red thirst

by ich du

  Two soldiers moved in to take hold of her arms. They marched her forward and a moment later she was standing before a tall, richly dressed figure: Graf Jurgen von Stolzing himself.

  "What's going on?" he demanded, his gaze moving from Lehner to Katarina.

  "A little surreptious spell-casting, my lord Graf," replied Lehner. He raised his hand in a deprecatory gesture. "Fortunately, very little indeed."

  The Graf stared at Katarina, suspicion gleaming in his pale blue eyes. "Who are you?"

  "Allow me to introduce you," said Lehner. He reached out to knock Katarina's blue apprentice's cap to the ground. Her hair shook free. "This is fraulein Katarina Kraeber, apprentice"-he lingered faintly over the word - "to Anton Freiwald."

  The Graf inspected her coldly, took in the brown hair, cut neatly at the jawline, the high-cheekboned face, the green eyes. "So," he said. "Another acolyte of Chaos?"

  "Quite likely, Graf," replied Lehner.

  Chaos. The full extent of the charges against Anton came home to her. No wonder they had come for him with such overwhelming force.

  Then her name finally registered with the Graf. "Kraeber?"

  "Yes, my lord. Her late father was Joachim Kraeber, of my own guild. Her grandfather - "

  "Yes, yes," said the Graf. "I remember the family."

  "They gave you loyal service my lord," said Katarina, seizing her chance to speak. "As I - "

  "What were you trying to do?" demanded the Graf, his thin face drawn into tight lines. "Tell me, or you'll be made to."

  Katarina's eyes went to the mansion, impossibly distant across the square. "My duty. Only that."

  "Your duty? As a citizen of Waldenhof - or as a servant of the dark magician, Anton Freiwald?"

  "My lord," protested Katarina, "don't believe Magister Lehner. He's jealous of Anton's talent, his spells, his - "

  "Spells?" said the Graf sharply. "What do you know of them?"

  Immediately, Katarina became guarded; Anton had warned her to say nothing of his research. "Only the ones he has taught me," she answered after a moment. "Those proper to an apprentice."

  "I think she knows much more than she's telling us, my lord," put in Lehner. "Best she be put to the question."

  "Yes," agreed the Graf. "Alongside her master." He swung around to face the house. "It's time we flushed that Chaos devil out." He gestured to Lehner. "Begin."

  Lehner stepped confidently forward until he was standing before the brazier. He lifted both arms into the air, his lips began to move - and then a voice was booming out over the cobbled expanse of the square. A human voice, the voice of Gerhard Lehner, but magically amplified. It echoed across the tiled roofs around them, out across the whole city of Waldenhof. "Anton Freiwald. You are charged with practicing dark magic. Surrender! In the name of Jurgen von Stolzing, Graf of Waldenhof."

  An expectant hush fell over the crowd. Moments passed. There was no response from the house. The Graf looked towards the siege engine, and brought his hand down in a decisive gesture. The command to fire rang out across the square. Wood and leather creaked, and then a massive stone was whistling through the air.

  The stone arced across the square, towards the house. Abruptly, there was a sound like water being poured onto white-hot coals - and rainbow light exploded around it.

  A massed gasp of astonishment went up from everyone in the square, hands were raised against the glare. The light began to dim and the stone became visible once again. It was absolutely still, hanging suspended in mid-air.

  For a few seconds longer it remained there. Then it dropped to the ground and shattered against the cobbles. The shield, Katarina thought with sudden hope. The shield of spell-power that Anton had talked of. Somehow he had managed to get it operating in time.

  "Gerhard," said the Graf in a hushed voice. "Have we come too late?"

  "Perhaps, my lord," replied Lehner in a whisper. He looked shaken. "Or perhaps only just in time."

  The grip on Katarina's arms had slackened. The two soldiers who held her had given all their attention to the stone, and were still staring at the shards scattered across the cobbles.

  With a sudden effort, Katarina wrenched herself free of them. As she ran forward, hands grabbed at her. She struck out at them, dodged from side to side.

  Then she was out onto the open square, running towards the house.

