by C. L. Werner
He could sense the vampire lurking somewhere nearby. The hideous curse that bound Gregor to Sibbechai would also lead him to it. Gregor walked forward into one of the gaping tunnel openings. However crooked the burrows of the underfolk, he would not lose himself. The profane light of Sibbechai’s foul existence would lead him on.
And when he found the vampire, he would drive his spear through its shrivelled heart. Only then could he allow his own corruption to be purged from him by stake and hammer and flame.
Silja Markoff had returned to the garishly appointed reception hall. This time, however, the young woman’s reserves of strength were depleted. She could not hold back the emotions raging within her. Tears flowed freely from her reddened eyes, her body trembling with terrible sobs. Thulmann’s comforting hand rested on her shoulder. He knew that no empty words of comfort would provide solace now. It was much too late for platitudes. He found himself wishing that Father Kreutzberg had not returned to the Temple of Morr. The old priest was well versed in the ways of death and offering succour to the bereaved. But Kreutzberg did not seem to share Ehrhardt’s opinion that skaven were of concern to the disciples of Morr. Indeed, he had left the chapter house in almost unseemly haste after the ghastly events in the torture chamber, preferring the hunt for vampires to a confrontation with the underfolk.
‘I shamed him into it.’ Silja wept. ‘He tried to explain and I wouldn’t hear him.’ She looked up at the witch hunter. He winced as he saw the pain in her face. ‘The things I said to him. The hideous things I said, the last words he ever heard from my lips! I may as well have put the sword to his throat myself.’
Thulmann remained silent, letting her anguish fill the air. What could he say? That because of her, Igor Markoff had remembered his duty and his honour? That he had died the death of a hero, striving against a maniacal tyrant? Later such words might be of help, now they would only feed the misery of her loss.
Thulmann’s hand tightened about her shoulder. His voice spoke firm and grim. ‘He will be avenged, Silja. Your father’s murder will not go unpunished.’ A faint shadow of hope tinged the pain in her eyes, her hand closing over his own. ‘By Sigmar’s holy name, I swear it,’ the templar added, feeling the power behind his words. Thulmann was a devout Sigmarite, some might go so far as to call him a zealot. He did not make oaths in his god’s name lightly.
There was a sharp knock at the door. Slowly the portal opened, revealing Streng’s unkempt visage, dust from the aborted excavation still covering his clothes. Thulmann noted that the mercenary had found time to raid the chapter house’s armoury, a brace of pistols hanging from his belt.
‘We’re ready, Mathias,’ Streng said. ‘If we’re to go through with this, we’d better act now.’
Thulmann extracted his hand from Silja’s grasp. She looked from Thulmann to Streng and back again. The old cunning and suspicion that had allowed her to act as her father’s agent returned to her eyes.
‘Go through with what?’ she demanded.
‘It would best if you did not know,’ Thulmann replied, smiling weakly. Silja rose to her feet.
‘That was the only answer I needed,’ she said. ‘I’m coming with you.’ Seeing the disapproving light in the witch hunter’s eyes, Silja’s voice grew soft, at once stronger and more vulnerable. ‘He killed my father, Mathias. Surely that gives me the right.’
‘I don’t think they’ll let the daughter of a man the baron executed as a traitor anywhere near the castle,’ Streng pointed out.
‘And how are you planning to approach the baron?’ she asked.
‘We have an invitation,’ Thulmann admitted. ‘Captain Meisser has been invited to attend a social gathering. Naturally a man of such importance is not going to attend such an event without his own functionaries to hand.’
‘Then I’m coming with you,’ she repeated. ‘You can furnish me with one of those oversized cloaks and horrible hats you people always wear. Even the baron’s own guard don’t like witch hunters. They make them uneasy. They won’t look too close at the face beneath the hat.’
Thulmann realised there was to be only one resolution. He nodded at Silja. ‘Streng, have Eldred provide Fraulein Markoff with an appropriate raiment and see that she doesn’t lack in the area of armaments.’ He didn’t like the lewd wink Streng gave as he loped off to implement his employer’s commands, nor the way it brought colour to his own face. He was allowing Silja Markoff to accompany their expedition because it was the right thing to do. There was no other reason.
