He snagged his fingertips in the cold flatness of it, gathered in a handful as if he were wadding up a piece of cloth, and yanked. The shadow tore free, and he cried out and staggered at the jolt.
Afterwards, he gasped for breath and clutched at the lectern lest his legs give way. Yet despite the weakness, he felt wonderful. It was always exciting to master a spell, whatever the circumstances, and this time had seemed more exhilarating than ever before. He hadn’t just channelled the attenuated power of the Blue Wind. Rather, he’d reached into the pure heart of magic.
No. No. That was a stupid, suicidal way to look at it, and he tried to shove the notion out of his head.
“Make it do something,” Mama Solveig said.
I should make it rip your head off, Dieter thought, but instead, he decided the shadow should walk back and forth, and, obedient to his unspoken will, it did.
“This is grand,” Mama Solveig said. “I’m so proud of you! When Adolph taught me, it took me days to catch the trick of it. The others still haven’t mastered it. Shall we try something else?”
His immediate impulse was to say yes, but then the cellar seemed to spin as vertigo overwhelmed him. He grabbed for the lectern again, but this time failed to seize hold of it. He fell to one knee, banging it painfully against the floor. His stomach churned, bile burned in his throat, and for a moment, he was sure he’d throw up.
He realised that casting the dark spell had made him sick, and he was glad. Now Mama Solveig wouldn’t insist that he continue his studies immediately, and even more importantly, he had, for the moment, lost the self-destructive desire to do so. All he wanted was to lie down.
Mama Solveig patted him on the shoulder. “Poor lamb,” she said. “It happens this way sometimes, but the sickness will pass, and the next time you cast the spell, it won’t bother you as much.”
Dieter woke clenched, almost flinching, as though, even before his waking mind resumed his labours, he dreaded the new day on some deep instinctual level.
The cellar was still almost as dark as it had been when he closed his eyes, with only a hint of morning turning the windows into grey rectangles floating in blackness. He wondered what had roused him, then heard Mama Solveig moving about.
Most likely she’d got up to use the chamber pot. He pulled the covers up over his head in the forlorn hope it would stifle the sound, and then the bar securing the door groaned in its brackets. The panel creaked open and bumped shut.
If she was sneaking off without telling him, did that mean she was going to see the Master of Change? He’d imagined the coven of coven leaders meeting in the dead of night, but he supposed that actually, they could assemble at any time, including the hours immediately before dawn.
He threw off his blankets, sat up, and groped around on the floor for his shoes. It seemed to take forever to find them. He jammed them on his feet, then hurried out the door and up the steps.
Mist hung in the street, blurring and softening the square masses of the buildings. Despite the haze and the feeble predawn light, he could just make out Mama Solveig rounding a corner some yards ahead.
He stalked after her, wondering how close he ought to follow. He didn’t want to lose her, but mustn’t let her spot him, either.
Other early risers trudged past him, and he hoped he didn’t look as much like a creeping malefactor as he felt. The clammy mist chilled him. His cloak would have warded off the cold, but in his haste he’d neglected to put it on.
Mama Solveig turned into what he knew to be a warren of twisting, branching alleyways. Even if she continued to hobble, it would be easy to lose her in that circumscribed but treacherous maze. He quickened his pace to make up some of the distance between them.
As though to hinder him, the mist thickened. The old woman was heading in the general direction of the river that had given birth to it, and the sun hadn’t yet risen to start burning it off. All but forsaking caution, Dieter strode faster still.
Even so, another minute brought him to a point where the alley he was following crossed another, and no matter how he peered and listened, he simply couldn’t determine which way Mama Solveig had gone.
He was reluctant to use magic to pick up her trail. His assault on the labourer, brutish copulation with Jarla, and helpless thirst for dark lore all combined to make him feel contaminated and vulnerable. He feared that, until he recovered some stability, even the tamed Chaos bound in Celestial wizardry might further pollute him, or that the magic might escape his control and twist into something ghastly. But unless he was prepared to abandon his current enterprise, it seemed he had no choice.
