by Ben Counter
It was the first time van Horstmann had lain eyes on Emperor Eckhardt III since he had seen him sworn in. The Emperor wore the look of someone who was not necessarily particularly intelligent and could be manipulated by cunning people, and whose personal motivations did not run much beyond those of the domestic dog. But van Horstmann suspected that at least some of this was a cover, and that Eckhardt III was a more shrewd man than those around him gave him credit for. Most men of his station would have at least tried to affect a demeanour other than the provincial coarseness of a Stirlander. They would have employed people specifically to have them speaking and moving like a man born to the Imperial throne. But it suited Eckhardt III to have those surrounding him think him something of an idiot. That suggested that while he might be many disagreeable things, an idiot was not among them.
And, of course, he had got himself elected Emperor. Van Horstmann suspected that such a feat, as much as a cynic might put it down to luck, required a certain agility of mind.
The Emperor did not take one of the seats offered to him, which were arranged in a circle around an image of a complicated divinatory diagram rendered in mosaic on the chamber floor. He stood instead, one hand on the pommel of his runefang in the attitude of a habitual soldier. The Light Order’s magisters were compelled to stand as well, since one did not sit in the presence of a standing Emperor.
‘I am not a man given to a surfeit of words,’ began the Emperor. ‘It is the wish of the Imperial Court that the Light Order select a Grand Magister without delay.’
Facing the Emperor, along with van Horstmann, were Master Chanter Alric, Magisters Kardiggian, Vranas and Arcinhal, and even Magister Pendorf of the Fourth Circle who had been dredged up from the vaults for the occasion. Kardiggian was the Light Order’s most pre-eminent battle magister, a battlefield veteran. Vranas was one of its most powerful practitioners of exorcism while Arcinhal had perfected the protective rituals recently discovered in the works of Vries.
‘This is not so simple a matter, your Imperial majesty,’ said Vranas, who was probably the most diplomatically able of the senior magisters. ‘Each order has its own traditions for the selection of a Grand Magister, many of which were laid down under the auspices of Loremaster Teclis himself.’
‘I do not care, magister,’ replied the Emperor, ‘what that wretched elf decreed. Teclis isn’t here. He’s back in his fairy-tale land with all the other pointed-ears. I rule this empire, and that includes the orders of magic, whether you like to admit it or not.’
‘There are reasons for this other than the weight of tradition, your majesty,’ said Vranas. Van Horstmann was impressed at how unflustered Vranas was by the presence of the Emperor. ‘The position is one of great responsibility. There are only a few examples of the wrong choice being made in the appointment of a Grand Magister, but it has been disastrous in all cases. The matter is further complicated when the change is necessitated by the death of the previous Grand Magister. Most choose their own successors, ensure the choice is agreed upon by the rest of their order, and retire from the post before ill health or other circumstance determines it. If, as here, a Grand Magister dies in office without an agreed-upon successor, he must be properly mourned and his own wishes researched before the order can seek to replace him.’
‘I see,’ said Emperor Eckhardt III. ‘Do any of these order traditions outweigh the force of Imperial authority?’
Vranas glanced from side to side, almost imperceptibly, as if hoping for a signal from his fellow magisters. Van Horstmann gave him none and neither did anyone else.
‘They do not,’ said Vranas.
‘Then if there is no Grand Magister before the turning of the winter solstice,’ said Eckhardt, ‘I will appoint one from within your ranks. I will sign it into law if such is necessary.’
‘It will not be,’ said Vranas hurriedly.
‘If I may,’ said van Horstmann.
‘To whom am I speaking?’ said Eckhardt. ‘I know Alric and Vranas here, but I don’t know you.’
