“Not at all, sometimes it is just as nice to share a drink with a stranger as it is to share one with a friend.”
“Indeed,” Skellan agreed. It was a refreshing to hear a man with a decent command of Reikspiel. Surrounded by the thick Sylvanian accents he had begun to forget what it sounded like. “I must say I was quite taken with one of your songs. I assume you wrote it. I haven’t heard it before… “The Lay of Fair Isabella” I believe you called it?”
“Ah, yes, though I fear my voice pales next to the beauty of fair Isabella herself.”
“Truly?”
“Truly, my new friend. Isabella von Carstein, the lady of Drakenhof. Fairer beauty and fouler heart you have never seen. To see fair Isabella is to lose one’s soul. But what a way to die.”
“She sounds… interesting,” Skellan said with a wry grin. “Not that I would ever trust a minstrel’s romantic soul for a reliable account. You wandering spirits have a habit of falling in love daily, a new great beauty in every new town.”
Deitmar laughed easily.
“You know us so well. But believe me, in this case, what I say, that isn’t even the half of it. She owns beauty enough to stop your heart dead should she so desire, and more often than not, she does. The woman is the most powerful in all of Sylvania and she is ruthless with it. Morr’s teeth, even death itself can’t take the woman. She has power over it, it would seem.”
“Indeed,” Skellan leaned in, listening intently. “How so?”
“It’s no secret, she was dying. She fell victim to the wasting sickness that is scouring the country. She fought it tooth and nail. Nothing the chirurgeons and the faith healers could do made the damnedest bit of difference. It was killing her. Just like all of the other girls across the land. The sickness was no respecter of her beauty or her power. To Morr, she was just another soul. Word was the priests even came to shrive her of her sins at the last. And you know what? The next afternoon, she rose from her deathbed, and she was radiant. More so than ever before. She was alive. The fever and the sickness had broken. It was a miracle.”
“Truly. I’ve seen the effects of this sickness. It isn’t pleasant. Like you say, I have yet to encounter a survivor.”
“Isabella von Carstein,” Deitmar said with passion. “Death holds no dominion over her.”
“Tell me,” Skellan said, as though the thought had just occurred to him. The night of the risen dead? You mentioned it in your song.” Mimicking Deitmar’s trick with the song, Skellan leaned in and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. Would it have anything to do with the Wiederauferstanden?”
“The Cult of the Risen Dead?” If the troubadour was surprised by the question he masked it well. “Only the obvious, that the cult believe there will be a night when the dead shall rise, when the barrier between this world and the next will fall. They call it the Night of the Risen Dead. Isabella von Carstein lives and breathes where all others afflicted with the wasting sickness rot in the dead earth. She is a beacon to their kind. They see an unholy miracle. She died at the hands of the priests and the chirurgeons, all their skills and faith couldn’t save her, and yet she rose again. Death itself could not hold her. She is everything they dream of, everything they adore. The Cult of the Risen Dead worships the woman. To them Isabella von Carstein is reborn. She is death risen. She is immortal.”
“She is their leader?”
“Define leader, my friend. The misguided fools worship her heart, body and whatever is left of their blackened souls.” Deitmar said earnestly. “Does that make her their leader? Perhaps, but then is Sig-mar your leader?”
“I don’t follow any so-called divinity. Give me ale, give me women with enough soft pink flesh to wrestle with, give me a sword, things I can see and touch with my own two hands, those are worth believing in. Thank you, my friend. Now, at least, I have a place to begin my search. Drakenhof.”
“It is three weeks’ inhospitable travel. The roads are poor; the old counts were never ones to invest in things that didn’t immediately reap rewards, and well, let’s just say the countryside is at best unforgiving. I don’t envy you the journey… but for one more look at fair Isabella it might just be worth it.” Deitmar winked at Skellan, a lascivious smile spreading up to his eyes. There was mischief written all over his face. “If you know what I mean.”
“We are ever driven thus, are we not? Puppets to the whims of our hearts.”
