Van Horstmann

by Ben Counter

  Hiskernaath was there, not exactly a leader among them but perhaps an ambassador to van Horstmann, a spokesman for his kind. Others, more powerful, were less inclined to engage in diplomacy with their captor. Morkulae, Cup-Bearer of Nurgle, never spoke save to curse. The plaguebearer who accompanied it was probably incapable of speaking at all, just staring out with its single filmy yellow eye. A thing like a serpent of bone, another like a mountain of seething vermin, humanoid foot soldiers and endlessly changing creatures of glowing flesh, all were gathered there to see what van Horstmann would command of them next.

  They had done much for him already. They had spread the plague, those that were creatures of the Plague God Nurgle. Others had possessed the corpses of the Salzenhaar family, and been thrown back into their prison when those corpses had been shattered by van Horstmann’s magic. It had been a painful experience for them, and they barked and slavered with anger.

  Van Horstmann had brought with him into his magical sanctum a brazier, normally used for burning ingredients for alchemical experiments, and an iron brand. He did not speak as he heated the brand until its tip glowed a dull orange in the coals. Sitting cross-legged, he brought the tip to a point on his chest were his signature was inked at the end of one of the contracts.

  The sizzle of flesh was pleasing to the daemons, who for all their anger at being imprisoned still took delight in violence done to mortal bodies. Van Horstmann did not cry out, but his eyes were screwed up, his jaw clenched, and he shivered and sweated as the brand scorched his skin. The smell of burned meat filled the small room.

  Van Horstmann took the brand away, gasping out the breath he had been holding. Where his signature had been was now a bubbling red scar on his chest.

  He placed the brand against his skin again, this time to his abdomen. He growled out the pain and flesh sizzled.

  Next, his shoulder blade, using his reflection in one of the panes of crystal to guide his hand.

  One by one, he erased his signature from the contracts on his skin, until there was just one left – in the centre of his torso, just below his sternum.

  ‘You will be free,’ he said. His voice was hoarse and sweat ran down his face. ‘The contracts that bind you to me are void. Your allegiance lies with your gods, and with me no more.’

  ‘Then open the box,’ said Hiskernaath. ‘Let us run free.’

  ‘I will,’ said van Horstmann. ‘But there is one contract still in force.’ he pointed to the passage written in the centre of his chest. ‘A condition of your freedom. A single task to be completed before you have the run of this world.’

  Hiskernaath spat and slavered. ‘Then this is no freedom at all! What is your plan, van Horstmann? To set us a task that can never end? A task that, were it ever completed, would lead to our destruction? Others have tried such ploys before and the will of the gods always puts paid to their little games in the end.’

  ‘Not this task,’ said van Horstmann. ‘This one, I think you will like.’

  Van Horstmann stood and, taking a length of cloth he had brought with him, wiped away the worst of the blood from his burns. He opened the doorway to the sanctum and walked into his chambers in the Pyramid of Light, leaving the daemons behind to contemplate the final task he had set them.

  ‘You are insane,’ said the Skull of Katam from its place on Vek’s alchemy table. ‘You do know that, van Horstmann.’

  ‘There was a man once named Katam,’ replied van Horstmann as he went into the bedchamber and opened one of the trunks there, ‘who thought he knew everything. He can surely appreciate the power that revenge has. Mere sanity is nothing compared to revenge. Men have built empires for it, and ended them. Men have killed, died and come back from the dead for it.’

  ‘This is more than revenge,’ said the skull. ‘I don’t think there is a word for what this is. Can you honestly say that all you have done is just to get at the one you hate?’

  ‘You sound awfully concerned for me, Katam,’ said van Horstmann. ‘I didn’t know you have such kindness in you.’

  ‘I care only that I don’t spend another century in the vault!’ snapped the skull. ‘Which is exactly what will happen when you are ended by whichever magister gets the killing spell on you. And you know full well, comprehender, that they will be falling over themselves to say they cast it.’

  ‘You will not be cast into the vault again, Katam.’

  ‘You are insane.’