‘Comprehender van Horstmann,’ came the reply. ‘The Light Order’s own methods are arcane and time-consuming. They involve a combination of divinatory sessions, philosophical and practical debates and a ballot weighted by seniority among the magisters. It has been known to take the better part of a year and a half. And as Magister Vranas says, these are not merely traditional matters. If divination is ignored, the responsibilities of a Grand Magister will fall upon one whom the aethyr rejects. Our ritual magic will thus be disrupted and weakened. Moreover the Grand Magister’s own philosophies on magic colour the outlook of the whole order. He is a spiritual leader, not merely a temporal one. The whole order must understand them if they are not to have their work jarred into inconsequence by an unexpected shift in the theory of magic. These are questions of the greatest import, your majesty.’
Eckhardt regarded van Horstmann with a slight squint, as if he was sighting at him down a hunting rifle. ‘Do you know what is of great import to me, van… Hartmann?’
Van Horstmann, who did not think it politic to correct the Emperor, inclined his head in acknowledgement.
‘Blame!’ The Emperor banged a fist on the back of the chair beside him. ‘I see in this place great power, and men who wield that power without anyone outside having so much as a clue about what they are doing. What if one of you burns down a chunk of the city, like what happened in Wilhelm’s reign?’
‘The Bright Order’s magic is volatile in such a way,’ said Kardiggian hurriedly. ‘We have no such–’
‘That’s not the point!’ snapped the Emperor. ‘Whatever it is you do, what if it goes wrong and Altdorf wakes up to find a few dozen buildings gone? Or you exorcise something and it gets loose? Or whatever it is that you do that is dangerous, I’ll wager there’s something. What am I to tell the people? That you huddle in your pyramid without anyone being responsible to the outside world? What if there’s another duel, and innocents suffer because of it? Yes, I know about your duel. Sigmar’s rump, we saw the light show above the island, Altdorfers aren’t all blind and stupid. Am I to tell the people of the Empire that it is no one’s fault? That responsibility is shared across a whole secret order of mumbling wizards none of whom will be punished? No, there must be someone to blame. One man. A man in charge, like I am, on whom all the sins committed under his rule will fall. By the winter solstice, magisters. That gives you five months. You might never have done it faster than eighteen but with the right motivation I imagine you can do wonders. If I and my Reiksguard marching in and installing a Grand Magister myself doesn’t count as such a motivation then there really is no hope for you.’
Van Horstmann was not a political creature. He preferred to have things unravel around him while he watched, rather than being the one unpicking the stitches. Eckhard III, he had decided, was not a good man to treat as an adversary because he knew more about the workings of an empire than van Horstmann ever could. That was how and why Eckhardt conducted himself like such an irascible oaf – he knew what he could get away with, and got away with everything he could. Nevertheless, van Horstmann thought he had done quite well. He had made his plea to the traditions and sensitivities of the Light Order sound just feeble and complaining enough, enough like the wheedling of an intellectually privileged elite, that the Emperor had been subtly enraged by it. If Eckhardt III had ever contemplated leaving the Light Order to sort out their own affairs, van Horstmann had probably seen to it that he would not.
It was an uncomfortable time. The order was uncertain. Divinations all gave results of obscurity and confusion. The daily rituals to conceal the pyramid and aid the Light Order’s magic were faltering – the uncertainty infected the acolytes in the Chanter’s Hall in subtle ways, leaving their ceremonies ragged and substandard. The senior magisters formed an ad hoc ruling council, but without any rules for their
decision-making, without any clear responsibility, they would be unable to respond very effectively to a crisis.
&nbs
p; Before he had joined the Light Order, van Horstmann would have been surprised to learn a college of Altdorf was so ill-prepared to cope with the death of a Grand Magister. He would have assumed they had volumes of procedure and precedent to deal with just such an eventuality. But he had come to understand that the orders were too slow to move, too obsessive and introverted, to adopt such a sensible practice. There was not one man in the whole order, excepting perhaps Elrisse himself while he lived, who could administer such an organisation. They were scholars and philosophers. Some of them were warriors, and more than a few were wild-eyed madmen. None of them were men who, like Minister Huygens of the Imperial Court, cared only that everything around them ran smoothly.