He glanced about, making sure no one was currently in eyeshot, then started whispering a spell. He was four words into it before he realised just how well founded his misgivings actually were. He wasn’t performing Celestial wizardry but rather the divination from the forbidden texts.
Even then, it was hard to stop. The syllables seemed to articulate themselves like water gushing from a spring. But he clamped down on them and cut them off.
Now more concerned with reasserting his identity as a practitioner of Celestial magic than with acting surreptitiously, he declaimed the spell he’d originally meant to cast in a louder voice and with sweeping passes. When he finished, he looked up, and for one terrifying moment could discern no transformation in the sky. The few stars still visible despite the imminence of morning simply continued to fade as though spurning and forsaking him.
But finally one throbbed to point him in the right direction. He closed his eyes, and for a moment, his body felt slack and heavy with relief. Then he tramped onwards.
The stars led him to a narrow strip of earth too steep for anyone to bother building anything on it, even in teeming Altdorf. The descent ran down to the Reik with its warehouses, boatyards and jetties. The fog lay atop the water like a mass of cotton. He could only just barely make out the shapes of the boats and barges moored along the bank, or the arch of a nearby bridge, which appeared to float unconnected to either shore.
He peered about in perplexity, because it was difficult to see how Mama Solveig could have continued on from here. She would have needed to backtrack to make for the bridge, and it didn’t seem likely she would have clambered down the hillside, which lacked stairs or even a path, to rendezvous with a boat and embark on the river. Had she entered one of the buildings rising close at hand? Hoping for further guidance, he looked up at the heavens. Something plopped onto his cheek.
Dead flies were falling from the empty air. Jagged red lines snaked across the world like cracks ruining a fresco.
The fleeting phenomena indicated someone was working magic. Dieter cast about for the potential threat, but the mist obscured it. A spiral of shadow swirled up around his body, then snapped tight to bind his limbs. Its embrace stung like a row of ant bites, even through his clothes.
It was the same spell Adolph had attempted to use to bind the fiery serpent. Dieter rattled off a spell of protection, and the coil of shadow frayed and vanished. He pivoted, seeking his adversary once more.
That brought him face to face with Mama Solveig, who was just climbing up the rise onto level ground. Perhaps she’d hidden behind a tree, or maybe it was simply the mist that had prevented him from spotting her hitherto. She clutched a lancet in an overhand grip. It wasn’t much of a fighting knife, but quite capable of killing a man who couldn’t move.
Her eyes widened, and she clapped her empty hand to her bosom. “Dieter! Oh, my goodness!”
“Mama Solveig, are you all right?” It was all he could think of to say.
“I’m fine, but I could have killed you. What are you doing here?”
“I… I woke just as you were going out, and at first I thought, well, if you hadn’t asked me to go with you, then I didn’t need to. But then I thought of the Purple Hand lurking about, waiting for the chance to pick us off, and I had the feeling you were in danger. So I tried to catch up with you, but you were too far ahead, and I lost you in the m
ist. I finally used a charm to track you.”
Mama Solveig sighed. “I sensed someone following me, assumed the worst, and hid. When you turned up, these short-sighted old eyes couldn’t make out your face. The fog’s too thick, and I had a bad angle peering up from below. So I sought to defend myself.”
He grinned. “I’d say you were succeeding pretty well.”
She waved a tremulous hand in dismissal. “That’s a kind thing to say, but you didn’t have any trouble breaking free of my enchantment. You know, dear, I don’t think the Purple Hand have figured out who I am, and even if they have, I doubt they’ll bother us this morning. The only person I felt coming after me was you.”
Was she saying she knew he was lying? “Well, I hope you’re right.”
“Dieter, I want you to listen to me very carefully. This life we live is holy and full of wonders, but it wears on the nerves. The secrecy, the danger, opening yourself to the god… it’s all a strain, and from time to time, you may find yourself imagining things.”
“I can understand that.”
