Chapter 4: Sharing Dreams
"Absolution." The old domus echoed the word, his long, white hair pulsing with the faintest line of grey-black in response. He huffed out a cough and picked the expansive, dog-eared copy of the Lectitio Divinitatus from the pulpit, tottering under its weight as both the pulpit and his bones seemed to creak from the exchange of mass.
"Yes," Isha responded.
"I am a lowly, domus priest, mi-lady enforcer." The old man replied, bidding a few heartfelt goodbyes as the last members of the congregation filed out, giving Isha a wide berth and furtive glances. "The nearest precinct chapel is—"
Isha turned her visor on the few supplicants still lingering in the doorway. They quickly ducked out and the meagerly adorned bronze door clicked shut with an echoing pop.
"Are you refusing me confession, preacher Domund?" Isha continued, removing her helmet and setting it down on the front pew of the tiny shrine.
The old man, facing away, set the Lectitio Divinitatus down with a dull thump at the table on the far wall and proceeded to light the candles at the wingtips of the bronze aquila hanging over it. "Does the Lord Marshal seek my life, or suspect me of some foul plot?" He wheezed out a laugh, taking a moment to crack his back and neck before turning around to face her. His wizened, cracked face and old, sunken eyes just barely visible under the hood of his robe. His hair was a waterfall of grey and white, uncut in the traditional Domus fashion. It went black as soon as his eyes regarded her revealed visage.
"Does your father not employ a hundred confessors for that purpose, Lady Gregarian?" His tone suddenly harsh and devoid of its former hospitality, "Or do you take special pleasure in visiting trouble again on this old man and his meager parish?"
Isha swallowed hard, "I'm here to seek absolution, father," she stated, voice steady, hiding the emotion beneath as she'd been taught. "Absolution for—"
"Absolution," the man spat the word, pointing one gnarled finger at her from under his robe, "is for the sincere who, by repentance and penance, seek to change their ways and step back into the Emperor's light. It is not a charm to salve the conscience of hypocrites."
Isha's hair darkened to match the black carapace of her armor. She removed her gloves, presenting her hands to the old man, palms up.
"I have tried both salve and hypocrisy these last twelve months, neither satisfies, nor do the honeyed words of my father's confessors ease my conscience." Her hand went to her belt and the old man flinched. She withdrew the doll from a pouch and tossed it down on the altar between them. "I am sincere, and you are the only person who can offer me absolution for this."
The priest looked at the doll's half-burnt face for a long moment then back at Isha's hard, black eyes. She met his gaze, finding only strength and resolution in his milky-black eyes.
"Giving absolution in intercession before the Emperor is my duty and I will do it." He said at last, "but I perceive that it's not the Emperor's absolution that you've come for. Am I wrong?"
Isha shook her head, "no," Isha's hands curled into tight fists. "I come to receive your absolution, and a seal of purity writ in your own hand."
The old man raised a bushy, white eyebrow in surprise, "a seal of purity." He repeated to himself and then was silent for a long moment. "I should turn you away." He said at last, "if my flock knew that you were responsible for that night not a soul would attend here again if I permit you now. Besides, a seal is above my station to give, and you confessed to me once before, remember?" His expression grew grim, "in my home, you woke me from my bed and told me how you'd killed them, my families, my children's children. You were armed, bloody, covered in soot and ash, carrying that doll." He shook his head, "I was terrified you'd kill me, so I spouted some platitudes about duty and service and absolution. Do you remember what I said, child? That night when you left my flock in shambles?"
"Your only penance will be the memory you carry, how you carry it will determine if you walk in the light or lose yourself to darkness." Isha quoted, the words still burned into her mind along with the trauma of that night.
He nodded, "It may not be very priestly of me to say so, but I'm glad you've carried that memory with you all this time. I see it in your eyes and Throne take me but I'm glad that it causes you pain. Emperor's blood! but it's the honest truth." The man's whole body was trembling now and for a moment Isha wondered if some great light from on high would come down and smite her where she stood. Part of her wished it could be that easy, but she'd left that part behind in Abigor's library.
I'm not a naïve little girl anymore.
"You're right," she replied coldly, "that's not very priestly of you."
The old man's trembling ceased, and he took a deep, shaking breath and let it back out with a cough, "I'm not a very good priest, I suppose," he shrugged, "but I am too old to hate, hate is for the young. Do you hate yourself, for what you've done?"
