by Jack Yeovil
'Here in Altdorf?'
'Here in this house. When I was an usher's apprentice, he was resident playwright. He suffered under a curse. Some of his works were banned, suppressed. The emperor of the day branded Seduced by Slaaneshi obscene'
'That, I know about,' Detlef interjected. 'It's pretty filthy, although has a certain style. We might revive it one season, suitably amended and updated.'
'He was a brooding man, obsessed, hard to work with. He fought a duel with the manager of the theatre. Hacked his head half off for cutting a curtain speech.'
'A likable fellow, then?'
'A genius, sir. You have to make allowances for genius.'
'Yes,' Detlef said. 'Of course.'
'What happened to him?' Genevieve asked.
'He began to alter. Warpstone must have got into him. They said Seduced by Slaaneshi offended the Chaos gods, and Tzeentch took a terrible revenge on him. His face changed, and he began to turn into into something not human. He wrote furiously. Dark, delirious, difficult stuff. Mad plays that could never be staged. He wrote an epic verse romance, alleging that the emperor had made a mistress of a she-goat. It was published anonymously, but the watch traced him as the author. He was hardly human, then. Finally, shunned by all, Malvoisin disappeared mysteriously, slipped away into the night.'
Detlef nodded. 'Just the thing Malvoisin would do. His plays never have disappearances that aren't mysterious, and no one in them ever slips away into the afternoon. What has all this nonsense about an old hack got to do with anything?'
Everyone looked at Genevieve.
She thought a while before saying anything. At last, she came out with it.
'I think Bruno Malvoisin is our Trapdoor Daemon.'
XIII
With Bernabe Scheydt and the nameless mountain whore, the act of sexual congress had been a simple thing the Animus had been able to understand. Scheydt had offered money for pleasure, and then promised not to give the girl pain if she acceded to his wishes. Actually, Scheydt had reneged; he had neither passed over coin nor refrained from hurting her. The abuse of the girl, terrorising her even after she proved compliant, had been part of the cleric's desire. It had been as important, or more so, than the simple physical gratification.
With Eva Savinien and Reinhardt Jessner, the act was the same, but the meaning was different. The Animus found itself caught up in Eva's thoughts as she admitted Reinhardt into her body, as she let the actor see in her the fulfilment of his desires. She felt pleasure, genuine pleasure, but exaggerated it for his benefit.
The Animus was an amateur in these matters, and let itself be guided by Eva. The congress was better for the actress than it had been for the cleric, perhaps because she expected less of it.
He had willingly come with her, escorting her home after the performance. She rented a bare garret in the theatre district of Altdorf, one of many identical rooms in the area. Later, she'd have a house, luxuries, many clothes. Now, this was just a place to sleep when she was not at the Vargr Breughel. She'd brought other lovers here×her first acting tutor, one of Hubermann's musicians×but the liaisons had never outlasted her partner's professional usefulness. She had no shrine in her room, no pictures on the walls. Aside from the bed, the main item of furniture was a desk at which she studied her parts, a shelf above it weighed down with reading copies of the plays in the Vargr Breughel's repertoire, with her roles underlined and annotated.
After their companionable, fairly affectionate love-making, Reinhardt was overwhelmed. The Animus was puzzled but Eva understood.
Shaking by her, Reinhardt was thinking of his wife and children. He sat up, the quilt falling away from his chest, and reached for the wine bottle on the stand by the bed. Eva propped herself up on a pillow, and watched her lover gulp down drink. Moonlight shone on his damp skin, making him pale as a ghost. He was bruised from his nightly duel with Detlef Sierck.
She cuddled next to him, and pulled him back down, stroking his hair, quieting his shivers. She couldn't stop his guilts, but she could ignore them. Eva's mind was racing. The carnal warmth had passed from her heart and she was calculating. She'd been able to make Reinhardt want her, but could she make the man love her?
The Animus didn't understand her distinction.
She thought on, pondering the success and implications of her latest move. The Animus wasn't capable of being taken by surprise, but it noted that, for a moment, Eva had gained control of their shared mind.
