Dan Abnett - Ghostmaker

'I hear your threat to my life and its future. I deal with threats as a profession.'

Then I'll be blunter. Sturm has initiated this process because he sees it as a way of bringing you and the Ghosts down. If Milo is corrupt and you do not distance yourself from him and act like a commissar, your life will be over – and Sturm will make sure the Ghosts are dismantled. He has already seeded the idea in Bulledin's mind that if one Ghost is a witch, so might others be. The Tanith first would be taken, to a man, by the Inquisition and they would all suffer extreme investigation. Most would die. The rest would be cast aside as no longer fit to serve the Imperial Guard. I am bound by duty to investigate Sturm's claim. I do not wish to be party to his vendetta against the Tanith, but I will become so if you do not act accommodatingly, willingly and honourably.'

'I see. Thank you for your candour.'

'Chaos is the greatest threat mankind faces, Gaunt. We cannot allow psychic power to exist within any untrained mind. If the boy is touched, he must be destroyed.'

'Not evaluated by the Black Ships… as you were?'

She looked at him with a sharp frown. 'Not this time. The political situation is too delicate. If Milo is a witch, he must be put to death to appease all parties.'

'I see.'

She nodded and stepped inside. Gaunt paused and found himself looking down at his holstered bolt pistol. Could he do it? The life of every Ghost might depend on the sacrifice of Milo, and to have struggled to bring them so far, to save them and give them purpose was not something Gaunt felt he could throw aside. He owed it to the Tanith to do all he could to safeguard them. But to execute Brin… the boy who had selflessh saved his life, selflessly served… it went so against his personal honour the thought crushed his chest.

Yet if the boy really was touched, really was tainted with the unbearable stain of Chaos…

His face grim and cold, he ducked inside, and the iris hatch whispered shut behind him.

The room was wide and high, lacking windows in its walls but sporting a great circular port in the roof. Stars gleamed down from above and their light was almost all there was, except for small, dim lamps set around the edges of the floor. There was a carpet on the floor, a thick, coloured weave that bore the Imperial eagle crest. Two seats, facing each other, sat in the centre of the carpet – a high-backed wooden throne with knurled armrests, and a smaller wooden stool. Lilith sat on the stool and motioned Milo to occupy the huge throne. Its wooden embrace seemed to swallow him up. Gaunt stood back, watch ing uneasily.

'Your name?'

'Brin Milo.'

'I am Lilith. I am an inquisitor.' That word now, finally, bit ing the air with its menace and threat. Milo's eyes were wide and fearful.

She asked him about Tanith, his past, his life there. He answered, halting at first, but as her questions flowed – innocent, innocuous questions about his memories – he spoke more confidently.

She asked him to recount his first meeting with Gaunt, his memories of the fall of Tanith, the choice he had made to fight for Gaunt there.

Why? You were not a soldier. You are not a soldier now. Why did you defend this off-worlder you hardly knew?'

Milo glanced at Gaunt briefly. 'The Elector of Tanith, whose household I served as musician and attendant, ordered me to stay with the commissar and see to his needs. His needs at that point were mortal. He was being attacked and had little chance of survival. I was doing as I had been ordered.'

She sat back, drumming her fingers on her knees. 'It interests me, Milo, that you have not yet asked why this interrogation is happening. Most brought before me usually express outrage and protest innocence, wondering why this should be happening to them. But you do not. In my experience, the guilty always know why they're here and seldom ask. Do you know why you're here?'

'I can guess.'

Gaunt froze. Wrong answer, Brin, wrong answer… 'Guess out loud,' she invited. 'I hear you're remarkably good at guessing.'

Milo seemed to tremble. 'I am considered by many to be a misfit. Some of the Tanith don't like to have me around. I am not like them.'

Feth, Milo! I said answer honestly, but there's honest and there's this! Gaunt thought darkly. His heart raced. What do you mean? How are you not like them?'

'I… I'm different. It makes them uneasy.'

'How are you different?' she asked, almost eager. Here it comes, thought Gaunt. 'I'm not a soldier.'

'You're… what?'

They're all soldiers. 'That's why they're here, that's why they survived the fall of Tanith. They were all new-founded Guards, mustered to leave Tanith anyway, and the commissar only evacuated them because of their worth to the Emperor. But I'm not. I'm a civilian. I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't have survived. The Tanith see me and they think 'Why did that boy survive? Why is he here? If he's here, why not my brother, my daughter, my father, my wife?'

'I represent a possibility of survival denied to them all.'

She was silent for a moment.

It was all Gaunt could do to stop himself smiling. Milo's answer had been perfect, as had the way he had allowed it to seem she was leading him into a trap. It made his response seem all the more honest.

Lilith got to her feet and crossed to Gaunt's side. He could see the fierce annoyance in her face. She whispered, 'Have you briefed the boy? Coached him in good answers for just such an event?'

Gaunt shook his head. 'No, and if I had, don't you suppose such an admission might make it look as if I knew Milo had something to hide?'

She hissed a curse and thought for a moment.

'Why this charade of questions?' Gaunt asked. 'Why not just probe his mind? You have the gift, don't you?'

She looked and him and nodded. 'You know I do. But a good psyker, a dangerous psyker, can hide his power. The questions are an effective method of opening up his guard and winkling out the truth. And if his mind is the seething furnace we fear, I have no wish to touch it directly.'

She turned back, pacing around Milo's throne, from behind him, she said. Tell me about the game.'

'Game?'

The game you and your Tanith friends play in the troop decks.'

She paced round in front of him and held out her right hand, palm down, balled in a fist. She turned it over and opened it. A grain-louse sat in the palm, twitching and alive.

This game.'

'Oh,' Milo said. 'It's a betting game. You bet on which hole the bug will come out.'

She put the bug on his knee and it made no effort to jump away. Milo looked down at it with fascination. Lilith crossed to the side of the room and took something from a wall cupboard. The object was covered in a velvet cloth. When she unveiled it, it was like a magician about to perform a conjuring trick. But not half as much as when Varl did it.

She gave the rusty censer ball to Milo. 'Open it. Put the bug inside.'

He obeyed.

'Now, Milo. This isn't a game, is it? It's a scam. It's a trick the Tanith use to win cash from the other Guards. And if it's a scam, it needs a sting. It needs a foolproof method to make it a sure thing the Tanith will win. You're the sting, aren't you? On demand, you can guess right… because that's what you do, isn't it? Your mind does the trick and makes it a certainty.'

Milo shook his head. 'It's just a game…'

'I have it on good authority that it is not. If it's a game, why do you play it with unsuspecting troops from other regiments? By my own investigation, you and your friends have earned a small fortune from other men in these last few days. More than you would expect to win if it was just chance.'