Michael de la Lune perched on the edge of a comfortable leather chair in the opulent office of Paracelsus van der Groot, the Marienburg College of Magic’s master of apprentices. Across the magnificent teak table, strewn with arcane trinkets and scrolls, van der Groot was telling him the awful, unbearable news that he had failed his apprenticeship. De la Lune was a slight man, who had witnessed the passing of no more than twenty summers, and his boyish, Bretonnian face wore an expression of crestfallen astonishment. A lock of dark, wavy hair fell across his forehead as he hung his head in defeat.
“But don’t take on so, lad,” continued the corpulent van der Groot, toying with one of his enormous rings in embarrassment, “There are plenty of careers wanting for resourceful, educated fellows like yourself. Have you considered perhaps something in one of the mercantile professions—they’re always looking for accountants and administrators. Or if you still want to work with magic, how about the Alchemists’ Guild? I know a few people there and everything they do is academic. Not quite so esoteric as our stuff, eh?
“I could get in touch with—”
Against all the protocols, the young man dared to interrupt one of the masters and spoke for the first time since entering the office. “Please sir? By your leave, I think I’d just like to collect my belongings and be gone.”
“Yes, yes. I understand lad,” van der Groot said breezily. “I know it’s a sore blow to you young ones to be told that you’ve failed, but only a few ever succeed. There’s no shame in it, so you stay in touch and—”
There was the sound of the door shutting.
Michael strode down the tangled web of corridors which burrowed through the great edifice that was the Marienburg College of Magic. He kept his head down on the way to his private quarters, ignoring the greetings of other wizards of his acquaintance along the route. His head was a whirl of confusion and resentment. What had he done to fail the test? He had thought this establishment to be an enlightened one. After all, hadn’t they offered him a second chance after he had failed the entrance exam to the exalted Altdorf college. Though he had long suspected that entrance to Altdorf’s college had more to do with money than ability, and he reasoned that his Bretonnian lineage being of freeman stock, rather than the aristocracy who more usually gained admittance there, was the real reason that he failed the exam. However, he couldn’t understand why the establishment which had eventually permitted him entry to the field of his beloved magical research would now turn their backs on him. Their reasoning seemed to be beyond him.
Michael reached his spartan quarters and began packing such meagre possessions as he owned into the sling bag which had accompanied him from his home city of Lyonesse four years earlier. What would become of him now? It was a bitter irony that he had travelled so far, learning two new languages in his pursuit of magical expertise and the Classical script employed in conjuration, just to seemingly have to return to Bretonnia with nothing to show for it but a couple of apprentices’ parlour tricks. Oh, he might stay in Marienburg as van der Groot had suggested, but that would be taking an almighty risk with his dwindling funds. If he couldn’t find some way to sustain himself here then he might end up a beggar or worse, and he was in no mood for taking chances at present. It would be much more sensible, he reasoned, to use what money he had left to buy passage back to his homeland whereupon he could take up employment in his father’s textile trade, much though the idea pained him. On the face of things, however, he didn’t see any other reasonable options open to him.
“Damn it! Everything is a mess. Damn magic and damn merchants too!” he muttered, swinging the heavy satchel over his shoulder. With that, he left the little room he had inhabited for the past four years for the final time and headed out of the building.
Blinking owlishly in the light of day, Michael passed beyond the portals and out into Guilderstraase, pausing briefly to hand his room keys over to the gatekeeper. Eyes which burned with intent unknown marked him as he proceeded down the broad thoroughfare, then a dark figure hurried from the alley whence it had observed him so that it might intercept the youth before he passed from sight.
Michael was still in a condition of shock, his thoughts lost in fanciful notions of how he would spend the rest of his life, when a hand clapped down heavily upon his shoulder. Michael almost leapt clean out of his skin at the sudden contact and whirled to face whoever it was that presumed to be so familiar.
It was a tall man, garbed in the traditional attire of the religious puritans who made the vanquishing of heretics their lives’ work: wide-brimmed hat, leather britches and high riding boots, a half cloak worn over a blouson shirt, and a burnished steel gorget to protect his neck from Vampires. At his belt he wore a long, heavy bladed sabre and a fine duelling pistol, along with pouches for powder and shot.
“Forgive me,” wheezed the stranger in a voice curiously thin and consumptive for one so impressive of stature. “It was not my intention to startle you.”
A witch hunter! Michael’s heart dropped into the pit of his stomach, just when he thought things could get no worse, along came the practitioner of wizardry’s worst nightmare. These religious zealots were notoriously indiscriminate in their inquisitions, and many an innocent whose only crime was an interest in sorcery had suffered torture and death under their regime. It would be a bitter irony indeed if he were to get into trouble for practising magic now of all times, and he briefly wondered if the gods were having sport with him.
“What can I do for you?” asked the young man guardedly.
“Please. You have nothing to fear from me,” continued the witch hunter in his unhealthy tone of voice, “My name is Obediah Cain. Would I be correct in assuming that you have come from the College of Magic?”
