by ich du
'You do not have the situation in hand,' said Teclis, as softly as before. 'The currents of Chaos in Talabheim daily grow stronger, your subjects die in the streets, and you haven't the manpower to stop this, only to protect the less affected neighbourhoods and the homes of the wealthy. And if the cause is what I believe it to be, not even your greatest scholars can put it right.'
Reiner saw the countess's eyes flare at this bald statement of fact, but there was little she could say. Teclis was an elf. He had no need to trade in courtesies, for his status was unaffected by political manoeuvring. He had seen many emperors come and go, and would likely see three more ascend the throne in Altdorf. 'We welcome any aid you can give us, great one,' she said through tight lips. 'But if, as you say, there is nothing human efforts can do, would it not have been just as well for you to come alone?'
Manfred spoke up before Teclis could reply. 'The Emperor would not allow so noble a guest to travel alone within his domain. Nor would he allow the niceties of courtesy to delay aid for our fair sister Talabheim if it were necessary. We came in force, but with the hope that we would not be needed. And while your soldiers may indeed have the situation well in hand, there is no reason to turn away reserves when they are here to help.'
'To interfere, you mean,' said the countess. 'To take credit for Talabheim's victory over this trouble.'
'Countess.' said Manfred. 'I assure you...'
'And I assure you that your help is not needed. You have delivered the great Teclis to us, and we thank you for that. You may now retire, certain that we will keep him safe and will bring no shame upon the Empire while he is our guest. Thank you.'
It was an unmistakable dismissal, but Manfred only bowed and drew a rolled parchment from his doublet. 'Countess, it grieves me that I must remind you that, while Talabheim is a free city, it still resides within Talabecland, and that Talabecland is a state of the Empire, subject to its laws and to the commands of its Emperor.' He held up the parchment. 'Though gently worded, this document is not an offer of aid, but a command from Karl-Franz, signed by his own hand, ordering your government to allow his representatives to assist you until they have determined that the danger to Talabheim, and the Empire, has passed.'
Manfred passed the parchment to Neubalten, who took it to the countess. She passed it to a scribe that scurried forward from behind the dais. He read it quickly, then whispered in her ear while her knuckles grew white upon the arms of her throne.
'This is an outrage.' she said at last. 'The Emperor oversteps Imperial law. The duchies have the ruling of their own lands, and need brook no interference from the Emperor unless it is a matter that affects the whole of the Empire. This is clearly Talabheim's problem, and-'
'Forgive me, countess.' said Teclis. 'I take no sides in the affairs of men, but you are incorrect. Though this disturbance happens in Talabheim, if unchecked it will affect not only Talabecland and the Empire, but also the stability of the whole world. I would not be here else.'
The countess paled. 'Is it truly so serious?'
Teclis nodded gravely. 'It is.'
'Then.' she said, flashing a sharp look at Manfred, 'on your authority, fair one, and your authority alone, do I submit to this unwished-for interference by these foreign lords.'
'Thank you, countess.' said Teclis. 'I would meet with those of your court most concerned with this affair at your earliest convenience, to learn what they have learned of it.'
'Certainly.' said the countess. 'I will call an emergency meeting of the parliament tonight. We will make enlightening you and the Emperors embassy our business. Until then, if you will follow Lord Neubalten, he will make all arrangements for your lodging.'
Teclis and Manfred and the rest of the Reiklanders bowed and stepped back.
'Thank you, countess.' said Teclis.
'Most gracious, your eminence.' said Manfred.
As the party followed Neubalten out of the throne room, Reiner leaned into Manfred. 'M'lord, do you recall Lady Magda Bandauer?'
'How could I not?' said Manfred, frowning. 'The woman brought my brother to war against me. Why?'
'She is here.' said Reiner. 'With the young man in blue and burgundy to the left of the dais.'
Manfred looked discretely over his shoulder, then nodded, his face grim. 'I see.'
'M'lord.' said Reiner. 'It would give me great pleasure if you were to order me to remove her.'
'And it would give me great pleasure to so order you.' said Manfred. 'Unfortunately, the young man is Baron Rodick Untern and Lady Magda wears his colours. As much as I might wish to destroy my brother's corrupter, it would be impolitic at this moment to murder the wife of the countess's cousin.'
