The Enemy Within

by Richard Lee Byers - (ebook by Undead)

  So she could keep an eye on him and try to make sure he was a genuine convert? Maybe, but conversely, it ought to facilitate the process of spying on her. “I’d like that. Thank you.”

  “You’re very welcome. It will be nice to have company in this gloomy old hole. But I’m sure you understand, a family doesn’t work if people only take. They need to give back, also.”

  “I can see that.”

  “I knew you would. So the coven has to consider what each new recruit can contribute, to his newfound kindred and the cause we serve, and in your case, the answer is plain: your magic.”

  His forehead throbbed. “What about it?”

  Mama hesitated as though calculating precisely how much she wanted to share with a new recruit. “When we talked before, I mentioned that the Red Crown supports those who seek to topple the Empire by force of arms.”

  “Specifically, someone named Leopold and his comrades in the forest.”

  She stared at him. “And how do you know that?”

  “Jarla mentioned them.”

  The old woman sighed. “She’s a good girl, but too chatty. Apparently I need to remind her that it’s for me to decide what you learn and when. But since she’s already blathered about it: yes, Leopold Mann leads a band of warriors who all bear the mark of the god. Today, they operate as bandits, but they aspire to become a genuine rebel army. The Red Crown sends them new recruits and supplies, and warns them of efforts to locate and destroy them. My hope is that your skills can help.”

  “Well, perhaps.” Perhaps, for the time being, he’d have to aid the Red Crown in small ways in order to obtain the information that would ultimately bring them down.

  “But even that isn’t the main thing,” Mama Solveig said. “You’ve seen the sanctuary where we perform our rituals.” Dieter thought of the grotesque appearance of the icon, the cold, hard feel of it against his lips, the pulses of psychic force that hammered from it, and his stomach churned. “Maybe you noticed a scarcity of books and documents.”

  “Now that you mention it.”

  “I told you about the great treasure trove of knowledge our leader possesses. He’s entrusted us with a few fragmentary texts from that library, and requires us to puzzle over them until they give up their secrets and so enhance our sorcery. He will then lend us another chapter from a grimoire or something comparable, and the process will start anew.”

  Dieter shook his head. “I don’t understand. If the goal is to make you—us—powerful, so we can serve our god as ably as possible, then why not give us all the materials we need to advance quickly? Why not come and instruct us?”

  Mama Solveig smiled. “Many reasons, or so I’ve been told. The Master of Change can’t teach you himself because no one but coven leaders ever sees him. It’s a part of the secrecy that keeps us all safe. Besides, learning this way is a sort of test. By passing it, we prove our fitness to enter the deeper mysteries.”

  “It still doesn’t strike me as an efficient way to approach the task of overthrowing the Empire and changing the fundamental nature of the world.”

  “To be honest, I’ve thought the same. But we have to recognise that the god’s designs are both vaster and subtler than mortal minds can comprehend. From time to time, his will, as conveyed by the Master of Change, may impress you as perverse and self-defeating. At such moments, you must simply cling to your faith.”

  “All right. If you tell me so, then I accept it. Anyway, we were talking about how I can make myself useful.”

  “And isn’t it clear? Your father has already trained you in an occult tradition. Your spells were strong enough to destroy a creature of Chaos. You’re a powerful, knowledgeable warlock, and I suspect that when you study the texts in our possession, you’ll discover things none of us have grasped. So I want you to devote much of your time to doing precisely that, and to teaching the rest of us what you learn.”

  He felt a surge of elation, of eagerness, as if he’d found the proper outlet for the restless energy seething inside him. Every wizard lived to learn new spells and secrets, and he was no exception. He’d retired to Halmbrandt for that very purpose, purely for the satisfaction it promised, with no particular intent of ever putting the results of his research to practical use. And here was Mama Solveig offering him the opportunity to pore over lore he could have acquired nowhere else. It was marve—

  He realised what he was thinking and felt a jolt of dismay, because the situation wasn’t marvellous, it was dangerous. It was only by limiting himself to a single discipline, to the energies derived from only one of the eight winds, that a magician held the Chaos implicit in all sorcery in check. To do otherwise was to court corruption. Had a youthful Dieter dared to dabble in alchemy, he might well have degenerated into the murderous bandit of his nightmare.

