“I’m not surprised,” Gerhard said. “The lizard folk would
seem to have a long tradition of death magic.” He shrugged. “I’ve no doubt that
was why Magister Hollobach was so keen to get his hands on the bauble you
described. I’m certain he was hoping to learn something of their methods.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t rush off to confiscate that too,”
Rudi said, as they approached the chapter house again. It was snowing in
earnest, thick white flakes blurring the outlines of the buildings surrounding
them, and no one else was abroad. The only sign of life that Rudi could detect
was the sound of singing from the service in the cordwainers’ chapel as they
passed by it. “I’m sure you think it’s some artefact of Chaos, like everything
else magical.”
“On the contrary,” Gerhard said. “From what I’ve read on the
subject, the lizard people are implacably opposed to Chaos in all its forms. If
we could only reach some kind of accommodation with them, what formidable allies
they would be.” He shrugged, with a trace of self-mockery. “Other than being
stuck on the other side of the world, of course.”
“That makes sense,” Rudi said, without thinking. “When I saw
the artefact, I felt panic-stricken, like the first time I tried to get into the
temple. It must have been the daemon, recognising something belonging to an
enemy.”
“That seems plausible,” Gerhard said. He stood aside,
motioning Rudi up the staircase leading to his room. As always, the two young
templars were standing outside the door, awaiting his return. Gerhard turned,
ready to depart. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Goodnight.” Rudi began to climb the stairs without a
backward glance, angry for having given the witch hunter the satisfaction of
seeing his stratagem rewarded. True, he hadn’t made the connection between the
Lustrian artefact and the daemon inside him before, and the new shred of
information might prove useful in some way, but he felt as if he’d granted his
enemy some kind of moral victory by sharing it.
“Excuse me, sir.” The senior of the two templars called after
Gerhard. “Master Walder has a visitor. He specifically said he wanted to see you
both when you returned.”
“Did he indeed.” Gerhard hurried up the stairs after Rudi,
just as the young forester pushed open his door, and followed him into the room.
“There you are.” Von Karien looked up from one of the chairs
by the fireplace. He glanced from one of the men to the other, barely suppressed
excitement threatening to break through a thin veneer of self-control. “I think
I’ve discovered a way to break our little deadlock.”
Apart from the presence of his kinsman, the room seemed
exactly the same as when Rudi had left it. Ignoring Gerhard, who closed the door
behind them, no doubt to prevent the ever-present guards from overhearing
whatever secrets were about to be disclosed, he hurried forward with rising
excitement, eager to hear what von Karien had to say.
“Well?” he asked impatiently. “What have you discovered?” Von
Karien stood, and walked across the room to the unused writing table, motioning
the others to do the same. A scattering of papers lay across it, along with a
large, open book, bound in decaying leather, its pages discoloured with age.
“You will recall,” von Karien said to Gerhard, “that there
are several references in my cousin’s papers to certain passages in the
Fulvium Paginarum.”
“The what?” Rudi interrupted.
“That.” Gerhard indicated the volume on the table, his face
twisting with disgust. “One of the most damnable texts on the art of Dark Magic
in existence. Your father evidently used it to help him select the daemon that
he thought was most likely to provide him with what he wanted, and to determine
the correct ritual to summon it.” He turned to von Karien. “This is hardly new,
Osric. We knew about it fifteen years ago.”
“Precisely.” Von Karien nodded, apparently unconcerned by the
implied rebuke. “But fifteen years ago we didn’t have our hands on the Vessel.”
He glanced meaningfully at Rudi. “His description of the Kohlstadt ritual was
most illuminating. Look at this.” He indicated a passage in the book, and held
one of the handwritten fragments up next to it. “See the discrepancy?”
Rudi craned his neck to look, but to his intense frustration
neither the sinister tome nor the notes his father had made were in a language
he recognised. The words clearly had some arcane power, though. As he looked at
them, he felt the thing in his mind begin to stir again, incongruous feelings of
glee and exhilaration rising up in him, until a stab of incandescent agony shot
through his head, making him reel.
“What’s the matter?” Gerhard asked, holding out a hand to
steady him as he swayed over the tabletop.