“But whatever you’re thinking or feeling, you mustn’t follow when I go off alone. Trust me to look after myself. Because if you follow me to the wrong place, I’ll know it, and if I don’t, others will. And then we’ll kill you. It’s just as simple as that.”
“All right. But I was only trying to help you.”
“I know, dear. I’m very grateful, and the fact of the matter is, you can.” She nodded towards the slope. “See the mushrooms?”
He did now, though he hadn’t noticed them before. The pale, spotted caps poked up through the grass. “Yes.”
“They’re what I came for. I use them in my medicines, and they’re best if gathered just before sunrise. Come help me pick them.”
Mama Solveig tottered about the cellar setting out cakes and cheese, just as if she were preparing for an ordinary party. Dieter attempted to help, and as usual, she shooed him away.
She did allow him to play doorman, and he admitted the coven members one by one. It was the first time he’d met any of them except for her, Jarla and Adolph, and it struck him just how ordinary the others appeared. The rage, misery, or fundamental perversity that had drawn each to the Changer of the Ways lay buried beneath a quotidian facade.
Of course, the obvious mutants all ran away to join Leopold Mann.
Someone else knocked. Dieter opened the peephole, and Jarla, her wistful face scrubbed clean of paint and her hair pulled back, peered in at him. His forehead gave him a pang, and, fumbling with the sliding bar, he admitted her.
She offered a tentative smile, and then, after a moment, squeezed his forearm. “Should we talk?” she asked.
“Probably.” He waved her towards Mama Solveig’s workspace. Since the others had congregated around the food and drink in the kitchen, the infirmary offered a modicum of privacy. She sat on the cot, and he took the stool.
“What happened in the alley,” she murmured. “It was nice.”
“It was.”
“I didn’t tell Adolph.”
He supposed that, considering her trade, it was ironic that she thought it mattered whether she had or hadn’t. Yet he understood the difference between what she did for her own fulfilment and what she did for coin, and he suspected Adolph was sensitive to the same distinction. “Do you intend to?”
“I don’t know. We’ve been together for a while. He takes care of me.”
“From what I’ve seen, he bullies you.”
She shrugged as if the two things were the same. “I’d never want to hurt him, and I need someone in my life.”
“Are you telling me what happened between us shouldn’t happen again?”
“I don’t know! I guess I’m asking, if I did decide to leave Adolph, would you want to be with me?”
He had no idea how to answer.
He was a wizard of the Celestial Order and she was a common streetwalker, and yet, he did like her. He just didn’t know if the emotion ran deep and true, or merely sprang from the fact that, lonely and frightened, he overvalued any comfort that came his way. Or perhaps it was a symptom of the mental sickness he’d contracted from Dark Magic.
Not that it actually mattered what he felt or why. She was a cultist, his enemy and the enemy of everything healthy and sane, and if he hoped to go on breathing, all he could afford to care about was how best to deal with her to safeguard himself and further his mission.
But how was that, exactly? He could strengthen the bond that had sprung up between them, but was there a point if she had no way of helping him find the Master of Change? Was it worth antagonising Adolph?
He suddenly felt a spasm of impatience with his ambivalent, torturous calculations. He wanted the bitch, he might still find a way to exploit her to accomplish his purpose, so why not take her? He could handle Adolph. If need be, he could squash him like an insect.
He smiled at Jarla. “Of course I want to be with you.”
“Then I have a choice to make.”
It wasn’t the response he’d expected, and it irked him. It made him feel she was teasing and toying with him. He felt an urge to grab her, kiss her, master her, and then something seethed at the periphery of his vision.
He turned to see shadow squirming into being by the door. The clot of darkness sprouted hands which slid the bar aside, then withered into non-existence.
Adolph swaggered through the doorway. Mama Solveig gave him a look that mixed affection and exasperation in equal measure. “Dear, we’ve talked about this before: don’t cast spells for trivial reasons, don’t do it out in the open, and particularly, don’t do it outside my home.”
