So she could keep an eye on him and try to make sure he was a
genuine convert? Maybe, but conversely, it ought to facilitate the process of
spying on her. “I’d like that. Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome. It will be nice to have company in this
gloomy old hole. But I’m sure you understand, a family doesn’t work if people
only take. They need to give back, also.”
“I can see that.”
“I knew you would. So the coven has to consider what each new
recruit can contribute, to his newfound kindred and the cause we serve, and in
your case, the answer is plain: your magic.”
His forehead throbbed. “What about it?”
Mama hesitated as though calculating precisely how much she
wanted to share with a new recruit. “When we talked before, I mentioned that the
Red Crown supports those who seek to topple the Empire by force of arms.”
“Specifically, someone named Leopold and his comrades in the
forest.”
She stared at him. “And how do you know that?”
“Jarla mentioned them.”
The old woman sighed. “She’s a good girl, but too chatty.
Apparently I need to remind her that it’s for me to decide what you learn and
when. But since she’s already blathered about it: yes, Leopold Mann leads a band
of warriors who all bear the mark of the god. Today, they operate as bandits,
but they aspire to become a genuine rebel army. The Red Crown sends them new
recruits and supplies, and warns them of efforts to locate and destroy them. My
hope is that your skills can help.”
“Well, perhaps.” Perhaps, for the time being, he’d have to
aid the Red Crown in small ways in order to obtain the information that would
ultimately bring them down.
“But even that isn’t the main thing,” Mama Solveig said.
“You’ve seen the sanctuary where we perform our rituals.” Dieter thought of the
grotesque appearance of the icon, the cold, hard feel of it against his lips,
the pulses of psychic force that hammered from it, and his stomach churned.
“Maybe you noticed a scarcity of books and documents.”
“Now that you mention it.”
“I told you about the great treasure trove of knowledge our
leader possesses. He’s entrusted us with a few fragmentary texts from that
library, and requires us to puzzle over them until they give up their secrets
and so enhance our sorcery. He will then lend us another chapter from a grimoire
or something comparable, and the process will start anew.”
Dieter shook his head. “I don’t understand. If the goal is to
make you—us—powerful, so we can serve our god as ably as possible, then why
not give us all the materials we need to advance quickly? Why not come and
instruct us?”
Mama Solveig smiled. “Many reasons, or so I’ve been told. The
Master of Change can’t teach you himself because no one but coven leaders ever
sees him. It’s a part of the secrecy that keeps us all safe. Besides, learning
this way is a sort of test. By passing it, we prove our fitness to enter the
deeper mysteries.”
“It still doesn’t strike me as an efficient way to approach
the task of overthrowing the Empire and changing the fundamental nature of the
world.”
“To be honest, I’ve thought the same. But we have to
recognise that the god’s designs are both vaster and subtler than mortal minds
can comprehend. From time to time, his will, as conveyed by the Master of
Change, may impress you as perverse and self-defeating. At such moments, you
must simply cling to your faith.”
“All right. If you tell me so, then I accept it. Anyway, we
were talking about how I can make myself useful.”
“And isn’t it clear? Your father has already trained you in
an occult tradition. Your spells were strong enough to destroy a creature of
Chaos. You’re a powerful, knowledgeable warlock, and I suspect that when you
study the texts in our possession, you’ll discover things none of us have
grasped. So I want you to devote much of your time to doing precisely that, and
to teaching the rest of us what you learn.”
He felt a surge of elation, of eagerness, as if he’d found
the proper outlet for the restless energy seething inside him. Every wizard
lived to learn new spells and secrets, and he was no exception. He’d retired to
Halmbrandt for that very purpose, purely for the satisfaction it promised, with
no particular intent of ever putting the results of his research to practical
use. And here was Mama Solveig offering him the opportunity to pore over lore he
could have acquired nowhere else. It was marve—
He realised what he was thinking and felt a jolt of dismay,
because the situation wasn’t marvellous, it was dangerous. It was only by
limiting himself to a single discipline, to the energies derived from only one
of the eight winds, that a magician held the Chaos implicit in all sorcery in
check. To do otherwise was to court corruption. Had a youthful Dieter dared to
dabble in alchemy, he might well have degenerated into the murderous bandit of
his nightmare.