  ‘So are you.’

  Van Horstmann had the feeling that if the skull could smile wryly, it would have done. ‘I was insane,’ it said. ‘I have had a lot of time to reflect.’

  Van Horstmann did not reply to that. Instead, from the trunk he took a robe he had not worn before – it was Magister Vek’s full dress robe, so lavish there was more gold than ivory. It weighed easily twice as much as the magister’s robe he normally wore. It had been packed with bundles of fragrant spices to keep it from going musty and had been made, perhaps decades ago, by one of Altdorf’s finest outfitters. It was a garment fit for the occasion.

  Van Horstmann pulled on the robe. He checked to see if the blood from his burns would seep through, but the fabric was dense enough to hide any sign of the injuries. He picked up his staff, and glanced for a moment into its diamond eye.

  ‘Come,’ he said, and picked up the skull. He had previously fixed a loop to the back of the skull so he could hang it from a belt and he did so now, so the skull dangled from his waist as he walked out of the chambers of Magister Vek.

  It would be for the last time he left these chambers. He would not miss them.

  The corridor outside was lined with acolytes, and they cast their eyes down in deference to him as he passed. The floor ahead of him was scattered with leaves and petals. Banners bearing the heraldry of great magisters of the past had been hung up on the walls, their rich colours brought out by the relentless light that poured down through the pyramid.

  Van Horstmann had requested that this occasion be held in the pyramid’s library. It had been the place where he had spent the most time, and it was the most closely associated with his position of comprehender and his reputation for eking out the secrets of the order’s long-dead geniuses. When he reached the doors to the library, a pair of wardens of the Half-Circle, their armour polished mirror-bright, held them open for him.

  The senior magisters of the order applauded as he entered. He saw among them Kardiggian, the battle magister, Vranas and Arcinhal, and Master Chanter Alric. Towards the back hovered Magister Pendorf, again given leave to cease haunting the vaults for an hour.

  In the centre stood the Emperor Eckhardt III, flanked by the pair of palace guards who went everywhere with him. The Emperor wore the Imperial robes of state, rich and purple, that van Horstmann had last seen at Eckhardt’s investiture. He wore the Stirland Runefang and the Silver Seal, marks of his rank as elector count and honorary commander of the Reiksguard respectively. As ever there was little emotion to read on his wide, rough face, but perhaps there was some approval to be found there.

  ‘Magisters. Wizards all, it is a glorious occasion that we here observe.’ It was Vranas who spoke, the natural master of ceremonies. Van Horstmann recalled him exhausted, propping up the almost insensible Arcinhal at the Garden of Morr. He looked as grand as possible now, like everyone else in his finest robes and carrying the many golden implements of magic with which a Light wizard liked to adorn himself. ‘Let our sorrow at the passing of Elrisse turn to joy that we now heal the wound his loss left in our order. That we have found among us one with the wisdom and prowess to take upon his shoulders the responsibility for the College of Light. That we are gathered to acknowledge a new Grand Magister.’

  Vranas extended a hand towards van Horstmann, indicating the new Grand Magister. The magisters applauded, and even the Emperor clapped along. Someone patted van Horstmann on the back as he walked up to Vranas and shook his hand, and then found himself doing the same with the Emperor.

  ‘It is good that
the order has done what it must,’ said the Emperor. ‘The Colleges of Magic will all be the stronger for this. It benefits us all.’

  ‘I agree, your majesty,’ said van Horstmann. ‘In these times above all others, we must be strong.’

  The applause was dying down, replaced with expectancy. Van Horstmann turned to the assembled wizards. These were the men who, if they knew what he really was, what he had done and what he was going to do, would kill him. Not arrest and imprison him, not challenge him to a duel. They would kill him.

  He smiled, and bowed in deference to their applause. ‘Brothers of the Order of Light,’ he said. ‘I need not say how honoured I am to be taking on this role. But there is more to this occasion than honour. The gravity of the situation in which Altdorf finds itself, and with which our order must deal, has curtailed the traditional ceremony and procedure of the selection of a new Grand Magister. So it is that I will be brief, too.

