She was in chaos.
Color swirled around her, while screams raked across her skin. Her own screams she realized. Each one ripped from the very core of her being. She was blind with the clashing waves of it. She was lost and there was no way out. No way home. She reached out in every direction at once, trying to find something. But nothing existed in this maelstrom, but her and her own screams and sobs. Her and him. His burning eyes were everywhere. "I will find you, Simone." His voice burrowed into her head and pain raged through her. "Sweet Simone, we are just alike." His words pulsed through her. She tried desperately to push it, him, away. But it pressed against her violating every part of her.
Then it was gone.
It his place she heard another voice. A cool soothing voice, calling her name. She turned listening for it above the roar of chaos."This way, Simone. Come home now…"
She surfaced as if she had been diving in deep deep water. She gasped and breathed, dragging the air into her tortured throat. She opened her eyes. But she was still blind. She floated in perfect silent darkness. A sob escaped her in despair. She called out into the silence, hoping for that voice again. Hoping for something to take her a little further. She saw something.
A shape in the distance, formless and changing. It was so dim. She squinted trying to see. The shape grew closer and clearer. A cacophony of screams rose behind the shapes: the howls of the dying and the damned. Simone struggled to move, to flee. The shapes came closer and began to resolve themselves.
They were tall and sinuous. They moved almost as if they were dancing to some hidden music to horrible for humans to comprehend. Eldar. They surrounded her their grins full of fangs and malice. Not just Eldar but Dark Eldar. She wept and tried to keep them at bay. But they were everywhere, all over her. She screamed like one of the damned on its descent into hell.
Simone sat bolt upright clawing at the sheets that covered her. The cries kept coming as she fought off her imaginary attackers. A gray haired Hospitaller rushed to her side and grabbed her arms, "Inquisitor!" she called, her voice calm and firm. "You are safe now. Settle down." She gently pushed Simone back into the bed, "You are all right, be calm." Simone looked around wild-eyed, "ELDAR" she gasped. "Eldar…" She slumped back her voice fading. The older Hospitaller checked the pressure bandages on Simone's shoulder and hummed a hymn softly as she fussed.
A few seconds later a woman appeared in the doorway, her hair wild from her pillow, an antique inferno pistol in her hand. She was dressed in a simple robe of crimson and white, holding her free hand over her ribs. One could just barely discern the pain that the motion had caused on her stoic face. Katherine's eyes flashed about the room in alarm, "Eldar?"
The Hospitaler turned from one patient to the other, "There are no cursed Eldar here Mother Superior, just an evil dream. And you should be back in your bed not up looking for a fight." She said not unkindly. Katherine inclined her head slightly, feigning indigence, "I rarely go in search of a fight, sister...yet I seem to find them all too often." She lowered the weapon and turned her attention to Simone. "Inquisitor Godschilde, I am Katherine, Canoness of the Order of Saint Magdalena." She gave her a slight nod of the head.
Simone turned bleary eyes to her visitor. Her head was spinning but she made an effort to focus. "Mother Superior." She sat a little straighter as the events of the last few hours came back to her. "I was unaware that you were here on Byzantium."
"Only recently arrived, Inquisitor," Katherine stepped in, placing the weapon on the nightstand. With a sharp look, she dismissed the Hospitaller and walked slowly to the foot of the bed. "We are here for the same purpose...to save Byzantium from the evil that threatens it." Simone felt a chill grasp her heart. She knew that evil now. "Gaius"
"Yes," The Canoness nodded. "And his master...Slaanesh."
"How can he have survived? Every report firmly stated he was mar..." she stopped herself, she refused to honor him with even the thought of martyrdom. "He was dead." She finished.
With a slight grimace, Katherine sat on the foot of the bed, "I was there. I saw him...slaughtered by a Keeper of Secrets." She closed her eyes and pressed the palms of her hands against them, as though she could drive away the memory of the fountain of blood that had poured from his throat as he had been eviscerated. "But his black soul must have been embraced by the Daemon of Sin...and he was given a new life...in its service."
