This guess was confirmed as soon as he crossed the threshold,
finding himself in a high, wide entrance hall, flagged in marble. Twin
staircases rose in an elegant curve at the far end, giving access to the upper
floors, and a statue in the same material, depicting Sigmar leaning on his
fabled warhammer, loomed over everything, its head level with the second storey
landing.
“Ah, you’re here at last.” Magister Hollobach emerged from a
drawing room on one side of the hall, his footsteps echoing on the pale, milky
stone. The neutral surroundings seemed to emphasise his lack of colouration,
making him fade into the background, so that his vivid purple robe struck the
senses with even greater force. “We arrived some time ago.”
“We?” von Karien asked, with manifest suspicion, casting
around for a glimpse of other wizards. “I thought you were to be the sole
representative of your Order.”
“I am.” Hollobach looked at the witch hunter with amused
disdain. “I was referring to von Eckstein’s emissaries. You didn’t think he’d
let me remove the talisman from the safely of the college without sending
someone along to keep an eye on it, did you?”
“No, not really,” Gerhard admitted. He glanced at the
oak-panelled door from which the magister had emerged. Hollobach had left it
open, and Rudi caught a glimpse of a fire beyond it, and a scattering of
comfortable chairs. Some of them seemed to be occupied, although he couldn’t
tell by whom. Hollobach noticed the direction of his gaze.
“Do you want to rest, or take some refreshment, before we
begin?”
“What’s the point?” Rudi asked. Resting wouldn’t relieve the
aching in his bones, he knew, and the thought of food or drink merely nauseated
him. “Let’s get this done.” The daemon inside him was thrashing in panic, wave
upon wave of thwarted rage battering against his own resolve, but instead of
wavering, Rudi found that he was taking fresh heart from it. His life was all
but over whatever he did, and by Sigmar he was going to make his death mean
something. He glanced at the two witch hunters. “Unless you’d like to take
advantage of the offer, of course.”
“We can wait,” Gerhard said. He and von Karien had shared a
simple meal of bread and cheese in the coach, although Rudi hadn’t been able to
stomach the thought of eating anything himself.
“Then we might as well get started,” Hollobach agreed. “I’ll
get the talisman.” He disappeared into the drawing room again.
“Where are we going to do this?” Rudi asked. “The chapel?”
Von Karien shook his head.
“I’ve exchanged letters with the abbot about this, and we’ve
agreed that the old lodge would be the best place. The cellars are still intact,
and we can seal them up again afterwards. Apart from us, no one will ever know
you’re down there.”
“The old lodge,” Rudi echoed, feeling a faint sense of
foreboding at the words. “Where’s that?”
“Out in the grounds, away from the house,” von Karien said.
He hesitated. “It’s where Manfred and Gertrude conducted their blasphemous
rites.”
“It was properly blessed and sanctified when the Church took
the place over, of course,” Gerhard said, no doubt anticipating some objection
on Rudi’s part, “so there’s no danger of the daemon drawing any power from some
lingering taint.”
“But it’s where it was summoned,” Rudi said. Once again he
was overwhelmed by a sense of inevitability. Subconsciously, he supposed, he
must have been expecting this from the moment he’d suggested returning to the
estate in the first place. “Completing the circle.” He took a moment to savour
the irony, goading the struggling daemon within him. It would spend centuries
trapped immobile in the very spot where it had hoped to gain limitless freedom
to rampage across the mortal world. He shrugged. “That seems fitting.”
“I’m glad you approve,” von Karien said. Footsteps rang on
the marble floor, and the three of them turned to face Hollobach, who was
returning with the first of his travelling companions. A woman was with him,
wearing britches and a travelling cloak, striking red hair falling down around
her shoulders.
“Rudi.” Mathilde looked at him, an expression of shocked pity
on her face. Hollobach had undoubtedly told her what they were doing there, but
being brought face-to-face with it was evidently proving more of a shock than
she’d anticipated. It was the first time that Rudi had ever seen her lost for
words, her habitual air of breezy self-confidence momentarily absent, and he
found that more disturbing than he could have put into words. He noticed the new
ring on her left hand.
“Hello Mathilde. Sorry I missed the wedding.” He felt the
pity in her eyes like a punch in the face, and tried to inject a little
spontaneity into his rictus grin. “Something came up.”
