Chapter 5: My Time of Dying

"Uh, your hair—"

"Contact contact contact," Isha's voice cut in over the open channel, "shots fired, three o'clock, I'm hit," she lied, collapsing as the very beating of her heart seemed to shake her whole body. She sucked in great gasping breaths as Abigor and his chock troopers abandoned their ceremonial positions and raced off to the right, away from where she had just witnessed Djanette arriving. "I'm… still in play… got the package… taking exit… going dark."

"Isha wha—"

Isha staggered over to Ayara and grabbed her by the wrist, dragging her off towards the left side of the stage as the scene turned to chaos. Targets, imagined or real, were engaged, the crowd panicked, the cherubs wailed, people died. Isha focused solely on her grip on Ayara's wrist, dragging her friend to the edge of the throne and slamming her fist against one of the servitor-skull amplifiers that looked just slightly different than the others.

The skull receded with a section of the throne, revealing a dark staircase that vanished into blackness. Isha stumbled inside, falling down the first few steps, taking Ayara with her.

The cacophony of sight and sound suddenly vanished as a third figure appeared at the hatchway and sealed it behind them.

"I-Isha?" Ayara pulled herself from her friend's fading grip. "What's going on?"

"It would appear," Djanette commented, her and Isha's own hair lighting the staircase with cold, pale light, "that you have chosen your friends wisely, my daughter."

"Djanette!" Ayara exclaimed, turning to see the old Domus lean against the sealed door and slump to the floor, also breathing hard. Ayara left Isha's panting form and moved to Djanette's side, but the old hag waved her back.

"I'm fine, young one," she said, her voice solid and stable despite her elevated breathing. "Go to your friend, ease her burden, quickly, before she suffers any permanent damage."

Isha heard the sounds of voices, but they seemed so far away. Everything was hot, everything was on fire. Blisters formed beneath the skin of her head and face, skin turned red, the scent of burned flesh lodged itself in her lungs. Then, all at once, a cool calm washed over her like water, the heat eased, her heart slowed, then came the headache and she heard herself cry out and another voice as well, whimpering in her ear, something cool, holding to her, pressing against her forehead. Her vision began to clear once more.

"Ayara?" She weakly raised a hand, but the other girl pushed it back down against her chest.

"Shhhh," Ayara soothed, "just breathe, you're safe, it's ok, it's going to be ok." Ayara's face turned to… someone else… another presence. Isha tried but couldn't crane her neck to see. "What's happening to her?"

"Withdrawal," Djanette, replied, the strain of her own withdrawal evident in her voice, "she is Jaagrt, but only barely awake. Her body is experiences every tentare, every dream, as though the strain and expended energy was real, even though only one tentare is chosen to become the waking real, the dream stresses have real impact on her nervous system. She will be alright, hush now, I know you're confused. Trust me, little Ayara, she is here to help you."

Ayara turned to Isha, confusion on her face, "You are… Jaagrt?"

Isha managed a shrug, "I don't know… anymore…" she breathed, her heart slowing, her skin, cooling, her hair, retreating from white to black in small increments. "I'm sorry…" Isha's tear ducts, cracked from the heat, failed to produce tears as she blinked repeatedly to try and re-water her eyes.

Ayara felt the muzzle of the Hellgun press into her chest and turned to stare down at the weapon as Isha held it against the gap between her chestplate and belt. She turned back to Isha, a small smile on her lips as she nodded.

"You understand," Ayara managed, hugging Isha to her, pressing the weapon further into her abdomen.

"You're not… alone," Isha breathed, hands shaking, voice trembling.

Ayara nodded, tears flowing freely as she alternated between smiling and sobbing, "I know… I know… and I will wait for you. I swear it Isha, I will wait in the final tentare for you to join me, one day."

Isha managed a sad smile as Ayara pulled away and the two girls locked gazes. "H-heretic," Isha croaked, throat dry and sore.

Ayara forced out a laugh and nodded. The two shared a long gaze, both breathing heavily, saying more in their stare than words could express. Finally, Ayara spoke.

"It doesn't have to be you," she whispered.

Isha shook her head, removing her hands from the weapon still wedged between them. She pulled out one of her daggers, expertly slitting the straps on her right gauntlet, exposing the skin and the fresh tattoo beneath. She turned the blade against her flesh and began to cut, deeply, AYARA, across the whole face of the tattoo.

