by Warhammer
And there, inside the ring of spell-shapes, the smoke wove itself into a body. From a swirling mass, long legs rose into the form of a tall man, barrel-chested, muscles carved in ever-shifting smoke. His face was handsome, a long beard of dripping fumes pointing out from a square chin. The creature's eyes were points of flame, seemingly vast yet viewed from a great distance so as to appear as small flickers of yellow light.
He'arka'thul'akut, a voice echoed around the room, coming from all directions and none. The creature's mouth moved in mockery of speech, but the shapes formed by its smoking lips did not match the sounds that emanated from the room.
'You shall speak in my tongue, so that your words might be clear to me,' the woman said, settling her arms back on to her knees.
As you bid.
'You know why you are summoned here, noble djinn?' the enchantress asked, flicking a gaze at the smoking sigils on the floor. They were burning quickly; the elemental she had summoned was a powerful one and her wards would not last more than a few minutes.
I know what dwells within. I know of the she'al akra.
'And you know then what I seek,' she said, keeping her voice as calm as possible. Already three outer circles had almost vanished, and she had to fight against a moment of panic. 'I seek to know how the she'al akra can be healed.'
That which dwells within is strong.
'You are strong, magnificent djinn.' she tried flattery. 'You can heal this gaping wound.'
I am strong, yet that which dwells within is stronger still. I cannot heal the she'al akra. There is no power in the immortal realm that can aid you.
Another circle bubbled away. Now there were only two remaining. Tendrils of smoke were creeping along the outside of the holding circle, seeking an exit. The sigils surrounding the summoner were beginning to glow as magical energy from the djinn seeped into the room.
'Am I doomed?' she asked, panic in her voice.
There is no power in the immortal realm that can aid you.
'Then there is a power in the mortal realm that can aid me!' the enchantress said, smiling triumphantly. The djinn was holding something back, but it could not tell a lie outright, the summoning bound it to its every word. She would have to be swift, and she gulped heavily before asking her next question. 'What is it in the mortal realm that can save me?'
Long ago, the elves made a blade that wounded our kind. It was wielded by one of their fiercest warriors. Strong he was, and he waged a terrible war...
'Enough stories, tell me about the sword!' the woman said, realising that the djinn was playing for time, hoping to avoid answering before the summonation seals burned out. There was only one circle left now. Sweat trickled down the enchantress's cheeks, and her eyes flickered between the djinn and the remaining ward circle.
The blade contains the essence of a great many of our kind. The power of the sword can be released and used to heal the she'al akra.
'Where is the blade now?' she asked quickly.
The elves gave it to a man of these lands. That man fell in battle and the dwarf folk of the mountains took it into their deep halls. There they hold it still.
'Which hall, which hold do the dwarfs keep it in?' the enchantress barked the question in a quivering voice, her eyes fixed to the bubbling blood on the floor. The last warding ring was now almost gone.
In the peaks between the white and black, from wasteland city south and west.
'Your riddle is obvious, you mean the Grey Mountains,' said the woman. 'Tell me, what is the sword called, and how might I trace its history?'
A deep laugh rumbled around the room, and the image of the man within the circle faded and turned into a miniature whirlwind. Fire flared at its heart, and it rose into the air, growing in size and power. The last circle had burned out.
Like a storm breaking, the djinn crashed through the thin veil of barriers holding it in check. It roared around the room, ripping paper from the walls and tossing the furniture into the air, lifting up the bed itself. With a flash of lightning it battered itself against the circle of protection that still remained around the enchantress, and a bestial shriek of frustration filled the air. Again and again, the djinn threw itself at the warding spells, and the floor itself was ripped up in the tumult, boards splintering, nails whirling savagely into the plaster now exposed on the walls.
'I bid you go!' shouted the woman, standing hastily and flinging out her arms. There was an agonised wail and then the smoke tornado exploded into flames that seared for a moment and then disappeared. The furniture fell to the floor with loud thuds, the bed settling against a cracked wall.
