by Jack Yeovil
Hasselstein fixed her with his eyes and sat up.
'Ophuls,' he snapped, 'stay where you are.'
She stood as stiff as the knights sentry outside.
'There's a stool behind you,' Hasselstein said. 'Sit down.'
She did so, demurely tucking her dress around her legs. It was a low, wooden footstool and made her feel like a child.
'That's better,' he said, breathing again. If Ruhaak was cautious about touching a scryer, then Mikael Hasselstein was terrified. As the Emperor's confessor, she supposed, he carried a lot of things in his head that he could, even if threatened with torture, share with no one but his god.
'Ophuls,' he said. 'Rosanna, isn't it?'
'Yes, lector.'
Hasselstein stood up and began pacing the room in his stockinged feet, describing a half-circle around her. Even without contact, she could feel the storm of concerns surrounding his head. They crackled in the air like lightning. Ruhaak was right the Lector had a lot on his mind.
'Child, you've been with the Temple for some years?'
She nodded.
'Vou are a good and faithful servant of Sigmar. I have only excellent reports of you.'
He poured himself a glass of Estalian sherry. The Lector was not known for his asceticism. A cold bird sat in a dish on the floor by the couch, its ribs exposed and its legs twisted off. Rosanna remembered that she had not had time to eat today.
The chicken had led a happy life, pecking at corn, scratching around in the straw. It had been the special pet of the farmer's daughter. But the farmer's daughter had not been fond enough of it to neglect a profit. One day, she had gathered the bird up in her arms and neatly strangled it. Rosanna had sampled plenty of animal lives like that. She was a vegetarian.
Hasselstein stood still, sipping his sherry.
Uppermost in his thoughts was a woman. Rosanna scried a flurry of skirts, a lingering trace of perfume and the warm press of a body. So far as she knew, Hasselstein had no official mistresses. She pulled her invisible feelers back in and let them lie like her hands, folded in her lap.
Hasselstein drank more of the liquor. He was tired.
'You have been down at the docks today?'
'Yes, Father Wallraff sent me to help the watch.'
'Wallraff, eh? A man with initiative. Good for him.'
Rosanna had the impression that the Lector did not want to reward the father for his initiative. She would not have been surprised to learn that the sharp young cleric had suddenly been assigned to missionary duty beyond the Sea of Claws.
'I've been trying to help in this case of the Beast.'
Hasselstein drained his glass. 'The murderer, yes. I have heard of him.'
Rosanna could not help herself. The impressions pouring from Hasselstein were too strong to ignore. There was the laughter of a woman and the sticky taste of sweat. The Lector did not think like Tilo, constructing fantasies for the night. He was not imagining, he was remembering. She scried bodies pressed together in a hurry, lovemaking with a hard edge, blood and bruises in with the kisses and caresses. There was also a great darkness, as if the cleric were trying to blot out part of his memory.
'A bad business. What have you learned?'
Rosanna forced herself to ignore the pictures in Hasselstein's mind.
'Little, I'm afraid. The murderer is a man, I think. A human being, that is. Or of some closely related race.'
Hasselstein's face knit. Anger burned like a halo around him.
'I had imagined from the savagery associated with the slayings that we were dealing with a monster of Chaos.'
'I don't think so. The Beast is twisted in mind, not in body. At least, that is my impression. It's not very clear. There is something strange about the murderer, physically. I've scried that much from the scraps the watch have kept. I keep feeling that something important is just within my grasp, but that I cannot pick it out from the confusion.'
'You are young,' Hasselstein said, 'your gifts are not fully trained yet.'
'Perhaps the cult would care to assign someone with more control. There is always Hannelore Zischler or Beate Hettich.'
The Lector thought for a moment and then made a decision. 'No, Rosanna. You must have your chance. Bringing in another scryer would confuse matters. Besides, the others are not in Altdorf. These murders show no sign of pausing to allow us to send for Zischler or Hettich. The Beast must be caught soon.'
'Yes.'
'Can you tell me anything more about the murderer?'
