CHAPTER ONE

 

 

The shop smelled of many things. It smelled of mildew and of dust, and of cheap pipeweed, but mostly it smelled of its owner. As plump as a toadstool, Brandt spent his entire life slumped within the confines of his store, idling the hours away in slovenly contentment.

Unless forced into action by thievery or commerce, the merchant’s body scarcely moved from one hour to the next. His eyes, though, were a different matter. They flitted constantly between the door, his customers, and the long tables upon which his wares were displayed.

In any other city, the nature and the range of this merchandise would have been remarkable, maybe even illegal, but this was Altdorf, the city of a thousand dreaming spires and the home of the great colleges of magic. Here, reading was almost commonplace, and the trade in ideas was every bit as important as that in salt fish or tar.

The best thing about those who trade in ideas, Brandt always thought, was that cheating them was as easy as drowning kittens.

One such innocent was stooping over his wares now: a tall, bearded man, as bony as a pauper, despite the richness of his robes. Brandt watched him flick through the pages of a book with practiced fingers. He stopped and read a little, his lips barely moving as he did so. Then he returned the volume to its place and wandered further down the table.

Brandt’s pulse quickened as the customer browsed his way through the books. When the man’s fingers closed on the red bound book, he made the unaccustomed effort of licking his lips.

Brandt watched as the customer tried to prise the covers apart. They gave a little at first, and then snapped back shut, just as the man who had given him the book had said they would.

Not that the merchant had doubted that man’s word. He wouldn’t have had the courage to. He had seen what the fellow could do during previous… transactions.

Brandt forced himself to look away as the customer wrestled with the book. He would be examining the binding for springs, trying to find some mechanical reason for the book’s strange behaviour.

When he realised that the book’s reluctance to be read was no clockwork trick, well, then he would…

“Ahem. Excuse me?”

Brandt fought to keep the look of smug satisfaction off his face.

“Yes? What is it, menheer?” he asked, blinking towards the tall man as if he had only just noticed him.

“It’s this book,” the customer said. After an uncomfortable moment it became clear that Brandt had no intention of getting up, so the tall man brought it over for his inspection.

“Oh.” The merchant studied the tome. “Would you like to buy it?”

“Yes… No. I’m not really sure. There seems to be something wrong with it.”

“Something wrong with it?” the merchant repeated, as hurt as a kicked puppy. “No, surely not. I assure you, menheer, that all of my stock is chosen by me personally. I mean that: absolutely personally. Now, what does the problem with this book seem to be?”

“It’s just that I can’t open it.”

Brandt, stirred to action by this criticism, reached out a podgy hand to take it. His grimy fingers prised at the covers, and he scowled with concentration. For once, he spared no effort, and after a moment, a runnel of sweat trickled down from beneath his tangle of hair.

“Well, well, well,” he said, breathing deeply and putting the book down. “I don’t know what to say, menheer. I can only assume it is… bewitched.”

He dropped the book with an expression of feigned horror.

“I see,” the customer said, cracking his knuckles with barely suppressed excitement. “How interesting. I wonder if you have any idea what the book’s about?”

Brandt dragged a dirty handkerchief across his face and shrugged. “Well, no… It’s in some strange language, lots of diagrams and symbols, pictures of jackals… Well, that’s what I was told…”

The customer snatched the book off the table and tried again, but this time there was no give in the covers at all. He pulled at his beard with one hand and weighed the volume in the other.

“I can only apologise, menheer.” Brandt plucked the book from his grasp. “Obviously this volume is magical. I’ll have to hand it in to the colleges of magic, or perhaps call in the witch hunters. I wouldn’t mind so much,” he continued, letting real grievance come into his voice, “but they never pay full market value, even to somebody like me, who bought the thing in good faith.”

The tall man cracked his knuckles again, all ten of them. Then he shifted from foot to foot, and cleared his throat nervously. Brandt waited for him to find the words.

“That does seem unfair,” he managed at last, and began to blush beneath his beard. “Perhaps I can help. I wouldn’t mind buying the book, you know. Just as a… a curio.”

Brandt frowned.

“I really should hand it in, you know,” he said. “I don’t want any trouble, and if the witch hunters were to find out that I’d been dealing in magical artefacts…”

He trailed off, and looked worried, but the tall man, who seemed to have overcome his initial embarrassment, was obviously too big a fool to take no for an answer.

