Grand Inquisitor on Forum

A chief investigator of the Holy Office in Forum system.

—Her subordinate, GEREON, an Inquisitor.

But he was not the last in the train, for behind him and his aides and guards came one last, a figure robed in white with a black mantle draped over her shoulders. A black Egyptian-style cap that rose a foot above her head. Her skin was pale as milk, and her eyes were just as colorless, such that I thought her blind.

A Grand Inquisitor.

The others stepped aside as the woman approached in her high crown and cape, and I was struck suddenly by just how much they all resembled chess pieces, white and black. Here surely was a queen. A dangerous piece indeed.

The Grand Inquisitor halted before me and extended a clawed hand. At first I thought she intended me to take it as the plebeians are wont to do. It was a moment before I saw the signet ring. She did not wear it upon her thumb as we nobiles do, but upon her smallest finger. Remembering the ancient lessons of my dancing master, I went to both knees and kissed it, mindful of the pointed, red-enameled nails. Only after I released the cold fingers did I realize the ring was fashioned of bone.

“So,” she said, voice deep and surprisingly throaty, “you’re the one.”

I had met Synarch Vergilian more than a dozen times over the long years, but this Inquisitor frightened me as he never had. People believe the Synarch to be master of the Holy Terran Chantry, but he is only an ambassador. First among equals representing the true power in the faith, the Synod of high priests who never left the great cloisters on Vesperad. Though nominally they served the Emperor, there are those who wonder if it is not the other way round.

These Grand Inquisitors answered to the Synod itself, and so in a sense the pale woman before me was stranger and more terrible even than His Holy Wisdom, the Synarch. He was only a mouthpiece. She was a hand.

Demon in White, Chapter 41: The Good Soldier