Ghedren closed his eyes.
‘I did not wish to kill you,’ he said, his voice soft and sad. ‘But I knew you would never understand what is at stake. You would not stop until you found out the truth.’
‘The witch is dead,’ said Toll. ‘If you had trusted us enough to tell us the truth, lives could have been saved. Including, perhaps, your own.’
‘You ended nothing,’ snapped Ghedren, shaking his head frantically. ‘You think brave warriors have not fought the White Witch before? She is tied to this place, to the very spirit of this forest. No blade can lay her low. She has haunted these trails for centuries. Perhaps even longer. She will return, and her vengeance will be more terrible than ever. It is the children that will pay the price for your actions.’ He sighed. ‘I am ready to face my death. I know, in my heart, I did the only thing that I could have done. Do as you must.’
‘My boy,’ whispered Lord Junica. There were no tears in the old man’s eyes, but his voice broke. Callis looked away. He’d hardly taken to the man, but he knew all too well how it felt to bury a loved one.
Aldrec Junica lay in repose upon the bed of a carriage, his eyes closed and his arms folded across his chest. They had taken him to the local mission – a humble yet sturdy chapel of Sigmar, attended to by an elderly, grey-bearded priest who had performed the rites and consecrated the body with blessed oils. Candles fluttered in the chill breeze. Callis gazed at the benevolent, stained-glass figures that looked down from the chapel’s spire. Saints of old. Warriors and heroes, witnesses to this sad little ceremony.
‘He was slain by a wraith,’ said Toll. ‘A banshee of the forest. The Dezraeds played no part in it. In fact, it was one of your own who led your son to his death.’
Two guards dragged Ghedren forward. Lord Junica stared at him, his mouth trembling.
‘Ghedren?’ he whispered. ‘You?’
The prisoner raised his head and met his master’s gaze.
‘I am sorry for your loss,’ he said. ‘But it was the only way. I tried to tell you. The White Witch required your son’s life.’
Junica staggered over to the kneeling man and struck him across the face.
‘Everything I have done for you.’ His voice shook with rage. ‘Everything you have been given, and you betray me? You murder my boy? My firstborn son?’
He struck Ghedren over and over, his blows growing weaker every time. Toll caught his arm as it fell again, and ushered the man away.
‘Enough,’ said the witch hunter. ‘Come.’
He led Junica out through the doors of the chapel and into the central plaza of Marshpoint. The guards led the bound Ghedren after them. He met Callis’ eyes as they passed, but looked quickly away. There was much that Callis wanted to ask the man, but the time for questions was long gone now. Ranks of Junica soldiers stood in an honour guard outside the Sigmarite chapel, banners fluttering from their raised spears. There were a few-score locals too, crowded around the edge of the square, no doubt wondering what all the fuss was about. Nearby, a small force of Dezraed soldiers mounted on horseback watched the ceremony with bored expressions on their faces.
‘Well, a sad business. But over now, at least,’ said Lord Dezraed, who sat upon the open step of his carriage, wrapped in thick furs to fend off the blustery wind. ‘Only the matter of a formal apology remains.’
‘What?’ hissed Lord Junica, eyes widening in outrage.
‘For your baseless insinuations,’ Dezraed said, as if the answer were perfectly reasonable. ‘Accusing me of this horrible crime, when it was your own man all along.’
‘You’ll get no apology from me,’ snarled Junica. His hands curled into fists. ‘Now leave. I have an execution to prepare.’
He turned to Ghedren.
‘You’ll suffer for what you’ve done,’ he hissed. ‘You’ll beg for death, but I will not be so merciful as to grant it. I will break you down, inch by inch, and I will take pleasure in every moment.’
‘These natives must be kept in line. I agree we must let them know we will not tolerate such betrayal,’ said Dezraed, nodding his great slab of a head.
‘I will ensure you live a long time before I am finished with you,’ snarled Junica. Ghedren looked up and met his gaze.
‘I believe,’ Toll began, ‘that it is the task of the Order of Azyr to administer justice here.’
He drew his pistol and fired a single shot. There was a burst of pink mist and Ghedren toppled like a sack of grain. He struck the cobbles hard, and a pool of blood flowed out from his broken body.
