No. No. That was a stupid, suicidal way to look at it, and he
tried to shove the notion out of his head.
“Make it do something,” Mama Solveig said.
I should make it rip your head off, Dieter thought, but
instead, he decided the shadow should walk back and forth, and, obedient to his
unspoken will, it did.
“This is grand,” Mama Solveig said. “I’m so proud of you!
When Adolph taught me, it took me days to catch the trick of it. The others
still haven’t mastered it. Shall we try something else?”
His immediate impulse was to say yes, but then the cellar
seemed to spin as vertigo overwhelmed him. He grabbed for the lectern again, but
this time failed to seize hold of it. He fell to one knee, banging it painfully
against the floor. His stomach churned, bile burned in his throat, and for a
moment, he was sure he’d throw up.
He realised that casting the dark spell had made him sick,
and he was glad. Now Mama Solveig wouldn’t insist that he continue his studies
immediately, and even more importantly, he had, for the moment, lost the
self-destructive desire to do so. All he wanted was to lie down.
Mama Solveig patted him on the shoulder. “Poor lamb,” she
said. “It happens this way sometimes, but the sickness will pass, and the next
time you cast the spell, it won’t bother you as much.”
Dieter woke clenched, almost flinching, as though, even
before his waking mind resumed his labours, he dreaded the new day on some deep
instinctual level.
The cellar was still almost as dark as it had been when he
closed his eyes, with only a hint of morning turning the windows into grey
rectangles floating in blackness. He wondered what had roused him, then heard
Mama Solveig moving about.
Most likely she’d got up to use the chamber pot. He pulled
the covers up over his head in the forlorn hope it would stifle the sound, and
then the bar securing the door groaned in its brackets. The panel creaked open
and bumped shut.
If she was sneaking off without telling him, did that mean
she was going to see the Master of Change? He’d imagined the coven of coven
leaders meeting in the dead of night, but he supposed that actually, they could
assemble at any time, including the hours immediately before dawn.
He threw off his blankets, sat up, and groped around on the
floor for his shoes. It seemed to take forever to find them. He jammed them on
his feet, then hurried out the door and up the steps.
Mist hung in the street, blurring and softening the square
masses of the buildings. Despite the haze and the feeble predawn light, he could
just make out Mama Solveig rounding a corner some yards ahead.
He stalked after her, wondering how close he ought to follow.
He didn’t want to lose her, but mustn’t let her spot him, either.
Other early risers trudged past him, and he hoped he didn’t
look as much like a creeping malefactor as he felt. The clammy mist chilled him.
His cloak would have warded off the cold, but in his haste he’d neglected to put
it on.
Mama Solveig turned into what he knew to be a warren of
twisting, branching alleyways. Even if she continued to hobble, it would be easy
to lose her in that circumscribed but treacherous maze. He quickened his pace to
make up some of the distance between them.
As though to hinder him, the mist thickened. The old woman
was heading in the general direction of the river that had given birth to it,
and the sun hadn’t yet risen to start burning it off. All but forsaking caution,
Dieter strode faster still.
Even so, another minute brought him to a point where the
alley he was following crossed another, and no matter how he peered and
listened, he simply couldn’t determine which way Mama Solveig had gone.
He was reluctant to use magic to pick up her trail. His
assault on the labourer, brutish copulation with Jarla, and helpless thirst for
dark lore all combined to make him feel contaminated and vulnerable. He feared
that, until he recovered some stability, even the tamed Chaos bound in Celestial
wizardry might further pollute him, or that the magic might escape his control
and twist into something ghastly. But unless he was prepared to abandon his
current enterprise, it seemed he had no choice.
He glanced about, making sure no one was currently in
eyeshot, then started whispering a spell. He was four words into it before he
realised just how well founded his misgivings actually were. He wasn’t
performing Celestial wizardry but rather the divination from the forbidden
texts.
Even then, it was hard to stop. The syllables seemed to
articulate themselves like water gushing from a spring. But he clamped down on
them and cut them off.