Ayara pulled out her flask, pouring the hard liquor over Isha's arm, causing her to wince. "You'll… get it infected…" Ayara smiled, nearly blinded by her own tears.

Isha just nodded, unable to form words, her left hand closing over the trigger guard. She felt Ayara's own hands close over hers. Her best friend nodded once, and she pulled the trigger, blowing Ayara off of her, cutting her in half in two, neatly cauterized pieces.

Isha found Djanette suddenly standing before her, interposed between her line of sight and Ayara's remains.

"That was a cherished gift," the old hag muttered softly, stooping to pick up Isha's body as though the young Domus and her arbites armor weighed nothing at all. Djanette cradled Isha against her thin frame and began walking down the stairs. "Sleep now," Djanette said, the word seeming to be more command than suggestion. Isha felt her mind following Djanette's command even as the woman removed a grenade from Isha's belt and threw it back up the way they'd come.

"Wake!" The word snapped Isha's eyes open like a slap to the face and she sat up, sucking in a deep breath. Everything was darkness and silence, save for her own breathing. She glanced down, her carapace was gone, as were her weapons, helmet, comm bead.

"I was tired of carrying it," a familiar voice, low and cold echoed from the blackness, "I left it all in a tentare where no one will ever find it, now, pay attention! We don't have time for you to be disoriented. Look at me when I'm talking to you, it's rude not to."

Isha strained her eyes and then the memory of what had happened came crashing back in. She coughed, rolling to her hands and knees, bile threatening to erupt from her stomach as images of the carnage of Ayara's final moments all swirled together inside her.

"Tsk," the voice again, Djanette's voice, "we have much to discuss and precious little time to do it in before the mass murderer you call Lord Marshall decides to tear the city apart looking for you."

Isha swallowed several times, shaking her head. It was cold here, refreshingly cold after feeling like she was burning up before. Her scalp felt raw and hard like seared flesh. Slowly, the world came into focus. Darkness resolved into a long tunnel of perfectly, inhumanly cubical dimensions that vanished outwards in both directions with no seeming end or beginning.

"The Tentares," Isha shuddered.

"Hmph, you say that with such loathing. A true domus child would feel safe and warm here like the embrace of a mother's arms, Mur'kula's embrace. I still shudder to think what sort of logic brought Mur'kula to make you Jaagrt. Yet here we are, you and I, though we stand on opposite sides of belief we still yet sit in the same blank tentare at the mercy and beck of the same Mur'kula. There is humor, or perhaps wisdom there somewhere, but I am old and tired and no longer have enough patience to expend the effort to find it."

Isha swallowed again and stood, her hand touching the side of the tentare hesitantly as she braced her weak legs. "I haven't been outside the protection of the Gellar Field since that day you—"

Djanette spat on the floor, "protection?" she gaffed, "Mur'kula is the only protection there is, child, protection against the warp storm, protection against the eternal scream, protection against the uncertainty of the future. Mur'kula protects us and I protect her, that is my role and I am very very good at it. I awoke as Jaagrt as a child and heard Mur'kula' speaking to me even as a babe. I learned the ways passed down to us by the secret angel. I dedicated my life to keeping Mur'kula safe from the prying and greedy hands of your Imperium. I was chosen to be the Jaagrt, to inherit the responsibility from my great great grandmother, to take her position in death and serve until Mur'kula chose another to replace me and finally allowed my soul and exhausted body to pass into the final tentare and find peace."

Isha shook her head, eyes trying but not quite able to focus on the form of the ancient hag that stood a few feet beyond her. Idly Isha checked the black body-glove she still wore but found that even her hidden knives had been removed.

"Don't preach to me," Isha pushed away from the wall, standing on her own, facing the woman, muscles complaining vehemently as she assumed a defensive posture, "for the sake of Ayara I did what I had to because she was my friend and I loved her. But do not believe that you or any other might sway my faith or move me from the path of the imperial truth. Ayara's faith was her own until death and you will find that mine is not lacking either."

Djanette let out a long sigh, "I feel as though I have little choice, child." She leaned against the wall and for a moment her form seemed to resolve into that of a very frail, very old woman, barely holding on to life. Then it blurred again as she spoke, "there can only ever be one Jaagrt, one who is awake and guides the others who sleep. You yourself saw what happened earlier when your awakened mind was stuck with my own in the possible tentares of the future. It nearly killed you and it severely weakened me, that cannot happen again, such a feedback loop could be the end of the protection from the storm above, the true protection, not some Gellar device, but the full force of Mur'kula's will, dedicated now and forever to holding back the eternal scream when the galaxy was torn and the fabric of reality rent in two."