‘No,’ screamed Lord Junica. ‘He was mine. Mine!’
‘You will bury your dead son and return to your duties. The plantations shall reopen, and you will restart the patrols. Both of you.’
At this, he turned and jabbed a finger at Dezraed.
‘I should have you both dragged back to Excelsis in chains,’ spat Toll. ‘You have displayed incompetence, foolishness and borderline treason. Your petty feud has not only endangered this town, but also risked the lives of loyal soldiers by denying them the supplies they require. Now my patience with this farce is at an end. The fighting stops, or I swear I will make you both regret your actions for the rest of your miserable lives. Do you understand?’
‘I am a son of a great house,’ Lord Junica snarled. ‘I have powerful friends in Azyrheim–’
‘You are a minor scion of a great house,’ said Toll. ‘You are here only because the other lords of the Junica House have more pressing matters to attend to. You are replaceable, and you will be replaced if you cannot perform your duties. Do you understand? Both of you?’
There was a long silence.
‘Say the words,’ said Toll. ‘Say that you understand.’
‘I… understand,’ said Lord Dezraed.
‘I understand,’ growled Lord Junica through gritted teeth, as if each word were a knife in his gut.
‘You have a month to get your affairs in order,’ said Toll.
With that, the witch hunter strode off, Callis rushing after him. They made their way to the southern gate, and the guards waved them through. Callis’ heart sank a little as he saw the marsh striders looming above the jetty, chewing on clumps of moss. Their wizened guide was back, already stowing their saddlebags upon the beasts’ flanks. Another few days of back-aching discomfort awaited. The joy of it.
‘I can’t deny that was satisfying,’ said Callis.
‘I’m glad you found it amusing,’ said Toll. ‘Perhaps we should discuss your own failures.’
Callis blinked. ‘What?’
‘Why do you think I brought you here?’
‘Because it serves you well to have someone who can handle a sword guarding your back?’
‘I can throw glimmerings into any tavern in Excelsis to strike someone who knows how to fight. I brought you because you’re sharp, and you know when to draw steel and when not to. But that’s only part of this trade, Armand. What allows us to survive is the ability to read people, to see beyond the obvious to the deeper truth. I brought you here to see if you were ready to do that. You failed.’
‘You knew Ghedren was the traitor?’
‘As you would have, had you not been blinded by your dislike of the Dezraed and the Junica. You let your own personal opinions cloud your judgement, and you gave your trust to a man who had not earned it.’
Callis had never truly felt at home in the Freeguilds, but at that moment, he recalled the simple clarity of his former life with a wistful fondness. Recently, it seemed that even when he was sure he was doing the right thing, it turned out otherwise.
Toll hooked one foot into the stirrups on the side of one of the marsh striders, and hauled himself onto its back. He squinted down at Callis, pulling his hat down low to block the hazy light that filtered through the grey clouds.
‘This is a lesson, not an admonishment. We a
ll make mistakes, but in this line of work they have a habit of getting you killed. God-King knows I’ve put my trust in the wrong person before – you know that better than anyone. Learn from this. Next time, I may not be there to haul you out of the flames. Now, come. We must be back in Excelsis within the next two days. We have new business to attend to.’
THE LIBRARY OF FORGOTTEN MOMENTS
Josh Reynolds
Out in the darkness, something wailed.
Balthas Arum paid it no mind. In Shyish, something was always screaming. Especially of late. It was a guttural sound, full of pain and pleading. It ratcheted along the mountain’s crags, growing louder and louder, before finally fading back into the silence from which it had sprung.
The Lord-Arcanum gave a twitch to the reins he held in his hand, urging the gryph-charger on. ‘Keep moving, Quicksilver,’ he murmured. ‘We are close.’ Whatever it was could live or die as fate intended. He had other business on this mountain.
Despite his attentions, his silver-feathered steed paused, bifurcated tail lashing. The gryph-charger stamped his rear hooves, and clawed the ground with bird-like talons. As much raptor as cat, the beast had a predator’s instincts.
