CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 

 

Tonight, Zhukovsky’s palace was oiled with the sweat of his servants. In the balconies of the ballroom, runnels of it ran through the white face powder of the musicians. Tonight of all nights, they were legion and, knowing the importance of the event, they bent over their instruments with the intensity of surgeons over patients.

Far below them, toiling beneath the ground as hard as any miners, the kitchen staff raced between simmering cauldrons and well-tended stoves. The cost of the spices alone would have kept a regiment in the field for a month, and there was enough food for a hundred times as many guests as the count had invited.

He generally sneered at gluttony as being the least of the vices, but tonight Zhukovsky was happy to honour it. He strolled amongst his guests as they gorged themselves, feasting on everything from oysters to potted rhinox.

He cut a fine figure tonight, he knew that much, and when he was asked to dance, which he often was by the daughters of the ambitious aristocracy, he managed a fluidity of movement that would have shamed an instructor.

Or at least, he seemed to. The enchantments that Grendel had provided hid the truth of what he had become from the eyes of others, but from his own eyes, he could expect no mercy.

In the walls of mirrors that encompassed the dance floor, he occasionally caught a glimpse of the hunched, ruined thing he had become: the doughy skin, as loose and wrinkled as an octogenarian’s, the painful, scuttling gate, the patchy hair and shaking fingers.

More than one partner had felt those fingers spasm into a clench around her waist. More than one had taken it as a compliment, and wondered if they would be the one to land such a dazzling prize as the great Count Zhukovsky.

Zhukovsky grew impatient as the night wore on, and anxiously watched the changing colours of the dwarf-made chandeliers as they shifted hues. As the heat of the candles warmed the crystal it changed, prisming the light into great rainbows of colour.

Those who had been here before pretended to be bored with the splendour. The others pretended to be unimpressed, but as far as the count was concerned, the changing colours were no more than an hourglass, a marker of how much longer he had to maintain his civilised veneer.

Wine flowed. Tongues wagged. The dances became closer and longer. A challenge to a duel was issued and accepted.

It wasn’t until the ball was in full swing that the musicians stopped, paused, and then played the fanfare that marked the arrival of the Tsaritsa.

She swept into the room, and the hundreds of guests fell to their knees, heads bowed towards her. Although their heads were bowed, their eyes didn’t leave her.

She was magnificent. The white gold of her hair gleamed with the iridescence of a serpent’s scales beneath the light of the chandeliers. The tiara she wore almost paled into insignificance, especially compared to the flawless beauty of her skin, and, when she slipped off the white fur cloak, how much skin there was.

The neckline of her bodice plunged steeply and beyond it, she wore nothing but transparent lace hose on her arms and legs, and a spun gold belt.

The women looked at her, their hearts beating with everything from disapproval to a jealousy verging on hatred. The men just looked.

Zhukovsky, as the host, was the first to hurry over and make his obeisance.

“My lady Tsaritsa,” he said, dropping to one knee, “I am honoured that you have deigned to grace us with your presence. I swear that the chandeliers glow with at least three new colours every time you gift us with your presence.”

The Tsaritsa smiled.

“You might be right,” she said. “My father always did say that there was a little divinity in our blood.”

“Only a little?” Zhukovsky asked.

“That was Tata’s problem, not enough ambition. Still, his problems are all over now aren’t they?”

“I suppose so, your excellence, and who would have thought he would have died so young?”

The two of them exchanged a single, blank look before turning to less dangerous matters.

“So,” the Tsaritsa said, “would you like to ask me to dance? Or is there another you would prefer?”

Zhukovsky thought about saying yes. That blundering cow, Baron Tsepe’s daughter, had stepped on his feet at least twice, and he would have liked to see her exiled. On the other hand, he didn’t want anybody to make a scene, not tonight of all nights.

“Besides your radiance,” he told the Tsaritsa, “all other women are as lumps of coal beside a diamond.”

The Tsaritsa frowned.

“But coal is useful.”

“Not as useful as diamonds, your excellence.” Zhukovsky thought quickly. “With diamonds you can cut anything, or buy anything.”

The Tsaritsa’s stare grew harder.

“So you’re saying that I’m for sale: a whore?”

The word was shocking on her lips, and the room fell silent as everybody pretended not to be listening.

“Of course not, Tsaritsa,” Zhukovsky choked. He had used to be so much better at handling the spoilt bitch’s mood swings. His wits seemed to be going the way of his body. “I just meant that they are the most precious thing in creation. Some say that they are dragon’s eyes, others that sorcerers use them to make powerful spells.”

“What kind of spells?” the Tsaritsa asked.

Zhukovsky, realising how finely his fate hung in the balance, swallowed.

“Spells of great beauty,” he said at length, “and spells to give men the bravery that such beauty inspires.”

