The Empire Omnibus

by Chris Wraight

  Katerina found herself reflecting as she trudged through the grime and murk. What was she doing here, far from the bright centre of Altdorf, stuck in a probably hopeless campaign to liberate one stinking settlement from destruction? The reputation of Arforl had intrigued her, it was true. But in future she would have to start being more selective. All of which assumed, of course, that she emerged from the current situation alive.

  She turned to see where Boris was. He struggled to keep up with her. After only a few hours of travel out of Herrendorf, he had begun to wheeze thinly. His grey cheeks flapped as he laboured, digging his staff deep into the yielding earth, pulling his feet with effort from the sucking, cloying mud.

  He came up to her, his chest heaving, his eyes bloodshot. He looked little better than the undead themselves.

  ‘Are you able to go on?’ asked Katerina.

  Boris waited a moment for his breathing to settle before replying. When he had recovered, he gave her a wan smile.

  ‘You’re despairing of me, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘Perhaps we should have brought men with us.’

  Katerina inwardly rolled her eyes. A self-pitying priest was the last thing she needed. If he hadn’t claimed to have some insight into where the mausoleum might be, she would have been better off on her own.

  ‘What help would more bodies be, except to draw the dead to us?’ she said, scornfully. ‘None would come, anyway. We need to make better progress. Night’s nearly on us. And we know what that will bring.’

  Boris bowed his head at her admonition.

  ‘You needn’t pity me, lady wizard,’ he said. ‘You must have seen what the others have. I’m too old and too sick for this world. I’m dying, whatever the fate of Herrendorf. A year, maybe. No more.’

  He raised his face to hers, and there was a determined light in his rheumy eyes.

  ‘So, you see, it doesn’t really matter to me what the outcome of this is. I’m dead anyway. I would rather leave this world in the knowledge that my kin have been saved. That’s all.’

  The priest spoke with conviction, and his voice shook a little. Katerina held his gaze for a few moments. The man meant what he said. This was his task, the one he had studied his whole life to achieve.

  ‘Then we must press on,’ she said, curtly. ‘We’ve an hour of light, no more. After that, both our lives will be at risk.’

  She turned and walked heavily back into the marsh. The stinking mud clutched at her boots. Slowly and with effort, the old priest limped after her.

  Only a few stars glinted through the cloud. The gloom lay heavy. Katerina’s staff glowed with a pearlescent light. It wasn’t hard to maintain the spell. For some time, she had sensed they were walking into an area thick with the rumour of death. The Wind of Shyish hung thickly on the ground. She could almost reach out and touch it, and her augmented vision could see great eddying swirls of the unnatural force nestling in the gaps between the trees. This reassured her. Wherever the Amethyst wind lurked, her powers were strengthened. It was lucky to have come across such promising signs so soon. Boris may simply have stumbled on the right direction, of course, but it was also possible a more subtle power was at work. Even in death, perhaps the soul of Arforl was dimly aware of their quest. After all, they were both, or had been, wizards of the same colour.

  She turned back to see how far behind Boris was. She saw him a few dozen paces off in the gathering darkness, a dark, hunched shape lumbering against the gloom of the half-drowned forest. As her eyes adjusted, a sudden chill passed through her. She stood stock-still, her heart suddenly beating faster.

  Boris came up to her laboriously.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked through deep breaths.

  Katerina pointed her staff back the way he had come. She whispered a brief word, and the glowing tip burst into bright flame. The dark branches around them were thrown into sudden relief.

  Boris looked back in the direction the staff pointed. After a moment, he looked back at her.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said.

  Katerina frowned.

  ‘Really? You see nothing at all?’

  She whispered some more arcane words, and the flame changed hue. A thick purple light emanated from it, dousing the trees like liquid.Boris peered into the shadows, screwing his eyes up and squinting grotesquely.

  ‘I don’t–’ he began, and then suddenly stopped. ‘Holy Sigmar…’

  Katerina smiled with satisfaction, and released the spell.

