Morgil frowned, and looked up at the sickening sheen of the moon on the water.
‘What power of earth can turn even the heavens against their nature?’ he said.
Artheris inclined her head sadly.
‘One which waxes and wanes,’ she said. ‘We live in a time when the power of the Dark Gods is strong. Should we pass this test, there will be a time when their powers will fade again. That is what we must fight for. The hope of a change.’
Morgil went over to Khera, and ran his fingers through her long coat. The lioness growled with pleasure, a long, low, rumbling noise that seemed to seep into the wood of the deck like oil.
‘I hope you’re right,’ Morgil said. ‘In my lifetime, the power of Chaos has never seemed weak. ‘
Artheris looked at him indulgently.
‘You’re young, White Lion,’ she said. ‘When you’ve lived as long as I, the pattern of the world will be more apparent to you. Learn to trust in Asuryan and his hidden path, and you will be comforted.’
Despite the certainty in her voice, Artheris found that she didn’t really believe her own words. Morgil would never lose his restless energy. That was not his way, and he would be weaker for any change. Nor did she really believe her words about the power of Chaos. As a mage of rare power and insight, she knew better than most others the true paradox at the heart of the world: that all magic flowed from the corruption they fought against, and that unless some force beyond the knowledge of the asur were to intervene, the victory of the daemonic hordes could only ever be postponed, never avoided. Age had given her some capacity to live on in the face of such terrible insight, but the bitterness in her heart had never quite abated.
‘I’ll try, my lady,’ said Morgil dutifully, but she could hear that his heart was not in it. He would only be happy once the battle had been taken to the enemy and his axe was employed in the purpose for which it had been forged.
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Artheris. ‘My heart tells me there will be unexpected trials before we can set sail for the homeland again. Even with the future so clouded and uncertain, the hand of our dark kin is clear in all that faces us. Don’t be surprised if we meet them in the Old World. Their reach has grown even while ours diminishes, and they are more bold than we have ever been.’
At the mention of the druchii, a fresh shadow passed across Morgil’s face. He made no reply, but Artheris could sense the torment within him. His hatred of those who had ravaged his ancestral home went beyond all bounds. All asur had suffered during the endless druchii raids on Ulthuan, but there was a darkness in Morgil’s past she had never delved into fully. She knew it had been the cause of his previous downfall. With the clear certainty of her kind, Artheris could foresee the same happening again. As painful as it was, he must be made aware.
‘Listen to me, White Lion,’ she said, a faint timbre of warning in her voice. ‘I will need you. Treachery will be all around us, and my powers will be under attack from the moment my feet touch the tainted earth ahead. Whatever happens, you must remain the master of yourself. If your emotions pull you from your duty, even I cannot guarantee to save you a second time.’
Morgil looked directly back at her, a proud flame of defiance flickering in his eyes.
‘I am your servant, my lady,’ he said.
Artheris sensed his conviction, the desire to prove himself to her, but his demeanour gave her no comfort. She sighed, and looked back over the churning waves. The clouds were growing nearer, the sea more violent.
‘Tell the captain I will go below in a few moments. He needn’t fear for losing his precious cargo.’
Morgil bowed again, and stalked back to the rear of the vessel to pass on the message. As ever, Khera rose and went by his side, leaving the archmage alone once more. She looked down at her hands, pale and insubstantial-looking in the darkness. Would they be enough, those hands? When the time came, would they remember the right things to do? Only time would tell. She averted her gaze from them, troubled by her doubts. The pitch of the great ship became more pronounced. They were heading into stormy waters, and there was no way back.
Alexander rode his horse hard, feeling foolish. Greta had been persuasive. Perhaps too persuasive. He generally thought of himself as immune from magical forms of argument, but maybe his guard had been low. In any case, it was his own fault. If he had been sensible, he would have been back in Altdorf by now, nodding sympathetically to the Celestial Patriarch about the loss of the observatory. As it was, he was just getting deeper into the mire.