“Exactly. And what shadow plays the heart does perform! Well, I should set about earning my keep before Amos decides better of it and turfs me out on my arse. It has been my pleasure, neighbour. May you find what you are looking for in Drakenhof.”
The troubadour played on deep into the night.
More customers came as the night wore on, but business was far from brisk.
After an hour or so Skellan leaned over to Fischer and said: “I’m turning in for the night. I’ll see you upstairs when you’ve finished up. We need to talk.”
Fischer nodded, took a deep swallow of his drink and pushed back his chair. He followed Skellan up to the plain room they rented above the taproom. It was a simple chamber with two beds, a chair, and a full-length mirror. There was a threadbare rug over the rough timbers of the hardwood floor. Sinking back onto his bed, Skellan explained the situation: that Aigner was gone, drawn to Drakenhof if this Countess Isabella really was the evil Deitmar claimed, and assassins of the Risen Dead intended to make sure they never caught up with him. Fischer listened. He moved the chair so that it faced the door.
“So they are coming tonight?”
“In a couple of hours, yes.”
“I assume we are going to surprise them.”
“Naturally.”
“All right, if you were them what would you do?” Fischer was already thinking through what he would do in the assassins’ place. Sleep was their natural enemy. The longer the night wore on the less chance the witch hunters had of making it through to dawn. It stood to reason then that the assassins would come during the dead of night.
“I’d send three men, there are two of us but two on two there is always the chance that even with the element of surprise against us, we could somehow survive. Aigner knows us. He will have transferred his paranoia on to the rest of the cult. The third assassin adds a level of security.”
Skellan was right.
When they came, there were three of them. They moved quietly down the corridor, pausing at the door to listen. The door handle turned slowly. It was a simple ruse, but in the dark it would be effective. The pillows had been bolstered to look like the rough outline of sleeping men beneath the bedcovers. The trickery wouldn’t hold up to close inspection but that didn’t matter. There would be no time for it. The door opened, groaning slightly on dry hinges. The silhouette of a man filled the doorway.
He stepped into the room.
Another shape moved in behind him.
He was less than an arm’s length from where Skellan stood, cloaked in the shadows behind the open door.
In the chair, Fischer waited, willing the third assassin into the small room. The man stayed back. Fischer’s finger itched on the trigger guard of the small hand-held crossbow he held levelled at the dark outline of the first man as he approached the bed. Moonlight glinted silver on the assassin’s blade.
Skellan coughed, clearing his throat.
Fischer pulled the trigger. The bolt flew true, slamming into the gut of the assassin as he plunged his dagger into the bundle of bed linen. The man grunted in pain and staggered back, sagging against the wall. He slumped to the floor clutching the bolt in his gut.
Skellan moved quickly, stepping out of the shadows to press the point of his dagger up against the second assassin’s throat.
“Do it,” the man rasped.
“With pleasure,” Skellan whispered in his ear as he rammed the knife home. The assassin folded in his arms, the life draining out of him. Skellan cast him aside. “Come on my beauty,” he goaded, seeing the third assassin frozen in
the doorway.
Before the man could flee, Fischer put a second crossbow bolt high in the man’s thigh. He went down screaming in agony. Skellan dragged him into the room and slammed the door shut.
It was all over in less than a minute.
“Who sent you?” he hissed, grabbing hold of the shaft of the crossbow bolt and jerking it violently. The man shrieked in pain. “Talk!”
“Go to hell!”
“Not nice,” Skellan whispered, pushing the bolt deeper into the man’s thigh. “You can die here, like your friends, or you can limp away. It is up to you. Now, who sent you?”
The colour had drained from the assassin’s face. Sweat pooled in the creases of his neck. His eyes were wide with pain.
“I can make it worse, believe me. Now I am asking you again, who sent you?”
“Aigner,” the assassin said through clenched teeth.
“Better. Now where is the son of a bitch?”
The assassin shook his head violently.
“And we were doing so well,” Skellan said quite matter-of-factly as he yanked the crossbow bolt clean out of the assassin’s leg. The man’s screams were pitiful. “I’ll ask you again, last time. Where is Aigner?”