  ‘As I suspected,’ she said with pleasure. ‘You could’ve walked past this place a thousand times, and seen nothing but trees. This is an illusion of the highest order. I almost missed it myself.’

  Where it had appeared that there was nothing more than a close thicket of gnarled and stunted foliage, Katerina’s magic had revealed a circular space amidst the wild marshes. The real trees hung back, looking as if every tortured branch was straining to grow away from the clearing. There was a low hill in the centre of the space, perfectly circular and smooth. No grass grew on its bare flanks. In the very middle, a dark tower rose against the night sky. It was unadorned and simple, a single column of ancient stone protruding from the earth. Katerina’s illumination glinted coldly off its worn surface. The stench of death was suddenly strong, even to un-gifted senses.

  Boris became extremely agitated.

  ‘That is it,’ he breathed.

  All weariness seemed to have left him, and he began to hobble towards the tower. Katerina accompanied him more watchfully. It was almost certain the place was Arforl’s mausoleum. There could be little else in such a desolate place. The slender edifice stank of magic. Thankfully, there was also no sign of the undead. Perhaps they feared the site of their ancient defeat. That alone was reason to be grateful to the long-dead magister.

  They approached the base of the tower. There was no device or insignia on the stonework, nor any windows. The walls rose up sheer for maybe forty feet, and were crowned by a simple conical roof. The place was silent. The noises of the forest beyond were strangely muffled. It felt like they had passed into another world.

  ‘There’s no door,’ said Boris.

  He looked at the chill edifice with wonder, the way a child looks at a new wooden toy.

  ‘There’s always a door,’ said Katerina.

  She raised her staff again, and breathed words of uncovering. The tower seemed to sigh, and the stones shimmered in and out of focus. After a few moments, features on the masonry began to reveal themselves. At the summit of the tower, almost lost in shadow against the deepening night sky, a balcony appeared. Narrow windows emerged along the walls, and a low arch was revealed at ground level. The doors were made of banded iron, pitted and worn with age. A heavy stone lintel sat atop the entrance, marked with the rune of Shyish.

  Katerina looked at the markings carefully.

  ‘The rune is worn,’ she mused. ‘It almost looks more like Ulgu than Shyish. They’re similar, but still…’

  Boris limped over to the door excitedly.

  ‘The legend spoke truly,’ he croaked, his grey hands reaching toward the locks on the metal doors, before suddenly hanging back. His nerve seemed to fail him at the last. ‘After so long,’ he breathed. ‘Now that I see it, I wonder if I can face it?’

  Katerina ignored him, and approached the doors.

  ‘We’ll be safer inside than out here,’ she said, calmly breaking the bonds with a gesture. She could sense wards of protection around the place, and powerful magic leaking from between the stones, but the spells were old and nearly exhausted. Clearly, Arforl’s entombers had trusted in the power of illusion to keep his resting place hidden.

  The doors opened, and a sigh of stale air rushed out. The darkness within was complete. Katerina let her staff give out a little more light, and she went inside, Boris at her heels. The interior of the tower was narrow and claustrophobic. Immediately to
her right, spiral stairs coiled upwards. There was nothing else, no adornment, no inscription. They began to climb. The stairs were smooth and without visible blemish. They must have rested here, untrod, since the mausoleum was sealed.

  Katerina glanced back. Boris was keeping up as best he could, wheezing and puffing. He seemed to have forgotten his earlier horror at her intentions. Indeed, he was the most animated she could remember him.

  They emerged from the stairway into a circular chamber. They were at the top of the tower. Four windows had been set into the otherwise unbroken and unmarked walls. A single open doorway led out to the balcony beyond. There was no moon, but faint starlight limned the ironwork of the railings.

  The chamber itself was almost empty. No symbols had been engraved into the stone, and the bare floor was unadorned. Only one item disturbed the room’s cold symmetry. In the very centre lay a marble tomb. It was jet black and as smooth as glass. The light from Katerina’s staff seemed to soak into it, and there were no reflections. Boris stared at it, fascinated. Maybe he could sense the magic around it. To Katerina, it was bleeding with arcane force. Even in death, Arforl’s essence still lingered, buried but not obscured.