The host dared be impatient with it, dared assume its purpose was subordinate to her own.
Eva had won Reinhardt as an ally. As things stood, she could cajole and blackmail him to her cause with further favours or a threat of exposure. But he'd be a stronger partisan if he loved her outright, if he was bound to her by ties stronger than lust or fear.
She found something inside herself that brought tears to her eyes. She lay still, not overdoing it, letting the tears well and flow. Tensing, she gave the impression that she was fighting against a burst of emotion. She waited for Reinhardt to take notice.
He reared over her, and touched a wet cheek.
'Eva,' he said, 'what is it?'
'I was thinking,' she said, 'thinking of your wife'
Her words were like a dagger in Reinhardt's throat. The Animus savoured the small hurt.
'What a lucky woman she must be,' Eva said, seeming to be bravely trying to smile. 'People like Illona, she'll always be popular. I know what people think of me. It isn't easy being me and I can't change'
He was comforting her now, his own doubts forgotten. Deep inside, they were satisfied. The Animus felt the warmth of her achievement.
'Don't cry,' he said, 'my love'
Eva had him.
* * * * *
'Gene, why do I feel vast schemes are being laid against me?'
She had no answer beyond, 'Because maybe there are,' and had the wit not to say that.
It was late and they were still at the theatre, on the couch in Detlef's dressing room. Captain Kleindienst had wanted to ask them questions about the Warhawk killing but they had honestly not been able to help him. However, the icechip eyes of the watchman×famous as the man who had exposed the Beast×had made Genevieve uncomfortable. He seemed like another vampire-hater.
And his pet server, a red-headed young woman named Rosanna Ophuls, had been confused by the tangle of leftover emotions and impressions that clung to the Vargr Breughel. She'd not been able to stand being in the theatre more than a few minutes, and Kleindeinst had allowed her to wait outside in his carriage.
'They'll catch the Warhawk, Detlef.'
'Like they caught Yefimovich? Or the revolutionist Kloszowski?'
Both felons were still at large, on the run. The Empire was overrun with murderers and anarchists.
'Maybe they won't catch him. But it will end. Everything ends.'
'Everything?'
He looked piercingly at her. She remembered Illona Horvathy's similar look when Genevieve had told her everyone grew old.
'I'm thirty-six, Gene, and everyone takes me for ten or fifteen years older. You're, what?'
'Six hundred and sixty-eight.'
He smiled, and touched her face with a pawlike trembling hand.
'People think you're my daughter.'
He stood up and wandered to his mirror. Detlef was beginning to frighten her. His shoulders were slumped, and when he walked around the room it was in Chaida's distinctive lope. He always had his dark look now. He examined his face in the glass, pulling actorish expressions, baring his teeth like an animal.
She was at her most awake in the height of the night. She could keenly sense the darkness inside him. It was a cold, sharp dark. She wondered if it were the theatre itself that had disconcerted Rosanna, or Detlef.
Even though there'd been no chance of identification, Detlef had insisted Kleindeinst let him look at the corpse of the Warhawk's latest victim. Genevieve had stood by him while the oilskin sheet was drawn back from the skinless, eyeles
s face. The repulsive stench of dead blood, spoiled for her, poured off the man in the street. And Detlef had been fascinated, excited, drawn to the horror. Kleindeinst's scryer had certainly noticed this unhealthy interest and been sickened by it. Genevieve felt for her.
'Detlef,' she asked. 'What's wrong?'
He threw up his hands, a typically theatrical gesture. It made people in the back of the stalls feel they knew what he was thinking.
But someone close, someone as close as Genevieve, could see the imposture. The mask was loose, and she was glimpsing something behind. Something that reminded her horribly of Mr. Chaida.
'Sometimes,' he said, struggling with something inside him, 'I think of Drachenfels'
She held his hand, slim strong fingers around his. She too remembered the castle in the Grey Mountains. She'd been there before Detlef.
In truth, she'd suffered more within its walls, had lost more than him.
'It might have been better if we'd been killed,' he said. 'Then, we'd be the ghosts. We wouldn't have to carry on.'