It was only then that the woman became aware of a loud banging at the heavy oak door, and shouting from beyond.
'Lady Halste? Lady Halste?' she recognised the voice of Khemen, her manservant. 'Princess Jasmina?'
Snarling she wrenched open the door and confronted the swarthy man, his fist half-raised to bang on the door again. He was short, a head shorter than the long-limbed sorceress, and plump. She grabbed him by the mop of dark hair that splayed over his head and dragged him squealing into the room, kicking the door shut with her heel as she turned and pushed him to the ground.
'What have you forgotten, Khemen?' she spat, kicking him in the midriff with a bare foot, her anklets jangling. 'What did I tell you?'
'Never call you princess,' whimpered Khemen, who curled up on the floor as best his expansive gut allowed. 'I was worried, I did not think...'
'Never!' the woman shrieked, kicking him again and again. 'I am Lady Halste! I am Lady Halste!'
'Yes, my lady, yes, yes,' sobbed Khemen, tears gathering on the bushy moustache that almost totally obscured his mouth.
'Now, my sweet Khemen,' Lady Halste continued, crouching down to hug the quivering servant, 'you know you shouldn't displease me.'
'I am sorry, my lady,' Khemen's head bobbed vigorously in deference. Standing, Lady Halste pulled off the veil to reveal her beautiful face, her lips full and red, her eyes decorated with deep pink shadow, her sharp cheeks accentuated with a subtle rouge. She smiled sweetly at Khemen, helped him to his feet and made a play of dusting him down. Kissing him lightly on the forehead, she smoothed back his ruffled hair.
'Now, Khemen, compose yourself,' she told him, stepping lightly across the room to pull open the shutters. Rain pattered on the small diamond-shaped panes of heavy glass, and a grey, dismal light shone into the chamber, revealing the havoc wreaked by the angry djinn. Khemen's eyes widened in horror and he looked at his mistress, who was gazing out of the window, absent-mindedly twisting a curl of her black hair around a finger.
'Are you hurt, my lady?' Khemen asked, taking a step towards her. She spun on her toes, and then seeing his gaze gave a dismissive wave with her fingers, the gold of her rings catching the watery light from outside.
'Oh, I'm perfectly fine, Khemen,' Lady Halste assured him. She then clapped her hands a couple of times, and bounded across the room towards the door. 'You can tidy this up later, we've got important work to do!'
Huddled against the rain, Khemen shuffled out of the doors of the great building where Lady Halste was currently occupying her palatial apartment. He tried desperately to remember what she had told him, yet his mind was dulled by a combination of the cold and the terror he still felt after hearing the inhuman shrieks that had emanated from the lady's room.
The rain did not dampen the smell of salt water and fish that the sea breeze brought in from Marienburg's extensive docks. All-in-all, Khemen decided, Marienburg was a dull and dreary place. Even where the lady held her apartments, in one of the richest parts of the cities, the houses were in poor repair, or so it seemed to him. The greying whitewash of the walls peeled from cracked plaster between mould-rimed wooden beams. The streets were uneven, the city built in the middle of a marsh. There was much evidence that whole streets had subsided over the centuries and simply been rebuilt on top of the ruins.
It seemed that the buildings themselves were continually fig
hting against this inevitable sinking, as haphazard storeys were built atop each other, with garrets and turrets protruding at odd angles, and in some places the buildings had extended so far as to link up overhead, creating arches and galleries several storeys above street level. The grey slate roofs did nothing to increase the city's limited charm in his eyes. They were dismal compared to the great marble, alabaster and painted sandstone domes of his city of birth, many, many leagues to the south.
And the weather was intolerable. For a man who had never seen rain until he had travelled northwards only a few years ago, the constant downpour that pervaded the realms of the Old World was a misery. Here in Marienburg it seemed as if the sky itself wept in lament at the sprawling misery of humanity laid beneath it. He pulled his red woollen cloak tighter around his shoulders and almost slipped down the steps leading to the sparsely cobbled streets.
