think we are not?’
‘Just five minutes with him,’ Tieron said, seriously. ‘Then we’ll see.’
Aleya
In a time when so much was lost, we were found.
It truly amazes me now, thinking back, knowing more than I did, that the Imperium’s grasp on us had been let slip so completely. We held within our hands the kernel of salvation, and we were forgotten.
To be sure, we had always served, here and there – they still had to garrison their Black Ships, and there were inquisitors who understood our value – but in essence they had let us wither.
I explained this to Valerian, a long time later, when I was still angry. He did his best to understand that, but I could not help contrast the life he had enjoyed, cloistered in his halls of gold, immersed in the finest and the oldest things of a fading empire, when we were in the emptiness, scratching for survival as horrific tides lapped at our ankles.
It was all so stupid. That’s the great danger that condemns us – not daemon blades, but dumb ignorance. We’ve become a stupid race, glorying in the easy goals of anger and piety.
Then again, I’m aware my perspective is unusual. You see reality differently, lacking a soul. It’s a harder place, I think. Its edges are sharper.
There are no gods in my world. The things other people see, I do not. Even He is not a god to us, though saying that out loud would soon see me in a gaol and on the racks.
Not that I’d ever say it out loud. Not that I’d ever say anything out loud.
I don’t talk much these days.
I called myself a witch-seeker long before the rank became established again. That was what we did, hunting the soul-weak from the long shadows. It was like an instinct. That was all we had, for Throne knows we had little else.
Our chamber was nine-strong. Seven of us had taken the vow, two more were undergoing trials. In the ancient past, it was said that the vow was taken in the presence of the Emperor, but that was obviously impossible for us – we could not even reliably get to Terra, let alone negotiate an audience with the guardians of the Throne. We observed the old rites as best we could, convening in our draughty old tower on Arraissa with our chipped armour and blunted swords. None of us knew, when we spoke the words, if we did so correctly, but we maintained the faith, and the binding effect was as strong for us as it had been for our sisters in generations past.
The last audible words to pass my lips were, ‘I so vow it.’
Actually, that’s not true. At the time, though, I certainly believed it to be. After that, it was all gesture and nuance and Thoughtmark. I preferred it. The clarity I have always sought came more easily when not distracted by the twitter of pointless, fleeting utterances.
If I had to make one change, one single change that might restore something like spine to this decaying Imperium, it would be this: say less, do more. A battle-sign gesture is the thing itself, the first movement of the sword-thrust or the trigger-pull, not the spoken command, which is a different act.
So much talk, so little action. Now that I’ve seen Terra itself I’ve seen how bad it can truly be. There are humans who spend their entire lives drowning in words written and spoken, bleeding their limited existence out over pointless verbal jockeying.
And they say we have no souls.
My name is Tanau Aleya. I am of the anathema psykana, what used to be called a null-maiden, or – even stupider – a Sister of Silence. Who came up with those titles? Not one of our order, that’s for sure. Probably a High Lord. They’re mostly idiots.
We didn’t have organised ranks back then. I served under the one who had kept things together for a long time, a woman whose memory I revere. I still hope to meet her again, for I don’t think she can possibly be dead. It would have taken a whole tide of the shedim to keep her down, and they’d be shrieking the whole time while she pulled them apart. Her name was Sister Atarine Hestia, and she was the one who found us all, back when Terra had all but forgotten we existed, pulled us up, beat some sense into our hive-trash heads and made us warriors.
I think it must have