“Through me, you mean.” Rudi felt a chill of pure horror ripple down his spine at the thought of it.
“That’s right.” Von Karien nodded. “And it would undoubtedly have done so, if it hadn’t been for our timely intervention.”
“And Greta Reifenstahl’s,” Rudi reminded him. “The same thing would have happened in Kohlstadt if she hadn’t sent the beastmen to disrupt the ritual there. It seems to me that you should be thanking her, not trying to track her down and burn her.”
“Indeed it would have done.” Gerhard nodded curtly, while von Karien’s face curdled with barely suppressed anger. “The question is, why did she act as she did, and why has she continued to take an interest in you ever since? No doubt it would amuse her to disrupt the machinations of a cult dedicated to her patron power’s deadliest rival, but let’s not forget that she serves the Lord of Change. There’s a deeper and darker purpose to her intervention, which we’ve yet to discover, I have no doubt.”
“Well, unless she turns up again, we’ll never know, will we?” Rudi said shortly.
“We haven’t seen the last of her, or her daughter,” Gerhard replied. “I’m quite certain of that. That is why we need to destroy the daemon as quickly as possible, before whatever she’s planning can come to fruition.”
“This might just be the key to that.” Von Karien gestured to the fragments of manuscript. “By understanding how the daemon was fused to your soul in the first place, we should be able to find a way of prising it loose.” This, Rudi had gathered at an early stage of his unwilling association with the witch hunters, was what had made a conventional exorcism problematic at best. The fusion was so strong that it would require an exceptionally powerful ritual to stand even a chance of success, and there was a substantial risk of obliterating his soul along with the daemon. Von Karien, he strongly suspected, was in favour of trying it anyway, if no other possibility presented itself soon.
“That sounds promising,” Rudi said cautiously “How soon can we begin?”
As the following days dragged out into another fruitless week, and beyond, Rudi found himself alternating between hope and despair. The witch hunters were making slow progress, even with the full resources of the temple to draw on, spending hours closeted with librarians, scholars, and members of the clergy. On several occasions they consulted priests of Shallya and Morr as well as their Sigmarite brethren, although Rudi wasn’t sure why he should be surprised by that. If any deities other than the protector of the Empire were taking an interest in the problem he presented, it would surely be those of healing and death.
“I’m glad to see you’re exploring every option,” he said dryly one evening, when Gerhard paid his habitual visit. The cold was still bitter, although for once the cobbles outside his lodgings were clear of the carpet of snow that had covered them for most of the week, and the witch hunter took his accustomed seat in front of the fire gratefully.
“Of course we are.” Gerhard stretched his hands out towards the flames, smiling as if picturing a heretic writhing among them. “The archivists of the temple of Morr have an unrivalled collection of texts concerning the separation of the mortal realm from what lies beyond, and are taking a keen interest in the matter at hand. Their assistance is proving most helpful.”
“What about the Amethyst College?” Rudi asked. “Surely they’d be able to help too.” A faint frown appeared on Gerhard’s face at the suggestion.
“We’re not that desperate,” he said at last. “Magic is born of Chaos, however vehemently the Magisters might wish to deny it. Using sorcery against itself is like trying to extinguish a fire with lamp oil.”
“You used a wizard before, though, didn’t you?” Rudi said. “Alwyn was a Grey mage, wasn’t she?”
“She still is, so far as I’m aware.” Gerhard looked at Rudi levelly. “Slip of the tongue? Or is there something else you know that I should be appraised of?”
“We met your hired muscle in Carroburg, on our way up the Reik,” Rudi said, trying to match the witch hunter’s even tone. “Alwyn tried to use magic against us, and Hanna retaliated. I don’t know if she survived or not.”
“I see. And yet you still insist that the girl isn’t dangerous.” To Rudi’s surprise, a trace of amusement entered Gerhard’s tone. “They say love makes fools of us all. Let’s hope that’s the worst it can do to you.”
