by James Wallis
Huss was silent but he shifted his warhammer in his lap, gripping its handle. It was a small movement, but in the right direction. “What then?”
“Find Sigmar. Rejoin the crusade; they’ll wait for you at Auerswald. Lead them to Altdorf, to the Convocation of Light, the Emperor himself. And put the fear of Sigmar into the Grand Theogonist.”
“The Templars will catch us. They’ll send armies to stop us.”
“If Sigmar’s will is that you do this thing, then they won’t.” Karl stared across at Huss, not believing his own words, hoping that Huss would.
Huss shifted his seat. He seemed suddenly restless. Then he looked up.
“What aren’t you saying?” he asked.
“I’m not coming with you,” Karl said. “My fate calls me in a different direction. And this way the Templars must split their force to follow us both. I have to go to Altdorf and, Sigmar willing, I will see you there.”
Huss looked at him. “Very well,” he said slowly. “Give the orders. We have much to prepare.” He pulled himself to his feet and looked across the darkened room. “Karl, is there something wrong with your eyes? It seems—”
“Only a reflection of the fire in my soul,” Karl said, making a joke of it, wishing it was a joke.
Huss cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Your soul, you say?” he asked. “You found it again?”
Karl shook his head. “No. But like you and Sigmar, I now know where it lies.”
The night was dark, the crescent moon hidden behind scudding clouds. Men in dark clothes crept out of the crawl-through below the stockade and gathered in the shadow of the stockade, staying low. To the east and west, the Templars’ fires burned on the road and shadowy figures moved in the night.
Whispered directions were given, a line of poplar trees on the horizon given as a rendezvous, and Huss and his guards set off in twos and threes. Karl stood in the shadows and watched them go. He’d give them a few minutes, then set off north.
There was a scuffling from the tunnel, and a muttered oath. Karl recognised the voice. It was Oswald. The old pilgrim crawled out and clambered to his feet. He was carrying a pack.
“Huss has gone,” Karl whispered. “You’re too late.”
“I’m coming with you,” Oswald said. “Huss’ orders.”
“I don’t follow Huss’ orders,” Karl said.
“I do.” Oswald shouldered his pack. “Are you going to get going, or stand here till the Templars hear us?”
Karl grimaced, ducked into a drainage ditch that ran between the fields, and began the long walk to Altdorf.
Brother Karin,
While it is true that I have thrown Erwin Rhinehart out of my path twice, you should not hold it against him. It was not his fault: I am simply the better man. I have much respect for him. He is a diligent servant of Sigmar and a fine member of your Order, true to his god and his vows. He lacks the zealous single-mindedness of Theo Kratz, but that gives him adaptability, and an ability to see a way through obstacles that many would miss. How he has changed in the last year and a half. How have we all.
I envy the simplicity of your perspective. As a witch hunter, you see the world in black and white, just as Kratz and Rhinehart do: everyone is either innocent, or a servant of Chaos. As a follower of Khorne you see things in red and black: the strong and the weak, the conquerors and the doomed. Neither viewpoint allows for anything in between.
For those of us whose understanding of life is more complex, it seems that the course of the world is set with obstacles, and there are many trying to steer its course between them—or onto them.
Black and white, red and black. What then is the white and the red, the perspective you cannot see, the path you cannot acknowledge? I remind you that white and red are the colours of the Reikland, my home and my former regiment. Perhaps it is my fate to show you that the path of the world is not set in absolutes, that sometimes alliances and compromise can be valuable things. Though I admit I would sooner see you dead.
You proved last year that you would give your life for Khorne. Would you still?
Karl Hoche
Brother Karin looked up. The bright sunlight from the open window spilled across her skin, making it look unusually pale. “Did you read this?” she asked.
“No, brother.”
“Did anyone else?”
“No, brother.”
“Good.” She stood up, crumpling the parchment in her hand. “Bring a flame.”
CHAPTER NINE
Pray For You
Altdorf was full of memories. Karl knew each street from the people he had been with the first time he had walked down it, what they had talked about, what he had learned. Now all his companions were dead, and he had no friends left in Altdorf.
