“She’s the Tsaritsa, you idiot. Gossip about her visiting the count gets out, and we’ll all be for the chop.”
His mate shrugged.
“I suppose you’re right. Even so… imagine it.”
The two men imagined it as Titus closed in on his prey.
Grendel had never been one for social occasions, far from it. The dangers and difficulties of his art were nothing compared to the agonising embarrassments he suffered upon having to talk to people, especially to women. Somehow, he always felt that they were secretly laughing at him.
That had been in the past, however. Now, as one of the chosen of his new master, he no more feared the society of his fellow men than he did that of mice.
It was dark. He had only lit a single lantern while he had waited, and none of the celebrants had descended with anything brighter than a flickering candle.
There were half a dozen of them down already. Both men and women wore the same hooded cowls, the black silk throwing their faces into shadow and hiding their forms. Only one seemed careless of his identity, and he was trying to engage Grendel in conversation.
“I hear old Zhukovsky found you half dead on the road?” the fool asked. He had settled his nerves by drinking his way though the ball, and he swayed as he spoke.
“You heard correctly,” Grendel muttered.
“He’s found me staggering about myself more than once,” the man confided, and burst out into loud laughter.
Grendel scowled. This cavern was a place of mysteries, and of magic; to see the idiot treating it like an alehouse was almost insulting.
“Cheer up, bony,” the man told him, irritation flickering in his own bloodshot eyes. “It might never happen.”
“Oh, it will happen alright,” Grendel told him. Then he smiled. After all, why shouldn’t he? It didn’t make sense to expect any more of this drunken oaf than any other guinea pig.
“Quite right too.” the buffoon said. His belligerence had vanished as swiftly as his good humour. Something about Grendel’s grin was sharp enough to cut through his drunkenness.
“Now, if you will leave me to complete my preparations,” the sorcerer said, “perhaps you can entertain the ladies while we wait for the count.”
The man guffawed uneasily and returned to the little knot of figures that had gathered on the other side of the cavern.
Grendel pretended to busy himself with his paraphernalia, as more of Zhukovsky’s coven edged into the room. Another one of them sidled over, his pale hands fluttering nervously.
“Good evening, master,” he said and bowed.
Grendel was taken aback. Master: he had never been called that before, not by somebody who meant it, anyway.
“Good evening, yourself,” he replied and looked at the man. Even in the lamplight, he could see how pallid he was, and how nervous. His eyes twitched in their sockets as if trying to escape.
“I used to lead the incantations before you arrived,” he said, “just minor conjurations. Sometimes I managed to acquire potions.”
“Really,” Grendel replied.
“Zhukovsky says you have more exalted arts.”
Grendel looked at him, and for a moment felt something like pity.
Then there was a sudden hush, and the count swept into the chamber. The assembled worshippers turned towards him, drawn to him like heliotropes towards some dark sun, and whimpers of excitement filled the air.
“Greetings to you,” Zhukovsky said.
“Greetings to you, oh lord,” they replied with one voice.
“Everything ready, oh wise and exalted sorcerer?” Zhukosky asked.
It took Grendel a moment to realise that he was speaking to him.
“Oh. Yes. If you would like to form a circle.”
“Would you like us to disrobe first?” one of the cultists suggested, her voice tight with excitement.
“Of course we should disrobe,” another voice, male this time, said. They turned to Zhukovsky for a decision and, with a single sweeping gesture, he gave it to them.
As the count’s robes fell to the floor, Grendel took a moment to study the corruption that had ravaged his body. The skin hung in pouches, grey and grimy, even in the forgiving light of a single lantern. Bones and joints shone white beneath his misshapen hide, the muscle that had once sheathed them wasted away, and his hair was patchy.
It was his face that Grendel found particularly interesting. The sagging skin had left his gums revealed, so that his remaining teeth jutted in a permanent, orc-like snarl, and the underside of his eyeballs could also be seen, pink as a rat’s in the droop of his skin.