Simone winced when Katherine spoke of the horror that killed Gaius. She felt something slippery twist in her gut. At first she assumed that her reaction was to the thought of Slaanesh but it wasn't. She frowned and listened to her mind. 'Keeper of Secrets' then the twist of wrongness. She looked up at Katherine after a long pause, "You…were there…" she squinted slightly as she watched the other woman.
"Yes," She nodded, "But I am more concerned with the present. The cult of Slaanesh seems to be wide spread, including examples from the full strata of Byzantine society. We must act decisively if Byzantium is not to fall." Katherine ran her fingers through her hair, "My commandery is in route here as we speak. They should arrive in a month's time, so until then we must use what resources we have available."
Simone let the wrongness pass. But it would not be forgotten. "And what of the Sisters here, Mother Superior? Where are they?" "I tried to contact them before the attack on the Pompeii estate. However they did not respond to the summons."
"They were unable to answer that summons, Inquisitor..." Katherine sighed deeply, looking away. "Many of them were martyred in a surprise attack on the convent. The rest...were taken captive."
Simone startled a bit. An attack on the convent?! "How was that even possible? The Sororitas attacked in their own convent?" her outrage plain on her face.
"Betrayal, Godschilde," Katherine spat venomously. "Betrayed by corruption within this very Cathedral."
"The Bishop." Simone made the connection. "You will be happy to know that the Bishop Maecia made his peace with the Emperor before he was ushered into that embrace." She struggled to be pleased that another soul had gone to the Emperor's mighty presence
"We have precious few of us left," Katherine said. "Perhaps two dozen Soroitas and three dozen half-trained Acolytes." She shook her head, "I could raise more, perhaps...Acolytes...children."
Simone remembered the female daemons at the estate. They had been wearing armor that was a perversion of the Sister's vestments hadn't they? The missing Sisters she surmised. Changed by Slaanesh's corruption. Simone's heart broke a little for the lost Sisters. No one deserved such a fate. "As brave as your order is, Mother Superior, more will be needed then just the Sisters of Battle." She pushed the crisp white sheets away and struggled to her feet. She swayed dangerously for a moment but recovered. "There is a detachment of Grey Knights here and the ranks of the Arbites." That reminded her she needed to learn the outcome of the Knights battle with the monster Gaius had called up. And Malachi and Clayborn. "We may need more reinforcements then your Sororitas can provide." She pulled open the small chest where she hoped there would be a robe or even better her own clothes.
"The Byzantium Legions are considered some of the finest troops of the Imperial Guard," Katherine added. "If the Inquisition needs a hammer, they are the sledge of righteousness. In comparison, the Sisters are the scalpel sent to surgically remove the unclean." She considered for a moment, then inclined her head. "Perhaps the Adeptus Astartes? I know of two commanders in the Ultramarines and the Black Templar's who may be able to come to our aid."
Simone said a silent prayer of thanks as she pulled a robe from the chest and shrugged it awkwardly over her injured shoulder. "Yes, Marines. I do believe that they will be needed. I don't wish to play any more games with this." She turned back to Katherine, "I have a feeling that things may get worse before they get better."
"They usually do," Katherine sighed under her breath. She eyed the Inquisitor surreptitiously as she dressed. Inwardly, she wondered about the Inquisitor and her quality. Was this the woman capable of leading the defense against Gaius and his devotees? Was she the hand that Katherine desperately wished to wield the weapon that was the Adeptus Sororitas? Or...would she find that weapon flawed and have it destroyed?