“Your damn talisman’s giving the daemon a kick,” Rudi said,
leaning back in his seat again, and taking a deep lungful of air. Gradually his
sense of his own identity began to reassert itself, through the pounding in his
head. “It seemed to recognise whatever that gibberish is, and was getting
excited.”
“Was it indeed. Then it seems that Osric is on to something,
after all.” Gerhard returned his attention to the book, and the fragments of
paper, studying them both intently. “There do seem to be a few inconsistencies,”
he conceded.
“Precisely.” Von Karien nodded. “At the time, there was no
need to make a line by line comparison. Manfred wasn’t the first heretic to make
use of this vile tome, and he’s unlikely to be the last. Merely knowing that he
had done so, and which rituals he had employed, was sufficient for us to deduce
what he had hoped to accomplish. However, it occurred to me that it might be
worth examining these documents again, in the light of the new information that
Rudi was able to supply. As so often in these cases, it seems, the daemon’s in
the detail.”
“Perhaps he just copied it down wrong,” Rudi suggested.
“Possible, but unlikely,” Gerhard said. He read a little
more, his expression growing more thoughtful by the moment. “It appears that he
varied some of the elements of the ritual quite deliberately.”
“What elements?” Rudi asked. The two witch hunters exchanged
glances.
“The exact details are unimportant,” von Karien said at last,
“but they appear to be the key to the soul-binding process.” He looked at
Gerhard again, a trifle reproachfully. “If we hadn’t been spending so much time
trying to track down the witches, I would have found this much earlier.”
“It’s never wise to forget that we have more than one enemy,”
Gerhard said.
“Well, we have managed to root out three covens while we were
searching,” von Karien agreed, “so it’s hardly been a wasted effort. No doubt
the papers and grimoires we’ve recovered will lead us to more heretics once
we’ve had time to study them.”
“So what does all this mean, exactly?” Rudi asked, trying to
understand what he was looking at. “I can only read Reikspiel, remember?” The
slightly peevish tone in which he spoke reminded him of the evening when he and
Hanna had stumbled across the remains of the old elf watchtower, and her amused
reaction to his naive assumption that being able to read the common tongue of
the Empire meant that she could read the inscriptions in archaic Eltharin just
as easily.
“In simple terms?” Gerhard pointed to the age-yellowed book,
and once again Rudi found his vision blurring until he turned his head away. The
script on the page formed shapes that no human eye should be able to perceive,
and seemed to squirm like maggots if he tried to look at it directly. “This
ritual is a conventional one, if such a word has any meaning applied to so
monstrous an endeavour, intended to summon and bind this particular daemon in
the usual way, allowing it to exist for only a limited time in our world.”
“Whereas these alterations,” von Karien added, “appear
designed to allow the daemon to manifest through a human host, and remain here
indefinitely.”
“Through me, you mean.” Rudi felt a chill of pure horror
ripple down his spine at the thought of it.
“That’s right.” Von Karien nodded. “And it would undoubtedly
have done so, if it hadn’t been for our timely intervention.”
“And Greta Reifenstahl’s,” Rudi reminded him. “The same thing
would have happened in Kohlstadt if she hadn’t sent the beastmen to disrupt the
ritual there. It seems to me that you should be thanking her, not trying to
track her down and burn her.”
“Indeed it would have done.” Gerhard nodded curtly, while von
Karien’s face curdled with barely suppressed anger. “The question is, why did
she act as she did, and why has she continued to take an interest in you ever
since? No doubt it would amuse her to disrupt the machinations of a cult
dedicated to her patron power’s deadliest rival, but let’s not forget that she
serves the Lord of Change. There’s a deeper and darker purpose to her
intervention, which we’ve yet to discover, I have no doubt.”
“Well, unless she turns up again, we’ll never know, will we?”
Rudi said shortly.
“We haven’t seen the last of her, or her daughter,” Gerhard
replied. “I’m quite certain of that. That is why we need to destroy the daemon
as quickly as possible, before whatever she’s planning can come to fruition.”
