An Eisenhorn short story that doesn’t actually feature Eisenhorn, Dan Abnett’s The Strange Demise of Titus Endor is a bleak, unsettling story and a reminder that the horrors of the 41st millennium come in all sorts of forms. Focusing, unsurprisingly, on Eisenhorn’s old friend Titus Endor, it finds the inquisitor alone in a drab city, hunting an elusive quarry who always seems just out of reach. Musing on recollections of his old master, Hapshant, Endor wonders what happened to his friend Eisenhorn, even as he follows up clues to his quarry’s whereabouts which point to sinister omens and old ghosts.
While it does tie up a loose thread left hanging after Malleus, this is a strange story which very much lives on the fringes of the Eisenhorn series. Despite that, it’s beautifully constructed and told, the sort of melancholic, eerily evocative tale that few authors would even attempt, never mind pull off with such aplomb. Abnett gets right under the skin of Endor, showing us the seemingly-rational procedural steps he takes during his investigation but weaving in just enough oddities and strange connections to suggest that something isn’t quite as it seems. It’s quiet, creepy, character-driven and almost horrifyingly compelling…but happy, it ain’t.
Click here to see how this fits into the wider Eisenhorn/Ravenor/Bequin arc.
Check out The Strange Demise of Titus Endor on Amazon as either a standalone e-short, or as part of The Magos & The Definitive Casebook of Gregor Eisenhorn; anything you buy via these links will help to support Track of Words.