Oswald seemed caught up in private reminiscence of the city too, responding to questions with grunts or shakes of the head. Twice he caught Karl’s arm and steered him wordlessly away from entering a particular street or a certain square. Karl did not ask why.
The huge city felt busy, and there was a tension in the air. The streets, markets and taverns were crowded with servants in the liveries of the Empire’s great households, and prices were higher than he remembered. The Convocation of Light had left its mark on the city.
There was always a fuss in Altdorf even if one or two of the Empire’s elector counts were within its walls. For all fifteen to be there at once, together with royalty from Bretonnia, Estalia, Tilea, Norsca and Kislev, was a rare event, and they had all brought their retinues. It was a grand affair, and the capital of the greatest empire the world had ever seen was determined to make the most of it.
The Convocation of Light had broken up several weeks before, the various electors, kings and assorted leaders returning to their respective territories to raise armies for the forthcoming war against the hordes of Chaos gathering in the north of the world. Most of them had left their wives and families behind in the capital, to continue enjoying what many people were describing as the greatest social event the city had hosted since the Emperor’s coronation twenty years ago. Every minor noble, disenfranchised duke, or lordling with aspirations had flocked to the capital, dragging their wives and eligible offspring, hoping to make the most of it.
Here too were mercenary captains touting for business, representatives of trading families offering to supply troops and armies in the field, dwarf armourers looking for deals to equip new troops with the finest in modern weaponry, and opportunists looking to buy, sell, beg, barter or swindle whatever they could. Bishops and priests were here too: it seemed that every wandering mendicant, friar, visionary and flagellant who had not joined Luthor Huss’ crusade had come to Altdorf to sleep in the gutter and cry their various messages of doom and salvation from any empty street corner, of which there were very few. The roads in every direction were crowded for miles.
Karl and Oswald were able to find a small room on the top floor of a whitewashed boarding-house on Bremerdamm, on the edge of the docks. It was half the size they expected, for twice the usual rent, and its few sticks of furniture appeared to have been dredged out of the Reik, or some cellar where woodworm and worse had feasted on it for years. At least it was in the east end of the city, near the fish-market and far from the palace, the cathedral and the teahouses clogged with nobles and gossip. In the slums life continued more or less as normal, and men did not peer curiously at strangers’ faces in the street, hoping to find a nobleman, a potential bit of business, a mark or a gull.
“So what are your plans?” Oswald asked, sitting cross-legged on his bed. The cheap straw mattress crackled and rustled as he moved, and had a strange odour of horses.
Karl lay back and gazed at the bare beams and lathe of the ceiling. Late afternoon sun struggled to make its way through the filthy glass in the one tiny window.
“Gather information,” he said.
“How?”
“I need to find Herr Stahl, or whatever his true name is. He’s connected to
the Church of Sigmar, probably close to their links with the Templars and witch hunters.”
“Has it occurred to you that he might be a witch hunter? A new division, perhaps? That would explain how Theo Kratz found you so fast in Nuln.”
Karl considered it. “It hadn’t occurred to me. But would he have been recruiting new members?”
“That could have been a lie to draw you out.” Oswald tugged a protruding piece of straw from the mattress and used it to pick his yellowed teeth. “You don’t still want to join his organisation, do you?”
“No.” Karl sat up and swung around, his feet on the floor, digging in his pocket for the scrap of whetstone he carried, spat on it and began to sharpen the blade of his throwing-knife. “I want to find out who he is, what he’s doing and what his goals are. I want to find out what really happened in Nuln, and Grissenwald. And in Rottfurt.”
Oswald shrugged. “Isn’t it time you let these things go, and looked ahead? A great drama is unfolding before us. Fate will find a role for you if you knock at the stage door.”
“What?”
“An over-stretched analogy. I apologise.”