Isha looked for a rock to use as a projectile but like when she was a child, the tentare was completely smooth, jet-black stone, veins of phase-iron etching slightly darker veins in the already black rock.

"You can keep your religion, your heresies, your stories, your Jaagrt," Isha scowled, resigning herself to having to settle this with her bare hands and finding the odds not in her favor based on what she'd seen the woman accomplish already, if Djanette could even be thought of as a woman anymore or even as a human, a domus.

"That's the problem," Djanette continued as though Isha was an attentive student not potential combatant, "believe what you will, but you and I cannot both be Jaagrt, our wakefulness will compete for the future until it burns us both out and brings ruin upon this whole planet including your precious hive city."

"You could be a good martyr like Ayara chose to be and just off yourself," Isha suggested, "save me the trouble of getting my hands dirty."

Djanettes cold laughter was suddenly behind her as Isha blinked and the image of the old woman vanished. Isha stumbled forward as a gentle push from ice-cold hands sent her sprawling onto the floor.

"I could far more easily end your own life, don't you think?"

Isha rolled to her feet, ignoring the screams of her abused muscles and tender ribs. She cursed, it looked like her odds of winning here were looking to net zero, which… didn't make sense.

"Why am I still alive?"

"Are you complaining, now?"

"It makes no sense that you would save me," Isha countered, "you can't kill me. If you could have you would have, there's no logical reason to keep me alive, you got what you wanted."

Djanette's form seemed to come into focus again and she sat on the floor, legs crossed, black, empty eyes staring up at Isha with cold malice.

"I cannot kill you, you cannot kill me, in fact, if we remain in close proximity then any event that might end either of our lives is likely to set off a chain reaction of intersecting tentares of the future that would result in the destruction of everyone here on Mur'kula, perhaps of Mur'kula herself, though I feel she would likely weather such an event with her typical cold grace."

Isha shook her head, "I don't—"

"Sit!"

Isha felt the word hit her like a sledgehammer and she found herself on the ground, sitting opposite the old hag.

"Now, pay attention, welp, if for no other reason than the fact that your attention now could possibly prevent the destruction of every life on this planet. Surely even you are not so callous as to seek my end at the expense of every loyal imperial citizen on Mur'kula? Isn't that why you got that tattoo?"

Isha stared down at her arm, Ayara's name was written in dried blood over the names of the children who had perished that night. "Alright, speak, but maybe try to use fewer words and less heresy, since we're being civil with one another."

Djanette chuckled, "that seems a reasonable compromise, very well. Since the angels came before the storm and drove the Domus underground, our people have had a deep connection with our world. After the storm came that connection began to manifest in a single domus per several generations that developed into a powerful psyker."

Isha shook her head, "Domus can't become psykers, constant exposure to phase-iron, heavy metal that builds up in our blood, liver, kidneys, probably the reason we don't live more than fifty or sixty years without juvenat intervention. Makes us resistant to all psychic influence, makes us valuable to the inquisition, makes our world valuable."

Djanette stared at her for a long moment, "and you don't see how that theory has been directly contradicted by the events of today, of the past few days, no doubt, as your mind has begun to wake?" Djanette waved a dismissive hand, "I am no scientist, but even I can correlate the obvious as could you if you'd bothered to spend time amongst your own people."

Isha snorted but didn't reply.

"Tell me, which direction," Djanette pointed down both ways of the tentare, "which leads back to the city?"

Isha frowned, "that way," she said, pointing behind her.

"How do you know?"

"I have an excellent sense of direction."

Djanette snorted, "please, I carried you for hours to ensure we were far enough away not to be so easily found, even by other Domus. We are underground, there is no natural light save what our hair sheds that our eyes perceive. There is no magnetic pull to guide a compass. There is hardly even a sense of true up and down with every wall, ceiling, and floor the same smooth stone."

"That's why they call it a sense," Isha stressed the word, "of direction."

Djanette made a frustrated sound, "so why is it that the domus can pass freely through the tentares without being lost but the Shin cannot? Even Abigor never comes here and I am quite sure he too has an excellent sense of direction."

Isha was silent.

