Until he saw a possibility.
“Keep fighting!” he said, then attempted the counter spell
once again but this time in altered form, weaving a skein of Dark Magic into the
pure wizardry of the sky. If it worked, it would enable the spell to strike more
accurately, to cleave to the very heart of the enchantment Adolph had wrought.
It would quell a manifestation of Chaos, but even so, it was a perversion of the
Celestial Order’s teachings and felt like the vilest thing Dieter had ever done,
worse even than poisoning Sophie and her unborn child.
And at the same time, he revelled in it, glorying in new
magic, new power, as any sorcerer would.
He slashed his hands through the ultimate pass and shouted
the final word. The cellar blazed white as though contained in a lightning bolt,
and he had to close his eyes against the glare.
When, blinking, he opened them again, both the Chaos
creatures and the gaps in the air were gone, and the latter had evidently
disgorged their prisoners as they closed.
He felt a surge of joy at his victory, but the feeling died
when he realised it had come too late to save everyone from genuine harm. Nevin
and another man lay torn and motionless on the floor, and even folk who were
still conscious bore bloody wounds and blisters too, as if they’d swum in acid.
One sobbed, another ran his fingers through his hair over and over again, and in
general, they looked as if their reason hung by a thread.
The floor tilted abruptly, and Dieter pitched forwards into
blackness.
Jarla squealed and started towards the fallen Dieter. Adolph
lifted his hand to grab her and hold her back, but then thought better of it.
Under the circumstances, it might make a bad impression on the others.
Meanwhile, Mama Solveig, tough old hag that she was, ignored
her own burns and the gash in her shoulder to scurry to Nevin, squat down, and
examine him. After a moment, she shook her head, then moved on to Maik. He
proved to be dead as well.
Adolph realised the situation had the potential to become
even more unpleasant than it was already. He considered making a break for the
exit, but didn’t. The cult meant everything to him, and he wouldn’t forsake it
no matter what the risk.
Mama Solveig strode to the door and peered out the peephole.
From the calm manner in which she turned away again, it seemed she hadn’t
observed anything alarming. The coven’s struggle for survival, frenzied though
it had been, hadn’t made enough noise to attract the notice of neighbours or
passers-by. Maybe she had a ward in place to muffle any commotion.
“How is Dieter?” she asked.
Kneeling beside the miserable whoreson in question, Jarla
rolled him onto his back, then poised her hand in front of his mouth and
nostrils. “He’s breathing. I think he just fainted. But you should look at him.”
“I will,” the healer said, “but first I need to tend the folk
who are actually wounded, and you need to help me. Fetch my basket.”
Adolph noticed that, though he was still essentially
unharmed, Mama hadn’t asked for his assistance. Perhaps it was because she was
angry with him, or maybe she felt his proximity would agitate the people who’d
been pulled into the holes.
In any event, he was left to stand and watch as she
ministered to both the flesh and spirits of the injured. Along with catgut
sutures, bandages and ointments, she dispensed soothing words, and perhaps she
infused them with a subtle magic, because they seemed to exert more influence
than Adolph might have expected. People stopped weeping, gasping and shaking.
Their eyes no longer shifted wildly to and fro. Unfortunately, once they
regained their composure, they glared and glowered at Adolph, and he felt
another pang of uneasiness.
Finally, as Mama lowered herself to examine Dieter, Hanno
snarled what everyone was evidently thinking: “You stupid, arrogant bastard! You
killed Nevin and Maik and nearly the rest of us too!” Others growled in
agreement.
Adolph felt anger, alarm, and a pang of guilt as well, but
the latter emotion only heightened the others. “I did what we’re all supposed to
do! What we’ve vowed to the god to do: try our best to master whatever spells we
uncover. And what an enchantment this one is! You could use it to destroy the
Emperor and his entire court.”
“Perhaps so,” Mama Solveig said, pressing her fingertips
against the side of Dieter’s neck, “but we’re not obliged to work recklessly. We
have a method for studying a new spell, a patient, careful way that lessens the
risk. You know it. I taught it to you. But you forgot all about it tonight.”