It hadn’t helped that the wretched horse had returned by the morning. Given the number of bandits and plague mutants roaming in the dark forests of the Empire, the beast had absolutely no right to have survived. But somehow it had, and its miraculous safe recovery had effectively settled the argument in the Celestial wizard’s favour. Alexander took a little pleasure from kicking it harder than normal. He only had the dimmest of ideas where Lord Heinrich’s lands were, but if they were as large as he had been told, then if he kept going long enough he was bound to stumble across them. With any luck, he would be able to hand over the scrolls and get back to civilisation as quickly as possible.
He had made good progress northwards once he had negotiated the tricky descent from the highlands. The craggy peaks and winding, stony trails had gradually given way to the bleak expanses of the northerly fen country with its vast areas of reedy marshland. Alexander had skirted the worst of the ceaseless mud, and was now back on firmer ground. All around him the trees were beginning to cluster thickly, and he was soon back in the dark forested paths which so typified the central regions of the sprawling Empire.
As Alexander rode, his mind began to wander. If the Celestial Observatory could be attacked, then there were very few safe places left in the Empire. The poor souls living in the utter north were used to constant raids, of course, but it was rare for a significant force to penetrate so far south. If a band of sorcerers could travel so far without detection and storm an outpost of an Imperial College with such impunity, then things were really bad. Maybe Gorman was right, and the coming war was something to be worried about.
He didn’t notice the rope slung across the path until far too late. When the cord finally impinged on his senses, he pulled frantically at the reins, but the horse merely stumbled and veered to the left. Alexander hit it hard and was thrown heavily from the saddle. In an instant, he was surrounded by figures from the trees. He could see one go over to the horse and pull it to one side, while others crowded around him. Who were they? Brigands? At least they were human. There were none of the symptoms of the plague, which was a relief.
One of the men, perhaps the leader, leaned over him. He had a crude knife drawn, and bore the stench of one who had lived in the forest for some time. His round, unshaven face smiled.
‘What do we have here?’ he leered, looking greedily at the ring on Alexander’s finger and the glitter of the chain around his neck. ‘A spellcaster? Foolish, to ride alone.’
Alexander’s wits were beginning to return, and his vision cleared. His staff had been strapped to his back, and he could feel it pressing against him uncomfortably. That was good. It always made it easier having a staff around.
‘Not as foolish as trying to rob a wizard, peasant,’ spat Alexander irritably, and grabbed the tip of the wooden shaft where it protruded from over his shoulder. A simple casting buffeted the surprised bandit backwards a few feet, and then Alexander was on his feet, eyes blazing, whirling the staff in practiced hands around him. The brigands, not used to such resistance, looked momentarily undecided. Their leader, evidently embarrassed by the ease with which Alexander had knocked him backwards, drew a long sword from a rusty scabbard and looked at him with a hateful expression.
‘He’s only one!’ he yelled. ‘C’mon lads – there’ll be trinkets in here for Schulmann once his throat is cut!’
The motley band brandished an eclectic array of weapons, but some seemed much more up for a fight than
others. The leader rushed at him, as did a couple of his braver-looking men. One had a vicious-looking cleaver, the other an axe which looked more suited to chopping logs than men. Almost wearily, Alexander let the Wind of Aqshy flow down his fingers to the staff, and braced himself for impact. He was far from his best, and the dank forests were a poor place for a Bright wizard to cast, but the ragged bunch before him were of little consequence.
With a flick of his staff, three bolts of curling flame shot towards the nearest brigands. The leader was hit squarely in the chest and thrown to the ground. The cleaver-wielder was hit as well. He stumbled to the ground clutching his face in agony. The axe-man got through, but was a clumsy adversary. He swung his weapon in a hay-making lunge, which Alexander casually ducked under. The wizard thrust his staff expertly at the large man’s leading knee, and the iron-tip of the shaft rebounded satisfyingly against the bone. With a twist of his wrist, Alexander conjured up a flurry of sparks, and blew them lovingly into the man’s face. The brigand staggered backward, clawing at his eyes, slapping and squealing where the pinpricks of heat tormented him.
