by William King
Kryptmann moved over and perched on the edge of his desk. He pointed at Felix with a long bony finger. Felix noticed that the nail had been bitten and a fine sediment of dirt lay beneath it. When he spoke, Kryptmann’s voice was high and grating, as irritating as a schoolmaster drawing his fingers down a blackboard.
‘Feeling better, my young friend?’
Felix had to admit he did. No matter how unprepossessing his appearance, Lothar Kryptmann knew his job. The unguents he had applied had already reduced the swelling of the bruises and the vile-tasting brew he had forced Felix to drink had caused the pain to evaporate like mist in the morning sun. ‘You say that Wolfgang Lammel’s bodyguards did this, Greta?’
The girl nodded. The alchemist tut-tutted. ‘Young Wolfgang is a nasty piece of work. Still, “malum se delet”, as it says in De Re Munde.’
‘Perhaps in young Wolfgang’s case, evil may indeed destroy itself. But I’m prepared to give it a helping hand,’ Felix said.
‘You understand Classical! Oh, that’s excellent. I thought all respect for learning had died out in this benighted age,’ Kryptmann said happily. ‘Good. I’m only too pleased to have been able to help a fellow scholar. If only curing your friend were so simple. It will be almost impossible, I’m afraid.’ He smiled dreamily. From the corner in which he sat, Gotrek stared back, his gaze as empty as a pit.
‘Why exactly is that?’ Greta asked. ‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘It would seem that his mind has been disturbed by a blow to the head. His mnemonic lobes have been violently agitated and many memories have been shaken loose. He no longer knows quite who he is and his ability to reason has been impaired.’
Not that he ever had much of that, thought Felix.
‘Moreover the humours which govern his personality have been thrown into a new configuration. I would imagine he has not been behaving quite like himself recently, has he, my young friend? I can see by his appearance that he is one of the cult of Trollslayers. They are not famed for their tolerance of pacifism.’
‘True,’ Felix acknowledged. ‘Normally he would have torn those men’s lungs out for insulting him.’
He noticed that Greta’s broad pretty face brightened at the mention of violence towards his attackers and wondered what grudge she had to settle with them. Felix was forced to admit to himself that he had a yet more ignoble motive for wanting the dwarf cured: he wanted revenge on the men who had beaten him up. He knew it was unlikely he could exact it on his own.
‘Is there nothing that can be done for him?’ Felix asked, taking out his purse ready to pay for his treatment. Kryptmann shook his head sadly.
‘Although… perhaps another blow to the head would help.’
‘You mean just hit him?’
‘No! It would have to be a powerful blow, struck in just the right way. It sometimes works but the chances are surely a thousand to one. It’s possible that such a treatment would just make things worse, perhaps even kill the patient.’
Felix shook his head. He did not want to risk killing the Slayer. His heart sank. He was filled with a complex mixture of emotions. He owed the Slayer his life many times over and he was sorry for his state of bemusement and inability to remember anything, including his own name. It seemed wrong to leave the dwarf in such a state. He felt obliged to do something about it.
But on the other hand, ever since the drunken night when he had sworn to accompany Gotrek on his suicidal quest and record his end for posterity in an epic poem, he had had nothing but trouble. Gotrek’s illness represented an opportunity to avoid keeping the promise. In his present state Gotrek seemed to have forgotten all about his doomed task. Felix could be free to return home and pursue a normal life. And perhaps it would be kinder to leave the dwarf like this, unaware of the crimes he had committed and the dark destiny that drove him to seek his doom.
But could he really abandon Gotrek to fend for himself with his present diminished faculties? And how would he get home to Altdorf across countless leagues of danger-infested wilderness and forest without the aid of the Slayer’s mighty axe?
‘Is there nothing else you can do?’
‘Nothing. Unless…’
‘Unless what?’
‘No… it probably wouldn’t work anyway.’
‘What wouldn’t work?’
‘I have the formula for an elixir normally used by ageing magicians on the verge of senility. Among other things, it consists of six parts weirdroot to one part mountain sunblossom. It is said to be very good at restoring the humours to their proper configuration.’
‘Perhaps you should try it.’
