by Jack Yeovil
'Excellent, excellent. You are well placed to succeed to the position of power within the crusade?'
Blasko gulped more wine. 'Of course, of course. My trusted aides already outnumber Glinka's people on the inner councils of the Temple of Purity. I shall be appointed in his stead.'
Yefimovich's face flared into a grin. 'And as the power of the crusade grows, so shall the influence of our Invisible Empire. There is an amusing irony, don't you think, in our taking advantage of a campaign against sin?'
Blasko didn't say anything. He was sweating. Vukotich noticed that the attendant who brought him his wine was bone-white with terror. They weren't all monsters. Yet.
Genevieve was intent on the conversation, her brows knitted. Vukotich wondered where her sympathies would lie. As a monster, she must have some affinity with Yefimovich and his like. But she had campaigned against Drachenfels, the Great Enchanter. She wasn't like the other creatures of darkness he had encountered.
Yefimovich embraced the quivering Blasko and kissed him on the mouth, obviously enjoying the Lord Marshal's discomfort. Vukotich remembered how he had felt in Genevieve's cold embrace, feeling her razor teeth against his lips.
'Tzeentch willing, we shall meet again in three days, Wladislaw,' said the monster, 'after the ceremony. I shall look forward to your elevation. As our friend from the east might say, you are to climb the Pagoda'
With his robed comrades, Yefimovich left. Blasko turned to his attendant and wiped his lips. Vukotich remembered the sweet taste of Genevieve, the shameful moment when he had felt aroused by her, felt a desire for her to continue the dark kiss
The attendant was crying now, almost gibbering with fear.
Blasko was in a cold fury, trying to purge himself of his rage. He looked around for something to hurt.
'Stop that whimpering, Meyyes,' he snarled.
The attendant, no more than a lad, fell to his knees, and began to pray to Shallya for forgiveness.
Blasko threw the dregs of his goblet into the fire, and looked for a long moment into the flames. The attendant kept praying, his pleas to the goddess interrupted by sobs.
The Lord Marshal turned round, a dagger in his hand, and shut Meyyes up.
He kicked the corpse, and left the lodge.
As he did each morning, Dien Ch'ing cast the yarrow sticks. Something about the configuration disturbed him. This close to the assassination, he was liable to fuss over details, to take additional precautions. He was still in an ill humour over the pair who had escaped from the coffle yesterday. They weren't important, but they were a flaw in the tapestry of his life, and if he were to neglect such things the whole fabric would come apart.
He uncrossed his legs and stood up. His cell in the Temple of Purity was bare of all decoration, but there was an exquisitely carved trunk under his cot. It was the only thing he had brought with him from Cathay, and it had been blessed by a High Priest of Tsien-Tsin with a blood sacrifice.
Reciting the words of restraint, he opened the trunk. If he were to stray by so much as a syllable from the ancient ritual, he knew his heart would burst in his chest. Tsien-Tsin demanded perfection.
From among the other magical implements, Ch'ing drew out a shallow, unpatterned bowl. He set it on the flagstone floor and filled it with water from the jug by his cot. Then he added three drops of jaguar oil from a phial he found in its slot in the trunk. He slipped a thumb into his mouth and sank his teeth into the fleshy part, piercing the skin. He squeezed out precisely three drops of his blood, and set the bowl spinning.
The oil and the blood swirled in the water, clouding it over. Ch'ing focused his mind, trying to see the Pagoda in the water, its lower levels strewn with lotus and chrysanthemum, its upper levels decorated with the bones of those who had failed Tsien-Tsin.
Music was forbidden within the temple by order of Claes Glinka, who claimed that even the most devotional air was an invitation to lewd behaviour. But Ch'ing heard the orchestra of the Fifteen Devils playing on the Pagoda. For a moment, he was melancholy for the land of his birth.
He gave the bowl another spin, and it revolved as if on an axis like a potter's wheel. The impurities in the water collected around the rim, and the bowl became a window.