  ‘Now we must do what we came to do,’ she said, quietly. Her faint words echoed eerily around the circular chamber.

  Boris turned to her, his hands shaking slightly.

  ‘Very well,’ he said, a nervous expression on his face. ‘Waste no time. Even as we linger, Herrendorf must surely be besieged.’

  Katerina raised her staff, and the thick Amethyst magic rose to greet it. Great gusts of the deathly wind surged along the length of the shaft, pulsating and resonating powerfully. She closed her eyes, and began to utter the words of power. They were sucked into the stone around her as soon as they were uttered. As she spoke, the chamber began to tremble. Dust drifted down from the ceiling, and Boris took a nervous step back.

  Katerina continued, letting her staff channel and refine the raw magic circling the tomb. Her voice rose as the spell picked up momentum. For a few moments, the black casket seemed unaffected. But then, gradually, a soft light kindled above it. The illumination spread slowly, drifted over the glassy surface, bathing it in a dim light. A faint rushing noise could be heard, as if from far away.

  Katerina let the magic build up. Despite the travails of the past few days, she felt powerful. It was as if the presence of Arforl augmented her latent strength. The spell was working. The barrier between life and death, never strong in the case of wizards, was being eroded. If anything remained of Arforl, it would not be long in coming. Inwardly, she smiled.

  She slammed her staff on the stone. All at once, the light flickered out, and the sound of rushing ceased. The chamber was plunged into darkness. For a heartbeat, nothing stirred. Katerina stayed still and silent. This was the moment. The chamber was drenched in what the ignorant called the magic of death. Only the initiated knew it as it really was, the lore of life unbound. Now it had done its work and the secret of Herrendorf’s salvation would be revealed.

  ‘Rise,’ she said simply.

  There was a mighty crack, and a blaze of light. Boris staggered back, dazzled. Even Katerina had to avert her eyes for a moment. When she looked back up, the casket was just as it had been before. Over it, however, hung a faint shape, insubstantial and vapid. It swayed uneasily, seemingly hovering just on the edge of perception. It looked like the reflection of sunlight on moving water, rippling and transient.

  After a few moments, the apparition clarified. It was the shape of a man, tall and forbidding, with a high brow and raven hair. He was dressed in robes of the Amethyst College, and bore a wizard’s staff. He looked half-asleep, and his translucent eyes were ill-focused.

  ‘You were Radamus Arforl, wizard of the Amethyst college?’ said Katerina, relishing the power flowing through her.

  The shade looked at her uncertainly. His eyes still seemed locked somewhere else.

  ‘That was my name,’ came a chill voice. It was barely audible, and sounded as if it was coming from far away. ‘Who asks?’

  Katerina smiled.

  ‘Master wizard Katerina Lautermann, also of the Amethyst College,’ she said confidently, allowing her staff to blossom once more with light. Between that and the unearthly radiance of Arforl’s shade, the chamber was bathed in a strange mixed light.

  ‘No, you are not the one,’ said the shade, looking steadily more alert. His gaze became increasingly fixed. It seemed as if he was solidifying. His piercing eyes swept around the chamber, and alighted on Boris.

  ‘You are the one,’ said Arforl, fixing the priest with a pitiless gaze.

  ‘Yes!’ cried Boris, rushing forward, letting his staff clatter to the ground. ‘It was me! I called you, roused your power! You know what I seek! Grant me it, lord of life and death!’

  Katerina whirled around, suddenly consumed by doubt. For the first time, she noticed the crescendo of magic in the room was being fed by another source. Arforl was not merely a passive shade. He was aware, and had been so for some time. Something was wrong.

  ‘Boris?’ she said, raising her staff protectively. ‘What is this?’

  Before the priest could answer, Arforl let slip a sneering laugh.

  ‘The wizard knows nothing!’ he said, before turning his baleful gaze on her. ‘What did he tell you? That I hold the secret of defeating the unquiet dead? You fool. They’re my minions, just as they were a generation ago. Even in my slumber I can rouse them. And yet this place was just enough of a prison to keep my body confined. Only a wizard could break the bonds. You were arrogant, Lautermann. Now there’s nothing to contain my power.’

