[Blood on the Reik 03] - Death's Legacy

by Sandy Mitchell - (ebook by Undead)

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Mother!” Hanna flung herself into Greta’s arms, and the two women embraced one another fervently. Feeling uncomfortably intrusive, Rudi turned away from their emotional reunion, preferring to remain a few paces closer to the mouth of the alley where he could keep watch more easily. While Hanna and Greta continued their conversation in a hushed and excited undertone he scanned the street for any signs of unusual activity, fearing that if they lingered much longer they’d attract the attention of their enemies. After all, if the Silver Wheel, whoever they were, could keep a discreet eye on the Bright College without anyone noticing, then so might the witch hunters, eager to pounce on disappointed applicants like Hanna.

  His jaw knotted at the thought. Even now, he couldn’t quite believe the casual arrogance with which the magister they’d met had turned her away, without even giving her the chance to prove herself.

  “Hanna, my love.” After a few moments Greta stepped away from her daughter’s encircling arms, and smiled at her fondly. “You’re looking well.”

  “I feel well.” A new strength seemed to be flowing through the girl. Her posture was relaxed and confident, despite the renewed threat to her life that was hanging over her, without even the hope of a reprieve. Rudi watched her as unobtrusively as he could, concerned that the effort of casting the mysterious spell that had turned the wizard against his own colleagues had fatigued her as much as the previous eruptions of spontaneous magic seemed to have done, but this time she seemed completely unaffected by the experience. She didn’t even seem breathless after fleeing from the wilderness of ash. “I’m growing more powerful by the day.”

  Her voice seemed different too, Rudi thought. It had always sounded mellifluous enough to him, but it seemed richer now, with textures and harmonies in it that he couldn’t really distinguish individually, but which were undeniably there. Greta nodded, with more than a trace of maternal pride.

  “I could tell that. Precious few natural talents could best a college magister in a contest of power.”

  “You saw that?” Rudi asked. He wasn’t sure why he was so surprised. Greta had been turning up from time to time ever since the fugitives had left Kohlstadt, usually accompanied by the hulking mutant, Hans Katzenjammer. Every time she did so she helped them in some way, before vanishing again, usually leaving a pile of dead enemies behind her. Greta nodded in response. “Then why didn’t you do something to help?”

  “There was no need,” the witch said. “I knew Hanna was going to beat the arrogant fool. The Changer is the source of all magic. He’s scarcely going to allow it to harm his chosen servants, is he?”

  “Then Gerhard was right.” Rudi felt a sickening lurch in the pit of his stomach, unable to tear his eyes away from the horned sorceress. Part of him didn’t even want to, that would mean looking at Hanna again, his friend and companion for the last few months, the one person in the world on whom he’d felt able to rely. “You really are agents of Chaos.”

  “Gerhard knows a lot less than he thinks he does,” Greta countered. “You’ve seen him murder and terrorise, just on the suspicion that someone might have glimpsed a little of the truth he tries so hard to suppress. Have you forgotten what he did to Hans’ mother?”

  Rudi hadn’t. The image of Frau Katzenjammer, eyes wide with shock, still trying to comprehend what had happened to her son, even as Gerhard slit her throat, rose up vividly in his mind. He shook his head, trying to dispel the unsettling vision.

  “Of course not, but…” He could scarcely force the words out. He took a step deeper into the darkness of the alleyway, and lowered his voice, afraid of being overheard by the distant revellers, whose innocent merriment seemed so ironic a counterpoint to the maelstrom of horror that he felt sweeping over him. “You worship the Dark Gods!”

  “Only one of them,” Greta said, “and whatever you’ve been told, unlike the others, Tzeentch is essentially benign.”

  “Tell that to the Ostlanders!” Rudi snapped. “He didn’t seem all that benign to them when his armies were slaughtering their way across the Empire!”

  For the first time, Greta’s face clouded a little. “Not all change is subtle or peaceful,” she said, “but the real damage was done by the servants of the other three. They truly do deserve the execration heaped on their names throughout the world.”

