‘I agreed to retire from active duty. I swore to suspend my mind from psychic activity. I merely use the little mind-impulse I need to control the chair and run life support. Nothing else. Nothing active. Not even telepathy.’

‘Why? The greatest mind of your generation.’

‘In a ruined body, with a shattered reputation. My mind and your body, there’s almost one whole person between us. Almost.’

I looked away. Even without the nuance of micro-expression on my part, he could tell he’d offended me.

‘Your skin is thinner these days,’ he said. ‘It was a joke, yet it cut you. You never used to care. Are you so ashamed of the path you’ve taken?’

I holstered my weapon and readjusted my falsehood.

‘I came to see you,’ I said. ‘I know it’s been a long time, but it was for something important. But I can see you’ve changed. There is no point bringing this to you.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’ll get over my disappointment.’

‘We cannot work together,’ he said. ‘We cannot be seen together, or have any association.’

‘Because I am a radical? Diabolus?’

‘Because I was given a choice after Molotch,’ he replied. ‘Retire from active service and refrain from psionics. Or, on behalf of the Holy Ordos, hunt down my old master, the heretic Gregor Eisenhorn.’

I did not know what to say. He had chosen the prison of his chair and the negation of his extraordinary consciousness over me.

‘This thing,’ he said, ‘this psyker that has come hunting in House Vecum today. I think it’s come for me. I made enemies. Molotch, Culzean, and their ilk, they had associates. They belonged to secret orders and clandestine frateries. Their kin want me dead. While I abstain from psionics, there is no satisfaction in killing me. They are goading me. It’s happened before. They are daring me to use my psy again. When I do, I will become a worthy target again. Then they will exact vengeance and kill me. I refuse to play their games and rise to it. This matter here, this Grael Ochre… it will be done soon. Calm will be restored. Go now, Gregor. Go now, before they lock the place down. You cannot be found here, for your own sake and for mine.’

I nodded. I turned.

‘Does the word Orpheus mean anything to you?’ he asked suddenly.

‘No,’ I said.

Another vox noise, the analogue of a sigh.

‘Then good-bye, Gregor,’ he said.

‘It really was good to see you, Gideon,’ I replied.

With a soft whir of suspensor mech, the chair turned to face the seaward windows. Ravenor was no longer looking at me.

‘I hope we never meet again,’ he said. His voxponder was toneless.

Covered by the falsehood, its resolution turned to maximum effect, I left the palace by the back staircase, and exited into the deep, hillside well of covered steps below the ramparts. An hour’s walk, down the steep black stairs that snaked down the windswept cliff, would bring me to the harbour road. From there, I could reach the boat-dock in the shadow of Shurfath Universitariate where my launch was hidden, and quit Maelificer.