Rosanna wasn't sure whether to mention it, but, 'It's not something I scried, but before I arrived the watch found some important evidence that was destroyed.'
Hasselstein was keenly interested.
'Yes,' he said, impatiently, 'what was it?'
'A scrap of green velvet, lector. Like the courtiers wear.'
Hasselstein made a fist and his glass shattered in it. Rosanna flinched as his rage filled the room.
His face was set and inexpressive, but his mind was in a turmoil.
He took out a handkerchief and bound his cuts.
'Rosanna, have you taken any vows? I know you're not a novice, but you are attached to the cult?'
'I have pledged allegiance and obedience.'
'Obedience? Good. The cult must come before anything, you understand? This is a precarious time for the Empire and only we have the best interests of the Empire as our first concern.'
Hasselstein had said as much during his private sermons to the Temple staff. Father Wallraff had been amusing about the speech, asking her if she could think of a time in history which had not been a precarious one for the Empire.
'Whatever you learn about the Beast, you must bring first to me. If I am not available, confer with Ruhaak. This is vitally important.'
'I I understand.'
'Be sure you do. We have the Order of the Fiery Heart, remember. Anything the watch can do, our own Templars can do better. I do not trust the watchmen. Too many criminals have escaped from them.'
Rosanna did understand. The Dock Watch, as she had seen, were greedy bullies. If the Beast was a rich man, he would find it easy to purchase his freedom. She could not be responsible for that.
'And we must have secrecy. This may not be a story it would be useful for many people to know about.'
Hasselstein was thinking of his woman again. She was crying out in passion as they coupled.
Didn't anyone in this Temple think of anything else?
'I understand.'
'We are a wealthy order, Rosanna. I see no reason why you should not profit from your labours in this case.'
Rosanna could not have been more shocked if the Lector had slapped her.
'Should you acquit yourself to my satisfaction, I believe I can authorize a healthy pension. Enough to set you up in any corner of the Empire, in any business you might choose. You would have a substantial dowry should you prefer hunting a husband to hunting a murderer. Should you be tired of your own name and family history, a new background could be contrived for you.'
This was an astonishing suggestion.
'What I mean is that this is such an important matter to me×to the Cult of Sigmar×that your performance is of the most immediate interest to me. Serve us well and there is little you might desire that is not within my gift.'
Rosanna bowed her head. Her scarf was slipping from her hair.
Forgetting himself, Hasselstein advanced and extended his hand in a familiar gesture, as if to lay the cleric's healing touch upon a supplicant. It was the traditional way of ending a confession, symbolising the priest's assumption of the sins of the communicant.
A fraction of an inch away from her hair, which was rising slightly to meet the charge of his body, Hasselstein's hand froze.
In his mind, he was pleasuring a woman in a dark, cramped space, a cupboard or a small room. Her knees were braced and she was gripping a chairback to stay unsteadily upright. They both grunted as he ground inside her and the odour of sex hung in th
e air like an Altdorf fog. Her skirts and his robe were disarrayed, bunched between them, and his hands were in her clothes, fastened like leeches to her body. His face was in the woman's hair. It was red, like Rosanna's. But then it was blonde and silk-fine. As the couple peaked, she turned her head to look into his face, to lick hungrily at his chin. Looking through his eyes, she saw her own face again, but rippling like the surface of a disturbed pond. Hasselstein's desires were superimposed upon his memories. Rosanna saw her eyes changing colour, from green to blue, and her features shifting. The face distorted and became several other faces. One of them, she was sure, belonged to Margarethe Ruttmann, the Beast's last victim. And others, just beyond her recognition, seemed similarly familiar.
The Lector snatched his hand away and rubbed it against his robe.
'You have my blessing,' he said. 'Now, go'
* * * * *
V
The girl runs through the fog, but the Beast is faster than anything in the city. It doesn't know whether it runs on two legs or four, but its claws strike sparks from the cobbles. The girl is limping, her ankle turned on some loose stone. She is sobbing, knowing what comes next.
