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Xenos is the first novel in a series by Dan Abnett featuring Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn.
The novel was selected by David Annandale in May 2014 as part of Black Library's "Author's Choice" marathon.[1]
Cover Description
The Inquisition moves amongst mankind like an avenging shadow, striking down the enemies of humanity with uncompromising ruthlessness. When he finally corners an old foe, Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn is drawn into a sinister conspiracy. As events unfold and he gathers allies - and enemies - Eisenhorn faces a vast interstellar cabal and the dark power of daemons, all racing to recover an arcane text of abominable power: an ancient tome known as the Necroteuch.[1]
Synopsis
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The following paragraphs contain spoilers for: | Xenos (Novel) |
Part One: Hubris
240.M41: After years of pursuit, Gregor Eisenhorn has finally run Murdin Eyclone to ground on Hubris, inside the enormous cryonic vaults where the majority of the planet's elites spend the nine-month winter season. Eyclone manages to kill Eisenhorn's retainer, Lores Vibben, but Eisenhorn corners him in one of the vaults and shoots him dead with Vibben's pistol, though not before Eyclone has triggered a systemic failure of several hundred stasis cells, killing their inhabitants.[2a][2b]
Eisenhorn is placed under arrest by the planet's regency government, accusing him of driving Eyclone to Hubris, but he archly informs them that Eyclone arrived on Hubris well ahead of Eisenhorn, and his sabotage of the cryonic cells was no spur-of-the-moment act of spite, but planned in advance. Both pieces of evidence clearly indicate that Eyclone had some higher purpose in coming to Hubris, and it is essential that Eisenhorn discover what that was. The acting governor relents, but insists on Arbites Chastener Fischig accompanying Eisenhorn.[2c]
Eyclone's trail takes them to a local tenement block, where they find the last of his hired thugs amusing themselves with a "pleasure girl", who grabs a dropped gun and shoots one of them with it in the ensuing firefight, fancying herself to have saved Eisenhorn's life. Eisenhorn is surprised to realize that the girl, Alizebeth Bequin, is a pariah, an incredibly rare variant of humans that have no psychic imprint, and nullify psychic attacks. Eisenhorn asks her to join his retinue.[2d]
Eyclone's communications logs reveal that he was planning on stowing away on a ship bound for Gudrun, the sector capital, and contain cryptic references to "the Pontius." Eisenhorn's savant, Uber Aemos, rattles off a list of people and places with that name, but one seems too much of a coincidence: Pontius Glaw, one of the sector's most infamous heretics, though he has been dead for centuries, and his family, House Glaw, is still one of the most prominent aristocratic houses on Gudrun.[2e]
Part Two: Gudrun
Eisenhorn and his retinue, still accompanied by Fischig, travel from Hubris to Gudrun aboard the Essene, captained by Tobius Maxilla.[2f][2g] Upon reaching Gudrun, the Essene is inspected by a Naval team, which attempts to kill Eisenhorn.[2h] Managing to find Tanokbrey, the Rogue Trader who transported Eyclone, Eisenhorn attempts to capture him, but Tankobrey is killed during the chase.[2i] That night, Eisenhorn is ambushed by Commodus Voke, another inquisitor who has been investigating House Glaw. The two inquisitors ultimately agree to work together, with Eisenhorn infiltrating the House accompanied by Voke's interrogator Heldane.[2j]
Disguising himself as a grain merchant named Farchaval, Eisenhorn and his team infiltrate House Glaw under guise of a trade deal. Sneaking around at night, Eisenhorn discovers the Pontius, seemingly an oversized uncut gemstone, but is captured immediately afterwards. Eisenhorn is tortured and interrogated, with the damage caused to his face making him physically unable to smile. The entire group is imprisoned by House Glaw, except for Betancore. Still badly injured, Eisenhorn and his team are forced into a pit fight against several carnodons. Heldane is badly wounded, but Eisenhorn manages to release a carnodon into the crowd, causing a distraction, before the group is rescued by Inquisitorial forces who were alerted of the group's plight by Betancore.[2k]
House Glaw is entirely destroyed in the aftermath, but the leaders manage to escape off-world. In addition, a frigate wing of Battlefleet Scarus commanded by Captain Estrum took to the warp when the explosion of a spaceship sowed confusion amongst the vessels gathered in preparation of the Ophidian Crusade which, combined with Urisel Glaw's dogged resistance to torture and a sudden outbreak of unrest throughout the subsector, leads to the conclusion that a broader, more terrible scheme is afoot.[2l]