  From behind there were shouts to halt. She ignored them. An arrow flew past her on the left. It sparked against the invisible wall across the square and fell to the ground, all its energy spent.

  Katarina ran on, calling out the words of a warding-spell, praying that she had remembered it correctly. Then the air around her was bristling with arrows. Her boots thudded on the cobbles. Sigmarplatz had never seemed so vast.

  She sensed magic stirring behind her, knew that Lehner and the others were spell-casting at her back. Then rainbow light was shimmering around her. She had reached the safety of the shield.

  Her movements slowed; it felt as if she were moving underwater. Safe now, she told herself. Almost home. All you have to do is keep moving. She could feel Anton's magic flowing through her, protecting her.

  Then her eyes snapped shut as the light around her brightened to a blinding intensity. It sounded as if a host of daemons were screeching at her. She tried to put her hands to her ears but they moved with dreamlike slowness.

  Something had struck the shield. Not a rock this time - something magical, she realized. A spell. Lehner and the rest of the Guild. All those wizards - of every level - acting together. Creating a combined spell of tremendous force, designed to tear the shield apart.

  Magical energy surged through her body as the two spells - shield-wall and shield-breaker - clashed. Too much raw magic, coming at her much too quickly. Anton could have weathered it easily, she knew. But despite his coaching, she was still so very inexperienced, barely out of the apprentice stage.

  For a moment, she stood there, twitching like a fly freshly caught in a spiderweb, her feet rooted to the ground. Then she remembered Anton's strength-spell, brought his voice into her mind, heard him reciting it to her once again.

  She took a single step forward - and stepped fully into the sanctuary of the shield. As she stumbled across the remaining distance, she looked back over her shoulder. Light licked at the shield: gold, blue, crimson, jade. But the shield was holding.

  The red-lacquered door opened and two men wearing leather and chain mail darted out: Anton's hired Kislevan guards. As they pulled her roughly inside, she saw the other three Kislevans waiting in the hallway, their braided yellow hair hanging down across their shoulders. They had their weapons drawn. Katarina was surprised that they had all remained loyal.

  The door to Anton's study opened and then the wizard was standing in front of her. His dark hair hung loose to his shoulders, framing his broad, surprisingly youthful face. He was wearing an elaborately decorated robe; inscribed upon the chest was his personal symbol, based on the Great Wheel of magic itself. Each of its eight spokes was a different colour, representing the eight colours of the magical flux. The wheel's rim was comprised of bands of the same colours, each in their proper station.

  "Katarina," the wizard called out angrily. "What in Taal's name did you think you were doing?"

  Still trying to catch her breath, she said, "I came to warn you, Anton. You can't surrender. They mean to torture you."

  "I already knew that," he said, but his voice had softened.

  A diminutive figure, even smaller than a Halfling, appeared behind Anton, one bony hand clutching at the wizard's robe: Anton's familiar. Despite its physical approximation to humanity, the look of its pale coarse-grained flesh gave it a rough, unfinished appearance. It glared up at Katarina with its red-rimmed eyes, its lips parting in a snarl.

  Katarina looked quickly away from the creature, feeling the instinctive revulsion she had never been able to rid herself of.

  "Anton," she said. "They think you've turned to Chaos."

&n
bsp; "What?" he responded, clearly astonished. "They think that - and still they want to steal my knowledge?"

  The captain of the Kislevans called to them. Peering through the shutters, they could see that the Grafs troops had begun to move out across the square, were advancing on the house. Spell-light sheened their weapons.

  "Will the shield stop them?" asked Katarina.

  "Not for long. Not with the whole of the Guild out there to help them. But it should slow them down."

  Katarina shuddered, remembering her own struggle to pass through it.

  Anton was looking around at his handful of mercenaries. "Men," he called out, his voice vibrant. "The Graf is sending his soldiers against me. But I can stop them. All I need is a little time to charge my spell to its fullest strength."

  "You can stop them?" echoed Katarina in wonder.

  "Yes," Anton said levelly, his eyes on the mercenaries. "But I will need time."

