by Warhammer
Max raised his eyebrows. ‘It must be a terrible melancholy indeed to cause you to resort to metaphor.’ He nodded and stood. ‘Well, no matter the cause, I appreciate your understanding and restraint. I will do my best to keep her occupied, but remember what you have said here if she escapes me.’
‘I will,’ said Felix.
Max tapped his pipe on the rail, knocking the ash into the river, then turned to go. Felix looked after him, hesitant, then spoke.
‘Max.’
The wizard looked back. ‘Yes?’
‘I’ve seen Ulrika.’
Max looked at him, his face growing still. He returned to the rail. ‘She still lives?’
Felix nodded. ‘If it can be called living.’
‘Is she… is she well?’
‘As well as can be expected, I suppose. She is still under the patronage of the Countess Gabriella. She is her bodyguard. In Nuln.’
Max twisted his pipe in his hands, his eyes far away. ‘I have often thought of seeking her out, but I never had the courage.’
‘I wish I hadn’t found her,’ said Felix, with unexpected bitterness.
‘No?’ asked Max, turning to look at him. ‘Is she so changed then?’
‘Not nearly enough,’ said Felix. He found he had a lump in his throat. He fought to swallow it. ‘Not nearly enough.’
‘Ah,’ said Max. ‘Ah, I see.’ He pressed his lips together and stared hard over the rail into the swirling waters of the river. ‘Then I think that I shall not seek her out after all.’ He turned away, then, after a step, turned back and looked at Felix. ‘Thank you for telling me.’
Felix shrugged. ‘I’m not sure it was a kindness.’
‘Nor am I,’ said Max. ‘But I am glad to know nonetheless. Good day, Felix.’ Then he turned and walked towards the main deck.
Claudia caught Felix at last on the afternoon of the fifth day.
Except for light fare in the taproom, the Jilfte Bateau did not serve meals. Instead, it had arrangements with inns at various towns along the Reik that would provide food and drink for its passengers. It stopped only twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, meaning that those who were inclined to be peckish at other times of day were advised to buy extra food for later. This afternoon, the riverboat had docked in the small town of Schilderheim, and the passengers had disembarked – all but Felix.
Finding himself more in need of solitude than sustenance, and seeing Max and Fraulein Pallenberger making their way down the gangplank, he had decided to remain on board, settling down in the empty taproom with a pint and the first volume of the My Travels With Gotrek books that his brother Otto had published during his absence. Felix had hesitated to read them these last two months, fearing that he would find that his journals had been clumsily fleshed out, or imperfectly edited, or worse, that his own youthful prose would not stand up to his scrutiny, but he could resist no longer, and at last opened the leather-bound, gilt-stamped cover and began.
He was not reassured by the title page, for there was an error even there. The publishing date was wrong – 2505. He hadn’t even sent the first journal to his brother then. Someone must have used the date he had written on the inside cover of his original journal as the publishing date. But even that wasn’t right, was it? It had been a few years before that. It was baffling. Out of curiosity, he pulled the other books out of his satchel and checked them. The publishing date in every one of them was the same! Whoever had typeset the books had been lazy in the extreme and left the title page untouched in each edition. Felix shook his head, then shrugged. What did he expect from a penny-pincher like Otto? He wouldn’t have gone to a first-rate printer, would he?
Just as he began the first chapter, and shivered as it recalled to his mind the horrors of that long past Geheimnisnacht, a shadow fell across the page and he looked up. Fraulein Pallenberger was smiling down at him. Felix jumped in surprise.
‘Herr Jaeger,’ she said, curtseying and smiling at his unease.
Felix stood and bowed. ‘Fraulein Pallenberger, how unexpected to find you here. I thought I saw you leave for the inn.’
‘Nothing is unexpected to one of the Celestial Order, Herr Jaeger,’ she said, taking the seat next to his. ‘May I?’
‘Certainly,’ said Felix, cursing himself for not having the courage to refuse her.
