder of the Inquisition and Regent of Terra. The Emperor's most beloved and trusted companion.
She recalled the picts she took of the Priest's chambers and stared at the sigils he'd drawn or carved. Several looked almost exactly like the golden, winged figure from the portrait she saw.
Her eyes drifted back to the dataslate, and she was still staring at it when Artigan walked in. "The purges are complete, all detainees are ready for…" He tensed and brought his weapon up. From her body language alone, he sensed something amiss. "Situation?"
"Contained," Lyta said. Or tried to; her voice cracked the first attempt. "Contained, Commander." She forced herself into motion and took the ancient dataslate in hand, simultaneously hand-signing containment confirmation. "What do you make of this?"
With the man's face hidden behind his helm, she couldn't see his expression when he took it, but her power assured her a brow was rising. "Early Imperium dataslate. Looks…like an after action report from someone named Stein. Should I be looking for anything in particular?"
It seemed obvious that whatever she experienced, Artigan did not. "Just curious what a priest would be doing with such a dataslate."
"Hm. Good question, Lord. We're ready to sterilize the sector."
"And the administrator for this sector?"
"Already detained and on the way back to base. I believe Lord Gamet wanted to handle that conversation, so perhaps letting the woman stew in isolation until he's recovered might be preferable."
"Very good." Amelyta forced her mind to focus through prayers and mental cantrips she'd learned in the psykana to control the shock she felt–not just mental, she recognized physiological signs of stress as well. She removed her evidence bag and took all of the paraphernalia from the priests's chambers. "I'm ready."
~~Revelation~~
~~Revelation~~
"...grossly negligent," Sister Zhaena declared the next morning in their staff meeting. It was the day of the Sanguinala, but Inquisitors did not take holy days off. "Indicative of a laxness not appropriate for the office. Lord, she didn't even bother putting the majority of the populace to the instruments to learn the truth of it! She picked out less than two dozen and just had the rest purged!"
The Sororitas was not the first to challenge Lyta's competence. She continued to eat her breakfast as the senior interrogator dissected every action she took before Lord Inquisitor Moro, and the other Interrogators, Hol Aberfort and Deon Kotran. The Savant, Eratos Thenes, attended by hololith, just like the first meeting.
Moro also ate as he listened.
Finally, the Battle Sister finished her long critique of the previous day's actions. Moro just continued to eat his pastry while he made a point of reviewing Lyta's submitted report, as well as the results of her first few interrogations.
Zhaena began to stiffen at the prolonged silence, until finally Moro spoke. "Sister, I feel I've done you a disservice. I had good reason to order Interrogator Rothid to assume the investigation, like I had good reason to request her here in the first place. Like I had when I offered you, yourself, a position. Perhaps I was mistaken in not sharing that reason. Or, perhaps…Lyta, please explain to your teammates your selection process for interrogation?"
"I selected those whose souls were not so far gone that we might obtain useful information. The majority were profoundly tainted by the warp, so much so we could gain nothing from them."
"How can you possibly know that without putting them to the instruments?" Zhaena asked.
Beside Moro, the pale, cloudy-eyed psyker named Maerya suddenly laughed. The sound was awkward, breathless, and utterly without humor. "She is a psyker, of course. She can see the truth of things."
"Perhaps not how I would phrase it, but…yes," Lyta said. "My psyker power evidences itself through perception and intuition. While it is not always useful to know what crimes a servitor did to earn their fate, or that Interrogator Aberfort there shared sweetened starch cakes with his two daughters this morning, in cases like this my power can be very useful in interrogations and investigations. It's what led my previous master to selecting me. It's…not perfect, but in this case I felt it a reasonable exercise."
"And it has paid off," Moro noted. "You're not half-way through your interrogations and already you've identified not just an isolated incident of taint, but potentially an entire cult working in the hive. You will finish the interrogations today?"
"Yes, Lord, before the Santuinala. Speaking of the protocols…"
"Yes, I'm aware of your relation to one of the prisoners. Do you believe you would be compromised?"
"I don't believe so, but it would be appropriate to have supervision during that session."
Surprisingly, Zhaena of all people nodded. "This much, I would agree on."
"I'll do it." The large-bodied, bearded man across the table spoke. Hol Aberfort, the former Arbites chastener. "You have a large investigation going yourself, Zhaena. I've just finished the one, and can't take action on my next for at least two more days. I'll monitor."
