Necromancer

by Jonathan Green - (ebook by Undead)

  He was barely aware of anything else happening around him. He heard Erich’s screams as if he was in another room. Then he was screaming too, in physical and mental anguish. Darkness consumed him and the true horror began.

  Dieter woke with a start and a strangled cry. He sat bolt upright, the nightmarish vision of a host of the undead—an army—dragging their rotten bodies out of their graves and marching towards him across bleak moorland still fresh in his mind. He was drenched in sweat and there was a foul burning taste in his mouth, suggesting he had been sick. His head was pounding, as if in the grip of a stinking hangover.

  As he blinked the retina-seared images of the deathly faces from his eyes, awareness of his surroundings returned and with them bewilderment, anxiety and fear. The last thing he remembered with any clarity was being crouched in the darkness under the house in Apothekar Allee, the overwhelming images of death, the black sickness filling him as the pox-ridden doktor invoked powers best left undisturbed.

  What he could not remember was anything after that, other than the horrific nightmares in which the restless dead pursued him relentlessly. Dieter looked at the familiar surroundings of his room in the attic of Frau Keeler’s lodging house. He could not remember returning there.

  He certainly didn’t know how he had got back. At the present time he did not even know what day it was, although from the bright summer sunshine beating in through the dormer windows the time was somewhat after nine o’ clock in the morning.

  And there was so much more that he did not know. Had he and Erich been seen by Doktor Drakus as he performed his dark ritual? Whether they had or not, how could he be here now, with no memory of what had followed? They must have been seen. But if they had, how had he managed to get back to his lodgings? Had he contracted the plague from the disease-riddled man? Was the sickness taking root within him even now, condemning him to a slow, agonising death?

  Had it all been a nightmare? It had seemed so realistic and yet at the same time so had his waking dream about Erich after they had first visited the house of Doktor Drakus. Had they even been to visit it a second time or had he simply dreamed it all? Dieter’s head was in a spin. He was finding it hard to trust his own senses now.

  Another thought crossed his mind: where was Erich?

  Dieter climbed out of bed. He was still dressed; only his cloak and boots had been removed before he went to bed. He stumbled through to the other lodger’s room. The door was closed.

  Dieter knocked. There was no reply. He knocked again.

  “E-Erich? Are you there?”

  Nothing. Dieter tried the handle. The door was locked.

  “Erich?” he called, thumping on the door with the flat of his hand.

  “Go away.”

  “Erich, are you all right? W-What happened last night?”

  “Go away!”

  “But we need to talk about this. I need to talk about what happened.”

  “Go away!” Erich screamed. “Go away! Go away!”

  Dieter slumped against the door and slid down it to the floor. He felt sick. The pounding of his headache was now an intense needling migraine behind his eyes that made him wince.

  Cold realisation hit him. Whatever had happened beneath the house of Doktor Drakus, it had been for real. And there was one thing he was certain of, without knowing how. Something had changed within him. And he very much doubted it had changed for the better.

  And it seemed that the change had not just happened inside him. Somehow the candle-flame he lit in his room that night seemed not to hold back the darkness so well. When he eventually ventured out into Bögenhafen again, the streets seemed darker around him. The whole town seemed more greatly steeped in inconstant shadows.

  The world had changed irrevocably for Dieter Heydrich.

  Erich did not emerge from his room for several days, not until the ninth day of Vorgeheim. In all that time Dieter himself barely left the lodging house, only going out to bring back food and drink; even then he made sure he covered his face with the cowl of his cloak, despite the foetid summer heat, in case he should be spotted by the watch and identified as a house-breaker. And if not by the watch, by other eyes with death in their cold gaze.

  Dieter was afraid of contact with others and he certainly dared not return to the guild, in case word had somehow got back to them of his nefarious nighttime activities. The other students and senior members would ask too many questions, pry too deeply. And what if Drakus had secret contacts within the guild? And yet there still remained the doubt—the denial, perhaps—in the back of his mind that it had all been some horribly realistic dream.