Part Three: KCX-1288
Thus Eisenhorn and retinue head for Damask, a Frontier World where they find an excavation seemingly under the supervision of a Chaos Space Marine.[2m] Learning of the enslavement of the planet's population by escaped prisoner Rhizor, they find out that Estrum's rogue wing has appeared in orbit and decide to return to the excavation site, where they find traces of the xenos known as saruthi: unsettlingly asymmetrical eight-sided tiles which the slavers mean to extract.[2n] Discovered by the runaway leaders of the Gudrun conspiracy and their allies, the inquisitorial ground team barely manage to escape after a tense exchange with their foes and the Emperor's Children Traitor Astartes by the name of Mandragore Carrion.[2o] After eluding the traitors' void forces, they are joined by the Essene and set out in pursuit as Eisenhorn proffers his prize: "The Pontius", a crystallized psy-memory of the infamous Pontius Glaw.[2p]
During warp transit, Eisenhorn takes the measure of Pontius, discussing the politics and history of a galaxy the psy-memory has been severed from for the past two centuries. Meanwhile, the team's research uncovers that the saruthi hold spiritual beliefs, used to control a much larger territory, seem to lack a nigh-universal reliance on symmetry, and occupied worlds geometries clashed with human spatial awareness. Near the end of the voyage, Eisenhorn finds traces of tampering with Pontius's hold and sees Bequin speaking with the prisoner, exchanging knowledge of the Imperium's weakness against the nature of House Glaw's "true matter": the pursuit of the Necroteuch.[2q]
At the end of thirty weeks of warp travel, the Essene reaches KCX-1288, a star system in a state of collapse. The ship picks up the trace of their prey into a vast chasm that yawns out of one of the planets' crust, and follows it through a series of asymmetrical octagonal structures, emerging in an eerie stillness faintly glowing green. Eisenhorn leads a team to explore the place, finding more bizarre geometry, experiencing time distortions, and stumbling upon a group of Gudrunite Riflemen whom they help fend off a party of Estrum's enforcers.[2r] Sergeant Jeruss reports that their party – Estrum, Oberon Glaw, Dazzo, Locke, Malahite, Mandragore, a hundred naval security troopers, three hundred guardsmen – ventured into the uplands, where things got increasingly dark and disorienting. Taking advantage of a dispute between the leaders, the NCO led ninety Gudrunites through a discreet escape until they were chased by naval security. Rallying the remaining thirty Riflemen, Eisenhorn and Fischig dress in naval security gear and meet with the rest of Estrum’s party. There, they see them making a deal with the saruthi, about to exchange the tiles uncovered on Damask against the Necroteuch.[2s] Sowing confusion, the Imperials trigger a firefight against the xenos, while Eisenhorn executes Estrum and faces Mandragore. Outmatched, the inquisitor tricks the Astartes into taking hold of the Necroteuch, which paralyzes him long enough for Eisenhorn to behead him and destroy the tome as Oberon Glaw is impaled by shrapnel. Capturing the surviving Malahite, the retinue and their allies head back to the Essene.[2t]
Part Four: 56-Izar
When an Imperial taskforce meets with the Essene, Eisenhorn makes his report to Lord Inquisitor Rorken, who has traveled in company of four more inquisitors—the Puritans Voke and Endor, the Radicals Molitor and Schongard—with their retinues, as well as members of the Deathwatch. When Molitor takes it upon himself to interrogate Malahite and kills him in the process, Rorken allows Eisenhorn and Voke to attempt an auto-seance on the corpse to connect with what remains of its soul. They succeed, and learn from the archaeoxenologist that the saruthi have been thoroughly tainted by the Necroteuch, enabling them to build tetrascapes, custom-made four-dimensional environments like that in KCX-1288, and have their own copy of the tome.[2u] Voke and Eisenhorn barely make it out of the auto-seance as a daemon manifests in the room before being dispatched by the inquisitorial agents. A mandate to purge 56-Izar, the core planet of the saruthi, is issued along with instructions to ensure the complete destruction of the xenos copy of the Necroteuch, and Imperial forces train en route to anticipate the adverse environmental conditions they will meet.[2v]