Van Horstmann thought on this as he reached his quarters. Since the Battle of Drufenhaag he had been here rarely, more frequently attending the gatherings of senior magisters who attempted to steer the order through the mire of collegiate politics. Skaven agents had sewn disorder and disease both before and after the invasion from below, and the mages of Altdorf were battling – metaphorically this time – over how best to deal with this new threat. Even worse than the ratmen themselves was the fear of them and the paranoia that had seen supposed traitors lynched and strung up in the streets of Altdorf. It was not a good time to be in charge of anything, much less to have no one in charge at all.
The Skull of Katam lay on its side on van Horstmann’s writing desk. Van Horstmann took from beneath his robes a large book, bound apparently in soiled bandages and kept closed with a tied length of leather. He placed it on the desk beside the skull, untied it, and opened it on a random page. The page was badly stained and all but ruined by damp. Only the crudeness of the symbols scrawled there rendered them legible at all.
‘What do you know of this?’ asked van Horstmann.
The Skull of Katam rocked and set itself upright again. ‘Where did this come from?’
Van Horstmann examined the sacrificial knife he kept on a shelf beside a few of Magister Vek’s knick-knacks. Blood still crusted the place where the blade met the hilt. He had given up trying to clean it – the blood always remained. ‘From the dead claws of the skaven warlord at Drufenhaag,’ he said.
‘And what else did you take from it?’ asked the skull.
‘Just the book,’ said van Horstmann.
‘Liar,’ replied the skull. ‘It is a version of the Liber Pestilentius. Dictated to the monks of La Misercordias abbey. This is a severely debased version, in the tongue of the ratmen. I can scarcely read a word of it, but this much I can tell you.’
‘You have come across this book before?’
‘I have heard of it. There are not many such things I have not heard of. It is for this reason that you sought me out, is it not?’
Van Horstmann closed the book again. ‘What does it contain?’
‘Diseases,’ said the skull. ‘A thousand of them in the original, though no complete copy of it now exists to my knowledge. This version will no doubt have hundreds. Perhaps the ratmen added their own, I do not know. I doubt anyone can read it.’
‘Do they need to?’
‘There is magic in its words,’ said the skull. ‘Old and deadly magic. Plague magic, much coveted by the skaven. To understand the manner in which each plague kills, how it spreads? Then, you would have to read it. But as a focus for the working of such magic, no. It is enough to possess it.’
‘Good,’ said van Horstmann.
He walked to one of the huge bull-bodied statues that Vek had, for reasons best known to himself, had transported up to decorate his chambers. It must have been a daemon’s own job to get them in here. Van Horstmann had wondered from time to time just where they had come from, and why Vek had wanted such ugly things glowering down over him whenever he sat down to work on his alchemical formulae. Van Horstmann was glad, now, that he had.
Van Horstmann ran a hand along the flank of the statue, and whispered a many-syllabled word he had concocted for the purpose. Sigils glowed as the hand passed over them and the side of the statue ground open, hinging out and then sliding aside.
Inside was not the hollow interior of the statue, as might have been expected. Instead the opening led to another room, as large as the chamber’s main room. It would have to project into the adjoining room for its whole size to be contained within the pyramid, but that space was taken up with the chambers of another magister and a small reading room tucked within the unusual architecture of the pyramid. There was no room for this new chamber, which meant that it did not exist here at all, but somewhere else.
This new room was flooded with light, as was the rest of the pyramid. Panes of polished crystal hung on the walls, splitting the light into shafts of colour. Cushions of crimson and dark-blue fabric were piled on the floor to permit meditation, and several glass-fronted cases held implements of van Horstmann’s study of Dark magic.
Here he kept the horned skull, taken not from a bull or a ram but a human mutant executed in an Imperial backwater village. Three shelves of forbidden books were chained shut. A wand of twisted black wood and a tablet of ivory inscribed with images of human sacrifice took pride of place. If anyone were to find this room, which existed in its own pocket of space much like the Light Order’s pyramid itself, then van Horstmann’s pursuit of Dark magic would be revealed. That was why it had to be secret. That was why he had diverted much of his intellect to building it since ascending to the rank of comprehender, researching and modifying the space-folding rituals of the order to make a place that existed and yet did not.
