Sleep did not find its way to me very often in the days that followed. After a few days of restless recovery, Lucene did offer the notion of post-traumatic sex, which may have seen me to an exhausted slumber had I not declined. So we laid together, then, night after night in uneventful silence. Xavier was on my mind most nights. Sometimes it was Hans, sometimes Czevia. Sometimes Thaddeus. Young Val Eracian even paid my thoughts a visit, once. All the dead faces, all the violence—I remembered every moment of it. I wish I could say only my former allies visited me, but that was not true. My mind recreated the likes of Antonius Sigird, Holicar Espirov, and Foxon Silverman to haunt me as my restlessness continued. Silverman was happy to see me suffer while Espirov noted the weakness of my flesh—not unlike loyal admechs, I observed. My mind’s recollection of Sigird, for his part, was at least a bit respectful for one who had been an archenemy of mine. Sigird—or my memory of him, rather—did not relish in my suffering, but he did deride and lament the weakness and softness his slayer had developed since we had last spoken.
There was a memorial service on the Dawnshadow for the fallen. It was insufficient. How could it have been otherwise? We had lost north of three hundred and thirty thousand loyal servants of the Throne, beloved friends and cherished allies all. To try to recount the memory of all who were lost and grieve for them all at once was an impossibility. It—the memorial service—also felt rushed, probably because it was. The Inquisitors present knew that the window to strike back against the enemy was fast closing, both tactically and in terms of best leveraging the wrathful contempt that the survivors held for the foe. But speaking of present Inquisitors, neither Lord Caliman or Emile Al-Amar were present. I knew Caliman to have been injured in the battle and assumed Al-Amar was as well. I planned to visit him in the Dawnshadow’s infirmary.
But before doing that, I knew I needed to look after my own, namely Silas and Luther, both of whom were closer family to Xavier than I had been. I found them, after the service, in one of the many canteens of the starfort, after hours, helping themselves to some amasec that they undoubtedly poached from behind the counter. I was not much inclined to cite them for their robbery. Unfortunately for me, my nonexistent tormenting trio accompanied me in my journey to Silas and Luther’s table. “People die all the time, Blackgar, do you really see the need to grieve so greatly for all of them?” Silverman asked, sitting idly atop the counter of a table a few stations away from where Silas and Luther were having their drinks.
“I concur with the Phaenonite. This is an inefficient use of your time, Blackgar,” Espirov suggested, taking up residence next to Silverman.
“Who asked?” I growled under my breath, walking past them both. However, more overtly, I greeted my allies as I neared them. “Gentlemen.”
“Cal,” Silas answered, while Luther responded with an “Inquisitor.” “Thank you for joining us for this.”
“I’m honored to have been invited,” I said.
“But of course. You were his CO. And more than that, a friend,” Luther replied. “Alas, we do not have Gleece for you, I’m afraid.”
“Well thankfully I am not allergic to amasec. Pass me a glass,” I suggested, and while Silas did so, I admitted, “I…I do not know what to say. One would think I would have figured it out after all these years of loss.”
“There’s nothing to say, Cal,” Silas shook his head, and Luther seemed to agree. “Xavier died a loyal servant to the throne, defiant to his last breath. There is only one ending our kind can wish for, and it is that.”
“Oh, please,” Silverman sighed from behind me, and stood to leave the room. So there was that, at least.
“Ignore him,” Sigird suggested as Silverman departed. “That Inquisitor hasn’t the foggiest notion of service.”
I’d love to ignore the lot of you, I thought to myself. Then, audibly, I replied to Silas, “Indeed, he died as he lived: heroically, and making a profound difference in our blessed Imperium. We should be so lucky to achieve similar ends. To Xavier Gradshi,” I offered, raising my newly-acquired glass of amasec. Luther and Silas were happy to meet my toast, and it was then that I noticed an unexpected oddity—Luther appeared notably older than Silas, though Silas was indeed the former’s senior by a good margin. I had not stopped to get a good look at Luther in some time, apparently, or perhaps it was just the lighting of the room at the time. But indeed, Luther was growing to be an older man, even on the rejuvenat, he having been cured of Absalom’s curse where we had declined such a fate. His hair had begun to silver, and wrinkles, while subtle, had begun to appear at the edges of his face where expressions peaked. He had crossed the threshold, visually, from middle-aged to old, though it would not have been fair to slight him with a description akin to being elderly, nor to suggest that he was ever past his prime.
After that moment’s contemplation of my fellow, I asked them both, “So, each of you, give me a memory of him, then. You both knew him best.”
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“He was an annoying sod,” Luther spat out, unable to contain his grin in the process. “Always knew what you were going to say before you said it. Sometimes he’d say whatever you were about to to steal your thunder entirely. Or maybe he just did that to me,” Luther mused, grunting. “Way back on Thantalus, when we were just boys, I recall almost coming to blows with him. You may not have known. He was amicable, even then, but we both felt we had something to prove to you, and he was happy to use the insight of others—such as myself—to make himself stand out to you. I think it was during our investigation of the Leavenswald family. But, somehow, that crisis was averted. Probably on account of mutual discipline. It was years before I understood that his being in my head so often probably helped us to understand one another so well. Took me a while to gleam that bit of wisdom.”
