[Warhammer 40K - The Horus Heresy 10] - Tales of Heresy by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Military Fiction, Science Fiction, Warhammer 40K
ISBN: 9781844166831
Publisher: The Black Library
Published: 2009-03-30T22:00:00+00:00

THE VOICE

James Swallow

IN SILENCE, ONLY truth remains.

But to find it; ah, there is the task. For, one must ask herself, what place is truly silent? Where can the absolute stillness of tranquillity be found?

The question was a common one placed to novices at the very start of their induction, and it was a rare aspirant who showed the wisdom to come even close to the correct answer.

Many would look to the stars, through the portals of the great ebon-hulled craft they found themselves aboard, and they would point to the void. Out there, they would say. In the airless dark, there is silence. No atmosphere to carry the vibrations of sound, no passage there for voice nor song nor shout nor scream. The void is silence, they would say.

And they would be corrected. For even where there is no air to breathe, there is still clamour, the… chaos, as it were. Even there, broadcast across wavelengths that unaugmented humans could not perceive, there was the riot of cosmic radiation and the constant rumble of the universe’s great stellar engines as it turned and aged. Even darkness itself had a sound, if one had the ears with which to hear it.

So then. The question again. Where is silence?

Here. Leilani Mollitas mouthed the words, her voice stilled. It is here, within me. She touched her chest with both hands, palms flat and blades of fingers extended, thumbs crossed in the shape of the great Aquila. Inside her thoughts, behind her closed eyes, beyond the rush of blood in her veins, the novice strained to listen and find the tranquillity of self; for it was only within the human heart that the absolute purity of silence could be found, the peace that only the mute could know.

A frown grew upon her pale, pleasant face. She could not reach it. Even as that thought formed in Leilani’s mind, she knew she was lost to the moment. The perfect embrace of serenity faded from her and she allowed a breath to escape her lips.

In the flat hush of the sanctum the noise of her exhalation was like the rush of a wave breaking against a shore, and she felt her cheeks colour slightly. Her eyes snapped open and she blinked, displeased with herself.

Her mentor stood a few feet away, observing her with the same perpetually watchful air that was the very meter of her character. The other woman moved her head slightly, the top-knot of purple-black hair about her otherwise shorn scalp shifting to pool on the shoulders of her golden battle-bodice. Below the flexible duty armour, reinforced red thigh-boots and studded gloves covered her limbs, with more plate metal for her sleeves and a snake-skin of dense mail as leggings. Tabards hung free from her waist and she was without weapons, her helmet or the finery of her furred combat cloak.

Amendera Kendel of the Storm Dagger cadre, Oblivion Knight and Sister of Silence, stood before her without a sound. Her amber eyes betrayed a teacher’s concern for a promising student.

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