Alex coughed, sputtering.
Pushed himself upright, bent over as he hacked up liquid from deep in his lungs.
Throne on Terra, this wasn't any less unpleasant the second time!
Then again, he could feel the sudden disappearance of the daemon; they were safe.
Well, assuming that the vile Warp creature couldn't follow them into…
...
Where were they, exactly?
{I was hoping you could tell me.} Fireblade sent. A moment later, and with a faint ping her xenos armor lit up again, casting a gemstone-green glow over their surroundings.
A good-sized room, perhaps twenty paces by ten.
Off to one side, a desk. Behind it, a chair.
And on the wall behind that…
Alex closed his eyes, a heartfelt grin spreading wide across his face at the blessed sight of an Aquila emblazoned wide across the wall. A proper Aquila, with the correct shape and proportions this time. Reassuring in its solid-gold honesty. And—
The grin fell.
Where was he?
That second Gate had definitely been of a kind with the one on the xenos world of Deinar, yet this was clearly some Imperial world!
Red and yellow-gold lights added their colors to the confused mix as Tempo and Beryl followed Fireblade's lead in illuminating their armors.
But the greater brightness did not drive away the shadows of confusion clouding his mind.
For one thing, there was no pool of void-black wraithbone below his feet, only dusty floor-plates.
He climbed upright, bracing one hand on the wall at his side as he straightened. Fingers searched along the wall, feeling for—
And exactly where he expected to find it, the lux-rune next to the doorway activated underneath his touch.
Clear white light burst into the room, drowning out the xenos colors.
This was definitely some sort of office room, but where…?
"Where in Terra's Holy Light are we?" he mused aloud. Well, there was one way to get his approximate bearings, at least. He was no Navigator, but he should at least be able to say which Segmentum they had stumbled into. With a deep breath, he closed his eyes and reached for his Sight. Turning away from the bright-gold glow to one side, so intense that it nearly blinded his inner eye, he—
He froze. That glow was not coming from Fireblade.
He craned his neck, staring up towards one corner where the wall met the ceiling.
WHAT
That was impossible!
He was indeed no Navigator to precisely know his position in the broader galaxy by judging the relative angle and distance to the Astronomican… but he didn't need to be.
Any psyker could estimate distance to such a blindingly-Holy beacon when they were clearly on the same planet as it was, after all.
Holy Terra.
He forced his eyes away from that distant, all-knowing glow, and towards the three loroi.
Three xenos.
On Holy Terra.
His heart froze in abject terror.
When they caught him, the Inquisition weren't going to leave enough of him around to be even worth turning into corpse-starch!
What was he going to do!?
He was standing in an office room, on Holy Terra, in the company of three xenos.
He was doomed.
A corner of his mind shouted out the significance of just how the four of them had arrived upon this world in particular, but it was immediately drowned out by a rising flood of panic.
Family and House influence was not nearly enough to get him out of this; no Writ of—
Wait.
There was one very slim chance...
Pulse pounding in his ears, Alex sprinted past Tempo and threw himself behind the desk. Brushed caked-on dust aside with one sleeve, uncaring as the fine leather worth more than a common voidsman's lifetime earnings grayed.
His other hand yanked open the drawers, one after another.
Filled-out paperwork on ancient parchment crumbled under his questing fingers.
Nothing useful there.
Second drawer, writing implements.
He pulled a pen and inkwell out, slamming them onto the desk.
Third drawer… perfect.
Parchment, empty and untouched. Sacred-wax seal with its holy engraving stamped upon the wrapping held the sheaves together, keeping them fresh and ready.
{You seem to know where we are.} Fireblade sent, now standing opposite him on the other side of the desk. He flinched at her sudden presence. When had she moved?
{Holy Terra. No time.}
He pulled at the cap on the inkwell. It didn't budge, his shaking hands pulling futilely at the stopper.
Fine, then.
He dashed it against the side of the desk, shattering cap and nozzle both while spilling much of the ink against the ancient wood. Wood from an actual, actual tree, by the look of it — worth a king's ransom back on Tallarn.
But in the here and now, merely a useful tool for opening recalcitrant inkwells.
Dipping the pen in the remaining ink, he quickly began to write out what he could.
And immediately tore the aged parchment.
Casting it aside, he pulled out another.
Careful, now.
{'Holy Terra.' That... is your homeworld, is it not?}
{Yes. Very holy. Not a place for xenos.} he replied, mind focused on recalling what he could of the document that he'd seen waved around more than a few times on Bellarmine's officer's mess. By that most unusual of creatures, an Ogryn officer.
Well, 'officer.' Kogg's job had been to use his 'fixin' stick' on the bridge cogitators whenever they malfunctioned and Captain Hamilton did not have time to send for the Tech-priests. Much to the ire of said brothers of the Mechanicus, unsurprisingly. Their strident objections had only barely been kept in check by Kogg's official promotion to bridge officer… and their personal insults held at bay by the piece of paper that that Ogryn proudly displayed whenever asked (and frequently when not asked).
The document that spelled out in neat High Gothic lettering that Kogg was in fact as human as anyone else, and that any tech-priests who said otherwise were 'jus' wrong.'