‘If only I could, old chap. But sunblossom is rare and for maximum potency needs to be picked at the death of day on the highest slopes of Mount Blackfire.’
Felix sighed. ‘I don’t care what it costs.’
Kryptmann removed his glasses and polished them on the sleeve of his robe. ‘Alas, you misunderstand me, young man. I do not seek some petty pecuniary advantage. I simply mean I have no sunblossom in stock.’
‘Well, that’s that then.’
‘Wait,’ Greta said. ‘Mount Blackfire is not so far from here. The pass runs near its peak… Couldn’t you go and pick some, Felix?’
‘Go back into the mountains, at this time of the year, on my own? There are gangs of crazed mutants up there.’
‘I never said it would be easy,’ Kryptmann said.
Felix groaned and this time it was not simply with pain. ‘Tomorrow. I’ll think about it tomorrow.’
Kryptmann nodded sagely. ‘I wouldn’t recommend going back to the inn this evening. The temple of Shallya has a flophouse for indigents. You’ll probably get a bed there for the night if you hurry. Now, about my fee. Given your obvious poverty I’ll waive it if you bring me back a suitably large amount of sunblossom.’
Felix looked at his depleted purse and let his shoulders slump in defeat. ‘Very well. I’ll go.’
Gotrek sat and gazed blankly off into the distance. Felix wondered what was going on behind that one mad and empty eye.
Wolfgang Lammel lay drunk on his bed. From the Sleeping Dragon below came the muted sound of revelry. Even the thick Bretonnian rugs on the floor and the heavy, leaded Tilean glass in the windows could not entirely dampen it out. He drained the goblet of Estalian sherry in one gulp and stretched, enjoying the caress of satin sheets against his skin. With a nostalgic sigh he closed the old pillow-book from Cathay which had been his first purchase in that strange bookshop in Nuln. To tell the truth, he found the calligraphy rather simplistic now and the positions of the illustrated couples tediously unadventurous. Only one of them might have proved vaguely interesting, but where was one to acquire a Lustrian devil-python in Fredericksburg at this time of the year?
He rose from the bed and drew his silk robe tight about him to conceal the stigmata on his chest. He smiled; the garment had been a gift from the fascinating traveller Dien Ch’ing, a guest of the Countess Emmanuelle’s, and another patron of Van Niek’s Exotic Books and Collectibles Emporium. He and Wolfgang had spent an interesting evening together in the Beloved of Verena, the famed brothel on the grounds of Nuln University. Their discussions had been wide-ranging and covered many topics. The Celestial, as he styled himself, had proved to be knowledgeable in many esoteric philosophies and the hidden mysteries of many secret cults. In spite of his lack of interest in the finer points of the worship of Slaanesh, he had been a most stimulating companion – one of the many Wolfgang had met during his time in Nuln.
Wolfgang missed being at the university now. He deplored this tiny backwater town with its moon-faced peasant girls and its third-rate courtesans who had simply no imagination at all. He often regarded his time in Nuln nostalgically as a golden period of his life to which he could never really return. It had not quite been the education his father had imagined when he sent him away to the
Empire’s finest university, but it had been one in which Wolfgang had excelled as a pupil. His teachers had been among the most debauched rakes and gallants of the age. It was just a pity that he had not done quite so well at his more conventional studies. Eventually his tutors had written to his father acquainting him with what they considered to be the truth about him.
Wolfgang laughed aloud. The truth! If those wizened old men had the vaguest inkling of the real truth of his activities they would have sent for the witch-hunters. If his father had any idea of the real truth then he wouldn’t be simply threatening to disinherit him; he would have him banished to the woods to join Heinrich’s bloated cousin, Dolphus, the one who had just kept on eating until he resembled a blob of dough. Rumour had it that he was caught trying to toast his own mother’s ear. Such stories showed the paucity of imagination of the local townsfolk.
What could such unimaginative people know about the worship of Lord Slaanesh, the true god of pain and pleasure? He picked up the small statuette beside his bed and studied it. The jade carving was almost perfect; it showed the hermaphrodite figure, naked except for a cloak swept wide to reveal its single breast. One arm beckoned the viewer enticingly; a faint smile of lasciviousness, or perhaps of contempt, flickered across its beautiful face. Wolfgang studied it with something like love. No, what could the petty money-grubbing fools know of the worship of a real god?