His type always was, thought Brandt, and bit back another smile.

“The thing is,” his customer was almost pleading, “I can take it off your hands, and if I just pay you what you paid for the book, well then, that’s not commerce, is it? It’s just me doing you a favour.”

Brandt grunted noncommittally.

“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it,” he allowed, “but are you sure? I mean, you know what the colleges are like about things like this. Let alone the witch hunters.”

A momentary flash of anxiety furrowed the customer’s brow, but it soon melted beneath the heat of his desire.

“Don’t worry about that,” he said, lowering his voice. “It can be our secret. I’ve always liked this shop, you know. I’d hate to see you get into any trouble.”

Brandt composed his pallid features into a grateful smile.

“It’s nice of you to say so, menheer, very nice. In fact, I think that it will be all right for you to take the book, but I won’t take a single copper more than I paid for it.”

“Excellent, excellent.” The tall man retrieved the book and slipped it into a pocket within his robe. “Oh, and how much did you pay for it by the way?”

With a silent prayer of thanks to the gods, Brandt named his price.

 

Nobody knew when the Grey college had been built, although it had certainly been before the college itself had been created. Nobody knew who had built it, either. All that remained of those ancient masons were the bones of their architecture, the stonework polished smooth by time.

And what stonework it was. Even after countless centuries, the echoing chambers and shadow-haunted halls remained intact. The knowledge that this masonry was older than any tomb sometimes weighed down on those within, oppressing them with the weight of its years.

However, in the review chamber, such ominous feelings were not left to chance. Everything about it had been designed to intimidate. From the strange angles of the walls, to the granite carved statues that stood in the corners, the review chamber loomed.

The statues themselves were particularly unsettling. It wasn’t their height that did it, so much as their realism. Somehow, in the flickering light of the chandeliers, the agony that twisted their stooped forms seemed real enough to make the stone sweat, and their pain maddened eyes seemed to fix on all who entered the hall.

Titus paid them no heed as he marched between them.

He was a large man, almost as round as he was tall, but whereas some fat men grow nervous beneath their blubber, this certainly wasn’t true of the wizard. His footsteps rang out the measure of his absolute confidence, and his head was held so high that only two of his jowls showed.

It was not the sort of attitude the council liked to see.

There were six of them in all. Most were old, their faces lined by the terrible demands of their profession. All of them wore cloaks, shapeless grey things that faded into the stonework behind them, and they all sat raised up on a dais that dominated all who stood below.

At least, it was supposed to dominate all who stood below it, but when Titus came to a halt beneath the platform, he looked up at its occupants as if it was they who were about to be judged.

The grey robed men returned his look of disdain, vaguely aware that this wasn’t supposed to be how things went.

“Well?” Titus boomed, the acoustics lending his voice an authority that had no right to be there.

The chairman of the council scowled at this impertinence.

“Wait until you are addressed before replying,” he snapped.

Titus bridled at the man’s tone of voice.

“Then perhaps you would get on with addressing me,” he said, hands resting on his elephantine hips. “I’m a busy man.”

For a moment, none of the council could think of a suitable reply. The chairman recovered his wits first.

“Just as you like, Titus,” he said, his voice dangerously calm. “Just as you like. Scrivener elect, read the charges would you?”

“Yes, menheer.” The scrivener elect, a smoothly shaven man with a carefully expressionless face, snapped open a rolled parchment with a well-practiced gesture. He cleared his throat, held the parchment out in front of him, and began to read.

“The Council of the Order of Grey Magic, first amongst all colleges of Altdorf and chosen of mankind, today does summon Brother Titus Hieronymus Braha to face the judgement of his peers.”

The scrivener elect paused for long enough to glare haughtily down at the man who stood below him. Titus glared haughtily back up.

The scrivener elect coughed, and carried on.

“The reason is that, for the good of the entire order, Brother Titus has been reported by his more honest brethren as a miscreant. To whit, it has been said that he knowingly and with full forethought, attempted to turn his hand to a lesser magic than our own. And, on Sigmarzeit he cast a petty conjuration, the nature of which is far beneath the dignity of any of our order. Such spells are reserved for our weaker cousins in the College of Fire for a reason.”