And if someone could believe that Kogg — all ten feet tall and just-as-many wide of him — was officially 'human,' then surely they could believe that—
Alex glanced up, meeting Fireblade's answering frown.
Blue skin, pointed ears, eyes the wrong shape…
...
Well, it was better than just throwing himself on the mercies of whatever especially-zealous Inquisitors were certain to prowl Holy Terra's own sacred halls!
Sacred halls that he, Alexander Jardin, had profaned with the presence of three xenos.
...
He wrote faster.
His hand scratched against the rough parchment. '...judged Acceptable in His eyes, this being is declared Human and worthy of Life.' There, that was one Writ done.
He signed the paper in Junior-Confessor Eletrius's name, a signature that should hopefully not be possible to verify. He was mostly sure that the Ecclesiarchy did not maintain some central database of the signatures of their sanctified members... or at least, that it would not be searchable within many Solar months. He could well picture the apocalyptic fury of that aged and devout — but most of all, aggressive — Ecclesiarchy official if he ever came to know of it, but Eletrius was safely far away aboard Bellarmine, wherever that voidship had ended up after its duel against the Heretic craft. Where the Confessor's signature on Kogg's paperwork had always been proudly pointed to by the illiterate Ogryn, who boasted that his papers were signed by the 'Empra 'imself!'
Not that anyone had ever been quite bold enough to correct the beaming giant of a man.
Falsifying the signature of an Ecclesiarchy official was a capital crime — would even mean some minor trouble for a junior Rogue Trader like himself — but one that paled in comparison to bringing outright xenos to Holy Terra.
The Inquisition could only execute him once, right?
...best not to answer that.
"Attache Jardin, Pallan Fireblade has explained what seems to be your plan." Tempo spoke quickly, tone clipped but level. "Do you truly believe that it has a chance to—?"
He interrupted the mizol by pressing his freshly-inked Writ of Sanctified Abhumanity into her hand, blowing frantically over its aged surface to cool the ink faster. No wax brick had been found in the desk, but it wasn't like he had a signet ring for it available anyways. "If any human sees you, just display this paper, ink-out. Say aloud '[No speak Gothic.]' That... might work." At least Tempo couldn't read his mind like Fireblade could, to sense just how little he trusted his hastily-written false Writ.
She exchanged a glance with Fireblade, and then turned back to him.
Held his gaze for a few moments, her mouth hardening.
Well then, if Fireblade decided to share with everyone just how un-confident he was feeling, then she could at least also explain that it was their only hope.
"It has to work." he told her, already pulling the next sheet of grox-hide parchment from the dusty drawer.
Now with some practice, he printed out duplicate papers for Fireblade and Beryl even while his mind turned to what his cover story was to be. He could hardly claim not to speak either dialect of Gothic, after all.
Perhaps a House explorer, lost amidst the stars and returning to Terra via a webway gate that he had found along with rediscovered abhumans from a world that he had stumbled upon? That had the advantage of being essentially true — minus the 'abhumans' part — but didn't quite—
His thoughts clattered to a halt, the corner of his mind from earlier surging forth once more to voice its pointed observation of just how the four of them came to be here.
The Webway.
How the feth had that led them here to Holy Terra!? It was a xenos transportation network! One that should, by that ancient Eldar vision, have led to a world populated by—
Well.
That was a question that he really didn't want to look at too closely right now.
But apparently Fireblade did. Her mind whirled with thoughts even more rapidly than did his, but did so with an infuriating, icy calm utterly out of place in this decidedly panic-worthy situation. {The vision did say that the species 'split off' from the ancient loroi was moved through the Deep Gate to another world. And here we have followed that Gate from Deinar straight to your species' homeworld, so—}
{This is not the time for that!} Alex shot a wide-eyed glare at Fireblade, hoping that the near-hysteria which he barely held at bay did not come through in his mind-voice. {It is clearly impossible and false, anyways.}
Hopefully that insistent thought sounded less panicked to her than it felt inside his own mind.
He stood from the desk, holding the last two papers. They would not pass anything more than a cursory inspection, but hopefully whatever Arbites stumbled upon them in what appeared to be a dis-used office block was especially gullible, and—
The door to the room hissed open.
And Alex's heart wilted.
Not Arbites.
Fireblade followed Alex's wide-eyed stare, turning to find an open door.
And standing behind it, an only vaguely loroi-shaped veritable wall of polished-gold armor.
Two warriors stood there, each one armored in bulky and richly-decorated plate.
One was clearly human with her face above the nose left exposed, red hair tied into a plume that rose above her mostly-shaved head.
The other towered over her, much-heavier armor leaving no skin uncovered.
In the shorter warrior's hands, a boxy firearm. In the larger one's grip, some form of… polearm? A halberd of sorts, as bizarre of a choice as that was for a space-faring civilization.
The boxy firearm rose towards them.
And Alex all but dove in front of Fireblade, Beryl and Tempo before any of the loroi could react.
"[Abhumans! Abhumans!]" he shouted in his native tongue, one hand slamming a paper to Beryl's chest while the other waved Fireblade's false-paperwork in front of the two golden warriors.