Obviously, she was right. It had irked him to see them all so
delighted with Dieter’s paltry little trick of luminescence, and so he’d jumped
on what had seemed an opportunity to remind them of his own abilities. “Maybe I
did act rashly, and obviously, I mourn the loss of our friends. But we all know
that being one of the Red Crown is dangerous, and because I took a chance, we’re
weeks, maybe months, ahead of where we’d be if we’d tackled the spell in the
usual plodding way.”
“Only because of Dieter,” Hanno said.
“Because of him and me!” Adolph snapped. “Maybe, stuck inside
your hole, you couldn’t see, but we both used our magic to fight the
enchantment. Tell them, Jarla!”
Refusing to meet his eyes, Jarla shrugged her shoulders and
mumbled something inaudible.
Her betrayal outraged and astonished him. Was it because he’d
used her for a shield? Hadn’t she understood the necessity? He was a genuine
sorcerer, she wasn’t, and magic had been the only hope of extricating everyone,
including her, from danger. So it had been vital that he protect himself at any
cost.
Or maybe, fickle, ungrateful trollop that she was, it was her
manifest letch for Dieter that kept her from speaking up in his defence.
Either way, she’d pay for it. They both would.
“Dieter and I, working together, saved you all,” he insisted.
“He couldn’t have accomplished anything without me protecting him.”
“I don’t see it that way,” Hanno said. He reached for the
knife at his belt. Adolph lifted his hands to cast an attack spell.
“Stop!” Mama Solveig said. Hanno faltered with his blade
half-drawn, so Adolph hesitated as well. “I won’t have you fighting with one
another when the cause needs you both.”
“Didn’t it need Nevin and Maik?” Hanno demanded.
“I suppose it did,” she replied, “but killing Adolph won’t
bring them back. Better to let him atone for their deaths by serving with zeal
and obedience from now on. That is what you intend to do, isn’t it, dear?”
“Yes,” Adolph gritted. Apparently they weren’t all going to
try to tear him apart, and he supposed he should be grateful for that, but he
still resented the old woman’s attitude. He hadn’t meant to hurt Nevin and Maik—and in fact, he hadn’t, the spirits had—so what was the point of upbraiding
him over an accident? Hell, with his magic, he was far more useful than the two
of them had ever been.
“Good,” Mama Solveig said. “You can start by lifting Dieter
onto the cot.”
At present, the sky was an inverted rippling green ocean, and
the three suns, luminous blurs shining in its depths. On the yellow plain
underneath it rose a white marble palace capped with minarets, and on one of its
terraces sat Dieter and the priest. Below them, a giant with the head of a cat
lay staked spread-eagled on the ground while inhuman torturers vivisected it. It
tried to scream but could only manage a sort of hiss. Perhaps its tormentors had
begun by cutting its vocal cords.
The priest gestured towards the raw, bloody morsels on
Dieter’s plate, meat freshly extracted from the giant’s body. “Try the liver.”
A part of Dieter wanted to sample it, so why not do it, or
indulge any other urge he happened to feel? He suspected this was only a dream,
so what was the harm? Still, the portion of him that clung to a measure of
caution, or that, perhaps, simply found the repast repulsive, compelled him to
refrain. “I don’t want it.”
“Are you sure? Cook went to quite a lot of trouble. The giant
actually only existed for a little while before it changed into something else
entirely. It had to be recalled from the void.”
“Why bother?”
The priest raised his eyebrows. “Why, to punish it for trying
to hurt you. No one and nothing is permitted to do that, unless, of course, the
attempt succeeds.”
“Why would the lords who rule here seek to protect me?”
“Now you’re being wilfully obtuse. It’s a good thing you
don’t play these foolish, stubborn little games when your life is in danger.”
“What do you mean?”
“You turned to dark lore for salvation.”
Dieter shook his head. “I used a spell I learned at the
Celestial College.”
“Infused with the power of Chaos.”
“I… modified it slightly to make it more effective, but it
was still fundamentally the same magic, and I’m still the same man. Whatever you
imagine, your poisons haven’t changed me.”
“Then why are you eating giant meat?”
He looked and saw the gory slice of flesh in his red-stained
hand. He tasted the gamy, salty aftertaste in his mouth. He retched and screamed
at the same time, choking himself, and the palace, plain and ocean-sky dissolved
into something altogether different.
