Warhammer [Ignorant Armies]

by epubBillie

  The old woman poked him in friendly fashion.

  "All done with misdirection," she said, nodding at the magician who was holding up the snake while displaying its empty cage, assuring the crowd that there was no hidden trapdoor or false base.

  "What?" Stefan said. He was poised on the edge of realization.

  "I said, it's all done with misdirection. While we're looking at that empty cage, he's..."

  Misdirection. Now he knew why there had been no relief at the sight of that unblemished arm. Oh, gods, misdirection.

  "Here, are you all right?" The woman's voice seemed miles away. "You're white as a bedsheet."

  He had been fooled. She had fooled everyone. He had to do something, tell someone.

  Janna Eberhauer stood silently by her fire, contemplating the flames. Her hair was loose and she was wearing her bed robe.

  "What are you suggesting?" she asked mildly.

  "That perhaps she is not all she seems," Stefan said carefully.

  "And you came to me."

  "I don't want anything to happen to her. But if she..." He swallowed. "Mutants are an abomination. You're the deputy High Wizard."

  The curtain screening the room from the sleeping area drew back. Katya limped through, brushing her hair. She looked ill. Stefan stared, immobilized by shock. She had been there all the time. She limped towards him.

  "Keep away from me."

  "Stefan, I'm not evil."

  "Why are you risking so much?" he asked Eberhauer. "You can't help her. Nobody can."

  "Yet you came to me, to ask for help."

  Faced with the wizard's calm, he felt foolish and graceless. Katya lowered herself into a chair. He saw how carefully she moved.

  "What's the matter with her?" he asked Eberhauer.

  "I can still speak for myself," Katya said. She reached for a cup of water and took a sip. "The story I told, the song, is essentially true in one respect." She put the cup down and began to roll up the bottom of her trousers. It was an obvious effort. Eberhauer moved to help her.

  Fear flexed like a snake in Stefan's belly.

  "No," he croaked, "I don't want to see."

  Eberhauer looked up from the bandage she was unrolling.

  "You accuse and meddle without knowing anything," she said calmly. "Now you will learn."

  "No!" Horror lapped at his reason. "I can't!"

  "You can."

  Eberhauer rose and took his hand. He could not resist as she led him over to where Katya leaned back in the chair, her eyes closed in exhaustion. Her right trouser leg was rolled up past the knee. Bloody bandaging lay in a heap on the rug.

  Stefan looked.

  There was a slash across the back of her calf, the sort an inexperienced swordsman might make trying to hamstring an opponent. It was a recent injury, beginning to scab over. He frowned.

  "I don't understand."

  "Examine it closely."

  Around the healing gash, almost too faint to be seen, was a tracery of cracks. In a scale pattern.

  "We tried to excise the speck of warpstone that must still be in there," Eberhauer said, impossibly calm.

  "It's evil," he whispered.

  "Listen to me. Katya is not evil. Warpstone acts on her flesh and its madness pulls at her mind. But that is not evil. As to the madness, she is strong. She resists still."

  "But her skin..."

  "I am not evil," Katya said from the chair. "I am not mad."

  Stefan refused to hear her, he spoke to Eberhauer.

  "But she will be, in the end."

  "Without help, yes."

  They were both looking at him. The air was thick and sticky, difficult to breathe.

  "Oh gods, you want me to do it. You want me to hack at it again, slice into the muscle, bone deep, and cut, and cut. No." He backed towards the door. "It won't work, it just won't work. Even if I cut the whole leg off."

  Eberhauer was silent a moment, watching the flames.

  "Warpstone dust is materialization of Chaos-matter into solid form. Magic is the manipulation of energies inherent in Chaos." She looked at him directly. "I am a wizard. This thing is possible."

  They helped Katya onto the bed; Eberhauer stroked her hair and began to hum while Stefan gathered what they would need. He rolled up the rug and laid the gloves, bowl, bandages and other things on the floor. The wizard stood, letting the sound build as she raised her arms over her head and down again in a slow circle. She nodded to Stefan: Katya slept. He wiped the leg down and poured raw alcohol over his knife.