He watched Claudia out of the corner of his eye as she signalled to the barman to bring her some tea. In truth, he wished he could find it within him to succumb to her charms, if only to annoy Max, but also to try to find some balm for the pain in his heart. His last view of Ulrika, running into the darkness of the skaven tunnels beneath Nuln, had been more than two months ago, and still not a day went by – not an hour! – when he did not think of her and feel the stab of regret rip through him.
Part of him wanted that never to change. The pain was all he had left of her, and that made it precious, and yet, another part of him wanted to be free of it. He longed to drown himself in the solace of loving – or at least lustful – arms. What had Ulrika said? We must find happiness among our own kind? It seemed impossible.
Claudia was beautiful, there was no denying it, and alluring as well, with her knowing glances and gleaming fall of honey-coloured hair, but though he tried his best not to, he could not stop himself from comparing her to Ulrika, and in each instance finding her wanting. Her blue eyes were bright and beautiful, but not as alive as Ulrika’s – not even in her undeath. Her smile was sultry, but not as forthright as Ulrika’s, her curves were lovely, even under her seeress’s robes, but seemed to him girlish and unformed when compared to Ulrika’s clean-limbed martial grace. Her nose… ah, but it was useless! No matter how beautiful Claudia was, and how beguiling her attraction to him, it was not her arms he wanted to find solace in, it was Ulrika’s, and though he knew that could never be, that didn’t stop him wanting it with all his heart.
‘What are you reading, Herr Jaeger?’ Claudia asked, leaning in to look at the cover of the book.
Felix flushed. There really was nothing more embarrassing than to be caught reading one’s own memoirs. ‘Ah, my brother published my journals without my knowledge. I… I’m checking to see that he didn’t change them too much.’
She read the title. ‘My Travels With Gotrek.’ She looked up at him. ‘You and Herr Gurnisson seem an odd pairing. How did you come to travel together?’
Felix groaned inwardly. It was a long story and he didn’t particularly feel like telling it just now. He held out the book. ‘Would you like to read about it?’
Claudia laughed. ‘I would much rather hear it from the lips of the man that lived it.’
Felix sighed. ‘Well, if you insist.’
And so he told her about his student days, and the Window Tax riots, and how Gotrek had saved him from the swords of the Reiksguard – though he downplayed the slaughter somewhat – and how he and Gotrek had retired to the inn and got abysmally drunk, and how he had sworn to follow Gotrek and record his death in an epic poem.
When he finished, Claudia looked at him strangely. ‘And for how many years have you followed the Slayer?’ she asked.
‘More than twenty,’ he said.
‘That seems a long time to continue honouring a vow made while in one’s cups,’ she said.
Felix nodded. ‘Yes, it is.’
‘It’s a wonder you continue.’
‘A vow is still a vow, no matter how long ago it was made,’ said Felix.
‘But what about your life!’ cried Claudia, suddenly overwhelmed by emotion. ‘Did you not have plans of your own? Did you not have dreams? How could you give up your life to follow another?’
Felix frowned. It was rare that he talked about these things out loud. ‘I did have plans. I meant to be a poet. Possibly a playwright. I believed I would spend my life among the inns and theatres of Altdorf. But as I said, a vow is a vow.’
‘But you were drunk!’
‘It was still a vow.’
She sh
ook her head, seeming truly upset. ‘It must be more than that. Surely Herr Gurnisson would have forgiven you your duty if you had gone to him and asked to be released from it. I cannot believe that anyone would ask someone to hold to a promise made when they were too young or too drunk to know what it meant – when they had no idea of all the wonders that life offers for someone who is free to see them. Have you no regrets? Did you never want to leave?’
Felix wasn’t sure Gotrek would have released him from his vow. Like all dwarfs, the Slayer was a stickler when it came to honouring pledges, but still she was right, it had been more than the vow. ‘I do have regrets,’ he said at last. ‘And I did want to leave. Many times. I even agreed to abandon him once.’ A shiver went through him as he remembered the circumstances. ‘Though I didn’t in the end. On the other hand, I have seen more of the world following the Slayer than I ever would have writing poems in Altdorf, and though it has often been dangerous, and I have come close to losing my life more times than I can count, I don’t think I could trade it for a safer life. Not any more. I believe I have become addicted to excitement.’