Their minds would have bent under the sanity-shattering impact of the secrets Wolfgang had learned in the catacombs beneath Nuln. Their feeble souls would have been blasted by the strange summonings which took place in the murder-houses of the Kommerzplatz. Not even in their wildest imaginings could they visualise what he had seen in the cemetery-bordello on the city’s edge where mutant prostitutes serviced depraved noblemen at the so-called Night Circus.
Wolfgang had seen the truth: that the world was ending; that the Dark Powers gathered their strength; that man was a sick, depraved thing concealing his lusts behind a mask of propriety. He wanted nothing of such hypocrisy. He had turned to a god that offered ecstasy on earth rather than in an uncertain afterlife. He would know the ultimates of human life before the ending of all things. He smiled at the truths the wine had revealed to him. One more proof of the superiority of Slaanesh’s way.
He replaced the pillow-book and statuette alongside his copy of Al-Hazim’s Secrets of the Harem, took a stick of his special weirdroot from its jar, then pulled the panel of the secret alcove securely into place. It wouldn’t do for Papa to make a surprise visit and find this stuff. He was close enough to disinheriting Wolfgang as things stood. Only the hope of marrying his only son to Heinrich’s pig-like sister, Inge, kept the old man from cutting Wolfgang off without a penny. Still, his father did have one great virtue: he might be a boring, dour, penny-pinching old miser but he was an incurable snob.
It was the only reason he sent Wolfgang away to university; it was the only reason he gave him enough money to live like an Imperial courtier. He wanted the Lammels to marry into the nobility and Heinrich’s family, although inbred and poor, were definitely that. Yes, his father dreamed that his grandson might one day have the ear of the Emperor. Just think what that could do for business, he would often exclaim.
The weirdroot tingled on Wolfgang’s tongue. He wondered whether Kryptmann had added more warpstone as he had ordered. It gave the drug extra savour. He could picture the alchemist’s pale, nervous face even now, warning him of the dangers of warpstone exposure. Still, his contacts in Nuln had provided him with some interesting information concerning the alchemist and so long as he knew Kryptmann’s little secret he would do whatever he was told. It amused Wolfgang to see fear and hatred war on the old man’s face. Perhaps it was time to trouble him for that poison – Papa had been getting rather tiresome of late.
The clock struck twelve and Wolfgang shivered. The weirdroot made the sound seem like the tolling of the temple bell of Altdorf. He glanced at the clock. It was shaped like the House of Sigmar, built to resemble a tall, gabled temple. The weirdroot blurred its outline and gave a strange animated quality to the little dwarfish figures who had emerged from within the machine’s workings to strike the gong beneath its face.
The girl was late, Wolfgang realised. Perhaps it was excusable. Few people had access to clocks as precise as his. It was a work of art, precision-made by the finest dwarf craftsmen from Karak Kadrin. Still, the slut was late! He would make her pay for her tardiness later. His cupboard contained some of the finest orc-hide whips and some more sophisticated implements of pleasure.
He stumbled over to the fire, wine and weirdroot making him clumsy. For a final time he checked that the positioning of the bearskin rug was exactly right. He didn’t know why he was going to such trouble for a peasant girl. But he knew that it wasn’t for her he was doing it, it was for himself and his god. The more pleasure he granted himself, the better pleased the Lord of Hedonism would be.
He went to the window, pulled back the brocade curtains, and peered out through the thick dimpled glass panes. No sign of the girl. Wait – what was that? It looked like her coming down the street. Something nagged in his weirdroot-dulled brain. Shouldn’t she be serving downstairs? What was she doing out at this time of night? The mist was thick, perhaps it wasn’t her.
Anyway, what did it matter, just so long as she arrived? Wolfgang heard the stairs creak under a light tread. He was glad he had pestered Papa to let him have the chambers over the Sleeping Dragon now. It simplified life so much. He guessed his father had given in to his entreaties because, despite his protestations, Papa really didn’t care to know what his heir was up to.
