James Swallow - Nemesis

instead stood just beyond the range of the light, content to be little more than a tall

shape made up of shadows and angles.

The seven at the table had faces of porcelain and precious metals. Masks covered

their countenances from brow-line to neck, and like the room they were in, these

outer concealments, were far more than they appeared. Each mask was loaded with

advanced technologies, data-libraries, sensoria, even microweapons, and each had a

different aspect that was the mirror of its wearer; only the man at the head of the

table wore a face with no affectation. His mask was simple and silver, as if it had

been carved from polished steel, with only the vaguest impression of a brow, eyes, a

nose and mouth. Reflected in its sheen, the panes of information shown by the

hololith turned slowly, allowing everyone in the room to read them.

What was written there was damning and disappointing in equal measure.

“Then he is dead,” said a woman’s voice, the tone filtered through a fractal baffle

that rendered her vocal pattern untraceable. Her mask was black and it fit skin-close,

almost like a hood made of silk; only the large oval rubies that were her eyes broke

the illusion. “The report here makes that clear.”

“Quick to judge, as ever,” came a throaty whisper, similarly filtered, from a

motionless mask that resembled a distended, hydrocephalic skull. “We should hold

for certainty, Siress Callidus.”

The ruby eyes glared across the table. “My esteemed Sire Culexus,” came the

terse reply. “How long would you have us wait? Until the revolt reaches our door?”

She turned her jewelled gaze on the only other woman seated at the table, a figure

whose face was hidden behind an elegant velvet visor of green and gold, vaned with

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lines of droplet pearls and dark emeralds. “Our sister’s agent has failed. As I said he

would.”

The woman in the green mask stiffened, and leaned back in her chair, distancing

herself from the ire of Callidus. Her reply was frosty and brittle. “I would note that

none of you have yet been able to place an operative so close to the Warmaster as

Clade Venenum did. Tobeld was one of my finest students, equal to the task he was

set upon—”

That drew a derisive grant from a hulking male behind a grinning, fang-toothed

rictus made of bone and gunmetal. “If he was equal to it, then why isn’t the turncoat

dead? All that time wasted and for what? To give the traitors a fresh corpse at Horus’

doorstep?” He made a spitting sound.

Siress Venenum’s eyes narrowed behind their disguise. “However little you think

of my clade, dear Eversor, your record to date gives you no cause to preen.” She

drew herself up. “What have you contributed to this mission other than a few messy

and explosive deaths?”

The fanged mask regarded her, anger radiating out from the man behind it. “My

agents have brought fear!” he spat. “Each kill has severed the head of a key

insurrectionist element!”

“Not to mention countless collaterals,” offered a dry, dour voice. The comment

emerged from behind a standard-issue spy mask, no different from the kind issued to

every one of the sniper operatives of Clade Vindicare. “We need a surgeon’s touch to

excise the Archtraitor. A scalpel, not a firebomb.”

Sire Eversor let out a low growl. “When the day comes that someone invents a

rifle you can fire from the safely of your chair and still hit Horus half a galaxy away,

you can save us all. But until then, hide behind your gun sight and stay silent!”

The sixth figure at the far end of the table cleared his throat, cocking his head.

His mask, a thing made of glassy layers that reflected granulated, randomised

images, flickered in the dimness. “If I might address Sire Culexus and Siress

Callidus?” said Sire Vanus. “My clade’s predictive engines and our most diligent

info-cytes have concluded, based on all available data and prognostic simulations,

that the probability of Tobeld’s survival to complete his mission was zero point two

percent. Margin of error negligible. However, it did represent an improvement in

proximity-to-target over all Officio Assassinorum operations to date.”

“A mile or an inch,” hissed Culexus, “it doesn’t matter if the kill was lost.”

Siress Callidus looked up the table towards the man in the silver mask. “I want to

activate a new operative,” she began. “Her name is M’Shen, she is one of the best of

my clade and I—”

“Tobeld was the best of the Venenum!” snapped Sire Vindicare, with sudden

annoyance. “Just as Hoswalt was the best of mine, just as Eversor sent his best and so

on and so on! But we’re throwing our most gifted students into a meat-grinder,

sending them in blind and half-prepared! Every strike against Horus breaks, and he

shrugs it off without notice!” He shook his head grimly. “Is this what we have been

reduced to? Every time we meet, listening to a catalogue of each other’s failures?”

The masked man spread his arms, taking in his five cohorts. “We all remember that

day on Mount Vengeance. The pact we made in the shadow of the Great Crusade, the

oath that breathed life into the Officio Assassinorum. For decades we have hunted

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down the enemies of our Emperor through stealth and subterfuge. We have shown

them there is no safe place to hide.” Sire Vindicare shot a look at Sire Vanus. “What

did he say that day?”

Vanus answered immediately, his mask shimmering. “No world shall be beyond

my rule. No enemy shall be beyond my wrath.”

Sire Culexus nodded solemnly. “No enemy…” he repeated. “No enemy but

Horus, so it seems.”

“No!” snarled Callidus. “I can kill him.” The man in the silver mask remained

silent and she went on, imploring. “I will kill him, if only you will give me leave to

do so!”

“You will fail as well!” snarled Eversor. “My clade is the only one capable of the

deed! The only one ruthless enough to end the Warmaster’s life!”

At once, it seemed as if every one of the masters and mistresses were about to

launch into the same tirade, but before they could begin, the silver mask resonated

with a single word of command. “Silence.”

The chamber became quiet, and the Master of Assassins took a breath before

speaking again. “This rivalry and bickering serves no purpose,” he began, his voice

level and firm. “In all the history of this group, there has never been a target whose

retirement required more than one mission to prosecute. To date, the Horus problem

has claimed eight Officio operatives across all six of the primary clades. Each of you

are the first of your clade, the founders… And yet you sit here and jostle for

supremacy over one another instead of giving me the kill we so desperately want! I

demand a solution to rid us of the Emperor’s turbulent and wayward son.”

Sire Eversor spoke. “I will commit every active agent in my clade. All of them,

all at once. If I must spend the lives of every last Eversor to kill Horus, then so be it.”

For the first time since the group had assembled, the silent figure in the hooded