  But he had not been idle in those days of self-confinement. The books he had stolen from Drakus’ library still obsessed him, even more after what he thought he had witnessed beneath the house in Apothekar Allee. Dieter filled his notebooks with what he learned, with what he was teaching himself. But he had also begun to record some of the other things he believed he had seen and beard, trying to make sense of them. He drew diagrams to represent the curious hand gestures he had witnessed—the memory of the hand movements was so clear to him, how could they be something he had simply dreamed—and he tried to write down what he had heard the doktor say. He did not even know what language Drakus had been speaking, but he persevered, writing the words phonetically.

  When Erich did emerge from his room at last, stinking and unshaven, Dieter soon came to realise that a change had come over his roommate too. It showed in the diamond-sharp look in his eyes and practically all he would talk about was his new obsession with death, to the point where Dieter preferred not to speak with him anymore.

  There had been a change in the mood of the populace of Bögenhafen too. There was talk amidst the townspeople of plague in nearby towns, talk that Dieter heard on those few occasions when he ventured out of the garret and the lodging house for supplies. Word was that the plague had reached as far as Kreuzotterfeld, Stimmingen and Vagenholt. Word was that the Sigmarite Templars of the Bögenhafen chapter house had been carrying out a pogrom in the surrounding villages, allegedly uncovering cells of plague-worshippers. Word was that the first cases of Sturp’s ague had been reported in Bögenhafen itself.

  Dieter knew that he should have reported what he had seen—what he had thought he had seen—to the witch hunters the very next day. But it was too late now. In fact, he should have gone to the witch hunters before, after the discovery he had made in Drakus’ library or even before that, when he had witnessed the body snatchers at work. It was definitely too late now; the consequences for him were too terrible and final to contemplate. No, he would have to watch and wait this one out alone and unaided.

  On the thirteenth day of the month Leopold visited him again. His excuse was that he had been sent by Professor Theodrus to find out what had befallen Dieter, to find out what was going on. Leopold received short shrift, Dieter sending him away without giving him any reason for his recent absence from the guild.

  Leopold returned again four days later, insisting he be admitted and that the two apprentices tell him what was going on. On that occasion a raving Erich forcefully expelled him from the lodging house. Leopold stormed off claiming that he would be speaking to the guild and the Temple of Sigmar about the matter.

  But still Dieter was plagued by doubts of his own and Erich’s lack of knowledge regarding what had happened on the night of the third day of the month. Whenever he quizzed Erich about it, he either changed the subject or claimed not to have any recollection of what had happened either. This whole state of affairs left Dieter feeling paranoid and unsettled. He had to find out what was going and what part Doktor Drakus had to play in it all, if for no other reason than for his own peace of mind. But would the truth, should he uncover it, truly bring peace of mind?

  So it was that eventually, on the evening of the twenty-fifth day of Vorgeheim, with the town sheltering through the heat of high summer, Dieter ventured out of his garret hideaway and made his way through the town—a
voiding the artisans’ quarter, the Nulner Weg and the Göttenplatz as much as was possible—and returned to the Temple of Shallya.

  This time he asked for Anselm Fleischer by name. The plain novice priestess he spoke to knew not that the poor lunatic’s family name was Fleischer, but certainly there was a patient going by the name Anselm in their care. Dieter was glad it was not the stern matron Sister Marilda who met him. He wove a story that he was a distant cousin, come all the way from Talabheim to visit his tormented relation. He half-consciously realised that lying came more easily to him now.

  The novice led Dieter back through the infirmary hall and admitted him to a different room to the one in which the poor wretch had been incarcerated before. Even after all that he had seen, the sight of the hollow-eyed, emaciated, prematurely white-haired man still came as a shock to Dieter.

  Anselm was sitting on a pallet bed, clad in only a stained linen nightshirt. Dieter was somewhat surprised to see that the madman was no longer restrained by the harness jacket he had seen him wearing the first time they had met. It had been three months since, and the self-inflicted wounds on his legs had healed, after a fashion. He obviously wasn’t considered a danger to himself or others anymore.

