Van Horstmann

by Ben Counter

  The Web had an odd beauty to it, the way the light caught it and the shadows spiralled around its threads when the light was withdrawn. But it was not what van Horstmann was looking for.

  ‘There!’ hissed Pendorf. He indicated a staircase leading down into a room that looked like it should have had windows and balconies on three sides, but instead looked out on only panes of blank stone. A dark-red cushion lay on the floor, and on that was the Scimitar.

  Van Horstmann knelt beside the sword and went to pick it up.

  ‘Careful,’ said Pendorf. ‘That blade saw the fall of the Thirteenth Dynasty and the three that followed it. The djinns of Araby used it on their banners and sacrificed in its name.’

  Van Horstmann picked the Scimitar up. It hummed in his hands and the grip seemed to change to fit his hand. Its balance changed, too. It felt suddenly so light that he could have been holding nothing. On the curved blade was momentarily reflected a host of spears, the silhouette of an army, rising and falling with the tide of battle. Then the light shifted and the image was gone.

  ‘How many lives must this have taken?’ asked van Horstmann, more to himself than to Pendorf.

  ‘More than anything else in these vaults,’ said Pendorf. ‘But I would wager the Gold Order have in their hands a weapon that has taken more. Such artefacts are their speciality. What any mage of the Fourth Circle would give for an hour in their armouries! Surely there is none like it in all the world.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said van Horstmann. ‘But no blade of theirs will have a Light wizard behind it.’

  ‘True. Very true.’ Pendorf looked around him. ‘The shadows sound hungry,’ he said, though there was no sound except the two men’s voices.

  ‘There is one thing,’ said van Horstmann, ‘that I have long wished to ask of you.’

  ‘We should leave, comprehender. We take great care not to disturb the inner vaults unduly.’

  ‘In a moment,’ replied van Horstmann. ‘I have wished to know what lies beneath the inner vault.’

  Pendorf did not answer.

  ‘You know,’ said van Horstmann, ‘that I have the authority and the confidence of Grand Magister Elrisse, and that it would be a grave breach of duty to lie to me or to withhold what I seek to know? I understand your desire to maintain secrecy, Magister Pendorf, but the wizards of the Fourth Circle have no cause to keep such secrets from the senior members of their own order.’

  ‘Why would you wish to know?’ asked Pendorf.

  ‘Because there is a very good chance, whether we wish to speak it aloud or not, that Grand Magister Elrisse will die in four days,’ said van Horstmann. ‘The Light Order will have to be restructured should such a thing come to pass. A complete understanding of all its workings will be essential.’

  Magister Pendorf bowed his head. ‘Out of deference to the comprehender,’ he said, ‘I shall not make any quarrel with you. The Pinnacle Vault lies in direct opposition to the uppermost chambers of the pyramid above. We do not visit it, save to induct a new inhabitant.’

  ‘Because it is dangerous?’

  ‘Out of respect. The artefacts kept there are not interred so because they are dangerous, or because they are at greatest risk of being stolen, for the inner vault is secure enough. The Pinnacle Vault is the pride of place, the seat of honour. Artefacts of historical worth and great power, those most deserving of respect, are kept there. We speak of it little, again, out of respect.’

  Van Horstmann nodded. ‘It is as I believed,’ he said. ‘My thanks, Magister Pendorf. I will take confidence from the certainty of such knowledge. Let us return.’

  The citizens of Altdorf, if they ever heard of the tradition of wizardly combat, would not be particularly concerned with the morality of the practice or of the waste a dead wizard represented. Instead, they would have been horrified to know that such a destructive event might take place in their city, near their homes and businesses. And so the earliest Grand Magisters had in their wisdom selected a site outside the city, a short way down the river where an island breached a wide length of the River Reik. Rapids broke around its upstream banks, and deep pools sunken around the downstream shore. In ages past the place had been sacred, as evidenced by the standing stones that ringed the island and, beyond the dense black trees that grew between them, in the ancient amphitheatre in the island’s centre.