Here the scrivener elect coughed again, and looked down at the accused for the first signs of remorse, or at least fear.

“Is that it?” Titus asked. The scrivener elect, caught off guard, lost his place on the parchment. By the time he had found it again he had turned pink.

“Erm, no, not quite. I mean… ah yes. Here we are, yes. Such spells are reserved for our weaker brethren in the College of Fire for a reason, and that is that. Should one as skilled and puissant as those of our order use such magic, it will inevitably become too powerful. Titus Hieronymus Braha, you knew this as well as any of us, and yet still you cast such a conjuration. What have you to say in defence of this most heinous of actions?” Titus shrugged. “We all make mistakes.” The scrivener elect goggled, obviously lost for words. Not so the chairman.

“We all make mistakes!” he thundered, his face mottling with rage. “Mistakes! We lost almost fifty books to the fire you caused. Fifty! And some of them, no all of them, irreplaceable. Do you have any idea how many hours were spent copying them, each word checked and checked again? Or how difficult it was to get them in the first place?”

“I have some idea, yes,” Titus replied, his voice ice to the chairman’s fire. “After all of the work I have done for this college, I have a very good idea indeed.”

“Twelve people were also killed,” the scrivener elect added, and then sat down as Titus looked at him.

“Apprentices often have accidents,” he said, looking uneasy for the first time. “I know that your chairman has got through the same number whilst practising established incantations of no research value.”

The chairman’s face went from red to white. The quill he held crumpled between his fingers, but then, with a superhuman effort, he mastered his temper.

“But it wasn’t just apprentices you killed, was it?” he asked.

Titus waved his hands in a way that made the seasoned wizards of the council distinctly nervous.

“Oh them. Yes, well. It’s always sad to see our brothers fall by the wayside, but this is a hard path we have chosen, and not everybody is cut out to walk it; and anyway, I didn’t kill them. In fact, had they survived, they would have been here now to help explain the value of our research.”

“Although I doubt if they’d have been any more capable of doing so than you,” another committee member sniped. One of the dead men had been an old acquaintance of his.

Titus frowned.

“Who knows?” He waved the question away with an airy gesture. “Anyway, it’s a moot point. I’ve decided not to pursue this particular area of research any further, at least not for a while. There are some neglected areas in our own canon that need work done on them: the truly effective concealment of large bodies of men, for example. Think of how grateful the Emperor would be to see his regiments turned to mist and shadows.”

The chairman barked with humourless laughter.

“I think you’ve turned enough people into mist and shadows recently, don’t you?”

“No, no, no,” Titus said, oblivious to the sarcasm. “I meant…”

“Never mind what you meant. All we want to know is whether or not you want to deny the charges against you.”

“What charges?”

The chairman nudged the scrivener elect, who had been listening to the exchange from behind the safety of the parchment roll.

“Oh,” he said, and cleared his throat nervously. “Brother Titus has been reported by his more honest brethren as a miscreant. To whit, it has been said that he knowingly…”

“Well of course I admit that,” Titus cut in impatiently, “although ‘admit’ is hardly the word. I am famed for the value of my research. This accident was unfortunate, but there it is. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.”

The entire board glared at him.

“Very well, Titus,” The chairman spoke for them all. “I think we’ve heard enough. Return to this room at the same time tomorrow, and we will hand down our judgement. I have a feeling that it will be unanimous.”

“Good,” said Titus, his mind already slipping away to other matters. “Well then, I won’t detain you any longer.”

With that, he turned on his heel and left the room.

“So, brothers,” the chairman began after Titus had slammed the doors shut behind him, “how do we find?”

“Guilty,” the board chorused.

“Quite right,” said the chairman. “Right then, let’s go and have lunch.”

 

“Evening, sir.” The senior gatekeeper, who had been leaning against the college wall, stood to attention and snapped off a salute of his own invention.

“Yes,” Grendel agreed distractedly. He forgot the guard as soon as he had seen him, and scuttled beneath the portcullis, impatient to be back within the peace of the college, and even more impatient to be alone. The book he had bought was tucked beneath his arm, as safely as an egg beneath a hen, and he was fighting the temptation to stop and study it.