The Imperial taskforce arrives in the middle of a war between the traitors and xenos, and launch their counter-invasion: 120,000 Mirepoix Light Infantry, 60 Deathwatch battle-brothers, and five inquisitorial assault units. Walking through tetragates, Eisenhorn's team Purge Two reach the inside of the main saruthi edifice and, in its interior gardens, are ambushed by traitor troops.[2w] After dispatching the enemy, Purge Two moves on, stumbling upon scenes of saruthi slaves slaughtering their erstwhile masters. They reach the remnants of a battle and Heldane, wounded, explains that Dazzo psychically wrestled out of a saruthi the language primer and location of their Xenoteuch, leaving the archpriest on the brink of death.[2x]
Amidst a now shaking and crumbling edifice, Eisenhorn, Bequin, and Betancore run after Endor who is on Locke's heels, and they confront the heretic who ends up crushed to death by falling masonry. Separated, Eisenhorn is subdued by Molitor who intends to keep the Necroteuch for study and has called in a full bombardment of 56-Izar. Thanks to Bequin, Eisenhorn kills his Radical colleague but finds out one of Molitor's henchmen is the enigmatic figure that has been plaguing his dreams.[2y] Revealing itself to be a daemonhost called Cherubael, it offers to save Eisenhorn and his retinue in exchange for the Necroteuch. Eisenhorn refuses, destroying the artefact, and Cherubael leaves him to his death, but Fischig and Aemos fly in to pick up what remains of Purge Two.[2z]
After their return to imperial space, the retinue enjoys their rest but Eisenhorn is determined to unearth the origins of Cherubael, which hinted it had been created by another inquisitor.[2aa]
Characters
The Inquisition
- Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn, Ordo Xenos
- Inquisitor Commodus Voke
- Inquisitor Titus Endor
- Inquisitor Konrad Molitor
- Inquisitor Schongard
- Watch Captain Cynewolf
- Deathwatch Librarian Brytnoth
- Brother Guilar
- Lord Inquisitor Plebas Alessandro Rorken
Hubris
- Murdin Eyclone
- Nissemay Carpel
- Saemon Crotes
Gudrun
- House Glaw
- Oberon Glaw
- Pontius Glaw
- Gorgonne Locke
- Archpriest Dazzo
- Archaeoxenologist Girolamo Malahite
- Captain Estrum
- Sergeant Enil Jeruss, 50th Gudrunite Rifles.
Other
Images
2015 edition cover
Cover art
Trivia
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Conflicting sources
- In Chapter Seventeen, while discussing the lack of symmetry displayed by the saruthi species, Aemos makes reference to the tyranids, stating "All species - even the most obscene kinds like the tyranid - have some order of it."[2q] However, although tyranids had been encountered by the Imperium over the millennia, they were not formally classified under the name "tyranid" until after the destruction of the planet Tyran in 745.M41[3], 500 years after the events of this novel take place.
See also
Sources
- 1: Black Library (last accessed December 20 2018)
- 2: Xenos (Novel):
- 2a: ch. 1 – A cold coming. Death in the dormant vaults. Some puritanical reflections.
- 2b: ch. 2 – The dead awake. Betancore’s temper. Elucidations by Aemos.
- 2c: ch. 3 – Nissemay Carpel. A light in endless darkness. The Pontius.
- 2d: ch. 4 – The Sun-dome toured at speed. Thaw-view 12011. Questioning Saemon Crotes.
- 2e: ch. 5 – Covered traces. The Glaws of Gudrun. Unwelcome companions.
- 2f: ch. 6 – Divination by auto-seance. A dream. Joining the Essene.
- 2g: ch. 7 – With the master of the Essene. A farewell. Scrutiny.
- 2h: ch. 8 – A dozen killers. The procurator. Grain merchants from Hesperus.
- 2i: ch. 9 – At Dorsay. Market forces. In pursuit of Tanokbrey.
- 2j: ch. 10 – A conflict of jurisdiction. The House of Glaw. Stalking secrets.
- 2k: ch. 11 – Revelations. The noble sport. Pacification 505.
- 2l: ch. 12 – In the ruins of the great house. Murmurings. Uprising.
- 2m: ch. 13 – Damask. North Qualm. Sanctum.
- 2n: ch. 14 – A tale of repression. Rogue. Return to the flame hills.
- 2o: ch. 15 – Exposed in the midst of the foe. An ill-matched war. Flight.
- 2p: ch. 16 – Void Duel. Betancore’s last stand. Traces.
- 2q: ch. 17 – Discourses. Speculations on an unsymmetrical theme. Betrayal.
- 2r: ch. 18 – KCX-1288 by the light of the quill-star. Into the Wound. The wrongness.
- 2s: ch. 19 – Jeruss makes his report. At the plateau. The true matter.
- 2t: ch. 20 – My ally, confusion. The wrath of Mandragore. Against Oberon.
- 2u: ch. 21 – A gathering of peers. Lord Rorken contemplates. Malahite’s secrets.
- 2v: ch. 22 – In the mouth of the warp. A mandate to purge. 56-Izar.
- 2w: ch. 23 – Invading the invasion. Bent angles. In the gardens of the saruthi.
- 2x: ch. 24 – Purge Two engages. A silent revolution. Dazzo’s triumph.
- 2y: ch. 25 – Xenos Necroteuch. Endgame. The blank-eyed man.
- 2z: ch. 26 – Cherubael. The brink. Exterminatus.
- 2aa: epilogue – At Pamophrey.
- 3: Codex: Tyranids (5th Edition), pg. 8