Not that his fellow cultists could see any of this. They were mesmerised by his form, men and women both, but it wasn’t the horror of Zhukovsky’s degeneration that held them transfixed, it was the glamour of the beauty that Grendel had wrapped around him.
A moment later, and Zhukovsky’s fellow cultists were stripping too. Grendel didn’t pay them much heed, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have recognised any of them, not even the girl, her hair white blonde and her skin as smooth as Zhukovsky’s was pockmarked.
As they ogled or preened, Grendel busied himself with the final preparations.
“What shall we do now?” somebody asked, apparently oblivious to the hands that had started to glide over her.
“Whatever you like,” Grendel said, “it won’t make any difference.”
“Shall we… shall we intertwine?”
Grendel, irritated by these constant interruptions, just grunted. Taking this as a sign of consent, the party drew closed together, the mass of bodies slipping into each other’s embrace.
“Right,” Grendel said and looked up. For a moment, he was thrown by the writhing of bodies. Then he realised that whatever the cultists were doing, it wasn’t magic. “Ahem. Excuse me?”
Zhukovsky shook himself free of his companions and rose to his feet.
“Command us, oh chosen one,” he intoned, his voice booming in the confines of the cavern.
“I need two people: two volunteers.”
“To honour our lord requires true faith,” Zhukovsky added. “Who will offer themselves?”
A chorus of voices answered, pathetic in their eagerness. Zhukovsky let them plead for a while before accepting the white-haired girl and one of the men. He led them to the centre of the mob, and there they stood, as proud as a bride and groom at the altar.
“Good,” Grendel said. He walked over to them and pulled a cork from a half empty wine bottle.
“Drink this,” he said and handed it to the man.
“I’ve had enough already,” he slurred, and Grendel realised that it was the buffoon from before. Good.
“Drink it!” he commanded. This time the man obeyed, taking a long, gurgling swig before passing it to the girl. When she raised it to her lips, an ecstatic murmur ran through the assembled cultists.
Grendel ignored them and retrieved the bottle.
“Now,” he said, as dispassionately as if he’d been describing how to thread a needle, “embrace.”
They needed no prompting, wrapping their limbs around each other with an eager familiarity. Grendel nodded approvingly, and then scurried back to collect another bottle. He muttered an incantation and, elbowing his way through the mass of sweating bodies, he poured out a line of viscous fluid around the two figures. When it was complete, he stood back and admired his handiwork.
“Very good,” he decided. “Very good indeed.”
Then he stepped back and, fingers twisting into shape, he began to chant.
Titus had reached the top of the stairs just as Zhukovsky had been entering his private chambers. He had hesitated as the nobleman had disappeared through the doors, and then he had come to a decision.
For a moment, the illusion that Titus wore pouted, the lips pursed in thought. Then, with a sudden scowl of decision, the entire form faded. In its place there was the tiniest ripple of air, and the slightest flicker of shadow.
A
bystander would have seen that the handle to Zhukovsky’s chambers seemed to turn of its own accord. He would have seen the door open and close as if caught in some gentle breeze. Then he would have seen nothing.
Despite the migraine it always gave him, Titus clung to his invisibility as he looked for Zhukovsky. Squinting through the flickering colours of the aethyr, he scanned the room for the nobleman. He was no longer there, but where he had gone to was no mystery.
Titus merely followed the pulse of sickly green light that throbbed from behind one of Zhukovsky’s more tasteless tapestries. Behind it, a spiral staircase twisted down into the unlit depths of the palace.
Titus’ blood quickened with the excitement of a ferret who has found a rat hole. He strained his ears to catch the fading footfalls of his prey, and then he followed. Zhukovsky moved with a swift assurance, and by the time he reached the bottom, Titus was sweating with the effort of keeping up.