"No," Isha shook her head finding for the first time that the word rang true to her, "I did, but I refuse to be that person anymore. I know what I did was in service to the Emperor. I was cleansing the impure and preventing the spread of heresy." She locked gazes with the old man and pursed her lips, "what I did was not wrong!" she took a deep breath and let it out slowly, "but how I did it was careless, arrogant, the act of a foolish youth with no concept of second and third order consequences."
The man nodded but Isha continued before he could speak.
"I burned children alive in their beds, father." Her eyes glistened as she fought back tears but she kept her voice calm, cold, and hard, "they died, afraid, screaming, not knowing why, not having done anything wrong, because I wasn't willing to let a few cultists evade the emperor's wrath simply by hiding in a condemned, residential hab." Isha shrugged, "we could have gone door to door, room by room, we could have verified that the building was actually abandoned as the eviction notices stated, but we didn't. I didn't. Because of that I dream of a small girl, clutching a burnt dolly, slowly suffocating through burnt lungs as her mother holds her and screams at me for murdering her daughter."
The priest swallowed, visibly shaken by Isha's words and tone, his own hair and beard having gone peppery grey.
"It's going to happen again, father" Isha stated, making the sign of the aquila over her breastplate, "because I'm going to continue to pursue the enemies of mankind here, now. Even today there will probably be collateral damage."
"Collateral damage…" the priest echoed hollowly as she continued.
"I will root out the enemies of mankind in the future as part of the Imperial Guard. There too, there will be civilian casualties, collateral damage, the death of innocents." Isha held out the doll to the priest. "Does that make me a monster to you, father? Can a servant of the Emperor be a monster, to you, priest?"
The man swallowed, mouth dry, "yes," he croaked, taking the doll with a trembling hand, "but one man's monster is another's hero. I suppose that is the wisdom here. You do seem to have a conscience. If you listen to it, and remain focused on serving the Emperor, and all His people, then perhaps you too will turn out like your brute mentor loitering outside." he turned the doll over in his hands and looked back up at Isha and smiled thinly though there was no warmth in it, "what? Just because I won't let him in doesn't mean it's personal. I shun him because every true white-haired Domus must, as they will shun you one day, no doubt as many do already. But I am old, and with age comes a certain perspective. Without Abigor the Justicar we might have a Lord Marshall as corrupt and incompetent as our Lord Ecclesiarch."
The man seemed lost in his thoughts for a long moment and completely content to just let that last comment hang without further explanation.
Isha cleared her throat.
"Hmmm yes? Oh right, what would you have done with this… this… first fruits of the bloody and thankless sowing and reaping to come? Will you discard it, burn it away and burry the ashes along with the past?"
Isha wiped her eyes on her palms to clear the tears away and shook her head, "no, father. I never want to forget. The fire that burned those children and this doll also seared my soul, burned away some part of myself, some innocence, but also purified me, woke me from a long sleep, refined an ordinary girl into something extraordinary. I don't know what kind of monster I'll become if I continue on this path, but I want to keep it with me, forever. I want that girl's doll, her last comfort as she made her way into the Emperor's presence, made into a purity seal, one I can neither forget nor ignore."
The old man nodded slowly, "very well, but as I said, such a thing is beyond my station. I may know the proper invocations, but you'll find no holy implements here. No consecrated parchment or sacramental wax in the budget you see, we have enough trouble keeping the mold at bay."
Isha nodded and stripped off the bracer on her right arm, rolling up the sleeve of her black body glove as she did. "The Lord Marshall says you used to be quite the unreformed troublemaker in years past, he has a file on you three inches thick."
The old man snorted, "As thorough as he is I somehow find that believable, your point?"
Isha pulled a leather bag off her utility belt and tossed it to him. He caught it and his eyes widened. "Confiscated from you before you took the oaths and changed your ways." She tapped a finger against the pale skin of her right arm, "will this do?"
"Who were they?" Ayara asked, breaking the silence after what seemed like a short eternity as they rode back towards the central spire in Abigor's personal transport.
"People killed by a mistake I made and vowed not to repeat," Isha replied, plainly, running her hands along the elaborate designs and names etched into the tattoo on her arm.
"Oh," Ayara replied simply, unable to come up with anything else and clearly still trying to wrap her head around the idea that her best friend had been killing people since she was six years old.
"Is it infected?" she asked dumbly, trying to make conversation, any conversation, anything to take her mind off the next day's scheduled events.
"No, I've treated it with antiseptics," Isha replied, still staring at the marks, the words, the names, committing every millimeter to memory.
