Van Horstmann

by Ben Counter

  ‘We agree,’ said Elrisse. He sat surrounded by Light wizards, with Master Chanter Alric at his right hand. ‘And we anticipated that the Supreme Patriarch would have to intervene. It is with great regret that we accept the matter cannot be handled solely by the orders concerned, but accept it we do.’

  ‘Then that is the first hurdle overcome,’ said van der Kalibos. ‘But not the greatest. While the Light and the Gold Orders confine themselves to their colleges, it is I as Supreme Patriarch who have spoken with the priestesses of Shallya. Their temple must be repaired and reconsecrated. Bloodshed pollutes the very stones. It will take months, and great expense. That comes out of all our coffers. Mother Heloise, though she lives, was so polluted by the violence done against her that she had to abandon her post and take up a hermit’s life. On the colleges of Altdorf falls that sin. It will be years before we can make it right in the eyes of Shallya’s church. On the Supreme Patriarch weighs the burden of such diplomatic failures. We have all suffered, Grand Magister. Not just the Light. Not just the Gold. All of us.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Elrisse.

  ‘Do you?’ said van der Kalibos. ‘And how do you understand the feud between the Light and Gold Orders will be made right? Because it will be made right. How do you suppose it is to be done?’

  ‘By dialogue,’ said Elrisse. ‘Small steps, to be sure, for another grand gesture such as the conclave at the Temple of Shallya must be years away. But it will be–’

  ‘No,’ said van der Kalibos. No one but a Supreme Patriarch had the right to interrupt a Grand Magister without inflicting a grave breach of etiquette. ‘The Imperial Court must never know that wizards can enter into bloody conflict. Eckhardt III is not a brilliant man but even he will learn of it soon enough if it continues.’

  ‘The colleges of Altdorf have clashed with the Imperial Court before,’ said Elrisse. ‘Surely we can weather that storm if it comes. It is better to ensure the Gold and the Light heal their rift gradually, as prudence demands.’

  ‘Surely?’ said van der Kalibos dangerously. ‘You sound very certain. And yet it is only to the Celestial Order that I ascribe the ability to divine the future with such accuracy. Let me tell you what I see for your future, Grand Master Elrisse. The Emperor learns that the colleges of Altdorf were behind the slaughter in the Temple of Shallya. Altdorf at large learns of it. Those to whom the old faiths are dear will demand our expulsion. The priestesses of Shallya will point to the orders of magic as a corruptive and divisive force. The witch hunters of Sigmar will seek to capitalise by seeing heresy and the marks of mutation in every wizard they come across. And every time a Gold or Light wizard sheds the blood of another, every time the aethyr is plumbed to do violence amongst ourselves, we will be proving our enemies right. And we do have enemies, Elrisse. I most know this better than you. The Colleges of Magic will be besieged by those who wish us ill. They might not even survive.

  Everything will be undone. I know death, and I see it here. Our death. Desolation and ignorance returning to the Empire of Sigmar.’

  ‘It will not go that far.’

  ‘Such was said about the Great War,’ said van der Kalibos. ‘And all of mankind was almost lost. All of human magic will be lost if the colleges fall.’

  ‘The Empire relies too much on her magisters for such a dire future to come about,’ said Elrisse. ‘The Light and the Gold can heal our rift. Though the Amethyst Order must see death in everything, we see life and reconciliation.’

  ‘When?’ replied the Supreme Patriarch. ‘Will the rift be stitched up in a year? In ten years?’

  ‘You know full well that none can say,’ retorted Elrisse. ‘And there is no other way. For all your doomsaying, there is no solution other than rebuilding the bridges that were torn down, with patience and temperance.’

  ‘There is another way,’ said van der Kalibos darkly.

  ‘Then what is it, Supreme Patriarch?’ The moment Elrisse spoke, perhaps a little to sharply, a little too challengingly, the tension in the chamber wound tighter. The Supreme Patriarch leaned forwards and the Light magisters present seemed to shrink down in their seats.

  ‘You were there last time it happened,’ said van der Kalibos. ‘All the Grand Magisters were. You were there when I took on the mantle of the Supreme Patriarch.’

  There was silence in response, not because what van der Kalibos had said was shocking, but because they all remembered. Many had seen the event first hand, and those who had not had heard enough about it to build up a vivid picture of their own.