Alexander looked up. The remainder of the band were hanging back, uncertain whether or not to come to their companions’ aid. There were a dozen of them, and if they all came at once Alexander might be pressed. It was time to end the charade. He recited a brief spell, and focussed the residual currents of magic into a single point. With a roar and a rush, a column of fire rose from his staff and kindled quickly across his whole body. Revelling in the surge of power and heat, he fuelled the spell with a couple of whispered words. The flames rose higher, streaming from his fingertips, eyes and mouth. Alexander took a step forward, and the men before him retreated warily.
‘Fools!’ he cried. His voice had changed, and resonated with echoing layers of magic. ‘You’ve snared a foe beyond your power! Flee now!’
His fiery display and booming voice settled the matter. The men at the rear, faces white, scampered back into the undergrowth. Bereft of those behind him, the leader could only snarl a toothless expletive, and join the rout into the trees.
Alexander laughed with genuine enjoyment, and sent a few minor bolts of crimson flame flying over their retreating heads. After a few moments, he let the flames around him subside, and felt the ebb of the wild magic in his veins. Rubbing his sore back where he had landed on his staff, he walked back over to his horse. Smiling to himself at the ease of his escape, he remounted. The brigands had gone, seemingly absorbed into the forest once more like water running to parched earth. Apart from the rope still slung between the trees and a few scorched patches of earth, there was little to suggest the fracas had taken place at all.
Alexander let his shoulders relax and strapped his staff back into place. The horse stamped and shivered a little, but looked as calm and untroubled by the whole business as ever. Clearly it was getting used to being ridden into trouble. Alexander cast a cursory look over the various bags and packs tied to the saddle, hoping that they hadn’t been disturbed too much. Only one seemed to have been taken. His food and gourds of ale were still there, which was a relief. But then the awful truth hit him. The missing bag was the one which had contained the scrolls. With an icy feeling in his stomach, he quickly looked around him. The endless trees looked back silently. There was no telling where they had gone.
Furious with himself, he kicked his horse into a gallop. Only a day into his journey, and already he had ruined it. He uttered a string of foul-mouthed expletives, and goaded the horse roughly in the vague direction of the fleeing bandits. This was a disaster, and the only way to remedy it was to find the wretched peasants again, get back the scrolls, and burn that leering horse-thief alive where he stood.
Kalia Uthorin made her way sure-footedly through the winding tunnels of the under-city. Unlike some of her more pampered companions, she had no qualms about her long stay in the stinking bowels of the city of the humans. Her assignment was an opportunity to prove her skills to those with the right kind of influence. Her long training as a Disciple of Khaine had only recently concluded in Naggaroth, but already her kill tally was satisfactorily high. Though her studied air of nonchalance hid it, her ambition was as fierce as any of her house. The mission in the Elthin Arvan, which its ignorant human inhabitants were in the habit of calling the Old World, was merely a stepping stone. One day she would take her place beside the lords of her House, and then the killing would start in earnest.
As Kalia travelled, her dark cloak clung to her limbs tightly. Her lithe body took up as little space as possible. She was a compact and efficient athlete, the perfect stock for the ranks of the Disciples. Under her nightshade-blue outer garments were cunningly-wrought plates of dark armour, as light as they were strong. She carried no weapon openly, but beneath her robes on either thigh was strapped a long, cruelly-twisted knife, ready to be whipped out and deployed in the blink of a terrified eye. She was a predator of the highest order, moving surely and confidently in her temporary realm of shadows.
As she went, Kalia prepared herself for the meeting. Her contact, Malek Arkaneth, was known to her from long before her current assignment. She thought little of him. He was vain, egotistical and sadistic. Such qualities were hardly unique amongst her kin, but in the usual run of things they were at least allied with some sense of martial pride or a modicum of political artifice. Malek had no obvious redeeming features. He was a parasite, a miserable stain on the honour of the druchii. Working with him was one of the many trials she chose to endure with stoic restraint.