Whereas, if the apprentice had immersed himself in Dark
Magic, a few years might have sufficed to strip him of his humanity entirely.
Manageable if not benign in isolation, the eight lores formed poison when mixed
together. Dark lore was virulent in and of itself because it immediately and
automatically opened a practitioner to Chaos. It could pollute a wizard as
quickly and profoundly as Mama Solveig’s icon.
Trapped among the cultists until he completed his task,
Dieter had no hope of avoiding all exposure to their arcane secrets. But it was
essential that he limit it.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” he said, “but I doubt I can
harvest anything from the texts that you haven’t already discovered for
yourselves. I’m just not as powerful or learned as you think I am.”
Her eyes narrowed in their nests of wrinkles. “You killed the
fiery serpent.”
“I was lucky. Besides, as Adolph said, he and I did it
together.”
“Hm. Well, in any case, someone schooled you in magic.”
“My father knew some spells by rote, and taught them to me
that same way. I have no idea what makes them work, and I couldn’t create a new
one if my life depended on it.”
The old woman sighed. “What a pity. I had such high hopes of
you, and now you almost seem to be trying to make me think you’ll be of no use
at all. You really wouldn’t want me to think that.”
“No, and it isn’t what I meant. I certainly have something to
contribute.”
“Of course you do, dear. I never doubted it. Now come take
your first look at the parchments.”
He felt another irrational thrill of anticipation, and fought
to quash it. “What? I explained—”
“That the rest of us shouldn’t expect anything special from
you. I understand. But naturally, you’ll still study the lore like the rest of
us.”
“Naturally.” He couldn’t think of any way to refuse. It
occurred to him that he should have claimed to be illiterate, but it was too
late now. Anyone in his position would have mentioned it sooner had it actually
been the case.
Perhaps he could unfocus his eyes and rest them on the
documents without actually reading. That might protect him from the venom they
contained.
It would be dark at the centre of the cavernous cellar, the
shafts of dusty golden light falling through the windows notwithstanding. Mama
lit the oil lamp while Dieter found his shoes. The midwife then led him deeper
into her domain, and, sketching her arcane sigil on the stale air, revealed the
coven’s hidden shrine. Pouncing into visibility, the icon of Tzeentch seemed to
shift ever so slightly atop its plinth at the far end of the space.
Dieter braced himself to withstand the poisonous atmosphere
of the shrine. It made his head throb and his belly squirm, but it wasn’t as
noxious as it had been the first time. Perhaps a person actually could get used
to it. Or maybe his initiation had granted him a measure of resistance.
Mama Solveig set the oil lamp atop the lectern. “You’re still
a young man with young eyes. This should be enough light for you to read by.
Later on, you won’t even need this much. Once you become familiar with the
papers—or perhaps I should say, once they come to know you—the words and
drawings will shine with their own inner light.”
Trembling, Dieter took his place behind the wooden stand. He
felt frightened but exhilarated too, as he had the first time a woman granted
him her favours.
Which was crazy. The two situations were nothing alike. He
made his vision blur, resolved again to read not a single letter, and lowered
his gaze.
Despite his unfocused eyes, meaning surged up at him like a
striking snake, and the opening words of an invocation to Tzeentch impressed
themselves on his comprehension. He couldn’t imagine how, for many of them were
unfamiliar, derived, perhaps, from the same unknown language Mama Solveig had
spoken at the conclusion of last night’s ritual. Yet something of their import
conveyed itself nonetheless.
He told himself to wrench his gaze away, even if it
compromised his mission. But he couldn’t. The writing exerted a fascination
stronger than his fear.