"Well, it looks infected," Ayara replied, taking her bottle out only to find it as empty as it had been the last three times she'd done so since they'd stopped at a middle-of-nowhere shrine an hour ago.
"That's the ashes of the doll," Isha commented, as if that should explain everything, "he worked them into the ink at my request."
"What is wrong with you!?" Ayara suddenly blurted, "what are we doing, why am I here and not with my family and why do you keep talking like a crazy person!?"
Isha sighed heavily, "It would take a long time to explain, and you're too drunk to—"
"Not too drunk to be dressed up in your Shin'pervivo goon-suit and given a murking gun!" She waved the las-pistol around until Isha caught her hand, expertly relieving her of the weapon.
"No power cell," she pointed out, depressing the trigger before calmly placing the weapon back into Ayara's hand and closing her fingers around it. "It's going to be ok, Ayara," She took her friend by the shoulders and pressed their foreheads together, their scalps briefly making contact and pulsing black sympathetically.
"I just… I just don't know." Ayara sobbed, hugging Isha tightly, "I don't know what's happening to me anymore. I was almost killed by hired assassins; my best friend is secretly an Arbites hit girl… goon… thing…"
"Enforcer second grade," Isha corrected, feeling Ayara's emotions poke at her psyche like needles where their hair touched.
"Enforcer person," Ayara rambled between sobs, her own psyche awash with the cool calm flowing out from Isha. She wiped her nose on one slightly too small bracer leaving a light smear. "Stop that," she whined, "I want to be upset, I think I have a right to be. Murk my father, Shin'pervivo that he is. Mur'kul take you!" she pulled her head away, "I want to be angry right now!"
Isha smiled as Ayara pouted, "feel better?"
"No…" Ayara lied, "Mur'kul take you, you murking killer calm sociopath person." She crossed her arms, "and your insane brute-daddy too."
The two rode in silence for a long minute, staring at one another across the row of opposing seats that usually held a half dozen or more big, burly, and heavily armed Arbites shock troops.
"Thank you…" Ayara leaned forward and hugged Isha tightly. "For saving me earlier, and being here, and… and doing whatever it is we're doing right now."
Isha grunted as the hug compressed her bandages but held on to Ayara as she began to pull away. "It's ok," she soothed, "of the two of us mine was a life of order and routine, training and rules, black and white."
Ayara grunted, "oh yes, I'd much rather have grown up executing my kinsmen as the pet door-kicker of a psychopathic law enforcer."
Isha chuckled, "right, because growing up with a father who'd rather consummate a marriage with his eighteen-year-old adopted daughter than pay a death tax sounds so much more pleasant."
Ayara shuddered, but Isha saw a faint smile flit over her face as the embrace ended.
"Mur'kula," Ayara breathed out, whipping at her eyes "I just feel like I'm out of control, walking the dark tentare that leads to the end of my soul. Mur'kula!" She shook her head, swallowing the lump in her throat, "I'd marry him, Isha, I'd do it, I'd do anything, anything to avoid the tithe. Anything to stay here, anywhere so long as it was here. I just hoped it would be over. If you hadn't been there..."
Isha frowned in confusion, "You would rather die than serve?" The idea gave her a sick sensation in the pit of her stomach. The same feeling she often had when Abigor described the crimes of the various cults she'd assisted in breaking up over the years.
"Don't give me that look, I know you're not that dense." Ayara grumbled, "perfect Shin'Isha, servant of the imperium. What would you do?"
"I don't—"
"If you knew, if you knew that you were walking down a path that would corrupt your soul and make you into everything you stand against?" Ayara glared, "wouldn't you rather die than become a… a heretic?"
"Yes," Isha answered, the reply coming so automatically she didn't realize she'd said it before Ayara continued speaking.
"Then you know how I feel, don't you?"
Isha was surprised to see the anger fade completely from Ayara's face and gaze replaced instead by intense longing and… loneliness.
"Yes," she swallowed, "I do."
Ayara nodded and the two rode in silence once more.
"Ayara?" Isha asked hesitantly.
"Yeah?" Ayara replied, staring at the aquila engraved on the vehicle's floor.
"Do you wish that I hadn't saved you?"
Ayara's head snapped up and she locked Isha with a fierce gaze, "of course not! And what? Die in your arms? Gasping for breath as my blood washed over your dress?" Ayara rolled her eyes, "what kind of Shin'vek would do that to a friend?"
Isha nodded, "thanks… I needed to hear that."
Isha began to turn away when Ayara took her hand again and squeezed tightly, "but now you know, you know how I feel. So next time, as my friend, don't." She squeezed harder, "please don't save me."