“I don’t know why you bother to greet them,” the gatekeeper’s mate said as the lank figure disappeared into the courtyard. “They don’t care if you do or not, and none of them ever returns the salute.”

The gatekeeper, who had reached his position by outliving most of his peers, shook his head sagely.

“Never hurts to show respect to the gentlemen. Although it occasionally hurts not to.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Back on the farm I heard all kinds about wizards. It’s all stories, though. They’re no worse than any other sort of merchant.”

“Merchants!” the gatekeeper snorted. “Morrslieb must be out tonight. If you think that this lot are anything like merchants, you’re crazy.”

“They’re easier than merchants, is what I meant,” the other man said. “I used to work on the caravans up to Praag, and the bosses there were nine times the bastards these wizards are.”

The gatekeeper waited for a wagon full of barrels to rattle between them before he replied.

“Maybe they were, but that’s not much comfort to Frenk, is it?”

“Who’s Frenk?”

“Your predecessor. He worked here twenty years, ever since he got out of the regiment; leant on his halberd instead of saluting, took it easy, and looked forward to getting drunk when the week was finished.”

“So, what happened to him?”

The gatekeeper shrugged.

“Difficult to say, really, burnt doesn’t really cover it, and anyway, fire doesn’t have a mind of its own. The fire that came out of the college, though… Well, it was alive, and it had a shape.”

“Everything has a shape,” his comrade said, but the gatekeeper shook his head impatiently.

“No, I mean a real shape: a man shape. It had eyes and teeth and claws, and when it grabbed poor old Frenk…”

He trailed off, eyes glazing over as he focused on the memory. It wasn’t a pleasant one.

For a moment, the other man fell silent too, struggling with his scepticism.

“Supposing that this fire did kill your mate.” he said at last. “Are you saying it was some sort of punishment for not saluting?”

“Don’t know,” the gatekeeper admitted. “All I know is that I always saluted, and out of the two of us it was him that got took.”

“You’re saying the wizards killed him for being cheeky? I don’t believe that. Why didn’t they just tell him to snap to it?”

“Because they never notice, and no, the thing that killed Frenk wasn’t doing anyone’s will but its own. At least,” he lowered his voice even further, “that’s what they said. Even so, makes you think, doesn’t it?”

His companion thought. A moment later, a mild looking old man, glasses as thick as pebbles perched upon his nose, doddered past them.

Both men saluted. Both men were ignored.

“I suppose,” the gatekeeper’s comrade said as the wizard wandered off into town, “that it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

The gatekeeper smiled. People learned fast around the college. Fast, or not at all.

 

Grendel would have agreed with him. As soon as he’d reached his chambers, he’d locked his doors, dragging home iron bolts that squeaked with misuse. Then, after placing his book reverently amongst the clutter of his workbench, he dragged a chair over to the door and wedged it beneath the handle.

He stepped back for a moment and regarded his handiwork. He briefly considered dragging over his bookcase too, but impatience decided him against the idea. Instead, he hurried back to his find.

The little red book had been expensive, but that only made it more intriguing; that and the fact that Grendel knew that he should have reported it to the proper authorities.

The proper authorities, he thought as he cleared a space on his bench, were idiots. He, on the other hand, was a wizard: one of the chosen, and when the winds of magic blew, how could he pretend not to feel them? To do so would have been like trying to live his life with his eyes closed.

Pleased with the analogy, and the warmth of self-justification it brought, Grendel sat down in front of the book. He took a moment to enjoy the sense of anticipation he got from embarking on the study of this mystery. Then, rolling back his sleeves and flexing his fingers, he placed his bony hands on the leather cover of the slim volume.

It was cold and smooth, and he wondered what sort of leather it was. Then he dismissed the question and started to empty his mind of all such chattering thoughts.

Even after decades of practice, it still took time to achieve the necessary inner silence, but Grendel was patient, and eventually his mind grew as still and as silent as a frozen ocean. Only then did he begin to speak.

His voice was as soft as his body was hard. The words themselves were also soothing. They pulsed with the well-honed rhythms of a balladeer’s lyrics, vibrant with a life of their own. When they drifted up into the dusty rafters, the spiders stopped spinning, as if eager to listen, and even the sparrows that nested in the tiles above fell silent.