Moro nodded to the man before glancing back to Lyta. "Do you intend to put her to the instruments?"
"Lord, not at this time."
"Because she is the cousin to the archduchess?" Zhaena asked. She at least kept her tone neutral.
"No, because she carries no taint. Her soul is as more pure than yours, Sister, and I say this not to deprecate yours. I don't know what she was doing there, but I will find out."
"Have to admit, it's a handy gift to have." She'd not met the younger interrogator, Deon Kotran, before that meeting. He was a hive native with the ashy complexion of all Terrans, but with a build and hair that spoke of Adepta parentage and at least reasonable nutrition and education.
"Then it's agreed," Moro said. "Lyta, the investigation is yours to follow. Find this cult. But because the investigation is yours, you will also need to inform the Archduchess that her first cousin has been detained by the Inquisition."
Lyta hated how pleased Zhaena looked at that news.
"Yes, Lord."
~~Revelation~~
~~Revelation~~
The Sanguinala banquet was in full swing when Amelyta arrived that evening, after a day spent in interrogations. She was on her third shower of the day. As trillions of penitents and faithful gathered around the Imperial Palace on the other side of the world to celebrate the sacrifice of the angel Sanguinius to save the Emperor from the Great Traitor, the highborn of Botan Hive hosted their own celebration.
Lyta was crashing the party.
"This isn't a good idea."
Lyta wasn't entirely sure what she'd done to deserve the companionship of Rael Artigan, especially considering he was Lord Moro's highest commander, but nonetheless the man came with her that evening, flanked by two more Ordos troopers.
In retrospect, he was likely baby-sitting.
"She set the time," Lyta said. "I let her people know this was not a social or family visit. The archduchess insisted."
They reached the foyer where guards in Rothid livery but no armor to speak of stood at the doors, and the Rothid senior seneschal stood stiffly just within. His right eye and a part of his jaw were augments, and the back of his skull consisted of a metal plate bristling with auspex jacks. His exposed skin looked leathery, pale with Terra's atmosphere, and spotted with age; his one organic eye appeared rheumy as it glanced at her.
Goern the Seneschal, who bounced her on his knee when she was a babe, blinked at her without recognition of anything other than the Inquisitorial sigil on her armor, and the Interrogator's mark on her breastplate. He blinked again and stared with increasing confusion as his merged cogitation unit provided information about her to his organic mind. She could read his face almost as clearly as a dataslate.
The moment he realized, a tear welled in his human eye. "Is it…little Lyta? Dear Amelyta, is that you, my child? You have returned to us?"
The two guards lost some of their composure, unsure what to do in the face of the seneschal's question, posed to an obvious Throne agent. Goern was one of the most senior of the Rothid household and had been for three generations of the family.
"We can speak again, soon. For now, I'm here on business. She forced this time, Goern. I would have come at a better time otherwise."
His ocular focused with a whir on the interrogator's mark, and she could sense how he instantly validated it with his own cerebral implants. "So young," he whispered. "Such an honor, for another Rothid to serve the Imperium. As I have always been, I am at your service, dearest Amelyta." He straightened his spine, and more formally, added, "It shall be as you say, Lord Interrogator."
The two guards both snapped back into stiff attention and pointedly did not look in her direction.
With that, she stepped to the entrance of a vast ballroom lined in gold trim and ten meter high murals painted by the most skilled artisans on the planet, with scattered works of art gathered from the earliest days of the Imperium or even before. She saw the nobles of the Botan Hive dancing and celebrating the upcoming Sanguinala with carefully choreographed laughter and gaiety. Bodies of extraordinary beauty mingled with bodies of obscene excess, all clad in the richest silks, satins and cloth of gold and bearing the most beautiful of gems.
Alters and devotionals in celebration of the Emperor's angelic son were scattered about the floor–it was Sanguinala, after all. But few did more than make brief, surface obeisance.
Tables groaned under the weight of extravagant foods most humans would never see, much less eat. Real grok steaks and seafood imported from agri worlds across the Imperium glistened next to pastries and sugary sweets under carved diamond mined from collapsed stars that cast a silvery glow over the whole.
With only a moment of silent prayer, Lyta waded into the ocean of wealth, decadence and corruption that was the nobility of Terra. The air hung thick with perfume and mild narcotic mist. Lighting diodes created rainbows and geometric shapes in the air above their heads in the mist, shifting from the winged form of the Angel to various geometric patterns.