  Though he had never cut into living tissue before, he used the knife easily, like a quill, marking the edges of the excision then sliding the blade in sideways to part skin from muscle. He mopped at the blood. The muscle was red and plump beneath his fingers. He cut into it. Around him, the humming became more insistent, singing through his hands.

  He stopped at a tight knot of tissue. The vibration in his hands became an angry jangle. This was what he was looking for. He probed at it, eased what looked like a fleck of dirt onto the tip of his knife. This was the focus of all his nightmares; so small. It was glowing. He lifted it out into the air.

  Eberhauer's humming swelled into a sound thick enough to stand on; Stefan could feel the force of it flowing down his arm, recoiling from the malignancy poised at the end of his knife. His fear became anger, a refusal of the torment of Chaos, for his sake, for Katya's sake. He joined his negation to Eberhauer's. The warpstone dimmed and began to smoke, curling smaller and smaller until there was nothing left.

  Stefan sat by the bed and watched her breathe. There were still hollows under her cheekbones but the dark circles under her eyes were fading. Outside, the first fireworks of Carnival stained the sky.

  Janna Eberhauer came and stood behind him.

  "She'll leave us, won't she?" he said.

  "Yes."

  "Where? Back to Schoninghagen?"

  "She told me she's always wanted to see the north. She will go there I think, to the snow and ice."

  "You want her to stay." He knew how much the wizard had risked, and perhaps why.

  "I want whatever is right for her. And she has found all she came here for."

  "Not quite." He reached inside his shirt. The scroll of parchment was stamped with Katya's name and sealed with the blue of the Komission. He laid it on the coverlet near Katya's hand, stood up.

  "Tell her it might be useful if she ever comes back. And tell her," he looked down at the woman sleeping on the bed, "tell her I plan to work at the Temple of Shallya a while, until I know what I want."

  He closed the door quietly behind him and stepped out into the splash of light and colour which was Carnival.

  APPRENTICE LUCK

  by Sean Flynn

  Karl Spielbrunner had been apprenticed to Otto von Stumpf for six months now, more than long enough for him to realize how much he hated the antiquarian book trade. Karl had a fatal combination of vanity, ambition and intelligence, and he knew well enough that unless his luck changed all he had to look forward to was ending up with his own poky little shop, as bent and crabbily reclusive as von Stumpf. Of course, there were far worse fates in Middenheim, the great and terrible City of the White Wolf. If Karl's dead father - the only family Karl had, apart from some country cousins he had never seen - had not been a drinking companion of von Stumpf's, no doubt Karl would be just another orphan trying to scratch a living on the streets now, a likely victim for drug pushers, racketeers, pimps or cultists.

  Far worse fates, yes, but not by much, Karl thought, as he stood at the dusty window and watched the shabby, narrow street and the occasional passer-by. It was summer, and stiflingly hot in the shop. A fat bluebottle buzzed in one corner of the window; the husks of others were scattered on the leatherbound tomes which leaned against each other in the window.

  There was so much going on in the world, and Karl was stuck here in charge of a lot of tattered dusty books. A wizard had moved into some rooms down the street, for instance, a tal
l mysterious foreigner. Some said he was a necromancer; everyone said he was up to no good. And something was rumoured to be stirring in the myriad tunnels that undercut the rock on which the city was founded. The Watch was on maximum alert, and only last night the body of a goat-headed man had been found near one of the main sewer inlets.

  For a moment, Karl saw himself at the head of one of the elite patrols, a grim-faced Watch Captain armed with a glittering sword, maybe a decorative scar on one cheek. Then the bluebottle buzzed loudly at the dusty window and Karl's daydream collapsed stillborn. Musty smell of crumbling paper, shadowy ranks of outdated books looming into shadow: this was his fate. His only consolation was that as usual his master was away at the Wolf's Grip, the grim little tavern which drained most of the shop's profits. Otherwise Karl would certainly have been put to some useless task or other, recataloguing stock or sweeping away the sticky cobwebs which festooned the crumbling plaster of the low ceiling - and no doubt von Stumpf would be giving him a lecture in that nagging, whiny voice of his, telling Karl how lucky he was, to be apprentice to the venerable firm of von Stumpf and Son (Karl didn't know what had happened to the Son, but he guessed that he had run away as soon as he could). And if von Stumpf had been there, Karl wouldn't have been able to take his chance when his luck suddenly changed.