“Well, yes, but I won’t be going back there. My apprenticeship came to an end today, and I shan’t be going on to indoctrination in the higher mysteries.”
“Ah. I am sorry to hear that,” answered the man, his eyebrow and the corner of his mouth raising a little in unison. “Despite that, I should still very much like to talk with you concerning your days at the college. If you can spare me the time over a drink that is?”
“Alas, it seems that I have all the time in the world now, and a drink would be most welcome at this juncture.”
The Tulip was a ribald establishment in a side street off Guilderstraase, patronised mainly by labourers and menial workers. Cain had suggested it so that they were not likely to encounter any of Michael’s erstwhile colleagues, and any reservations the youth had about entering such a bawdy house in his academian attire were dispelled when he saw how the presence of the witch hunter discouraged the clientele from even a cursory glance in their direction.
Cain himself refused to drink with Michael, proclaiming that his religious ascetism would not permit him to partake of alcohol, but he generously provided the youth with a jug of foaming table beer from which he could refill his tankard.
“So what’s this all about then?” enquired Michael once he had properly introduced himself to the sinister witch hunter. He was eager, he realised, to get this encounter over with, since he instinctively mistrusted this strange man. But at the same time a resentment for the world of magic and wizards which had so cruelly rejected him was beginning to fester in the undertow of his shattered emotions—a resentment which was stirring up faint notions of respect for the work of such men as Cain, even as he spoke.
“As you can imagine, where I am involved it is about heresy, blasphemy and cult activity!” Obediah Cain smiled.
“You surely can’t think that I—” Michael blurted, but he was silenced by an impatient wave from the witch hunter.
“No, no, no, lad! Of course I don’t think a failed apprentice is involved. But answer me this: why do you think capable young men like yourself fail at that academy all the time?”
“Well, I mean, the course is very rigorous, isn’t it? It takes a high degree of spiritual fortitude as well as academic prowess. They told me that
only rare individuals are cut out for such a challenge,” Michael answered carefully, not yet prepared to damn his erstwhile colleagues, but somewhere deep inside he was starting to entertain the notion that damnation was perhaps their lot.
“Ha!” Cain spat. “And do you suppose that all those bloated old men up at the college are possessed of such purity? Don’t you believe it, lad! Why, you can reckon the sins of the flesh on their fat carcasses like the bites on that serving wench’s neck. They haven’t the moral fibre to do what they ask of you young apprentices who fail, but they’ll happily take your money. No, the easy route to arcane power is the path trodden by their well-shod soles, and that means bargains with daemonic powers. Dark magic and necromancy, pacts with Chaos daemons is their mystical currency, you mark my words. Now listen well, young Michael de la Lune. I have it, from an unimpeachable source, that there are ancient books of necromancy, and the unguents used in the mummification rituals of distant Araby, in the college libraries.”
“No, it’s surely impossible,” Michael gasped, shaking his head to clear the ale fumes, aghast at the enormity of what he was hearing. “I spent four years in that place. I would have known.”
“Do you think that such a well-established secret society would reveal itself to a mere apprentice? Even one under their own roof? Now I’m not saying that everyone at the college who isn’t an apprentice is in on this. That would be madness.” Cain smiled enigmatically. “But certainly the top echelon of the guild are guilty of the vilest crimes against the Church. I’m appealing to you now to perform a deed that could save countless souls. You’re the only one who can do it Michael. I can’t go in there, so I want you to go and steal the books and the oils and give us solid evidence to bring these blackguards to trial.”
It all seemed to make sense to Michael in some awful, surreal sort of way. He prayed earnestly that the witch hunter with the strange voice was labouring under a gross misapprehension, but now that those things had been said, he knew he had to find out whether it was true for his own peace of mind. He had spent such a large part of his life within those walls, under the tutelage of those implicated, that he must discover the truth. And if the truth should prove as the witch hunter would have it? Then damn all practitioners of magic! He would name every last one of them to clear the taint of their sorcery from his soul. He must keep reminding himself that he was no longer a wizard, and the only thing of any consequence now was the pursuit of truth. He had been lied to for long enough; although Michael knew not what was to become of him in the years to come, he determined that honesty would characterise it.
“How will I know?” Michael asked quietly, “You said yourself that such a society, if it exists, has kept its secrets well hidden.”
Cain smirked triumphantly and reached down inside his boot.
“I have a map.”
Michael emerged from his hiding place in one of the smaller, and lesser-used libraries of the Marienburg College of Magic. It was a strange twist of circumstance indeed which had caused him to return to this building the very next day after he had been evicted from it.
Obediah Cain had remained with Michael during the previous day, and had provided for the youth’s comfort generously, paying from his own purse for both their lodgings. The next morning Cain had instructed him on using the map and drilled him thoroughly on the need for secrecy in the mission he was about to perform for the good of the Old World. Cain had also provided him with a curious little serpentine charm of blackest obsidian, hung upon a pendant of brass. The witch hunter assured him that the talisman would negate the power of any wards he might encounter in liberating the evidence he sought, but also warned him that whilst wearing it he should be quite unable to use any of his own magical powers, such as they were.