Though none of the dancing or eating nobles deigned to notice her, she could still feel their eyes on her. Eyes, pictures, auspex scanners and biometrics. Savants and menials across the hive were undoubtedly examining every aspect of her physical being. She had no doubt at least some of the more powerful scanners detected her credentials. Her weapons and augments. The mostly healed wounds of her recent experiences.
The Archduchess Amorine Gallea IV Rothid of Botan Hive lounged at the head of a ten-meter long table aggressively flirting with a young scion of the Yourk Firchiles. She wore a resplendent mauve dress that matched her hair and the blush of her cheeks and décolletage. The younger man she flirted with was definitely below Amorine's station, but one of his station would be a good contact for future endeavors. A night's mutual pleasure could cement a lifetime of riches.
She knew Amelyta was there the second old Goerne recognized her. But even so, she feigned surprise and delight. "Amelyta? Is that…by the Holy Throne, is that my dearest sister? You're returned to us!"
She stood and made a show of hugging Amelya, while the courtiers around them applauded the show of affection. "Would you join us for a meal?"
"I've already eaten, thank you. I do not interrupt your festivities lightly, your eminence, but I have need of your time."
By the title, by her tone, Lyta said everything she needed.
The Archduchess Amorine was two years younger than Amelyta, just like their long lost brother was two years older than her. The light in the young woman's eyes began to fade, darkening into, finally, an utterly blank expression. Even if the younger woman held her title by birthright, Amelyta had no doubt that her sister was a product of the finest education available, just as she was. That the Archduchess had extensive training and conditioning for her role was a foregone conclusion. They were sisters by blood, but not by the paths their lives wound through.
"Very well," Amorine said at last.
She turned artfully to her courtiers. "My friends, an occasion ten years in the making must take precedence. I shall return, but I invite you all to continue to enjoy the festivities."
With that imperious statement, the archduchess led the way toward a retiring chamber at the far end of the ballroom. Amelyta fell in beside her; Artigan and her two other escorts followed until they reached the doors of the chamber. She signaled for them to hold, and closed the door as her escort assumed sentry positions.
Within the chamber, crystalflex windows, polarized for their protection, rose fifty feet to the ballroom ceiling. True sunlight shone down upon the spire, while like an ocean of putrid yellow, the constant cloud of pollution that cast the rest of Holy Terra into shadow hung below them. In the sky beyond, despite the sun, she could see the glitter of orbital defensive platforms and the unending transports bringing down the constant stream of food and pilgrims for this year's upcoming Sanguinala. In the distance, she could see the shapes of voidships glittering like specks of reflected light in the aether. They were so high, the curve of the horizon was visible to the naked eye. The spire was closer to the ships in orbit than to the surface of the planet.
Where the windows ended, a spectacular ceiling began, itself covered in gold leaf and extravagant murals of recent Rothids who served in the Navis Imperialis or the Inquisition. It was a tradition, after all, for a Rothid to serve at least once per generation.
Once they reached the chamber, Lyta's ears popped as the room sealed itself and enacted security procedures. Amorine immediately changed both her bearing and tone. She spun, and unexpectedly swung a vicious slap at Amelyta.
It never connected, of course. While Amorine had obviously had some self-defensive training, Amelyta was a product first of the Psykana, then the Schola Progenium, and then sixteen months of harsh training at the hands of Lord Norquis' veteran stormtroopers.
She hooked her older sister's arms in a grapple, spun the offending arm behind Amorine, and forced her to her knees. "Sister or not, archduchess or not, you do not strike a throne agent."
Her answer was a sob. "You ran away, you bitch! I needed you, and you ran away!"
Lyta let her go. "You had mother. You always had mother."
"No, I didn't. It's your fault! Everything was your fault!"
This was not at all how Lyta wanted this conversation to go. She'd rehearsed it in her mind all day, between interrogations. She would establish herself as a Throne Agent and take control of the conversation from the start. But instead, all it took was her little sister's heart-wrenching sobs, and all that went out the viewport.
She moved to a nearby settee and sat. It was one she recognized, in fact, because her mother would often sit there with Amorine and tell stories while Amelyta played hymns on the panokey. She looked up, curious to see if it was still there, but in the corner where the extravagant gold and wood instrument once rested, she saw a display case.
"Where's the panokey?"
Amorine had gathered herself; expressions of emotion were no more fashionable for the nobility as they were for the Inquisition. "I destroyed it." She picked herself from the floor and dusted herself off. With red-rimmed eyes and nose, she stared at her sister. "What happened to your eye?"