  The role of Supreme Patriarch was coveted, but it was one not to be sought lightly. Since the inception of the orders of magic, when at the instruction of Teclis one Grand Magister had to head all the orders, the title had been decided by violence. Only a Grand Magister could challenge for the position, and he had to depose the incumbent Supreme Patriarch by force.

  A wizard’s combat, to death or incapacitation.

  Such was the risk of leaving an order without a Grand Magister, few Grand Magisters challenged for the position unless they were certain of victory or considered the risk less than the potential gain for the orders of magic as a whole. It was a system that kept the Supreme Patriarch’s position strong, while at the same time providing for the deposition of tyrants and incompetents. That was why Loremaster Teclis had instituted it.

  And that was why Maximilian van der Kalibos was the current Supreme Patriarch. He had appeared one day at the gates of the Jade College and challenged the then Supreme Patriarch, Lord Janeak Ghul of the Jade Order. The two had fought, in the manner decreed by the founding wizards. Kalibos had won. Ghul had died. Though the Empire’s citizens were kept ignorant of it, though it was not acknowledged openly even to the Imperial Court, the ultimate conflicts between wizards were settled in violence.

  ‘You speak of a duel,’ said Grand Magister Elrisse.

  ‘A wizard’s duel,’ said van der Kalibos. ‘To the death. He who is victorious, his order claims victory in the conflict and the conflict is ended. He who dies, his order pays for its wrongdoing in instigating the rift with the death of its Grand Magister. The conflict will be solved in a single blow. The wizards of both orders will know the place they hold in the rift’s conclusion and no further examples of open conflict will occur. The rift will end and Emperor Eckhardt can live on in happy ignorance. The Light and the Gold will be in harmony again, for there will no longer be an argument over who was right and who was wrong.’

  ‘Supreme Patriarch,’ said Elrisse. ‘I do not believe that–’

  ‘You labour,’ said van der Kalibos, interrupting again, ‘under the belief that we are engaged in a debate. That you have a say in the matter. You have forgotten, perhaps, that I am your Supreme Patriarch and that I have the power to make this decision. Allow me to disabuse you of such unfortunate notions. I did not come to the Light College today to harvest opinions and seek a solution to which no one would object. I came here to give you your orders. I have already done so to Grand Magister Zhaal. You will fight and one of you will probably die. That is the will of the Supreme Patriarch.’

  ‘And if I challenge that will?’ said Elrisse.

  ‘Then you challenge the Supreme Patriarch,’ said van der Kalibos. ‘And you will fight me for my post. Either way, you fight.’

  ‘Then it is decided,’ said Elrisse. He did not let any dismay or fear show through, but it was impossible to imagine they were not there in some form. ‘I will fight Grand Magister Zhaal, as you command. The rift between our orders will be healed. For the good of the orders of magic, I do this.’

  ‘I have headed this order,’ said Grand Magister Elrisse, ‘for the majority of my life. And I am not a young man.’

  Elrisse was not behind his desk, as he usually was when receiving lower ranked wizards in his quarters. He sat on a couch of velvet and gilt, probably imported from Araby like most of the décor. He did not wear his elaborate robes he had worn to receive the Supreme Patriarch – instead they were p
lain linen, and wearing them Elrisse had never looked older.

  ‘And in that time,’ he continued, ‘I have never killed anyone. Does that surprise you, van Horstmann?’

  ‘We are not all warriors,’ said van Horstmann. ‘If we were, there would not be much of an Empire left.’

  ‘True,’ said Elrisse. ‘Grand Magister Zhaal is a warrior. He served as a battle magister to Wilhelm II. He conjured the golden spear that killed the greenskin warlord of Splitstone Crag. Under his watch the artillery train of Duke Calimar was routed and his insurrection put down. He was much younger then, of course, and I did not meet him in those days, but I doubt he has forgotten everything he once knew about inflicting his will on an enemy’s flesh.’

  ‘The Light has ways,’ said van Horstmann.