“I don’t…” Rudi started to protest, but spluttered to a halt in the face of the witch hunter’s obvious scepticism. He squirmed uncomfortably, unwilling to examine his feelings too closely, trying to ignore the growing suspicion that Gerhard was right after all. There was no denying that he was an astute judge of people, adept at ferreting out things they didn’t want to admit, even to themselves. “That’s ridiculous. We’re just friends, that’s all.”
“I’m quite sure you are,” Gerhard said, clearly disbelieving him. Rudi felt his face colouring.
“Well, what if I do feel… more than that. It’s not as if I’m ever going to see her again, is it?” The thought struck him as von Karien’s dagger had done, with a sharp stab of pain deep inside his chest. Gerhard nodded soberly.
“I sincerely hope that’s true, but I doubt it.” His blue eyes fixed on Rudi’s, his level gaze adding weight to his words. “If I turn out to be right, be very wary. Your feelings may betray you, and if that happens, the consequences will be most unpleasant.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” Rudi said sourly, trying to ignore the sudden rush of exaltation that swept over him at the thought of seeing Hanna again after all. Perhaps they really would meet one another once this insanity was behind him, and they could make a life together somewhere the witch hunters would never find them, beyond the Empire, the Border Princes perhaps.
“I hope so.” Gerhard continued to stare at him, as if able to read his thoughts. “You can’t trust her, whatever your heart tells you. Remember that.” He broke his gaze after another moment of silence, and resumed their conversation easily. “As for the shadowmancer, I needed assistance, and she simply turned out to be a part of the group I hired. At least the Grey Order is renowned for their loyalty to the Empire, which I suppose goes some way towards mitigating the threat they represent to it by their very existence.”
“She saved your life,” Rudi pointed out. “And by using sorcery, too.”
“Indeed she did.” Gerhard looked uncomfortable for a moment. “I’m not denying that, on the whole, the Orders of Magic are at least well-intentioned, and on occasion their abilities can prove beneficial in the short term. We’d have had a far harder time throwing Archaon’s horde back last year without them, for instance. But in the longer term, every time one of them casts a spell it allows another minute trace of Chaos to seep into the real world, nibbling away at the roots of existence.”
“That’s not how the colleges see it,” Rudi replied. Gerhard shook his head.
“No, I imagine not, but the point remains that we’re not desperate enough to enlist their aid in this matter.” He sighed, as if being forced to confront an unpalatable truth. “Not yet, anyway.”
The more he thought about that conversation afterwards, the more Rudi found himself wondering if the witch hunter had been right: had he really fallen in love with Hanna, and if so, when? Not in Kohlstadt, certainly, even if she had been the prettiest girl in the whole valley. They had cordially detested each other then, and had continued to irritate one another even after they’d been forced to flee the village together. At some point, however, on the long and dangerous journey to Marienburg, he’d begun to understand something of the complexity of her character, how hard it had been for her to conceal her gift, and how much she must have trusted him to risk revealing her secret.
Not that she’d had much choice, of course. They would have frozen to death if she hadn’t kindled a fire the night they’d fallen from the riverboat and swum to the banks of the Reik. She’d revealed a lot more than her talent for wizardry, he thought, flushing at the memory, discarding
her sodden clothes to keep warm.
Now that he was able to acknowledge his true feelings for the girl, he found himself returning to the images of firelight flickering across her skin, the shadows and highlights accentuating the curves of her body, the warm orange glow making a nimbus of gold around her head as it reflected from her hair with increasing frequency. He remembered the times they’d touched briefly, the warmth of her hand in his, the yielding softness of her in a fleeting embrace, and felt an absence and a yearning every time he thought of her, which was somehow both painful and exhilarating at the same time. He thought of her smile, and her knowing green eyes, and tried to imagine the softness of her lips against his.
