by Ben Counter
Acolytes watched as Kardiggian threw back his hood and stood up to Alric. Though the acolytes had obeyed Alric as if he were a god, they had also heard of the battle magister and the way he could incinerate whole regiments of men from afar.
‘We are here for van Horstmann,’ said Kardiggian.
‘And you expect me to give him to you, Kardiggian?’
‘We will go through you to get to him, if you compel us to.’
‘And I ask again, who are these men?’
‘We are the Order of the Silver Hammer,’ said Lord Argenos, striding forwards with his hand on the hilt of his ensorcelled pistol. ‘Grand Magister van Horstmann is accused of foul and degenerate crimes, for which he will be tried. You can try to stop us, or you can stand aside, or you can join us. It matters not to me, for Sigmar’s will shall be done regardless. But it matters to you, because as Magister Kardiggian says, it troubles me not to lay waste to anyone who stands in my way.’
‘What has the Grand Magister done?’ demanded Alric.
‘Decide,’ said Argenos. ‘Stand before us or with us. What do you choose?’
‘Master Chanter!’ cried one of the acolytes. All eyes turned to follow the acolyte’s finger as he pointed towards the ceiling of the Chanter’s Hall.
Something scuttled there, between the tops of the pillars. It was something like a spider, but enormous and asymmetrical, shimmering as if only half-real.
From near the Master Chanter’s dais lumbered another intruder, this one a bent and shambling shape, taller than a man even though its head hung low between its shoulders. It had a sagging belly and a single eye, and behind it shambled many more. Alongside them was a greater horror still, a mass of writhing worms belching out a trail of slime that hissed as it dissolved a furrow in the marble behind it.
The smell hit the acolytes and the men of the Silver Hammer. It was beyond foul, something that defied description, a stench beyond the worst of the charnel pits or the dankest of Altdorf’s sewers. Acolytes retched and fell to their knees. Several of the House Salzenhaar soldiers tore their helmets off so their visors would not hinder them from vomiting up their disgust on the floor of the Chanter’s Hall. Others pulled off a gauntlet to wipe their eyes, which were suddenly streaming.
‘Daemons,’ growled Witch Hunter Argenos. He drew his hammer with one hand and his pistol with the other, and the weapon’s harnessed magic glowed bright as if hungry for the fight. ‘This is what he has done, Master Chanter! He had communed with daemons and brought them forth! He has opened the doors of this very place to their foulness! And to the heart of your order, he has brought war!’
Between the plaguebearers swarmed tinier versions of the daemons, scurrying, pudgy things, little more than mobile bags of filth with wide grins full of needle teeth and glowing yellow eyes. Clouds of flies burst from bulging cysts in the plaguebearers’ sagging bellies and rose up, so dense they cast the first shadows the Chanter’s Hall had ever seen.
The first plaguebearer bellowed, a sound halfway between a roar and a thunderous belch. It raised a weapon shaped more like an enormous rusting butcher’s knife than a sword. It was a signal for the charge, and the mass of daemons loped forwards to kill.
‘Form up!’ yelled Mikhael Salzenhaar, his throat raw and his eyes and nose streaming. ‘Form up! Hold! Hold!’
The daemons charged across the Chanter’s Hall and slammed into the men of House Salzenhaar. The men had been thrown into disarray by the appearance of the daemons and in those first few seconds men died, hacked down by the swinging blades of the plaguebearers. Mikhael leaped into the front row, thrusting with his thin, basket-hilted blade with the family crest on the pommel, turning aside a sword that scythed down at him with all the strength he had.
‘To me, acolytes!’ cried Alric. He brought up his hands in a rapid sequence of gestures, conjuring a circle on the ground from which sprung a wall of rippling white flame. Acolytes dived into it as the worm-daemon slithered towards them and the spider-daemon scuttled down and leaped into their midst.
‘You!’ yelled Alric as he saw the spider-daemon up close. ‘I know you! You were at the Imperial Palace! You took Princess Astrid!’
‘Took her I did,’ hissed the spider. It looked less and less like a spider the closer it got, and more and more like nothing that should ever be permitted to exist in the mortal world. Eyeballs rolled in the central mass of its body and every moment a new clawed limb unfolded from beneath it. ‘I taught her what pleasure there is in pain.’
