False Gods by Graham McNeill Read Free Book Online

the swirling vortices of dust.
    ‘Thank you for coming at such short notice, Ignace.’
    ‘Not at all, sir,’ said Karkasy, shouting over the noise of the shuttle’s engines as it lifted off the ground. ‘I’m honoured, and not a little surprised, if I’m honest.’
    ‘Don’t be. I told you I wanted someone familiar with the truth, didn’t I?’
    ‘Yes, sir, indeed you did, sir,’ beamed Karkasy. ‘Is that why I’m here now?’
    ‘In a manner of speaking,’ agreed Loken. ‘You’re an inveterate talker, Ignace, but today I need you to listen. Do you understand me?’
    ‘I think so. What do you want to me to listen to?’
    ‘Not what, but who.’
    ‘Very well. Who do you want me to listen to?’
    ‘Someone I don’t trust,’ said Loken.

THREE
    A sheet of glass
    A man of fine character
    Hidden words
    O N THE DAY before making planetfall to the surface of Davin, Loken sought out Kyril Sindermann in Archive Chamber Three to return the book he had borrowed from him. He made his way through the dusty stacks and piles of yellowed papers, lethargic globes of weak light bobbing just above head height, his heavy footsteps echoing loudly in the solemn hush. Here and there, a lone scholar clicked through the gloom in a tall stilt chair, but none was his old mentor.
    Loken travelled through yet another dizzyingly tall lane of manuscripts and leather bound tomes with names like Canticles of the Omniastran Dogma , Meditations on the Elegiac Hero and Thoughts and Memories of Old Night . None of them was familiar, and he began to despair of ever finding Sindermann amidst this labyrinth of the arcane, when he saw the iterator’s familiar, stooped form hunched over a long table and surrounded by collections of loose parchment bound with leather cords, and piles of books.
    Sindermann had his back to him and was so absorbed in his reading that, unbelievably, he didn’t appear to have heard Loken’s approach.
    ‘More bad poetry?’ asked Loken from a respectful distance.
    Sindermann jumped and looked over his shoulder with an expression of surprise and the same furtiveness he had displayed when Loken had first met him here.
    ‘Garviel,’ said Sindermann, and Loken detected a note of relief in his tone.
    ‘Were you expecting someone else?’
    ‘No. No, not at all. I seldom encounter others in this part of the archive. The subject matter is a little lurid for most of the serious scholars.’
    Loken moved around the table and scanned the papers spread before Sindermann – tightly curled, unintelligible script, sepia woodcuts depicting snarling monsters and men swathed in flames. His eyes flicked to Sindermann, who chewed his bottom lip nervously at Loken’s scrutiny.
    ‘I must confess to have taken a liking to the old texts,’ explained Sindermann. ‘Like The Chronicles of Ursh I loaned you, it’s bold, bloody stuff. Naive and overly hyperbolic, but stirring nonetheless.’
    ‘I have finished reading it, Kyril,’ said Loken, placing the book before Sindermann.
    ‘And?’
    ‘As you say, it’s bloody, garish and sometimes given to flights of fantasy…’
    ‘But?’
    ‘But I can’t help thinking that you had an ulterior motive in giving me this book.’
    ‘Ulterior motive? No, Garviel, I assure you there was no such subterfuge,’ said Sindermann, though Loken could not be sure that he believed him.
    ‘Are you sure? There are passages in there that I think have more than a hint of truth to them.’
    ‘Come now, Garviel, surely you can’t believe that,’ scoffed Sindermann.
    ‘The murengon,’ stated Loken. ‘Anult Keyser’s final battle against the Nordafrik conclaves.’
    Sindermann hesitated. ‘What about it?’
    ‘I can see from your eyes that you already know what I’m going to say.’
    ‘No, Garviel, I don’t. I know the passage you speak of and, while it’s certainly an exciting read, I hardly think you can take its prose too literally.’
    ‘I agree,’ nodded Loken. ‘All the talk of