  Whereas, if the apprentice had immersed himself in Dark Magic, a few years might have sufficed to strip him of his humanity entirely. Manageable if not benign in isolation, the eight lores formed poison when mixed together. Dark lore was virulent in and of itself because it immediately and automatically opened a practitioner to Chaos. It could pollute a wizard as quickly and profoundly as Mama Solveig’s icon.

  Trapped among the cultists until he completed his task, Dieter had no hope of avoiding all exposure to their arcane secrets. But it was essential that he limit it.

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” he said, “but I doubt I can harvest anything from the texts that you haven’t already discovered for yourselves. I’m just not as powerful or learned as you think I am.”

  Her eyes narrowed in their nests of wrinkles. “You killed the fiery serpent.”

  “I was lucky. Besides, as Adolph said, he and I did it together.”

  “Hm. Well, in any case, someone schooled you in magic.”

  “My father knew some spells by rote, and taught them to me that same way. I have no idea what makes them work, and I couldn’t create a new one if my life depended on it.”

  The old woman sighed. “What a pity. I had such high hopes of you, and now you almost seem to be trying to make me think you’ll be of no use at all. You really wouldn’t want me to think that.”

  “No, and it isn’t what I meant. I certainly have something to contribute.”

  “Of course you do, dear. I never doubted it. Now come take your first look at the parchments.”

  He felt another irrational thrill of anticipation, and fought to quash it. “What? I explained—”

  “That the rest of us shouldn’t expect anything special from you. I understand. But naturally, you’ll still study the lore like the rest of us.”

  “Naturally.” He couldn’t think of any way to refuse. It occurred to him that he should have claimed to be illiterate, but it was too late now. Anyone in his position would have mentioned it sooner had it actually been the case.

  Perhaps he could unfocus his eyes and rest them on the documents without actually reading. That might protect him from the venom they contained.

  It would be dark at the centre of the cavernous cellar, the shafts of dusty golden light falling through the windows notwithstanding. Mama lit the oil lamp while Dieter found his shoes. The midwife then led him deeper into her domain, and, sketching her arcane sigil on the stale air, revealed the coven’s hidden shrine. Pouncing into visibility, the icon of Tzeentch seemed to shift ever so slightly atop its plinth at the far end of the space.

  Dieter braced himself to withstand the poisonous atmosphere of the shrine. It made his head throb and his belly squirm, but it wasn’t as noxious as it had been the first time. Perhaps a person actually could get used to it. Or maybe his initiation had granted him a measure of resistance.

  Mama Solveig set the oil lamp atop the lectern. “You’re still a young man with young eyes. This should be enough light for you to read by. Later on, you won’t even need this much. Once you become familiar with the papers—or perhaps I should say, once they come to know you—the words and drawings will shine with their own inner light.
”

  Trembling, Dieter took his place behind the wooden stand. He felt frightened but exhilarated too, as he had the first time a woman granted him her favours.

  Which was crazy. The two situations were nothing alike. He made his vision blur, resolved again to read not a single letter, and lowered his gaze.

  Despite his unfocused eyes, meaning surged up at him like a striking snake, and the opening words of an invocation to Tzeentch impressed themselves on his comprehension. He couldn’t imagine how, for many of them were unfamiliar, derived, perhaps, from the same unknown language Mama Solveig had spoken at the conclusion of last night’s ritual. Yet something of their import conveyed itself nonetheless.

  He told himself to wrench his gaze away, even if it compromised his mission. But he couldn’t. The writing exerted a fascination stronger than his fear.