While he waited to hail a passing coach, Khemen reflected on the city that had become his home for the last three years. It did have a kind of squalid character, and wore its long maritime history like a medal. There were windows made from ship's wheels, rafters fashioned from masts and spars, and many of the doorways of the larger buildings actually mounted figureheads. Struck by a sudden insight, he looked up at the overlapping roofs, attic windows and spindly chimney flues and they struck him as reminiscent of the sails and masts of a great galleon or man o'war. Yes, he decided, there was a certain nautical feel to the whole place, the buildings themselves taking on a form of indefinable 'shipness' that was comfortable to the people living there.
Spying a coach approaching, he gingerly stepped out into the street, trying to avoid the numerous muddy puddles, and held out his arm. With a cry, the coachman pulled on the reins and the coach slewed to a halt a few steps from Khemen, the horses' hoofs splashing mud onto his dark leather boots. Grimacing at the amount of effort it would take to remove the mudstains from his garments, Khemen pulled open the door and hauled himself into the coach.
'The Grand Library,' he called to the driver as he shook out the rain from his coat, and then slammed the door and slumped into the seat. The horses clattered onto the cobbles as the coach turned around, and quickly dropped into a steady rhythm.
Feeling the coach slowing, Khemen pulled back the curtains and peered through the raindrop spattered glass. In the dismal gloom he could see a large edifice disappearing out of sight above them and knew they were at the Grand Library of Marienburg. The driver pulled the horses to a clattering halt, and Khemen opened the door. He dropped down from the coach, slammed the door and tossed a crown up to the driver, who caught it deftly in his gloved hand.
'I can't change a crown, sir!' the driver protested and was about to toss it back when Khemen held up his hand to stop him.
'There's another for you if I find you waiting here when I come out,' the Arabian told him.
'How long you 'spect to be?' the driver asked.
'Several hours yet, I suspect,' Khemen told the man.
'How long's that?' the driver asked, squinting down at his passenger.
'A rain of frogs upon the heads of ex-sailors,' Khemen muttered to himself in Arabic before addressing the driver. 'It'll be at least half a watch before I'm ready to return.'
'Right you are, sir, see you here then.' The driver gave Khemen a nod before he cracked his whip over the horses and the coach rattled away.
Khemen turned away and looked up at the Grand Library of Marienburg, though to most of the inhabitants of the city it was simply the Tomeship. It wasn't difficult to see why. The library was built upon a foundation of stone one storey high, with steps leading up to it. The rest of the building was built from the hulls of three immense ships, one laid upon the other two. A labyrinthine network of extra spars and reinforcing struts kept the structure relatively sturdy, and here and there brick walls had been built onto the hulls, and slate-tiled roofs sprawled at every angle in mockery of sails that no longer flapped in the wind. All-in-all, Khemen considered, it was quite the most ghastly piece of architecture he had ever encountered.
The masts were still intact and flew the flag of Marienburg from their heads, as well as numerous other flags that communicated a variety of meanings to the people of Marienburg and those out in the harbour who could clearly see the tall building from quite a distance.
Today, the lower left mainmast flew a long yellow pennon over a square, red flag. That meant that it would be an early evening tide. The masthead to the right was hung with three flags, alternating blue-white-blue, which meant that the local weather-watchers expected rain all day. Khemen snorted to himself at that, since in Marienburg it rained nearly all day, every day. Finally, the central mast displayed a great white pennon, nearly three hundred feet above street level, that snapped and fluttered in the prevailing wind. White meant the wind was expected to remain steady all day. Again, a westerly sea breeze was fairly common in the port, one of the reasons why the harbour was so chaotically busy. Approaching it was rarely a problem, but ships leaving the city often had to be towed out of the port by boats, or be rowed out on their own sweeps, because there was insufficient room to tack against the prevailing wind.