"[Just a, uh, travel mix-up.]" Alex continued to babble, words pouring out of his mouth as fast as thought. Fireblade found that if she focused, she could understand the meaning of his words by receiving their echo through his thoughts. "[We'll be off just as soon as we, uh, figure out where we are. Just a normal transportation error, you see, and—]"
The golden mountain reached one massive hand forwards, gauntleted fingers as wide as Fireblade's forearm nimbly plucking the thin, fragile-looking paper from Alex's grip.
Holding it up to the flickering light that reached in from the corridor outside — were those candles!?
This world made less and less sense by the solon.
The red-haired warrior shot a brief glance up at Golden Mountain. Not a word was spoken.
The tall, conical helmet dipped, red eye-lenses scanning Alex's hasty forgery.
And raised it out-of-sight.
Candlelight flared, and Alex's mind blazed with horror.
He jumped forwards, hands grasping at the singed shreds of paper drifting down from their incineration. "[No no nononono!]"
Golden Mountain lowered its halberd — which upon closer inspection had some form of firearm welded to the tip.
Fireblade readied her powers. She held no illusions about their chances of survival on the homeworld of the deeply-unpleasant empire that she had become familiar with through Alex's thoughts, but she was loroi.
She would not go down without a fight.
But the Red-haired warrior's hand left her firearm, coming to rest on the armored vambrace of Golden Mountain. Which froze.
All eyes in the room followed her next gesture, pointing to the two scraps of burned paper cupped in Alex's shaking hands.
Surrounded by blackened, burned edges, two near-perfect rectangles of paper survived. On them a few words survived untouched, cleanly visible with the other scrawled words around them neatly excised.
Fireblade could not read the scraps directly, but she felt the meaning through Alex's mind.
'Acceptable'
'worthy of Life.'
Golden Mountain paused, and Red-plume's hand flickered through a rapid sequence of gestures too quickly for Fireblade to follow them all. Palm flat and facing down, rotating back and forth. Then a blur. One finger darting out to tap the singed papers cupped delicately by Alex. Another blur. Then the same finger, rising to point to the ceiling above them.
It meant nothing to Fireblade, and Alex's mind was stuck in a repeating loop of disbelief-awe-terror. Little help from there.
Then in a deep, booming voice Golden Mountain ordered "[You will follow us.]"
It echoed strangely in her skull and yet the meaning came through clearly. She was… hearing the alien's spoken phonemes via her own ears, but also the meaning of the giant's words through Alex's mind?
{The taller warrior instructs that we follow them. Should we?} Fireblade asked Tempo. Her own instincts leaned towards 'yes,' but the situation had possibly just changed from a final-stand in combat to some form of… negotiation, perhaps? Which meant that leadership authority had shifted to Tempo.
{Yes.} replied the mizol, wary yet bemused. {We do not seem to have any better options. We will play for time and see where things go from there.}
Golden Mountain and Red-plume turned and departed.
Fireblade nudged Alex out of his mental haze, all-but-pushing the human ahead of her out of the room.
Two discoveries awaited her in the corridor: The flickering light was indeed coming from a row of large candles lining the corridor walls — and by the stench through her now-opened suit vents, their wax was not a lab-formed chemical — and two more of the towering golden-armored warriors waited off to one direction.
Their bulk thoroughly blocked the corridor over that way, and each was armed with the same bizarre halberd-gun. Perhaps an ancient ceremonial weapon, not meant for actual combat?
No more words were spoken as the four of them followed Golden-mountain and Red-plume through a twisting maze of corridors. The ever-present candlelight glowed dully through the thin haze of smoke that eddied about the high ceilings. Stone walls passed them by, each block precisely cut to the same size… but the edges were worn utterly smooth by the passage of some vast amount of time.
Another puzzling contrast: a pre-modern construction style using stone blocks rather than metal or concrete, yet with each block cut to a precision and regularity only made practical with modern-era machine tools. A deliberate stylistic choice?
Fireblade blinked, shaking her head. She was allowing herself to be distracted by inane thoughts.
{Alex.} she sent.
No response.
{Alex.} she sent much more forcefully, backed up by a telekinetic nudge at the lowest power setting she could manage.
The human stumbled sideways, barely staying on his feet. His shoulder slammed into the wall, yet his hands did not move to brace against the impact. Instead, they continued to cup and shelter the shreds of paper and their surviving words.
{What?} he replied hollowly, his thoughts clearly elsewhere.
{To where are we being led?} That was the first thing she needed to know. {Who are these two warriors,} although 'what' might be the more appropriate thought for the implausible bulk of Golden-mountain {and why do you and they seem to react so to that scrap of paper?}
His thoughts whirled around for several solon. Then {The tall one is a Custodian; he is one of the God-Emperor's own hand-picked companions and demigods. I do not know the shorter one. Nor do I know where we are going... but I suspect the Inquisition or a similar examination. And this?} His fingers twitched as if afraid to grip the fragile papers too strongly. {This... is a sign.}
{A sign of what?} While what she could glimpse of his thoughts on the matter made no sense, at least it implied that he had some idea of what was going on.
