The Empire Omnibus

by Chris Wraight, Nick Kyme, Darius Hinks

  He shouldered his way towards a narrow, anonymous-looking door, tucked away beside a rundown theatre. He tapped firmly with the knocker and after a few minutes a shutter snapped to one side and a pair of suspicious eyes glared out at them. ‘Ah, Captain Wolff,’ came a voice. ‘Back so soon?’ There was a click clack of locks being turned and the door opened inwards onto a surprisingly plush interior. Candles lined the walls of a wood-panelled hallway and a liveried butler bowed graciously at them, waving for them to enter.

  ‘Thank you, Vogel,’ said Jonas, handing the man his hat and cape as he entered.

  The butler was a flame-haired youth, whose pale, freckled face split into a grin at the sight of Jonas. ‘Always a pleasure, captain,’ he replied. After hanging the hat and cloak in a side room, he leant close to Jonas and whispered conspiratorially in his ear.

  Jonas laughed and clapped him on the back. ‘Ah, yes – I thought as much. I’m not afraid of a few half-soaked Tileans though, Vogel,’ he said. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, nodding at Fabian, ‘I have some muscle with me tonight.’

  The butler laughed and waved them down the hall.

  At the far end was another door, much grander than the first. It was a broad, venerable thing, made of polished oak and elaborate brass hinges. There was a large letter R engraved in the central panel, framed within a cartouche of writhing serpents. Jonas gave Fabian a sly wink and shoved the door open to reveal a wide, carpeted drawing room, lined with tapestries and curtained booths. Deep, high-backed chairs were scattered around the room and several distinguished-looking gentlemen were sat reading books or talking. There was a haze of pipe smoke that made it hard to discern the club’s patrons very clearly, but as Fabian caught glimpses of their exotic clothes and heard snatches of their foreign accents, he deduced that many of them were not from the Empire. The place throbbed with an undercurrent of danger and he looked nervously at his uncle, but Jonas placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder and grinned. ‘Welcome to the Recalcitrant Club,’ he said proudly.

  ‘Jonas,’ said an unfeasibly obese gentleman, as he waddled slowly towards them. He wore his dark hair slicked back from his jowly face in a greasy bob, and his small, porcine eyes nestled behind a pair of round, wire-rimmed glasses. Blue robes billowed around him as he embraced Jonas and placed a kiss on his cheek. He studied the noble’s slender physique. ‘The years have been kind to you,’ he said, in a creamy, effeminate voice. ‘I doubted I would ever see your dear face again. What a delightful surprise.’

  Jonas smiled and squeezed the man’s shoulder. ‘I only saw you this morning, Puchelperger,’ he replied, ‘so I’d hope I’ve not worn too badly.’ He looked down at the man’s vast, trembling paunch. ‘I see times haven’t been too hard for you, either.’

  Puchelperger raised his eyebrows. ‘I endeavoured to keep myself hale and hearty in the hope of your eventual return.’ He gestured to an empty booth. ‘Let me buy you a drink and you can introduce me to your new friend.’

  They settled back into plush, leather couches and a waiter discretely deposited three tall glasses on their table.

  ‘This is my cousin’s son, Fabian,’ said Jonas, smiling paternally, and patting the boy on the shoulder. ‘It’s his first time in Altdorf.’

  ‘Ah, an innocent,’ said Puchelperger with a glint in his beady, black eyes. ‘Well, my boy, you couldn’t have wished for a better guide.’ He gestured to the tall glass in front of Fabian. ‘Please, I insist,’ he said.

  Fabian’s thoughts were already a little muddled from his previous drink and he looked at his uncle with a worried expression.

  Jonas laughed. ‘It won’t harm you, boy,’ he said, taking a swig from his own glass. ‘I’m not sure how they do things in the country, but I think you’re old enough to sample a few of life’s more cosmopolitan pleasures.’

  Afraid of appearing a fool in front of his urbane new friends, Fabian emptied the entire glass in one swallow. He felt a sudden rush of euphoria followed by an equally sudden rush of gas. He grinned at his uncle, as an explosive belch ripped through his throat.

  The two men burst into raucous laughter.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ cried Puchelperger, clapping his chubby hands, and causing the table to rock as his belly jiggled up and down. ‘He’s a Wolff alright!’ He leant as far forward as his stomach would allow. ‘Tell me though, boy – what brings you to this noble city?’

