Regia Occulta (An Eisenhorn Short Story)
Hello, all. Welcome to this Sunday mini-review.
As some of you may have gathered from my Twitter, I have finally gotten my hands on Eisenhorn - The Omnibus. This allows me to finally do the review of Hereticus that I’ve promised for over a year. However, due to the number of longer review series I’ve been doing, that review has been pushed back to January.
Don’t worry, though - there’s still content we can crack into now. In addition to the three novels of the Eisenhorn Trilogy and The Magos (another excellent Eisenhorn novel, which we’ll get to in February), this omnibus also contains four short stories.
“Regia Occulta”
“Missing in Action”
“Backcloth for a Crown Additional”
“The Keeler Image”
We’ve reviewed “Missing in Action” already, since it was bundled with my copy of Malleus. Since the remaining short stories aren’t particularly long, I decided to spread them out as Sunday mini-reviews over the next month and the half.
So, with all that established, let’s dive right into the first of these stories, “Regia Occulta”.
STATS
Title: “Regia Occulta”
Series: Eisenhorn
Author(s): Dan Abnett
Genre: Science Fiction (Space Opera)
First Printing: 2011 (audio drama)
Publisher: Games Workshop Publishing (Black Library)
SPOILER WARNING
Both minor and heavy spoilers for “Regia Occulta” will be provided throughout this review. I will try to keep the first paragraph of each section as spoiler-free as possible and will confine heavy spoilers to clearly labeled sections.
Minor spoilers for the Eisenhorn novels and the short story “Missing in Action” will be provided during this review. You can find my reviews for these other stories here..
TIMELINE
As Eisenhorn himself states in the opening narration, this is one of his first adventures as an inquisitor. It is set is 223.M41, 17 years before the events of Xenos (240.M41).
STORY (HEAVY SPOILERS)
While on an extended layover on the planet of Ignix, Eisenhorn is contacted by Commissioner Maldar Zelwyn, the leader of the local district known as Jared County. Zelwyn suspects that a series of serial murders is linked to cult activity. Eisenhorn doesn’t think this likely, but since he has nothing else going on (due to a local electromagnetic phenomenon known as the Cackle, he can’t leave the planet for some time yet), he decides to lend a hand.
Eisenhorn almost immediately determines that there is nothing cultish about the murders. At most, the victims were the target of a “hunter”, making this a matter of a perfectly mundane serial killer. However, despite this not being an Inquisition matter, he agrees to use his skills to help Zelwyn find the killer. He does this by performing an auto-séance on the corpse of a new victim who is found shortly after his arrival.
With the victim’s testimony, Eisenhorn realizes that this is, in fact, Inquisition business. The Cackle is linked to a regia occulta, a natural Warp portal. This particular portal is allowing orks to pop into Jared County and hunt people before vanishing back to their world origin. After the shootout with the orks who use the portal the next time it opens, Eisenhorn identifies the mechanism for opening the portal and counsels Zelwyn on how to keep it closed.
RATING: 7.5 / 10
While is presents itself as a mystery, the main draw of “Regia Occulta” is character. This is a glimpse of Eisenhorn at his youngest and most idealistic. It’s a very enjoyable experience to read his interactions with this local lawman as he pieces the clues together. The final shootout is also a decent action scene that keeps the stakes small and doesn’t overstay its welcome.
PLOT
You all know that I like a good twist that is built up to with a mystery. In that regards, this story isn’t particularly good. These simply isn't time to set up all the clues and give the audience time to piece the mystery together for themselves. That being said, I don’t think it damages this particular story. Making it longer just to flesh it out into a proper whodunit would have bloated the narrative unnecessarily.
What this story ends up being is a slow buildup to an action scene. I think that works well. Eisenhorn identifies the true threat of the “hunter” early on, so from there, we’re just working towards that encounter. The final shootout therefore feels like a satisfying payoff.
I think the small stakes of this story are both enjoyable and handled effectively. Warhammer 40K usually focuses on large-scale, high-stakes conflicts. All three novels of the Eisenhorn Trilogy boil down to Chaos threats so vast that they could destroy the entire Imperium. This, however, is a simple story about one town dealing with a threat they can manage themselves once Eisenhorn helps them understand that threat. It really helps to give the setting some depth and to make those high-stakes stories more meaningful through variation.
CHARACTER
Reading a story with this young, idealistic Eisenhorn as the hero is a refreshing experience. His narrative voice and his dialogue really do feel like they come from a man who hasn’t yet seen the horrors or tragedy that would harden him into the man he is by the opening of Xenos, let alone the grizzled and cynical veteran he develops into as the trilogy progresses. While he does have some cynicism, he is also quick to apologize when this cynicism makes him insensitive towards others. He comes off as a guy who’s just happy to help out where he can.
Much like with the small stakes of the story, I feel like this is a boon for the wider Eisenhorn mythos (and, by extension, the Warhammer 40K mythos). Like so many inquisitors, Eisenhorn is a character shaped by his morally gray decisions, constantly needing to choose between atrocities to protect the Imperium and thus the human species as a whole. Seeing how he started illustrates just how much he has been altered by his work. He wasn’t always the man who decides against euthanizing a woman via a headshot purely because it would require too much paperwork after the fact. There was a time when he was as unambiguously heroic as anyone in Warhammer 40K can ever be.
WORLDBUILDING (Heavy Spoilers)
The only new worldbuilding elements in this story that aren’t in the Eisenhorn novels are the Cackle and the regia occulta. The Cackle, in and of itself, isn’t that remarkable. In a galaxy filled with extreme biomes, nuclear hellscapes, literal hellscapes, and exploding acid frogs, electromagnetic storms that last for weeks and make an eerie noise aren’t special. It’s just setting dressing that adds to the vibe of the world.
The regis occulta, by contrast, is something that could have severely damaged the setting. A naturally forming, person-sized Warp portal that links the surfaces of two planets sounds like something made up purely to force a certain plot without thinking through the consequences of its inclusion, rather than something that is an organic part of the setting. As far as I can tell, this is something Abnett made up for this story. Why haven't we seen these before? Why haven't we seen them since?
However, Abnett handles it masterfully. He makes it clear that regia occulta need specific conditions to trigger them. In this case, the Cackle, interacting with the superstructure of a bridge that was unknowingly built right under the portal, causes the regia occulta to open when the bridge is raised to allow ships to pass under it. The complexity of this portal means that there are likely thousands or millions of these scattered across the galaxy. It’s just that finding and opening them is so unlikely that it amounts to dumb luck. This allows the portal to slide into the established setting without undermining past stories that would have benefited from access to another one like it.
JUST STARTING OUT
I highly recommend reading “Regia Occulta” for yourselves. It was a very good time. Including it in Eisenhorn - The Omnibus was a great decision that helps to put Eisenhorn himself, the world he inhabits, and the challenges he faces into context.
The next Eisenhorn short story we’ll tackle will be “Backcloth for a Crown Additional”, currently scheduled for September 28th. This one is set after the events of Malleus. If you haven’t already checked out my review of that book, you can find it here.
Thank you all for joining me for this mini-review. Please remember to subscribe to the newsletter for weekly e-mails with all the latest post links and to share this review with others if you enjoyed it. Take care, everyone, and have a good week.