The archway was hung with sheets of interwoven rose petals, each cut into the shape of an Aquila. They draped down the twelve meters to the floor in single petal strips, gold, red, black, white, alternating in an intricate patter than formed a picture of The Emperor Triumphant by Odessi, mirroring the stained-glass window set behind the Ecclesiarch's throne. The throne itself was monstrously large, perhaps due to the size of its occupant or perhaps the Ecclesiarch had simply grown to fit the throne itself. The front resembled nothing more than the side plate armor of a baneblade in its flat and square cut. The absolute black of the phase iron metal was hardly visible though, covered as it was with thousands of seals of various sizes, lengths, and levels of ostentation. Two great banners the size of small habs, one on the right of the Ecclesiarchy itself and one on the left of house Gregarian, smaller, if only slightly, on the left framed the massive edifice. There were no stairs, not that the Lord Ecclesiarch could have climbed them, and no obvious way to reach the one who sat ponderously upon the black, phase-iron frame. That was, of course, the point. So massive was the edifice and so sheer that approaching beyond ten meters meant passing out of sight of the Lord Ecclesiarch himself and being lost in the shadow it cast. That too, was the point.
"Lean back," Isha whispered without moving her head or body from its stiff posture, "let the straps carry the weight through your hips!"
Ayara's banner shuddered slightly as she adjusted her stance for the dozenth time in ten minutes, "I'm trying!" she ground out through clenched teeth, not bothering to whisper. Even someone standing right next them couldn't have heard, so loud was the sound of the cherub choir and the ecstatic wailing of the Lord Ecclesiarch himself, his tone-deaf voice blasting through a thousand servo-scull amplifiers set into the front of the throne in and around the seals.
Isha whispered into the mic, surprising the urge to flinch, "please don't shout, these mics can pick up your whispers just fine, and your grunts, and your sighs, and your—"
"I get it," Ayara hissed back, "If he keeps singing like this and these Shek speakers keep vibrating my guts I really am going to puke. I really wish they'd just shoot me already." Isha heard her swallow as her breathing picked up under the weight of the long pole and Arbites banner seated in the harnesses they both wore.
"You-you, or fake-you?" Isha asked, trying to take her friend's mind off it as she stared forwards, under the gap between her own banner and the floor, out across a hundred feet of brilliantly bright gold floor that clashed horribly, in her opinion, with the black phase iron of the throne, and to the happy couple standing, both veiled, before an audience of at least a hundred thousand, maybe more considering how they'd been packed in.
"At this point," Ayara huffed, "either one of us."
Isha tuned her out as she continued to complain. If you're strong enough to complain you're strong enough to keep going Abigor had said many times and many times complaining had got her through the mental side of physical persecution.
Her own standard was an aluminum and paper farce, held to her chest by carefully balanced guide wires tied to the harness. Obvious to anyone who came within a few feet of it, completely undetectable by the audience.
She yawned, suddenly feeling very tired and wondering when this was over if she'd be able to catch a nap in the transport back to the precinct, or… home… If her dad really did care for her like Abigor thought, then maybe… maybe she had some growing up to do, and apologizing, somehow.
"Isha?"
Isha yawned again, "what is it, Ayara?"
"Uh, your hair, duh, you overheating in this thing? I mean, I am too, but tone it down a bit you're shining like a beacon."
"What?" Isha could see it now, white light from behind her visor reflecting off her hell gun. She furrowed her brow, suddenly aware that her heart was racing, blood pounding in her ear even over the wailing of the Lord Ecclesiarch. Why was her adrenaline up? Was the anticipation getting to her?
She was in the midst of trying to calm herself down with a breathing exercise when something struck the back of her helmet with enough force to rip it off her head and throw her forwards.
Isha sprawled onto the bright brilliance of the floor, lit form above and around by thousands of flaming braziers and hanging chandeliers larger than the Arbites transport they'd driven in with. Along with her helmet went her earpiece and visor. In an ear ringing, head splitting, blinding instant the world was a cacophony of sound, light, and pain.
Isha struggled to free herself from the harness and wires, hand searching numbly for the quick-release tab she'd rigged. She felt like she was swimming in a sea of sound and light as her eyes failed to adjust to the new brilliance and her eardrums burst from proximity to the amplifiers. Wet, red blood dribbled slowly from her ears and eyes as capillaries exploded under the assault of sight and sound. Then a new sensation was added to the already crushing pressure, impact, dull, dull, sharp, pain!