Of course, there was the matter of self-preservation as well. Despite his many failings, he was a sorcerer of significant power, and Kalia suspected he used his arts to receive information from Naggaroth far quicker than she was able to. That made him dangerous, and there was no point in making an enemy too quickly. There were always plots afoot. The key was to remain faster and more ruthless than those on your trail. On that score Kalia had no qualms at all. Her skills were only matched by her confidence in them.
She passed quickly along a crumbling, low-ceilinged sewer, leaping lightly from one half-submerged block of stone to another. The Disciple needed no torch to light her way, for her heavily-dilated pupils were bred to darkness. Ahead, the stone roof rose slightly and the walls parted to reveal a broad chamber. What this place had been in the distant past was hard to make out. Perhaps the house of some long-dead nobleman. Its opulence had faded centuries ago and its proud walls had become smeared in the grime and filth of Altdorf’s lower levels. Malek had clearly done what he could to restore a hint of civilisation to the wretched human construction, but his efforts had a half-hearted look about them. He clearly had no plans to remain skulking in the underworld longer than he needed to.
As Kalia passed into the open space, her eyes adjusted quickly. Smoky lamps threw a dirty orange light over the flagstones of the chamber floor and stained the roof further with a noxious black patina. She was entering Malek’s domain, and went with the appropriate caution. Knowing her movements were being watched, she passed under the high vaulted roof with a suitably respectful slowness and stood patiently. From ahead of her, where the chamber dissolved into a maze of dingy rooms and half-blocked corridors, the noise of a human woman squealing could be faintly made out. Kalia smiled. Perhaps her arrival was not as closely observed as she had feared. She relaxed a little, and took the rolls of parchment from a pocket in her cloak. Malek would no doubt want proof that her plans had a solid basis.
After a few moments, the muffled cries of distress died away. Malek emerged from behind a heavy hanging tapestry. He had a long graze along one cheek and a slightly bruised forehead, but looked entirely unembarrassed.
‘Feisty,’ he said to himself, rubbing his forehead absently. He paid Kalia no attention at all. ‘A shame, in a way. The human creatures expire so quickly, but they do occasionally have spirit.’
Kalia restrained herself from giving the sorcerer a look of cold disdain. Torturing humans was entirely understandable –
they deserved it – but allowing oneself to be wounded by one of them was a shameful lapse.
‘I hope I’m not disturbing you,’ she said in a neutral tone.
Malek gave her an obsequious smile. He was taller than her, and the fall of his robes indicated that he had not looked after himself as well as he should have. While his physique was much trimmer than the average human, to her sure eye it looked as though he had put on weight. He would have to lose it again before he went back to Naggarond, or what little prestige he held outside House Arkaneth would disappear entirely.
Malek went over to a low carved antique table, incongruously placed amidst the bare stone, and took up a crystal decanter containing ruby-red liquid. He drew an appreciative sip, and offered her a goblet. She declined with a shake of her head, and he smiled condescendingly.
‘You really should learn to enjoy yourself more while you’re here, my dear,’ Malek said, looking at her with undisguised and rather creepy attraction. ‘The humans may be brutes, but they have some interesting habits. I’m becoming quite fond of this wine, despite the crudeness of its manufacture.’
Kalia ignored his patronising tone, and amused herself by imagining lacing his glass with agony-wort. One day the fantasy might even come true.
Malek sat down opposite her in another expensive and elaborate piece of human furniture. His lair was becoming a magpie’s nest of artefacts looted from the streets above. Kalia sat opposite him, keeping one hand close to her hidden knives at all times. From birth, the possibility of treachery from her own kind had been drummed into her psyche. Malek took another sip of the vile-looking wine, and gave her a friendly look.
‘So, what’s so important that you wished to see me?’ he said languidly.
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