  The novice left them together, reassuring Dieter that she would not be far away if he needed her. Dieter closed the door as she left.

  “Good day to you, sir,” Anselm said, fixing his visitor with a quizzical look. “Pardon me for asking, but do I know you?”

  “Yes, Anselm, you do.”

  He seemed quite lucid. Dieter was encouraged. Perhaps he would be more successful in this venture than he had at first hoped. Perhaps Anselm would be more receptive to his questions than he had been the last time.

  “Well it is very nice to see you again, very pleasant indeed,” the lunatic beamed. “I do not receive many visitors.”

  “And it is a pleasure to see you too,” Dieter said with forced joviality. He edged forwards and sat down on the end of Anselm’s bed. “Last time we spoke, you talked of your apprenticeship.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes,” Dieter swallowed, his mouth suddenly thick with saliva. “At the physicians’ guild.”

  “I was an apprentice there once.” Anselm smiled disarmingly, with all the innocence of a child, and all the lack of guile too.

  “Yes, I know. You were under a doktor…”—he almost dared not say it—“Drakus there.”

  The smile froze on Anselm’s lips. Then his face fell. “No, not him. Not him.”

  “What’s the matter?” Dieter asked, as though making light of the matter.

  “D-Doktor D-Dr—”

  He couldn’t say it. Couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  “Drakus,” Dieter finished for him.

  “No!” Anselm snapped, his cry full of anguish. “Not him. Do not mention his name. He’ll find you!” Dieter sensed that the crazed creature was talking to himself again. He started to rock backwards and forwards on the bed. “He’ll come for you. He has your soul already. He’ll come for your mortal flesh as well and carve himself a new body! Physician, heal thyself!”

  Dieter knew he had to act quickly before the madman’s cries alerted the priestesses to what he had done.

  “What did Drakus do to you, Anselm?”

  The wretch locked eyes with Dieter and stopped rocking. “He took my soul.”

  “Why? How did he steal your soul?”

  “He wanted my body. But all he got was my soul.” Anselm started rocking again. “I’m all right as long as I don’t die. But then I can never die. Not now. Not really. He won’t let me. And if I did, he’d only bring me back again. No, there’s no peace for you. Not now, not ever. You can’t let him find you. You can never let him find you. He has your soul. Your soul!”

  His last confession became a scream. Dieter hurriedly got up from the bed in the face of the howling madman. And then Anselm was up, springing off the bed. He yanked the door open and was through it in a flash. Reacting on instinct alone, Dieter followed in the very next moment.

  Ahead of him the startled cries, the screams and the howls of the madman himself, told him the whereabouts of the white-haired lunatic. He was fleeing through the infirmary, leaping over beds and barging people out of the way as he made his bid for freedom. A pair of elderly Shallyans tried to halt his flight. Anselm lashed out viciously with fists and feet. Both women were knocked flying. With a crash, a table bearing an earthenware jug and bowl was overturned. The crockery smashed on the flags.

  Dieter ran after the wretch. He did not see the water that the jug and bowl had held, and which was now spilt over the infirmary floor, until his feet were slipping out from under him in the spreading puddle. He landed hard on his backside.

  By the time he had managed to get back to his feet, Anselm was past all resistance and the last Dieter saw of him was his mane of white hair streaming out behind him, giving him the appearance of some exorcised apparition fleeing into the warm embrace of the night.

  Amidst the ensuing chaos that followed the lunatic’s flight from the infirmary, Dieter found it easy to slip away from the Temple of Shallya himself. Once out of the courtyard precinct of the temple he turned right, away from the direction in which the guild lay—trying not to look upon the frontage of the grand Temple of Sigmar as he did so—and ducked into Handwerker Bahn. From there he secreted himself in the darkening back streets of the low class residential and commercial district that lay behind the facade of the Göttenplatz and Dreiecke Platz. He was certain that, in the wake of a dangerous lunatic escaping from the Temple of Shallya, there would be a hue and cry throughout the town. And sooner or later, the watch—or worse, the witch hunters—would doubtless become involved and Dieter did not want to find himself caught between them and their quarry, or else he might become the quarry himself.