‘I should warn you that Captain Meisser will be accompanying our excursion,’ he said. ‘You might say he’s our walking invitation.’ He raised an admonishing hand. ‘Tempting as it might be, try not to kill him. At least not until after we’re safely inside the Schloss von Gotz.’
‘I really must advise against such exertion after such a trying recovery, excellency.’ It had been some time since the wizard Furchtegott had known stark, utter terror, but now he was fully reacquainted. He trembled with a helpless fear far beyond the child watching the shadows in its room assume monstrous shapes, or the woodsman who hears the scratching of a wolf at his door in the dead of night.
When the baron’s proclamation had been made, Furchtegott had been too overwhelmed by the aftermath of Markoff’s death to consider the consequences of such a whim. The food stores of the city were to be thrown open, the rabble allowed to plunder them to their hearts’ content. If Graf Alberich Haupt-Anderssen did not lift the quarantine soon, if he could not be satisfied that the plague had been eradicated, Wurtbad would starve. There had been little chance of making it through the winter before, now von Gotz had ensured that there was none at all.
However, there was something of more immediate concern to Furchtegott. Something he cursed himself for not realising when he wrote down the baron’s edict and hastily passed it on to his steward. Von Gotz was hosting a grand feast to celebrate the destruction of the plague, a great festivity to which all the notables of the city had been commanded to attend. The wizard should have realised that the baron would hardly host such an event without attending it himself.
The wizard regarded the abomination rummaging about its wardrobe, trying to find some piece of finery that would still fit its bloated bulk. Furchtegott pondered the horror of the baron’s mind: how could he not see what he had become, not realise what was happening to him? Yet he carried on as though he were still as he once had been. Was it madness, Furchtegott wondered, or something even more unnatural?
‘You take good care of my welfare, dear Furchtegott,’ the baron’s voice bubbled. ‘But I am a robust man, a man who needs to be active and vital. I have been too long locked away in these rooms, my mind craves diversion. Do not trouble yourself, my friend, I shall not expire from overexertion, I promise you.’
Furchtegott could readily agree with that sentiment. He had tried every poison known to him, and quite a few deadly improvisations with the chemicals in his workshop, and still the baron lived. His constitution was not even remotely human now, his appearance even less so. Perhaps clean steel or a little battle magic might still destroy the monster, but after witnessing what the baron had done to Markoff and his own guards, the wizard knew it would take a heart much stouter than his own to put such a theory to the test.
‘Why so glum, magician?’ The sound that slopped from the baron’s mass more resembled the gagging of a cat than human laughter. ‘If I suffer a relapse, you will simply have to doctor me back to health once more. It would prove beyond a doubt your prowess in the arcane arts.’
The wizard forced himself to look on the baron, at the pools of black bile that had replaced the nobleman’s eyes. ‘I will take no responsibility for your health if you dismiss my admonition,’ Furchtegott said, with all the disapproval he could muster. ‘You have recently recovered from a most virulent pestilence and your body is still weak, even if you do not feel it. In your present state, you are highly sensitive to the ill humours of others. That is why you must keep
to your room and allow no one in.’ The wizard threw up his hands. ‘Yet now, you seem intent on undoing all of my work, attending a feast where there will be hundreds of people from all over the city, each of them bringing with them who knows what diseases and foul airs!’
Baron von Gotz, or the creature that used to be him, wore an almost childlike look of contrition. The thing nodded its head almost sheepishly. ‘I apologise, magister,’ the baron croaked. ‘You know best, of course.’ The thing shuffled toward its bed, letting the ermine cloak it had been fondling trail behind it like the tail of a slug.
‘Stay here and rest,’ Furchtegott replied, all conviviality now. ‘I shall be back in a few moments with a restorative for you to drink.’ The wizard retreated, pleased to see von Gotz draw back the curtains of his bed to keep any foul airs from lighting upon him when the door was opened. More importantly, it kept anyone in the corridor from accidentally catching a glimpse of him.