Ch'ing saw a hunting lodge in the forests, first from the outside, then from within. He nodded to himself. This was where Wladislaw Blasko and High Priest Yefimovich should have met last night, to discuss the work of the Proscribed Cults. The window was high up in the lodge, and Ch'ing saw Blasko and Yefimovich talking silently below.
What was wrong with this picture?
The conspirators were not alone. Ch'ing cursed Blasko's western wizards and their lack of true vision. The Lord Marshal should not have, need not have, allowed his business to be overheard.
There were two of them, in the gallery, listening attentively to things that were not their concern.
The window sank towards the eavesdroppers, and Ch'ing recognised them. The vampire and the mercenary. He included himself in his curses. This would not have happened had he not been careless.
The bowl slowed and the window closed. He was simply staring at a bowl of water.
The Celestial thought things through. He could not admit his mistake to Blasko, lest he be replaced as assassin. It was important to Tsien-Tsin that he, and not some feeble initiate necromancer of Nurgle, deliver the Moral Crusade into the hands of the Dark Gods. If he were to step aside, his bones would adorn the Pagoda.
Genevieve and Vukotich must be found, and silenced.
He took a bamboo flute and blew a silent note, conjuring the spirit of a humble ancestor who had been buried under the tree which provided the wood for the instrument. Ancestor Xhou formed in the air, and he despatched the spirit at once to harry the pair.
Then he set out to perform his devotions for the crusade.
They had stolen an ox-cart, and were on the road to the Blackwater. It was as good a direction as any, considering that to the east were the Dark Lands, to the south the Blood River and the Badlands, and to the west the Black Mountains. What they had learned last night troubled Vukotich a little, but it was really none of his concern. Like Genevieve, he had no especial cause to wish to protect Claes Glinka from his enemies. He was not a citizen of the Empire, and he was not currently sworn to serve anyone. If the Crusade of Purity were to be infiltrated completely by the Proscribed Cults, then it could hardly inflict any more damage than it was already wreaking in its intended form. Until someone paid him, this was not his fight. And Genevieve, he suspected, stood to profit from the encroachments of Chaos. Surely, her filthy kind would be more likely to be tolerated if the likes of Yefimovich were to rule over the Old World.
Their best plan was still to find a smithy and go their separate ways. Vukotich could certainly breathe easier without the leech girl as an anchor.
They had found some rag blankets in the cart and wrapped them around themselves. Genevieve was dozing now, her head against his shoulder, the blanket tight over their shackles. He held the reins in his left hand and let the ox do the work. They were supposed to be an old peasant couple. They had met no one on the road worth lying to.
If Blasko's followers were to come to power in the fortress cities, they would be able to betray the World's Edge defences to the goblin hordes. There would be wars. Noble houses would be set against each other. The Empire's armies would clash with the forces of Chaos. Kislev, Bretonnia and Estalia would have to pitch in. Everyone would have to take sides. There would be plenty of work for a mercenary. A war would be good for business.
But still Vukotich remembered his dreams. There was little honour, glory or profit in his nightmare of battle.
Cloaked in the robes of Purity, the inhumans could get close to the Emperor himself, could all but take over the Empire. Maybe there would be no great fields of combat, only a series of treacheries, betrayals and ignoble victories.
The cart trundled across a crossroads. There was a sturdy gallows built there. A dead
dwarf hung from the rope, flies swarming on his face.
They were getting near civilisation again.
Genevieve was awake, her fingers digging into his side.
'There's something dead here.'
'Just a sheep thief,' he told her.
'No. His spirit is gone. Someone else remains. A foreign spirit, from a very great distance'
There was a miniature explosion in the air and something took shape. It was indistinct and it flew as fast as a hummingbird. It danced above the ox's head.
Genevieve threw back the blanket and made some passes in the air with her hands.
Vukotich's right hand had gone to sleep. It dangled under hers from their chain.
'I'm not very good at this. I've never been much of a spellslinger.'
The spirit settled and became a small old man in patterned golden robes, sitting cross-legged in the air over the ox. He had long fingernails and stringy moustaches like the Celestial's.