{I... don't know. Not exactly.}
So much for that hope.
Alex continued {But it has bought us a reprieve in our judgment, at least for the moment.}
Fireblade grimaced, relaying his less-than-explanatory sendings to Beryl and Tempo.
The listel sent {It is most strange. When we 'moved' from Deinar to the Webway, we appeared within the liquid-form of the Gate there. But when we just now went from the Webway to this 'Terra,' we emerged in a room without any sign of a Gate structure.}
{Perhaps it is different depending on which 'direction' one is traveling? 'Into' or 'out of' the Webway?} Tempo speculated. It wasn't like the three loroi had much else to do at the moment — Alex was lost in his thoughts once more, and somehow Fireblade doubted that even Tempo's skill in speaking could lead to much conversation with the golden-armored warriors around them.
They stepped through another grand doorway, at the top of a long flight of broad stairs.
And then outside, into the night air.
Stars glared down from above, harsher than should be normal from a planet's surface. A thin atmosphere, perhaps?
And after only a few breaths of the cold air, she coughed harshly at the sudden burning in her throat.
A thin and polluted atmosphere.
{What is this place?} she sent to Alex.
{It is Holy Terra.} he repeated his earlier explanation, after his own strangled cough. {The birthplace of Humanity.}
{I can see why your ancestors left.} she tried breathing shallowly — even briefly considered dipping into her suit's small remaining oxygen reserves — as they were led along a narrow alleyway, imposing black walls rising on either side. The alley eventually opened into a massive open courtyard, surrounded on all sides by massive, dimly-lit walls.
{It was… not always like this.} he replied, neck craning back to stare up at the star-lit buildings stretching far above. In less-focused sanzai, he added to himself {That damage looks recent?}
Fireblade tried to follow his gaze, but it was impossible to tell what jagged edges and sharp corners might be from 'damage' rather than from the ludicrously-ornate architectural style that these aliens evidently preferred.
Their guarded procession made a straight-line across the courtyard and towards a truly grand building, whose towering doors swung open at their approach. The frontal façade sported a series of spires atop the roof, each one nearer the center taller than those outside of it. Other spires towered off to each side, connected to the main structure by soaring arched beams.
A military fortress, perhaps? All of the buildings that she could see were lavishly decorated, so it was hard to tell what purpose this one in particular might serve. At least the golden statues that stood proudly outside the edifice, peering out from dozens of shadowy alcoves along the height and breadth of the façade, certainly seemed to be made in the image of warriors.
A small door at the base of the grand structure opened ahead of them, light pouring out onto the worn concrete underfoot.
Correction: a large door. The group trudged towards it for a hundred more solon, and yet it did not grow in apparent size.
Fireblade looked up at the building looming over them once more, now with a greater understanding of its ridiculous scale. It must be thousands of mannal tall, and each statue that glinted in the faint starlight many times life-sized!
Yet she could see the seams between the stone bricks that made up its structure, even from this distance. An ancient structure by its primitive materials, yet built to a scale that no pre-modern civilization could possibly match?
{This building: what is it?} she sent to Alex, putting enough force behind the sanzai to pierce through his whirling, self-recriminating thoughts.
The human raised his head from where he had been staring at his feet.
A twinkling of starlight against the building's front briefly illuminated a massive glass window, on it a painted image of a golden-armored warrior raising a flaming sword in one hand. Heh. In what Fireblade acknowledged as an impressive display of artwork, the alien figure's blazing eyes caught the light and flickered, as if gazing down upon the square below. Watching the irregular procession being marched towards... 'him'? It was difficult to tell on the alien's features, and Alex had said that humans recruited warrior-males...
Alex flinched back, averting his eyes as if unwilling to meet the painting's judging glare. {It is a Grand Cathedral, a most Holy place even upon this most Holy of worlds.}
She nodded. Similar to a Barsam congregation-building, then. Albeit at a scale that even the most crazed devotee of their Prophet would have recognized as an absurd waste of resources. {And that figure, in the glass window?}
{That is the Emperor Himself. He who sits upon the Golden Throne… and who sees all.}
Ah, the current human leader, then. It must be a major project to re-paint such a colossal icon every time a new emperor was appointed. But then again, given the extravagance of building such an unnecessarily-large structure in the first place…
Or perhaps it was instead like some of the older statues in Toridas, depicting the founding leader of the Union rather than Greywind? {Is that your first emperor, or the current one?}
Alex's tumbling thoughts screeched to a halt with such suddenness that Fireblade felt the mental twist. {There is only The Emperor. There has only ever been The Emperor. There will only ever be The Emperor.}
The pure zealotry in his thoughts gave Fireblade pause. ...Best not to point out the obvious contradiction between the claimed age of his civilization and the impossibility of having had a single leader for all that time.
A different topic, then.
{A religious building seems a strange place for a security team to lead us.}
{It is where we are to be judged, more likely.} he responded, thoughts darkening. Alex's fingers curled protectively around the singed scraps of parchment in his hands. {I do not know what trick of a laughing god saw these two scraps of paper survive, but it will not shield us for long. Even a shallow examination will see that you are xenos.}
{It seems an even more strange place for a medical examination.} Fireblade sent, grimacing and glancing aside. She kept her powers at the ready, but the team of towering, golden-armored warriors keeping pace with the four of them made any resistance here seem unwise. Ceremonial weapons or not, those guards would at least raise an alarm… at which point it was three loroi against an entire planet of aliens.