“This might just be the key to that.” Von Karien gestured to
the fragments of manuscript. “By understanding how the daemon was fused to your
soul in the first place, we should be able to find a way of prising it loose.”
This, Rudi had gathered at an early stage of his unwilling association with the
witch hunters, was what had made a conventional exorcism problematic at best.
The fusion was so strong that it would require an exceptionally powerful ritual
to stand even a chance of success, and there was a substantial risk of
obliterating his soul along with the daemon. Von Karien, he strongly suspected,
was in favour of trying it anyway, if no other possibility presented itself
soon.
“That sounds promising,” Rudi said cautiously “How soon can
we begin?”
As the following days dragged out into another fruitless
week, and beyond, Rudi found himself alternating between hope and despair. The
witch hunters were making slow progress, even with the full resources of the
temple to draw on, spending hours closeted with librarians, scholars, and
members of the clergy. On several occasions they consulted priests of Shallya
and Morr as well as their Sigmarite brethren, although Rudi wasn’t sure why he
should be surprised by that. If any deities other than the protector of the
Empire were taking an interest in the problem he presented, it would surely be
those of healing and death.
“I’m glad to see you’re exploring every option,” he said
dryly one evening, when Gerhard paid his habitual visit. The cold was still
bitter, although for once the cobbles outside his lodgings were clear of the
carpet of snow that had covered them for most of the week, and the witch hunter
took his accustomed seat in front of the fire gratefully.
“Of course we are.” Gerhard stretched his hands out towards
the flames, smiling as if picturing a heretic writhing among them. “The
archivists of the temple of Morr have an unrivalled collection of texts
concerning the separation of the mortal realm from what lies beyond, and are
taking a keen interest in the matter at hand. Their assistance is proving most
helpful.”
“What about the Amethyst College?” Rudi asked. “Surely they’d
be able to help too.” A faint frown appeared on Gerhard’s face at the
suggestion.
“We’re not that desperate,” he said at last. “Magic is born
of Chaos, however vehemently the Magisters might wish to deny it. Using sorcery
against itself is like trying to extinguish a fire with lamp oil.”
“You used a wizard before, though, didn’t you?” Rudi said.
“Alwyn was a Grey mage, wasn’t she?”
“She still is, so far as I’m aware.” Gerhard looked at Rudi
levelly. “Slip of the tongue? Or is there something else you know that I should
be appraised of?”
“We met your hired muscle in Carroburg, on our way up the
Reik,” Rudi said, trying to match the witch hunter’s even tone. “Alwyn tried to
use magic against us, and Hanna retaliated. I don’t know if she survived or
not.”
“I see. And yet you still insist that the girl isn’t
dangerous.” To Rudi’s surprise, a trace of amusement entered Gerhard’s tone.
“They say love makes fools of us all. Let’s hope that’s the worst it can do to
you.”
“I don’t…” Rudi started to protest, but spluttered to a
halt in the face of the witch hunter’s obvious scepticism. He squirmed
uncomfortably, unwilling to examine his feelings too closely, trying to ignore
the growing suspicion that Gerhard was right after all. There was no denying
that he was an astute judge of people, adept at ferreting out things they didn’t
want to admit, even to themselves. “That’s ridiculous. We’re just friends,
that’s all.”
“I’m quite sure you are,” Gerhard said, clearly disbelieving
him. Rudi felt his face colouring.
“Well, what if I do feel… more than that. It’s not as if
I’m ever going to see her again, is it?” The thought struck him as von Karien’s
dagger had done, with a sharp stab of pain deep inside his chest. Gerhard nodded
soberly.
“I sincerely hope that’s true, but I doubt it.” His blue eyes
fixed on Rudi’s, his level gaze adding weight to his words. “If I turn out to be
right, be very wary. Your feelings may betray you, and if that happens, the
consequences will be most unpleasant.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” Rudi said sourly, trying to ignore
the sudden rush of exaltation that swept over him at the thought of seeing Hanna
again after all. Perhaps they really would meet one another once this insanity
was behind him, and they could make a life together somewhere the witch hunters
would never find them, beyond the Empire, the Border Princes perhaps.