  ‘Altdorf needs us now. Above all others, it is the wizards of the Light that will guide her through these long nights and sorrowful days. We are beset on all sides by the deadliest of threats. The plague rages, the beastmen lurk, the witches and heretics plot to take advantage of the chaos. It is my hope that by serving as your figurehead and guide, I can lead us with decisiveness to do what must be done. We must assume a position of leadership among the other colleges. I will bring us there. Not because I want to, or because it is the stepping stone to something greater, but because I have a duty to the people of the Empire and the orders of magic and it is as Grand Magister that I can best discharge it. My thanks, brother wizards. Let this be the beginning of a new age of the Light.’

  More hands shook van Horstmann’s. Voices were raised in oaths of praise. Van Horstmann was officially invested with the authority that had belonged to Elrisse before him, which only a handful of men had borne since Teclis and Magnus had decreed the establishment of the eight colleges.

  ‘A fine speech,’ said the Emperor. ‘Strength in dire times. Most appropriate.’

  ‘And on that subject, your majesty, I would speak with you,’ said van Horstmann. ‘In private, if possible.’

  ‘Taking to your duties right away, then?’

  ‘There is no time, as I have heard it said, like the present.’

  The Emperor indicated that his guards were to follow him and van Horstmann, and the two of them left the library. Van Horstmann led them to a small reading room, its ceiling painted with a star map of the summer sky over the Empire. The guards stood at the door, their halberds crossed to indicate that Emperor Eckhardt III was not to be interrupted.

  ‘I have received an envoy of House Salzenhaar,’ said the Emperor, pulling up a chair. ‘My ministers suggest hanging every last son of them, lest the people riot for lack of justice. I have friends among that family and I gave assurances that if the plague was to be curtailed, there would still be a House Salzenhaar. Could that happen?’

  ‘I can only speculate how the Liber Pestilentius came into their possession,’ said van Horstmann. ‘Perhaps its owner merely used their tomb as a lair, although he could scarcely have chosen a less ostentatious place to hide. But you raise the exact point I intend to address head on. The end of the plague.’

  ‘It can be done?’

  ‘I believe that it can.’ Van Horstmann sat down opposite the Emperor, the reading table between them. ‘As Grand Magister I have the authority to access our most precious relics. They are held in a place I should not speak of, a place that few know exists, that I should not name, even to your Imperial Majesty. There have been Emperors since Magnus who have not been informed that the vault is there, but it does exist, and there are held the artefacts of the Light Order that not only must be protected, but from which Altdorf must be protected.’

  Eckhardt III absorbed this, nodding slowly. ‘I see. And there is something in this vault, this secret hidden vault that I am privileged to have heard of, which can cure the plague? If that is so then I can save my city and can forgo the destruction of House Salzenhaar.’

  ‘There are other issues,’ said van Horstmann. ‘Its use could create complications for your reign. That is why I would speak to you on the matter before opening this vault.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘The artefact in question is the Mantle of Thoss.’

  Eckhardt III was not a man given to wearing his emotions on his face, but he could not hide his alarm. ‘It exists?’ he said. Leaning forwards on the table.

  ‘It does,’ replied van Horstmann levelly. ‘And we have it.’

  ‘Gods above,’ hissed Eckhardt III. ‘When you said it would create complications, you did not speak in jest. Your kind exist in isolation, Grand Magister. Do you truly understand what the Mantle of Thoss could do to this city? To the whole Empire?’

  ‘I am not so ignorant, your majesty. Grand Theogonist Thoss is the most divisive figure in the Empire’s history since the Great War. Even before him, there are few who could claim to split opinion so fervently. I am well aware of what Thoss did and the scale of emotions that still flare up whenever his name is mentioned. But the Mantle of Thoss is the only answer if Altdorf is to be spared the Gods’ Rot.’