Here, contained in a single line, was a crushing rebuttal to
the sane, common-sense notion that a thing either existed or did not. A little
further along, the author used a term referring to the brittle, flimsy
composition of all the mortal world, a word somehow redolent of loathing and
contempt even if the reader had never encountered it before.
The word infected Dieter with the sentiments it connoted. He
yearned to destroy something.
Then air gusted, and the wavering flame of the oil lamp blew
out, plunging him into darkness.
Fortunately, the ink on the parchments didn’t glow for
Dieter, not yet, and, no longer able to make out the blasphemous words or much
of anything else, he finally managed to jerk his gaze away.
When he did, he sensed that Mama Solveig was no longer
standing at his side. Nor could any trace be seen of the light falling through
the windows set at intervals along the tops of the walls. The murk was all but
absolute.
He groped for the oil lamp, took it in his hand, and murmured
an incantation. The ceramic body of the vessel began to glow with its own
phosphorescence, shedding illumination without the necessity of fuel or flame.
With the light came the urge to return to his reading.
Straining against the impulse, making sure he didn’t so much as glance at the
papers atop the lectern, he raised the lamp and peered about.
He still couldn’t see any sign of Mama Solveig, her infirmary
or living area, the windows or the walls. The cellar appeared larger than
before, too large for his light to reveal all of it.
“Mama Solveig?” he called. His voice echoed. No one answered.
It occurred to him that perhaps he hadn’t truly awakened
after all. It was possible he was still delirious. Still trapped in the heart of
Chaos.
But no. He didn’t believe it, refused to believe he might
still be incapable of distinguishing between hallucination and reality. This was
actually happening, and that meant he’d fallen victim to an enchantment,
conceivably an effect he himself had unwittingly evoked from the forbidden text.
The simplest way to cope with the magic and the
disorientation it produced might be simply to walk in a straight line. With
luck, he’d move out of the illusion that made the cellar seem limitless, and the
bounds of the space would come back into view. At worst, he’d bump into a wall,
and then could feel his way along it until he found the door.
He took three steps, then froze when he belatedly perceived
that he was walking directly towards the icon. Did the sculpture’s draconic
snarl pull ever so slightly into something more closely resembling a leer?
No, damn it, of course it hadn’t. He turned his back on the
image and headed in the opposite direction.
Deviating from his course only to avoid one broken, abandoned
article or another, he passed a succession of brick columns. Too many. Finally
he glanced backwards. The lectern, pentacle and racks of magical implements were
all but lost in the gloom. Another pace or two and he wouldn’t be able to
distinguish them at all anymore, and without that point of reference, he’d be
completely lost.
No, he wouldn’t. Not in a space that surely remained finite
however it currently appeared, and not when he had divination to guide him if
need be. So why did panic keep welling up inside him?
He decided to seek guidance without further delay, and never
mind that it seemed ridiculous to resort to sorcery simply to find his way to
the edge of an enclosed space. The magic wasn’t likely to speak as clearly here
as it would if it could write its message across the sky, but a breeze should
kick up to nudge him along in the proper direction.
He cleared his throat, then declaimed words of power. Spiders
skittered madly in their webs, and his ears ached as though he’d dived deep
underwater.
On the final syllable of the incantation, the air moved, but
not as he’d anticipated. It gusted in one direction, then another, then whirled
and howled around him, catching his clothing and making it rustle and flap,
until it abruptly stopped moving altogether.
Dieter ran his fingers through his sweaty, tousled hair. The
divination hadn’t pointed the way to the door. In fact, it had seemed to be
saying it was impossible to walk out of the enchantment. If so, then maybe he
had reason to be frightened after all.
At the periphery of his vision, shadows stirred. He jerked
around, but by that time, everything was still again.
“Mama?” he shouted.
Only the dwindling echoes of his own voice replied.
Uncertain if he’d truly seen anything at all, keeping watch
from the corner of his eye, he moved, and after a time glimpsed motion. His
stalker was slinking from the cover of one support column to the next while
gradually creeping closer. It was interesting to observe that once again, the
elderly midwife was moving without any hint of unsteadiness or frailty.