  “You really are an acolyte of the Changer?” Hanna asked, doubt entering her voice for the first time. She stared at her mother in what seemed to Rudi to be honest perplexity.

  Greta nodded. “Of course I am. His greatest adversary is the Lord of Decay. How could I call myself a real healer if I didn’t do all I could to confound the machinations of the bringers of disease? The more I called upon his aid, the more powerful I became, and the better able I was to help people. How can there possibly be anything wrong in that?”

  Rudi’s head spun, and he felt sick to his stomach. So much he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge, had all but willfully closed his mind to, began to make sense at last. Somehow, he knew, she was twisting things, cloaking her actions in a semblance of reason. It was the same kind of blindness that Gerhard had shown, he thought, an unassailable conviction that there was only one path to follow, and that any action was justified in the name of the greater good they claimed to be serving.

  “That’s why you tried to kill Magnus in Marienburg,” he said. “He’d been spreading the plague in Kohlstadt, hadn’t he? Those other people in the woods with him, you led the beastmen to them!” Despite himself, his voice was beginning to rise, and he fought it back to a whisper. “You killed my father!”

  “Your father died a long time ago, a long way from Kohlstadt,” Greta said calmly. “As for Gunther, he was a decent man, snared by the lies of Nurgle, just as Magnus and the others were. If they’d been permitted to finish their ritual, something far worse than disease would have been unleashed, believe me.”

  “I don’t understand,” Hanna said. “You mean Magnus really was the leader of a Chaos cult, just like Gerhard said?” Greta nodded. “Rudi’s fath… Gunther Walder was a member?”

  “As I said, he was ensnared by the lies he was told.” Greta sighed, sadly. “Nurgle promises his followers much. The more diseased they become, the stronger they feel. It’s a seductive delusion.” She looked at a mangy cat that looked up from scavenging in the gutter just long enough to stare at them with cool disdain, before scuttling off into the shadows. “You must have realised that, after seeing what Magnus had become in Marienburg.”

  Rudi nodded, remembering the preternatural strength of the madman’s ravaged body, and the degenerate creatures that had served him. There was something else: his adopted father’s dogged insistence that he’d felt better and stronger than ever before, despite the clear signs of infection spreading from his injured arm.

  “You realised what he was, and what he was doing?” Rudi asked.

  “I suspected as much,” said Greta. “I knew something was going on, and that he had secrets he didn’t want revealed. Come to that, he never bothered to conceal the fact that he harboured doubts about me, but suspicion isn’t proof, whatever Gerhard might think. The two of us circled one another for months, waiting for the other to slip up in some way and reveal their true allegiance. If I’d only had the courage to act sooner.” She sighed regretfully.

  “You were right, he did think you knew something.” Rudi remembered the enigmatic note from Magnus that he’d discovered in the lawyer’s office. “I found a letter among van Crackenmeer’s papers, one you missed when you searched the place after Hans had killed him.” He hesitated, waiting for the sorceress to confirm or deny it, but she said nothing. He tried to look her in the eye, but found he couldn’t. The more intently he tried to focus on her face, the more it seemed to shimmer, remaining at the edges of his vision. When he went on, he couldn’t quite keep the air of desperation from his voice. “Do you know? Am I the von Karien heir?”

  “You’ll have to ask them that when you find them,”
Greta said. “The Changer maps everyone’s path, but we all have to walk it alone. You’ll know your destination when you reach it, but I can’t show you any short cuts, I’m afraid.” She turned to her daughter. “Come , my daughter. We have friends who can help us not far from here, and it wouldn’t be polite to keep them waiting.”

  As she turned away to follow her mother, Hanna hesitated, and Rudi caught her eye.

  “Hanna, wait!”

  The girl looked back at him, her expression a curious amalgam of doubt and hope. “You can’t go off with her just like that! You heard what she said. She’s a Chaos worshipper, for Taal’s sake!”