  The Emperor shook his head, as if reliving a bad memory. ‘Thoss waged open war against the old faiths. All priests save those of Sigmar were clubbed to death in the streets. There were execution pyres all along the road from here to Talabheim. There are adherents to those faiths who treat his crusade as if it were within living memory, as if the man did them a personal injury. And there are Sigmarites who secretly wish there would come another just like him. If the Mantle of Thoss was to be used, if it became known that the Imperial Court permitted the use of such a relic… it could be civil war, Grand Magister. Worse, a religious war. Brother against brother, father against son, and fought under my reign.’

  ‘The alternative, your majesty, is to see Altdorf made a ghost town under your reign.’

  ‘Can you even be certain it will work?’

  Van Horstmann nodded. ‘Thoss himself swore it on his deathbed. It was the Grand Theogonist’s final miracle. Take his Mantle, cast it into the Reik upstream of the river, and the waters will cure any malady. Whatever else might be thought of Thoss, when he promised a miracle it came to pass, and his final miracle was sworn on the altar in the Temple of Sigmar itself. I am as certain as a man can be of anything. The Mantle of Thoss will cure Altdorf.’

  The Emperor seemed to study the surface of the table for a while. ‘Can you do it in secret?’ he said.

  ‘Every day there is a new cure announced on the streets,’ replied van Horstmann. ‘It will be no great task to make a draught of the Reik’s waters another one of them. When it works, everyone in the city will be drinking it. Not one mention need be made of Grand Theogonist Thoss at all. Thus far, you and I are the only ones who know the Mantle would be involved at all. If needs be, one of us could throw the Mantle into the river. Aside from a magister of the Fourth Circle, who administer the vaults and are most adept at keeping secrets, no one need ever know.’

  ‘Do it,’ said the Emperor. ‘But on your head fall the consequences if word gets out. That is the price of power.’

  ‘It is a price I know well,’ said van Horstmann. ‘And I will pay it, if I fail.’

  The Emperor stood. The guards at the door lowered their halberds. ‘Congratulations, Grand Magister van Horstmann,’ he said, and left the chamber with his guards in tow.

  Van Horstmann waited in the chamber for a moment, thinking. The sequence of events that would follow had its complexities, its vulnerabilities even, but van Horstmann had gone through every permutation and filed them and their solutions way in the labyrinthine library of his mind. It was a lot to think of at once. He had meditated on it for hours, and still he found himself checking and rechecking every eventuality.

  No. It was perfect. He had thought of everything.

  Outside the reading room, waiting for him, was Master Chanter Alric. Van Horstmann was used to se
eing Alric in a position of authority, for much of the time he had spent in the presence of the man had been when van Horstmann was an acolyte and Alric had been the lord of his domain. Now Alric looked like a subject, his eyes looking down and only for a moment flickering up to meet van Horstmann’s.

  ‘Grand Magister, I must speak with you,’ he said.

  ‘Of course, Master Chanter,’ replied van Horstmann. ‘Though I have yet to adjust to answering to that title.’

  ‘I spoke with Elrisse on this matter before you,’ said Alric. ‘It is… sensitive. I am reluctant to speak of it to anyone at all, but… well, the Grand Magister must know these things. It is personal, and perhaps not worth your time, but it is a duty of every magister to speak up on any matter that might compromise his duty to the order.’

  ‘This manner does not become you, Alric,’ said van Horstmann. ‘The man I see here is not the same one I feared and obeyed as an acolyte. Speak, Master Chanter, and do not fear it.’

  Alric nodded. ‘I shall keep it short. I have a wife.’

  ‘I see,’ said van Horstmann.

  It was not unknown at all for wizards to have families outside their order. There was no prohibition against it, not in Teclis’s decrees and not in the present. In some Orders of magic, however, it was more common than others, and the Order of Light was not among them. The isolation it forced on its acolytes, who were not permitted to leave the pyramid save with the word of the Master Chanter, meant they rarely formed outside bonds. Wives and children were rarer still. But, again, not unknown.

  ‘There is no law against it,’ continued van Horstmann. ‘But it is good that you told me. The Grand Magister must know these things. Does she live here in Altdorf?’