# The Narrow [Inq]



## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

Trying something new, and big. Hopefully not larger than _Plaything_, but I have a fear it might end up being so. This is to be the definitive tale of Taros Vutch, as it were. It will invalidate certain works of mine of the past, and touch upon or reframe others, but I hope that it pleases. I have it fairly tightly plotted out, so I hope to tear along it pretty quickly. At this point, ten chapters are planned, with a definite end and character progression along the way. But what is the theme, ladies and gentlemen? What is the gentle warp that shapes the untrammeled weft? For that, good fellows, you shall have to wait and see...

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_*The Narrow*_
By Tomas Herbertson, alias Mossy Toes​
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*Prelude: Burning Bridges Beneath a Burning Sky*

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Beginnings are nebulous and hazy things. Where does a story begin? Not with the first action that sets it in motion, no. Otherwise all stories would begin the same way: Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, in a place that is very far away...there was a point of light. This point of light defined the timeless absence of its surroundings as darkness. Absence. Non-stuff. Within a few hundred millionths of a second, this point had expanded outwards massively, allowing the basic building blocks of matter to coalesce, and-

Some time later, there was a man who surpassed humanity, in presence and in power, and became as a God. The twenty sons crafted from His plasm, however, still possessed very human flaws. One could say that all the rest pretty much trickles down from there.

But no, that is not how this particular story will be told. This one could, depending on which arbitrary metric we chose, begin in any number of places. In sex, for example. In sweat, and lust, and the conception of a pair of twins—a boy and a girl. Or, to provide another, in the deaths of those same passionate couplers, leaving that boy and girl alone in the underhive with their younger brother. What is truly remarkable is that after that moment they managed to survive, to scrape by unbroken, as long as they did. But that is not the hook, here. That moment does not impel these characters along new paths: it only informs who they are. Even the shattering, the breaking of that bond in the death of their younger brother, that is not the lever whose pull, and length, moves the earth. In any case, that story is chronicled elsewhere.

Let us begin, then, with a broadening of minds. With a separation of ways. Let us begin at a time when the sun seems to set the sky on fire. It is the ending of one way of life, and the laying of a path for the bittersweet moment when these siblings would meet each other once again.

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Sunset. The first sunset the two of them had ever seen, after their short lives in the darkness of the underhive. The smog-choked sky bloomed gloriously with light and color. Clouds banded in orange and red stretched away into the haze-hidden wasteland horizon. Thicker, darker clouds slitted with burning scars spilled up from the industrial sprawl stretching out around the hive's flanks. The kilometers-high midhive balcony, sheltered from the biting winds and acidic smog by thick glass shutters was, to them, a dizzying apex of height and view. To rise up like this after so long in the lowest darkness, to look up and out after so long beneath an adamant sky...

It was liberating. Taros sucked in the view, feeling the barriers and petty preconceptions of his mind falling away. He knew that this world, and the Imperium, were large; that there was more out there than Hive Carcosair's crowded, claustrophobic underhive... but seeing was a whole different matter than knowing in an abstract sense. Even in his untutored youth, here, bound within the chains of his ignorance and limited underhiver vocabulary, he felt the touch of some vaster entity: the Imperium as a gestalt being, a trillions-strong giant that sang across the stars in strident chorus and erected him this eagle perch from which to survey the domain of Man below.

“It's so empty,” Kay said, her voice tremulous. Taros glanced over. His twin sister's eyes were locked on the horizon, and her knuckles were white where they grasped the rail.

“It's beautiful,” Taros replied, turning to survey the desolate wastes again.

“How can you say that?” she asked, shuddering. “It needs to be filled, to be enclosed, to be...crowded. I feel like I'll fall up, its so open and barren.”

“Fall up?” said Taros, smiling at the absurd mental image. “I guess I can see that. We're used to having a reassuring weight over our heads. But I think it's reassuring, myself. We stand in the hive and look out from two klicks up. Humans built this. We did this, with our own human hands, and now we can look out so far to see, I mean—just, damn it, I don't have the words.”

“Wholly understandable,” came a new voice behind them. Corlain d'Jeres, their erstwhile companion and secretly an explicator of the dread Inquisition, entered. Kay bristled. “You have spent your life in the underhive—hardly an environment in which to better of your mind. That is one of the first things you will do under our aegis, I should think: get enrolled in the Schola Progenium.

“But I know the feeling: we gaze out over this man-made wasteland, this leveled earth and these radioactive sands, and know that this is the price the planet must pay to lift man into the heavens. We do this so that he might stand beside the Emperor. Once, man clung to and scurried across Terra's skin like mere lice. But humanity has always looked skyward for its true path, so here we stand in adamantium's ultimate apex.

