Flames.
Wood turning to grey and white powder in the wind, lifted on the hot air.
Fingers curling and twisting in the heat. Eyes bubbling and melting, running down their cheeks like tears. The crying of the survivors dragging their flayed bodies along the floor away from the flames, blinded and deafened.
Unarmed onlookers pleading for mercy from steel angels with fire and hate in their hearts.
It was heaven.
Since they had left the Preceptory, Lisbeth's dreams had changed dramatically. That cold ice-blue landscape was gone, replaced with visions of somewhere familiar. Perhaps it was somewhere she had already been, or perhaps she had created it out of whole cloth. Almost every night, she had the vision of chasing peasants through a forest, firing blasts of white-hot promethium through the clearings.
Tonight, though, she would not dream. In two days' time, they would make landfall, and Lisbeth was going to spend tonight in silent prayer for the souls of her companions and, if necessary, the souls of any innocents on Cekrov who might have to burn to ensure the purity of the holy Imperium. To set herself at ease, though, she had to make a confession, and ask for His grace. Fortunately, there was a Confessor in the room opposite the one she shared with three other Sisters.
Breathe, Dominica.
Confession always made her nervous.
Knock-knock-knock.
Lisbeth exhaled sharply through her nose and slowly pushed open the Confessor's door. "Confessor? Your Grace? Could I trouble you for a moment?"
The Confessor arose at the sound, exiting his cross-legged meditation upon his bed. The aged man quickly looked at his dataslate to see what time it was before ramming his hat on his head. Not bothering to put anything over his sleepwear save a pair of slippers he pressed the rune beside the door to open it. "What is it Sister?" Horacio asked, full of vigour despite the purple bags under his eyes indicating weariness.
"There is something I wish to discuss with you. Something sensitive."
Horacio poked his head out of the hallway and looked left and right conspiratorially, before ushering the girl in and pushing the rune that would active the blast-shielding once the door closed. Coincidentally, it would make the room sound-proofed and at least marginally more private... not to mention it would mean no escape should the words spoken be dire.
Lisbeth closed the door behind her, before kneeling in front of the Confessor, hands idly toying with the heavy rope of chaplets around her shoulders. "I think I might...I don't know," she sighed, before looking up at the Confessor's fur-framed face. "
Horacio pulled at a wooden stool for the Sister to sit on in the crammed quarters as he himself sat on his bed. Clearly something ailed the mind of Lisbeth. What was done on their last operation was not... savoury to say the least and some of the unncessary sadism still echoed in his mind. But that was the past, which mattered far less. "Sister, I don't mean to be blunt, but whatever is troubling you is best released quickly. The longer you keep it inside the more it will fester and hurt you. If you can speak it not with words then express it in some other way. But you're not the first pained mind I have seen and as a Confessor I am sure you know they are many." With that the Confessor gave a final sigh, his age dried lips tight but his milky grey eyes sympathetic.
Lisbeth swallowed, breathed hard, and spoke honestly, as she had been conditioned to do. "I have been hearing His voice for a long time, but since we returned from Athega Tertius, He has sent dreams. Uncomfortable dreams. In my dreams, I have failed Him somehow, and the ghosts of my Sisters surround me. They tell me how I have failed them. The people of Athega Tertius, too - everyone I've failed." Lisbeth began to bite on the inside of her cheek to hold herself together. "And then I burn them. After the fires die down, a black entity, shaped like a man but...wrong comes for me. Each night, I wake as it kills me."
The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth as she broke the skin inside her mouth. No matter. Suffering brings us closer to Him. "I do not know what it means. His presence has always been a comfort before, but now...I don't know." Lisbeth looked up, plaintively, like a child before a trusted mentor. "Is this punishment for my failures on Athega, or...or is it punishment for failures yet to come?"
The Confessor listened to the woman recount her dreams, the story of what she saw. He scratched his balding head with his right hand at the climax, whilst his left offered a cloth to the girl to wipe her lips with.
He leaned back on his head, wiping the oil and sweat off of his face with his palms. "You should have come to me with this earlier, Sister. The Custodians, the Chaplains of the Black Templars and Fire Angels and Red Scorpions, even they rarely suggest a dream of Him speaking to them. This figure is no holy face, he was never your friend."