  It arrived in the unlikely form of Scabby Elsa, a bent, hooknosed old crone who specialized in reselling rags stripped from the corpses thrown from the Cliff of Sighs. Just as Karl was settling to a forbidden snack of black bread and cheese, she pushed open the door and hobbled laboriously over the uneven floor with something clutched to her shapeless bosom. The bluebottle left off bumbling at the window and spiralled around the greasy shawl wrapped over her head, attracted by the sour, rank stench of her layers of rotting rags.

  "A little something for you, young master," Scabby Elsa said, and set what she had been carrying on the scarred rubbish-strewn table which served as a counter.

  It was an old, old book, text handwritten in an upright clerkly style on octavo parchment, bound in fine-grained leather with gilt stamping on the spine, the front somewhat buckled and stained. Karl took only a moment to realize it had to be valuable; much as he hated the book trade, he had taken care to pick up the necessary knowledge and tricks. Now it looked as if that care might actually be about to pay off.

  "I'll take a gold crown for this fellow," Scabby Elsa said. Her smile revealed blackened gums, and the stench of her breath almost knocked Karl down. "No less, now, but no more either. That's what I needs, and that's what I takes."

  "Ten shillings," Karl said quickly. "The cover is damaged, no one would offer more."

  "It fell a long way, like its owner. Lucky it fell on someone else, or it would look a lot worse. Fifteen, then."

  "Twelve, and that's my final offer."

  "Done," Scabby Elsa said.

  Karl kept what little money he had managed to save tied in a corner of his shirt. He undid the knot and counted out the price. Scabby Elsa scooped up the coins with a surprising deftness and hobbled out of the shop, pursued by the bluebottle, which had fallen in love with her - or at least, with her smell.

  His heart beating quickly and lightly, Karl pulled down the window shades and locked the door. With luck, von Stumpf wouldn't be back until at least the end of the afternoon. He had plenty of time to examine his prize.

  The book was a grimorium, a handbook of magic, and written in old-fashioned but plain language, too, not some kind of code. From the style of binding and the yellowing of the edges of the parchment pages, it had to be at least three hundred years old, from the time of the Wizards' War perhaps, or even before. Karl leafed through crackling pages. A spell of bafflement. A spell of binding. Hmmm. He would take it to the shop of Hieronymus Neugierde, the largest antiquarian shop in the city. He was bound to get the best price there... maybe enough to escape his apprenticeship.

  Karl began to examine the book more closely. He would need to know as much as he could to get the right price. He realized with a start that the leather cover was not made of tanned animal hide, but human skin; he could make out the pores, even little hairs. It felt clammy to his fingertips, as if somehow still alive. He opened the book again and laid it face down, peered down the spine; there were often clues about a book's origin and age to be found in the binding sheets. Sure enough, there was a scrap of paper inserted there. When Karl fished it out, an insect, a shiny-backed beetle, came with it, scurrying across the table and falling to the floor before Karl could crush it.

  Some kind of map had been drawn on the scrap of paper, the ink fresh and no use in dating the book. All the same it was interesting, a carefully marked route snaked through intricately labyrinthine passages, avoiding all sorts of traps and deadfalls and pits, to a sealed chamber marked with a single word written in red. A treasure map, maybe, although there was no indication of what the treasure was.

  Karl studied it for a long time before he realized that it must be a map of part of the system of tunnels which the dwarfs had long ago cut through the rock on which the city stood. When he had riddled all he could, he put it in his pocket, then went into the back room where he slept and hid the book under his pillow. He would examine it further tonight, and tomorrow sell it for the best price he could and then thumb his nose at von Stumpf and live the way he wanted, not at some old fool's beck and call. He might even be able to sell the treasure map to some gullible adventurer - and there was no shortage of such people in the city - foolish enough to venture into the dangerous tunnels beneath the city.

  Karl was thinking of all he could do with a pocketful of Gold Crowns as he let up the blinds. And then he jumped back in shock. The foreign wizard was peering through the dusty glass, his face only inches away from Karl's own. When he saw Karl he straightened up and pushed at the door, and although Karl hadn't unlocked it, the door opened at once.

