Requiem Infernal – Peter Fehervari

Peter Fehervari’s third novel, Requiem Infernal, continues to develop his Dark Coil metaplot and the complex, intense, interconnected storytelling that defines his work. Many years after leaving her birthplace, the austere home of the Adepta Sororitas of the Last Candle, Sister Asenath Hyades returns seeking answers, and aid for the few survivors of a once-proud Imperial Guard regiment. She finds the holy Candleworld much changed, its deepening darkness profoundly challenging her faith as she attempts to unravel its secrets while reluctantly facing up to her chequered past. Her unlikely companions on this testing journey all have their own secrets, and their own parts to play in the ensuing drama.

On the face of things this is an Adepta Sororitas story, but that doesn’t do justice to the introspective, horror-inflected complexity of the book. Like Fire Caste before it, this has a considerable cast; the fractured, tormented and profoundly spiritual Asenath is arguably the key protagonist but she’s joined by an entirely unconventional preacher on his own intersecting journey, the ragged guardsmen of the intriguing Exordio Void Breachers (a regiment just begging for more exploration), various idiosyncratic crusaders and a range of Sisters including Hospitallers and Dialogus. Many of them are viewpoint characters, and Fehervari tells everything from their perspectives without the benefit of an all-seeing ‘god’s-eye view’. It’s a deliberate choice to instil ambiguity, leaning heavily on the inner voice to demonstrate characters’ personal conflicts and increasingly fragile mental states, while allowing for an illusory sense of reality throughout.

The absence of clear answers is a defining aspect of Fehervari’s intense and deeply considered style. This time it’s even laid out right at the beginning – “…if you crave immaculate answers you’d best turn back now…” – as we’re introduced to a narrative device which underpins large parts of the story and introduces a fascinating metaplot which feels entirely at home here. The risk of spoilers is high when discussing the plot as so much of the narrative – including characters’ histories and the way they tie into the wider Dark Coil arc – is fundamentally tied together and needs to be gradually revealed over the course of the book. Suffice to say that the multitude of characters are carefully, beautifully woven into a slow-burn plot dealing with typical Fehervari themes; damaged characters looking from the outside in, questions of purpose and belonging, sinister religious imagery and bleak explorations of faith, the metaphysics of 40k.

It’s still a 40k story so there’s plenty of drama and some spectacular (sometimes spectacularly grim) moments of action and excitement, especially as the pace ramps up late on and the scale broadens out, but it doesn’t rely on battles to keep the plot moving. The drama is deeply character-driven, focusing more on the aftermath of physical conflict and the effect it has on characters than the act of fighting itself. Fehervari doesn’t ever seem to take the simple path with his storytelling, and the onus is on the reader to accept that, to go along for the ride and enjoy the plots within plots, the archetypes subverted, and the callbacks to so many previous stories (even as far back as Nightfall) which require careful parsing to find all of the links and what they mean. Even the setting itself – it’s absolutely 40k, but seen through the lens of Fehervari’s own dark (really, really dark) and complex worldview. This may not be a Warhammer Horror book, but it’s hard to argue that it isn’t a horror story.

Fehervari has a unique perspective on the dark heart of the 40k setting, a mind-bending balancing act which takes familiar 40k elements and explores them in wildly different ways. It’s deeply unconventional and won’t appeal to everyone; readers who want to see bombastic, adrenaline-fuelled action bringing the familiar aspects of the setting to life might well find this impenetrable and unfamiliar. For those looking for a story which goes way beyond the battlefield and explores Fehervari’s intriguing corner of the 40k universe, this is an incredibly rewarding read which starts to consolidate much of what’s been written before about the Dark Coil. It’s perhaps the most developed and fully-realised example of his writing yet, and feels like a distillation of everything that’s gone before into a single story which – as you might expect – doesn’t provide any concrete answers…but does set the imagination aflame.

Check out all of my other Peter Fehervari reviews.

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