  Working his way back, roughly north-east, through the town, Dieter began to trace a path back to his lodgings, once again taking a long and circuitous indirect route. The night was unusually clear, free from fog and cloud. The veil of the sky above him was speckled with the milk drops of constellations. It was said that some sorcerers could divine meaning from the patterns the distant stars made as they travelled across the firmament of heaven, but Dieter could see nothing but the all-enveloping blackness of night.

  He was half-expecting to encounter trouble on his way home, but not the sort of trouble that eventually found him. The first he knew of the ambush was when two figures—one squat and thickset, one tall and muscled like an ox—detached themselves from the shadows of a sunken doorway. He knew them at once.

  Neither of the two body snatchers said a word. Neither needed to. The cudgels they held in their hands spoke their intent perfectly clearly. Was it chance that they had happened upon him or had they been hunting him all night? Did a lone scholar on his own at night present them with an easier option than ransacking a grave for a body, or was their purpose purely to do away with him?

  Dieter tensed, ready to run. The two brutes took a step towards him.

  Screaming like a banshee, an apparition clad in white appeared out of the darkness, bounding past Dieter and throwing itself at the shorter of the two grave robbers.

  The man staggered backwards and lost his footing as Anselm Fleischer landed on him, ripping open the man’s leather tunic and sinking his nails into the body snatcher’s chest and shoulder. He fell backwards onto the muck splattered cobbles. Anselm gave a feral snarl and sank his teeth into the man’s neck. Blood flowed. The grave robber cried out in anger and pain, trying to beat the madman from him.

  “Physician, heal thyself!” the madman growled through a mouthful of flesh.

  Confounded by this totally unexpected counter-attack, the larger brute simply watched dumbfounded as the lunatic savaged his companion like some feral beast.

  Dieter did not wait to see what happened next. He turned tail and ran.

  Dieter stopped, panting for breath, hands on his knees. He had no idea where he ha
d run to nor for how long. As he began to recover himself he looked up to see a familiar street sign. He was back at Apothekar Allee again. Doktor Drakus’ abode stood before him. Where it had seemed deathly before there was now something empty about its appearance.

  As if his feet had a mind and intent all of their own, Dieter approached the door of the house. It stood slightly ajar. All thought of his visit to the infirmary-temple, the lunatic’s escape and his encounter with the body snatchers was suddenly gone. He put a hand to the door, just as he had done in his dream, and with a moan of seized hinges it swung open before him.

  Then he was inside the house, at the top of the slime-slick steps leading down into the tomb-cold basement, then at the bottom of the steps, then at the threshold to the laboratory chamber. And there he saw—

  Nothing. The vault was utterly bare, apart from the abandoned lantern. Then, its oil used up at last, the light flickered and died.

  Dieter ran back up the stairs into the house. Up to the first floor and into the library; at least where there had once been a library. The books were missing too. The house had been cleared out utterly. And Doktor Drakus was gone.

  NACHGEHEIM

  Murder Most Foul

  I can still remember the first time I took another man’s life, as clearly as if it happened only yesterday.

  There have been so many since. The templar knight, the desperate street-walker, the mercenary soldier, the naive priest, the scolding fishwife, the leech-thing and his elemental creation the coarse sexton, the half-drunk militiamen, the pompous burgomeister, the guildsman, my own apprentice, the whiskered rat-catcher, the twin innocents, the grave robber, the avaricious thief. I could go on. But I still remember the first.

  I can see his face now, as I squeezed the life from him. I can see the bulging, bloodshot eyes, the protruding swollen tongue, the puffed cheeks turning from red to purple. I can hear the spluttering, rasping gargle of the man choking, gasping for breath that would never come. I feel his desperate hands clawing at mine, the nails ripping through the skin into my flesh. And I feel my hands closing tighter and tighter about his neck, crushing his windpipe. I feel the bones of his neck grating against each other.