“The temple… Drakenhof.”
“Good.” Ion Skellan smiled mirthlessly. “You should thank me.”
“Why?” the man cursed, clutching at the wound in his leg.
“Because I am going to give you the chance to see if you really can rise again. You shouldn’t have come here tonight. You shouldn’t have tried to kill me. That made things personal.”
“I am not afraid of death,” the assassin whispered, wrenching his shirt apart to expose his bare chest. “Kill me. Do it!”
Mystical sigils had been scrawled across the man’s flesh. The ink had seeped deep beneath the skin and into the muscle beneath.
“Do you truly believe they can bring you back? A few lines of ink?” Skellan pressed the tip of the knife into the man’s chest, enough pressure behind it to draw a bead of blood.
“You know nothing, fool. Nothing!”
The assassin threw himself forward onto the knife. The blade buried hilt deep in his chest. The man shuddered once, a gasp escaping his lips, and collapsed into Skellan’s arms.
He kept his promise to Amos. They were long gone come sunrise.
CHAPTER FOUR
Gathering Darkness
DRAKENHOF CASTLE, SYLVANIA
Late summer, 2009
Vlad von Carstein fascinated Alten Ganz.
The two of them watched ravens bickering over scraps in the courtyard below. Their dance was filled with savage beauty. The count watched the ravens, mesmerised by their wings and beaks as they fought over the crumbs put out by the cook.
“Fascinating, aren’t they?” the count observed. “So like us, and yet so different. This is basic nature, Ganz. This dance of wings and feathers is nothing more than the survival of the most desperate. It is a fight, every day. Feeding comes down to snatching the bread from the mouth of another bird. It is that or starvation. There is no sharing in their world. The bird willing to blind its brother for the sake of a piece of bread will feed like a king. The one that isn’t, the one that won’t fight for its life, will starve.”
At times there was an intense darkness to the way the Sylvanian count saw the world. He obsessed over the play of life and death. The dance of mortality, he called it. “It is all about movement, Ganz. They dance toward the end of the song.”
“And life is the song,” the cadaverous young man finished, sensing where his master’s thoughts were going.
“Ah, no, life is merely a prelude to the greatest of all songs.” Down below, the hungriest raven took flight, sleek black wings beating, its prize gripped firmly in its beak. The others were left to fight amongst themselves over the last few morsels. “Death is the full rapturous movement. Never forget that, Ganz. Life is but fleeting, death is eternal.”
There were times when the count’s predilection for darkness verged on the nihilistic. Like today, Ganz had found the man standing lonely vigil on the battlements of Drakenhof Castle. His quest for solitude was not uncommon. At sundown he would often come to the highest point of the castle and survey his domain as it unfurled beneath him. The wind pulled at his cloak, whipping it around his legs as he turned away from the squabbling birds.
“Have the cook put out double the amount of scraps tomorrow. I like the birds. They should have a home at Drakenhof.”
“As you wish, my lord.”
On some days the darkness seemed to radiate from Vlad von Carstein’s heart and pulse outwards, consuming not only the man but many of those closest to him. The man was a complex composite of contradictions. Where on the one hand he was ruthless in dealing with those that stood against him, he had it in him to make sure the birds did not go hungry. It was a tenderness he didn’t convey to his fellow man.
In that the Count of Sylvania was an enigma, even to his chancellor.
It wasn’t arrogance. It wasn’t even a symptom of power. It was a genuine indifference to his fellow man.
He walked slowly along the narrow battlements, pausing every few steps to look at some peculiarity he saw in the landscape below. Ganz mirrored his pace step for step as the count moved away from the courtyard to brace himself against a parapet towering over a razor of jagged rocks far, far below. He stayed a hesitant step behind von Carstein. The count was talking, in part to himself, in part to the wind, and of course, to Ganz. He listened to the count’s musing. He never knew what he might hear next: a fragment of long forgotten poetry; an element of philosophy; history so wrapped up in story that it sounded like a cherished memory; or on a day like today, a death sentence.