“Bold, Luther, to claim to any wisdom at all,” Silas snorted, also unable to hold his laughter in. Luther took the blow in stride, shrugging it off and drinking to Silas’s dig at him as though to say ‘Touché.’ The interaction between them both reminded me, greatly, of my own verbal sparring with Hans Okustin long ago, just before we made landfall on Hestia Majoris. While I reminisced about Hans for a moment, Silas addressed my earlier request. “I remember...ha. I remember how happy Xavier was to have been the medium through which you were able to speak to us after your capture in Abseradon. Obviously he wasn’t thrilled with the necessity of it, but he was so proud—as he should have been—to assist you so directly. That, coupled with the revelation of your recovery, had him almost bouncing off the walls. Tough to picture, I know—rarely did he let himself put his emotions out for show.”
“See, Blackgar, what joy your suffering brings to others?” Sigird suggested with a scoffing laugh, moving from his table to sit at ours, between Silas and Luther across from me. “You certainly made for great entertainment to the lot of us.”
Right up until I split your skulls, I imagine, I agreed in silence.
“What about you, Inquisitor?” Luther asked, and I must have grunted in not understanding. “Got any stories of our second favorite psyker?” he clarified, nodding to me. I guess I was the first.
“I...uh...in truth, the best I have Silas has already spoken to. But my recollection of the event is from a very different point of view, of being so grateful to be invited into the welcoming warmth that was Xavier’s being. I have always valued Xavier so tremendously highly for that, not merely out of gratitude for his exceptional service, but because during that period of psychic intimacy, I could see in him an incorruptibility that I greatly admired. There are few psykers that possess such a gift. There are times when I question whether I am among them. But Xavier, for sure, was incorruptible, through and through. A profoundly loyal and unquestionably capable soldier in service to Holy Terra, and it was ever my honor to have him within my retinue,” I explained, downing my shot of amasec in full when I had finished.
“Ain’t that the bloody truth,” Luther agreed. “Competent enough to make one envious of him but loyal enough to keep one respectful of `em. Yeah, that prick had it all, eh?” he suggested, again bursting into laughter. “Ah, I’ll miss that son of a bitch. Universe will be quieter without him, and I had come to enjoy the sound of his cane—sorry, his staff—clanging against the floor. I always called it his cane, poking fun at how old it made him look. Guess the joke’s on me now, eh?”
“Well, you make it work. Mostly,” Silas shrugged, then moved in for another sip of amasec. “What a refill, Cal?”
“No, that’ll suffice for now, I hope,” I shook my head, covering my glass with my palm. “Hey, before he...before he made his sacrifice, he asked me to pass along a message to you two. He told me to tell you both to ‘hold the Crown.’ He said you’d understand.”
“Yeah,” Luther muttered. “We do. And we will. That much goes without saying,” he agreed, pouring himself another shot of amasec and sending it down immediately.
“Do you know what that message means, Cal?” Silas asked me.
“No,” I shook my head.
“There are two things worth dying for for a loyal soldier—the Throne and the Crown. Don’t need to tell you what the Throne is, but the Crown is the Commanding Officer that best sees to the Throne’s security. You’re the Crown. And Xavier knew it was worth dying to keep you safe, as do we.”
“Oh.”
“He looked up to you mightily. As do we,” Silas added.
“Yeah,” I sighed, and finally let my face fall upon my open palms, unable to contain myself any longer. I had not broken into a sob, but I had grown short of breath, and was otherwise unable to maintain my composure. For far too long, I had inspired such loyalty in my men, and there was only ever one ultimate, final consequence of that loyalty. For far too long, I had doomed myself to such loss.
But, rather than spiraling down that pitiable train of thought, I as ever could rely on my compatriots to keep me going. This time around, Silas noted the irony in my reaction to the above. “You see that, Vaigg? Ain’t that a rarity.”
“Aye, the Commissar that cares. Never seen or heard of that before,” Luther agreed in jest, chuckling to himself afterward.
“It’s more common than you’d think,” I grumbled, then raised my head up after another deep breath. “Most I knew in the Commissariat cared about those beneath them. But emotional attachment is not the modus operandi of Imperial doctrine, so it is not advertised as much as the alternative,” I acknowledged. I then tapped my glass twice with my augmetic index finger, creating a gentle ring in the process. Silas filled my glass up with more amasec, which I took another shot from immediately thereafter. “Humans are resources, and resources are scarce on the field of battle. Not to be wasted. Waste is punishable by immediate execution,” I recalled from my early years as an aspiring Commissar. “Xavier gave his life to provide us with our own continued existence. It is my responsibility, and mine alone, to ensure we make the most of that sacrifice, for the Emperor and the Golden Throne. And to such an end, I will have Valeran Mortoc’s head, or die trying to wrestle it from his shoulders.”
“If you get that far,” Sigird muttered while my comrades and I drank to our renewed purpose in life.