Magister Kardiggian rose over the battlefield on wings of gold and silver light. He aimed an outstretched hand towards the daemons butchering Mikhael’s men and three bolts of white fire punched into the daemons, incinerating two down to their misshapen skeletons. The third bolt blew the arm off another – Mikhael darted forwards and thrust his blade through the wounded daemon’s eye. The creature howled, a noise cut short as its body discorporated and its flesh fell away.
The worm-daemon slithered towards Witch Hunter Argenos. Argenos took aim and fired, the pistol barking out a shot as bright as a falling star. It speared right through the daemon, scattering charred worms as it left a black smoking hole right through it.
The daemon reared up, revealing the mouthparts on its underside. It seemed to grow as it unfolded. Limbs uncoiled and claws bit into the marble underfoot. Its shape shifted with every half-second – what had been a pulsing mound of worms was now a bipedal creature with a muscular body, a low-held head like that of an insect or a crab, and from each shoulder a fan of bladed limbs. The worms whipped and coiled on its back and the daemon screeched, the whole Chanter’s Hall shuddering with the sound.
‘Morkulae,’ said Argenos. ‘Herald of rot. Cup-bearer of the Plaguelord. I have read of you. I hoped I would kill you one day. Thus does Sigmar reward His servant.’
Morkulae, its transformation complete, screeched again and darted forwards, unnaturally light on its feet. Argenos ducked and slammed his hammer into one of Morkulae’s arms, splintering the chitin that encased it and sending shreds of torn muscle spattering to the floor.
‘Battle is joined!’ cried Argenos, as more bolts of light sliced down from Kardiggian overhead and Magister Kant was surrounded by a halo of silver flame. ‘Give thanks! Cry joy! Battle with the daemon is joined!’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE KEY OF ISHA
One day, the elves of Ulthuan knew, there would rise an enemy who could not be killed. They knew this even before the Sundering, when the elven nation split in two through treachery and the meddling of its aristocrats in Dark magic. Their sages foresaw a foe who could not be slain by blade or bow or spell, only incarcerated. So they prepared a means to create a prison that would serve to house this enemy.
The tears of the goddess Isha were collected where they had fallen and crystallised into flawless gemstones the colour of the sky. The early scholars of High magic took them to the workshop of Vaul, the smith god of the elven pantheon, and it was said that the god himself cut the shape from those infinitely precious stones. He carved from them a single key, inlaid with gold melted down from glittering dragons’ scales and hung from a chain of silver links.
For an age, the enemy did not appear. The Key of Isha remained in the temple of the goddess on the island nation of Ulthuan, guarded by the goddess’s templars. But in the turmoil of the Sundering, when the temple and much of Ulthuan was ravaged by civil war and plundered, the Key of Isha was lost. The high elves, as was their wont, thought the dwarfs were responsible.
Whoever was responsible, the Key of Isha vanished and reappeared centuries later in the hoard of the dragon Ashenspine, slain by an expedition of dwarfs and men into the peaks of Norsca. It was handed down as an heirloom among the early nobles of Sigmar, until once again it was lost – or stolen, or bargained away – and disappeared.
During the Great War against Chaos, when Magnus led the Empire’s armies against the Dark-worshipping hordes marching down from the north, the Key was found
hanging around the neck of a Chaos champion slain by the Warrior Priest Lothar Sunderhelm. He gave it to the Colleges of Magic, who, uncertain of its purpose and origin, placed it in the most secure place they had – the Pinnacle Vault of the Pyramid of Light.
Van Horstmann did know what it was for. He had been told during his communions with Tzeentch, in return for which he had sacrificed several artefacts looted from the outer vaults of the Order of Light. It had been surprising that the Fourth Circle had taken so long to notice any of the artefacts were missing or despoiled. They treated the artefacts in the vaults with such deference that to open a book or examine a magic chalice was an operation on a par with a major religious observance. Had they been more thorough, Pendorf and his fellow magisters would have found several other books gutted and replaced with offcuts from the Buchbinder District’s workshops, enchanted blades replaced with mundane, if finely-wrought, replicas and other artefacts simply missing. The originals had been consumed as offerings to Tzeentch, just like the Codex Aethyrica, and van Horstmann had been furnished with the knowledge that had led him here.