‘Well, I envy you that part of it, at least,’ said the seeress. ‘But to not be able to call your life your own. To not be able to say, “I want to go this way”, or “I want to try this”, or “I want to talk to this person”, because you have pledged to make your life beholden to someone else for all time seems… unbearable! I don’t know how you can stand it!’
Felix blinked at her. Was she talking about him any more, or herself? ‘It is indeed a hard thing,’ he said at last, ‘to make a vow that one regrets later, but a man of honour – or a woman of honour, for that matter…’
‘Fraulein Pallenberger,’ said a voice.
They looked up.
Max Schreiber stood in the door, his eyes cold. ‘I thought you had returned to the boat for your gloves.’
Claudia smiled brightly at him. ‘And I found them, Magister Schreiber,’ she said, holding up a pair of long fawn gloves. ‘But then I saw Herr Jaeger here alone and thought I would take some tea with him.’
‘You’ve missed your dinner,’ said Max, sounding very much like an out-of-sorts schoolmaster.
‘Sometimes a conversation can be more filling than a meal, magister,’ she said, standing. She turned to Felix and held out her hand to him, smirking conspiratorially as she did so. ‘Thank you for your company, Herr Jaeger,’ she said. ‘It is very refreshing to speak now and then to someone who still understands the yearning of youth for knowledge and experience.’
‘The pleasure was all mine, fraulein.’ Felix glanced at Max as he bent over her hand. The wizard was glaring daggers at him. Claudia squeezed Felix’s fingers warmly before she let go.
He sighed as she rejoined Max and they turned to go. Would this journey never end? He sat down and returned to his travels with Gotrek.
FOUR
Seven days later the journey did end, and not before time, as far as Felix was concerned. With Claudia popping out at him from every corner and Max scowling at him from every doorway, he felt a haunted man by the time the riverboat reached Marienburg, and he disembarked onto the fog-shrouded docks of the Suiddock with a sigh of relief.
He and Gotrek took lodging in an inn that his father had recommended called the Three Bells, in the bustling Handelaarmarkt district – a place of shipping offices, guild halls and trade associations – and had sent word to Hans Euler that he wished to meet with him on a matter of business. While he waited for a response, he continued to read through the first volume of My Travels With Gotrek, which was proving better than he had feared. Every now and then he would find himself nodding at a particularly neat turn of phrase and thinking that his younger self was a better writer than he had given him credit for.
Gotrek had immediately installed himself at a table at the back of the Three Bells’ long, narrow taproom and proceeded to drink himself into a stupor, just as he had at the Griffon in Altdorf. Felix sighed to see it. It was as if all the life had been sucked out of the Slayer, and all that was left was an empty husk that remembered nothing of its former life except how to drink. With Archaon’s invasion repelled, was there anything now that could stir Gotrek from his melancholy? Or would he spend the rest of his days travelling from tavern to tavern, as miserable in one as he was in another?
Though he often complained when he was forced to follow the Slayer into danger, Felix didn’t fancy that prospect either. It certainly wouldn’t make a very exciting epic.
The next morning, when Felix came down from his room to look for breakfast, the landlord brought him a note. It was from Hans Euler. Felix opened it and read,
Herr Jaeger,
Warmest regards, and I would be very pleased to meet you today, two hours after noon, at my house on the Kaasveltstraat in the Noordmuur district.
Yours,
Hans Euler
Felix was pleased, if a little surprised, at the speed and politeness of the reply. From what his father had said of the man, he had expected to be put off or outright refused. He sent a messenger with a reply saying that he would be there at two, then went to find Gotrek.
He didn’t have far to look. The Slayer was at the same table Felix had left him at the night before, staring into nothingness with a huge mug in one fist. It looked as if, once again, he had not returned to their room. Felix asked the barmaid to bring him some breakfast, then went and joined the Slayer at the table. Gotrek remained staring straight ahead.