‘We have no time for this,’ Balthas said. He gave the reins a firmer twitch. The gryph-charger chirped in what might have been annoyance. After a final glance in the direction of the scream, the animal continued to climb the narrow path to the mountain’s summit.
Balthas sighed. At times, he half suspected that Quicksilver had a curiosity to rival his own. The great beast was forever prowling in places he had little excuse to be. Much like himself, in fact. Much like now.
‘I must do this,’ he said, out loud. ‘Not just for myself. What we seek will be there. I know it.’ It sounded too much like rationalisation, even to his own ears.
Annoyed with himself, he sat back in his saddle, adjusting his crimson robes as he did so. His black-and-gold war-plate, bearing the heraldry of the Sacrosanct Chamber and the Anvils of the Heldenhammer, creaked as he strove to make himself comfortable. His staff of office lay against his shoulder, motes of corposant dancing about the jagged lightning-shaped sigils that surmounted it. A rune-marked blade hung in its sheath from his saddle, alongside saddlebags stuffed with scrolls and tomes borrowed discreetly from the Great Library of Sigmaron.
Balthas glanced down at the blade. He only rarely bothered with it, preferring his staff. It felt more natural, somehow, though he had been trained to wield both with equal skill. Swordplay was for Evocators, and beneath the dignity of a Lord-Arcanum. Or so he had always maintained, to any who bothered to ask.
Balthas preferred books to battle, and suspected that the same had been true even before his Reforging on the Anvil of Apotheosis. A sharp mind was keener than any blade, and wars could be won with wisdom, as well as weapons. But wisdom seemed a dwindling resource in these troubled times. Fear had that effect, and it was rife in all the realms, as the dead rose in unprecedented numbers. These days, not even the celestine vaults of Azyr were safe from the scrabbling of rotted fingers.
The cataclysm which had instigated the mass revivification had been no natural event, but rather the machinations of a god – Nagash, the Undying King, had at last declared open war on the living. In every realm, a phenomenon of undeath had taken hold. Wild magics boiled the air and tossed the seas. The laws of nature and gods alike had been upended, and old certainties dashed to flinders by the actions of the God of Death.
An old, familiar chill spread through Balthas as his thoughts turned to recent events. Despatched to Shyish, and the city of Glymmsforge, his Sacrosanct Chamber had aided in the defence of the city against a tide of death greater than any in recorded history.
But during that battle, he’d come face-to-face with Nagash – or a shard thereof. The parting words of the god were emblazoned on his mind like a scar. You served me once, in another turn of the wheel, Nagash had whispered, and you will do so again…
Balthas shook his head. ‘Never,’ he murmured. Even with his voice at its quietest, his denial bounced from the surrounding rocks. Unseen things scrabbled away, startled by the sound. ‘Never, in this life or any other.’
And yet, doubt persisted. He hoped to alleviate some of it at his destination. He peered upwards, along the winding mountain trail. The path rose towards the mountain’s summit, where a tall structure sprawled along the slope of the peak – the library.
It was built into the rock, and topped with wide towers and onion domes. It had no formal name. The crag it crowned was merely one among the many that lined the jutting spine of the Splinterbridge Mountains. The library was on no map, and was mentioned in passing in only a few crumbling texts. And it was why he had left his chamber behind in Glymmsforge, and had set out alone across the trackless wastes of Shyish.
They had protested. Respectful complaints, to be sure, but complaints nonetheless. But they had their duties, and he had his. This was his hunt, not theirs.
He thought back to what he knew of his destination. The library had been old when Shyish was young. It was known as the Ghostwell, or the Lost Hall, to the caretakers of the Libraria Vurmis of Shu’gohl. The sages of the Great Repository of Skydock called it the Library of Forgotten Moments. From what little Balthas knew of it, that was as good a description as any. Within its halls was said to be the accumulated knowledge of innumerable forgotten epochs.
Balthas glanced up, instinctively. Though the red orb of Mallus was not visible here, in the nadir of Shyish, he could still feel its pull on his soul. He had long suspected that some part of him – some shard of the man he had been – had once walked that long-dead world. His confrontation with Nagash had only strengthened those suspicions.