Isha screamed as she felt stubber fire pouring into her at close range. Ribs cracked and she thrashed as multiple shots impacted against her black carapace sending razor shards spinning off in all directions as her chest plate absorbed the barrage, cracked open, then failed altogether as heavy rounds ripped easily through chainmail, Kevlar, and thin, black bodysuit on their way into her organs.
"Uh, your hair, duh, you overheating in this thing?" Isha heard Ayara's voice in her ear, the suddenness of the transition from blinding, deafening, screaming pain to placid calm threw her body into sudden vertigo. "I mean, I am too, but— Isha!"
Isha squinted her eyes shut, trying to force her mind to recognize the proper orientation of floor and ceiling even as she pitched to the side.
The room was spinning as Isha gulped in lungfuls of air, her heart was racing so fast it hurt with each beat. Tired, so damned tired, her body responded to her sluggish mind as she sat up and ripped off the quick-release patch and harness, eyes wide, pawing at her chest where… where what? Her breastplate was intact, pristine even, just as it had been before.
Isha turned around and saw a figure vault past Ayara who was struggling to release her own harness. The figure was dressed in a robe that seemed to displace its form, leaving only oily black eyes and burning white hair visible as it crossed the ten meters in an impossible leap and landed heavily on Isha's breastplate.
The breastplate took the blow and Isha opened her lungs out of habit to let the passing air cushion the impact as the female domus stuck the landing straight into her. Even with her reaction, every iota of air was pushed from Isha's lungs.
She raised a hand, coming up blade first with one of the daggers at her hip even as she struggled to take a breath.
In a blur the figure's left hand came down, clamping around her wrist like a vice and swinging her arm out and up over her head. Her attacker's right hand flicked outwards like lightning, casually breaking her grip before reversing the blade and plunging it down through her bodysuit and into her armpit even as the first hand brought her arm back down to her side, trapping the blade in her side.
White, hot fire screamed through her veins as the blade bit through her flesh, ripped open her axillary artery and pressed up against her radial nerve cluster.
Air ripped into her lungs, then out again in a scream that sent Ayara staggering to the ground as it lanced over the open comm, drowning out her own cries of alarm.
Her attacker ripped off Isha's helmet and screamed into her ear. Isha had no idea what the woman had said as it was drown out completely by the thunderous wail of the amplifiers and the keening siren of pain peeling up and down Isha's nervous system.
The attacker gave her a frustrated look and pulled out the knife, then vanished. Moments later Isha felt huge hands pick her up even as the last of her blood squirted from her arm.
"Uh, your hair, duh," Ayara's voice, calm under the strain of the weighty pole chided her, "you overheating in this— Isha!"
Isha pitched forwards, barely catching herself on her hands and knees. She ripped away her mouthguard and wretched, blood and bile poured out onto the floor. The room spun, the air was close and tight and hot, so hot. Her vision dimmed to a pinpoint as she struggled to fill her lungs as fast as her body demanded. Her heart raced like a cyclone, filling her chest with one continuous ache as adrenaline slammed into her and her vision began to clear.
She turned to the side, looking in Ayara's direction.
"What's… going… on…?" She mumbled, whipping blood from her teeth and face as her vision cleared.
"Something unexpected, unheard of, quite impossible really," a strangely familiar, accented voice replied over the comm.
There was the figure, wearing Ayara's helmet! Isha's eyes widened as she saw Ayara's limp form lying a few feet away. She didn't know if Ayara was alive or dead, most of her body was covered by the banner she'd been holding aloft.
"I… know your voice," Isha replied, forcing her eyes off of Ayara as she watched the other figure take a step forward as Abigor's head came around and spotted Ayara's body.
"I am the voice of Mur'kula," the figure replied automatically, "and you, my poor Jaagrt are just waking up." Heat radiated off the woman's near floor-length hair causing the air to shimmer around it where it was visible beneath her light bending cloak. "Unfortunately, it seems you've been keeping up with me and it's quickly burning out both your mind and body."
Abigor's armored fist came around and the figure's head exploded against his gauntlet in a stream of viscera and
"Uh, your hair, duh," Ayara's voice was cut off by a sudden choking noise as Isha fell to the ground, head pounding, blood watering from her eyes, welling up in her visor, trickling out her ears and running down her chin from her nose. She coughed and spat and thrashed on the floor. Instinctively she unclasped her chinstrap and threw off her helmet, her hair spilled out in all directions, glowing more brightly than the chandeliers.
The smell of burning and blood filled Isha's nostrils. The familiar voice filled her ears.