“I take your analogy,” Karl said, “but I will use it to refute it. There’s a pattern running through things. I can feel it but I can’t describe it nor how it all fits together. Stahl is a part of it, and I think Huss and Sigmar are too. And the witch hunters who have been following me. It’s as if I am playing a role in a script that has already been written and the outcome decided. I have free will to do what I want, except to declare that the play is over and it is time for another to begin.”
“As if you are simply a pawn in a game of chess that has been going on for centuries?”
“Yes.”
“And we go round in circles,” Oswald said, “back to the plots of Tzeentch, the schemer and the changer of ways, and his followers the Purple Hand. Be careful, Karl. Take no action rashly, and watch your back.”
Karl stretched. “And what are you going to do?”
“A little shopping, some tea and tittle-tattle with some people I know, a few prayers in the cathedral, try to avoid being arrested and burnt by witch hunters…”
“If that’s all,” Karl said, standing, “you can help me with a couple of errands.”
They had bought fresh clothes, hats and shoes, a cloak, and lengths of plain cloth. Karl had chosen two thick neck-scarves and acquired some leather boot-laces. Now they stood in the Königplatz, near to the rubble and broken bases where the huge statues of the emperors had stood until the gunpowder treason on Hexensnacht a few months before. Karl looked across the cobbles to the front of The Black Goat inn, swathed in scaffolding, and remembered earlier times, other incidents, back in the days when he was a junior officer in the Reiklanders and the Goat was his regiment’s unofficial base in the capital.
He jingled his purse in one hand. It was too light for his comfort.
“Living with you is proving expensive,” he said. “It took me a year to build up that purse, and at this rate it’ll be empty by the end of the week. Unless you feel like covering your share of food and rent?”
Oswald looked apologetic. “I depend on the kindness of strangers. There’s not much money in the travelling priest business.”
Karl looked askance, but decided not to mention Oswald’s room and large supper in The Lost Prophet in Grissenwald. If the old pilgrim preferred to keep his secrets and his funds to himself, that was his business. He glanced up at the sky. “We’re losing the light,” he said. “I should head back to the room before people can see my—you know.” He gestured at his eyes. “I hate this,” he said. “I hate the loss of control, the loss of my sense of who I am. How can you know who you are if you are always changing?”
Oswald pursed his thin lips. “How much money do you have left?”
“Less than I did this morning. Less than eighty crowns.”
“Follow me.” Oswald set off towards the university district to the west. Karl followed reluctantly.
“We can’t just spend the money, we’ll need it to pay expenses, bribes…” he said.
“Sigmar will provide.” Oswald said, and then was silent as they passed through streets that became less and less crowded, and less and less wide, until finally he stopped and said, “Here we are.” He pushed open a narrow door made of some heavy stained wood, decorated with an inlaid pattern of lumps of coloured glass in a circle, and walked down three steps into the small room below.
Karl’s first thought was that they had stepped into an apothecary’s shop, or a spice dealer. Shelves lined two of the walls up to the high ceiling, each one filled with glass jars, and a chest stacked with small drawers filled a third. At a table in the centre, a bald man sat hunched with an eyeglass, tweezers and a pair of scales, putting carefully measured pinches of blue crystals into individual silk bags. He looked up, removed the eyeglass, and put down the tweezers. The hunch, it seemed, was permanent.
“Praeparus,” Oswald said, and it sounded like a tide, not a name. “I am in need of silvered glass lenses that protect the eyes when burning potassica and magnesia.”
The man regarded him for a long moment. “Are you a student at the Imperial College of Gold Magic?” he asked. “You don’t look to me like an alchemist. Or a student.”
“I am not, Praeparus. At the temple I tend the undying flame, and its brightness hurts my eyes. A friend recommended…”
“How is it that you call me Praeparus, then?” the man said sharply.
“My friend told me to address you so,” Oswald said simply. For another long moment the man said nothing, only looking at him, then called, “Sigismund! Silvered lenses!” An apprentice appeared from the inner room, used a footstool to reach a high drawer, and produced a silk bag. He passed it down to his master, who handed it to Oswald.
“Seventy crowns,” he said. Oswald nudged Karl.
“Pay,” he said.