She held him in her arms, and wondered when she had ceased to understand what went on inside him.
Suddenly, he was enthused. 'I think I've found a subject for my next play. It will be something Eva can play the heart out of.'
'A comedy,' she suggested, hoping. 'Something light?'
He ignored her. 'There's never been anything good about the Tsarina Kattarin.'
The name scraped Genevieve's spine.
'What do you think,' Detlef said, smiling, 'Eva as the Vampire Empress? You could be a technical advisor.'
Genevieve nodded, non-committal.
'It would be a fine horror to follow Zhiekhill and Chaida. Kattarin was a real fiend, I understand.'
'I knew her.'
Detlef was surprised, then brushed it away. 'Of course, you must have. I never made the connection.'
Genevieve remembered the Tsarina. Their association was a part of her life she preferred not to think of too often. There was too much blood in those years, too many hurts, too many betrayals.
'In a sense, we were sisters. We had the same father-in-darkness. We were both Chandagnac's get.'
'Was she?'
Genevieve knew what he was thinking. 'A monster? Yes, as far as anyone is.'
He nodded, satisfied.
Genevieve thought of the rivers of blood Kattarin had let loose. Her long life had had more than its complement of horrors. And she didn't feel an inclination to conjure them up again. Not to supply an audience hungry for sensation and atrocity.
'There are enough nightmares, Detlef.'
His head rested on her shoulder, and she could see the scabbed-over marks she'd left on his neck. She wanted to taste him, and yet she was afraid of what might be in his blood, what she might catch from him
How much of his darkness had he caught from her? In his Kattarin play, did he intend to take the role of Vladislav Dvorjetski, the Empress' poet lover? Eva would be perfect casting for the monster queen.
Perhaps she was condemning Detlef too easily. It could be that she was as dark in her soul as he was in his obsessions. His work had only teemed with the macabre and monstrous since he had been with her. Bleeding a man sometimes meant taking things from him other than blood. Maybe Genevieve was a truer sister-in-darkness to Kattarin the Great than she liked to think.
'Never enough nightmares, Gene,' he murmured.
She kissed Detlef's neck, but did not break the skin. He was exhausted, but not asleep. They stayed locked together for a long time, not moving, not talking. Another day crept up on them.
XIV
Last night, the Trapdoor Daemon had heard Detlef and Genevieve talking about him. Poppa Fritz had reminisced about the days before he began to alter.
The days when he'd been Bruno Malvoisin.
The playwright he had been seemed now like another person, a role he had cast off with his human flesh.
In the passage behind the rehearsal rooms, where he was able to look in on the company at work, he stretched his major tentacles to their utmost length. Usually he wrapped himself in a cloak and held the centre of his body high, imagining a belly and two human legs below his chest. Today he let himself flop naturally, six tentacles spreading like the pad of a waterlily, the clump of his other external organs and the hard blades of his beak, protected by the leathery tent of his body.
There was very little of Malvoisin left.
In the rehearsal room, Detlef was reading notes to the company. This morning, he had few comments, distracted by the swirl of events around the play rather than fully involved in the drama itself.
The Trapdoor Daemon was puzzled by Eva.
His protégée sat aside as usual, Reinhardt hovering guiltily while paying overdone attentions to Illona. Eva was calm and in control again, different from last night. It was as if she'd never seen his true form. Or maybe she'd found the strength in herself to accept what she had seen? Whatever the case, she wasn't concerned this morning with the monster she had met last night.
A few of the chorus girls had been prattling about a murder outside the theatre. The Trapdoor Daemon knew nothing of that, except that he'd eventually be blamed.
As Malvoisin, he had written about evil, about how attractive it could be, how seductive a path. When he began to change, he had thought that he had himself succumbed to Salli's temptations, as Diogo Briesach in Seduced by Slaaneshi had to his own private daemons. Then, as he became less bound by human thinking, he came to recognize there was no more evil in him when his shape changed than there had been before.