{'Medical examination'?} Fireblade felt Alex's confused eyes on the back of her head. {Thankfully, no. Pray that you never fall into the hands of the Imperium's xenobiologists. At least, not while still alive.}
Before she could answer, the two dots that she had been tracking at each side of the yawning door ahead of them resolved into two alien warriors.
Of all the humans she had seen — already rather more than she would have wished — these two were the least, well, alien. Their midnight-black armor was large but not as bulky as that of the golden warriors, with red and white trim on the cloth draped over their armored shoulders. Boxy firearms sat at their waists, and ornamental swords held in two-handed grips rose in what must be a salute as the group approached.
If it hadn't been for their unnatural skin color, Fireblade could almost have mistaken them for two loroi: blade-wielding warriors of some pre-caste era. Well, that and the way that their short hair — less than shoulder-length — gave the appearance of junior warriors, in odd contrast to the dual inverted lashret-rank symbols on their molded chest-plates. At least the latter made it impossible to mistake them for the strange 'warrior-males' that the humans seemed to have.
Although of course the lashret rank-symbol wouldn't mean the same to an alien, as surprising as such parallel development was.
The two guards glared at the three loroi as they drew level with the door. Brows marked by far more scars than wrinkles darkened over the three functioning eyes that the two aliens boasted between them.
Veteran warriors indeed, then.
Fireblade returned their glare levelly enough, keeping her own visage impassive.
And unsurprisingly, Alex's lowered head rotated to stare at the two human females as the group passed them by. One could hardly expect a male's gaze not to be drawn to such fierce-looking warriors, after all. Hopefully it would at least distract him from his earlier, dark thoughts.
And might distract Fireblade from how the door which had appeared so 'small' compared to the ludicrously-large structure earlier still towered overhead as the group passed underneath it, a recessed stony archway that must be nearly a hundred mannal tall.
The 'corridor' they entered next was large enough to fly multiple shuttles through, side-by-side. Ten pairs of armored boots rang against ancient stone — well, four pairs actually 'rang'; the golden-armored warriors somehow made no sound as they walked, even though their bulky armors must each weigh more than the three loroi put together — the sound echoing along the uncountable number of golden statues lining the walls. Every one a warrior much like the two outside, but each face different. A record of great warriors of the past, perhaps?
Beryl's lighter footsteps accelerated, and she spoke quietly from close at Alex's shoulder "This building is perhaps also a mausoleum? A place of interring the dead?"
Fireblade frowned. {That seems like a most unlikely custom, even for these alien warriors.} One that a few ancient pre-Union clans had practiced, yes, but all other loroi had long recognized that a clean incineration was the only honorable way to send a fallen warrior into history. {What leads you to ask that?}
{All the skulls.} the listel answered simply, although there was a noticeable current of unease under her sending.
Fireblade blinked, following Beryl's raised eyes to the shadowed heights of the walls to either side, just at the edge of the candlelight from below.
Skulls, indeed.
The walls were practically made of them, dancing in-and-out of vision by the flickering illumination.
What must be thousands of empty eye-sockets stared hollowly down at the procession below.
No, tens of thousands: faint starlight filtered in through windows many hundreds of mannal overhead, and by their weak light Fireblade could see that the rows upon rows of skulls — so loroi-like! — reached up even that far.
Her questioning sanzai to Alex dissolved amidst the weight of so much death gazing down at her.
Yet apparently he received her intent well enough. "It is a Cathedral." Alex repeated simply, as if that explained this macabre display.
Tempo spoke aloud "That word in Trade is borrowed from the Barsam; their 'cathedrals' are buildings of light and openness, where Troubadour-diplomats preach the fundamental brotherhood of all sentient life."
"Ah." Alex said, and his utter bafflement echoed through the strange mental link that he shared with Fireblade. "That is… different." The human shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts by manual action. Then, in a measured tone that spoke of him echoing words that had been taught to him many times before, "A true Cathedral is a place of worship, where the innate superiority of the Holy Human Form is venerated. Mostly in the shape of the Emperor as the pinnacle of all that it is to be Human, but also by recognizing the shared identity of all Humans."
He raised his head, candlelight casting sharp shadows over the tendons in his neck, and nodded to the uncountable skulls overhead. "All human souls, from that of the lowliest serf to the highest-born noble, find themselves equal when brought before His Throne after death. Thus the plain imagery of the skull is a reminder of the inevitability of that moment, a recognition that all who are blessed with the proper Human Form are valued in His eyes."
"Interesting." Tempo spoke, although Fireblade knew the mizol well enough to recognize that she was carefully keeping her understandable revulsion at the grim alien imagery out of her voice. Then, with a pointed glance at Fireblade, Tempo added "They look exactly like loroi skulls."
Alex's mouth opened to retort.
Closed.
Opened again.
