He smiled to himself at this delicious heresy, wondering if he could work it into a poem without Captain Loken realising, but even as the rebellious thought surfaced, he quashed it. Karkasy knew that his patron was showing his work to the increasingly reclusive Kyril Sindermann. For all his dreariness, Sindermann was no fool when it came to the medium, and he would surely spot any risque references.
In that case, Karkasy would quickly find himself on the next bulk hauler on its way back to Terra, regardless of his Astartes sponsorship.
'So who's that?' he asked Keeler, returning his attention to the new arrival as Tsi Rekh stopped his chanting and bowed towards the newcomer. The warrior in turn raised his long staff in greeting.
Keeler gave him a sidelong glance, looking at him as though he had suddenly sprouted another head.
'Are you serious?' she hissed.
'Never more so, my dear, who is he?'
'That,’ she said proudly, snapping off another pict of the Astartes warrior, 'is Erebus, First Chaplain of the Word Bearers.'
And suddenly, with complete clarity, Ignace Karkasy knew why Captain Loken had wanted him here.
Stepping onto the dusty hardpan of Davin, Karkasy had been reminded of the oppressive heat of Sixty-Three Nineteen. Moving clear of the propwash of the shuttle's atmospheric rotors, he'd half run, half stumbled from beneath its deafening roar with his exquisitely tailored robes flapping around him.
Captain Loken had been waiting for him, resplendent in his armour of pale green and apparently untroubled by the heat or the swirling vortices of dust.
'Thank you for coming at such short notice, Ignace.'
'Not at all, sir,' said Karkasy, shouting over the noise of the shuttle's engines as it lifted off the ground. 'I'm honoured, and not a little surprised, if I'm honest.'
'Don't be. I told you I wanted someone familiar with the truth, didn't I?'
'Yes, sir, indeed you did, sir,’ beamed Karkasy. 'Is that why I'm here now?'
'In a manner of speaking,’ agreed Loken. "You're an inveterate talker, Ignace, but today I need you to listen. Do you understand me?'
'I think so. What do you want to me to listen to?'
'Not what, but who,’
Very well. Who do you want me to listen to?'
'Someone I don't trust,’ said Loken.
THREE
A sheet of glass
A man of fine character
Hidden words
On the day before making planetfall to the surface of Davin, Loken sought out Kyril Sindermann in Archive Chamber Three to return the book he had borrowed from him. He made his way through the dusty stacks and piles of yellowed papers, lethargic globes of weak light bobbing just above head height, his heavy footsteps echoing loudly in the solemn hush. Here and there, a lone scholar clicked through the gloom in a tall stilt chair, but none was his old mentor.