  Those ancients had dragged huge blocks of stone from quarries the other side of the Empire to build the arena. An age later the Colleges of Magic had redressed the stones and rebuilt the parts that had fallen. The colours of the eight colleges hung, proofed by spells against the elements, flying bright from the lintels raised thousands of years ago.

  Wizards from every college took their seats as dusk approached, the sky streaked with pink and the shadows long. Amber wizards sat beside the bears and big cats they often took as their companions, communicating with them through the Lore of Beasts the Amber Order taught. They sat awkwardly beside the elegant Celestial wizards, whose blue and silver robes and delicate stargazing lenses did not mix well with wildlife. The air above the Bright wizards shimmered with heat. The Amethyst Order was represented by Supreme Patriarch van der Kalibos and a flock of ravens that inhabited every available perch. The Gold and the Light Orders were there in the greatest numbers, acting as seconds for the men who prepared for the setting of the sun in chambers beneath the arena floor.

  Once, those chambers had held gladiators or arena beasts, who were herded onto the arena floor to fight and die before the sight of gods long forgotten by the time of Sigmar. Now Elrisse and Zhaal emerged from them, at opposite ends of the arena. Elrisse wore pure white robes, looking as much like a body wrapped in a white funeral shroud as anything else. Zhaal’s robes were deep bronze, and around his neck and shoulders he wore a metallic collar as broad as a piece of armour, inscribed with enchantments of protection and strength. He carried a two-handed hammer, dwarfen perhaps in origin, with the twin-tailed comet of Sigmar gilded on the head. Elrisse carried his staff in one hand and the Scimitar of the Thirteenth Dynasty in the other.

  It was a solemn business. Quite possibly, one of the combatants would die. All present had to be prepared to witness a death. It was traditional for the Amethyst wizards to attend to the dead if neither combatant was from their order, and in the upper rows sat a pair of Amethyst wizards in black, ready to administer the due solemnities. Similarly, two Jade wizards were set aside to act as healers in the event the duel was concluded with one party incapacitated but not dead, or the victor himself sustained threatening wounds. Grass and moss crept along the stones where they sat, the magic of life escaping them even at rest.

  ‘When the Supreme Patriarch told me we would fight,’ said Zhaal, ‘I felt joy. I had not countenanced it before, but the chance to meet you face to face in combat is one I then realised I craved. Did you feel the same, Elrisse? Or was it some other emotion that found a purchase in you?’

  ‘I felt only sorrow,’ said Elrisse, ‘that one of our number should die.’

  ‘If you had admitted you were afraid,’ said Zhaal, a mocking note unmistakeable in his voice, ‘at least I could have respected your honesty. But now there is nothing in you that I admire.’ He swung the hammer, and it made a deep thrumming sound as it passed through the air. ‘No obstacle to doing you ill. No barrier to our anger. And the anger of the Gold is legendary. Fear the Fire, and flinch at Death, but there is no anger shines as bright as Gold!’

  Four Gold wizards had died at the Temple of Shallya. One had been Daegal, of course. Two more had fallen in the nave, and another of his injuries before he could be delivered to the gates of the Jade College. And when such blood was shed, was there any way of washing it away save with more blood?

  The two Grand Magisters circled, the whole breadth of the arena floor between them. The sand turned to gold dust beneath Zhaal’s feet. Slivers of light fluttered down around Elrisse like blossom falling from a tree. Such was the power built up in each man that it bled out into the
physical world.

  The first move was Zhaal’s. He reversed his grip on his hammer and slammed its head into the floor. Torrents of gold shot up from the ground like water spraying from a geyser, arcing over the arena floor in rippling fingers towards Elrisse. Elrisse’s response was to swing his sword around him, inscribing a circle of protection into the air. Sigils of white flame flashed into existence, describing a dome around Elrisse, and the gobbets of molten metal that rained down burst against the shield.

  Elrisse gathered the power in the circle of protection and channelled it through his staff, unleashing it in a furious gout of white flame aimed straight at Zhaal. The hammer in Zhaal’s hands was suddenly a shield of bronze and silver, held in front of him as he charged right into the flame. The flame was divided into two tongues by the shield’s protective magic, coursing around Zhaal and leaving him unharmed, as he sprinted at Elrisse.