Van Horstmann added the Liber Pestilentius to the bookshelf. The volume next to it, a transcription of possession victims’ rantings bound in the scaly skin of some dark-blue reptilian creature, growled darkly at the newcomer. Van Horstmann cast the book a stern glance and it quietened down.
‘They will find it,’ said the Skull of Katam. ‘They can hardly fail to do so. This path will lead you to ruin, van Horstmann.’
‘I know,’ said van Horstmann. ‘And if you continue to bother me with what I already know, I will seal you in here and leave you to stare at the walls, just as you did in the vaults.’ Van Horstmann left his sanctum and closed the statue again, the join rendered seamless by subtle magics. ‘The book,’ he said, ‘will make things easier. But nothing will be simple. It is time to move on, Katam. To take another step on the road you think leads to ruin.’
‘Then it is time once again to wake up Hiskernaath,’ said the skull.
‘Yes,’ said van Horstmann. ‘It is.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE HAND CERULEAN
On the fifteenth day of the ninth month, the stars converged such that the Bale Orb that hung hidden among the constellations shone down on the Old World. Power, visible only to the enlightened, poured down from that blinded eye and the Hand Cerulean gathered to bask in the light that only they could see.
They did this in a rotting bank of warehouses, damp and sagging, poised to topple into the sluggish water of the Reik. Here, in a half-abandoned wharf district, the river’s water backed up against a quay caked in filth and detritus washed from upriver. The only boats that docked here were those captained by men whose reputations were so dire in the legitimate ports of Altdorf that they could moor nowhere else. Most of the other visitors were the corpses dumped in the river by accident, murder or suicide, who could often be seen bobbing amongst the weeds and trash before some hidden current or predator dragged them from view. The corpses, and the Hand Cerulean.
Van Horstmann saw this sorry place for the first time as the sun went down. From across the rickety Pauper’s Bridge it seemed a precarious collection of buildings, only the mould on the walls keeping it from collapsing entirely.
‘Not much of a place for planning the apocalypse,’ he said.
Beside him stood the witch hunter, introduced to him as Lord Argenos. Alongside them were Heiden Kant, the magister who had recently made such promising strides in the arts of exorcism, and half a dozen grim-faced men armou
red like a ragtag militia. Van Horstmann could tell from their scars and their musculature that they were more than thugs – they were killers, and they killed in the employ of the Emperor’s witch hunters. Each carried a selection of butcher’s knives, wooden stakes and torches, along with whatever signature weapon they had learned to love. All their swords and cudgels had tally marks cut into the handles.
‘The enemy waxes great not in our sight,’ replied Argenos. ‘He is everywhere. It should surprise us not to find him in the unlikeliest of places.’
‘Can you tell us more about them?’ asked Kant. He had matured greatly ever since van Horstmann had last encountered him before the affair of Elrisse’s death, but even so he saw in the magister the pale youth who had shivered beneath the Imperial Palace at the exorcism of Princess Astrid. ‘The word was only that the Light Order must attend, and that the enemy calls themselves the Hand Cerulean. We had no time to look into them further.’
‘You would have found nothing,’ replied Argenos. ‘The Silver Hammer does not let just anyone peruse the intelligence it gathers. The Hand Cerulean are living proof of the corruptibility of the human condition. They seek enlightenment, which is the excuse so commonly used by the followers of the Dark Gods. In their case, they seek it by giving their souls to the daemon.’
‘You mean possession?’ asked Kant.
‘Indeed. That fate which all sane men abhor, these cultists crave. It is a sign of the greatest favour for them to be possessed by the daemon. What we have heard of them suggests that only those who have been so violated are permitted to recieve their mysteries. You see why the attendance of the Light Order, and of their expertise in exorcism, was much desired.’
‘More and more of them crop up in this city,’ mused van Horstmann as he watched the red sky darkening behind the ragged skyline of Altdorf. ‘Ever since we threw back the ratmen. Fear and madness have been sewn among its people, and cults like this are the result.’