  The smile dropped from Fabian’s face. ‘My brother,’ he muttered. ‘He’s some kind of wonderful student. The priests wanted to interview him at the Cathedral of Sigmar.’

  Jonas noted Fabian’s sullen tone with interest. ‘And you? Have you studied the holy texts?’

  Fabian gave a harsh laugh. ‘No, uncle, to be honest, I find all that stuff as dull as ditchwater.’ The rush of euphoria was still growing in his head and he felt his shyness slipping away. He raised his eyebrows disdainfully and his voice rang with a new-found confidence. ‘I find it a facile ideology at best. I’ve read many of the older, epic poems and they seem to me far more interesting.’

  Jonas and Puchelperger both fell silent at these words and Jonas continued to study Fabian intently.

  ‘Interesting,’ said Puchelperger, giving Jonas a knowing look as he emptied his own glass. ‘Well, I’m sure you won’t find it dull spending an evening in the company of your uncle.’

  Jonas smiled. ‘I have a few interesting diversions in mind.’

  ‘Jonas Wolff,’ barked a harsh voice and Fabian turned to see a leathery, olive-skinned rake, wearing a colourful gypsy bandana and scowling at Jonas with evident rage. ‘I was hoping to see you in here,’ he said in a strange, lilting accent. The man was slender, but with the taut, sinewy physique of a dancer or an acrobat, and as he leant over the table, Fabian noticed he was clutching a long, needle-thin knife. A group of similarly flamboyant men were stood behind him, all holding knives of their own.

  ‘Calderino,’ replied Jonas, with an amiable smile. ‘What charmingly rustic manners you have. And it’s always such a delight to hear your interpretation of our language.’

  The man’s teeth flashed, bright white against his tanned skin as he snarled his reply. ‘We had a deal, Jonas. I secured the books for you.’ He grabbed Jonas by his tall collar and pulled him across the table. ‘Where’s my money?’

  Jonas slapped the man’s face with such force that he loosed his grip and stepped back, holding his hand to his cheek in shock. ‘Not in the club, Calderino,’ Jonas hissed, gesturing to the red-haired butler, Vogel, who was watching them from the doorway with an anxious expression on his face.

  Calderino looked around to notice that the room had fallen silent and all the other club members were watching him over their papers, scowling with disapproval. He took a deep breath and removed his hand from his face. ‘Well, whatever happens Wolff, I will have my payment,’ he whispered, levelling his slender knife at Jonas. Then, with a flamboyant flourish of his short, silk cape he stormed out of the room, leaving his friends to hastily finish their drinks and rush after him.

  Jonas smiled apologetically at the butler and settled back in his seat. ‘The books were all forgeries,’ he explained to Puchelperger, loud enough for the rest of the club to hear. ‘And not even good ones.’

  Puchelperger shook his head and sighed despairingly at Fabian. ‘See what I mean?’ he said. ‘Whatever else he might be accused of, your uncle is rarely boring.’

  For the next hour or so, Fabian listened respectfully as the two men exchanged anecdotes and discussed the state of the Empire. Another drink appeared mysteriously before him, but he drank this one a little slower, already feeling as though he might need to borrow his uncle’s cane when it was time to leave. As the conversation turned to politics, his mind wondered to Jonas’s strange young wife. She could not have been more than thirty, and she was strikingly beautiful, yet she was attracted to a man of Jonas’s advanced years. He wondered if he could
ever learn to be as witty and assured as his uncle. How different he was from his pious, bumbling father. Fabian shook his head as he considered how much more there was to life than the simple, god-fearing dogma his brother had adopted.

  ‘I sense we’re boring you, Fabian,’ said Jonas, finishing his drink and rising from his chair. ‘I find it all too easy to while away the hours in this genial haven, but there’s so much more I’d like to show you tonight.’

  Puchelperger bade them an enthusiastic farewell and as they headed for the door, several of the other club members gave Jonas their regards and commented on the poor manners of the foreigner who had accosted him.

  As they left the warmth of the club, the cold night air left Fabian reeling. He felt his uncle’s steadying hand on his arm though, and quickly recovered his composure.