In a sense, he'd been freed by his mutation. Perhaps that was the laugh line of Tzeentch's jest at his expense, that he could only be aware of his humanity once his human form was buried in a morass of squiddy altered flesh. Still, he realized that for others warpstone was a polluter of the soul as well as the body.
Watching Genevieve, who was herself watching Detlef with a new attentiveness, the Trapdoor Daemon wondered whether a warpstone shard had been shot into his protégée.
Eva Savinien had changed, and she was changing still.
He had allowed the company to break up for lunch, and told them they did not have to come back until the evening's performance. The Strange History of Dr. Zhiekhill and Mr. Chaida was rolling of its own accord now, and Detlef was almost at the point when, even if everything else were not falling apart, he would have been prepared to let it alone. Long run shows develop by themselves, finding ways to stay alive. He was even grateful to Eva Savinien, whose unpredictable luminescence was prodding everyone in the company in unexpected directions.
Illona, for instance, was suggesting that she might have the makings of a tragic heroine as she slipped into the age range for roles like the Empress Magritta or Ottokar's Wife.
In Poppa Fritz's rooms, he found Genevieve surrounded by unscrolled maps, weighted down at the corners with books and small objects. She was with the stage-door keeper and Guglielmo, trying to make sense of the diagrams of the tunnels under the theatre.
'So,' she said, 'we're agreed? This one is a deliberate fraud, to be found by the enemies of someone taking refuge.'
The older-looking men nodded.
'It's too clearly marked,' Guglielmo said. 'Obviously, it's designed to get anyone who relies on it hopelessly lost. Possibly even to lead them into traps.'
'What are you three conspirators up to?' Detlef asked. 'Plotting to join Prince Kloszowski's revolutionist movement?'
'I'm going to try to find him,' Genevieve said.
She was dressed in clothes Detlef had not seen her wear in years. In Altdorf, she was usually found in subdued but elegant finery: white silks and embroidered Cathayan robes. Now she wore a leather hunting jacket and boots, with sturdy cloth trews and a man's shirt. She looked like Violetta, disguised as her twin brother in Tarradasch's Hexenachtabend.
'Him?'
'Malvoisin.'
'The Trapdoor Daemon,' Poppa Fritz explained. In the gloom, the old man l
ooked like a crumpled parchment himself.
'Gene, why?'
'I think he's suffering.'
'The whole world is suffering.'
'I can't do anything about the whole world.'
'What can you do for this creature, even if he is Bruno Malvoisin?'
'Talk to him, find out if he needs anything. I think he was as frightened as Eva by what happened.'
Poppa Fritz rolled up the fake map, and slipped it into its tube, coughing in the dust that belched from it.
'He's some kind of altered, Gene. His mind must be gone. He could be dangerous.'
'Like Vargr was dangerous, Detlef?'
Vargr Breughel had been Detlef's stage manager and assistant. A dwarf born of normal parents, he'd been with the actor-playwright-director since the beginning of his career. In the end, he'd turned out to be an altered thing of Chaos and had killed himself rather than be tortured by a stupid man.
'Like you were dangerous?'
Detlef had been born with six toes on one foot. His merchant father had remedied the defect in early childhood with a meat cleaver.
'Like I am dangerous?'
She opened her sharp-toothed mouth wide and made play-claws of her hands. Then, she dropped her monster face.
'You know as well as I do that warpstone sometimes just makes a monster of you on the outside.'
'Very well, but take some of our bruisers with you.'
Genevieve laughed, and crushed a prop candlestick into a squeezed ball of metal.
'I'd only have to look after them, Detlef.'
'It's your life, Gene,' he said, wearied. 'You do what you want with it.'
'I certainly intend to. Poppa Fritz, I'll go in here,' tapping a chart, 'from the stalls. We'll have to break open this old trapdoor.'
'Gene,' he said, laying a hand on her shoulder. A child sometimes, she was also ancient. She kissed him, quickly.
'I'll be careful,' she said.
Reinhardt Jessner knew he was being a fool, but couldn't help himself. He knew he was hurting Illona, and would be hurting their twins, Erzbet and Rudi. In the end, he was hurting himself most of all.