Horacio paused, fingers crossed in prayer for insight. He looked up again, smiling. "But rejoice. For all in his flock there is a solution, a path away from every plight. This day - when you go to sleep - you will be attended. I or another sage figure of your choice will be beside you. In sleep we shall pray for your soul, we shall hold your hand to guide you and wake you if needed. We shall give you the most blessed of arms we can to clutch in your rest. In these dreams, you will turn to your sisters and tell them that for your sins real or imaginary, though they may be unredeemed you are repentant. When at last this... This dark man comes forth, he will not kill you. No, No! You will raise firearm, blade, bludgeon, tooth and claw. You my lass, will kill him. You have come a long way Sister, in many respects you are stronger in mind than I, and certainly in body. You will do this, you hear? You will beat this daemon, and show your holiness!"
"From the Emperor's mouth, to your lips, to my ears, Confessor."
Permanence was dismantled and received oils and unguents dispensed by one of the tech-servitors in the bowels of the vessel, with flickering glow-bulbs casting long shadows from behind swinging chains and metal frames. As she worked, Lisbeth chanted the rites of preparation and made promises to the machine spirits to serve them properly, a skull-servitor floating above her shoulder casting a bright orange light over the work bench.
Bzzt. EXCUSE. ME. An electronic voice whined behind the Sister Militant, a track-wheeled servitor with a pair of mechanical gripping claws speaking through a large, crude vox-unit in what was once it's neck. MASTER. AT. ARMS. ASKED. TO. PRESENT. THIS. The claws groaned and whirred as they rotated and opened up, presenting a heavy sabre with a thick, dusty blade and a dull brass grip. Gently taking the sword in hand, Lisbeth blew away a little of the dust, her eyes catching thinly engraving script down the middle of the blade.
From the hearts of those who have given their lives for the Imperium; into the hearts of the enemies of Man.
“Whose blade is this, servitor?”
UNKNOWN.
“Unknown? Do you have no records?”
CORRECT.
A blade presented from a humble servant, with no record available of it’s history? A more sceptical woman would have become suspicious, but Lisbeth was a zealot, through and through, and she knew that the Emperor’s hand was at work in this. “Does this blade have a name, servitor?”
UNKNOWN.
“Well, that won’t do,” joked Lisbeth, briefly laughing before she caught herself and steadied herself again. “I think I have a name that will, servitor.” The servitor stared blankly with dead yellow eyes. “Yes, that will do.”
---
Lisbeth did not dream that night.
She did not dream because she did not sleep.
She stayed for some time at the workstation, cleaning the sabre and polishing it to a fine sheen, and completing another round of prayers to the machine spirits. Lisbeth understood that guns had machine spirits – that much was clear – but inanimate swords? Unless she had missed something, there was no moving mechanical parts within the weapon, no hidden button to activate a power node she had missed; it was a simple object.
“Your understanding is not required, only your faith.”
When she finally made it to her bunk, some hours after she had planned to, Permanence and the new sword strapped to her sides, her armour felt heavy around her small limbs, and more than anything at that minute she wanted to give way to her fatigue and fall asleep, but she had her instructions. No sleep without the Confessor present. Lisbeth hesitated for a minute, fighting the urge to at least sit down and lie that she wouldn’t fall asleep – just rest for a moment – before she fought off the grey haze at the edge of her mind and made for the doorway.
"Squad Victorine, assemble! There is trouble afoot, and judgement to deliver, by His will!"
At the sound of Sister-Celestian Victorine’s order, preconditioned responses drilled into Lisbeth’s muscles moved into work, driving her limbs onward through the doorway and out into the hallway. Horacio and Sister-Celestian Victorine were already engaged, while Sister Caroline emerged from the bend at the end of the hall, heavy bolter in tow. At the far end of the hall, figures moved in smoke, alien tongues spouting insults and blasphemy. There was no question of the next course of action.
Sister Dominica grabbed the handle of her new sabre, and sprinted over to her sister's side, hunkering behind a heavy steel crate. "Your orders, Celestian?"