  "My lord," the Kislevan captain protested, in heavily-accented Reikspiel, "there are hundreds of them."

  "When they try to pass through the shield they'll be vulnerable," said Anton.

  The man's seamed face was full of doubt. "We'll try, of course, but - "

  Anton raised his hands, murmured something Katarina could not catch. The air around his fingertips quivered with the force of his spell. The mercenaries straightened, as if sudden new resolve had come into them. "My lord," the captain said. "We'll hold them." His eyes were shining.

  A loyalty-spell, Katarina realized. Anton had placed a loyalty-spell upon his Kislevans and now he had raised its strength to the limit. That Anton had used such a spell disturbed her. It seemed - wrong. But then she recalled the forces arrayed against him and knew that he had simply had no choice.

  Anton turned away, went down the hall to an oaken door, and slid a key into the lock. The door opened soundlessly, revealing a stone stairway that spiralled downwards into darkness. It led to the lowest level of the house, the level that held Anton's laboratory.

  "Let me come with you," Katarina called out. "Perhaps I can help." In all the time she had known him he had never allowed her - or anyone else - to enter his laboratory.

  Anton stared at her, as if he were trying to reach some sort of decision. The familiar gave an impatient tug at his robe, staring balefully at Katarina. "No," the wizard said finally. "It's best you stay here."

  When she started to protest, he lifted her hand to his lips, kissed it briefly. "This once, Katarina, obey me."

  She touched the back of her other hand to his shaven cheek; the slight roughness - and the sharp male scent of him - felt reassuring. "Of course. Good luck."

  A glowing ball of light rose from his hand and preceded him down the stairway. The familiar scuttled after him. The door swung shut behind them and the lock snicked into place.

  There was a noise from above, as if one of the shutters in one of the upstairs rooms had opened. Katarina looked up to see a shadow detach itself from a darkened side-door on the landing. It glided soundlessly towards the balustrade, a movement that was so swift and silent that it was as if the shadow was drifting through her mind rather than the house, as if she was dreaming its brief prescence.

  Instinctively, she turned to block the door Anton had taken.

  The shadow-shape leapt from the balustrade and landed lightly in front of her. It stood there for a moment, regarding her; a tall muscular man-shape, clothed in black, eyes gleaming at her out of a dark mask. And on one sleeve the scorpion symbol of Khaine, god of murder.

  An assassin. If Anton Freiwald could not be taken alive then the Graf wanted to be very sure of his death.

  On the man's waist Katarina saw an amulet that bore the Guild's insignia. To one with her training, it practically writhed with spell-charge. Already it had brought the assassin this far - through the shield and past Anton's other warding spells. If enough of the wizards had poured enough of their power into it - then perhaps it might be strong enough to take him safely down to the laboratory itself.

  "Stand aside," the assassin said. "My contract is for your master's life, not yours."

  "You mean Anton Freiwald, the wizard?" Katarina said quickly. "But he's outside. With the guards."

  The assassin's eyes shifted to the side for a fraction of a second and, taking her chance, Katarina sprang at him, both hands clenched, aiming low.

  The assassin twisted easily aside and, tripping Katarina as she went past him, sent her toppling to the floor. Shaken but unhurt, Katarina got quickly back to her feet but the assassin was gone - and the door to the lower level hung open.

  She shouted down into the spiral stairway, but her voice was lost in the gloom. She tried again, calling out as loudly as she could, but again the darkness absorbed her words, like a sponge soaking up drops of water.

  There was no torch to light her way and she was afraid. Afraid of the spells that guarded the place, afraid of what was down there. But Anton Freiwald - her protector, her lover - was in danger. She stepped forward.

  With her foot poised above the first step, she heard a voice - Anton's. "Back," the voice said sternly. "This level is forbidden to all."

  For a moment, she thought he was coming back up the stairs. But then she realized it was merely the taboo-spell speaking in her mind. The first of Anton's barriers. She could feel its magical pressure in her head.

  "Anton, I'm trying to help you," she protested. She tried to move her foot. But the muscles in her legs had locked. No matter how hard she tried, they wouldn't move.