“We heard.” Mathilde turned her head, glancing back through
the drawing room door. “Just how long does it take you to finish a drink
anyway?”
“Sorry, my love.” Fritz appeared, wiping his mouth on the
sleeve of his shirt. “Sigmar’s teeth, Rudi, you look awful.”
“You don’t look so bad yourself,” Rudi said. If anything, he
found the lad’s habitual lack of tact refreshingly honest. Fritz seemed about to
return the pleasantry when he glanced past Rudi to his companions, and the
expression of amiable idiocy on his face turned to one of murderous fury. His
sword hissed from its scabbard as he registered Gerhard’s presence for the first
time.
“You murdering scum, you killed my mother!”
“Surrender or die, heretic!” Gerhard drew his own blade, and
squared up to face him.
“If you want him, you’ll have to go through me.” Mathilde
drew steel too, and stood shoulder to shoulder with her husband.
“You see how the taint of heresy spreads?” Gerhard asked
Rudi, facing them both with easy confidence, and moving into the attack.
“Are you insane?” Despite his frailty, Rudi lunged forwards
to stand between the putative combatants. “We’re here to prevent a daemon
getting loose, not squabble among ourselves!” He seized Gerhard’s sword arm in a
grip a kitten could have broken, but to his relief the witch hunter refrained
from shrugging him off. Gradually Gerhard began to relax, but he still kept his
sword up.
“Easy for you to say,” Fritz snarled. “It wasn’t your mother
he killed, was it?”
“Actually he did,” Rudi snapped back. “He burned her as a
witch fifteen years ago, my father too.”
“And you’re willing to go along with this maniac?” Mathilde
asked, incredulous.
“Well yes, I am,” Rudi said, wondering if he could get
everyone to put their weapons away before the strain of channelling his anger
caused him to collapse. Another headache thundered behind the talisman fused to
his forehead, and he used the pain, fighting to keep his thoughts focused. “For
one thing they both deserved it, and for another, if I don’t then thousands of
innocent people are going to die. So let’s stop this stupidity right now, and go
and save the Empire while it’s still here to save, all right?” He swayed on his
feet, and grabbed at von Karien for support. To his vague surprise he found the
gesture hadn’t been entirely theatrical.
“Eminently practical advice,” Hollobach said dryly. He turned
a scornful gaze on the pair of witch hunters. “Unless you’d rather waste
precious time executing the trusted agents of one of the most influential men in
the Empire on a whim? The consequences of that for your order would be…
interesting.” The prospect seemed to amuse him. For some reason, Rudi suspected,
the mage’s derision was the deciding factor for Gerhard.
“We’ll settle this later,” the witch hunter said shortly,
sheathing his sword. A moment later Mathilde followed suit, scowling.
“Fine by me, but if anyone calls me a heretic again I’ll let
my sword do the talking.” She nudged Fritz, who finally put his own blade away,
with a truculent expression that suddenly reminded Rudi of the taciturn bully
the young man used to be.
“All right. What she said.” He glared at Gerhard. “And as
soon as the daemon’s dead, you’re following it to hell.” He rubbed his arm
absently where Mathilde had punched it. “Why did you do that?”
“Don’t pick a fight unless you’re ordered to,” Mathilde said.
“It’s not what we’re paid for.”
“Your husband harboured a mutant, madam.” Gerhard had
obviously noticed the matching rings the couple now wore. “That’s an act of
heresy, pure and simple.”
To his evident surprise, Mathilde laughed.
“You’ve just described Fritz in a nutshell: pure and simple.
He’d be the first to admit he’s not the sharpest arrow in the quiver; he just
wanted to help his brother, that’s all.”
“Besides,” Rudi put in, “you told me you killed Frau
Katzenjammer in case the taint had spread, and it obviously didn’t. Fritz hasn’t
mutated at all, has he?”
“Damn right.” Mathilde nodded, grinning in a self-satisfied
manner. “Believe me, I’d have noticed.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” the witch hunter said sourly, “but
Rudi’s right. This is not the time to debate the matter.”
“Fine. Then let’s get on with it before I drop dead and the
daemon gets loose, shall we?” Rudi said, turning towards the panelled oak
entrance door, still leaning on von Karien for support. Everyone fell in behind
him, their minds finally back on the business at hand. Only Fritz continued to
glower at Gerhard, clearly unwilling to let his personal vendetta go, and Rudi
could hardly blame him for that.