"I believe, not based on religion or tradition but simple observation, that every Domus has a natural connection to this place, to Mur'kula, to the planet. We know where we are and we know where to go. The ever shifting never stable tunnels of Mur'kula's flesh do not confuse us because our minds are connected subconsciously to this place that has been our home for thousands of years. Even you cannot deny there must be some level of psychic power at work in that, there is no other explanation that even you who has only ever been into the tentares one time naturally knows where to go to get home."

Isha swallowed, "phase-iron is a perfect psychic insulator," she argued, "I've sat through hundreds of discussions about it as a pretty wall flower while my father negotiated contracts with rogue traders, with the inquisition itself. This fact is indisputable."

Djanette shrugged, "and when two indisputable facts contradict one another, what then?"

Isha's face paled slightly, "the simplest explanation is most often correct… we've developed resistance, to the effect of phase-iron…"

Djanette shrugged, "resistance to it, or perhaps, if I'm permitted to be heretical for a moment, Mur'kula's skin does not insulate us from Mur'kula herself or her influence on our minds, subconscious or otherwise. We've evolved, we've formed a symbiotic relationship with this planet that keeps us safe from the storm above and the wider galaxy. You may imagine that perhaps every domus is a psyker by the crude and broad definitions of the Shin'pervivo you associate with, I do not care. The fact remains, you, and I, are Jaagrt, our latent sleeping minds are awakened and here in this place, we walk the tentares not of stone and real but of time and possible."

Isha shook her head, "I saw things happen, over and over, repeating, but not the same, changing as I changed, shaped by my actions."

"Associated with your own death, or perhaps a strong emotional response, like seeing Ayara die in front of you?"

Isha nodded slowly, "golden throne… am I… a mutant?" She began to tremble and when the slap came, it took her completely by surprise. Isha stared back at Djanette, anger returning to her eyes, her face rubbing the sting out of her cheek.

"Is your mind so narrow that I must literally beat sense into you?" Djanette asked with a shake of her head, "what you are labeled does not matter, what matters is the truth that I spoke when we first sat down. We cannot both be Jaagrt, there cannot be two futures at once at the same place in the same time and yet different. It is a law of the universe that cannot be broken without extremely bad consequences."

Isha swallowed, "so, what? I'm supposed to succeed you and take over as the daemon priest of your stupid cult?"

Djanette rolled her eyes, "even I don't believe that Mur'kula could cause such a change in one so stilted and brainwashed as you."

"And we can't kill one another, at least not directly."

"Or indirectly," Djanette added, "your mind has gone from pursuing multiple futures on reflex alone, to walking the tentares of the future alongside me, someone who has been doing this for hundreds of years, and you kept up with me, for a time. In a moment of weakness, I gave in to Ayara's request not to let you burn out your mind and kill yourself. Now I cannot go back and change that decision. Now there is no way to gauge how much further your connection has developed. Even if I were to retreat to the other side of this world and send my assassins to kill you, there is no way to be sure that the tentares of the future we walk would not collide and cause the catastrophe that it is my duty to prevent."

"So… what?" Isha growled in annoyance, "I have not been privy to your hundreds of years of training and experience. You don't even have to send someone to kill me, if what you're saying is true the next time I accidently… what… dream walk into the future? I'll cause the whole catastrophe all on my own."

Djanette took another deep breath, "again, you answer the question but also miss it completely. You cannot control yourself, but I can. I can refrain from entering into the tentares of the future on purpose and so long as nothing makes an attempt on my life, I will not do so subconsciously either. This leaves us with only one who walks those paths, you. Such is how it should be, how it would be, if I were passing my knowledge and training on to you as my great great grandmother passed it on to me. Yet I do not feel my own life fading and I have no reason to believe that you have been given this gift in order to become my successor."

"Which leaves us with?" Isha asked, her tone doing nothing to hide her impatience.

"You must leave Mur'kula, the planet, immediately." Djanette said simply, "if I am correct then the answer of are you or are you not a psyker is both yes and no and once you've left Mur'kula and passed beyond the storm and into space, your connection to Mur'kula will be gone forever as will your ability to walk the tentares of the future. You will lose your soul and connection to Mur'kula forever."

Isha nodded, "so, that's the warp-shin messed up reasoning you people use to shove the idea that leaving Mur'kula forfeits the soul that causes so many Domus to commit mass suicide every time the guard comes here to tithe the population."

Djanette shrugged, "says the girl who just assisted her own friend in her martyr suicide in order to avoid that very tithe."