He took the Key of Isha from its velvet cushion. In spite of its long history, it was still flawless and gleamed like a shard of lightning in his hand, reflecting in its hundreds of facets the light that made up the walls of the Pinnacle Vault.
Van Horstmann now took from a pocket of his Grand Magister’s robes a pane of crystal, similar to those he had mounted on the walls of his sanctum but much smaller. It reflected a view of the sanctum, with its own crystal panes blank.
He could hear the ripples of magic shuddering down from above, where the battle was being fought. Van Horstmann could trust Morkulae to put up a decent fight, and Hiskernaath to sow confusion among whatever ranks his opponents had brought to capture him. There would be no doubt now that van Horstmann had practiced the arts of daemonology. The Order of the Silver Hammer would be certain they had their man.
Witch Hunter Argenos wrenched his hammer from the body of the plaguebearer, wiping his gauntlets across his face to get the worst of its foetid blood out of his eyes.
The Chanter’s Hall was awash with the blood of daemons and of men. Mikhael Salzenhaar still stood, but he was wounded. He had a deep cut in one thigh and Argenos knew that it would be infected by the fatal diseases that dribbled from Nurgle’s cauldron. The nobleman would die. Many of his men, and many of the Light Order’s acolytes, already had.
The plaguebearers were gone, destroyed or driven away by the cascades of light that spilled from the hands of Magister Kardiggian. One such barrage had immolated Morkulae, which Argenos had finished off with a swing of his hammer. Kardiggian drifted back down to the floor beside Argenos.
‘We are free of them for the time being,’ said the battle magister. ‘We must press on.’
‘Where is van Horstmann quartered?’ asked Magister Kant. Kant had fought too, and well. He leaned on his staff as he walked up to Argenos. He had surrounded himself with a halo of flame that had driven off the disgusting little daemons swarming around him, but it had taken a grave toll.
‘In Magister Vek’s old chambers, above us,’ said Kardiggian.
Argenos was in the process of reloading his pistol as he spoke. ‘I would be surprised if he is there,’ he said. ‘At the first sign of our ingress he would seek to hide. Perhaps there is somewhere in this pyramid he has prepared in case his perfidy was discovered. A bolthole or a way out.’
‘Unlikely,’ said Kant, wiping the sweat from his eyes with a sleeve. ‘The whole pyramid is held in a fold of space. A significant alteration to it would have been felt here, in the rituals to keep it hidden.’
‘The cunning of the daemon-led is infinite,’ replied Argenos. ‘We must be swift and hunt him down before he is…’ Argenos’s words trailed off as he looked up to the ceiling, following a movement he had caught in the corner of his eye.
Before any of the battle’s survivors had picked out what he had seen among the columns, Argenos had taken aim with his pistol and fired. The flailing shape of the daemon Hiskernaath hit the floor before the chanter’s dais with a wet thump.
‘There is no hiding from the eyes of the righteous!’ shouted Argenos as he advanced on the stricken daemon. His bullet had ripped through its body and thick purple-black blood was oozing from it. The smell of it was awful enough to be distinct among the appalling stench left behind by the plague daemons.
Hiskernaath tried to flip over onto its front, but darts of light spat from Kardiggian’s fingers and impaled it through the limbs, pinning it to the floor. Argenos took from the inside of his cloak a small vial of clear liquid – holy water – with a blessed silver icon of the twin-tailed comet immersed in it.
‘Where is Egrimm van Horstmann?’ demanded Argenos of the daemon.
‘Ask your sister,’ spat the daemon.
Argenos removed the stopper of the vial and poured a few drops onto the daemon. Hiskernaath screamed, flinging gobbets of gore and drool as it convulsed.
‘I lack time and patience. Where is Egrimm van Horstmann?’
‘You will beg like Astrid did,’ hissed Hiskernaath. ‘When I have taken you over you will watch everything I make you do… I will find everyone you love and with your own hands I will…’
Argenos poured a trickle of the holy water onto the open, smoking wound he had blasted into the daemon’s body. Hiskernaath screamed again, and chitin cracked as it thrashed against the magical darts that transfixed it.
‘When this is used up,’ said Argenos, ‘I can always bless more.’