  Boris rushed forward.

  ‘So I have served you, my lord!’ he cried, a look of ecstasy in his ruined eyes. ‘Now heal me! End the pain. I’ve done as you commanded.’

  Katerina was stunned. She felt the waves of dark magic rearing up around her. She began to unravel the unbinding spell, but now nothing would answer her call. Arforl’s magic began to blot out all else in the chamber. The shade ignored her. Arforl’s image was growing in strength. The waves of malice emanating from him were sickening.

  ‘Heal you?’ Arforl said to Boris. ‘You’re as stupid as she. You’ll provide me with a body, and that is all.’

  At that, the shade swooped over the horrified priest and locked him in a crushing embrace. Boris screamed, and his limbs flailed jerkily. There was a brief confusion, as the swirling green-tinged vision of Arforl sucked itself on to Boris’s jerking body, clawing at his eyes and mouth.

  Then the struggle was over. Boris’s limbs went limp, then straightened. There was no more hunching or limping. His ravaged form was animated by a new will. Just as the undead had done at Herrendorf, Boris’s eyes glowed a sickly green. His lips twisted in a lurid smile. There was a shudder beneath his skin, like cats fighting in a bag, but that too was stamped out. Arforl had consumed him.

  Katerina stepped back, placing her staff between her and the possessed Boris.

  ‘These people think you saved them,’ she said warily, trying to piece together what was going on.

  Arforl laughed using Boris’s mouth.

  ‘I know. Ever since this fool dabbled in powers he could not master and began to wake me, the irony has been pleasing. He knew the truth, of course. But the knowledge of death does strange things to a man. I sent him dreams of a cure, an end to his pain. All lies, sadly for him. There is nothing but pain! Pain and power. You have given him one, and me the other.’

  Katerina looked disgusted.

  ‘A traitor, then,’ she spat. ‘Enough. I may have woken you, but I will not release you.’

  She swung her staff around, and waves of amethyst energy screamed across the narrow chamber. Arforl was blasted backwards, hitting the stone wall with a crack. Katerina let her anger flow freely. Her staff sang with energy, hurling bolt after bolt at the unn
atural creature before her. She was hurting Arforl, and for a moment he was pinned, writhing, against the edge of the chamber.

  ‘Damn you!’ he roared, and a vast well of dark magic burst from his flailing hands.

  The shadow tore across Katerina, raking at her eyes and snatching at her staff. She gasped, feeling the icy chill stab at her. She staggered backwards. Her amethyst magic tore away in ribbons. Arforl righted himself, and sent a barrage of seething necromantic essence towards her. She raised her staff for the parry, and the force of the blow nearly broke her arms. His power was unbelievable, as strong as iron and as crushing as stone. She was beaten back, step by grudging step.

  Almost before realising it, she had been driven to the far side of the chamber, towards the open doorway to the balcony. She whirled her staff around, trying to combat the waves of dark magic coming from Arforl. Within his torrents of energy she could make out the shapes of jaws snapping and claws rending. There were fleeting, morphing animal shapes in his magic. As quickly as she tore them apart, they re-formed and came at her. She felt cold sweat break out at the nape of her neck. She was being beaten. Arforl came towards her, his eyes glowing eerily, hands outstretched.

  ‘Now you’ll pay the price for your curiosity,’ he sneered. ‘This ruined body repulses me. When your power is spent, yours will make a more fitting vessel.’

  Katerina’s face distorted in disgust, and she sent a searing stream of amethyst fire directly at him. It halted his advance, but he was equal to it. He replied with spitting bolts of dark force, hurled at her with all the malice he could muster. Katerina desperately parried. Her staff took the brunt of the assault, but one deadly shaft got through, slicing agonisingly into her shoulder. She cried aloud, and staggered backwards. Too late she realised she was out on the balcony. She was dimly aware of high, dark clouds above her, and the whistling of a chill wind. Arforl came towards her, his face still locked in a gloating smile.