“Seventy crowns! I could buy a horse for that! Aren’t you going to haggle?” Karl asked.
“No,” Oswald said. “Pay.”
Karl paid. The few remaining silver and gold coins glinted at him from the bottom of the purse. Oswald led him outside. The bald shopkeeper did not move from the table, but Karl felt his eyes on them until the door with its strange pattern had swung closed behind them and they were back on the street.
“This had better be worthwhile,” Karl said.
Oswald opened the silk bag and a frame of wire and glass slid onto his palm. Karl had seen scholars and the infirm wear similar things across their eyes to help their sight, but the round crystal lenses in these frames were coated with a film of silver, like a mirror.
“Try them,” Oswald said and Karl did, fitting them with difficulty over his broken nose, adjusting the arms of the frame around his ears. Through the silvered lenses the street and the old pilgrim appeared darker but no less sharp.
“Can you see?” asked Oswald. Karl nodded: he saw.
“You’ve heard that eyes are the mirrors of the soul?” Oswald said. “With these, your eyes become mirrors of the world. I guessed that with the sharp senses you boast of, you would be able to see clearly through the silvering.”
“I can. Thank you,” Karl said.
“Wear them after dark and they’ll hide your eyes,” Oswald said. “In the day, they’re almost as conspicuous as your eyes are at night.” He looked around at the emptying street. “So do you start your work tonight?” he asked.
“No,” Karl said. “You do.”
“I do?”
“We need to find Herr Stahl. To do that we need to learn who issued the arrest warrant, and on whose authority. That will lead us to our man.”
Oswald looked reluctant. “You can’t do this?”
Karl laughed. The sound was cruel, even to his own ears. “Oswald, can I stroll into the Grand Theogonist’s palace, the Templars’ barracks or the chapter-house of the witch hunters and ask if they recognise a seal? My face is too well known, my reputation sp
read too wide in this city. It must be you.”
“I’ve never done this,” Oswald said. His face was a mix of worry and dread.
“Gone disguised? Worked undercover?”
“Lied.”
“I’m not asking you to lie,” Karl said. “Just don’t tell them the truth.”
He reached into his jerkin pocket, produced the creased warrant of arrest that Huss had given him back in Rottfurt, and tore off the bottom part of it. “Show them this, with the signature and the seal on it. Ask them if they recognise it, and if they do then ask if they can vouch for the authenticity of signature and seal. If they ask where it came from, tell them your master would only tell you that the matter is confidential.”
“What if they ask who is my master?”
“Tell them that you serve Sigmar. If they press you,” Karl thought for a moment, and smiled, “tell them Brother Karin Schiffer requires the information for an investigation. Go first to the office of the Grand Theogonist, and if they don’t know then to the Templars, and lastly to the witch hunters. I will wait for you in The Hog’s Head tavern on Marienstrasse.”
“Why the Grand Theogonist first?” Oswald asked.
“Because his people are the least likely to arrest you on the spot,” Karl said. “The day is dying. Come on.”
Oswald gave a last unhappy look over his shoulder and stepped into the shadow of the doorway that led to the west wing of the Grand Theogonist’s palace, where the head of the Church of Sigmar and his staff had their residences and offices. Karl, standing further down the street on the other side, watched him disappear and waited a minute to see if he would emerge. A skinny priest came out with an acolyte on either side, his hand on one of the youth’s shoulders, but there was no sign of Oswald. Karl glanced at the darkening sky, turned and walked eastwards, keeping his eyes narrowed. It would soon be dark, and he would have to stay somewhere well lit, wear the lenses, or return to their room.
Damn my eyes, he thought. My eyes, my hair, even my voice is no longer under my control. What do I have left that I can call my own? What is left for me to trust? And if I cannot trust myself, how can I trust other people, or ask them to trust me? Even Oswald. He seems like a good man, and he is willing to risk his life to help find the information I need. But he has lied to me, and not a lie I asked for. He is trying to appear a good, honest follower of Sigmar. Who is he really? Is he this moment betraying me?