"Answer my question and I will make it quick, child. You may feel like your heart's about to explode, like your head is on fire, like your strength is being sucked away into an oblivion of exhaustion, but you're not dead yet. No," the voice transitioned suddenly from aloof confidence to the grind of a blade on pavement "you're young, you'll survive at least another five, maybe ten cycles. And I can make them long, little Jaagrt, I can make this take days!"
The figure ducked and twisted as Abigor swung his fist, a stub-nosed auto pistol suddenly in her hand. She pressed the nose up into the crack between bicep and forearm and pulled the trigger. Abigor roared in unexpected pain as the tiny rounds punctured a gap so small no marksman could ever have struck it and dug into his elbow.
"I can hurt your friends," the figure continued, "I'm already hurting you. Why won't you answer me? Is your duty truly so strong?"
Abigor switched tactics, his mind processing the speed and accuracy of this unknown creature's attack. The impossibility, the improbability of it, the calm execution of a monster toying with its prey. He leapt backwards, clearing a dozen meters in his power-armored frame and landing with a boom audible even over the Lord Ecclesiarch and his cherub choir.
Abigor had already unslung his custom shotgun, Gristle-Hewer, a multi-barreled hideous mass of stopping power. The throng of representatives standing behind and to either side of the three Arbites, included his own squad of four shock troopers, a dozen techpriests and their entourage, servitors holding liveries of every major and minor house in attendance, servants, minor nobles, hundreds in total stood in the line of fire.
With the exception of the shock troopers who were already diving away to both sides, only a few of the others had begun to move when Abigor pulled the trigger.
Grist-Hewer spoke with a voice like an avalanche as it thundered forty door-breaching, hellfire rounds in the woman's direction.
The woman, and a widening swath of men, women, and machines simply turned to chunks of meat and metal, slamming along with the rounds into the thrown and gouging out a huge crater of
"Uh, your hair—"
"Damn monstrosity," Isha heard the cough and spit even as she herself went down in a heaving mass of cramps and pain, her helmet spilling her hair onto the floor where it steamed in the humid room.
"I give you this, Lord Marshall," Djanette remarked, catching Abigor's arm and shooting half a clip of tiny auto rounds into his elbow flesh once more. "For all the hatred, I respect your commitment to your beliefs, misplaced as they may be."
Isha watched from her place on the floor as Abigor leapt back, unslinging Gristle-Hewer in an identical, fluid motion, and fired.
The figure stood still, it seemed, assuming a strange pose as fire and shot whipped past her. Her robe shredded, her form becoming suddenly visible as everything but her blue bodyglove turned to tatters. Those behind her died instantly, including two of the Arbites Shock Troopers.
Isha stared, her shock mirrored on Abigor's face as the figure changed positions, contorting again and again as Abigor fired volley after volley, the disciplined part of his mind keeping his body fighting on automatic even as he failed to grasp the impossibility of what he was seeing.
Shot after shot after shot spewed with deadly purpose from Gristle-Hewer's white-hot maw and still the woman stood unharmed. She smiled with cruel glee as she stepped slightly to the side each time, causing nobles, servitors, and another one of the stunned shock troopers to explode in carnage. The final shot as the great weapon clicked empty must have punched into something vital deep in the support structure of the throne for the whole structure lurched violently.
A scream, high-pitched and panicked filled the air, booming from those amplifier servo-skulls that still functioned as the massive form of the Lord Ecclesiarch rolled from the overbalanced throne and toppled over the edge. The scream cut out abruptly with a wet slap akin to a fresh, fat fish being smacked down onto the cutting board.
"My, my I could watch that all day, but alas, we've quite massively overstepped the bounds of secrecy." The woman tutted, "oh well, we'll just have to start again."
Abigor had closed the distance while she spoke and was shock maul in hand mid swing when the woman casually stepped into his charge and placed two bursts of fire straight into his left eye. The Lord Marshall froze, power armor locking in place as his neurons shredded under the ricochet of metal inside his own skull. Then, like a falling statue, he went down, grey matter leaking for the ruin of his eye socket.
"Abigor!" Isha screamed, suddenly up on her feet, racing to his side. Behind her she heard the small weapon bark once, twice, three more times and the other arbites shock troopers not ravaged by Abigor's own wild fire slammed to the ground nearby.
The entirety of the chapel was now in complete mayhem, people screamed, the outpouring mob trampled security responders as they tried to enter the hall. The cherub choir wailed and flew in low circles around the bloated corpse of the Lord Ecclesiarch. Through it all an eerily calm, quiet voice spoke into Isha's earpiece.