Now more concerned with reasserting his identity as a
practitioner of Celestial magic than with acting surreptitiously, he declaimed
the spell he’d originally meant to cast in a louder voice and with sweeping
passes. When he finished, he looked up, and for one terrifying moment could
discern no transformation in the sky. The few stars still visible despite the
imminence of morning simply continued to fade as though spurning and forsaking
him.
But finally one throbbed to point him in the right direction.
He closed his eyes, and for a moment, his body felt slack and heavy with relief.
Then he tramped onwards.
The stars led him to a narrow strip of earth too steep for
anyone to bother building anything on it, even in teeming Altdorf. The descent
ran down to the Reik with its warehouses, boatyards and jetties. The fog lay
atop the water like a mass of cotton. He could only just barely make out the
shapes of the boats and barges moored along the bank, or the arch of a nearby
bridge, which appeared to float unconnected to either shore.
He peered about in perplexity, because it was difficult to
see how Mama Solveig could have continued on from here. She would have needed to
backtrack to make for the bridge, and it didn’t seem likely she would have
clambered down the hillside, which lacked stairs or even a path, to rendezvous
with a boat and embark on the river. Had she entered one of the buildings rising
close at hand? Hoping for further guidance, he looked up at the heavens.
Something plopped onto his cheek.
Dead flies were falling from the empty air. Jagged red lines
snaked across the world like cracks ruining a fresco.
The fleeting phenomena indicated someone was working magic.
Dieter cast about for the potential threat, but the mist obscured it. A spiral
of shadow swirled up around his body, then snapped tight to bind his limbs. Its
embrace stung like a row of ant bites, even through his clothes.
It was the same spell Adolph had attempted to use to bind the
fiery serpent. Dieter rattled off a spell of protection, and the coil of shadow
frayed and vanished. He pivoted, seeking his adversary once more.
That brought him face to face with Mama Solveig, who was just
climbing up the rise onto level ground. Perhaps she’d hidden behind a tree, or
maybe it was simply the mist that had prevented him from spotting her hitherto.
She clutched a lancet in an overhand grip. It wasn’t much of a fighting knife,
but quite capable of killing a man who couldn’t move.
Her eyes widened, and she clapped her empty hand to her
bosom. “Dieter! Oh, my goodness!”
“Mama Solveig, are you all right?” It was all he could think
of to say.
“I’m fine, but I could have killed you. What are you doing
here?”
“I… I woke just as you were going out, and at first I
thought, well, if you hadn’t asked me to go with you, then I didn’t need to. But
then I thought of the Purple Hand lurking about, waiting for the chance to pick
us off, and I had the feeling you were in danger. So I tried to catch up with
you, but you were too far ahead, and I lost you in the mist. I finally used a
charm to track you.”
Mama Solveig sighed. “I sensed someone following me, assumed
the worst, and hid. When you turned up, these short-sighted old eyes couldn’t
make out your face. The fog’s too thick, and I had a bad angle peering up from
below. So I sought to defend myself.”
He grinned. “I’d say you were succeeding pretty well.”
She waved a tremulous hand in dismissal. “That’s a kind thing
to say, but you didn’t have any trouble breaking free of my enchantment. You
know, dear, I don’t think the Purple Hand have figured out who I am, and even if
they have, I doubt they’ll bother us this morning. The only person I felt coming
after me was you.”
Was she saying she knew he was lying? “Well, I hope you’re
right.”
“Dieter, I want you to listen to me very carefully. This life
we live is holy and full of wonders, but it wears on the nerves. The secrecy,
the danger, opening yourself to the god… it’s all a strain, and from time to
time, you may find yourself imagining things.”
“I can understand that.”
“But whatever you’re thinking or feeling, you mustn’t follow
when I go off alone. Trust me to look after myself. Because if you follow me to
the wrong place, I’ll know it, and if I don’t, others will. And then we’ll kill
you. It’s just as simple as that.”
“All right. But I was only trying to help you.”
“I know, dear. I’m very grateful, and the fact of the matter
is, you can.” She nodded towards the slope. “See the mushrooms?”