  ‘Very politically put.’ Elrisse unfurled a roll of embroidered cloth that lay at his feet. The roll contained several implements of silver and gold, studded with jewels. ‘The Dagger of Lady Erkeneth,’ he said, pointing to one. ‘Enchanted to seek the heart. Intended for daemons, but it works just as well against a mundane organ. And these,’ he said, picking up a pair of silver blades so sharp the light bled through them. ‘Created by the priests of Myrmidia to excise the mind and cut out a soldier’s cowardice. Struck from silver mined at the lowest depths of the sea and sharpened on a stone that fell from the sky. I have a few others. Gifts, or items I have come to acquire during my research. Marvels, all of them, but nothing that can compare to whatever armoury Zhaal has amassed. What weapon he does not have to hand he can conjure from the air.’

  ‘I must speak bluntly,’ said van Horstmann. ‘It does your order small honour to have its Grand Magister speak so defeatistly.’

  ‘You are right, of course,’ said Elrisse. ‘Though a duel is not where my art excels, I must approach it with certainty of purpose and vision of victory. That is why I asked you here. Plenty of Light wizards can talk to me of battle magic and no doubt they will school me as best they can in the next four days. That is how long van der Kalibos has given myself and Zhaal to prepare.’

  ‘I am afraid I can help you little in that regard,’ said van Horstmann. It was a lie, of course. Van Horstmann had proven to himself at the Temple of Shallya that he could kill as effectively as any in the Light Order. But to the rest of that order he was the comprehender, a wizard of bookish wisdom and nothing else.

  ‘You are on good terms with the Fourth Circle,’ said Elrisse. ‘Especially as we now count you among the Third Circle, the order’s most senior minds. That the Skull of Katam spoke with you made no little impact on the guardians of the vaults, though they are not the type to admit it. Your work on Vries confirmed your reputation. I need you to fetch something for me, van Horstmann, from the vaults. The inner vaults.’

  ‘The inner vaults.’

  ‘That is correct. Even I am loathe to enter them. It is… not a privilege that should be given to one who has temporal power. There are dangerous things in there. I need one of them. The Scimitar of the Thirteenth Dynasty.’

  Van Horstmann’s eyes were drawn to one of the tapestries hung on the walls of the Grand Magister’s chambers. It depicted red-skinned, muscular beings fighting with an army in golden armour, on the slopes of a mountain before an ash-blackened sky. It was depicted with the stylisation typical of Araby’s arts, and yet told its story with the vividness that only a master could achieve. The mightiest of the red warriors wielded a curved sword with an eye embedded in its hilt. Light bled off it, and around his feet were heaps of charred corpses.

  ‘Cut from a single diamond,’ said Elrisse. ‘Forged in the fires of a volcano and quenched in the blood of a dune dragon. It was made for the king of the dynasty’s djinns. Would that I could tell you how the Light Order came to acquire it, but no one truly knows. All that is certain is that it lies in the inner vault, and that it might just be the equal of whatever Zhaal brings to our duel. Speak with the Fourth Circle. Convince them to open the inner vault and bring me the Scimitar.’

  ‘I am only glad that I can help,’ said van Horstmann.

  ‘My thanks, comprehender,’ said Elrisse, leaning forwards and clasping one of van Horstmann’s hands. ‘I knew it when you first walked the Chanter’s Halls. When Alric chose to bring you to that dark time beneath the Imperial Palace. I knew you might just be the best of us.’

  The Fourth Circle, as was their way, engaged van Horstmann in a lengthy debate on matters of philosophy and arcane theory before he even broached the subject of the inner vaults.

  Van Horstmann had never sought to enter the inner vaults before. He had not even seen the entrance, nor knew where it was or what form it took. He had entered the upper vault only twice before, once to retrieve the Skull of Katam and once to return the Codex Aethyrica – or at least what remained of it. He was surprised to see that Magister Pendorf was still alive, but not that it was Pendorf who ensnared him in a discussion of the human mind and how it related to the physical material of the body.

  Van Horstmann was firm but gracious in maintaining that the mind and body were mixed, or rather that neither could exist without the other, while Pendorf maintained doggedly that the mind was part of the spiritual aspect of the human and that it could exist separately of the body were the means to be discovered to create a vessel to contain and sustain it, and that the body itself was mere gross matter not intrinsic to an individual’s existence or identity. The matter took them into the night to discuss, and they did not resolve it because the question was not intended to have an answer.