  “She’s my mother!” Hanna said fiercely. “And she’s kept us safe so far, in case you’ve forgotten.” For a moment, the flicker of uncertainty was back in her voice, and she forced it away with an obvious effort. “Besides, where else can I go? The witch hunters will kill me on sight.”

  “I don’t think so, child.” Greta smiled maternally at her daughter. “Your powers are growing all the time. Tzeentch gifted you with extra powers just when you needed them, and after what I saw in Marienburg, I suspect it’s not the first time that’s happened.” Remembering how Hanna had suddenly discovered the ability to throw fireballs when the skaven attacked them, Rudi felt she was probably right. “The Changer has marked you already, and he protects his own. You’ll soon be so powerful that you need never fear anyone again, and I can help you to walk that path.” The pride was back in her voice, along with a faintly rueful air. “At least until you leave me behind.”

  “I’ll never do that.” Hanna’s voice was decisive, and she linked arms with her mother. “Where are we going?”

  “Away from here,” Greta said. She turned to look at Rudi, who remained stupefied in the mouth of the alley, trying to assimilate all that he’d heard. “I’m afraid you’re better off not knowing where. You’ll understand why soon enough.”

  “Hanna!” Rudi shook off the paralysis that had him in its grip, and took a step forwards, reaching out a hand to hold her back. Before his fingers could close, he stumbled, his shins meeting something soft and yielding, which let out an unearthly screech as it shot away down the darkness of the alleyway. Cursing the cat that had tripped him, he regained his balance and looked around, but the momentary distraction had been enough. Hanna and her mother were gone.

  Searching for the two women would be pointless, Rudi knew, but he still cast around the reeking alleyways for several minutes before accepting the inevitable and giving up. At length, and conscious that he was beginning to attract the attention of the local residents, he made his way back to the main street and, with his back to the wilderness of ash, studied the directions that von Eckstein had scribbled for him by the light of a guttering torch, clearly meant to illuminate the sign of a nearby tavern. They seemed simple enough, and after orientating himself with respect to the burned-out wasteland behind him, he set off, more or less retracing the route that he and Hanna had taken to get there.

  At first, shaken by what had so recently happened, Rudi had to force himself to concentrate on finding the way. His thoughts kept returning to the girl, wondering if she was all right, and fearful for her safety. Soon, however, as he felt himself getting nearer to his destination and the answers he craved, a growing excitement took hold of him, and his pace quickened.

  “Third on the left,” he reminded himself. None of the streets he passed had name plaques visible, but then most of the residents around here probably wouldn’t have been able to make use of them anyway. Many of the people he passed wore patched and ragged garments, and the smell of excrement in the gutters seemed unusually strong. As it had on a few previous occasions, though, far from making him gag as he might reasonably have expected, the stench seemed almost pleasant, an effect, he assumed, of his growing hunger and the series of shocks he’d experienced since leaving the riverboat such a short time before.

  Stepping around the contents of a chamber pot, which someone had flung from an upper window and which had missed him by inches, he started down the side street that he’d been looking for with renewed determination.

  At first, Rudi thought he must have missed his way after all. The houses here were narrower and more cramped than any he’d yet seen, and crowded with people who spilled from windows and doors as if forcibly expelled by the pressure of their fellows within. Even at this hour, many of them were abroad, and all stared at him with barely concealed hostility. Clearly, strangers were a rarity here, although his muscular build and visible weapons were all the passport he needed to walk the length of the street without any overt challenge.

  Scanning the buildings on either side in search of a clue as to their ownership, he found himself making eye contact with a woman loitering in front of one of the seething tenements. Even before she spoke, her dress, or lack of it, was enough to tell him what she was doing out there on a night as cold as this.

  “Wanting a good time, dearie?” Even from this distance, Rudi could tell that her face was deeply lined beneath her thickly applied makeup, and she was missing a couple of teeth.

  “I’m looking for someone,” he said diplomatically. The woman laughed, her years of practice almost managing to stifle the insincerity of it.

  “Aren’t we all, dear? Anyone in particular, or will Maggi do? You won’t do better for tuppence round here, I guarantee.”