  "I am looking for a book," the wizard said.

  "Well, we have all sorts of books." Karl's mouth was dry. The wizard was very tall, and despite the summer heat wore a sweeping black cloak, its red lining embroidered with all manner of weird signs of power. His face was long and white, framed by untidy black hair and a black beard. A pair of small round spectacles perched on the end of his long nose; they magnified the wizard's fierce blue eyes as he peered down at Karl.

  "A very particular book. A book that may have been brought to you, or may be about to be brought to you. A large handwritten volume, with an unusual binding. I will pay very well for such a book."

  "You would have to speak to my master," Karl managed to say. He was thinking furiously. If the wizard wanted the book, then it was even more valuable than it looked, and he would certainly get a better price at Neugierde's than from this itinerant hedge-wizard.

  "Your master, eh?" The wizard drew himself up. He was so tall that his head almost brushed the cobwebby rafters of the ceiling. "Very well. You give no choice but that I come back. I hope your master will be more helpful. I will call again tomorrow. And remember this, young man."

  The cloak flew up and Karl jumped back, but the wizard was too quick. His cold hand fastened around Karl's wrist, pulled. Then Karl was leaning half across the table, his face only inches away from the wizard's.

  "Remember this," the wizard said, softly.

  "I don't forget anything," Karl managed to say. He met the wizard's gaze, trying not to be intimidated. But there was an odd tingling between his eyes, as if he was about to cry, and after a moment he had to look away.

  "Things may be more than they seem, or less." The wizard let go of Karl's wrist, drew his cloak around himself. "Good day to you, young man, and good luck."

  Somehow, Karl managed to behave as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened when Otto von Stumpf came back in the evening, although the old man had drunk so much of the Wolf's Grip's vinegary ale that he probably wouldn't have noticed if Karl had grown another head. After a meagre supper of boiled barley flavoured with fatty scraps of mutton, von
Stumpf had Karl help him up the winding stairs to the filthy garret where he slept. Then Karl curled up on the mattress in the stockroom behind the shop and gloated over the book and the map by the light of a tallow candle. But it had been a long day, and soon enough he fell asleep.

  He woke with a start to moonlight falling through the room's only window, thinking someone had touched him on the hand. But it was only a beetle clambering over the hollow of his palm, its antennae waving furiously. Karl flicked the insect away, and then realized with alarm that the book was gone.

  He managed to get the candle lit, and saw that the book was lying in the curtained doorway between the shop and the stockroom. Shadows seemed to scatter from it as he went over and bent to pick it up. Nervous, and fully awake, Karl went into the shop and listened at the crooked stairs that led up to von Stumpf's garret, and grinned when he heard the old man's rasping snore. Still befuddled by sleep, Karl was about to go back to bed when he happened to glance out of the window, and saw a black-cloaked figure moving past, towards the door. It was the wizard.

  In an instant, Karl was through the back room, fumbling at the bolts of the door to the yard. He managed to get it open just as the lock of the shop's door sprang with a heart-stopping click. And then he was over the wall of the yard, almost falling on top of the figure that stood in the alley below.

  For an instant, Karl thought that the wizard, who obviously had found out about the book, had somehow magicked himself from one side of the building to the other. But then the man pushed back his hood and said, "Come with me - be quick now."

  Karl was about to ask who the stranger was and why he should follow him when an eerie blue light flared on the other side of the wall. Without a further thought he took to his heels, clutching the book to his chest.

  The stranger ran as though his feet were skimming an inch above the cobbles, his cloak streaming behind him. After dodging through the alleys, they came out on the bustling Burgen Bahn, where bands of students roved noisily among crowds of ordinary citizens. By this time Karl was panting hard, but the stranger hardly seemed to be breathing at all. His eyes glittered as he looked about alertly, one hand on the hilt of a long sword; he was a young smooth-skinned handsome man wearing baggy corduroy trews and an embroidered leather vest under the cloak - curious, old-fashioned clothes. Seemingly satisfied that they weren't being pursued, he turned and looked down at Karl, who shrank a little under that glittering unforgiving gaze.