  Katarina strained again and again to take that first step, to break through the spell, but it was as if the lower half of her body was paralyzed. The harder she tried, the louder the voice in her head became, commanding, threatening, until it was a shout echoing inside her skull. She lifted her hands to her ears, trying to shut it out. It rose in volume, became a thunderous roar, blotting out thought.

  Swaying on her feet, eyes tightly closed, she summoned her own image of Anton. The lean, muscular body; the grey eyes, the long silken hair. His lips were on hers, his arms around her. She could feel the warmth of him against her.

  The love she felt for him was as bright and sharp in her mind as a knife-blade. It brought her the strength she needed to break through the spell, the strength to disobey him.

  The cold chilled through the sole of her boot as she placed it on the first step. The wizard's voice dropped, until it was only a shout once again. Then, a second step, a third. All she could hear now was a shrill whisper.

  She continued downwards. As she passed the first turn in the stairs, the voice faded completely.

  Below her, the darkness stirred. From out of it, a small questing head appeared, attached to a long serpentine neck. Its teeth were bared and its yellow eyes glowed like tiny amber coals. The head regarded her for a moment. Then it began moving steadily up towards her.

  Katarina halted, but did not retreat. The stairs were the only way down to Anton's laboratory. She had to get past this creature. She knew what it was; Anton had talked to her of his defences. It was not a living creature, but a reflection of her own inner fears, given shape - but not substance - by Anton's spell. It could kill her, but only through terror of her own making.

  Knowing what it was, she told herself firmly, would be enough. She could pass it. Shutting her eyes, she put her foot onto the next step.

  There was a hiss of rage and the scrabbling of claws on stone. An acrid stench drifted up to her nostrils. The sound of laboured breathing was amplified by the narrowness of the stairway.

  Down the stairs she went, not stopping, knowing that if she did she was lost, feeling her way, her hands on the cold, clammy stone. At any moment she kept expecting to feel that small mouth on her body. But the creature was only her own fear given form. She held that knowledge in her mind like a talisman as she descended.

  The air grew chill. She had lost count of the turns now. Her feet and hands were becoming numb from cold. The stairway seemed to go on forever.


  Abruptly, one foot jarred on stone that was well above where the next step should have been. She stepped forward, knowing she had reached the bottom.

  There was a scraping sound and something brushed against her leg. Then she felt a sudden sharp pain as teeth closed on her ankle. Her heart seemed to stop and her eyes came open.

  A little light seeped down the stairway behind her, enough to dimly illuminate the narrow corridor that led to the single door: the entrance to Anton's laboratory. She saw the mind-monster staring at her. But it was far away at the end of the long corridor, coiled in front of the door. Its outline had lost definition, and the colour had leached out of its yellow eyes. As she watched, it finally faded out altogether, blending back into the darkness it had come from.

  Katarina's mouth was dust-dry. Her breathing was coming in short, shallow gasps. That bite had felt so real that her ankle still throbbed. Looking down, she saw something small and pallid moving at her feet; its eyes glittered in the dim light.

  The familiar. She kicked at the creature and it scuttled away on hands and feet, finally halting at the far end of the corridor, beyond the door to the laboratory, well out of her reach.

  In the gloom it was barely visible, but the faint reflections from its eyes told her that it was staring back at her. Faintly, in the quiet, she could hear its breathing.

  Drops of blood smeared her hand as she bent and massaged her ankle. The creature repelled her. Even the thought of its touch filled her with disgust. It was an homunculus, created by Anton in his laboratory to serve as his familiar. Despite its vaguely human form, it was little more intelligent than an animal. It must have attacked her simply because she had descended to this forbidden level. Normally it never left its master's side. Had it been driven outside the laboratory when the assassin attacked?

  Moving cautiously, trying to keep one eye on the door and the other on the familiar, Katarina made her way down the corridor.

  Additional light seeped out from around the door frame - but the room beyond the thick wooden door seemed silent. All Katarina could hear was her own laboured breathing and an occasional muted sound from the familiar.