In the final nightmare, a creature resembling a colossal
hornet stung Dieter in the centre of his forehead. When his eyes snapped open,
the agony of that wound turned to a sensation that fell just short of pain but
throbbed with every heartbeat.
He lay on Mama Solveig’s lumpy cot with Jarla sitting close
at hand. He studied her and the cellar, looking for anomalies, trying to verify
that he was truly awake at last. The delirium had fooled him before.
Everything looked all right, and he felt weak, feverish and
queasy, as was frequently the case when he’d studied or sought to use the dark
lore. “This is getting to be a habit,” he said, struggling to sit up. “Me
passing out. You keeping watch over me. Damn it, I thought Mama told me I
wouldn’t throw any more fits.”
“It wasn’t like the first time. You didn’t thrash and roll
about, and you didn’t stay unconscious nearly as long. Mama said you just
strained yourself. Or something like that.”
He tried to figure out if that was good or bad and decided he
lacked the knowledge to make a judgement.
“Are you thirsty?” Jarla asked. “Or hungry?”
He remembered the smell and taste of raw giant meat, and his
stomach churned. “Not yet.”
“While I sat here, I practised the light spell. I think I’m
getting good at it. I never understood much of the magic before, but you made it
plain what I needed to do.”
Curse her, why did she keep babbling when he felt so jittery
and strange? He drew breath to bark at her to shut up, and then his perspective
shifted. He remembered he was fond of her and recognised that she was trying to
take care of him. “You were a good pupil. You have a knack for that particular
charm. It must be because of your sunny disposition.”
She blushed and lowered her eyes. “Do you remember what we
talked about before Adolph arrived?”
“Of course.”
“Well, I want for us to be together, if you still do. If not,
I understand. I mean, I’m just a—”
He reached out and laid a finger across her lips. “Hush.”
Wondering if he knew what he was doing or even what he truly felt, he leaned
forwards and kissed her.
The days and nights slipped past, and some Dieter spent
afraid of everything. At such times, he longed for his safe, pleasant life in
Halmbrandt with an intensity that twisted his guts and made him want to cry. It
was generally then, too, that he made another attempt to locate the Master of
Change, each such effort merely repeating a ploy that had already failed. But
he’d already tried shadowing Mama Solveig, ransacking her possessions, quizzing
the other members of the coven and casting divinations, all to no avail. What
was left?
But on some days, or at least for certain hours, the grinding
fear abated. During those times, awareness of his old life faded, and he spoke
of his fraudulent past as a hedge wizard glibly, as though it were the reality.
Except for Adolph, the cultists seemed friends and kindred, their treasons and
blasphemies simply a routine albeit covert part of life. Even when Mama Solveig
poisoned a patient with the taint from Tzeentch’s icon, he sometimes had to
remind himself what a foul, despicable crime it actually was. Dark lore was just
an engrossing study, and his spasms of anger, seething restlessness and aching
brow, merely familiar, unremarkable aspects of who he was.
The moments following such interludes, when he felt he had
nearly warped into an entirely different person, were the most alarming of all.
Then he yearned to run but didn’t, for fear of Krieger, or because he still
clung to the hope of recovering what he’d lost. Or maybe the forbidden texts
held him, tempting him back for just one more perusal and one more whispered
secret, seducing him again and again and again.
The coven gathered anew, and Mama Solveig quavered, “It’s
time for another trip into the forest. There’s a fellow who needs to get away
from the city, and Leopold could use some fresh supplies.”
“I’ll go,” Adolph declared. Dieter wasn’t surprised. Ever
since the debacle with the spell that jabbed holes in reality, the scribe had
worked hard to regain his status among his peers.
Mama Solveig smiled. “You’re a good, brave boy. You always
volunteer.”
Adolph smiled back. The expression looked out of place on his
surly face. “Well, I’m not so brave that I wouldn’t like some help. The raiders
have been almost too successful lately. They’ve got everybody stirred up, and I
believe the army suspects Leopold has allies here in town. Will you lend me a
hand, Dieter? You’re a good magician, and you need to meet our allies sooner or
later.”