  Here, contained in a single line, was a crushing rebuttal to the sane, common-sense notion that a thing either existed or did not. A little further along, the author used a term referring to the brittle, flimsy composition of all the mortal world, a word somehow redolent of loathing and contempt even if the reader had never encountered it before.

  The word infected Dieter with the sentiments it connoted. He yearned to destroy something.

  Then air gusted, and the wavering flame of the oil lamp blew out, plunging him into darkness.

  Fortunately, the ink on the parchments didn’t glow for Dieter, not yet, and, no longer able to make out the blasphemous words or much of anything else, he finally managed to jerk his gaze away.

  When he did, he sensed that Mama Solveig was no longer standing at his side. Nor could any trace be seen of the light falling through the windows set at intervals along the tops of the walls. The murk was all but absolute.

  He groped for the oil lamp, took it in his hand, and murmured an incantation. The ceramic body of the vessel began to glow with its own phosphorescence, shedding illumination without the necessity of fuel or flame.

  With the light came the urge to return to his reading. Straining against the impulse, making sure he didn’t so much as glance at the papers atop the lectern, he raised the lamp and peered about.

  He still couldn’t see any sign of Mama Solveig, her infirmary or living area, the windows or the walls. The cellar appeared larger than before, too large for his light to reveal all of it.

  “Mama Solveig?” he called. His voice echoed. No one answered.

  It occurred to him that perhaps he hadn’t truly awakened after all. It was possible he was still delirious. Still trapped in the heart of Chaos.

  But no. He didn’t believe it, refused to believe he might still be incapable of distinguishing between hallucination and reality. This was actually happening, and that meant he’d fallen victim to an enchantment, conceivably an effect he himself had unwittingly evoked from the forbidden text.

  The simplest way to cope with the magic and the disorientation it produced might be simply to walk in a straight line. With luck, he’d move out of the illusion that made the cellar seem limitless, and the bounds of the space would come back into view. At worst, he’d bump into a wall, and then could feel his way along it until he found the door.

  He took three steps, then froze when he belatedly perceived that he was walking directly towards the icon. Did the sculpture’s draconic snarl pull ever so slightly into something more closely resembling a leer?

  No, damn it, of course it hadn’t. He turned his back on the image and headed in the opposite direction.

  Deviating from his course only to avoid one broken, abandoned article or another, he passed a succession of brick columns. Too many. Finally he glanced backwards. The lectern, pentacle and racks of magical implements were all but lost in the gloom. Another pace or two and he wouldn’t be able to distinguish them at all anymore, and without that point of reference, he’d be completely lost.

  No, he wouldn’t. Not in a space that surely remained finite however it currently appeared, and not when he had divination to guide him if need be. So why did panic keep welling up inside him?

  He decided to seek guidance without further delay, and never mind that it seemed ridiculous to resort to sorcery simply to find his way to the edge of an enclosed space. The magic wasn’t likely to speak as clearly here as it would if it could write its message across the sky, but a breeze should kick up to nudge him along in the proper direction.

  He cleared his throat, then declaimed words of power. Spiders skittered madly in their webs, and his ears ached as though he’d dived deep underwater.

  On the final syllable of the incantation, the air moved, but not as he’d anticipated. It gusted in one direction, then another, then whirled and howled around him, catching his clothing and making it rustle and flap, until it abruptly stopped moving altogether.

  Dieter ran his fingers through his sweaty, tousled hair. The divination hadn’t pointed the way to the door. In fact, it had seemed to be saying it was impossible to walk out of the enchantment. If so, then maybe he had reason to be frightened after all.

  At the periphery of his vision, shadows stirred. He jerked around, but by that time, everything was still again.

  “Mama?” he shouted.

  Only the dwindling echoes of his own voice replied.

  Uncertain if he’d truly seen anything at all, keeping watch from the corner of his eye, he moved, and after a time glimpsed motion. His stalker was slinking from the cover of one support column to the next while gradually creeping closer. It was interesting to observe that once again, the elderly midwife was moving without any hint of unsteadiness or frailty.