“Would you die for me?” the Tsaritsa wondered with a terrifying irrelevance.

This time Zhukovsky knew the right answer.

“Of course,” he said, and smiled, “but I’d rather dance.”

The Tsaritsa giggled and, to his immense relief, allowed the count to escort her to the dance floor. The rest of the guests watched. Those who had seen the ice cracking beneath their benefactor’s immaculately booted feet tried to hide their disappointment.

In the whole room only a single man had been unconcerned with the little drama. His eyes had been moving all the while, looking past the assembled nobility, as a hunter looks through flakes of falling snow.

When the music started and the waiters hurried to refill everybody’s glasses, he drifted through the throng as unnoticed as the smoke that hung above their heads.

 

The ball didn’t finish until long, long after midnight. Most of the guests were escorted up to the chambers that Zhukovsky had provided for them. Others, proud of the talismans that vanquished the restless spirits of the night outside, staggered out to the sumptuous carriages and yawning coachmen that awaited them.

When there seemed to be nobody left except the servants, Zhukovsky slumped down onto a divan. He watched his underlings scurry about with contempt. They reminded him of rats in a barn, and he idly started to think of how he would punish the first one that caught his eye.

However, he was too distracted for such creativity. For the last hour, his excitement had been growing. Even his aches and pains were forgotten beneath the anticipation of what was to come. His coven would already be gathering, following the passageways that led from their carefully selected sleeping chambers.

What delights would Grendel have for them tonight?

Zhukovsky shivered and got to his feet. The servants who were nearest looked at him. All, apart from one of them looked at him apprehensively.

Tonight, however, Zhukovsky wasn’t about to waste any time on their miserable lives. Instead, he got to his feet and with something approaching a spring in his step, went to his chambers.

There was an almost audible sigh of relief as he left the room. The servants who were cleaning the detritus of the ball even started to laugh, their hearts lifting with the joy of men who have escaped the noose. Only one of them showed no sign of relief. He seemed intent on slipping after his master.

“Hey, you,” one of the chamberlains shouted. “Where do you think you’re going? No one leaves until we get this clear and we can all go to sleep.”

The servant turned to look at him, and the chamberlain felt a sudden confusion. He had thought he recognised the man, but now he wasn’t so sure. He looked familiar but also just so… so ordinary. His hair might have been blond or brown. His eyes could have been dark blue or light hazel, and his clothes, were they a servant’s finery or an aristocrat’s rags?

The chamberlain felt the spike of a headache pinch him between the eyes. He rubbed the spot and, when he looked up again, all thoughts of the bland man were gone.

“Don’t carry so many at once!” he scolded a waiter who had balanced a dozen platters on top of one another. “What did I say just two seconds ago?”

The waiter, mutinous with fatigue, just shrugged.

“Don’t take that attitude with me,” the chamberlain snapped.

 

Titus could hear their raised voices fade as he slipped away after Zhukovsky. His own footsteps fell lightly, the sound of his weight as neatly hidden as its shape. If there had been anybody to see him, they would have seen a nobody, and luckily for Titus, tonight Zhukovsky’s palace was full of nobodies.

Porters, waiters, maids, guests scuttling towards forbidden liaisons, or courtesans slipping towards lucrative ones—the hallways were alive with such innocuous traffic, and none of the other nobodies had time to worry about anybody as forgettable as Titus.

The only problem might have come from the mirrors that lined the hall. The sight of a fat wizard waddling through the space where a servant should have been would have turned even a Praagian head. Fortunately, people had their own affairs to mind, and Zhukovsky, Titus saw, had his own aversion to mirrors. He winced every time he caught his eye in one.

The count reached a gilded doorway and, completely ignoring the two guards who snapped to attention as he past, stepped through and onto the flight of stairs beyond it.

Titus hesitated. Then he lowered the lids of his eyes and started to mouth words. His fingers moved as he did so and, stepping slowly, he began to walk forwards again.

The guards stance grew even straighter, and their eyes never wavered as he stepped up and past them. The soft pad of his footsteps had faded up the stairs before they relaxed.

“Who would have thought it?” one of them whispered, his voice almost awed. “That she would go up like that, as bold as brass. Wait until I tell the missus.”

His mate looked at him, eyes hard.

“You’ll tell nobody,” he said, “unless you want to end the week in a pile of offal.”

The first guard looked suddenly nervous.

“Come on, now, how would she know?”

“She’s the Tsaritsa, you idiot. Gossip about her visiting the count gets out, and we’ll all be for the chop.”

His mate shrugged.

“I suppose you’re right. Even so… imagine it.”

The two men imagined it as Titus closed in on his prey.