She is already marked, the scratches across her face are still bleeding.
There aren't cobbles under their feet any more. Wooden planks shift and rumble as they run down the jetty.
They are on the docks. The old, disused docks. There is nobody else around. They are alone together. The Beast is pleased.
The boy-shell holds back, allowing the girl a few moments to make a move. She finds a ladder and climbs down from the wharf, towards the shingles of the riverbank.
The Beast dispels the boy-shell and grabs the wooden posts that stick up beyond the ladder.
Below, the girl is climbing. She has sunk into the fog, but it can hear her mewling and the beating of her heart. It can smell her fear.
The Beast knows her. It knows her name: Trudi.
The fog is wonderful. It feels like part of the Beast, as if its breath were solidifying in the air around it. The Beast was born for the fog and feels comfortable in it. The fog is its friend, like the crooked alleyways are its friend, and the tangle of piles under the docks, and the night that falls as thick as velvet upon the city.
The ladder is old and rotted through. A rung snaps and the girl falls. The Beast hears her sob as she lands badly, the wind knocked out of her.
Somewhere out on the river, a foghorn sounds. Two barges pass dangerously close to one another. The Beast hears the night watches swearing at each other. They are very far away.
Not bothering with the ladder, the Beast leaps. The river is low at this time of night, so it falls in shallow water, its knees and ankles bending as its bulk is forced into a crouch.
It feels pebbles under its feet and hands, and fragments of clay pipes thrown away by sailors and dockers for centuries. Sometimes seashells are shifted this far inland, scraped from the hulls of the ocean-going ships that sail down the Reik from Marienburg.
The Beast stands on two legs, slicing its claws through the air. The boy-shell is lost in the fog, lost forever
The girl is near, huddled up against a thick, wooden post, trying to still her breathing.
The Beast lopes towards her, shingles crunching under it.
It tries to say her name, as it has tried to say the others. The word will not come from its mouth. Its jaw doesn't work as it should.
The Beast finds the girl
and the girl screams.
VI
Dien Ch'ing reflected that he was not as young as he had formerly been. His face was still as smooth as new vellum and his hair had been white since childhood. Few could guess his age, but he knew. Sixty-five. He had been serving the Lord Tsien-Tsin×Tzeentch, as the Master was called in this barbarous land×all his life. There bad been rewards. Continued strength, health and vitality were among them. Tsien-Tsin, Lord of the Fifteen Devils, repaid faithful service with longevity. Ch'ing could reasonably expert to live to a very great age, far greater than that enjoyed by even the most venerable of his ancestors.
His life had taken him across the face of the Known World many times. He had visited each of the continents, had amassed and squandered fortunes, had seen his enemies suffer and perish, had tasted the delights afforded only to the initiates of his proscribed cult. And still, he felt, he was only a few tiers up the pagoda. He had served the Invisible Empire for the length of his days. It was time, he believed, that a little more of the greater purpose of Tsien-Tsin were revealed to him.
Tonight, he would meet with his immediate superior and perhaps a little more would be explained.
He had slipped out of the quarters allotted to him in the palace and taken advantage of the fog to travel unseen across the city. It was a skill he had cultivated for many years. In a sense, the helpful fog spoiled the trick. Any fool could skulk and hide in fog, but only an adept of Ch'ing's stature could pass unnoticed through a crowded city at the height of midday on a clear, cloudless day.
Using the key that had been delivered to him, he let himself into one of the rooms at the back of the Holy Hammer of Sigmar on the Street of a Hundred Taverns. It was not the rowdiest, most decadent of the many hostelries in the vicinity. Indeed, it was one of the quietest, best-ordered and neatest, as befitted a private club open only to the most desperate thieves and professional murderers in the city. Only those with a key were admitted and securing a key was more difficult than gaining an audience with the Emperor.
In the darkness of the passage, Ch'ing could hear a conversation being conducted in the tap-room.
'I say it gives the business a bad name,' claimed a man with a Tilean lilt to his voice.