Simone closed her eyes briefly as a wave of vertigo swept over her. She suddenly saw a room of young girls dressing in the paler colors of the trainee. They were nervous but excited. Untried and so young. Too young for what they were sent to do. For what was asked of them. Simone faltered and grabbed the edge of the bedside table to stay upright. "They are too young, far too young. Their training is incomplete…" she trailed off, then her eyes snapped open and drilled into Katherine's. "They are too young, just children…"
Katherine watched her curiously, "Inquisitor? Are you alright?" Her eyes widened slightly, Of course, Harodiah said that Gaius had opened her latent psychic powers...
Simone pressed a hand to her forehead, "Yes, of course." but the feeling of wrongness was back and hammering at her brain. "What is the Convent's main work here on Byzantium, Sister?" She asked trying for a mild tone.
"The same as any convent anywhere," Katherine answered cautiously. "To serve as the arms militant of the Ecclesiarchy. To hunt and destroy the heretic, the mutant, and the rogue psychic."
Simone shuddered at the mention of psychic. Benediction she fiercely reminded herself but nausea rolled in her stomach just the same. "And teach the girls who will become Sisters. There is a training program, right?"
"The Order of Saint Magdalena maintains a training facility on each world it has a convent on...however they are trained at a separate facility...to ensure their isolation, purity, and safety." Katherine replied.
"Their safety?" Simone asked incredulous. "You used children to attack the estate." she eased back down to the bed to stop herself from pacing. "Why did you not call on the Arbite forces? Or answer my own summons before you threw those girls into the furnace?" She shook her head, "We could have helped. We could have helped you."
Katherine stood quickly, instantly regretting it as pain lanced through her side. She internalized the pain, and it fueled her anger as she stood before the Inquisitor, "Two hundred and fifty of my fellow sisters had just been killed or disappeared, betrayed by those within the Ecclesiarchy we serve! Do you think I would bring them into their clutches as well?" She gestured broadly to indicate the Cathedral, "Until I knew the Ecclesiarchy was free of corruption, I used my discretion to engage the enemy on my own."
"What evidence of corruption do you hold against the Arbites?" Simone asked quickly matching Katherine's heat.
"I avoided the Arbites out of caution," Katherine replied. "If the priests of the Ecclesiarchy could be turned, so could they. Without knowing who in the Arbites could be trusted, it was best to trust no one."
"So you had no evidence but your own paranoia?"
"I had two hundred and fifty dead or missing sisters as proof!" Katherine fumed. "That was all I needed."
"But some of your Sisters had been corrupted. Changed into horrors of Slaanesh." Simone's gaze held Katherine's. "If some of the Sororitas were corrupted then by your reasoning I should not trust you and should lock you away just in case you are tainted as well." Simone stood unable to help herself, and begun to pace. "By your reasoning I must trust no one but my own self. After all, Slaanesh has touched many of our own people. Why, I can't call the marines we spoke of. Because, well Marines have been taken over in the past." She gripped her arms tight to her thin chest; "In fact I had better incarcerate my self, since Gaius so easily over powered me..."
Katherine was silenced for a moment, staring at the Inquisitor. After a few tense moments she straightened with a hand on her ribs, "Very well, Inquisitor. Then let us earn each other's trust. The sisters that remain are in your hands. What would the Ordo Hereticus ask of the Order of Saint Magdalena?"
Simone hoped that she had gotten through to the Canoness, she needed Katherine to be clear headed not giving in to paranoia. "I appreciate your contacts with the Marines, I know they will be a valuable asset." Simone took a breath and swallowed her pride. "And I will need your expertise in Battle, Sister. My own strengths lie elsewhere."
"We all serve the Emperor in our way, Inquisitor," Katherine said evenly. "We sisters exist to fight for you, the weapon welded by your righteous hand. I am a soldier, Inquisitor, and the subtleties of mundane life is a mystery to me. We Sororitas require the guidance of the Ordo Hereticus. You find them, and we will purify them."
"Then we are in agreement, Mother Superior." Simone let a small smile tug at the corners of her lips. "Between us, Byzantium will be cleansed."
