X - A Question of Authority
- Location
- London, England
The ice cracks, the silence of shock and the world unbalanced falling from your mind like empty shackles, and in its place comes… relief? A soothing balm of calm and self-assurance, quieting the little voice in your mind which worried endlessly at the subject of your own damnation. Ever since you were taken by the Inquisition, since you came to know who and what you were, you have known fear for the fate of your immortal soul. You were a witch, you were a heretic, surely you were bound for the flames of eternal damnation once death finally claimed you.
And yet here you stand, in the presence of a daemon summoned from beyond and bound into servitude by an agent of His Holy Majesty's Imperial Inquisition. That such a deed was conceived and undertaken by an inquisitor, that the very beings in the position to know and understand the full depths of sin and the heights of virtue would do such a thing, outweighs your own crimes by an order of magnitude in any sane world. You do not need to worry, for if you are damned, then so too are the watchmen who claim the right to pass such judgement in the first place.
Such is far from impossible, of course, but how often have you seen this now? One rule for me, another for thee, tools of control and domination masquerading beneath righteousness and proper order? The nobility, the priesthood, every layer of the Imperium rests upon such selective decisions, and now the Inquisition that would stand judgement over them all proves itself to be just another cog in the machine. There is no external authority, no objective measurement by which a man might be called righteous or wicked, only the subjective judgement of men like you. The control is yours again, the chance for a brighter future is yours again, and now… now you just have to decide what to do with it.
"You warned me of Crane's men on the gun decks, it is true," you say, nodding to the demon that stares at you with golden eyes, "but playing one enemy against another means nothing."
"Enemy?" Karnak Zul hisses, tilting its head until the dry flesh of its neck crackles like paper, "We are not enemies. We share enemies. We are friends, united in common interest. Allies."
"I expect you told them much the same," you say grimly, gesturing to the blasted and broken bodies of the original mutineers, scattered across this hold and the hall beyond in the thousands. "Credit me with the wisdom not to make the same mistake."
"The Interrogator, the bird without wings, trapped me here," Zul hisses again, and you think you can see the tip of a forked tongue behind those fire-blackened teeth, "The bargain struck was broken by the action of our foes, not by me."
"A fine excuse, if it is true, but you're banking on trust you simply don't have," you say flatly, because you've heard such deflections before. The last survivor always has a reason why you shouldn't blame them for making it out, and nine times in ten it is a lie. You won't trust this daemon to be the exception, and with that resolve in mind you turn to face the others. "We should kill it, now. Finish the job that Crane started, and find our own way out of here."
Sidhe nods with evident pleasure at that, a slender sword in her hand and a shark's smile on her face, but the others… the others are looking more thoughtful, resistant to your ideas. Nadia is rubbing her jaw, eyes glittering as she weighs up the relative merits of the courses before you, while Bore just makes a strange sort of flapping sound you think is meant to be a tut and shakes his head. Ciro says nothing, does nothing, an emotionless statue that nonetheless draws in the attention of the rest of the group like a whirlpool, until you're all hanging on his decision.
"Lady Black," the angel says at last, his voice low and smooth, a flatterer taking you into his confidence, "what is your assessment of the daemon's current bindings. Are they enough to hold it in place?"
"I would say so," Nadia frowns at the runes on the floor for a moment, folding her arms and chewing her bottom lip, "The lexicon isn't the sort I'm used to, but the basic elements seem similar enough. If I had to make a call… they'll hold it as long as nothing crosses them."
"Crane always was a diligent student," Karnak Zul chuckles wetly, a small bubble of blood forming on its lips and trickling down the chin, "No match for his master, not yet, but diligent and strong of will. Perhaps he will overcome you, even now."
"I see," Ciro says evenly, nodding once, "Everyone, leave the room."
"What?" You step forwards, glancing between the marine and the daemon as though something in their expressions might bring sense to this decision, "You mean…"
Ciro looks at you. He does not glare, does not snarl, does not speak a single word. He simply fixes you with a single level gaze, and just like that the words die in your throat. What do you hope to accomplish, throwing defiance in the face of a man like this? What mad hubris moved you to object to an angel's command? You don't have an answer, and before any conscious thought can form you find your gaze lowering and your feet carrying you from the room, the others following silently in your wake. Ciro watches you go, and a moment later is lost to sight as the bulkhead door slides back into place behind you with a dull thump. Leaving him alone in the room with the daemon, and the rest of you exiled to the corridor like naughty school children.