“Osric,” he said, “you know the way. Where’s this old lodge?”
“Some way from the house, I’m afraid,” von Karien said,
leading the way out into the snow-covered grounds. Away from the cluster of
buildings the footing became treacherous, the snow ankle-deep, and Rudi stumbled
frequently, grateful for his kinsman’s supporting arm. He breathed the cold air
deeply into his lungs, revelling in the sense of openness and space after being
so long surrounded by buildings and people. In the distance, beyond the wall, a
flock of birds burst into flight, rising from the patch of woodland he’d noticed
before.
“Someone’s been this way ahead of us,” he said, noticing the
faint indentations in the snow where later falls had settled in the prints left
by other feet. There were several sets of tracks, apparently heading out in the
direction they were following, and then returning towards the house. Von Karien
nodded.
“The abbot sent some of the ground staff out to open the
cellars up for us. They’ve been sealed for a long time.”
“That was a good idea,” Rudi said dryly, panting a little
with the exertion of walking. “I’m not really up for swinging a pick myself.”
“It’s not much further,” von Karien reassured him, as Rudi’s
feet slithered on a patch of ice beneath the snow, and he stumbled, almost
falling. The witch hunter pointed to a low mound in the blanket of whiteness,
and squinting his eyes against the glare of reflected sunlight, Rudi was just
able to make out the shrouded remains of tumbled walls, grey stone blackened by
the traces of a long-dead fire.
“I see your methods haven’t changed much in the last fifteen
years,” he said to Gerhard, and Fritz’s expression darkened even more, if that
was possible.
“Simple, but effective,” Gerhard said.
The ruins afforded some shelter from the wind at least, and
Rudi leaned against a segment of wall, looking out over the grounds while he
recovered his breath. The wind felt good against his face, ruffling his hair,
and it occurred to him with a pang of regret that this would be the last time
he’d ever experience the sensation of standing in the open air.
“Where is the cellar?” Hollobach asked, glancing around the
ruins.
Von Karien pointed. “Over there.” He led the way towards a
corner between two interior walls, reduced to about waist height. A mound of
rubble, lightly dusted with fresh snow, stood in the angle of the tumbled
partitions, and he bent down to brush a layer of white powder from a couple of
planks covering a ragged hole in the floor. As Rudi turned his head to follow
his progress, the westering sun struck shadows and highlights from the
undulating blanket of snow smothering the gardens.
“That’s a fair-sized hole,” Fritz commented. “Must have taken
them quite a while.”
“It looks like they had some help with it,” Rudi said,
gesturing to the marks only he could see. “There’s another set of tracks coming
in on the other side.” Part of him marvelled that he was still capable of
holding a casual conversation, this close to a living death. The thought of what
was to come, bricked up immobile in impenetrable darkness while his body rotted
away around him, rose up suddenly in a paroxysm of suffocating panic, and he
fought it away with an effort of will stronger than he would have believed
possible. He’d made his choice, and he’d stick with it. He’d vowed to do
whatever it took to frustrate his family’s twisted plans, and that was an end of
the matter. In the meantime he’d take whatever pleasures life still had to
offer, however small and fleeting they might be.
“Estate workers, probably,” von Karien said. Before he could
say any more a mound of snow on the far side of the wall erupted, revealing a
snarling mass of muscle and hair.
“Beastmen!” Rudi yelled, his astonishment giving way to the
reflexive urge to defend himself. He reached for his sword instinctively,
finding nothing there, and fell back against the crumbling brickwork, panting
with the effort. Warned by his shout, von Karien ducked a vicious blow from a
large-bladed axe, and drew his own weapon.
“Defend yourselves!” Gerhard yelled unnecessarily, as more of
the grotesque fusions of animal and man burst from their concealing cocoons of
snow. Fritz and Mathilde moved back-to-back, while Hollobach muttered something.
A moment later a scythe of glowing blue flame materialised in his hands, and he
struck out at a howling creature with goat-like horns and a second, fang-filled
mouth in the centre of its forehead. The creature came apart in the middle as
the mystical weapon struck home, the crude club it wielded clattering to the
rubble-strewn floor. “Protect Rudi!”