As to what pretences Michael would employ to gain access to the college, Cain left him to his own devices. So Michael had simply used Paracelsus van der Groot’s invitation to keep in touch in order to convince the gatekeeper to permit him access.
Following the spidery lines traced upon the parchment map, the young man crept stealthily through the familiar halls. Although it was late at night, he knew there would still be many powerful Wizards awake within these ancient walls.
After a fraught journey, he eventually arrived at the location of his quest. The Library of Forbidden Mysteries was on a floor which had always been deemed off-limits to apprentices and it was a part of the building he had never before visited, since he was an obedient student. Although the room was unlocked, various magical alarms and warding devices existed to discourage the excessively curious. Those who had tried in the past to gain unwarranted access to this place had paid the price of their folly by expulsion from the academy, or worse in some cases.
The atmosphere within was one of timeless serenity, and thus far the power of the witch hunter’s talisman seemed to be holding out. Most of the dusty volumes on the creaking shelves seemed to be historical texts warning of the dark side of magic, texts which chronicled and cautioned the unwary against the machinations of Chaos and evil rather than actually instructed one in the Dark Ways. Nevertheless, even the knowledge that such practices existed at all was deemed too unsafe to reveal to impressionable apprentices.
According to the parchment given to him by Cain, the things he sought were in a safe behind the large portrait of the rather stern-looking founder of the college, Zun Mandragore, that hung upon the back wall. Perspiration pricked Michael’s forehead as he tremulously reached his hand out to the heavy frame of the picture. Gently sliding the portrait to one side the map proved true, for sure enough a bulky steel safe was embedded in the wall.
But before he could react, a previously invisible rune on the metal safe door blazed with arcane power. There was no time to react: a brilliant bolt of cerulean lightning arced from the rune at his hand… only to fizzle into harmless ozone an instant before he betrayed himself with a scream. Gingerly Michael shook his head as the coppery tang of blood wet his tongue where he had bitten his lip in alarm, and then resumed his task with vigour, desiring only to be free of this oppressive place. The world of Magic had turned upon him so quickly and profoundly now that he no longer experienced wonder and awe in its presence, just fear and revulsion.
Feverishly Michael trialled the combination provided with the parchment, vague questions about how such a map had come into existence subsumed by his excitement. The door swung open without a sound. Before him lay an enormous volume, bound in what seemed to be very soft, thin leather, entitled Liber Nagash vol. III, together with six stoppered vials of brackish liquid. He quickly stuffed the contents of the safe into his satchel and fled the room.
“Bound in the skin flayed from the backs of living men,” Obediah Cain breathed almost reverentially. A small table set before him in their small upstairs room in the Tulip inn was dominated by the hulking tome. “It was a Classical translation,” the witch hunter had been explaining, “of one of the original nine treatises on necromancy penned by the Supreme Lord of the Living Dead, Nagash of Nagashizzar himself. And here too, the sacred preserving fluids of the ancient Tomb Kings,” continued Cain in a sort of distant rapture. “Natron, imbued with the dust of cadavers, to bind a spirit to empty, dead flesh, and protect the carnal vessel from the ravages of time.”
“However, I grow weary now, young Michael, and I must rest. Know that there is yet one more thing I would ask of you on the morrow before you shall be properly compensated for your service. A dangerous thing in which we both must share but, before all that, I would urge you to read… here for example…” A slender finger tapped the dry parchment page. “The binding ritual used to create mummified undead creatures such as the Tomb Kings themselves. Read this and drink deeply of the corruption and easy power with which your former tutors dabble. Forewarned is, after all, forearmed.”
With that, Cain swung his legs up onto his bunk and passed immediately into such a deep stupor that it almost seemed to Michael that he was not breathing at all.
However, he determined to read the extract, as Cain had decreed, in order to perhaps gain a clue as to what was going on, but no more. He would have to play along for the time being, until he found out what Cain’s game was and then act in whatever small way he could. He was scared, but a sudden determination not to mess this up, as he had done the rest of his life, steeled him and prevented him from bolting from the room that instant and catching the first stagecoach to Bretonnia. Eyes darting sideways, as if he dared not the read the words he was even now taking in, Michael began to read.
If anything, despite his long rest, the witch hunter seemed even wearier the next day. Michael himself didn’t exactly feel in the peak of condition himself, and noted the deep black rings under his own eyes whilst shaving his downy chin in the tiny silver mirror he carried. It was afternoon, Michael having spent most of the night poring over the crumbling pages of Liber Nagash’s mummification ritual. Abhorrent lore permeated his mind, but unlike weaker men, Michael had no desire to exploit this easy power, which he knew would only lead to self-serving evil. Nevertheless, a part of his innocence had gone forever with the knowledge that vast earthly gain could be bought for the meagre price of one’s soul. His optimistic idealism, already damaged by rejection from the college, was further undermined with the realisation that in these dark times there would be no shortage of desperate people prepared to pay such a price. Somewhere deep within his soul, a vow to set this bitter world of greed and opportunism to rights was starting to take shape.
Tales of the Old World Page 62
