Knights of the Imperium (Warhammer 40,000) by Graham McNeill

Author:Graham McNeill [McNeill, Graham]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2014-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Saints

‘You’ve been looking for me. Asking lots of questions.’

Cordelia paused by the door to the chamber she shared with Roland. The voice wasn’t one she’d heard before, but she knew to whom it belonged and managed to hide her surprise.

‘How did you get in here?’ she asked. ‘We have security measures in place.’

‘Not in any meaningful way.’

Cordelia turned to see a robed figure standing by the corner she had just turned. Black and without visible markings, only a hint of ceramic beneath his hood and the soft glow of a single ocular implant. Subtle, unlike most of his kind.

‘Adept Nemonix, I presume?’

‘Lady Cordelia,’ he said, and she didn’t miss that he hadn’t answered her question.

‘Adept Nemonix?’ she asked again, and she sensed his amusement.

‘Would it make you feel better if I said yes?’

‘It would.’

‘Then that is my current designation,’ said Nemonix, slippery as a Raisan tree-serpent.

Cordelia opened the door and beckoned him within. ‘You’ll join me? I have just sent for some hot tisane.’

‘Thank you, Lady Cordelia, I will join you, but I’m afraid I’ll have to decline the drink,’ said Nemonix.

Cordelia swept into her chambers, a modestly appointed suite of rooms with three receiving rooms, a sleeping area and an expansive dining space. She reached up and pressed a concealed stud on her bejewelled choker, activating the hidden picters and vox-thieves the house lifewards had installed.

Whatever passed between her and Nemonix would be recorded.

Cordelia took herself over to a seat beneath a long mural. Its colours had faded over the centuries since its creation, but it was still an impressive piece of work.

‘The earliest days of Vondrak,’ said Nemonix, taking the seat opposite Cordelia and framing himself nicely in the viewfinder of the picter concealed in the bust of a long-dead ancestor of Lord Ohden. ‘Typical of similar artworks you’ll find on any number of Imperial worlds – heavy on symbolism and idealism, light on details that likely match the moment.’

‘I notice the Mechanicus feature heavily in it,’ said Cordelia. ‘A case of history being written by the victors?’

‘Perhaps,’ agreed Nemonix.

‘Is that what you hope to do with House Cadmus? Rewrite our history?’

‘I don’t follow, Lady Cordelia.’

‘Of course you do,’ she said. ‘You are clearly not a foolish man, nor, I suspect, are you one given to wasting time, so I must presume you have come here to make me an offer like the one you made to Cassia.’

‘She told you of that?’

‘As you knew she would.’

Nemonix chuckled. ‘Yes, it was a statistical certainty she would speak of our conversation. Call it a declaration of intent, if you will. But, no, I’m not here to make an offer.’

‘Then shall I tell you why I think you’re here?’

Nemonix spread his arms wide. ‘Please do.’

‘The Mechanicus wants House Cadmus back in the bosom of the Red Planet, but if that’s not going to happen then you’ll happily see us destroyed.’

Nemonix didn’t answer, but Cordelia didn’t indulge the fantasy that she’d outmanoeuvred him.

The black-robed adept nodded. ‘If, for the moment, we assume

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