Isha bristled and girt her teeth but nodded, "so, I leave. I take the space elevator up to a rogue trader, forfeit my soul, and ride on back down and continue my life as if we'd never had this conversation."

Djanette shook her head, "no, you will leave, and you will not return. Firstly, because I despise you and if in fact you did lose your connection to Mur'kula permanently I would kill you immediately. Second, because carrying out that plan assumes that you believe what my cult believes, that you actually would lose your soul, and because you don't believe that, obviously, you cannot return because you know that doing so might place everyone on the planet at risk once more and as a loyal imperial automaton you won't take that risk."

Isha felt her breath coming in short gasps and worked to slow her breathing and her heartrate, "and why should I believe you about any of this?"

Djanette spread her hands, "you said it yourself; I have no reason not to kill you unless what I say is true and I simply cannot kill you. Neither am I trying to convert you, because honestly, child, I hate you just that much that I'd rather you were just damned and not my problem anymore."

Isha raised an eyebrow, "wow, real talk, heretic. So… what? I'm just supposed to leave and in the meantime, you'll stop using your psychic future shin-crap so that we don't blow a hole in space and time and flood this planet with a new warp storm?"

Djanette rolled her eyes, "in far less dramatic terms, yes. I assume that a daughter of the planetary governor, dedicated, trained, and empowered by the Lord Marshall such as yourself could manage to smuggle one measly person off this planet, even if that person is you."

Isha glowered at her, "if I want to be a fugitive on the run for the rest of my life, sure."

Djanette waved a hand and stood up, Isha mirroring her movement warily. "I don't care how you do it. I don't care about you, at all, in point of fact. Only Mur'kula and my people matter to me. You have seven imperial days, after that I'll risk mixing futures to kill you and just pray to Mur'kula that she burns out your mind before I lose control of mine. And no child, the only reason I haven't done that is not because I'm afraid of the risk. The only reason I haven't done that now, when it's most likely to work and you are still weak, is because it was Mur'kula who made you Jaagrt and if that is her will then I will abide by it and give you this one chance to remain alive. Don't waste it."

"Argh!" Isha kicked at the too perfect, too angled wall of the tentare in frustration. "I can't go to Abigor he'd just start a massive and useless effort to track down and kill Djanette, again! My dad would lock me up and throw away the key, until the Inquisition left and they're due to arrive tomorrow! There isn't…" She went to kick the wall again and it opened up, the lack of impact threw Isha off balance, and she toppled with a startled yelp into the opening and onto a sharply slanted floor.

She began to slide.

She banged against one of the walls as she tried to kick off the other to slow her slide. It wasn't quick, it was simply… inevitable. The ground was impossibly smooth and the grade was just enough that she could slow but not completely stop. In fact, slowing was becoming a chore involving ricocheting painfully off the sides of the tentare not quite close enough together for her to brace herself.

"Emperor of Mankind, full of—" the wind was knocked out of her as the Tentare ended abruptly and then opened in a slightly different direction, the edge of one tentare catching her across the chest as the next opened up and her slide continued.

She cursed, fumbling around her body for a blade but Djanette had been thorough, and her body glove was empty, even her pen and note pad were gone. After another few minutes of struggling which, at one point, ended with her in an uncontrollable roll that slammed her into one of the tentare walls, knocking her head hard enough for her to see stars, she relented, crossing her arms over her chest and lying flat on her back, allowing the mad shifting tunnel to take her wherever it intended to.

Speed picked up, but every time Isha thought she might be approaching a level of decent that would certainly kill her as soon as she hit level ground, the tentare slope would shift and slow. Likewise, anytime she tried to use that opportunity to stop altogether it would shift and become steeper. She gave up when she realized her stitches were bleeding through the bandaging and her medical tape was also not in its usual place.

She closed her eyes and waited. It was with some surprise then, when she hit a patch of level ground, the force not enough to break bone but the change in grade enough to throw her unsuspecting body into a roll. She tucked and covered her head as she bounced once and then rolled hard into a pile of something hard.

Everything was black, so much so that even Isha's Domus eyes could see nothing other than the vague outline of her body in the tiny dip the Domus took into the infra-red spectrum after millennia underground. She stood, catching her breath, and concentrated. In a moment her hair was glowing like a dull white whip and she felt her body temperature drop slightly at the expenditure.