The glow of candlelight lit the last twist of steps, and the wizard struggled to slow the wheeze of his breathing. Ahead of him, he heard the murmur of voices and, when his breath was no longer audible, he slipped down to study the gathering.
They stood in the centre of a cave, their forms uniform beneath black cloaks. Only Zhukovsky had forgone this disguise, although Titus was beginning to realise that the count was wearing a cloak of his own.
It shifted as he moved, this cloak. When it did, the illusion of his vitality faded to reveal the sickly reality of his true form. Whether Zhukovsky was mutant or diseased, Titus didn’t know, but he felt a professional admiration for the wizard who had hidden the truth of his condition.
There! There he was. Titus felt an unfamiliar thrill of nerves as he saw the man he had been tracking for the last months. It was Grendel, all right, although he had changed almost beyond recognition.
Titus had always thought him a vague, gentle, bumbling man, but the Grendel who stalked around this cavern moved with the ruthless efficiency of a butcher examining the herd. Violet energy flickered around his scrawny form, and Titus felt another twitch of unease.
If he had entertained any doubts about the extent of Grendel’s corruption, they were gone now. The man who stood before him stank of Chaos. Titus watched as he began to practise his foul art.
Potions were administered. Libations were spread upon the floor. Then, with barely a flourish, Grendel began to warp the winds of magic around him.
Titus watched from the darkness, impressed in spite of himself. This was like nothing he had ever seen before. The winds of magic that flowed towards the two figures that embraced in the centre of the cave ran together, creating a dazzling rainbow, rather than a true colour.
Titus stared as the energy fountained up through the couples shivering bodies, and then fell back to pool around their feet. Here, the magic swirled, trapped by the libation that Grendel had poured around his two accomplices.
A moment later, and the liquid exploded into a sheet of flame.
There was a frightened scream, followed by several whispered hushes as the fire engulfed the two figures. Titus could see the face of the man, and he watched as his fear turned to wonder. Although he was burning like a torch, he obviously felt no pain. Neither did his partner. Her only reaction to the fire that licked over her body was a high pitched giggle.
The cultists’ sobs of alarm turned to sighs of wonder as they watched the cool burning flames. Even Titus, his mind turning to assassination, found the sight of them mesmerising: the way they flowed, the way they flickered, the colours.
Oh, the colours. They were so beautiful. So, so beautiful. So…
He blinked hard, and looked away. When he had shrugged off the hypnotic effect, he peered past the column of sorcerous fire to Grendel. The sorcerer was lost in his own rapture, his eyes white marbles and his beard wet with the saliva that drooled unnoticed from his chanting lips.
Titus smiled grimly. Now was his chance to finish this cursed job, once and for all.
He had considered merely reaching out to stop his enemy’s heart, but even as he began his preparations, the flames of Grendel’s conjuration gave him a better idea. The shadows they cast scoured the cave, and what more fitting end could there be, than for these shadows to become the harbingers of his doom?
Titus began to prepare his own contribution to the cultists’ meeting.
Zhukovsky tried to hide his disappointment. The mesmerising flames that danced around the two embracing figures might be enough to impress his fellow celebrants, but they weren’t enough to satisfy him.
These days, not much was. A man as blessed by Slaanesh as he was, the count reasoned, deserved more than a mere light show. After all, hadn’t he worn out three other human beings in the service of his god? True, they had only been underlings, but even so.
He had sunk so deep in his resentment that it took him a moment to realise what was happening. He looked more closely at what was happening to the figures caught within the column of fire, and his mood lifted.
He had always wondered what it looked like from outside, this melting process. As the two forms fused together, his interest quickened. There was a delicacy to the way their flesh rippled and flowed, and a piquancy to the muffled squeals of alarm as the change took hold of them.
Truly, Zhukovsky thought as he watched two become one, this was poetry in motion.
But wait. This was something different. The writhing lump of the two bodies was growing into something else. The count felt a stab of jealousy as the shrieks of the two celebrants grew ever more unhinged.