"I know you," it said, and Isha felt an old, gnarled hand on her shoulder, "you're the poor girl that Gregarian stole from us. Isha, the butcher of children only a child herself, so deceived, so far from Mur'kula's dark embrace, burning away in the light. To think that you would be Jaagrt, the irony."
Isha could barely see through her tears, reflexively she lashed out, finding her blade in her hand.
The hand on her shoulder vanished with a hiss of pain and her blade returned with something far too viscous and dark to be human blood. She turned, holding her knife defensively in front of her, wiping at her eyes, trying to force down her feelings. Everything was a mass of heat and confusion. Everything was a blur of noise and light except one, Djanette.
The Domus woman stood before her, ancient and pale, wrinkled and worn, but somehow seeming so full of power and strength. The woman shook a finger at her, wiping blood from where it welled up in a deep gash on her cheek.
"A little lower, girl," She scolded, "and we would have had to do this dance again. You may be young, but you're almost burnt up, you don't have many dances left."
"What in the Emperor's Name do you want!?" Isha cried, her chest heaving with sobs she couldn't completely suppress.
For a moment, something like compassion seemed to float across the hag's ancient face, something, almost human.
"I want to save one of my daughters," she replied gently, "just as I want to save all my daughters, even you, especially seeing as Mur'kula in her unknowable wisdom has chosen to bless you so, Jaagrt."
Isha shook her head, trying and failing to clear the pounding headache she felt. "Why are you doing this to me?"
Djanette's expression shifted to sadness and she lowered her hands to her sides, "I'm not, dearie, and I never intended to. You are doing this to yourself, you're coming out of your sleepwalking but you're not yet fully awake. You're living in the tentare of futures, dreaming about what could be, as am I. Don't cry, daughter of Mur'kula, none of this," Djanette motioned to the carnage around them, to Abigor's corpse, "is real. Not yet at least."
Isha felt the dagger slipping from her fingers as her mind tried to comprehend what was going on. She collapsed, body heaving again, lungs burning, the feeling of suffocation clawing at her chest.
Strong hands supported her back to a sitting position, "breathe, little Jaagrt, just breathe, Mur'kula protects you."
"The… Emperor… p-protects," Isha gasped out, feebly trying to rid herself of the hag's hands to no effect.
"Probably," The woman replied with casual flippancy, "the Shin'pervivo seem to believe so quite strongly and so there must be some credence to it. But down here, under the storm, Mur'kula is the only one watching out for you and she has seen fit to bless you, little child." A hint of bitterness blossomed suddenly in the woman's voice, "though I don't see why, considering your persecution of your own people."
Isha said nothing, breathing was becoming easier. Soon, soon, if the hag kept talking, she might have the strength to strike again.
"What, do you want?" Isha gulped down air and expelled each breath as an individual word.
"Ayara!" The woman exclaimed, but the reply wasn't directed towards Isha and she felt the woman's supportive hands leave her.
Isha slumped back to the floor, craning her head with all her strength to see Ayara, standing, staring in shock at the carnage around her. She was alive! Her position prone on the floor must have removed her from the line of Abigor's indiscriminate barrage.
"Djanette?" Ayara turned towards the woman's voice, eyes wide with shock. "What's happened, where's? Isha!"
Djanette watched as Ayara rushed past her and slammed down next to Isha's curled form, cradling her head and quickly pressing her forehead to Isha's. A waterfall of calm and soothing lanced into Isha's mind as their foreheads touched, their bangs intertwining. Her headache seemed to vanish and her hair dulled in brightness as Ayara held her close.
"A-yara," Isha gasped, finding breath coming more easily and fluidly, "you're ok."
"Yes, yes I'm here. I'm here and I'm—"
"Enough of that!" Isha no longer heard Djanette's voice through her earpiece, "Ayara, come away from her. How often have I warned against sharing bonds with unbelievers?"
Isha looked up into Ayara's eyes as she felt fear and embarrassment and… shame, flow through their bond as Ayara pulled away, setting her back down on the floor gently.
"I'm sorry Isha," she said, "You said you could understand, please try, please realize this is the only way."
"Ayara," Isha struggled to her knees, finding some semblance of strength returning to her limbs as her heartbeat slowed considerably. "What's going on?"
"You should have signaled, child," Djanette chided her, "this whole affair didn't have to be so messy," she indicated the room.