“All right,” he muttered irritably to himself, after another fruitless attempt to fall asleep. His head was spinning with thoughts of Hanna, as it seemed to do almost every night, robbing him of rest, and despite the lateness of the hour he felt wide awake, almost feverish. “You were right, you know-it-all bastard. I’m in love with her.” It was the first time he’d ever dared to voice the thought out loud, and he felt a sudden lightness in his chest as he did so. Saying it made it real, he thought. I love Hanna. So, what am I going to do about it? Nothing.
The surge of exhilaration deflated again, as abruptly as it had risen. He had no idea where she was, or what might be happening to her. Greta would keep her safe, he was sure of that, but all of a sudden he was desperate to see her again, and to hear the sound of her voice. Was there some way he might be able to get a message to her?
“Bad idea,” he told himself firmly. Even if he knew how to, he wouldn’t dare. The witch hunters might find out, and if they did, and tracked her down… He shuddered at the thought. Besides, if Gerhard and von Karien hadn’t been able to find a clue as to her whereabouts in all this time, what chance would he have of locating her all on his own?
“To hell with this.” He rose and dressed quickly. All of a sudden the room seemed unbearably cramped. He was a forester, for Taal’s sake, he belonged in the open air, not festering away in a small stone box. He flung the cloak around his shoulders, and opened the door.
“Master Walder?” The two templars outside stared at him in vague surprise, their expectation of a long, dull watch while their charge slept abruptly swept aside. “Is something wrong?”
“I need some fresh air,” Rudi said, biting down on the temptation to tell the earnest young man that there was more wrong than he could possibly imagine. “I’m having trouble sleeping.”
The guard shrugged. “Did you try counting sheep?” the other man suggested, sarcastically.
“I need to visit the temple,” said Rudi. “Maybe some prayers will help settle my mind.”
Exchanging resigned looks, the two templars fell into step behind him. Though he’d never been to pray at this hour before, Rudi thought, they’d find the request a familiar enough one to grant without arguing or referring it to a higher authority, and at least he’d be able to spend a short time out of doors.
Outside, the air was sharp, biting into the exposed skin of his face, and Rudi raised the hood of his cloak as much for warmth as to hide the mark of heresy on his forehead. The young men a couple of paces behind him did likewise, and Rudi was sure he heard a couple of muttered curses as they followed his lead across the hoar-slick surface of the Templars’ Court. It was bitterly cold, sharp points of frost glittering in the silver light of Mannslieb, which cast pale shadows on the whitened ground. The lamps and torches they passed, hissing slightly as a few stray snowflakes immolated themselves in the flickering flames, spilled warm orange light in thick sticky pools across the cobbles.
He entered the temple as he always did, through a back entrance normally reserved for members of the clergy, quelling the rising sense of panic from the daemon trapped inside him almost reflexively. It was strange how easy it had become to tell which emotions were his, and which belonged to the spiritual parasite embedded in his soul. A skill he wouldn’t need for much longer, he sincerely hoped.
It was the first time he’d been inside the temple at night, and he was surprised by how different it felt. The high, airy vault was still as imposing as ever, the statues of Sigmar and his most faithful followers dominating the congregation from their niches as always, but the ceiling was hidden by shadows, and the vast stained glass windows were reduced to blank-faced mirrors by the darkness beyond.
The floor of the temple was brightly lit, however, hundreds of candles suffusing the great stone building with a welcoming warmth, which still attracted a sizeable congregation despite the lateness of the hour. The midnight observances were long over, but many of the celebrants still lingered, contemplating the icons and statuary, or staying behind to continue their private devotions at the many side chapels in the cross of the great T, which mirrored the shape of Sigmar’s hammer so exactly. As he wandered up the aisle Rudi found himself surrounded by one such group of worshippers, arguing amiably about the most recent theological controversy to grip the Church.
“I’m not saying that Valten necessarily was Sigmar Reborn, I’m just saying that even if he wasn’t, he was definitely blessed, wasn’t he? So it would be nice if they had a statue or an icon of him or something.” This was an argument that Rudi had heard all the sides of during his sojourn in the temple complex, second only in popularity to the question of whether or not the current Grand Theogonist should step aside in favour of his predecessor or have him burned as a daemon-possessed heretic, and he ignored the rest of the debate as he tried to make his way around the chattering pilgrims.