“Rothermeyer is a thorn in my side, Ganz. He has a greatly inflated opinion of his importance in this life and the next. I want him taken care of. Make him the same offer you made Sturm and Drang. Be persuasive. He has two choices, I do not particularly care which of the two he takes. After Heinz Rothermeyer, pay a visit to Pieter Kaplin. Kaplin is doing his best to make a mockery of my generosity, Ganz. He is playing me for a simpleton, and that cannot be allowed to happen. There will be no choices for Pieter. You will make an example of him. Others will quickly tow the line. If not, they can always be replaced. Just make certain they are in no doubt as to what will happen to them if they continue to defy me.”
“My lord,” Ganz nodded, shuffling back a step. The drop from the battlements was a long one to the rocks below and while von Carstein obviously enjoyed flirting with death, Ganz much preferred the safety of solid ground. His balance was not as unerringly good as the count’s. The man ghosted around the battlements with the preternatural grace and precision of one of those black-winged birds he was so fond of. “It will be as you wish. Pieter Kaplin will rue the day he incurred your wrath.”
“You make me sound like an animal, Ganz. Remember, there is beauty in all things. Is the wolf driven by wrath when it stalks its tender prey? Were those birds down in the courtyard driven by blood fury?” He shook his head to reinforce the point he was making. “No, they kill through necessity, through nature, they are killers through need. The gods made them and placed that basic need within their spirit. They need to kill. So they make a beautiful dance of the savagery, they don’t seek to tame the wild beast within them. In that they are so unlike humans. Humans seek to subvert nature, to tame the savage beast that lurks within their soul. They build monuments and temples to gods who knew the darkness of their own souls and used it to their advantage. They revere Sigmar and his mighty warhammer, conveniently forgetting that that very warhammer was a tool of death. They wall themselves in. Build houses of sticks and stones and call themselves civilised. Humans are weak, they fear what might happen if their bestial nature is unleashed. They forget that there is beauty in all things—even the darkness—when they should be embracing it.” Von Carstein lapsed into silence, lost in thoughts of death and beauty.
This was another
aspect of the count’s personality: his mood could swing abruptly from merely thoughtful to this deeply melancholic brooding as he lost himself inside his own labyrinthine thoughts. It afforded him an air of introspection. The man was quite obviously brilliant, blessed with an intellect verging on sheer genius, he was well read and versed in every subject he cared to talk about and quick enough of wit to read people as well as he read those books.
Alten Ganz had never encountered anyone even remotely like Vlad von Carstein.
“Have Herman Posner accompany you, along with a few of his most trusted men. I have a feeling Posner is the perfect mixture of violence and cunning to tip Rothermeyer over the edge. Tell me, Ganz, do you believe Heinz will bend his knee and accept my rule? I tire of all this petty squabbling.”
“He would be a fool not to,” Ganz said, without really answering the question.
“That is not what I asked though, is it?” von Carstein said. He toyed with his signet ring as he spoke, turning it so that it was back-to-front on his ring finger, then completing the turn again. It was the closest thing the count had to a nervous tic. He toyed with the signet ring when he was deep in thought or puzzling through a problem. It was a habit Ganz had seen demonstrated on many an occasion.
“No, my lord.”
“So tell me, Ganz, honestly. Do you believe Heinz Rothermeyer will finally bend his knee to me?”
“No, my lord. Rothermeyer is a proud man. He will fight you to the last.”
Vlad von Carstein nodded thoughtfully, his gaze off somewhere in the middle distance where the night consumed the town of Drakenhof far below their vantage point.
“I agree,” he said at last. “So, you know what you will have to do.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Then go, time is fleeting, I would have these thorns picked from my flesh before they bleed me further.”
Ganz left von Carstein alone on the battlements. There was no telling how long the count would remain out there, the man craved solitude. Few in Drakenhof Castle dared approach their lord and he seldom sought out the company of others, save his wife Isabella and Ganz.
[Von Carstein 01] - Inheritance Page 7