Grendel let the words flow out of him, reciting the incantation with an ease that came of long practice. How many hours had he spent stumbling over these words, his tongue tripping over the unfamiliar sounds? Thousands, probably. The first few years of his apprenticeship had seemed to consist of little else.

Some said that the language of his art came from the elves. There was certainly little of the guttural Imperial tongue about it. The words flowed as smoothly as quicksilver, a silken whisper that insinuated itself into the deepest recesses of a listener’s mind.

There were some, Grendel knew, whose mastery was such that they could kill with a single word. That was not his path, though. He had no time for the petty squabbles of princes, or the foolish pride that set his brothers against each other.

No, Grendel cared only for knowledge, and eventually, as day turned to night, and the shadows in the unlit chamber spread like so much spilled ink, he succeeded in gaining it.

After uncounted hours of channelling his power against the enchantment that bound the book, the spell broke silently, invisibly. One moment, the thing was as well sealed as a Khemrian tomb, and the next it lay open on the table.

It wasn’t until Grendel paused to wipe his glistening forehead that he noticed that night had fallen. He reached across for a lantern and fumbled around in the detritus that covered his table for his flint and steel.

Sparks struck the oil soaked cord and it sputtered into life. Grendel’s eyes watered at the brightness of the sudden flame. The book lay open in front of him, its grubby pages as inviting as the sheets of a dockside brothel.

Grendel scratched at his beard and paused. For a moment, a single moment, some instinct warned him of the precipice that he was about to step over.

It wasn’t just the severity of the rulings against practising unauthorised magic, he’d known of those right from the start, and had often bent them in the past. Nor was it the penalty that such a transgression might incur. He paid little attention to the outside world, and the horrors that Altdorf’s witch hunters inflicted upon rogue magic users scarcely seemed anything to do with him.

No, it wasn’t these thoughts that lay behind his sudden anxiety. It was something more, some animal instinct that had nothing to do with thought or judgement, but everything to do with survival.

Grendel’s bony fingers, which seconds before had been smoothing the pages as gently as a lover’s skin, started to tap nervously. Sweat dampened the pallid skin of his forehead, and he began to gnaw at the rat-tails of his moustache.

It was then, within the confusion of his thoughts, that a small, quiet voice spoke up.

It said, “You’re a wizard, not some silly apprentice.” Grendel, a little surprised by the clarity of the thought, nodded to himself. It was, after all, no more than the truth.

“Whatever secrets this tome contains,” the voice continued, “you will surely be the equal of them.”

Grendel’s crooked back straightened. Of course he would!

Don’t be a coward, he thought. Open the book and discover the wonders within.

For there are wonders within, probably more than you can imagine.

The wizard’s beard jutted out and his doubts evaporating like dewdrops before a rising sun. He began to read.

 

“Ulric freeze the testicles off those fools!” Titus roared, pacing around his chambers like some captive beast, “especially that pig’s bladder, Liebham. I remember him from apprenticeship, the snivelling little weasel, always creeping about and telling tales, and always copying from those of us with real talent. To think that he’s got the cheek to tell me what to do!”

Titus, his jowls wobbling with outrage, turned on his servant as if it had been his fault. Another man might have been shaken by this wrath. Not Kerr; after all, he had famously dragged his master from the fires that had been caused by his ruinous experiment. He still bore the burn marks to prove it.

“It’s terrible, master,” Kerr said, eyeing the fat man as a matador eyes a bull. “Terrible, heinous, irksome and gratuitous.”

“Speak normally,” Braha snarled, some of his rage finding a lightning rod in the slim form of his servant, “or I won’t let you read the Lexigraph again.”

Kerr winced. Since entering Titus’ employ he’d discovered both the ability and the opportunity to read. His master’s Lexigraph was the cornerstone of this new pursuit, and he spent his days hunched over it, lips moving as he shaped new words.

“Sorry,” he said, trying to sound contrite. “What I meant to say was that the council sounds like a bunch of wan—”

“I didn’t mean you to speak that normally.” Titus cut him off. “They are, after all, still my colleagues, although I don’t know how some of them managed it. That slimy little clerk, for example, I don’t see how he could ever have joined our ranks. I don’t even know his name.”

“It’s Corvin,” Kerr told him.

“How do you know?”

“The cook’s apprentice told me. He said he was up half the night practising reading out the charges.”