 

Grendel had never been one for social occasions, far from it. The dangers and difficulties of his art were nothing compared to the agonising embarrassments he suffered upon having to talk to people, especially to women. Somehow, he always felt that they were secretly laughing at him.

That had been in the past, however. Now, as one of the chosen of his new master, he no more feared the society of his fellow men than he did that of mice.

It was dark. He had only lit a single lantern while he had waited, and none of the celebrants had descended with anything brighter than a flickering candle.

There were half a dozen of them down already. Both men and women wore the same hooded cowls, the black silk throwing their faces into shadow and hiding their forms. Only one seemed careless of his identity, and he was trying to engage Grendel in conversation.

“I hear old Zhukovsky found you half dead on the road?” the fool asked. He had settled his nerves by drinking his way though the ball, and he swayed as he spoke.

“You heard correctly,” Grendel muttered.

“He’s found me staggering about myself more than once,” the man confided, and burst out into loud laughter.

Grendel scowled. This cavern was a place of mysteries, and of magic; to see the idiot treating it like an alehouse was almost insulting.

“Cheer up, bony,” the man told him, irritation flickering in his own bloodshot eyes. “It might never happen.”

“Oh, it will happen alright,” Grendel told him. Then he smiled. After all, why shouldn’t he? It didn’t make sense to expect any more of this drunken oaf than any other guinea pig.

“Quite right too.” the buffoon said. His belligerence had vanished as swiftly as his good humour. Something about Grendel’s grin was sharp enough to cut through his drunkenness.

“Now, if you will leave me to complete my preparations,” the sorcerer said, “perhaps you can entertain the ladies while we wait for the count.”

The man guffawed uneasily and returned to the little knot of figures that had gathered on the other side of the cavern.

Grendel pretended to busy himself with his paraphernalia, as more of Zhukovsky’s coven edged into the room. Another one of them sidled over, his pale hands fluttering nervously.

“Good evening, master,” he said and bowed.

Grendel was taken aback. Master: he had never been called that before, not by somebody who meant it, anyway.

“Good evening, yourself,” he replied and looked at the man. Even in the lamplight, he could see how pallid he was, and how nervous. His eyes twitched in their sockets as if trying to escape.

“I used to lead the incantations before you arrived,” he said, “just minor conjurations. Sometimes I managed to acquire potions.”

“Really,” Grendel replied.

“Zhukovsky says you have more exalted arts.”

Grendel looked at him, and for a moment felt something like pity.

Then there was a sudden hush, and the count swept into the chamber. The assembled worshippers turned towards him, drawn to him like heliotropes towards some dark sun, and whimpers of excitement filled the air.

“Greetings to you,” Zhukovsky said.

“Greetings to you, oh lord,” they replied with one voice.

“Everything ready, oh wise and exalted sorcerer?” Zhukosky asked.

It took Grendel a moment to realise that he was speaking to him.

“Oh. Yes. If you would like to form a circle.”

“Would you like us to disrobe first?” one of the cultists suggested, her voice tight with excitement.

“Of course we should disrobe,” another voice, male this time, said. They turned to Zhukovsky for a decision and, with a single sweeping gesture, he gave it to them.

As the count’s robes fell to the floor, Grendel took a moment to study the corruption that had ravaged his body. The skin hung in pouches, grey and grimy, even in the forgiving light of a single lantern. Bones and joints shone white beneath his misshapen hide, the muscle that had once sheathed them wasted away, and his hair was patchy.

It was his face that Grendel found particularly interesting. The sagging skin had left his gums revealed, so that his remaining teeth jutted in a permanent, orc-like snarl, and the underside of his eyeballs could also be seen, pink as a rat’s in the droop of his skin.

Not that his fellow cultists could see any of this. They were mesmerised by his form, men and women both, but it wasn’t the horror of Zhukovsky’s degeneration that held them transfixed, it was the glamour of the beauty that Grendel had wrapped around him.

A moment later, and Zhukovsky’s fellow cultists were stripping too. Grendel didn’t pay them much heed, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have recognised any of them, not even the girl, her hair white blonde and her skin as smooth as Zhukovsky’s was pockmarked.

As they ogled or preened, Grendel busied himself with the final preparations.

“What shall we do now?” somebody asked, apparently oblivious to the hands that had started to glide over her.

“Whatever you like,” Grendel said, “it won’t make any difference.”

“Shall we… shall we intertwine?”

Grendel, irritated by these constant interruptions, just grunted. Taking this as a sign of consent, the party drew closed together, the mass of bodies slipping into each other’s embrace.

“Right,” Grendel said and looked up. For a moment, he was thrown by the writhing of bodies. Then he realised that whatever the cultists were doing, it wasn’t magic. “Ahem. Excuse me?”

Zhukovsky shook himself free of his companions and rose to his feet.