Khemen tramped up the wooden steps that led to the great doorway into the library. The double doors were open, and he stepped inside, feeling the warmth of the two braziers positioned just a few steps into the library to ward away the chill of the outside. Warming his hands by one of the braziers, Khemen looked around the great hall, which was almost completely bare except for a few scattered desks, none of them occupied. The floor was tiled in a chequered pattern of red and white, the tiles chipped and worn.
The whole building creaked in the wind, and Khemen looked up at the hulls of the ships above. The timbers were painted over in white, but the spread of barnacles and dotted nail heads could still be seen clearly in the light cast by lanterns hung from the roof. Not far to his right, Khemen could see where the ship had been patched up after a battle, the timbers knitted together with fresher planks.
At the far side of the hall was a long, low counter, behind which stood a tall, thin-faced man, who pored over a volume open on the counter top in front of him. Khemen made his way over to the counter and stood in front of the man.
'Good day, sir,' he said and the man slowly looked up at him with watery blue eyes. With a leisurely finger, he pointed to a sign propped up on the counter to Khemen's left. It read: 'Please Ringe for the Attentione of the Library Master.' Khemen looked around, but could see no bell.
'Ring what, sir?' he asked the man, who had returned to his study of the book. Glancing at the pages, Khemen saw illustrations of various couples engaging in carnal acts. They seemed even more inappropriate and improbable when viewed upside-down. He had heard of such volumes that originated from far to the east, brought to the Empire by merchants out of the land of Ind. Shuddering, he turned his attention back to the man, who sighed heavily at the interruption. Marking his place with a piece of parchment from the pocket of his doublet, he ponderously closed the book and looked up at Khemen with his weak stare.
Without a word, he shuffled along the counter, using its top to steady himself; Khemen could see he had a pronounced limp. As he rounded the end, the reason became clear: the man's left leg was twisted outwards almost at a right angle just above the ankle. Straps and metal banding reinforced the smashed joint, nailed into a wooden boot.
Still silent, the man lumbered slowly across the hall back towards the doors. Confused, Khemen trailed behind him. The man's heavy boot scraped along the tiles, and Khemen realised where many of the scratches and chips that marred the floor had come from. The noise grated on Khemen's nerves, and each of the man's steps caused the Arabian to wince at the sound.
After a tortuous eternity for Khemen, the man led him back into the entrance hall. There, in an alcove that Khemen had not noticed when he had entered, was a rope attached to a ship's bell on an ornate brass hook. His limping guide snorted and pointed to the bell before turning slowly and
making his scraping progress back across the main hall. Khemen was transfixed for a moment and mentally slapped himself to break his contemplation of the crippled man's awkward ambulation. Taking the stiff cord in one hand, he rang the bell twice. A clear sound echoed off the roof of the hallway, and bounced back in strange ways from the hulls of the ships in the chamber beyond.
As the ringing died away, another sound took its place. Above his head, Khemen could hear the steady grinding of gears and muffled rattle of chains. Perplexed, he looked around for the source, but it was not until he stepped back into the main reception hall that he could see what was happening. A section of the ship's hull making up the ceiling to his right was dropping away on four chains, jerkily descending towards the floor. It swayed from side to side, and Khemen noticed that a handrail of rope was stretched around the wooden platform with brass rods.
On the dais stood a man, and Khemen hurried over towards him, hoping he was the library master, or at least a more helpful assistant.
The occupant of the strange conveyance was a wizened, shrivelled husk of a man, his scalp hairless, his chin sprouting a few white wisps that hung to his chest. He was dressed in a smock made from a patchwork of velvet, linen, wool and bleached canvas, in haphazard squares and rectangles of all colours, tied at the waist with a rope threaded with gilded cord. Khemen noticed the man's feet were shoeless, and he wore odd-coloured hose, his left leg blue, the right leg green, and the blackened, broken nail of his left big toe protruded from the worn silk.
More remarkable still was the man's face. His skin was lined with age, yellowing from disease, and his head was encased in a framework of leather and brass, connected with gears and ratchets each no bigger than a thumbnail. A series of different-sized lenses covered the man's eyes and enlarged them, giving him the appearance of a startled toad.