Why did you obey? You didn't even want to, your reasoning is sound, Ciro owes you at least some kind of consideration but… he just told you to leave, and you did. You hesitate for a moment, trying to sort out your feelings, but wherever your eyes come to rest you find only another corpse, another splatter of blood, another reminder of the brutal tragedy that occured here while you were lost to slumber. Eventually you seek sanctuary in conversation instead.
"This feels like a mistake," you sigh, turning towards Nadia, "doing anything except killing it feels like a mistake. You're the demonologist, tell me how it's not."
You want there to be an answer. You want an explanation that Ciro perceived and you did not, a justification for his decision to exile you all while he handled whatever he seeks to do from your prying eyes. You want the insult, the backhanded dismissal, to stop stinging.
"It could work," Nadia says uncertainly, chewing her lip and letting your hopes fall in the gore at her feet.
"Could isn't a good word to hear, given the consequences of getting it wrong," you snap, gesturing to the broken bodies all around you, and Nadia flinches for a moment before rounding on you with a gleam of fire in her eyes.
"What do you want me to say, Vincenzo? Do you want me to pat your head and tell you everything will be fine?" She says in a voice like poisoned honey, drawing warning looks from the Carrion lurking further down the corridor, "I can't do that. Not without knowing the language and methodology of its bindings, or speaking with those who do. I cannot even tell you what kind of daemon it is!"
She stops there, breathing hard, and you wince before bowing your head in silent apology. She doesn't deserve to become the target of your anger and frustration, not when she's in just as much turmoil as you. "I see. Does… does the nature of the daemon matter? It's still a daemon."
"Emperor save me from confident amateurs," Nadia groans, waving off your apology with a smile and rubbing her brow for a moment. She looks to Bore, but whatever expertise the tech-priest has he seems disinclined to share it. "We don't have time to get into the full details, but yes, it matters, quite possibly more than any other single factor. There are… hmm… there are daemons and there are daemons, if you follow?"
"No, but I suspect you weren't expecting otherwise," you say dryly, your confidence returning with the conversation, "My experience of daemons has just been a sense of… well, hunger, a sense that there is something just on the other side of a thin divide that wants to eat me. Instinct, you know? I've never seen one."
For a moment Nadia looks intrigued, her eyes tracing you up and down with a thoroughness that feels intimate enough to verge on violation, but she doesn't address your words. Perhaps she intends to wait for a more palatable setting to probe you for your instincts on matters daemonic.
"Most daemons are feral beasts, mindless expressions of hunger and instinct. They're dangerous, certainly, but in the same way a sabretooth is, without anything more than animal cunning to pit against you," she says instead, her voice taking on an almost lecturing tone. "Unfortunately, those are also the weakest of the immaterial hosts. The stronger the daemon, the smarter and more complex it becomes, the more developed the concept it embodies, and consequently the harder it is to summon and bind with any success. Thus, the demonologist's work is a constant balancing act, a trade off that you hope you judged correctly, a gamble on your understanding."
Ah, this speech. You've heard the likes of it before, whenever your noble patrons liked to wax philosophic about men like you, and other hired killers in their employ. The belief that keeping an unstable murderer with a bunch of poorly managed personality quirks and psychoses around was a sign of intelligence and wit, akin to a weapon that required mastery to wield. Frankly, you always found the concept rather insulting. A madman with a sword is considerably less dangerous than a professional like yourself, they simply talk a big game and confuse bravado with capability.
"And this Karnak Zul?" You say, because bringing up the comparison is unlikely to result in anything productive, "How… powerful, complex, developed… would you say it is?"
"I have no idea," Nadia says with a sigh, "Which is why I would never be so foolish as to attempt a binding. It is clearly intelligent enough to maintain a false identity and stay reasonably coherent after two hundred years, but not powerful or cunning enough to have breached the wards that hold it. It could be anything or nothing, and I should dearly like more time to determine which before I place our lives in its hands, but we might not have the option."