  The conversation turned to history, and to the culpability of rulers for the actions of their people when the means by which they exercised their power was so flawed and fractured, and dependent on others as intermediaries whose collective power far outstripped any single ruler. Pendorf argued on the side of blaming kings, but van Horstmann was more inclined to ascribe the weight of history’s responsibilities to the ruling class who interpreted and often ignored the will of their sovereigns. Pendorf was delighted to speak with someone who disagreed with him so completely on everything, and allowed himself a good shot of well-aged brandy to celebrate not being able to reach any kind of compromise.

  Van Horstmann asked to be allowed into the inner vault. Grand Magister Elrisse’s life depended on it, and on the Grand Magister’s life depended the stability of the Light Order. Anyone else might have been sent from the vaults with a lesson on the dangers of even knowing about the inner vault. Pendorf laughed at van Horstmann, and when he realised he was serious, bade him follow.

  Van Horstmann had expected to find the entrance to the inner vaults disguised as something mundane, a place no one would look to find it. Of course, that was exactly what someone trying to enter the inner vault would expect, and so the door was a magnificent set of platinum-plated double doors set into a wall of the outer vault’s largest chamber, which van Horstmann had always assumed to be a set of temple doors taken from a distant shrine to a deity of wealth and excess. Pendorf opened it with a set of tiny keys apparently carved from human teeth.

  The first thing van Horstmann saw were the shadows. They clung to the floor, revealed as the doors swung open. They slithered along the ceiling. They seemed to slink towards the door, not shy away, though the ever-present light of the pyramid should have banished them.

  It was the only place in the pyramid where a shadow could take form. The inner vault seemed to hide all the shadows that would have been cast were it not for the fierce light of the pyramid.

  ‘Stay close,’ said Pendorf. ‘Do not stray.’

  He led the way in. The air was chill. Van Horstmann could just make out the shape of the inner vault – a warren of niches and side rooms, criss-crossed by staircases at haphazard angles, a jumble of rooms and architecture that might ensue if the pyramid was shaken up and its parts rearranged like a child’s building blocks. Here was a cornice like one from a corridor in the upper chambers, there a pillar like those in the Chanter’s Hall, but none of it married up or made
sense.

  ‘This was built to echo the pyramid above,’ said Pendorf. ‘But it changes. We cannot map it. Takes this old man’s intuition to know the way. What is it you seek?’

  ‘The Scimitar of the Thirteenth Dynasty.’

  Pendorf sucked at his teeth like a craftsman sizing up a fee. ‘That will not be easy. Some of the artefacts are better at hiding than others. The Scimitar thinks itself a noble among commoners, and it disdains their company. As I said, stay close.’

  Van Horstmann did as he was bid, but his eyes strayed. The door boomed shut behind the two magisters and only a light that Pendorf cast into the air in front of them cut through the darkness. Van Horstmann added light of his own, shining a beam of it from his outstretched palm, peering into the deepest corners as they passed them.

  A standard of red silk stitched with the image of a headless skeleton, holding its skull in its hands. A gigantic hunting horn cut from the tusk of some gigantic monster. The shell of a similarly huge sea creature, carved into an intricate throne. Books. Swords and shields, suits of armour. Cases holding amulets, necklaces, crystals in settings of silver. Flies and spiders clustered against the glass of one case containing a wand of twisted white wood. A ceiling-high mirror showed fragmented reflections of people who were not there.

  A key. Van Horstmann looked as closely as he could as he passed, not wanting to raise the suspicions of Pendorf. It was cut from red gold and hung on a golden chain. It was carved into the shape of a dragon’s head, the key’s teeth the dragon’s fangs, an emerald for an eye. It hung around the neck of a marble torso without a head.

  ‘Here,’ said Pendorf. He was pointing at a steel arch across which was stretched a web of golden threads. ‘Lady Malbelagia’s Web. The Scimitar seems to desire its company.’

  ‘Not many dreams down here for it to catch,’ said van Horstmann.

  ‘Ah, you know of the Web?’

  ‘I have read of it, in passing.’

  ‘So few appreciate such an artefact. When it was stored in the vault above we would find dreams caught up in it from time to time, wrapped in gold and silver. Quivering little things that turned to dust when looked upon. And every time an acolyte from the floor above would wake with his hair turned grey. No such trouble, as you say, since we moved it down here.’