Chris Wooding - The Black Lung Captain

'How's that?' Frey asked.

'Well, for example, their manner is savage and they are never heard to speak. But during a raid they will all retreat together back to their dreadnoughts, without any signal being seen or heard. That, we thought, was evidence of control. They build and fly aircraft of their own, using technologies that even we don't understand. But they seemed so bestial, we had to believe that some other intelligence was responsible for that.'

'And Maurin thought otherwise?' Trinica prompted.

'He came to believe that the Manes were not being controlled at all. Instead, they were communicating silently. Speaking without words. He deduced from the evidence that each Mane always knew where the other A lanes were, even if they could not see or hear them. From this, he decided that they were connected in some way. The daemon forges that connection between its host bodies. But it does not control them. You've heard the story, perhaps, of the boy whose father came home a Mane?'

'I know it,' said Frey. 'It was thirty years later, but his father hadn't aged a day. The boy killed him.'

'Yes. The tale is true. But before the boy killed him, the father tried to reason with him. Father to son. Tried to persuade him to become a Mane. Spoke of brotherhood and belonging. The Navy has records of the son's story.'

There was a moment's silence while they digested that.

'So why do they look like they do?' Frey asked. When Trinica raised an eyebrow at him, he rolled his eyes. 'Yes, yes, I judge by appearances.'

'It may be supposed that the daemon wreaks some physical change. Maurin never knew why. It differs from Mane to Mane. But there are certain advantages to having longer teeth, specialised vision, and so on. The daemon protects itself by enhancing its host.'

'Enhancing? By making them ugly?'

'They have no need to mate, as far as we can tell. They reproduce by converting other humans. Infecting them, like a virus. So why would they need to look pretty?'

Frey shrugged. 'I dunno. Just because.'

'Maurin theorised that mind-speech means that facial expressions and verbal communication become redundant. Perhaps they lose the finer facets of communication while keeping the more primal, animalistic ones, like snarling.'

Frey thought of Jez, back on board the Ketty Jay. What about her? Would she lose the power of speech? Was she part of this . . . connection that Kraylock was talking about? What if she was speaking to the Manes, even now? Feeding them information from all over Vardia while they waited eagerly to invade? How could he be sure where her loyalties lay?

'What happened to Maurin?' he asked.

The professor looked momentarily uncomfortable. The sun went behind a cloud, and the light from the windows dimmed. Kraylock seemed frail in his huge chair.

'He just died. There was no reason. His heart.' He rapped the desk with his knuckles. 'Stopped.'

His manner was too casual. Frey wasn't fooled. 'But you think there's more to it, don't you?'

Kraylock met his gaze steadily.

'The Awakeners,' Frey said. It had been the mention of the Awakeners that had got Kraylock talking in the first place. And from the Awakeners, Kraylock had guessed their business concerned the Manes. 'You think the Awakeners killed him.'

'An Imperator,' Trinica said, catching on. 'His heart stopped, just like that.' She nodded to herself. 'Sounds like something they'd do. But why?'

Kraylock didn't reply for a moment. Debating whether or not to say anything. Then he sighed wearily and spoke.

'His latest paper was going to be . . . controversial. He was drawing parallels between the Manes and the Awakeners. Specifically, the Imperators.'

'Parallels?' Trinica asked.

'He thought the Manes and the Imperators were essentially similar,' Kraylock said. 'Human hosts possessed by daemonic entities. The nature of the daemon is different, but the process is the same.'

Frey was amazed. 'You're saying that the Awakeners have been employing daemons? The same Awakeners who denounce daemonism and hang daemonists wherever they're found?'

'So he believed. The Manes and Imperators are both shrouded in secrecy and myth, but based on what truths he could obtain, he concluded that the Imperators were human hosts, presumably chosen from the ranks of the most faithful, who had been joined with a daemon to grant them extraordinary abilities. The Awakeners had always explained the Imperators' powers as evidence of the might of the Allsoul. Gifts from their deity to the loyal. But Maurin didn't hold with any of that. He wanted a scientific answer.'

'And he could prove it?'

'He had compelling research. He believed he had traced the origin of the Manes to its source, for one thing.'

'Where?'

'I don't know exactly. Somewhere in the north, near the coast. Marduk, I believe. Beneath the snows.'

'What happened there?'

'Approximately one hundred and fifteen years ago, a group of eminent daemonists assembled there. Maurin had letters detailing their plans. He even had the location, though, as I say, he never told me exactly. They came together to attempt a grand summoning. Something huge, something never before attempted.' He took off his glasses and cleaned them with a rag from the table. 'Something that went terribly wrong.'

'And the first of the Manes appeared soon after,' Trinica said.

Kraylock nodded. 'Those daemonists were the first of the Manes. Whatever they unleashed infected them. After that, they were the ones who spread the condition.'

Frey was getting impatient. 'So what does this have to do with—'

'The Awakeners?' Kraylock said. 'Because Maurin believed they knew about it. At the time they were aggressively attacking other religions. Any threat to their superiority was being wiped out. All the old gods were dying.'

'Not so immortal after all, eh?' Frey said, but his comment was ignored.

'There were survivors of that first disaster,' Kraylock continued. 'At least two. Maurin had letters, hinting at the tragedy that had occurred. They went into hiding, but then they disappeared. Maurin thought the Awakeners took them.'

'Why did he think that?'

'Because five years later, the first of the Imperators appeared.'

Frey and Trinica worked it out at the same time.

'So, the Awakeners heard what the daemonists were up to,' Trinica said. 'When it failed, they kidnapped the survivors—'

'—refined the process—' Frey continued.

'—and used it themselves, yes,' Kraylock finished. 'Infecting their most faithful subjects with symbiote daemons.'

Frey whistled, impressed by the scale of their hypocrisy.

'But they could never admit to employing daemonism,' Kraylock went on. 'The Lord High Cryptographer had already issued an edict condemning it as heresy. So they painted the Imperators as evidence of the superiority of their faith, and used them to root out and destroy other faiths. Daemonists in particular. They were extraordinarily effective. Their rivals were soon scattered or eliminated entirely.'

'The Awakeners want to control all daemonism in Vardia,' Trinica said.

'Exactly. Daemonists are capable of genuine miracles. The Allsoul can't compete with that. So the Awakeners discredited their competition while claiming its achievements as their own.'

'Crake always said the Awakeners were more like a business than a religion,' Frey commented. Now he understood why the Awakeners were so interested in rumours of a crashed Mane dreadnought. They didn't want anyone getting hold of what was on board. The Awakeners knew the Manes were daemons, and daemonism was their thing. If there was any daemonic treasure to be had, they wanted control of it.

'So what happened to all this evidence?' said Trinica.