Inquisition War Trilogy (Novel Series)
The Inquisition War is an omnibus of three novels written by Ian Watson and set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. It was first published in 2004. Cover art is by Clint Langley. Of the three Inquisition War series novels, the first, Draco, is the earliest Warhammer 40k novel - having been originally published in 1990 as Inquisitor.
All three books, the other two being Harlequin and Chaos Child, feature the Inquisitor Jaq Draco and his retinue. Draco himself was an Inquisitor of the Ordo Malleus.
Characters
- Inquisitor Jaq Draco
- Callidus Assassin Meh'Lindi - Also in the short-story "The Alien Beast Within" of Deathwing.
- Navigator Vitali Googol
- Grimm The Squat - Also in Ian Watson's short story "Warped Stars" in the Deathwing collection (rewritten by editors in Black Library's version as "Grill the Tech Priest")
- Imperial Fist Captain Lexandro D'Arquebus
Jaq Draco
Template:Lex-De Inquisitor Jaq Draco was born on Xerxes Quintus, a planet rife with mutants and psykers. It had only recently been rediscovered and unified within the Imperium. Draco's parents were Imperial adepts sent to the planet. After they were killed he was raised as an orphan in a missionary school on the planet. Draco was discovered to be a psyker; when a Black Ship arrived he was taken and brought to Terra. He was one of the very few aboard the Black Ship judged to be psychically powerful enough to be allowed to live and go on to become an Inquisitor.
Meh'Lindi
Template:Lex-De Callidus Assassin Meh'Lindi had received experimental implants allowing her to use her polymorphine-induced shapeshifting skills to reshape her body to the form of a genestealer hybrid, and this had allowed her to infiltrate Genestealer cults, which were themselves in the process of infiltrating human worlds and societies.
Zephro Carnelian
One of the Ordo Hydra, an extremist faction of the secret Illuminati. A psyker, becoming daemon-possessed on his home world of Hurrah; he managed to force the daemon from his body with the aid of Eldar, becoming Illuminated.
Novel Series
Draco
Draco is the first novel in Black Library's Inquisition War omnibus. This 234-page novel presents the first part of a story featuring an Inquisitor of the Imperium by the name of Jaq Draco. Jaq's companions are few; he travels with a female assassin (Meh'Lindi), a young Squat (Grimm) and his Navigator (Googol). Draco is a secret Inquisitor; as he's a part of the Inquisition's Inner Order, his missions often involve issues of internal affairs. Such is the premise under which this story begins.
As the story opens, our heroes are in a hotel on the hive world of Stalinvast. In most of the planet's hive cities, a rebellion borne of Genestealer infestation threatens to destroy human Imperial rule. Another Inquistor, Harq Obispal, leads the planetary garrison in a purge against the rebels. Jaq's assignment is to watch Obispal and see that he doesn't half-ass the job; the story goes on from there to involve a galaxy-spanning conspiracy that involves treachery of the sort not seen since Horus betrayed the Emperor. Jaq leaves Stalinvast, visits a space hulk within the warp, goes into the Eye of Terror and then to Earth before the story ends on a cliffhanger. Jaq and his crew need to find an answer to the conspiracy put before them, one, which possibly threatens to usurp the Emperor with a galactic hive-mind of all humanity, directed by a cabal of unknown masters with ties to the Ordo Malleus.
Harlequin
Harlequin takes place a hundred years after Draco; Draco, Meh'Lindi and Googol, spending the time in stasis aboard the Tormentum Malorum. During the escape from Terra, Grimm the Squat had been separated from the group in a riot.
Draco manages to find a way into the Black Library of Chaos using the combined talents of a Navigator, a dead Astropath and an Imperial Fist Marine, and steals the Book of the Rhana Dandra.
Notable Characters:
- Jaq Draco
- Meh'Lindi
- Navigator Vitali Googol
- Grimm the Squat
- Lexandro D'Arquebus, Imperial Fists Captain
- Zephro Carnelian, the Harlequin Man, Illuminati member
- Navigator Azul Petrov
- Tarik Ziz, renegade director-secundus of the Callidus temple of assassins
- Baal Firenze, rejuved and re-trained Malleus Inquisitor
- Eldrad Ulthran, Eldar Farseer
Chaos Child
The surviving members of Draco's group arrive from the Webway to a planet, from which they travel to Sabulorb, a planet Meh'Lindi had incidentally been sent to a hundred years earlier. Thousand Sons Marines arrive (at some point in the story) to retrieve the stolen Book of the Rhana Dandra. Jaq Draco enters the Webway. Everyone dies or goes insane. The series apparently ends in a cliffhanger. However, while Jaq does die he enters a state of satori or enlightenment, literally he becomes one with the Webway and can see and learn things he couldn't do while he was alive. While he couldn't save Meh'lindi due to her hypnotic state, she escapes the Webway thinking that her saviors are in fact Phoenix Lords.
Additional Information
- Inquisitor ISBN 0425132781
- Draco ISBN 0-7434-4318-7
- Harlequin ISBN 1-84154-255-5
- Chaos Child ISBN 1-84154-255-5
- Related Publications