What heights of sensation must they be experiencing, he thought, what debaucheries!
Around him, the other cultists shifted, drawn towards the burning horror in front of them like moths to a flame. With a final, high-pitched shriek, the cries that came from within the monstrosity fell silent.
For a moment, Zhukovsky wondered if they had died, their organs ruptured by the honour of their god’s favour. Then he saw the fresh movement within the sack of skin. It squirmed with an enthusiasm that had a pleasing air of desperation to it.
The count drew closer, peering through the flames at the transformation that was taking place. Even as he did so, there was a wet, tearing sound and the bag of skin split open.
The thing that emerged bore no relation to the humans whose flesh had created it. As far as Zhukovsky could see, it bore no relation to anything. Only its claws, as black as onyx in the burning remains of its creation, were familiar.
Zhukovsky watched them snap, open and closed. He thought of the lobster he had eaten only a week before, and began to laugh.
His fellow cultists were less amused. Some of them fell to screaming, lost in their own hysterics. Others had the presence of mind to flee.
“Stop!” Grendel shrieked, his eyes fluttering open. “Stand still you fools. Don’t break the circle.”
The panicking coven paid no heed. Already, the first of them had reached the stairs, only for the man behind him to drag him back by his cape and vault over him.
The daemon, perhaps impressed by his energy, lashed out with a whip that looked horribly like a tongue, and jerked him back into the cave.
Grendel snarled with frustration as the perfection of his creation began to spiral out of control. He cursed savagely, cast a final, vindictive glance at the coven, and disappeared.
In that same instant, Titus struck.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“What do you think he meant by it being best to be taken quickly?” Fargo asked.
“Perhaps something,” Vaught told him, “or perhaps nothing.”
“Or perhaps,” Peik suggested, “it had something to do with the noises we heard earlier.”
A ripple of unease passed through the men, and they peered nervously into the darkness. Vaught had turned the flame of their single lamp all the way down, and the blue rind of a flame barely lit his own lean features.
“Whatever he meant,” Vaught decided, “it is clear to me that we have been deceived
. It is also clear that, whatever the diplomatic niceties of the situation, we now have no choice but to escape.”
“Escape to where?” Peik asked.
All eight men looked down into the tunnel that led away from them. The noises had come from down there, so echoing and distorted that they might have been anything. For all their courage, the witch hunters had stayed huddled beneath the iron of the trapdoor ever since.
Vaught had had enough. Never one to cling to illusions of safety, he was already rising to his feet, one eye always on the weak flame of their single lamp.
“Sigmar will show us the way,” he said and, without giving anybody the chance to object, he marched down into the darkness.
For the first hour or so, things were easy. Although the tunnel twisted and turned, it remained big enough for them to walk upright along it. It was only when they reached the first of the crossroads that they paused.
“Any ideas?” Fargo asked.
As if in reply, a whine that could have been the wind gusted out of the tunnel to the right. All eight men pretended not to have heard it.
“Let’s do this,” one of them said and, stooping, he picked up a piece of stone.
“An inspired idea, brother,” Vaught nodded approvingly. “Let us arm ourselves with rocks like the Lord Sigmar did after his escape from Kallheim.”
The man hesitated, and smiled.
“Actually captain, I meant to do this,” he said, and scratched an arrow on the floor. “Let’s go this way. If we have to turn back, we won’t get lost.”
“I see.” Vaught nodded, hefted the rock he had picked up, and led off again. His men followed close behind, bunched up against the darkness. The roof of the tunnel gradually sloped up as they progressed, and soon rose too high for the light of their lamp to illuminate it.
The echoes of boot steps chattered like castanets as the tunnel widened into a cavern. A chill breeze began to tickle the backs of their necks, and they found themselves threading their way through a forest of stalagmites.
Vaught stopped the column as the chasm they found themselves in split into two halves.
[Warhammer] - The Corrupted Page 18