“Ours is the duty of keeping mankind ascending, when there are so many who would claw it back to the primordial, fundamental depths from which it sprung. I am pleased, Taros Vutch, that you have accepted my offer to help better humanity. In so doing, you better yourself, too, in the Emperor's eyes. Kayreth Vutch, you will not reconsider?”

“I'll stick to Hive Carcosair,” Kay said warily. “I don't think I need to tell you again. My younger brother is dead on account of your obsession for a perfectly plotted caper. The Inquisition lost my trust when you didn't just kick down Spyder's door and drag him away, before all of this mess.”

“Powerful forces watch us pawns maneuver,” Corlain said softly. “To betray my hand so simply would have been to squander the larger game, and invite incomprehensibly massive reprisals. My hands were bound tighter than you will ever know.

“But where will you go, Kay? What will you do? Your underhive contacts are in disarray; your distribution network has collapsed; your siblings are dead or gone; and your acquaintances know that you've collaborated with the Arbites. You can't go back to the life you once had. Of course, the Inquisition would be more than happy to provide you with a comfortable local position; some administrative job with few requirements and hours and high wages.”

“You think I'd let myself be planted into midhive society as an informer? I can get by without you, thanks very much. I'm just going to join the PDF or some crap like that.”

Corlain frowned slightly. “You needn't reject the Inquisition's assistance outright. We are more than capable of adapting to your demands. We can just as easily get you a position in the PDF or Imperial Guard as a commissioned officer within a few years by sending you to an appropriate schola.”

Kay snorted and turned back to look out the window. Taros took a deep breath and changed the subject. “Corlain. What is going to happen to Spyder? Is the bastard going to suffer like he deserves?”

“Most assuredly,” the explicator said, giving Taros a small smile. “The Inquisition is not feared without reason. He shall be beaten and flayed. He will be drugged, broken, and degraded. His mind shall be flensed apart layer by layer, resulting in the gradual dissolution of his consciousness—of which he shall be wholly aware, and unable to prevent. He will be vivisected upon the altar of pain and made to repent and confess his many sins in excruciating detail. Such is nothing more than a sinner deserves. He is cast out of the Emperor's light, and shall know no mercy in this life or the next.

“You disappoint me, Kay. But the Inquisition is not incapable of mercy. Go your own way in life. There shall be no repercussions for refusing our outstretched hand.

“Taros. Come. We have squandered enough time here. The shuttle to the Hallowed Radiance waits.

Taros started at the abruptness of the explicator's departure. He glanced at his sister, whose face wasn't as tightly sealed mask a mask to him as she would have hoped. He licked his lips, tried to say something that didn't ring trite or false in his ears, then hurried to follow Corlain. He was intensely aware, as he walked, of his sister staring at his back—and that the explicator would know and disapprove if he looked back.

He expected that was the last time he would see her. It wasn't, but perhaps it would have been better, or at least easier, had it been.

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## Ambush Beast (Oct 31, 2010)

*Man, I love your work.*

The story flowed so well I was at the end of the chapter before I knew it. I can't wait for more.

I hate to be a critic, but I thought you would like to know... grammar.

He was intensely aware, as he walked, of his sister staring at his back—and the that the explicator would know and disapprove if he looked back.

“But where will you go, Kay? What will you do? Your underhive contacts are in disarray; your distribution network has collapsed; your siblings are be dead or gone; and your acquaintances know that you've collaborated with the Arbites. You can't go back to the life you once had. 

These were the only two that were not intentional or meant to be done.

Again, I do look forward to reading more, I am hooked as it were.


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## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

Thanks for catching those--I always hate when errors slip in during the editing process, as I rewrite sentences and then assume that I've cut out all the earlier stuff. That's what these look like to me, at least (thought they might just be plain old goofs).

I welcome your being a critic. I invite your being a critic; I demand it; and I thrive upon it.

As a side note, this story clearly begins deep into events. This prelude will be referred back to, but I'm afraid that despite beginning in media res, I won't be going back to fill in the events here mentioned--they've already been written in another story of mine, _Spyderweb_. Something I meant do when I posted this up was to embed a link to that story, but I forgot.


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## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

Working on this still. After some plotting and some serious consideration... I'm sorry to say I don't think I'll be posting this here. I'd rather submit it to the BL open submissions window as a novel. Some serious plot adjustments would be made, along with the dropping of _Spyderweb_, Kay, and this introduction, so nothing has really been given away.

Still, it makes me ashamed that I dangled this little tidbit before snatching it away so soon. I have such ideas for Taros, and I've been waiting for them to come to fruition for so long...

Well, damn. Sorry. Especially to you, Adrian, who commented and +repped. I have a story idea in mind I'll try to post up as soon I can get it written to make up for this lapse of planning on my part.


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