  Whether she tottered about or prowled like a hunting cat, the knowledge of her proximity had a calming effect on Dieter, because now he at least felt reasonably certain he understood what was happening. The cultist was using her own magic to play tricks on him, and once he got his hands on her, it would likely be easy enough to persuade her to end the game.

  So he waited until she was quite near, then wheeled and ran at the column she was hiding behind. “Got you!”

  A creature, possessed of a somewhat manlike shape but utterly inhuman nonetheless, sprang out from behind the support to meet him. It was gaunt and male, with dark hide and a head like a spider’s, and, now that it was near enough, gave off a sharp acidic smell. The light of his lamp glinted on the countless bulging, faceted eyes peering not just from its head but its torso as well, its wet, gnashing mandibles, and the blade of its upraised battle-axe. It gave a hideous rasping cry and swung its weapon at Dieter’s face.

  Somehow he managed to arrest his forward momentum and fling himself back. The axe whizzed by a finger-length in front of his nose, and at the same instant, he lost his balance. When he fell, the ceramic lamp shattered against I he floor, spattering his hand with oil.

  The spider-thing loomed over him and lifted its axe for a second stroke. He forced himself to remain still—if he moved early, the creature would only compensate—and then, when the weapon hurtled down, rolled to the side. The axe sheared into the floor.

  If the gods were kind, it would stick there, too, at least for a heartbeat, but the creature immediately heaved it free and raised it to threaten Dieter anew. With the thing right on top of him and attacking so relentlessly, he couldn’t stop dodging long enough to cast a spell.

  Nor was it likely he’d evade the axe much longer. So, in desperation, he kicked with both feet at the spider-thing’s spindly leg.

  Bone cracked. The spider-thing staggered, then vanished as suddenly and completely as a bursting soap bubble.

  Panting, Dieter rose and lifted his light. With only a broken piece of lamp left in his oily hand, the enchanted implement shined less brightly than before.

  Still, it sufficed to reveal the shadowy forms of other spider-things, all stalking in his direction.

  Could the creatures actually hurt him? It seemed likely. The one he’d kicked had felt solid to the touch, and its axe had split the floor.

  Yet he was fairly ce
rtain they were, if not wholly illusory, at least artificial. For if they were real, they were plainly creatures of Chaos, and it was all but inconceivable that Mama Solveig was powerful enough to summon so many so quickly, or that any other warlock could and would dispatch so many to invade her home.

  In other words, as he’d suspected previously, all the alarming things that were happening were manifestations of one elaborate phantasmagoric trick, and, since he’d failed to escape the enchantment by other means, it was time to try to tear it apart. He would have had a better chance under the open sky, or if he felt more himself, but it was pointless to dwell on that.

  He took a deep breath, declaimed the opening syllables of a counter spell, and slashed his hands through mystic passes. The spider-things charged.

  Points of light, arrayed in patterns like constellations, appeared in the air and revolved around him. Outside the building, thunder boomed as if the heavens were cheering him on.

  The creatures vanished, the dissolution wiping them away from the tops of their heads down to their feet. It was as if they were sand paintings spilled and obliterated by a witless attempt to stand them upright.

  The cellar seemed to draw in on itself like a fist half-clenching as the walls sprang back into view. Dieter squinted against the reappearance of the light from the windows. After his time in the dark, the diffuse, filtered glow seemed bright.

  Hands clapped softly. He pivoted and saw Mama Solveig standing a few paces away. “Well done,” she said. “Although it’s a pity about the lamp.”

  He felt a savage urge to attack her, but managed to resist it. Perhaps, even knowing what he knew, it helped that she was such a persuasive counterfeit of a kindly, feeble old granny. “I hoped you enjoyed your prank,” he gritted. “That first spider-thing nearly chopped me to pieces.”

  She looked shocked at the suggestion. “Oh, no, dear, it only seemed that way. I would never have let you come to harm.”