Adolph grinned. “No one was looking.” Dieter assumed the idiot had chosen to make an impressive entrance to remind everyone who was accounted the ablest sorcerer and Mama’s de facto lieutenant.
The scribe looked about. When his gaze fell on Jarla and Dieter sitting together, his mouth tightened, and he tramped in their direction. Jarla hastily rose and moved to greet him. Dieter didn’t want the other man towering over him, so he stood up as well.
Adolph barely acknowledged Jarla. He gave Dieter a glower. “So. I hear you’ll try to teach us something tonight.”
“Yes,” Dieter replied. Mama Solveig had insisted on it.
“Something you found in the holy writings?”
“No.” The only new spell he’d discovered therein was the charm of divination, and he didn’t dare share that one. Somebody could use it to discover his true identity and intentions. “Something my father taught me.”
Adolph snorted. “Hedge magic.”
“All magic derives from Chaos and is accordingly sacred in the eyes of the Changer of the Ways. But if you haven’t absorbed even that basic truth, I suppose you can stay out here and drink cider.”
“Is that what you’d like me to do? Then I’m sorry to disappoint you. I never neglect a chance to worship, and I won’t mind picking up your little cantrip. It’s just that I’m disappointed. Mama told us to expect miracles of you.”
Dieter was still trying to decide how to respond to the sarcasm when Mama Solveig clapped her hands to attract everyone’s attention. The drone of conversation died away.
“We’re all nine of us here,” she said, “so let’s begin.” She opened a chest sitting atop a table. “Come put on your regalia.”
Said regalia proved to be tabards sewn from irregular scraps of cloth, pink, puce and purple, primarily, garish as a jester’s motley. Only Adolph’s costume deviated from the common mould. He reached into the box, removed a black velvet cloak with a purple satin lining, shook it out, and swirled it around his shoulders. The costly garment was an extravagance for a fellow earning a journeyman’s wages, but apparently he imagined it made him look like an adept.
When Mama Solveig revealed the shrine, the icon seemed to pounce out of the dark. The writing on the parchments started to glow.
Prayer followed, and then the sacrifice of two young goats. Adolph slit th
e throats of the bound, bleating kids and laid the bodies at the foot of Tzeentch’s pedestal. Dieter felt a sudden elation and struggled to deny it, to clear his mind, to be himself, and not the newborn other who continually tainted his feelings and skewed his judgement.
“Now,” Mama Solveig said, “Dieter will teach us a spell.”
He’d pondered exactly what to impart. It shouldn’t be anything the Red Crown could use to hurt others, or anything overtly evocative of the powers of storm and sky. Adolph, Jarla and Mama Solveig had already seen him use such abilities, but even so, he preferred not to provide any more reason for people to suspect that he wasn’t a humble wyrd but rather a Celestial wizard.
In the end, he’d decided on the simplest of spells, the charm to make a handheld object shine with its own inner light. He started instructing Mama Solveig, Jarla, Adolph and a boatman named Nevin as he’d once taught apprentices of his own order. The remaining cultists supposedly lacked any trace of mystical aptitude, and so they simply stood and watched.
To Dieter’s surprise, despite their lack of any clear, comprehensive grounding in the theory of magic, his current pupils seemed to catch on quickly. They’d plainly derived some benefit from their study of the blasphemous texts, and learning a basic charm with the help of a competent teacher was considerably easier than uncovering, comprehending and mastering the complex hidden spells.
Finally the little pewter vial in Jarla’s hand radiated silvery light. She stared at it in what seemed a combination of delight and disbelief. “I did it! I did it the first of anybody.”
Dieter smiled. “Good for you.”
Adolph scowled and continued to scowl when the quill in his own grasp and the objects in the hands of Mama Solveig and Nevin began to shine white, yellow or blue. Oblivious to his displeasure, the boatman and Jarla grinned and congratulated one another. Dieter gathered that their attempts to learn magic generally ended in frustration, but tonight each felt like a genuine magus.
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