The tentare was like any other, just wider, taller, and… and her breath caught in her throat as she saw the body she'd smacked into, what was left of it. She backed away quickly but found that her entrance had sealed, the wall so smooth that not a trace remained of where the stone passage once was.

"No… no no no… No!" Isha's braid glowed brighter as she pounded on the wall she'd come from, then the opposite wall, "let me out! Let me out of here!" Fear, like a prey animal waking in the den of predators gripped her. It was an unfamiliar feeling, not like combat, not like risking life or death. It was pure. It was terror. The knowledge that there was no fight to be had here, there was no risk to be taken. This was death. This was the final Tentare.

Her eyes turned in horror to see the faded skeleton of Interrogator Reuel, his body seeming to have decayed at an impossibly accelerated rate leaving only a skeleton, a few augmetic implants, and his clothing untouched.

"Why!?" She screamed down the tunnel in the direction she knew, more from the hair that stood up on the back of her neck when she turned that way than any sixth domus sense of direction, was the thing, the final end, the place where those Domus on their Sanskaar went, and were never seen again. "Why bring me here if you're just going to kill me!? Why not just tell Djanette to do it? Why screw with my mind and let me survive everything else? Do you just want to do it yourself!? Huh!?"

Isha grabbed something that had bounced free from the Interrogator when she'd slammed into him and was about to chuck it down the tunnel defiantly when something stopped her. Just as her hand came forward, she saw it out of the corner of her eye and her hand gripped it tightly, refusing to let go even as she carried through with the motion.

"I'm not so… so…" she opened her hand and stared in shock at the object, at once her mind seized with the desire to both drop it and to never let it go at the same time. In front of her, the wall opened into a Tentare. "No…" She shook her head, setting the object down gently and backing away from it, "no no no no no!" Isha moved towards the wall and it sealed before she could reach it.

"Emperor curse you! Bathe in holy fire you fungrox, dung excreting, heretical… dumb… planet warp…!" Nearly a minute passed by the time she'd finished her extensive knowledge of words and phrases she'd heard Abigor use in particularly frustrating circumstances.

That was when the ground opened up and Isha felt a scream rip out of her as she fell, accelerated hard, then came to a sudden, final, stop.

"I'm not so…" Isha sucked in a deep breath, stumbling back against the wall, staring at the object now once again in her hand. She threw it away quickly this time, moving in the opposite direction. "No! I won't do it, it's… no! Kill me all you want; I'm not doing that!"

Mur'kul obliged and so she died, again, and again, and again, sometimes by impalement, sometimes by a cave in, sometimes by falling for minutes at a time during which she came to the conclusion that just giving in would make her escape fairly simple, but that was the easy way out, that was the heresy, always taking the easy— she hit the ground again.

"I'm… not…" she stumbled forward, panting, heart racing, system practically in shock from the repeated bursts of adrenaline, spikes of pain screamed behind her eyes in a migraine of phantom deaths. Her retinas burned, open or closed, her skull felt like it was on fire, her skin crawled with pins and needles. She was breathing, she knew that, but her throat was so raw it had gone numb and there was nothing left in her stomach to vomit up.

After a few minutes of lying there, heaving, she groaned, managing to set the object down beside her and roll halfway away from it. "At this rate… I'll die of dehydration and system shock," she mumbled softly, "and I don't think this future tentare heretical grox crap will keep me alive through that."

This time, nothing happened, and Isha let out a sigh, though she wondered if it was of relief or resignation. She must have passed out, or fallen asleep, because next she knew there was a light shining down on her.

"Oh my," the voice was familiar, and she blinked up into the light, her mouth too dry, tongue to swollen, body in too much pain to do more than slowly bring up a hand to shield her eyes.

"My apologies, child," Father Domund said at once, turning the flame of the ancient promethium lantern down to its lowest sustainable level, "my eyes are not what they once were, and I do have such trouble in the dark." He seemed to pause, stoop over her, squinting in the dim light, and then move to her side and spend a good thirty seconds slowly sitting down.

"Ah," he breathed, relief evident in his voice, "I was told I would have to walk far, but now my walking is over, and this seat I take is one of finality, such sweet relief. These vertebrae of mine would sing out had they mouths to do so."

Isha felt something cool touch her lips as Domund bent over her and she drank reflexively, "drink slowly," Domund cautioned her as she instinctively reached for the bottle, "just because I blessed it this morning doesn't mean it won't still choke you if you're not careful. My… you look worse than I feel, and that's… well that's something let me tell you."