Then he looked aside, grimacing.
The human was saved from having to say anything more, as the group was herded into a new room. Vast, cavernous, poorly-lit by acrid candlelight… it was an Imperial chamber, that much was easy to see. The smoky gloom overhead disappeared up into darkness, only barely lit by what light filtered through the soaring windows and their emperor-painting.
The loroi and their human were silently ushered by one of the golden-armored warriors towards the single wide bench in the middle of the room. Their guards remained behind, taking station at each side of the door.
Off towards one side of the room, where the benches faced, were three raised daises that each held a lavishly-decorated golden lectern.
And behind those, almost lost amid the visual clutter of the overly-decorated space, three more human warriors glowered down at them. And—
Beryl's confused sanzai blurted out {That cannot be a normal part of their uniform.}
Three humans gazed down at them, each one's head illuminated from behind by an open flaming brazier apparently mounted to the back of her armor. It seemed that even the slightest backwards tilt of their heads would ignite what short-trimmed hair they still somehow had.
Fireblade found herself agreeing with Alex: she really hoped that these aliens were not at all related to the loroi, no matter what the vision showed, what this Webway transit directly to their home-world implied, or how eerily loroi-like they looked.
The humans were insane.
"[This Inquisitio Sanitas is declared In Session.]" boomed the voice of the left-most burning-back warrior. The flames behind her illuminated the large cloth banner hung above her head, which bore an image of a dark-gray ornate drinking cup… inside of which was a pile of flaming skulls.
Rather repetitive, these aliens.
The right-most one spoke next, from underneath a banner showing an armored gauntlet holding aloft a glowing, white plant-bloom of some sort. "[Alexander Jardin, scion of the Family Jardin, member of House Trask, step forwards.]"
Visibly swallowing, Alex left Fireblade's side. {Whatever you do, remain seated and call as little attention to yourselves as possible.} he sent, as forcefully as the clearly-terrified alien could manage.
It seemed that there was little else to do other than watch and observe whatever this strange ceremony would be. Fireblade had a grim idea of where it would inevitably lead — one that she had shared with both Tempo and Beryl — but their final moment of resistance could come later just as well as now.
"[Noble Canonesses, I—]" Alex began, before his words were drowned by the center-most of the three latest humans.
Not by her speech, but by a single raised hand.
A golden — because of course — banner hung above her, emblazoned with a stylized image of a black skeleton.
This third alien did not speak, but instead as soon as Alex had fallen silent she gestured to the left-most of the three.
"[It is for actions appearing in defiance of His Will that you are brought here, and it is by His Sight that you will ultimately be Judged.]" Flaming-skull-cup intoned, her battle-scarred visage glaring down from her raised perch.
Alex wilted, head bowing.
White-flower spoke again next, blue eyes peering out from her unreadable, impassive face. "[Do you claim that your actions are in alignment with His Commandments?]"
Alex's cresting wave of self-loathing washed over her. Yet it passed within solon, replaced by a faint glow of determination… almost lost amidst the desolate wastes of sheer resignation. When he spoke, his voice was frail. "I do so claim."
"And do you also deny infiltrating the Imperial Palace?" Skull-cup asked again. "In concert with your… ludicrously-claimed 'abhumans'?"
"I do not know just how I and my party came to find ourselves within that most Holy place." Alex replied. "We were unexpectedly hurled into the Webway and sought only a way back out."
Fireblade relayed Alex's words and that of the other humans to Beryl and Tempo, frowning. From what she understood of Alex's thoughts, it was most strange indeed for him to mention the alien Webway under these imposing circumstances.
Picking up on her thought, Alex's frantic sending echoed back {I didn't mean to! It just came out of my mouth — I couldn't stop it!}
She blinked, looking up at the three 'Canonesses' now in a new light. A forced speaking of one's thoughts? Perhaps these were akin to alien mizol, then, trained in the art of compelling others to speak the truth?
But to do so with spoken words rather than a simple mental connection, now that was most strange.
"You encountered these abhumans within the Webway?"
Alex stood still for several solon, the muscles in his neck bunching.
Then shook his head. "No." he gasped.
"Then where did you first encounter them, and how did you come to enter the Webway?"
"I—" he began. "I was rescued by them. After my vessel had been attacked by Traitor forces, and I was ejected from the damaged voidship." He took a halting breath. "And we fell into the Webway via an Eldar artifact…" Fireblade felt the answer be wrenched from his lips "on their homeworld."
And by the way that Skull-cup's eyes lit up at that admission, she could see why he had tried to prevent it. "Their 'homeworld,' you say. Then you no longer claim that these are abhumans, whose ancestral homeworld could only rightfully be Holy Terra?"
Alex's mind whited-out with stress, as it fought itself to prevent the next statement from leaving his mouth.
And failed.
"I maintain that claim. They are abhumans."
Skull-cup's right hand curled into a tight, armored fist as she transferred her furious glare to first Fireblade and then the other two loroi.
White-flower leaned forwards, her gaze darting between the loroi as well… although her emotions were unreadable behind the still mask of her face.
And between them both, Skeleton-cloth only narrowed her eyes.