He had come seeking the library, hoping to learn the truth. If there was an answer to be had, it might well be here. And if not, well, he might still find something of use. The life of a Lord-Arcanum was one of singular purpose: to discover a way to repair – or at least mitigate – the flaws in the Reforging process.
Balthas was no closer to that goal than any of his peers. It remained intangible, just out of reach of even the wisest among them. Some insisted the answers were to be found in the ruins of lost realms such as Shadespire, or in the prophecy-rich veins beneath the city of Excelsis. Balthas thought otherwise. He was certain that the key lay in the distant past, from the days before the gods walked the realms. From before the realms even existed, perhaps.
The Library of Forgotten Moments was said to hold the secrets of that lost epoch. Secrets that he dearly wished to know, whatever it might cost to learn them. Whether they led him to the answers of his past, or his future, mattered little. So long as they led him somewhere.
Another scream, somewhere far below. The sound echoed up from the rocky valleys and stretched to inaudibility. There was nothing human in that cry. Balthas felt Quicksilver stiffen, and saw the gryph-charger’s tails lash. ‘Easy,’ he muttered.
More cries came then, like rising arrows. Balthas glanced back down the trail, his keen gaze sweeping the mountainside for any sign of pursuit. He’d been forced to defend himself from roving packs of flesh-eaters more than once as he crossed the Carrion Deltas. The mewling creatures were blinded by madness, else they’d have sought easier prey. Even so, they’d harried his trail into the mountains. As if something were driving them to pursue him. With that unsettling thought in mind, he urged Quicksilver on. The more quickly they reached the library, the better.
The gryph-charger was well named. At Balthas’ urging, his steed broke into a crackling gallop. Gryph-chargers, when motivated, could race against the light itself, and arrive before the sun. Quicksilver shrieked as he ran, and the mountain seemed to give way beneath him, becoming simply a muddy stretch of colour that only solidified as the beast slowed.
Soon enough, they’d arrived.
The circular bronze gates of the library rose over him, within
an archway shaped like a pair of cupped hands. The walls that stretched to either side were made of some dark, veined stone, and were lined with water-spouts, wrought in the shape of owls. The style of the structure was unlike anything in Shyish, or Azyr. Something about it seemed faintly, impossibly familiar. He remembered a city, smelling of strange spices and the sea, but could not call to mind its name or when he had visited such a place.
As he drew close, the bronze gates swung inwards silently. Idly, he wondered if he was expected. He paused, and then urged Quicksilver past the gates.
The courtyard beyond was narrow, and high archways blocked out parts of the sky overhead. A pathway of flat stones led down the centre of the courtyard, between two lines of free-standing pillars. As Quicksilver followed the path, Balthas saw that each of the pillars had several bejewelled skulls inset along its length. The skulls shimmered with an unsettling radiance, and he heard a persistent murmuring race along the path ahead, as if in warning.
At the other end of the path, a set of double doors slowly swung open, revealing a congregation of robed and hooded figures. They wore heavy cassocks and suits of battered mail, reminding him of the adherents of the Sigmarite church. The similarities ended there, however. The robes were frayed, and what flesh was visible was desiccated and bound in funerary wrappings. Bandaged skulls peered out of cowls, sockets alight with pinpricks of witch-light. The smell of incense and preservatives washed over him as he drew back on Quicksilver’s reins. The gryph-charger reared, and loosed a shriek of challenge.
‘Peace, son of Azyr,’ one of the dead men rasped, in a thin, rustling voice. The cadaver drew back his cowl, revealing mummified features. Wisps of colourless hair clung to a papery scalp, and the nose was eaten away, leaving a gaping hole above a mostly lipless mouth full of brown teeth. ‘We are but simple librarians, and mean no harm.’
Balthas calmed Quicksilver. ‘Even if you did, it would come to nothing. I have faced worse than you, in my time.’
‘I have no doubt,’ the dead man said. Balthas thought the corpse sounded faintly amused. Annoyed, he slid from the saddle. ‘It has been some time, since one of your sort has visited us,’ the cadaver said. ‘Your God-King has ever been one who prefers to seek out the next horizon. He has little love for the wisdom of past ages.’
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