  ‘Are you alright, son?’ asked Jonas, with an amused smile.

  ‘Yes, uncle,’ said Fabian with a manly cough, but as they re-entered the crowded street he found it difficult to focus on the multitude of shapes and colours rushing by.

  As they made their way south down the Street of a Hundred Taverns, the constant stink of the city became more focussed. The smell of the sewers and livestock was eclipsed by the overwhelming stench of fish and brine. And beneath the calls of beggars and drunks, Fabian thought he could make out a vague sloshing sound.

  They reached the end of the road and Fabian gasped. A broad expanse of moonlit water lay stretched out before him, carving right through the heart of the city, and dotted with small islands, all linked by a myriad of crowded bridges.

  Dozens of galleons and barges were moored up at the quayside and even at this late hour, crowds of sailors and stevedores were rushing to-and-fro along the gangplanks, laden with exotic goods and yelling commands to each other in a wonderful variety of accents and languages. Fabian looked up at the nearest ship in awe. Its mountainous, barnacle-encrusted hull reared up over him, and he felt a cool spray landing on his upturned face as the sails snapped and boomed over his head. On the far side of the river lay the rest of the city: a teeming mass of spires, roofs, domes and bridges. The combination of the alcohol rushing through his veins and the incredible panoply arrayed before him left Fabian’s heart racing. He suddenly felt as though he might burst into tears at the sheer spectacle of it all.

  ‘Quite a sight, isn’t it?’ said Jonas, looking out over the water. ‘It’s best to keep moving though,’ he said, steering Fabian back into the flow of people. ‘The docks aren’t the safest place to be at night.’

  Fabian did not really need his uncle’s warning. Most of the figures rushing by looked as though they would slit his throat as easily as asking him to step aside. He saw hostile eyes watching from every alleyway and violence filled the air as palpably as the stink of fish. He shuddered and stepped a little closer to his uncle.

  ‘Watch yourself,’ laughed Jonas, as a pile of brawling drunks scattered across the cobbles in front of them. With surprising agility, he dragged Fabian around the mass of flailing limbs and turned up a quiet back street. It was so steep and narrow that they had to walk in single file as they clambered up past the shuttered warehouses and dingy archways. As they reached the summit, Fabian noticed a light was flickering through the window of one of the buildings. A small, battered sign was hanging above the door, in the shape of an open book.

  ‘Those dusty old fools in the university district will tell you they’re the keepers of Altdorf’s entire reserves of knowledge,’ said Jonas, pausing outside the shop. ‘But there’s much more to be learned in this city, for those willing to look.’ He tapped on the door and stepped back into the street to wait for a response.

  After a few minutes the door squeaked open and an elderly woman peered myopically out at them through the thick, scratched lenses of her spectacles. Her skin was as shrivelled as a dried fig and her back was so hunched by age that she was barely four feet tall.

  ‘Frau Gangolffin,’ exclaimed Jonas, giving the old lady a gracious bow. ‘I hope I didn’t wake you.’

  ‘Don’t be cruel, Jonas,’ she replied with a voice like sandpaper on gravel. ‘You know perfectly well how little sleep I get.’ She peered up at Fabian and shook her head. ‘At my age I’m lucky if I can close my eyes for so much as an hour.’ Without another word, she shuffled back into the shop, leaving the door swinging open behind her.

  Jonas smiled mischievously at Fabian and ushered him inside.

  Every inch of the shop was crammed with crooked, heaving bookshelves and teetering piles of dusty, leather-bound folios. The comforting smell of old paper was almost enough to mask the stink of the river and Fabian took a deep, grateful breath. There was an oil lamp sat on a desk at the foot of a narrow staircase and the glow of the shifting flame danced across the rows of foiled spines. Fabian sighed as he took in the wealth of obscure bestiaries and ancient poetry anthologies. He reeled from shelf to shelf, unsure where to look first, dazzled by the wealth of esoteric learning on display.

  He noticed that Jonas was chuckling softly. ‘It’s quite something, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Choose any book you want and consider it a gift.’ He nodded to the old woman, who seemed to have already forgotten them. She was hunched eagerly over a parchment on her desk, peering at it through a large magnifying glass. ‘I have an account with the old dear,’ he said.