Well, that's far from a reassuring thought, but it seems it is all you are going to get. The door behind you slides back open with a low roar, and Ciro steps out into the corridor. Your heart leaps into your throat for a moment as you turn, but… no, the daemon has not been released, it yet remains floating in the middle of the room where the bindings yet hold it.
"You are done with the Doom, wanderer?" Queen Scarna calls from atop her palanquin, sounding thoroughly bored of the whole theatre, "Where go we now then?"
"The bridge of the ship, for that is where we shall find Interrogator Crane," Ciro says in a calm and confident voice, gesturing further down the corridor to the point where the corpses cease. "It has only one intended entry, a lift shaft that opens into a killing field, but can also be accessed via a series of ducts that carry air and power cables. Bore and the Aeldari have the mobility to exploit these, and so shall use them to cause a critical diversion at the moment of our attack."
He turns to you, smiling, and you are struck by how flawless his face is. The strength of his jaw, the perfect contours of his bald scalp, it's all distressingly appealing and yet undeniably artificial. Was he a man once, or did some celestial smith simply carve another angel from the stone of the heavenly mountain?
"Vincenzo and I will take the main lift, along with Nadia and the Carrion," the Astartes continues after a moment, nodding to you, "I will draw their fire and retaliate, Vincenzo shall identify and engage Crane, and the Carrion will deal with any other agents that the Interrogator happens to have. The priority is to secure the bridge without any damage to the systems or machines there, for we shall need them in order to effect an escape."
...he's not asking for your opinions. This is an order, a battle-plan being handed down by a commander, the assumption of authority. You did not discuss such a thing, did not agree to it, and yet… the memory of that look, of the silent promise of death when he found you in the wake of Crane's spurious offer. Will you, dare you, defy him on this? Do you have an alternative, will the others support it, will you refuse his authority?
Will you survive it if you do?
And yet here you stand, in the presence of a daemon summoned from beyond and bound into servitude by an agent of His Holy Majesty's Imperial Inquisition. That such a deed was conceived and undertaken by an inquisitor, that the very beings in the position to know and understand the full depths of sin and the heights of virtue would do such a thing, outweighs your own crimes by an order of magnitude in any sane world. You do not need to worry, for if you are damned, then so too are the watchmen who claim the right to pass such judgement in the first place.
Such is far from impossible, of course, but how often have you seen this now? One rule for me, another for thee, tools of control and domination masquerading beneath righteousness and proper order? The nobility, the priesthood, every layer of the Imperium rests upon such selective decisions, and now the Inquisition that would stand judgement over them all proves itself to be just another cog in the machine. There is no external authority, no objective measurement by which a man might be called righteous or wicked, only the subjective judgement of men like you. The control is yours again, the chance for a brighter future is yours again, and now… now you just have to decide what to do with it.
"You warned me of Crane's men on the gun decks, it is true," you say, nodding to the demon that stares at you with golden eyes, "but playing one enemy against another means nothing."
"Enemy?" Karnak Zul hisses, tilting its head until the dry flesh of its neck crackles like paper, "We are not enemies. We share enemies. We are friends, united in common interest. Allies."
"I expect you told them much the same," you say grimly, gesturing to the blasted and broken bodies of the original mutineers, scattered across this hold and the hall beyond in the thousands. "Credit me with the wisdom not to make the same mistake."
"The Interrogator, the bird without wings, trapped me here," Zul hisses again, and you think you can see the tip of a forked tongue behind those fire-blackened teeth, "The bargain struck was broken by the action of our foes, not by me."
"A fine excuse, if it is true, but you're banking on trust you simply don't have," you say flatly, because you've heard such deflections before. The last survivor always has a reason why you shouldn't blame them for making it out, and nine times in ten it is a lie. You won't trust this daemon to be the exception, and with that resolve in mind you turn to face the others. "We should kill it, now. Finish the job that Crane started, and find our own way out of here."