  “Osric von Karien,” Rudi said. “I was told he lives somewhere nearby?”

  He read his answer in the ageing doxy’s eyes even before she spoke, the pretence of friendliness vanishing like dew on a hot summer morning. Withdrawing a pace, she pointed to a house about twenty yards down the road.

  “That one there.” She stared at him warily, and Rudi was suddenly reminded of the crone who’d thrown a brick at him when he tried to ask directions to Magnus’ house in the Doodkanal. No one in the vicinity seemed quite that hostile, at any rate, but the brief conversation had clearly been overheard. The space around him suddenly seemed much greater, even in the narrow, crowded street, and as he looked around, gazes were suddenly and unobtrusively averted. It seemed that the family was indeed shunned, even in so unprepossessing a quarter as this; hardly the sort of place Rudi had expected to find the sole surviving member of a noble family, however minor their lineage.

  “Thank you.” He dug a penny out of his purse. “You’ve been very helpful.” He flicked the coin into the air, expecting the woman to catch it, but she flinched back, letting the metal disc fall unheeded into the filth choking the gutter between them. Feeling vaguely disconcerted, Rudi walked away, conscious of eyes upon him, and studied the house she’d indicated.

  At first sight it was little different from any of its neighbours, looking somehow as if it had been jammed into a space too small for it, although as he approached the building Rudi became aware that it stood out from the others surrounding it in one significant respect at least. All the other houses he could see were seething with life, lamplight leaking from behind every shutter, accompanied by the sounds of human habitation: shouting, laughter, the crying of infants and the chatter of children. Von Karien’s house, by comparison, was dark, deserted and desolate. Its shutters were firmly fastened, and its front door was thick and solid looking, in marked contrast to the flimsy timberwork visible along the rest of the street.

  Forcing down the sudden stab of apprehension that the house was indeed empty, and that he’d made the journey here for nothing, Rudi walked up to the forbidding portal. It opened directly onto the street, and as he stood there in front of it the local inhabitants kept stepping around him as if he was cocooned inside an invisible barrier, instead of jostling past him as he might have expected.

  A large, ornate knocker, in the shape of Sigmar’s hammer, was mounted in the middle of the door. The workmanship was impressive, the decoration intricate, and it felt very solid in Rudi’s hand. Taking a deep breath he lifted it, rapping several times. The noise it produced was surprisingly loud, audible even over the babb
le of the street, booming away into the depths of the dark, shuttered house.

  Rudi waited for what seemed like a long time, but which was probably no more than a handful of minutes. Gradually, his stomach sinking slowly with the weight of disappointment, he began to accept that his initial impression had been the right one, and that the house was as deserted as it had first appeared. He was on the verge of turning away, and had just decided to knock again to make absolutely sure the place was empty, when the sound of a lock being turned arrested his attention.

  “Yes?” The door opened, just wide enough to reveal a man, standing a pace or two inside the entrance hall. Rudi could make out little of the house’s interior, as the hall itself was in darkness. A faint glow in the distance suggested lamplight, as if an interior door had been left ajar, but that was scarcely sufficient to see by. Even the man who’d answered his summons was indistinct, blending into the shadows within. Rudi could just make out the shape of a plain white shirt, dark trousers, and a pale face surmounted by closely cropped blond hair.

  “I want to see Osric von Karien,” Rudi said, as decisively as he could, suddenly aware of how he must look in his battered and travel-stained clothes. The man smiled sardonically.

  “Well, you’ve seen him.” He made as if to close the door. Before he was even aware of what he was doing, Rudi stepped forwards, blocking the doorway with his loot, and held out the letter addressed to von Karien, angling it so that von Eckstein’s seal was clearly visible.

  “I’ve a letter of introduction from the Graf von Eckstein,” he said, hardly able to believe that the man he was talking to wasn’t a servant as he’d at first assumed. Aristocrats didn’t answer their own front doors, did they? Von Karien, if that was who he really was, glanced at the missive.