FOUR
A Great Opportunity
THAT EVENING, THE Parliament of Talabheim met in a large wood-panelled chamber within the Grand Courthouse of Edicts. Countess Elise sat at the northernmost seat of a large U-shaped table. The members of her parliament - representatives of Talabheim's noble families, the merchant guilds, the city's temples, the colleges of magic, the countess's exchequer, as well as the three generals of the Hunters' council, Christoph Stallmaier, commander of the Taalbaston, Detlef Kienholt, commander of the city guard, and Joerg Hafner, commander of the militia, her minister of trade, and her minister of public works, filled the other seats. Extra seats had been added to accommodate Teclis and Manfred, and more were set along the walls for the other Reiklanders. Reiner sat with them, trying to put names, faces and titles together.
Arch Lector Farador, the voice of Sigmar in Talabheim, was speaking. 'The brothers of the Order of the Cleansing Flame have wrung many confessions from captured mutants, but little have come of them. It appears some lied, even under torture, and though the confessions of others led us to new nests of mutants and heretics, we have yet to find the villain who has set this curse upon us.'
'The brothers of Taal have not been idle either,' chimed in Heinrich Geltwasser, the temple of Taal's representative. 'Though we scorn the uncivilised methods of the Sigmarites, we have prayed to Father Taal unceasingly, and performed ceremonies to quiet the trees. We have admittedly had little success.' He shot a dark look at Farador. 'Too many of our faithful are being drawn away to other religions, and our prayers haven't the strength they once did.'
'Prayer cannot take the place of action.' said Farador. 'If you had been hunting mutants instead of dancing naked in the forest, this crisis might already be over.'
'Do you mock the mysteries of Taal?' cried Geltwasser.
'If the exchequer weren't so tight-fisted,' said Lord Otto Scharnholt, a thick-jowled dandy with rings on every finger, who was Talabheim's minister of trade, 'we would have more troops in the streets and they would be better outfitted.'
M'lord has grown rich from the office, thought Reiner, eyeing his broad belly. Takes a cut from every cargo that comes through Taalagad, no doubt.
'And where does the minister of trade expect these monies to come from?' asked Lord Klaus Danziger, the Countess's exchequer, a sober, long-faced fellow in a black doublet of the plainest cut. 'The treasury is empty, m'lord. Empty!'
'Fathers, lords, please.' Teclis's soft voice easily cut through their barking. 'Your attempts to quell the disturbance are to be commended, but the madness and mutations are not the result of a lack of faith, and cannot be defeated by soldiers. A great eruption of Chaos energy has occurred somewhere in the city. Only when the eruption is found and... capped, will the mutations cease and the madness fade.' He looked around the table with his penetrating stare. 'Here is what I must know. In what area of the city are the mutations most prevalent? Have any ancient ruins or strange artefacts been uncovered within the limits of the city? Have any weapons or artefacts of great power been stolen? Any of these may point to the source of the disturbance.'
All the parliament members began speaking at once.
'Pfaffenstrasse crawls with mutants.' said the master of the wool merchants' guild.
'Pfaffenstrasse has nothing on Gir
laedenplatz.' said the master of the union of coopers and wainwrights. 'They are thickest there.' 'It's those filthy peasants in the Tallows,' said Scharnholt. 'My tenants there have gone mad. They've burned down my property. The trees...'
'There are none in the Manor district,' said Danziger primly. 'They wouldn't dare.'
'It comes from the woods,' said a Sigmarite.
'It comes on the wind,' said a Taalist.
'It comes from the wells,' said the master of the bakers' guild.
'Gentlemen, please!' The countess rapped her mace of office on the table. 'You will all be given a chance to speak. Now-'
'Your pardon, countess,' said Teclis, holding up his hand.
The room quieted and turned to him. Teclis pointed a long finger at a haughty mage in green and gold robes. The man swallowed nervously.
'Your name, magus?' asked Teclis.
'I, lord? Er, I am Magister Lord Dieter Vogt, representative of Talabheim's College of Jade Magic.'