‘The Pinnacle Vault!’ gasped Hiskernaath. ‘I hope your life pours out through your bowels! That infested become your nethers! He has gone to the Pinnacle Vault to seek the Mantle of Thoss!’
‘Sigmar on high,’ said Kardiggian. ‘He’s going for the Mantle.’
‘You have it here?’ demanded Argenos.
‘We have,’ said Kardiggian. ‘None save for the senior magisters know of it. He could start a religious war with it. He must have learned it was here when he became Grand Magister.’
‘And lost no time in getting his hands on it,’ said Kant.
‘There we must go,’ said Argenos. ‘And also to his chambers. There may be the means by which these daemons infiltrated the pyramid. It must be sealed.’
‘I will go,’ said Kant.
‘Not on your own,’ said Argenos. ‘You are all but spent, Magister Kant.’
‘Then I will, too,’ said Master Chanter Alric. Alric was kneeling beside one of his wounded acolytes, trying to stem the blood pouring from a deep tear in the youth’s abdomen. ‘I know the magic that keeps the pyramid hidden. If van Horstmann has altered its form, I am best placed to discover it.’
‘Then take Magister Kant to Vek’s chambers, and be quick,’ said Argenos. ‘Kardiggian, can you get to the Pinnacle Vault?’
‘If the Fourth Circle magisters are still alive, and if they know there is a crisis, then yes,’ said Kardiggian.
‘Then you and Master Salzenhaar are with me,’ said Argenos. ‘We will confront the heretic before he can steal the Mantle and be gone.’
‘What do we do about that?’ asked Alric, pointing towards the stricken Hiskernaath.
‘Something quick,’ replied Argenos.
Kardiggian aimed his staff at the daemon. A spear of fire leapt from it, bathing the daemon in flame. It shrivelled up, its limbs curling around it like those of a dead spider, and its last scream was a pathetic withered sound that ended in the crackling of its burning flesh.
‘Sigmar be with you, magisters,’ said Argenos as he followed Kardiggian towards the entrance to the outer vaults.
‘And with you, witch hunter,’ said Alric, as he hurried past the bodies towards the stairs that lead up to van Horstmann’s chambers.
Their feet left prints in the swathes of blood starting to congeal on the floor of the Chanter’s Hall.
Kant and Alric approached their destination first. Magisters were everywhere, demanding answers a
nd swapping rumours about the stench and sounds of battle reaching them from the floors below. Kant drew looks for his exhaustion and the smoke that still coiled off him – Alric drew looks for the blood soaking the hem of his robes.
The two of them reached Magister Vek’s old chambers. Alric tried the door , which was bolted, as he had expected. Alric put his hands against the door and shuddered as heat flooded out of them, white flame licking around the door. The bolt came away as the wood charred and crumbled, and the door swung open.
‘Stay alert,’ said Alric to Kant. ‘He could have prepared this place for us. Left a trap, perhaps.’
‘Let us hope,’ said Kant, ‘he is in too great a hurry.’
The chamber was largely as Vek had kept it. The two statues, with their bull-like bodies and muscular human foreparts, were still there, along with Vek’s alchemy desk and the shelves full of items he had collected from the magical traditions of a dozen different cultures.
‘I can smell sulphur,’ said Kant. ‘Crushed mandrake. No trappings of Light magic.’
Alric moved warily through the chamber, stepping carefully. ‘There,’ he said, pointing towards the various alchemical devices and implements on the table. ‘Vek’s puzzle box.’ The small wooden box indeed stood on the table.
‘I thought it was lost?’ said Kant.
‘Van Horstmann found it,’ said Alric.
‘Van Horstmann was able to join the order partly because we had just lost Vek,’ said Kant. ‘Did van Horstmann kill him, and take the box?’
Alric ran his hands over the walls, kneeling down and laying them against the floor. ‘The space here is altered,’ he said. ‘Folded again. There is more in these chambers than can be seen at first glance.’ Alric touched the side of one of the huge statues and held them there, as if some hidden knowledge were being transmitted through his palms.
‘Here,’ he said.
‘Take care, Master Chanter,’ said Kant.
Alric breathed a few syllables of a spell and the statue shuddered, dust spilling from its ancient stone. The side of the taurian flank split apart and swung open, revealing a space beyond it.