Isha felt the cool liquid flow down her throat, soothing her in ways she had never felt water stir within her before. The emperor's blessing? A hallucination? She closed her eyes, probably just a byproduct of how dehydrated she was. She drank slowly, sat up, and handed the empty container back to the priest.

"Well, I was hoping to not die of dehydration before my time, but I suppose we'll see what gets me first, at least it's a close competition now," he chuckled shaking the few drops of water that remained in the bottle. The chuckle turned into a cough, the cough into a fit, something dark flew from his mouth and stained a large patch of his robe that, assuredly, had once been white but was now off-white, the color of time and age. Then as quickly as the fit had come, it stopped.

"Hmph, thought that one was it," He harumphed with a bit of indignation, "could do with not having to go through more of that, if I do say so myself."

"Wha-what are you doing here?" Isha asked, her vision steady now, mouth feeling new and whole, "are you… you a…"

"What? A heretic? Cultist?" Father Domund laughed and seemed rather perturbed when another coughing fit didn't ensue despite him pausing to wait for it, "no child, but I was born here, in these tunnels, and this morning the blood started, and I knew it was my time. I have no interest in extending my existence, my service has been faithful, such as it was, and after you left, well, I felt that that service was finally paid and over." He shrugged his aged shoulders, back straightening in pride though not managing to fully rid him of his hunched appearance. "Tentares kept opening up, urging me on, my poor feet, my poor back." He shook his head, "I suppose I may as well die as I lived, tired, and aching," another chuckle, another annoyed look as it failed to materialize into a cough.

"Father…" Isha swallowed, looking the old man in the eye, "do you know where we are?"

"Final Tentare, I reckon?" he nodded down in the direction that Isha had purposely turned away from, "I assume that's ol'Mur'kula herself down there, wherever and whatever that means." He glanced at Isha and smiled, "oh don't look so shocked, you young people, everything is so black and white to you. If you're not for the Emperor, then you're…"

"Against," Isha finished, giving the old man a steady stare.

"Emperor's piss, child, have you never had a critical thought of your own in all your few years? Are you able to do or think nothing but what's been parroted to you by… well… by people like me I suppose." His voice trailed for a moment before the strength returned, "Now there's a proper irony for you. I thought that brute of a mentor would have raised you to have a keener mind than that."

"An open mind is—"

"And a closed mind is what gets little girls burnt in their beds by callous, overzealous fools with flamethrowers and narrow world views!" His voice hit Isha like a slap to the face and she looked away. Domund sighed and placed a shaking hand gently on her shoulder, waiting for her to turn back to face him. "Didn't you tell me you were going to learn something from that?" He tapped her wrist where her body glove covered the recent purity seal.

"Yes but—"

"Look girl, I'm going to die, Emperor only knows when!" He turned to the ceiling and shouted that last bit, waited, then sighed heavily and turned back to Isha, "but before I go it looks like I have one more sermon to preach so listen up, child, because I'm tired of talking. I'm tired of… living." He sighed and Isha half caught him as he started to tumble over. She scooted herself up next to him and let him rest his frail and emaciated frame against her.

"The Emperor, Mur'kula," Domund said softly, his voice half a whisper, "who's to say that they're on opposite sides? Mmm? One protects and watches over all of mankind. The other protects and watches over the Domus and really, over all of us on this planet. And is this planet not the Emperor's planet? Are these people not the Emperor's citizens? Are you afraid that this planet is somehow going to rise up and march across the stars to Terra and kick the Emperor's holy ass off the golden throne?"

Isha sucked in a breath as the priest chuckled softly.

"I seem to be reverting to my old ways here at the end," he sighed, settling deeper against her side, "of course not. But there are those who would, those who do, those who are held at bay by the Emperor and his angles and the sweat and blood of his priests, his administrators, his soldiers, his Arbites. Maybe I was sent by the Emperor to talk to you, maybe I was lured by Mur'kula to talk to her, it, whatever." The man took in a shaky, rattling breath and let it out slowly, "the point is, there are levels of heresy, levels of evil, levels upon levels of true and false and Emperor only knows where it all stands at the end. If you burn a man with a flamer for failing to pay his tithe and burn a heretic with a flamer for bowing to the power of chaos, do you not cheapen the Emperor's wrath? Or do you think his wrath burns equally against the tax evader, like your father, and the cults of chaos that Abigor repeatedly stamps out?"