  ‘Frau Gangolffin,’ said Jonas, waving to the narrow stairs. ‘Do you have the books I ordered?’

  The old woman still had the magnifying glass in front of her face as she looked up, giving her the appearance of a confused, whiskery cyclops. ‘Ah, yes,’ she croaked, with a look of recognition. She placed the lens back on the cluttered desk and started climbing very slowly up the stairs. ‘They did arrive, I think, with the last Estalian shipment. They should be up here somewhere.’

  ‘Take your time, my boy,’ said Jonas, waving at the bookshelves. ‘Who knows when you’ll be here again.’ With that he followed the woman upstairs.

  Fabian immersed himself in the books, comforted by the creak of the floorboards overhead and the muffled sound of his uncle’s voice as he chatted to the old woman. Finally, after nearly an hour had passed, Jonas climbed back down the stairs with a pile of books under his arm. ‘Find anything of interest?’ he asked.

  Fabian held up a handsome volume, bound in white leather, with a gold knife foiled on the front. ‘Is this too expensive?’ he asked hesitantly.

  ‘Almost certainly,’ replied Jonas with a smile and called up the stairs. ‘And a copy of Lang’s Dooms and Legends, please Frau Gangolffin.’

  There was a croak of acknowledgment from the old woman as she climbed slowly down the stairs.

  ‘And about the other matter?’ asked Jonas, giving the bookseller a strange smile.

  She nodded to Fabian. ‘Is he to be trusted?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Very well. Check the street,’ she muttered, glaring at Fabian. ‘And shut the door.’

  Fabian leapt to obey, peering up and down the alleyway. ‘No one there,’ he said, closing the door behind him with a clunk.

  The old woman turned to her desk and started to shove it across the floorboards with a horrible scraping sound. Before she had moved it more than a couple of inches however, she was gripped by a coughing fit that was so violent Fabian rushed to her side and began patting her back.

  She batted him away with a grunt of irritation and, after wiping the spittle from her chin, gestured to the floor beneath her desk.

  Fabian noticed that table’s movement had disturbed a rug and revealed the edges of a trapdoor. With the old woman waving him on, he shoved the table a little further until the trapdoor was completely exposed, and then stooped down to lever it open. Hidden beneath the floorboards was a small shelf holding three books. Each one was carefully wrapped in oilskin and fastened with a thick, knotted cord.

  Jonas moved Fabian to one side and gaz
ed lovingly at the small, innocent-looking bundles. ‘Which one?’ he whispered.

  Frau Gangolffin backed away from the books; watching them carefully from a few feet away, as though they might leap for her throat at any minute. ‘The middle one,’ she muttered, with a note of fear in her voice.

  Quick as a flash, Jonas snatched the book, secreted it in a pocket and slammed the trapdoor shut.

  As he signalled for Fabian to move the table back into place, the boy noticed that his uncle was flushed with excitement.

  Jonas took a deep, relieved breath, and smiled at Fabian. ‘Don’t mention what you’ve seen, my boy. Frau Gangolffin has some particularly disreputable competitors, and they’d all dearly love to know about that trapdoor.’

  Fabian nodded in reply.

  ‘I believe that’s everything,’ said Jonas, giving the old woman a stiff bow. She was already climbing slowly back up the stairs though, and if she heard him she gave no sign of it.

  ‘Well, Fabian, we’re almost done,’ Jonas said as they stepped out onto the street. ‘I just have one last call to make, and then we can head home.’

  Fabian suddenly realised how exhausted he was. He nodded sleepily and stumbled after his uncle, making no pretence of supporting the elderly gentleman as he tottered back towards the quayside. Before they reached the river, Jonas veered off down another narrow winding street and after a few lefts and rights, Fabian gave up trying to work out which direction they were heading in. The routes criss-crossed and doubled back on themselves in a mind-boggling confusion of pitch dark side streets and crooked, sombrous alleyways. Tiredness added to Fabian’s bewilderment and he began to feel as though everything that had happened to him since his father left him in the coach had been nothing more than a strange dream.

  A predawn glow was just beginning to lift the gloom a little when Jonas led them onto a street full of narrow tenements, huddled together against the wall of a large park. Cheerful lights flickered in many of the small, square windows, and figures flitted hurriedly in and out of the open doorways.