'You said something just now, magister lord,' said Teclis. 'Please repeat it.'
'Er, well, I, I said some members of our college found a large stone recently. But nothing came of it,' he added hurriedly. 'It had no power at all.'
Teclis placed his hands flat on the table. 'I see.' There was the faintest tremor in his voice. 'And where did you find this stone?'
Magister Lord Vogt coughed, acutely aware that Teclis was displeased. 'Er, well, when the Temple of Sigmar collapsed...'
'The temple did not collapse!' cried Arch Lector Farador. 'It was destroyed by cultists!'
'It wasn't,' said the minister of public works. 'You built it over a sink hole. It fell in, then smashed through into the caves.'
'A sign,' said Taalfather Geltwasser, 'as if any were needed, that the Sigmarites' faith is founded on unsound doctrine.'
'What caves are these?' Teclis asked the minister of public works.
'Er, well, yer lordship,' said the minister, ducking his head. 'We didn't know about 'em until the temple opened 'em up, but there are caves under the city. Haven't yet had a chance to look about much, what with all this madness.'
'The caves are where we found the stone, m'lord,' said Magister Lord Vogt. 'When men were sent into them to look for survivors, it was discovered that the stones of the temple had smashed open an ancient crypt set into the floor of the cave. Our college was asked to determine if the crypt was an arcane threat.'
'It was elven,' said Teclis.
Lord Vogt looked up in surprise. 'Er, yes. It was. How...'
'And it contained a rune-covered stone the height of a man.'
'Indeed, fair one,' said the mage. 'Much of the crypt was destroyed by the falling temple, and the runestone was dislodged from its pedestal, but miraculously it was intact.'
Teclis breathed a sigh of relief at that. 'So you have the stone then.'
Vogt nodded. 'Yes, lord. Our scholars thought it might have some magical properties, and so brought it back to our lodge to examine it, but it had no magic and seemed to serve no higher purpose.'
'No higher purpose than maintaining the stability of the world,' said Teclis. He sat back, pressing his chest with his hand as if he were in pain, then looked up. 'What your scholars uncovered is a waystone. It appears magically inert because its purpose is to draw away magic. It absorbs emanations of magical energy - Chaos energy - and shunts it into... another place. Its removal is the cause of Talabheim's trouble. Without it, the source of the Chaos energy under your city spreads unchecked.'
'But, Lord Teclis,' said Magister Lord Vogt. 'Talabheim is one of the least magical places in the Empire. It takes a great deal of concentration to cast even the simplest spell here. At least that was true until... ah. I see.'
'Yes,' said Teclis. 'Since the plague of madness, you have found your powers greatly increased. But the risk of spell work has increased as well, and many mages have gone mad. Is this not the case?'
Vogt looked reluctant to speak. The countess spoke for him. 'Ten mages have been put to death in the past week, having succumbed to madness. I have ordered a moratorium on the practice of the art until the crisis has passed.'
Teclis nodded. 'This crater, in which Krugar, chief of the Talabec tribe, founded your city thousands of years ago, was formed thousands of years before that, when a great meteor of pure warpstone struck the earth. My forefathers, whose land this was at that time, placed the waystone above the shattered fragments of the meteor in order to make the land habitable again. There are many such waystones buried around the world, capping similar loci of Chaos energies. The danger when one of these waystones is removed is not just to the land around it, but to the world as a whole. For just as the removal of one link in a shirt of mail weakens it, so the loss of one waystone weakens all others and causes the weave of protection they knit around the world to unravel. If left uncapped, the emanations which poison your city will spread like ripples in a pond, unseating other nearby waystones, which will in turn unseat further waystones until the earth becomes the endless nightmare of madness that it was when the rifts of Chaos first opened, eons ago.' Teclis coughed and touched his chest again. 'And this time, the elves could not contain it, for we are not what we once were.'
The countess and the parliament paled at this vision of apocalypse.
'You are fortunate,' Teclis continued. 'I was near enough to feel the eruption when the stone was dislodged, for only an elf mage with a knowledge of the old lore can reseat the stone. If you had had to send to Ulthuan for assistance I might have come too late.' He turned to the countess. 'I will take the waystone and prepare it. In the meantime, the crypt that held it should be cleared of rubble, and preparations made to seal it once I have reset the stone. Too much time has been wasted already. Men die needlessly as we speak.'