He did now, though he hadn’t noticed them before. The pale,
spotted caps poked up through the grass. “Yes.”
“They’re what I came for. I use them in my medicines, and
they’re best if gathered just before sunrise. Come help me pick them.”
Mama Solveig tottered about the cellar setting out cakes and
cheese, just as if she were preparing for an ordinary party. Dieter attempted to
help, and as usual, she shooed him away.
She did allow him to play doorman, and he admitted the coven
members one by one. It was the first time he’d met any of them except for her,
Jarla and Adolph, and it struck him just how ordinary the others appeared. The
rage, misery, or fundamental perversity that had drawn each to the Changer of
the Ways lay buried beneath a quotidian facade.
Of course, the obvious mutants all ran away to join Leopold
Mann.
Someone else knocked. Dieter opened the peephole, and Jarla,
her wistful face scrubbed clean of paint and her hair pulled back, peered in at
him. His forehead gave him a pang, and, fumbling with the sliding bar, he
admitted her.
She offered a tentative smile, and then, after a moment,
squeezed his forearm. “Should we talk?” she asked.
“Probably.” He waved her towards Mama Solveig’s workspace.
Since the others had congregated around the food and drink in the kitchen, the
infirmary offered a modicum of privacy. She sat on the cot, and he took the
stool.
“What happened in the alley,” she murmured. “It was nice.”
“It was.”
“I didn’t tell Adolph.”
He supposed that, considering her trade, it was ironic that
she thought it mattered whether she had or hadn’t. Yet he understood the
difference between what she did for her own fulfilment and what she did for
coin, and he suspected Adolph was sensitive to the same distinction. “Do you
intend to?”
“I don’t know. We’ve been together for a while. He takes care
of me.”
“From what I’ve seen, he bullies you.”
She shrugged as if the two things were the same. “I’d never
want to hurt him, and I need someone in my life.”
“Are you telling me what happened between us shouldn’t happen
again?”
“I don’t know! I guess I’m asking, if I did decide to leave
Adolph, would you want to be with me?”
He had no idea how to answer.
He was a wizard of the Celestial Order and she was a common
streetwalker, and yet, he did like her. He just didn’t know if the emotion ran
deep and true, or merely sprang from the fact that, lonely and frightened, he
overvalued any comfort that came his way. Or perhaps it was a symptom of the
mental sickness he’d contracted from Dark Magic.
Not that it actually mattered what he felt or why. She was a
cultist, his enemy and the enemy of everything healthy and sane, and if he hoped
to go on breathing, all he could afford to care about was how best to deal with
her to safeguard himself and further his mission.
But how was that, exactly? He could strengthen the bond that
had sprung up between them, but was there a point if she had no way of helping
him find the Master of Change? Was it worth antagonising Adolph?
He suddenly felt a spasm of impatience with his ambivalent,
torturous calculations. He wanted the bitch, he might still find a way to
exploit her to accomplish his purpose, so why not take her? He could handle
Adolph. If need be, he could squash him like an insect.
He smiled at Jarla. “Of course I want to be with you.”
“Then I have a choice to make.”
It wasn’t the response he’d expected, and it irked him. It
made him feel she was teasing and toying with him. He felt an urge to grab her,
kiss her, master her, and then something seethed at the periphery of his vision.
He turned to see shadow squirming into being by the door. The
clot of darkness sprouted hands which slid the bar aside, then withered into
non-existence.
Adolph swaggered through the doorway. Mama Solveig gave him a
look that mixed affection and exasperation in equal measure. “Dear, we’ve talked
about this before: don’t cast spells for trivial reasons, don’t do it out in the
open, and particularly, don’t do it outside my home.”
Adolph grinned. “No one was looking.” Dieter assumed the
idiot had chosen to make an impressive entrance to remind everyone who was
accounted the ablest sorcerer and Mama’s de facto lieutenant.
The scribe looked about. When his gaze fell on Jarla and
Dieter sitting together, his mouth tightened, and he tramped in their direction.
Jarla hastily rose and moved to greet him. Dieter didn’t want the other man
towering over him, so he stood up as well.