'I agree with you, Ettore,' said a more cultivated, suave-sounding man, 'but what can we do? The matter is in the hands of Sigmar and, of course, the Dock Watch.'
There was some laughter. Ch'ing smiled. So this was what murderers sounded like when they were relaxing.
'The Beast is just a butcher,' said Ettore. 'He gives murderers a bad name.'
'You strangled your last wife with her nightcap, I believe.'
'That was a personal matter.'
'And then you took a red-hot poker to your children.'
'They were disobedient. Besides, your hands are hardly clean, my friend Quex.'
'I don't deny that,' purred the suave murderer, 'but I have never killed without being paid for it.'
'I say we should trap the Beast ourselves,' a third, gruff-voiced, assassin said.
'What?' spluttered Ettore. 'Us, help the Dock Watch?'
'They've been poking around too much since the Beast started killing tarts. They're not catching him, but they are harassing us. When was the last time old Dickon actually caught anyone?'
Nobody knew.
'Well, he pulled in Fagnar Brisz today and a couple of coppers roughed up Schatten.'
'That's terrible. They'll be refusing bribes next.'
'Brisz is an animal,' said Quex, 'little better than the Beast. His use of the bandsaw on the Widow von Praunheim was simply unnecessary and distasteful.'
'Well, Quex, if the Beast keeps it up, you can debate etiquette with Brisz in Mundsen Keep.'
'The Beast is an amateur, gentlemen, and amateurs always get caught. Or disappear without trace.'
'I say good luck to him and let's have another drink.'
'A fine idea, my man.'
A hand clamped down over Ch'ing's shoulder and he twisted, his hands up, ready to defend himself.
He favoured the crane-style, arms out for balance, feet kicking like the lightning-fast pecks of the bird's deadly beak.
'Careful,' said a familiar voice. 'The corridor is narrow, you'll break your wrists.'
Ch'ing relaxed and bowed. In the darkness, Yefimovich's eyes glowed like hot coals.
'It is good to see you, my friend,' the High Priest of Tzeentch said. 'How long has it been since we first met?'
'More than thirty years. Not since Zhufbar.'
>
'Ah yes, a failure. I still regret it. We were out of favour after that.'
'Quite so.' The marks on Ch'ing's arms, where the daemon sting had appeared, still pained him.
'The man died, you know. In the north, on the Great Battlefield at the Top of the World.'
Ch'ing bowed in gratitude for the news. 'I'm pleased to learn of that.'
'And the vampire woman well, you must know of her subsequent history. She lives in this city.'
'Genevieve Dieudonne. Our personal business is not over. But she must wait for the while. After all, neither of us is getting any older.'
Yefimovich laughed. 'I have a room upstairs. Come on.'
They climbed to the first floor, in the pitch dark. Yefimovich glowed slightly, a red undertone to his skin.
'Where is your familiar?' Ch'ing asked.
'Respighi? Don't let him hear you call him a familiar. He thinks he's an acolyte. He is out in the fog somewhere, doing my work.'
'Give him my most pleasant wishes.'
'I'll be sure to.'
Inside the room, the agitator lit a lamp. He had a cot and a table, and more books than the palace library. There were many copies of his own seditious pamphlets, tied up in bundles: Sons of the Soil, Arise!, Casting Asunder the Chains, You and Your Betters and Come the Revolution.
Ch'ing picked up a book. It was new and neatly-bound, but had no title embossed on the spine.
'This is my most popular work,' Yefimovich said. 'It's called Beasts in Green Velvet. It is an analysis of the misdeeds of the ruling classes. It will inflame the peasantry of the Empire, with its stories of men, women and children trampled under the iron heel of privilege.'
The High Priest sounded pleased with himself. Ch'ing cast his eye over a few lines. The book was like a gazetteer of the first families of the Empire, with a list of their crimes down through the centuries. This page was about the Kreishmier family of Ferlangen. He had never heard of them, but they seemed to be a long line of petty tyrants, hanging, branding, torturing, raping, robbing and enslaving the local peasantry as the whim took them.