The baron was becoming more and more unpredictable, more unstable. Furchtegott could not be certain how much longer he would be able to control the thing. The time had come to escape, before he found his way onto the gallows or the witch hunter’s pyre. He would gather up his most precious paraphernalia and slip from the castle while the feast was taking place. The guards would be too intent on checking the people flooding into the castle to pay much heed to someone leaving.
In the baron’s bedchamber, an obscene puddle of rotting flesh and protruding bones waddled the floor once more. The baron’s clawed hands fondled the soft, rich fur of his ermine cloak. He always looked so splendid in this pristine garment. He turned his viscous eyes toward the floor, imagining the gathering in the halls beneath his feet. It was his celebration, after all. It would be the height of impropriety for the host not to show himself to his guests.
The baron’s talons fumbled at the clasp of his cloak, trying to fasten it about his swollen neck. He wanted to look his best when he made his entrance.
‘Well, collecting these was a waste of time.’ Carandini hefted the pick he had taken from a zombie, hurling the tool back down the tunnel. He wrinkled his nose at the ragged fur that hung from the reanimated skaven’s shoulders, where the fangs of Sibbechai’s rats had done their work. Removing a dagger from his cassock, Carandini began to cut away the flapping length of fur-covered flesh.
The necromancer and his living dead attendants had followed Sibbechai for hours through the wandering network of tunnels and passages. They had not been troubled again by the skaven, but Carandini was certain that the hideous underfolk had not forgotten the invaders. The hairs of his neck prickled every time he considered inhuman eyes watching their every movement, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.
They faced a stone wall, already breached long ago and resealed in a hasty fashion. Like the bricks in the sewer wall, the stones were intended for easy removal to afford access from the skaven tunnels. It made sense for the ratmen to extend their network to include the castle itself, allowing their spies to creep into the halls of power to observe the world above their own shadow kingdom.
‘Do not complain, necromancer,’ Sibbechai’s sardonic voice intoned. ‘The mutants have done our work for us. We need only remove a few stone blocks and the prize shall be in my grasp.’ The vampire pointed a clawed finger at the wall. ‘Set your creatures to work. I grow impatient.’
Carandini was chilled by the fanatical tone in its words. For centuries the monster had striven to recover the book compiled five hundred years ago by its brother, the witch hunter Helmuth Klausner, bound in the skin he had flayed from Sibbechai’s undead husk. Now the flames of its desire glowed beneath the vampire’s withered hide, even greater than the bloodthirst of its kind. Sibbechai would tolerate no more failures.
The zombies shambled forward, clutching and groping at the stone blocks. Carandini could sense the vampire’s frustration and impatience mounting by the moment. The necromancer retrieved the claw of Nehb-ka-Menthu from his bag, crouching in the filthy earth that covered the tunnel floor. He drew signs and symbols in the dirt, the words of ancient Nehekhara slipping from his tongue. The already damp air of the tunnel suddenly became colder, the mud clinging to the fur and rags of the zombies crackling as frost appeared upon it. In response to the necromancer’s invocation, they jerked and twitched with new life, attacking their labours with increased speed and strength. A cold sweat peppered Carandini’s brow as he struggled to complete the complicated litany of words and gestures. Calling upon the malevolent spirit of the dead tomb king to bolster the strength of his own spells was not without its cost, or its dangers.
If Sibbechai noticed the necromancer’s ordeal, it gave no indication. As still as the skeleton of a blackened tree, the vampire’s unclean anticipation grew as each block was pulled away. Often the grip of dead fingers would prove insufficient for the task at hand, the huge stones tumbling free, crushing bones and breaking limbs. Those still able would rise again, limping back to their labour with the same silent obedience with which they endured mutilation. Others remained trapped beneath the stones, feebly trying to wriggle free and continue their work with broken spines and shattered skulls.
It was not long before the opening was large enough to admit a man’s body. The vampire stepped forward, gesturing with its claw for Carandini to cease his spell. The zombies were instantly still as the necromancer’s voice stopped, standing like grisly statues. Carandini rose slowly to his feet, breathing deeply as he tried to replenish the air in his starved lungs. Even with so potent a talisman as the hand of Nehb-ka-menthu, Tomb King of lost Khareops, drawing on the dark magic of necromancy had its price.