'Greetings, honoured ones,' he said, in a tiny voice. 'I bring you the multiple blessings of my most worshipful descendant, Master Dien Ch'ing, who has attained the exalted position on the Fifth Tier of the Pagoda of Tsien-Tsin. I am Xhou Ch'ing, unworthy dog of a servant, and I request your kind permission to convey to you a proposition upon which I hope you will look with merciful favour.'
Genevieve managed to get a charm to work and violet fire sprung from her nails. Xhou waved the bolts aside as if a light breeze had disarranged his moustaches, and continued.
'My descendant bears you no ill-will, and promises that he intends to do you no further harm. All he requires is that you remain within these forests for three days, and not attempt to communicate any information you may have come by at the hunting lodge last night to anyone in the city of Zhufbar. Thereafter, he will reward you with anything you desire riches, a position, spiritual guidance, arcane knowledge. All these can be yours if you simply refrain from taking action'
Xhou had floated nearer and was now holding steady an arm's length away from them. He kept his position in the air relative to the cart even as it moved forwards. Vukotich's reins passed through Xhou, remaining visible inside the transparent spirit.
Genevieve was working frantically, but she had very little magic. Xhou kept absorbing her blows with ease. He purred suavely, making more and more offers. Vukotich had the feeling that they were in trouble.
'It pains me to raise the possibility,' Xhou said, his face an exaggerated tragic mask, 'but were you not to give your assent to my descendant's honourable and equitable proposition, I would suspect that he intends to do you considerable injury. As a favoured associate of the Lord of the Fifteen Devils, he can summon up considerable enchantments, against which you would have no chance at all of prevailing. Indeed, I am privileged to be familiar with the exquisite torments to which you are likely to be subject if, regrettably, you do not hold your worthy tongues, and I can assure you that the pains you will experience will be extensive, varied, unmerciful and'
Suddenly, Genevieve lashed out with her right hand, dragging Vukotich's arm away from his body. Her hand sank into Xhou's form, and she dipped her arm into the spirit to the elbow.
Xhou flew to pieces, and was gone.
Vukotich was astonished. Genevieve smiled, a little smugly. 'Vampires aren't the only things that don't like silver.'
'Of course.'
'There'll be other attacks. The Celestial won't stop at sending messengers.'
Vukotich knew she was right.
'If we change our direction, we might appease him. If we went to the Black Mountains that would show we have no intention of interfering in his business.'
The vampire looked shocked. 'You'd let them get away with it?'
Vukotich shrugged. 'Why not? I don't give a lashworm's tooth for Glinka.'
'But what of the Old World?'
'It's not my master. I have no master. If I'm paid, I'll fight. If not, then the Emperor and the Chaos cultists can tear each other to scraps for all I care.'
The vampire was quiet for a moment. Vukotich pulled the reins and halted the ox.
'Do we turn around?' he asked.
Genevieve's face was unreadable. She had scraped off her whore's paint and looked very much like a child.
'Well?'
'No,' she said. 'We'll go to Zhufbar and save that damned killjoy. We have no choice.'
'You may not, but I do.'
Genevieve smiled, teeth gleaming. She rattled the chain. 'Vukotich, where I go, you go. Remember that.'
'We should part soon. You can be about your business, and I shall follow my own course.'
The vampire was exasperated. 'You really are an Iron Man, aren't you? You've nothing but your calling.'
Vukotich almost remembered something, but it was from his long-vanished, never-again-thought-of past. It passed.
'Pay me, and I'll fight.'
'Very well. I'll become your mistress. You may not like it.'
Vukotich looked at her. 'You have nothing, bloodsucker. You have no gold to buy me.'
Genevieve laughed bitterly. 'No, but I have a little silver.'
By nightfall, they were in Chloesti, a medium-sized town. They arrived during some ceremony. There was a huge bonfire in the town square and the familiar robed figures were approaching in a procession, throwing fuel into the blaze. It was a solemn occasion, without any music or dancing. Genevieve supposed it might be some kind of funeral rite. The old practices died hard in the outlying settlements of the Empire. Once, hundreds of years ago, she'd been thrown into a fire just like this in a Black Mountain village. It had taken ten years to grow all her skin back. She was surprised that the Moral Crusade had established itself even out here in the wilds. It lent an added urgency to her sense of mission. Blasko must be stopped.