Sidhe nods with evident pleasure at that, a slender sword in her hand and a shark's smile on her face, but the others… the others are looking more thoughtful, resistant to your ideas. Nadia is rubbing her jaw, eyes glittering as she weighs up the relative merits of the courses before you, while Bore just makes a strange sort of flapping sound you think is meant to be a tut and shakes his head. Ciro says nothing, does nothing, an emotionless statue that nonetheless draws in the attention of the rest of the group like a whirlpool, until you're all hanging on his decision.
"Lady Black," the angel says at last, his voice low and smooth, a flatterer taking you into his confidence, "what is your assessment of the daemon's current bindings. Are they enough to hold it in place?"
"I would say so," Nadia frowns at the runes on the floor for a moment, folding her arms and chewing her bottom lip, "The lexicon isn't the sort I'm used to, but the basic elements seem similar enough. If I had to make a call… they'll hold it as long as nothing crosses them."
"Crane always was a diligent student," Karnak Zul chuckles wetly, a small bubble of blood forming on its lips and trickling down the chin, "No match for his master, not yet, but diligent and strong of will. Perhaps he will overcome you, even now."
"I see," Ciro says evenly, nodding once, "Everyone, leave the room."
"What?" You step forwards, glancing between the marine and the daemon as though something in their expressions might bring sense to this decision, "You mean…"
Ciro looks at you. He does not glare, does not snarl, does not speak a single word. He simply fixes you with a single level gaze, and just like that the words die in your throat. What do you hope to accomplish, throwing defiance in the face of a man like this? What mad hubris moved you to object to an angel's command? You don't have an answer, and before any conscious thought can form you find your gaze lowering and your feet carrying you from the room, the others following silently in your wake. Ciro watches you go, and a moment later is lost to sight as the bulkhead door slides back into place behind you with a dull thump. Leaving him alone in the room with the daemon, and the rest of you exiled to the corridor like naughty school children.
Why did you obey? You didn't even want to, your reasoning is sound, Ciro owes you at least some kind of consideration but… he just told you to leave, and you did. You hesitate for a moment, trying to sort out your feelings, but wherever your eyes come to rest you find only another corpse, another splatter of blood, another reminder of the brutal tragedy that occured here while you were lost to slumber. Eventually you seek sanctuary in conversation instead.
"This feels like a mistake," you sigh, turning towards Nadia, "doing anything except killing it feels like a mistake. You're the demonologist, tell me how it's not."
You want there to be an answer. You want an explanation that Ciro perceived and you did not, a justification for his decision to exile you all while he handled whatever he seeks to do from your prying eyes. You want the insult, the backhanded dismissal, to stop stinging.
"It could work," Nadia says uncertainly, chewing her lip and letting your hopes fall in the gore at her feet.
"Could isn't a good word to hear, given the consequences of getting it wrong," you snap, gesturing to the broken bodies all around you, and Nadia flinches for a moment before rounding on you with a gleam of fire in her eyes.
"What do you want me to say, Vincenzo? Do you want me to pat your head and tell you everything will be fine?" She says in a voice like poisoned honey, drawing warning looks from the Carrion lurking further down the corridor, "I can't do that. Not without knowing the language and methodology of its bindings, or speaking with those who do. I cannot even tell you what kind of daemon it is!"
She stops there, breathing hard, and you wince before bowing your head in silent apology. She doesn't deserve to become the target of your anger and frustration, not when she's in just as much turmoil as you. "I see. Does… does the nature of the daemon matter? It's still a daemon."
"Emperor save me from confident amateurs," Nadia groans, waving off your apology with a smile and rubbing her brow for a moment. She looks to Bore, but whatever expertise the tech-priest has he seems disinclined to share it. "We don't have time to get into the full details, but yes, it matters, quite possibly more than any other single factor. There are… hmm… there are daemons and there are daemons, if you follow?"
"No, but I suspect you weren't expecting otherwise," you say dryly, your confidence returning with the conversation, "My experience of daemons has just been a sense of… well, hunger, a sense that there is something just on the other side of a thin divide that wants to eat me. Instinct, you know? I've never seen one."
For a moment Nadia looks intrigued, her eyes tracing you up and down with a thoroughness that feels intimate enough to verge on violation, but she doesn't address your words. Perhaps she intends to wait for a more palatable setting to probe you for your instincts on matters daemonic.