For her part, Fireblade only nodded slightly at Alex's admission to himself. Of a thought that he had denied earlier to Fireblade, but so obviously had realized earlier at the same time as she had.
The vision granted to both of them by that 'aquila' artifact had shown ancient aliens on Deinar. The ancient aliens spoke of an artificial species that they had made, and then split in half. One half-species to remain on Deinar, and the other shipped out via — presumably — the same Webway gate that was later built upon by the loroi to make Stone Watcher Citadel.
And the only visible path leading from that Gate through the Webway had taken them directly here... to Humanity's homeworld.
There was only one likely conclusion that could be drawn from the available data.
"Impossible." Skull-cup stood from her seat, flames flickering and dancing behind her head, and thrust one hand out to point accusingly first at Alex. Then swept it across the three loroi. "The Custodes have already provided us their auspex-scans: these are not abhumans. Their bio-patterns fall far outside of the acceptable degree of deviancy."
"Still, I—" sweat dripped along the back of Alex's neck, and his jaw muscles bunched. "I maintain my claim."
"Then you are twice branded a heret—!" Skull-cup's tirade cut off mid-sentence.
After all, Skeleton-cloth had silently raised her hand once more.
And again, wordlessly gestured for White-flower to speak. "On what arguments do you base this… implausible claim?"
"On a holy Aquila, recovered from their world where it was held and maintained in pristine condition and without desecration." Alex replied.
Both White-flower and Skeleton-cloth creased their brows at that, before the former spoke again "Produce this artifact."
Alex's hand dipped inside his robes — which no longer seemed quite so excessively ornate, now that Fireblade had seen what the rest of his people considered 'reasonable' levels of decoration — and withdrew the Soia artifact that he had pounced on.
The one from a day ago — an eternity ago — on Deinar.
White-flower bent forward over her lectern, one hand extended, palm up.
On hesitant feet, Alex stepped forwards across the intervening distance. Soft footsteps rang loud against the open floor.
He placed the 'Aquila' in her hand, before quickly retreating back to his previous position at a greater distance from the imposing three warriors.
White-flower examined the Soia artifact, turning it over in her hands. Running one wizened thumb over the ancient metal. Even holding it close to her face and sniffing it. Wordlessly, she handed it in turn to Skeleton-cloth who repeated the actions.
For her part, Fireblade stifled an incredulous laugh. Amidst all the formality and overbearing self-righteousness of these clearly-experienced alien warriors, for them to examine the artifact like a trio of infant children handed their first toy blaster…!
Alex's head jerked in her direction, but did not turn all the way. {Don't.}
Unsurprisingly, he felt far more nervous under the circumstances of this… 'interrogation' than any of the loroi did. He was a male after all, and not a warrior. The idea that his life might end in sudden and undeserved violence was simply not as real of a concept to him as it was to those who had spent so many years fighting the ever-encroaching Shells.
And so while his mind and Fireblade's were in agreement on what would happen here in the near future, it seemed that only Alex let it truly bother him. These alien-despising Imperial officials would examine them, they would realize that the loroi were either complete aliens or their 'template species' — Fireblade was uncertain which would offend them more — and then the three loroi and Alex would be sentenced to death.
Not that Fireblade intended to wait quite that long; she and Tempo had been exchanging subconscious plans as to what their opening moves would be in the fight as soon as their sentence was announced. For Fireblade's part, she wanted to see if those burning braziers were indeed hot enough to set the other human warriors on fire, given the proper trajectory of a telekinetic-enhanced throw. Their hair was short, yes, but it should reach the flames with enough 'encouragement.'
It would be a doomed fight, of course, but the only proper death for a warrior at the hands of her foes was in a fight. Not an execution.
Skeleton-cloth held out the Aquila to Skull-cup, who snorted derisively and held up one hand, palm-out in clear refusal. After a simple, calm nod, Skeleton-cloth laid the artifact on the lectern in front of her, the swept-up black-and-white wings of the figure jutting out over the edge of the wooden stand.
She bowed her head over it, crossing her arms across her chest in the same strange gesture that Fireblade had seen Alex do several times over the many nanapi that she had now known him.
It was only now that she realized that the gesture was meant to crudely mimic the holy symbol itself, thumbs hooked like the beaked heads of the aquila, fingers splayed wide like the wings.
Ignoring her comrade, Skull-cup thundered again "The recovery of this artifact is a worthy deed, yes, but a mere patch on the misdeeds you have committed by consorting with these xenos and leading their unclean presence to Holy Terra itself! Intentional or not, you have—!"
The whole room disappeared in a blast of golden light.
Fireblade's hand rose faster than thought, shielding her eyes from the searing brightness beaming down on her from above.
It didn't help.
The glow was just as bright through her arm.
And her pressed-shut eyes.
{Fireblade?} Beryl's worried sanzai came. {What is wrong?}
{You cannot see it?} Fireblade asked, forcing as much of her irritation from her sanzai as she could. She suspected the answer already, and it was not Beryl's fault that these weird mind-things kept happening only to Fireblade.
{What do you see?} Tempo asked, clinically direct.