Sibbechai regarded the recovering sorcerer, its eyes smouldering in the darkness. The creature lifted its skeletal hand and gestured at the opening. ‘You first, deathmaster,’ it hissed. Carandini heaved himself upright, stumbling toward the hole as his weakened body recalled the mechanical exercise of moving his legs. Carandini stepped through the hole in the wall, into the darkness below the Schloss von Gotz.
His sensitive eyes pierced the shadows. The skaven had chosen their entry point well. The room was large, with only a single ironbound door leading from it. Much of it was empty, the rest occupied by stacks of wooden planking, bricks and clay roof tiles. Clearly it was some manner of storeroom, but the layer of dust showed it had not been entered for some time.
Sibbechai had made a terrible mistake in allowing the Tilean to precede it. Carandini was a black sorcerer versed in the magic of death and undeath, but he was still a man, living blood still flowed through his veins. Sibbechai was one of the undead, a child of the night. Strange were the limitations placed upon its unholy kind. The castle was a human abode, and no vampire could gain entry to such a residence without being invited across the threshold. Carandini smiled at this flaw in Sibbechai’s plan. The vampire would still be scratching at the door when Carandini retrieved Das Buch die Unholden from whatever fool now possessed it.
Sibbechai’s eyes glowed in the dark like dancing flames. Even as Carandini opened his mouth to hurl a parting jibe, he realised his mistake. The vampire had helped Carandini turn the corpses from the plague pit into zombies, but had lent no aid in restoring their ranks after the skaven attack. It had not helped Carandini control the automatons, nor lent its own dreadful power to the creatures’ penetration of the castle wall. It had conserved its power while letting the necromancer expend his. Now, Sibbechai turned its hypnotic eyes upon the Tilean, forcing its thoughts into his weakened mind.
Like a puppet, Carandini drew closer to the hole. Words came unbidden to his lips, words that did not originate in his own mind. In truth, any living, human being could gain entry for a vampire to a human dwelling. It was for this reason that the dread vampire counts had kept living slaves among their undead households, to steal into places their masters could not go, to unlock doors a vampire could not open. It was for this reason that Sibbechai had allowed Carandini to come so close to the prize.
‘Ente
r, master,’ Carandini heard himself say. Sibbechai’s malevolent laughter crackled about the underworld like lightning. With a flourish of its shroud-like robes, the vampire swept forward, its gaunt shadow falling upon the sorcerer. As its fiery eyes burned into his own, he knew he gazed upon his death. Sibbechai had spared him only so that he might invite the monster across the threshold. Now his usefulness was at an end. Raw terror threatened to explode his heart as he realised there was nothing he could do to stop it.
‘No, deathmaster,’ Sibbechai laughed. ‘You will live a short time yet. You will be granted the privilege of seeing Sibbechai in all his magnificence. You shall see the treasure you thought to cheat me of before I allow death to still your screams.’ The vampire laughed, gliding away from the necromancer as though it were nothing more than mist and shadow. Carandini watched as the ranks of zombies followed the vanishing fiend toward the storeroom’s only door. But Sibbechai had not finished with its treacherous confederate, placing another obligation upon Carandini’s weakened mind.
‘Remain here, necromancer,’ it hissed. Carandini watched the vampire’s claw close about the heavy door, tearing it from its hinges as though it were crafted of paper. ‘Do not fear,’ it said as its shadow drifted away into the cellars beyond the storeroom, ‘I shall not be long.’
The Castle von Gotz was alive with activity. Servants dressed in their garish livery bustled about, seeing to the care and comfort of the small army of guests that filled the castle’s halls. They represented the very best the city had to offer – the scions of the ancient families of the nobility, the wealthiest of the river merchants who brought trade and prosperity to the city, guildmasters representing virtually every lawful vocation in Wurtbad, and several that existed upon the grey fringes of the law. Foppish aristocrats in powdered wigs rubbed shoulders with grizzled army officers who wore their scars as proudly as their medals.