Since they made their bargain, Vukotich had been quiet. Genevieve wasn't certain how they could get past whatever barriers the Celestial was erecting to stop them, but she knew if she could get to Temple Master Wulfric, she could do something. If they were lucky, this affair would discredit Glinka as well as Blasko, and the Empire could get back to its comfortable mix of vice and virtue. It was strange how fate came around. Here she was, pretending to be a heroine again. When this was over, she would go back to being a barmaid, or perhaps seek out the Convent of the Order of Eternal Night and Solace and retreat from the messes of humankind. She was tired of great deeds, of songs and chap-books.
They found the path of the cart blocked by townsfolk, standing in silence as the Moral Crusaders marched up to the fire.
'What's going on?' Genevieve asked.
A dejected-looking young man cursed and spat. 'Glinka's Good-bodies just took over the Burgomeister's offices.'
'What's in the fire?'
A respectable-looking woman shushed them. She had a noticeable moustache.
The young man, who had obviously been drinking something not coffee, ignored her.
'Immoral books, they say, the meddling morons. They can't read and they can't write, but they know which books aren't good for you.'
Genevieve was intrigued. What could Chloesti harbour capable of outraging the crusade? Was there perhaps a secret cache in the area, containing the Proscribed Grimoires of Slaanesh, as famously illustrated by the perverse woodcutter Khuff, or Berthe Manneheim's long-forbidden Arts of a Courtesan?
'Immoral, hah!' the young man spat again. 'Children's picture books, and the plays of Tarradasch. Images offend the gods, they say, and words are worse. Words are the worst thing of all, because they make people think, make people want for things outside the narrow range of their experience. Things like freedom. The freedom to think, to love, to question. The freedom to breathe.'
Two acolytes struggled by with a huge painting depicting the sister goddesses Shallya and Myrmidia at play. The technique was crude, but there was a certain naive charm to the interpretation. It was tossed into the flames and consumed in an instant.
Acolytes on horseback dashed into the square, dr
agging broken statues behind them with ropes. Stone and plaster limbs and heads shattered against the cobbles. A head rolled under the ox's hooves. Painted marble, it looked unpleasantly realistic.
The fires burned fiercely. Firefly sparks spiralled up into the air like daemon ticks.
'It must be hard for them,' the young man said, 'to be confined to burning poems, when what they'd really like to do is burn poets.'
The complainer's hands, Genevieve noticed, were liberally stained with ink, and his hair was a fingerlength longer than customary in this region. There was a large, floppy blossom in the lapel of his waistcoat, and his sleeves were loose and embroidered. She deduced his profession.
'Barbarous fools,' the poet shouted, waving a fist. 'You'll never silence the voice of Art!'
The woman with the moustache was deeply offended now. She had a child with her, a plump boy who was looking up at the angry poet with obvious admiration. Anyone capable of so upsetting his mama must have something worth watching. Burning pages floated above the square, crumbling to black ash.
The poet had attracted the acolytes and a few of them were converging on him. Genevieve shrank against Vukotich, trying to seem like an innocent bystander.
'He's the trouble-maker,' said the woman, pointing. 'The longhaired disgrace.'
The child was pulling at her skirts. She swatted him and dragged him away.
The acolytes took hold of the poet and wrestled him out of the crowd.
The woman was fighting her son now. 'Come, come, Detlef,' she said, 'you don't want to be with these nasty people. Poets and playwrights and actors and harlots. You're to be a vegetable merchant, like your papa, and keep us comfy in our old age.'
Genevieve felt sorry for the little boy. She looked at him. He couldn't have been more than six or seven.
The acolytes had their iron bars out now and were giving the poet a pummelling. He was still shouting about Art living forever. There was blood on his face.
'And she's in it too,' the vegetable merchant's wife screeched, pointing at Genevieve. 'She's with the scribbling swine!'
The acolytes' hoods bobbed as they looked up at the cart. Vukotich shook his head. He must seem massive from below, and definitely presented a more threatening appearance than the reedy poet.
