many Officio Assassinorum citadels. The true nexus of their operations was unknown to all but the Grand Master himself, and perhaps a few of his peers in the Council.
As we passed further within, I saw icons of the Officio Assassinorum sunk deep into walls of brass and onyx. The passageways remained quiet, almost deathly, and I glimpsed great vaults yawning off on either side of us as we walked, each lined with obscure cabinets and strange sculptures.
It was a long time before we reached the Grand Master’s own chambers. Once there, my guide melted away, going as silently as everything in that damned morgue, leaving me alone before a pair of copper-faced doors. They opened before I had a chance to move, sweeping soundlessly across a dark stone floor.
He was waiting for me inside, seated behind a long desk stacked high with parchment. Candles burned in iron holders, scarcely illuminating the room. What little I could see was exquisite – thick oil paintings in sooty gilt frames, bronzes atop mahogany side tables. I could almost smell the age of it all. Some of it might have been there for thousands of years, some of it might have made its way to the room as a result of the contracts carried out against powerful figures across the Imperium.
I had not heard it said that the assassins were more corrupt than the rest of us, but there had never been much official disapproval attached to the accumulation of suitable compensation for services rendered. And there had been, after all, so many of those services.
He did not rise. I carried myself as confidently as I could. I had a profound sensation of being watched from all sides, and resisted the urge to look around me into the gloom.
‘Be welcome, chancellor,’ he said.
Fadix was as cadaverous as his profession demanded. His head was lean, his eyes as black as the psy-ravens that stood guard over his halls. He wore loose robes – silk, of course – that glistened like oil in the flickering light. Even seated, there was something in his posture that gave away the extreme conditioning he had always lived his life under. I wondered then, as I had done when meeting him before, which Temple he had originally served in. He was surely not one of the Eversor monsters – they were ruined by their unique regimen – and I do not think a Culexus could have been restored either. That still left plenty of possibilities.
‘Your message was perfectly eloquent,’ I said.
‘It was nothing personal. I dislike being observed too closely, by you or anyone else.’
‘I do what I must.’
‘But you do not suffer for it. She did.’
I resisted the sudden urge to swallow. There was no overt malice in his words, just a chilling lack of intonation. This man killed like another man breathes.
‘I regret that greatly,’ I said, honestly enough.
‘Maybe you do.’ Fadix leaned forwards a little, and the silk drapes shifted. ‘But you’re taking a peculiar interest in this matter. I’ve never known you to overreach before.’
It was all true, so there was little point denying it.
‘I act on the demands of the Council,’ I said.
‘In the beginning, maybe,’ Fadix said. ‘But you’re not Kerapliades’ creature. Unless he’s bought you now, which might not have been a wise move for either of you.’
I grew impatient. ‘This is Terra, my lord,’ I said. ‘Even the statues watch one another.’
Despite my long experience, I was letting the Grand Master get to me. If that counted as some kind of victory for him, he gave no outward sign of satisfaction. His expression never seemed to change.
‘No doubt,’ he said. ‘And now you have your date for camera inferior set, and all of us lining up to do your bidding. And yet this time is different. You are doing more than arranging times and places. You’re gathering information as if it were food for a starving man. They tell me coin has changed hands in quantities not seen for years. You’ve been careful to hide the sources, but you’re not the only one to have spies.’
I began to reply, to make the standard defence of my independence, but he held up a thin hand, and my lips closed. His fingernails were long, carefully filed into perfectly smooth ellipses.
‘You want a certain result,’ Fadix said. ‘You’re no longer impartial. That intrigues me. I could shatter your game with a single choice, for I too know how the Council stands. If I voted against