{A blindingly-bright glow from above, as if from a spotlight.}
{We see nothing; the room remains only dimly-lit.} the mizol replied immediately.
Confirming Fireblade's suspicions. {Unsurprising.} She turned her mind to Alex, brusquely sending {What is this now!?}
No response.
Fireblade shook her head, but the glow persisted.
Eyes slitted against the brightness, she only now realized that no actual pain accompanied the lancing light. No aching in eyes overloaded by the intensity, no dull headache forming between her temples.
Suddenly, a hand grasped hers.
{Fireblade?} Alex now stood above her, staring down with a worried frown. Silhouetted by the light. {Do you feel any pain?} His sanzai hungered anxiously for the answer to such a minor question.
{None.} She responded, and it was not only a warrior's boast. Alex seemed to… 'lessen' the light as it passed through him, somehow. Making it possible for her to see the room once more, if only dimly.
Alex and the three loroi stood in the middle of a searingly-bright beam of light, yet one that cast no shadows elsewhere in the room. No diffraction, no ever-present dust illuminated by the brightness.
She followed the obnoxiously-bright beam upwards as far as she could, enough to discern its source.
The painted-glass image of the alien emperor. Some light outside the building shone through the colored glass, projecting the golden color of his halo down upon the three loroi and their human.
{It is a sign!} Alex's mind thundered ecstatically in hers, as his eyes followed her gaze. {From Him, directly!}
{A good one, I hope?} Fireblade asked, allowing more of her testiness to bleed into her sanzai.
Alex ignored it, unless perhaps he was not yet used enough to this better form of communication to receive its finer details. {It— it makes no sense, but it can only signal His approval!} She caught his mind adding on {Somehow.}
After what must have been sixteen or more solon, the light faded. Fireblade blinked, her eyes refusing to accept that such a bright glare had indeed left no after-image. The dim candle-light of the room returned, not at all washed-out in her vision.
Either way, it left her with a much better view of the three Canonesses arguing.
Well, two.
Skull-cup, red in the face, was bellowing across at White-flower "—a trick! Three xenos, on Holy Terra, arriving by subterfuge and without announcement?"
"'A trick'!?" White-flower retorted, her voice louder than earlier but still subdued compared to the irate thundering of Skull-cup. She waved one armored hand, gesturing to where the shaft of golden light had been only moments before. "Then name exactly what other power you believe could achieve such a feat right here at the side of His Holy Palace, and reveal your lack of faith!"
"It can only be such! We have heard nothing — nothing — by our Holy Auguries for years, and now these—!"
"Enough." Skeleton-cloth finally spoke aloud as she unbowed her head, fingers unlacing from where she had held her prayer-gesture all this time. The other two warriors froze, heads rotating to stare at their comrade. "His Will has been made clear. To doubt it is not our place."
{Fireblade?} Beryl asked, worry tinging her sanzai.
It was only then that Fireblade realized that she had paused in relaying the aliens' conversation to her fellow loroi, too caught up in watching three clearly-veteran warriors bickering as hotly as she had ever seen Stillstorm and Tempo going at each other. Quickly summarizing their ongoing argument, she then carefully banished all doubt from her mind and sent {When we get back to the Union, remind me to ask the doranzer to examine me. I could see my own bones through my flesh, in that light — it would be best to screen for cancer once we return.}
She let her budding hope that they would return glow through her sanzai.
Back in the Canoness's argument, White-flower nodded in clear agreement with Skeleton-cloth. "It is known that He often works through the most…" her eyes darted aside to regard Fireblade coolly, "unlikely of tools."
Fireblade only raised one eyebrow in response.
Which caused the Canoness's eyes to narrow slightly, darting between Fireblade and Alex. She then declared "This Inquisitio Sanitas is hereby declared complete. The findings are—" she turned her head aside, eyeing her fellow alien warriors.
Skeleton-cloth nodded gently.
Skull-cup scowled… but also nodded. Slowly.
"—formally resolved as 'Inconclusive.' Further investigation of the charges is the domain of a higher court." She nodded towards Alex. "Alexander Jardin, you and your… indeterminate abhumans will remain within Sororitas custody pending the formation of a body senior enough to pass proper judgment upon your claims. However, within the walls of this Cathedral, you and yours are free to—"
Her formal words trailed off, as one of the golden-armored 'Custodians' strode over from the room's entrance and walked up next to her. A towering mountain of armor and ceremonial weaponry leaned in, dwarfing the more normal-sized warrior even atop her dais and spoke too quietly for Fireblade to overhear.
But she definitely saw the reactions.
Skull-cup's face paled even as her eyes shot wide in outrage, whirling around to stare incredulously at the golden giant. White-flower's head turned to stare thoughtfully at Fireblade.
Skeleton-cloth only nodded knowingly, with a thin smile.
"It appears that His Intentions are more immediate than that." White-flower said after a few moments, as the Custodian stepped aside. "You are to be taken back within the halls of the Imperial Palace, tonight."
Confusion now shot through the sheer awe that had been radiating from Alex's mind ever since the bright light.
Confusion that only redoubled as White-flower finished with a sharper tone "The Lord Regent wishes to see you. Immediately."