Isha wondered for a moment if Domund had died, but he took another shaky breath after a few seconds and cursed quietly, "Emperor's holy flatulence," he grumbled, "must I stick around to hear her response? Fine. I'll ask her." His milky white eyes, almost completely obscured by cataracts over the years turned to meet Isha's gaze. "I'm here on purpose. What's your excuse?"

"I was both brought here and am being held here against my will," Isha commented dryly, "because I need to get off the planet, and the powers that be," she jerked her thumb in the direction of the thing that lived down here, "want me to use this, and I'm refusing. There's also a whole bit about my not being able to die right now but definitely able to feel pain and be killed over and over again for my refusal, but that story would take longer than the rest of your life, I think."

"Oh, I should hope so," Domund groaned, "I really, really…" he sighed, "don't want to know." He reached out and took the small golden object from Isha's fingers and nodded slowly, "oh my, well that is a thing isn't it."

"So, you get it then," Isha nodded, "we'll both die down here, because I'm not going to take it, it's unfathomable, unforgivable, the very idea is..."

Domund turned the object over in his hands, staring at it from multiple angles with quickly blinking, often squinting eyes. Then he surprised Isha by placing it back in her hand, "it's a shame," he said softly. "I can feel His presence in this tiny object, as if it's been sitting down here for a long time, like an unused tattoo needle, packed away, aching to serve the purpose for which it was created."

"Impersonating a member of the Holy Ordos is—"

"What?" Domund interrupted, "do you plan to use it to march across the galaxy to Holy Terra and kick the Emperor's ass off the golden throne?"

Isha pursed her lips, "no," she said, enunciating very clearly.

"Oh, so you plan to use it to start a cult of others who will march across the galaxy to holly Terran and kick—"

"No! I'd use it to get off world—"

"Because?"

"Because, apparently, and you're stepping dangerously around the pit of falling into having to hear the long version of this story, father, I'm a walking time bomb now, literally, and if I don't get off this planet in seven days… everyone… might… die…" She said, her words slowing as she spoke.

"Oh, so you're equating impersonating a member of the Ordos, Hereticus if I'm not mistaken, with the destruction of one of the Emperor's worlds, not to mention the loss of the rare phase iron, the second and third order effects that not having that phase iron will have on the Ordos Hereticus itself as it no longer has the precious metal to protect its servants and wards, not to mention the loss of life and—"

"I get it!"

"Do you!?" Domund pushed away from her and got shakily to his feet, "because I'm starting to feel better suddenly, and I swear if I was sent down here just to smack such obvious and clear logic through your thick scull I'll return to my parish and burn it to the ground!" He paused and added with equal conviction, "with me inside it!"

Isha stood as well and for a moment neither of them spoke, then Domund chuckled, and Isha found herself chuckling along with him. "Not…" she breathed out, "if I arrest you first for threat of arson against the ecclesiarchy," she felt herself give in to laughing.

They both stopped when Father Domund's cough returned with a vengeance and Isha had to catch him to keep him upright once more.

The man recovered his breath and sighed, "again!?" He wheezed and took Isha's hand away, setting the rosette down in her palm and closing her fingers around it.

"I don't much care what you do at this rate," he shrugged, "I won't be around for it!" With that he straightened his robe, tsked at the growing stain of dried and drying blood on his left sleeve and stood as straight as Isha had ever seen him. "Now, go do something for the good of the imperium and leave me out of it." He began to walk, and Isha stared after him, turning to face the presence of whatever it was down here that her people so revered. Mur'kula?

"What do you plan to do?" No answer, just the tap tap tap of the old priest's cane, each tap seeming slightly more annoyed than the last that it hadn't been the last. "Father?"

"What does it look like?" The man shot back with more power in his voice than Isha had heard their entire conversation. "I'm going to walk until I die, or I end up preaching one last sermon to an Emperor-groxing planet, core-dwelling, warp-spawned, who-knows-whatsit, that's what!"

Isha turned to the wall and took a deep breath, "fine. My soul be damned, fine!" She growled through her teeth and placed the rosette in her breast pocket, "let me out of here you thrice cursed warp spawn, and know this! It wasn't you that convinced me; I've simply decided that it's now by duty to return this object to the inquisition and that requires me to go back to the city." Eventually… she thought to herself, after I'm safely off this planet and somewhere that no one will ever find me.