The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,121
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.