'Yes, Lord Teclis,' said the countess, inclining her head. 'It shall be done. Magister Lord Vogt, escort our guest to your lodge.'
Vogt stood and bowed. 'Yes, countess. Right away.'
'THEY'VE LOST IT!' laughed Manfred as he slammed into the coach and fell back into his seat. 'Half a tonne and as tall as a man and they've lost it!'
Reiner had been sitting in Manfred's coach for the past hour outside the tree shrouded compound of the college of jade magic, waiting while Manfred, Teclis, Magus Nichtladen, and the countess - the only persons the secretive mages would allow in - went with Magister Lord Vogt to retrieve the stone.
'Lost it?' he asked.
'Aye!' chuckled Manfred. 'Mages scurrying around like housemaids looking in cupboards and attics. But it's gone. Stolen most likely.' He rubbed his hands together.
'And you are pleased?'
'Eh?' said Manfred. 'Don't be a fool! Of course I'm pleased. If Vogt had produced it, the Jade college would have got the credit, but now we have as much chance as any to find it. This is a great opportunity.'
'Your concern for the citizens of Talabheim is admirable, m'lord,' said Reiner dryly.
'My concern,' said Manfred, 'is for the Empire as a whole, and if a few must die to ensure its stability over the long term, then I am prepared to take their deaths upon my conscience.'
Reiner smirked. 'Most noble of you.'
WHEN THEY RETURNED to the Law Quarter townhouse the countess had provided for the Reikland legation, they found Lord Danziger, the prim, black-clad exchequer, waiting for Manfred in the drawing room.
'If I might have a word with you in private, lord count?' he asked. His manner was as stiff as his high collar, and his posture as rigid.
'Certainly, Lord Danziger,' said Manfred. 'Hetzau, show his excellency to my quarters.'
When they were settled in Manfred's private rooms and Reiner had served Reikland wine, Danziger spoke.
'As the countess's treasurer,' he said, 'it pains me to see all the funds wasted so far attacking this problem from the wrong end. As you have seen, the parliament is a fractious group, too concerned with casting blame to take decisive action, and though I am loath to say it, I believe some members hope to
profit by this trouble. That is why I come to you. You are a confidant of Karl-Franz and of the great Teclis. I know you must hold the Empire's interests uppermost, and wish to bring an end to this unpleasantness as quickly as possible.' 'Indeed.' said Manfred, with every appearance of sincerity. 'And if you have some information that may help us to that end, I would be extremely pleased to hear it.'
'I believe I have, sir.' said Danziger. 'I, like most men of means in the city, have volunteered my house guard to assist in the protecting of those neighbourhoods that remain whole. When Teclis spoke of this "waystone" just now, I remembered an incident my captain, Gerde, related to me recently. It seemed nothing at the time. But now...'
'Please go on, m'lord.' said Manfred. Reiner could see him trying to mask his eagerness.
'Gerde was manning the Schwartz Hold barricades.' said Danziger. 'And just after midnight, he saw a group of men carrying a heavy burden into an old granary that had been burned down when the madness began. Gerde dispatched one of his men to follow them and see what they were about.'
'And what did this man discover?' asked Manfred.
'He returned after an hour, saying the thieves had carried their burden through a hole in the granary's cellar to the sewer below it. He trailed them through the sewers and catacombs below Talabheim, until they reached at last a place guarded by well-armed men, and he could follow no further.'
Manfred leaned in. 'This incident was not reported to the city guard?'
'I do not believe so.' said Danziger.
'Then only we know of this?'
'Aye, m'lord. And it would be wise to keep it so.' said Danziger. 'Talabheim is a city of intrigues, and telling one man a confidence is the same as telling a hundred. If we wish to strike swiftly we must remain covert.'
Manfred nodded. 'Very good. Then I will strike tomorrow morning, before sunrise. Send your man to me that he may guide us. Thank you for this information, Lord Danziger.'
'Er, by your leave, sir, if I added my men to yours, I think we would be assured of success.'