“And how did he know that?” Titus asked, curiosity getting the better of his rage.

“Apparently, this Corvin kept sending down for wine. Lennard said he looked damned nervous. It must have been the thought of facing you, eh boss?” A wolfish grin spread across Titus’ chubby features. “Nervous was he?” he asked, delighted. “And well he might be. In fact, I’ve half a mind to challenge one of the council to a duel. See how they like that.”

“Corvin wouldn’t. Lennard said that he even drank at breakfast.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Not even when it’s two bottles of claret?”

Titus roared with laughter.

“That explains why he kept losing his place on that damned parchment. Ach, to the hells with them. Why should I let them spoil my appetite? I think I’ll eat up here tonight. I don’t fancy listening to those idiots blathering on in the main hall. Go and get my supper, would you? Oh, and here.”

Kerr stopped, his hand already on the doorknob. Titus sent a coin spinning through the air towards him. Kerr snatched it out of the air, his fingers as nimble as any conjuror’s.

“Thank your friend for the information. Tell him the sharpness of his ears does him credit.”

“Will do, boss,” said Kerr, pocketing the coin. He made a half bow, turned, and left his master in the chambers behind him.

He smiled as he made his way down towards the kitchens. Even now, a month after he had fought his way off the streets and into the wizard’s service, he could hardly believe his luck. Everything about his new life, from the shoes to the clean flagstones upon which he walked, seemed almost too good to be true.

Still, what he had found with luck he would keep with cunning. He studied the coin his master had thrown him, and then slipped it into his purse. He had already paid Lennard for the information, and with a lot less than this.

He paid other informants, too. The guards he paid with meat stolen from the kitchens, the porters with the strength of his back, and the cleaners with change from the coins that Titus occasionally threw at him.

And every day he made new friends, new allies.

Kerr hadn’t needed to read the inscription carved over the college’s gates to know that knowledge was power. It was one of the truths that had kept him alive in the gutters and rat runs of his orphanhood.

His smile hardened into a determined line as he descended a winding stone staircase. Every dozen steps or so there were little alcoves containing oil lamps to light the way. His fingers itched as he trotted past them, but as always he resisted the temptation.

“Think bigger,” he mumbled as he reached the bottom of the staircase and stepped out into the hall beyond. He followed the smells and the noise through a double door at the other end of it, and found himself in the furnace heat of the rotisserie.

It was more like a battlefield than a kitchen. Dozens of men were running, screaming, fighting with roasting animals and boiling cauldrons. It was the same every night, which was why Kerr always chose this hour to scrounge around for whatever he could find.

Not tonight, though. Tonight he came as an emissary of the great wizard, Titus Braha, a man whose talents had almost been the death of them all.

“Chef!” he shouted, waving at a man whose sweating face was as pink as a skinned rabbit.

“What the hell do you want?” he swore horribly, and changed his grip on the ladle he held. The foot of steel served as badge of office, tasting spoon or weapon as the mood took him.

“My master wants to eat in his chambers.”

“What mas… Oh.”

The chef’s mood mellowed suddenly.

“Follow me,” he said, barging through the mass of frenzied activity to the table where the food was laid out for the waiters. One of them bumped into the chef. He was driven back with a whack from the ladle and a curse.

“Take a platter. Do you know how to fill it with what Menheer Titus likes? Good. The high table seem to be celebrating something tonight, so I don’t have time.”

He thrust a silvered tray into Kerr’s hands and returned to batter the chaos around him into some sort of order.

Celebrating, Kerr thought as he heaped the tray with delicacies. What are they celebrating?

Well, no matter, he’d find out soon enough.

Pausing only to slip two bottles of wine into his satchel and another into his tunic, Kerr staggered back out of the heat of the kitchen.

Titus’ platter, as full as a trough, took all of his attention as he staggered back up the winding stairs. By the time he reached the wizard’s chambers, he was damp with sweat, and he set the platter down for a moment to regain his breath before entering the room.

As he did so a scream echoed down the corridor.

It was shrill enough to be a woman’s, but Kerr doubted that it was. They weren’t allowed up here. For a moment, he considered going to investigate, but only for a moment. If he went to investigate every scream that he heard in the college, he’d never get any work done, and with that comforting thought he got back to the task in hand.