'What part did the inquisitor play?'

The priest narrowed his eyes. 'Why do you ask?'

'Indulge me.'

The man worked his jaw, fingers tapping at the pipe's stem. 'He led from afar.'

'He wasn't there?'

'His duties with the governor absented him. He planned the raid beforehand and judged that it didn't require his personal attention. What is your point?'

'And his absence didn't trouble you?'

He glared, mind fizzing with disgust. 'Why should it?'

But deep down, beneath layers of obedience and dogma, through thick walls of blinkered devotion and preconception, Mita could taste it: like a ghost of a flavour, playing across the man's mind.

Uncertainty.

She had touched a nerve.

Kaustus brought us to this world to uncover xenophile cells, to purge the heretics who had placed the word of the alien above the light of the Emperor. That's why we're here, warpdammit.

And finally he has the opportunity to perform his sacred duty, to maintain the mantle of heroism he's been so keen to foster — and he sends his thugs in his stead?

It makes no sense.

What are you doing up there, Kaustus? Sneaking about with Zagrif, as thick as thieves, prowling through treasure-galleries and ancient archives?

What are you up to, you bastard?

'No reason,' she said. 'No reason at all.'

The priest grunted, unconvinced, and Mita smirked, that tiny particle of uncertainty in his mind feeding her distrust, her conviction that all was not well.

'You don't like me very much, do you?' she smiled, confidence renewed, deliberately provocative.

The priest raised his eyebrows. 'I'm hardly alone in that respect'

'Is that a fact?'

'Oh yes.' Another smile, ghostlit by crimson smog — black teeth making her squirm. 'The inquisitor... struggled, when seeking a messenger willing to find you.'

'But you overcame your personal dislike in the name of the Emperor? Poor, burning little martyr.'

'Such hostility, interrogator. It does not become you'

Her jaw tightened, fists clenching. 'Let me show you what becomes me,' she snarled, half standing.

The man seemed infuriatingly unperturbed by the threat, drawing puffy clouds of rosy smoke from his pipe, its buglbuglbuglbugl grinding further against her nerves. When finally he spoke he glared from beneath heavy-lidded eyes, making no attempt to disguise his contempt.

'The inquisitor is displeased,' he said, sausage-fingers caressing the pipe's mouthpiece. 'Furious, you might say.'

Mita's mouth was opening before she could stop herself. 'Now there's a surprise.'

The man made a show of shaking his head, eyes rolling in their lidded orbits. Red vapours coiled around the edge of his cassock.

'He had hoped your... resentment... your sarcasm... might be tempered by your time away from the retinue.' The spittle gathered again beside his mouth, like froth on a toxic shore. 'It seems not.'

She threw a pointed glare at the door. 'Is that it?' she demanded, impatient. 'Is that the message? Don't let me keep you.'

'Oh, there's more. Much more' ...buglbuglbuglbugl...

'Could you stop that?'

'Stop...?'

'The smoking, It's annoying.'

He leered.

'The inquisitor has requested that I put to you a question. A very simple question.'

'Yes?'

'He requests your counsel. He asks... "What would you do?"'

Mita frowned. The ground had been swept from beneath her.

'What?'

'You heard me. The situation, as it stands. Rumours of xenophilia in the hive, a bogeyman stalking the underworld. In our lord's place, interrogator, what would you do?'

'Is this a test?'

'You know very well that it is.'

Her mind raced.

Passivity or aggression. Submission or challenge.

Every time she had tried to toe the inquisitor's line, every time she had kept her head down, played by his rules, obeyed him without question, she had found herself marginalised, disrespected, held in contempt for some imagined weakness. And every time the fires of rebellion had coiled in her stomach, every time she'd dared to challenge Kaustus's lead directly, to stand up to his bullish ways, she'd engendered a curious sort of respect from him. Was that the way?

Do I swallow my pride and lie — 'I would have done exactly as he has done'? Or do I remain true to my heart? True to my instincts?

There was no contest.

'I would divert all my attention towards the threat in the underhive,' she said, flatly. 'I would prioritise the possibility of a Chaotic incursion far above the existence of xenophile cells. I would commission every force at my disposal — the Preafects, the retinue, the warpdamned militia, if need be — to find and utterly crush the monster in the shadows.' She nodded, as if reassuring herself. 'That is what I would do, priest, in the inquisitor's place.' The man pursed his lips, the hookah forgotten. 'I see,' he said, presently. 'That is... a shame'

'A shame? I don't unders—'

Abrupt anger blossomed across the priest's mind, shocking her questing senses, his face clouding like a thunderstruck sky.

'How many times?' he barked, black teeth flashing like oil. 'Understanding is not a requirement! The inquisitor demands obedience — that is all! No questions. No warp's-piss assumptions. And no initiative!

'But you asked what I would do! How can I answer without initiative?'

'Ha.' He settled into his chair, a cruel grin curling his face. 'Indeed, yes. Perhaps you are not entirely stupid.'

'I... What? How dare y—'

'I asked you a question, interrogator. There is only one correct answer'

'What answer, damn you?'

The priest steepled his fingers. 'That you are not in the inquisitor's place, and not privy to the information at his disposal, and therefore unable to judge. The only correct answer, interrogator, is that it is an unanswerable question.'

'That's ridiculous! Riddles and warpshit tricks!'

'What is ridiculous,' he hissed, coldness filling his gaze, 'is for a chit of a witch to think she knows everything. There are forces beyond your sight, girl! There are details which only the inquisitor may know. The retinue understands that. Do we assume that we may overrule his judgement without knowing all the facts? Are we so colossally arrogant? No! No, that is a position occupied by you alone.'

She blustered, trying to muster an indignant reply — but his words had cut, and he knew it.

He's right. Emperor's blood, he's right!

The priest leaned forwards, acrid breath washing across her, as if to rub astringent into an already gaping wound. 'The inquisitor hopes you would have learned, during your time alone. There is always more than meets the eye.'

As if to demonstrate he lifted the hookah pipe in one withered hand, thumb caressing the beads of silver filigree at its root.

A blade snapped from its tip like a launching missile, a concealed stiletto spine lurching to a halt and juddering, lancing the air.

'What are you d—' Mita stammered, reactions made sluggish by the priest's accusing words, warning bells chiming slowly — too slow! — in her mind. But even as the threat flourished across her senses a glut of self assurance steeled her muscles. He was just an old man, armed only with a blade.

A voice deep in her subconscious snarled in the shadows. Rip him to shreds!

And then lethargically — like a viewspex display crippled by faulty lightcells, rendering its sanctified image in glacial slow motion — the priest reached out not for her, but for Cog.