"Lost it to a traitor marine on Luna."
"Good. I hope it hurt."
"It did, be assured. So did my Psykana training. So did the conditioning of the Progenium and the Ordos. Don't worry, sister. I suffered plenty when I ran, if that's your concern."
Amorine walked across the gilded tiles, and then sank into the settee beside her sister. She made a point of soothing the expensive fabric of her dress. "You know, if not for Aunt Caethia, the consortium would have dissolved the family title after mother died. The eldest child died, the next in line ran away, the archduchess killed herself. They almost took it all away from us. Because you were a coward."
The words stung, just as intended. "I have a low psyker talent, Rina. Just enough to understand the chaos that infected our brother. It wasn't enough to survive it. I had to destroy it. I had to hunt it down and…I couldn't do that as an archduchess of a hive city."
"And the little sister who needed you? You didn't feel any need to protect her? Or our mother? Our cousin?"
"I was only twelve. I didn't understand what I was doing, and by the time they identified my talent, it wouldn't have mattered."
With a shaking breath, she forced the words out. Weakness was the greatest sin. "I didn't find out about mother until I was released from the Psykana. I am sorry, Rina."
"If you'd known it would happen, would you have run?"
"I don't know. I was so scared of what I saw in Jace that…I just don't know."
The two sisters sat in silence for a time. "The armor looks good on you. You're an inquisitor, now?"
"Interrogator. I am acolyte to Uncle Moro."
Amorine winced. "He's…not the man I remembered."
"He's an Inquisitor. He treated us like children because we were children. We're adults now, and he'll treat us as such."
The archduchess turned to face Amelyta directly. Slowly, she lifted a hand to touch the newly healed wound. "It's going to scar a little, I think."
"Far, far better than it could have been. The blow took out my eye and crushed the socket. My hip was crushed into dust. It is a miracle I'm alive at all."
Amorine winced. Then stood. "Is that why you came? To tell me you were serving Uncle Moro? I already knew–he told me weeks ago. He suggested the armor would be a good gift."
"You're aware of the cleansing in the Gimel Tower, Black 299 Quad 4?"
"I read something about it this morning. You're holding one my friends hostage, something about administrative failures?"
No thought of the forty thousand purged menials. "If your friend was the senior sector administrator, she's probably going to suffer severe fines and jail time; perhaps public flogging. The security failures of the sector nearly led to the entire spire being lost. Planetary Governor's have been shot over less. I would suggest you not advertise too much just how friendly you were to her."
Amorine's eyes bulged a moment. "The whole spire?"
"Demon taint, and full possession. Something I might have expected on a world far from Terra, but never here. That's the context. The reason I'm here now is because of Corantha."
The shock turned to confusion. "Our cousin? The same Corantha that tried to run away to join the Sororitas? Who prayed to the Emperor on her knees three times a day? What of her?"
"She was there, in the middle of the heresy. One of the only survivors. She is in an interrogation cell, and I will be interrogating her tomorrow. Lord Moro tasked me with informing you."
"Tasked…" Amorine spat the word. "You…you wouldn't have even come at all, if not, would you?"
"I watched our brother's soul get consumed by chaos and stab our father to death in this hab, Rina. If I had my way, I would tear this whole structure from the hive and vaporize it into dust. I would never return if it were my choice alone."
The archduchess blinked as if slapped. Whatever line of thought or accusation she had in mind quickly slipped away in the face of her sister's brutal honesty. Her mind quickly shifted gears. "It's Cori, Lyta. It's our cousin. The girl who stole food from the kitchen to give to menials. The girl who cried and screamed at father for refusing her the right to live among the poor. She thinks only of others, and prays constantly to the Emperor. She's no heretic."
Decision made, Amelyta stepped within her sister's personal space and took her shoulders. "I cannot change what happened. I failed to protect you when you were young. So I'm going to protect you now. I'm going to prosecute this heresy as the Lex requires, and I will make no mention of your role. I will tell my fellow interrogator that the sector administrator was not truly your friend, but merely a political appointee. The family needs you. Tell no one else, or I may not be able to protect you."
Amorine nodded and watched as Amelyta turned to leave.
"Sister?"
"Yes?"
"Is there...Will Cori be okay?"
Amelyta did not want to answer. But then again, she'd made a career of doing what she didn't want to do. "I suppose we will find out shortly."