  Zhaal was in striking range of Elrisse. The shield shifted in a blur and reformed as the hammer swung at waist height towards Elrisse. Elrisse brought up the Scimitar to parry and the weapons clashed in a shower of white sparks. Zhaal stumbled, thrown aside by the force of the scimitar’s magic, but his balance was regained and he backhanded Elrisse across the side of the head.

  The Grand Magister of the Light Order fell back a couple of steps and almost fell. Zhaal was bigger than him, both taller and much broader, with muscles that now showed shifting beneath his robe. Elrisse was in good health for his age but that was all that could be said about him physically. He was an old man, and he looked it as Zhaal hefted the hammer back up to strike a killing blow.

  Elrisse fired darts of silver power from his staff. They shattered against Zhaal, most of them turned aside by the enchantments of his magical armoured collar but enough finding their way through to his flesh. They dug deep into his chest and leading arm and Zhaal gasped in pain, falling to one knee.

  ‘I am not a conjurer,’ said Elrisse, his breathing heavy. ‘I play no tricks of smoke. Our power is pure. Ours is the magic of creation and its ending. Yours is the magic of mud and stone and dull, dead things. Teclis knew the Light would one day rule supreme. Our reign begins with your death, Zhaal of the Gold.’

  Zhaal bellowed like a bull. His hands were encased in gold now, the sheen of it running up his arms.

  Elrisse brought the Scimitar of the Thirteenth Dynasty over his head and brought it down sharply – not into Zhaal, but into the stone surround of the arena, a shoulder-height wall that stood to protect the front rows from errant blades and spears.

  The blade shattered. Shards of it flew into the air like silver birds, riding up towards the darkened sky.

  For a moment there was silence, heavy and pregnant with the power that every magister there knew had been released.

  That power first took form in a distant rumble. Many were not sure what it could be – an earthquake, perhaps, the sound of some great swell in the nearby waters of the Reik. But the battle magisters knew, as did every wizard who had stood on the battlefield. It was the sound of distant hooves hammering the ground.

  A spectral mass of cavalry rode through the walls of the arena, onto the arena floor. They seemed without number, a torrent of them, their steeds rushing with such speed and fury that they blurred into a single surging mass. They wore scaled armour and turbaned helmets of an ancient type last seen on the battlefields of what was now called Araby, in an age that now consisted of a handful of ruins and inscriptions half-buried in the desert. Banners with runes of fire and destruction flowed over them. Mighty djinns, muscular red-skinned beings of glowing magic, surged among them, bellowing and seething through boiling clouds of flame.

  The charge of the Thirteenth Dynasty hit Grand Magister Zhaal with all its force. Ghostly lances splintered. Horses reared. Blades hacked down and as the charge surged past, through the opposite side of the arena, it seemed every ghost of that fallen civilisation swung his blade at the place in the scrum where Zhaal was kneeling.

  The sound was terrible, like a storm of fiery winds shrieking down from the barren mountains. Waves of desert heat pounded against the arena seats and magisters sitting nearby scattered for cover. The whole island shuddered with the thunder of horses’ hooves and war cries in ancient tongues.

  The charge passed. The last of the ghosts galloped through the arena wall.

  Elrisse stood holding the hilt of the scimitar. Its blade was gone, shattered completely when its magic was released. He dropped it and leaned against his staff, seeming to sag suddenly as if all the energy had drained out of him with the effort of unleashing the Thirteenth Dynasty.

  In front of Elrisse was Grand Magister Zhaal.

  In any other situation, he might have been mistaken for a statue, a fanciful work of art. He was made entirely of gold, still in the kneeling pose he had been in when the ghostly cavalry charged. His beard looked like a mass of golden thread and his face, perfectly rendered, had its mouth locked open in a yell of defiance.

  He was completely undamaged.

  The gold surface receded away from Zhaal’s hands, turning them back to flesh. His robes followed, then his neck and face. He gasped and slumped forwards, one hand supporting him, the other keeping a grip on his hammer.