Katherine walked down the Cathedral corridor, arms folded inside her robes, clutched against her ribs. The wound there, caused by a wicked blade wielded by a friend long loved and trusted, ached with each step. White bandages were wrapped about her head to seal away the injury there from the neural whip. She knew the Emperor had been watching over her, as that battle could very well have gone the other way. Rebecca had always been the finest of the order, a Seraph, then Palatine, then Canoness of her own Commandery.
And now she was serving the corruption of Chaos.
She shook her head, glowering darkly. It hurt that she had lost so many of the Commandery to martyrdom or seduction to the service of the Chaos God of Pain and Pleasure. The many youthful Acolytes slain in battle against their great enemy pained her. But the betrayal of Rebecca had wounded her more than the whip or blade.
"She doesn't trust you, Mother Superior," Harodiah's ghostly voice drifted up to her from behind.
"Inquisitor Godschilde?" Katherine asked, not bothering to glance over her shoulder at the penitent psychic that followed her. "We have given her little reason to, I suppose." She continued down the corridor in silence for a few moments before asking, "You've been in her head, Haordiah…what is your impression of her?"
"I only helped organize her thoughts under the strain of her latent powers activating…I did not delve deeply into her mind, and it would have been wrong for a lowly penitent such as myself to invade the mind of an Inquisitor," She replied quietly. After a few seconds she added, "She is pious, I can say that. She believes what she does is right."
"Cold comfort, so did Gaius," Katherine murmured angrily. The former Inquisitor had justified his lunacies in various ways, believing his deeds and methods were righteous. "What do you think she would do with Bethany and her 'priestesses'? And by extension, the Order?"
"Her initial reaction would be to put them to the torch," Harodiah said without hesitation. "But she is a woman…and a woman of faith. It's possible that she could be moved by a well-defended argument…such as the one that moved you."
This time Katherine did look over her shoulder at the bald Repentia following her. Katherine had not condemned sister Bethany for her disregard for Ecclesiastic doctrine by declaring herself a priestess of the Emperor. Worse, she had taught other women the gospels and made them priestesses as well. Katherine loved the Emperor more than life itself, but she found herself wondering if every rule and regulation of the Ecclesiarchy was just. Why should the women of the Adeptus Sororitas, who loved the Emperor in ways no man could fathom, not be made priestesses? Because some rule stated only those crafted in his image could be priests? Only men? Blasphemous as it might be to say, but Katherine had no doubt the sisters devotion to the Emperor was greater than any man's. He was their father, their lover, their husband, and their son.
She chose not to answer the psychic as they reached the armored door. To Inquisitional Stormtroopers stood guard at the doorway to the Astropath chambers. The powerful psychics were critical to the proper governing of the Imperium, as they were the only method of faster-than-light communications. Without them, the Imperium would be impossible to maintain. Harodiah stepped to the side as they approached while Katherine showed the soldiers her credentials. After a thorough examination of her papers, they waved her inside.
Within was a small chamber, well lit by chandeliers, with a large desk dominating the room. A scribe of the Oder Dialogus was there, busy scribbling on a roll of velum with a fountain pen. She looked up over octagonal glasses without a word. The Canoness presented a folded piece of paper, "I require this be sent to Brother-Captain Thale of the Ultramarines, Brother-Captain Jorn of the Black templars, and Colonel-Commissar Lazarus of the Cadian Imperial Guard." She handed the paper to the scribe, "The highest urgency of the Ordo Hereticus."
The scribe set the paper down and unfolded it carefully.
Most worthy servants of the Emperor
I write to you in grave warning of a great peril to you and your fellows. Our adversary from the Thunderfall campaign has returned. It would seem that reports of his death are grossly inaccurate. He has returned to haunt Byzantium Nova. I am here now, opposing his machinations. I send you this warning, that he may seek vengeance against you. Beware. I pray to the Emperor that you are well and continue to serve Him.
Canoness Katherine, Order of Saint Magdalena