"Most daemons are feral beasts, mindless expressions of hunger and instinct. They're dangerous, certainly, but in the same way a sabretooth is, without anything more than animal cunning to pit against you," she says instead, her voice taking on an almost lecturing tone. "Unfortunately, those are also the weakest of the immaterial hosts. The stronger the daemon, the smarter and more complex it becomes, the more developed the concept it embodies, and consequently the harder it is to summon and bind with any success. Thus, the demonologist's work is a constant balancing act, a trade off that you hope you judged correctly, a gamble on your understanding."
Ah, this speech. You've heard the likes of it before, whenever your noble patrons liked to wax philosophic about men like you, and other hired killers in their employ. The belief that keeping an unstable murderer with a bunch of poorly managed personality quirks and psychoses around was a sign of intelligence and wit, akin to a weapon that required mastery to wield. Frankly, you always found the concept rather insulting. A madman with a sword is considerably less dangerous than a professional like yourself, they simply talk a big game and confuse bravado with capability.
"And this Karnak Zul?" You say, because bringing up the comparison is unlikely to result in anything productive, "How… powerful, complex, developed… would you say it is?"
"I have no idea," Nadia says with a sigh, "Which is why I would never be so foolish as to attempt a binding. It is clearly intelligent enough to maintain a false identity and stay reasonably coherent after two hundred years, but not powerful or cunning enough to have breached the wards that hold it. It could be anything or nothing, and I should dearly like more time to determine which before I place our lives in its hands, but we might not have the option."
Well, that's far from a reassuring thought, but it seems it is all you are going to get. The door behind you slides back open with a low roar, and Ciro steps out into the corridor. Your heart leaps into your throat for a moment as you turn, but… no, the daemon has not been released, it yet remains floating in the middle of the room where the bindings yet hold it.
"You are done with the Doom, wanderer?" Queen Scarna calls from atop her palanquin, sounding thoroughly bored of the whole theatre, "Where go we now then?"
"The bridge of the ship, for that is where we shall find Interrogator Crane," Ciro says in a calm and confident voice, gesturing further down the corridor to the point where the corpses cease. "It has only one intended entry, a lift shaft that opens into a killing field, but can also be accessed via a series of ducts that carry air and power cables. Bore and the Aeldari have the mobility to exploit these, and so shall use them to cause a critical diversion at the moment of our attack."
He turns to you, smiling, and you are struck by how flawless his face is. The strength of his jaw, the perfect contours of his bald scalp, it's all distressingly appealing and yet undeniably artificial. Was he a man once, or did some celestial smith simply carve another angel from the stone of the heavenly mountain?
"Vincenzo and I will take the main lift, along with Nadia and the Carrion," the Astartes continues after a moment, nodding to you, "I will draw their fire and retaliate, Vincenzo shall identify and engage Crane, and the Carrion will deal with any other agents that the Interrogator happens to have. The priority is to secure the bridge without any damage to the systems or machines there, for we shall need them in order to effect an escape."
...he's not asking for your opinions. This is an order, a battle-plan being handed down by a commander, the assumption of authority. You did not discuss such a thing, did not agree to it, and yet… the memory of that look, of the silent promise of death when he found you in the wake of Crane's spurious offer. Will you, dare you, defy him on this? Do you have an alternative, will the others support it, will you refuse his authority?
Will you survive it if you do?
Article: This is not a debate over tactics, or a vote on how to proceed. Ciro is asserting command over your group and giving orders. Are you with him, or against him? Will you obey his authority, or defy it? Why?
[ ] Obey. You will follow Ciro's orders, both today and in the future.
- [ ] Begrudgingly. Ciro is not an enemy to be made lightly, and you do not think he will take defiance well. Bow your head, follow his orders, but keep your eyes open. An opportunity will come sooner or later, you just need to be ready.
- [ ] Sincerely. You could do much worse for patrons than a charismatic space marine, and you need a patron to survive and prosper in this galaxy. He seeks authority? Let him have it.
[ ] Defy. Angel or not, you will not simply stand by and let Ciro step into the role of your master.
- [ ] How will you persuade the others to support you? (Write in)
- [ ] How will you survive, should Ciro take issue with your defiance? (Write in)