“Excuse me, sorry, coming through.” He sidestepped a middle-aged couple, arm in arm, but still bickering amiably about whether the blessed blacksmith merited his own shrine, and collided with a young woman on the fringes of the group. Her face was shadowed by a warm woollen cloak, in anticipation of the bone-chilling cold outside. “Pardon me.”
“That’s all right.” To his surprise, the girl took hold of his arm. Looking straight at her in sudden perplexity, he saw inside her enveloping hood for the first time. Blonde hair framed a heart-shaped face, with a wide mouth, and green eyes that sparkled with mischief. His breath left his body, as if he’d been punched in the stomach.
“This way, quickly,” Hanna said, smiling at him, and drew him into the shadows beyond the candlelight. “We haven’t got much time.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
His heart pounding wildly, Rudi glanced around for his escort, his sudden rush of joy and relief at finding Hanna again drowned out almost at once by his fears for her safety. If the templars realised who she was, she was as good as dead. Clearly sensing the reason for his agitation, Hanna smiled.
“If you’re looking for your watchdogs, they’re over there.” She pointed to the other side of the nave, where the two guardians assigned to him were ambling away after another young man in a templar cloak, his face concealed by the enveloping hood, just as Rudi’s was. They’d evidently lost sight of their charge for a moment in the milling crowd of worshippers, and seeing someone of the same height and build, dressed in the same way, began to follow the wrong man by mistake. Rudi sighed with relief.
“Luckily for you,” he said. “If they’d caught sight of you…” He didn’t dare to complete the sentence, for fear of tempting fate.
“Well, they didn’t.” Hanna grinned at him again. “I thought you’d be a bit more pleased to see me.”
“I am pleased,” Rudi assured her fervently. The impulse to blurt out his newly admitted feelings for her was almost impossible to resist, but this was hardly the time, or the place. There could only be moments left before the templars discovered their mistake and returned to look for him. Hanna’s expression softened a little as she gazed into his face, perhaps divining more of his meaning than he’d intended from the intensity of his voice.
“I’m glad. I’ve… missed you too,” she said. The pressure of her hand on his arm increased a little as she spoke, and something seemed to turn a somersault in the middle of Rudi
’s chest. Perhaps his feelings weren’t entirely unreciprocated after all. The sudden rush of elation that followed the thought made him feel breathless and giddy.
“What are you doing here?” he asked urgently. Hanna had drawn him into the lee of the pedestal of one of the statues of heroes lining the nave, and they stood almost concealed by the shadow it cast, tucking themselves back into the space between the monument and the niche it occupied. No one around them seemed to have noticed their presence yet, perhaps Sigmar really was looking out for them, he thought.
“Waiting for you.” Hanna moved a little closer as she pushed him further into the concealing cleft, and Rudi became aware of a soft, yielding pressure against his chest. “Something’s going to happen soon, and I wanted to make sure you stay safe.”
“What kind of thing?” Rudi asked, a faint echo of Gerhard’s warning floating to the surface of his mind despite himself.
“I’m not sure. Something to do with the daemon inside you, I think.” Hanna glanced at the talisman on his forehead, with a grimace of sympathy. “I’ll say one thing for Gerhard, he’s certainly consistent.”
“Yes, he is.” Refusing to be distracted, Rudi returned to her previous remark. “What do you know about the daemon?”
“Not a lot,” Hanna admitted. “Mother was hoping to find a way of getting rid of it for you, but it looks as though you’ll have to rely on your new friends instead.”
“They’re not my friends,” Rudi said vehemently. Hanna grinned again.
“I’m delighted to hear it. But it’s not like you to sit back and wait for someone else to solve your problems, especially someone like Gerhard.”
“I’m not!” Rudi protested, before the realisation dawned that that was precisely what he had been doing. “Anyway, it’s not as if I have a choice, is it?”
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