Wolfgang tottered over to the door. He felt himself becoming aroused in spite of the drink and the drugs. The weirdroot made him tingle all over. He had to admit that the girl had a certain peasant prettiness that might conceivably be described as alluring in the dim light. Soon he would introduce her to the mysteries of Slaanesh in the proper and approved manner.
There was a faint, tentative knock on the door. Wolfgang threw it open. Fingers of mist drifted in. Greta stood there wrapped in her cheap cloak.
‘Welcome,’ Wolfgang slurred, letting the robe slip from his shoulders to reveal his naked body. ‘Look what I’ve got for you.’
He was gratified when her eyes went wide. He was less gratified when she opened her mouth to scream.
Felix awoke to the smell of boiling cabbage and the stink of unwashed bodies. Chill had seeped into his bones from the cold flagstones. He felt old. When he sat upright he discovered that the aches from his battering the night before had returned. He fought back tears of pain and fumbled for the soothing lozenges the alchemist had given him.
Light filtered down from the vaulted ceiling, revealing the bodies crowding the temple vestibule. Poor wretches from all over the town had come here to shelter from the cold night and had been locked in together. The great double doors were barred, although the people here had nothing to steal. Felix wondered at the precautions. The doors at the far side of the room, in front of which priestesses were setting up a trestle table, had also been barred. He had heard the heavy bolts being slid into place last night after the main door had been locked. He wondered if there were really people who would steal from the lowest of the low. From what he had seen so far of Fredericksburg, he guessed so.
Icons of the sacred martyrs gazed down with melancholy wooden eyes onto their shabby flock. Although cheaply and crudely made, they had been hung too high for anyone in the vestibule to reach without a ladder. So little trust in the world, he thought. It’s so sad when the servants of Shallya must protect themselves from those they aid. Looking at the folk around him he thought it was indeed sad – but wise. These people looked rough.
An old man lay on the floor crying. In the night his wooden leg had come detached from the stump of his knee. Someone had either stolen it or hidden it. He crawled around frantically asking people if they had seen
it. An elderly woman, her face ravaged by the pox, sat coughing into a blood-spotted handkerchief. Two youngsters barely into their teens lay huddled together for warmth on the floor. Where were their parents? Were they runaways or orphans? One sat up and yawned and smiled. She had tousled blonde hair and the hopefulness of youth. Felix wondered how long it would be until that was knocked out of her.
The old madman who had spent the night howling that the end of the world was coming had at last fallen asleep. His babbling about cancers at the world’s edges and rats gnawing at the foundations of the mountains had worked their way into Felix’s dreams and given him nightmares about the things he had seen beneath Karak Eight Peaks. Felix pulled his cloak tighter about himself and tried to ignore the stabbing pains which shrieked through his shoulder blades.
Around him beggars picked themselves up from straw pallets and, scratching at fleabites, shuffled towards the makeshift table at the far end of the temple vestibule. There, white-clad priestesses of the goddess ladled cabbage soup into wooden bowls from a huge brass tureen.
‘Best hurry if ye want breakfast,’ said a filthy old warrior with a cauliflower ear. The smell of rotgut alcohol on his breath was nearly overpowering. ‘Tis first come, first served. The bounty of the merciful goddess isn’t unlimited.’
Felix lay back and studied the cracked plasterwork of the ceiling. A mural of the goddess healing the five thousand at the river in Nuln was slowly flaking away in the damp. The doves that perched on her shoulder were nearly shapeless blobs. The sight of it brought back memories from his childhood.
He could remember his mother’s last long illness, when she had gone to the temple to pray. He had been nine at the time and he and his brothers could not understand why their mother coughed so much or spent so much time at the temple. It had bored them being there – they had wanted to be outside in the sun playing, not stuck inside with the calm old white-garbed women and their interminable chanting. Looking back he understood now his mother’s pale features and her quiet recital of the Penitent’s Litany. He was surprised by the force of the memory and the pain of it, although it had been nearly thirteen years. He forced himself to sit upright, knowing that he had to get out of this place.