Felix cleared his throat. ‘Euler agreed to meet with me today,’ he said.
‘Who?’ rumbled Gotrek, not turning.
‘Hans Euler. The man I’m here to see.’
‘Ah.’ Gotrek drained the mug, then made a face. ‘Grungni, that’s terrible. Tastes like fish.’ He signalled the barman for another.
‘I was hoping you would come with me.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, Euler might be difficult. I might need some help convincing him to hand over the letter.’
Gotrek’s single eye looked up at Felix, dim interest stirring behind it. ‘A fight?’
‘I hope not, but possibly. Mainly I just want him to see you, and your axe, while I talk to him.’
Gotrek pondered this, then shrugged. ‘Sounds like too much bother. I’ll just stay here and drink.’
Felix nearly choked. The Slayer turning away from the possibility of violence? The end times truly had come. ‘But you don’t like the beer. It tastes like fish.’
‘It’s still beer,’ said Gotrek, and turned back to stare at the wall.
Felix sighed. He really wanted Gotrek along. There were few things more intimidating than a Slayer, and Gotrek was a particularly impressive example of the breed. It might mean the difference between success or failure in his negotiations. He leaned forwards. ‘Listen Gotrek, I can’t leave Marienburg until I resolve this matter. If you don’t help me, it might take weeks – weeks of drinking fishy beer. On the other hand, if you come with me, I could have the letter today, and we could be on our way back to Altdorf, where the beer doesn’t taste like fish. What do you think?’
As Gotrek thought this through, the barmaid brought him his next round and Felix his breakfast. Gotrek took up the fresh mug as she set it in front of him, raised it to his lips, then paused, his nose wrinkling. He grunted, drank anyway, then set the mug down again, swallowing with effort. ‘All right, manling. I’ll come.’
Kaasveltstraat was a wealthy street in the middle of the quietly prosperous Noordmuur district, lined on both sides with tidy stone-and-brick three-storey townhouses, each with a white marble stoop leading up to a sturdy wooden front door, and fronted with diamond-paned windows that glittered in the chilly afternoon sun. Hans Euler’s house was on the east side of the street, which butted up against a canal, and its upper storeys hung out over the water at the back. It all looked very solid and respectable, not how Felix had imagined the den of a pirate’s son to look at all.
Gotrek stood behind him on the
cobbled street, trying to reach an itch under his cast, as Felix stepped up to the door to knock – and hesitated. He was not looking forward to what was to follow. These sorts of situations always made him squirm. Why was he even doing this? He had never cared about his father’s business. It didn’t matter to him if the old man lost a portion of it to someone else. As far as Felix was concerned the whole enterprise could go up in flames. He had half a mind to go back to the Three Bells and forget the whole thing.
But he didn’t. Instead, he cursed under his breath and knocked. Family was a stickier trap than any spider’s web.
After a moment, a prim little butler in a high-collared black doublet opened the door. He had a spit-curl of oiled black hair plastered to his forehead, and his mouth pursed with disdain as he looked Felix up and down.
‘Oui?’ he said.
‘Felix Jaeger to see Hans Euler,’ said Felix. ‘And my companion, Gotrek Gurnisson.’
The butler’s eyes widened a fraction as he saw Gotrek, then he regained his composure. He made a bow that had more moves in it than a chess game. ‘Please to enter, messieurs. Monsieur Euler is expecting you.’
Felix and Gotrek stepped through the door into a wood-panelled entryway with a tight spiral staircase on one side and a door that opened into a large parlour at the back. A bay window in the parlour looked out over the canal. Felix sized up the house as the butler closed the door behind them. It was small, but richly furnished with heavy tables and chairs. Dark oil paintings of men in tight ruffs crowded the walls and expensive Estalian rugs covered the polished wooden floors. It all told Felix that Herr Euler wasn’t in his father’s league, but he was still a wealthy man.
‘Your sword, monsieur?’ said the butler, clicking his heels together as he bowed.
Felix unbuckled his sword belt and handed his rune sword to him.