"It was their idea," Ayara pointed at Abigor, "I had no way of contacting you or—" Ayara cut off as the sound of Isha's blade scraping stone caused her to turn and see her friend struggling to stand, blade in hand.
"Isha!" She moved back to Isha's side and half grabbed half caught her as she nearly fell again. "It's ok, your injuries will disappear, you won't remember a thing." She smiled sadly into Isha's confused face. "It's just a bad dream, Djanette will make it go away and you'll forget. I'll die, you won't save me, just like we talked about. It's going to be ok."
"I'm afraid it's not that simple anymore, my daughter." Djanette interjected, "she's one of the blessed ones, Jaagrt, just waking up. It explains how she foiled the first attempt. No, she will remember all of it, and we can't have that, not with the Inquisitor due soon."
Ayara's face paled even more grey than it's usual self. "But, no! No, I won't let you!"
Djanette sighed, holding Ayara like a mother might comfort a small child, the sight of it turned Isha's stomach.
"She's not injured," Djanette explained, "she's been riding the tentares with me as I've been searching for you and it's nearly burned her out. Even if I were to kill you successfully this next cycle she may not survive the number of times it would take me to effectively escape. So even if I don't kill her myself, she will die from the strain by proximity. Besides," Djanette gave Isha a scathing look, "she's chosen her path, she's been more than content to kill in the name of her emperor, now she'll die in his name. She dies for what she believes in, you die for what you believe in, at least now you have a chance to say goodbye, even if only she remembers it."
"But…"
"No buts," Djanette handed Ayara the pistol, "now, say what you must, but don't let her dissuade you from the true path, not now, not just before you go to be with Mur'kula. You must be strong and firm, and perhaps you can even save her, though I sincerely doubt it."
Isha managed to get her feet under herself again and whipped blood and tears from her eyes. "Ayara," she swallowed, "don't listen to her, don—"
"Isha please," the look of pain in Ayara's eyes stopped Isha dead. There was such pain there as tears welled up and slid down her cheeks. "Please," she begged, "you said you understood, you promised."
"I…" Isha's throat was suddenly tight and dry.
"Please don't leave me now, please don't abandon me at the end." Ayara's body shook softly but she kept the pistol leveled at Djanette's head. "Please."
Isha swallowed, "but," she felt her own tears steam down her cheeks, "it's not true. And… and you have a whole year. We… we could figure something out. I…"
Ayara smiled sadly and shook her head, "I can't do it," she sobbed softly, "I'm not like you Isha. I'm not strong. I can't marry my drunken bastard of a father. I can't live like that for a year, for a month, for a single night, not even for you. Mur'kula take me I'm such a coward, but I just can't do it."
Isha took a step forwards, dropping the knife as she saw Ayara's fingers tighten reflexively on the trigger. Two steps, then three, then she was hugging her friend and the two of them broke into tears together.
"I'm sorry," Isha said, over, and over again, "I just want to save you."
Ayara laughed bitterly through her tears, keeping her arm straight, wrapping the smaller girl in her other arm. "Isha, my little sister, my keeper, my guardian, my friend. All I want is to save you too."
Isha cried into Ayara's shoulder, squeezing her tightly, "h-heretic," she sobbed.
Ayara laughed again, then they both laughed and cried, and held one another.
"Daughters," Djanette's voice was soft but firm, "we do not have much time, ironic as that statement may now seem. Response teams are on their way and I cannot hold this cycle open forever, even a few more minutes is beyond my limit."
Both girls turned, Isha staring hatefully, Ayara staring with calm acceptance, both taking deep, calming breaths.
"Promise me," Ayara spoke to Djanette, one arm wrapped around Isha's smaller, clinging form protectively, "promise me you won't kill her." She spoke firmly, "promise me before Mur'kula that you will help her, even if she doesn't believe."
Djanette pursed her lips, "I cannot allow a single individual to potentially bring ruin upon us all."
"You said she is Jaagrt, that which I have dreamed of and prayed for my whole life, and it has been given to her." Ayara replied, "you said it was a holy thing, a special mark of acceptance of being close to Mur'kula, of sharing the true soul to wake from sleep and find the true tentare in life instead of in death."
Djanette nodded slowly, "these things are true child, but—"
"Then save her for my sake, for Mur'kula's sake, there must be a reason why she was chosen. Promise me. Remembering or not I'll never be at peace to find the true tentare knowing it was at the cost of my best friend's life."
Djanette nodded slowly, "it will be up to her," she said simply, "if she wishes to live then many hard things must take place and the first will be hardest of all."