  ‘Is that it?’ he growled. ‘Is that all you bring? By the comet’s twin tails, I had thought at least you would give me some sport!’

  Elrisse whispered words of power and a silver lance appeared in his free hand. He hurled it and it burst into a dozen screaming bolts of white fire. Zhaal thrust out a hand and a circular golden shield appeared in front of him, hovering there long enough to deflect each missile as it streaked home.

  Elrisse ran back towards the arena’s centre. Each time he tapped his staff on the ground, a snake with silver scales rose from the sand, tongue flickering and eyes burning bright blue-white with intelligence. They coiled towards Zhaal but he threw both hands to the sky, hammer held over his head, and bellowed powerful syllables of his own. Golden swords fell from the sky, each one impaling one of Elrisse’s snakes, and where they died they boiled away into wisps of silvery flame and smoke.

  Transparent domes of protective magic sprung up around Elrisse, who was gesturing with his staff as fast as he could while still making the ritual signs legible to the aethyr’s power. Zhaal walked up to the first and swung his hammer into it, shattering it into shards of light. He broke through the second, and the third, this one needing two swings of the weapon.

  The hammer looked like a cousin to Ghal-maraz, the Hammer of Sigmar itself, gifted by the dwarfen lords to Sigmar as a symbol of friendship between dwarfs and men. It was covered with dwarf-struck runes and though it was sized for a man to swing, it had its origin in some dwarfen runesmith’s forge, below one of the Worlds Edge holds, fuelled by volcanic fire. When Zhaal swung it chanting could be heard, deep and distant, as if the spirits of dwarfen ancestors were singing a funeral dirge.

  Elrisse was chanting rapidly, and with every word white fire flared around him, coils of it like burning serpents writhing through the air. The gemstones on his staff shone like caged stars as he drove it into the ground. Ripples of earth were forced up as magic bubbled up from below, forming ramparts and parapets around Elrisse, almost hiding him from the sight of the spectators.

  Zhaal cast a golden comet into the air. It split into a dozen shards and rained down, piercing the protective shells and impacting against the battlements. They fell, crumbling into sand, as if collapsing before the onslaught of an army and its siege engines. Zhaal strode forwards another pace and shattered another dome of magic.

  The two magisters were almost face to face now. When Zhaal reached Elrisse, Elrisse would die. There was nothing in all of magic so stark and pure as that. The Amethyst magisters watching, those master of Death magic, would perhaps admire how all the equations of life and death were brought down to such a simple matter.

  Elrisse dropped his staff and held his hands apart. Between them grew a ball of white flame, growing with eve
ry moment. Its harsh light flared out from the Grand Magister and cast long, stark shadows among the magisters seated in the arena. It seemed even to reach the night sky overhead, which flashed as if the stars were drawing closer hungrily.

  Zhaal hammered through the last dome of magic. Elrisse squared his footing and thrust out his hands, hurling the ball of flame at the Gold magister.

  For a moment Zhaal was gone, rendered invisible by the strength of the glare that erupted from the detonation of magic. The arena shuddered. The very earth seemed to recoil.

  The magisters’ eyes struggled to adjust. They peered through the afterglare, trying to make out something in the centre of the arena floor.

  Zhaal stood, hammer dropped at his feet. One hand was pressed to the side of his face, the back of the hand scorched and smouldering, as were the parts of his face he had not been able to shield. The armoured collar he wore glowed dull red with the heat it had absorbed to protect him.

  Elrisse was down on one knee. Smoke rolled off him. The force of channelling such a pure blast of Light magic had drained him.

  Zhaal took a faltering, painful step forwards. His less-wounded hand closed around Elrisse’s throat.

  Everyone present had known it would come to this. They had all hoped it would end differently, of course. None of them gained anything from the loss of a powerful wizard – all the orders of magic would be weakened by it. But as soon as van der Kalibos had made his pronouncement that the matter would be settled by duel, it had been clear he was invoking the right of death to end all debates. Van der Kalibos was an Amethyst magister, and he understood death, he respected it and held it above all things in its authority. Of course one of them had to die. Of course.