“Command us, oh chosen one,” he intoned, his voice booming in the confines of the cavern.

“I need two people: two volunteers.”

“To honour our lord requires true faith,” Zhukovsky added. “Who will offer themselves?”

A chorus of voices answered, pathetic in their eagerness. Zhukovsky let them plead for a while before accepting the white-haired girl and one of the men. He led them to the centre of the mob, and there they stood, as proud as a bride and groom at the altar.

“Good,” Grendel said. He walked over to them and pulled a cork from a half empty wine bottle.

“Drink this,” he said and handed it to the man.

“I’ve had enough already,” he slurred, and Grendel realised that it was the buffoon from before. Good.

“Drink it!” he commanded. This time the man obeyed, taking a long, gurgling swig before passing it to the girl. When she raised it to her lips, an ecstatic murmur ran through the assembled cultists.

Grendel ignored them and retrieved the bottle.

“Now,” he said, as dispassionately as if he’d been describing how to thread a needle, “embrace.”

They needed no prompting, wrapping their limbs around each other with an eager familiarity. Grendel nodded approvingly, and then scurried back to collect another bottle. He muttered an incantation and, elbowing his way through the mass of sweating bodies, he poured out a line of viscous fluid around the two figures. When it was complete, he stood back and admired his handiwork.

“Very good,” he decided. “Very good indeed.”

Then he stepped back and, fingers twisting into shape, he began to chant.

 

Titus had reached the top of the stairs just as Zhukovsky had been entering his private chambers. He had hesitated as the nobleman had disappeared through the doors, and then he had come to a decision.

For a moment, the illusion that Titus wore pouted, the lips pursed in thought. Then, with a sudden scowl of decision, the entire form faded. In its place there was the tiniest ripple of air, and the slightest flicker of shadow.

A bystander would have seen that the handle to Zhukovsky’s chambers seemed to turn of its own accord. He would have seen the door open and close as if caught in some gentle breeze. Then he would have seen nothing.

Despite the migraine it always gave him, Titus clung to his invisibility as he looked for Zhukovsky. Squinting through the flickering colours of the aethyr, he scanned the room for the nobleman. He was no longer there, but where he had gone to was no mystery.

Titus merely followed the pulse of sickly green light that throbbed from behind one of Zhukovsky’s more tasteless tapestries. Behind it, a spiral staircase twisted down into the unlit depths of the palace.

Titus’ blood quickened with the excitement of a ferret who has found a rat hole. He strained his ears to catch the fading footfalls of his prey, and then he followed. Zhukovsky moved with a swift assurance, and by the time he reached the bottom, Titus was sweating with the effort of keeping up.

The glow of candlelight lit the last twist of steps, and the wizard struggled to slow the wheeze of his breathing. Ahead of him, he heard the murmur of voices and, when his breath was no longer audible, he slipped down to study the gathering.

They stood in the centre of a cave, their forms uniform beneath black cloaks. Only Zhukovsky had forgone this disguise, although Titus was beginning to realise that the count was wearing a cloak of his own.

It shifted as he moved, this cloak. When it did, the illusion of his vitality faded to reveal the sickly reality of his true form. Whether Zhukovsky was mutant or diseased, Titus didn’t know, but he felt a professional admiration for the wizard who had hidden the truth of his condition.

There! There he was. Titus felt an unfamiliar thrill of nerves as he saw the man he had been tracking for the last months. It was Grendel, all right, although he had changed almost beyond recognition.

Titus had always thought him a vague, gentle, bumbling man, but the Grendel who stalked around this cavern moved with the ruthless efficiency of a butcher examining the herd. Violet energy flickered around his scrawny form, and Titus felt another twitch of unease.

If he had entertained any doubts about the extent of Grendel’s corruption, they were gone now. The man who stood before him stank of Chaos. Titus watched as he began to practise his foul art.

Potions were administered. Libations were spread upon the floor. Then, with barely a flourish, Grendel began to warp the winds of magic around him.

Titus watched from the darkness, impressed in spite of himself. This was like nothing he had ever seen before. The winds of magic that flowed towards the two figures that embraced in the centre of the cave ran together, creating a dazzling rainbow, rather than a true colour.

Titus stared as the energy fountained up through the couples shivering bodies, and then fell back to pool around their feet. Here, the magic swirled, trapped by the libation that Grendel had poured around his two accomplices.

A moment later, and the liquid exploded into a sheet of flame.

There was a frightened scream, followed by several whispered hushes as the fire engulfed the two figures. Titus could see the face of the man, and he watched as his fear turned to wonder. Although he was burning like a torch, he obviously felt no pain. Neither did his partner. Her only reaction to the fire that licked over her body was a high pitched giggle.

The cultists’ sobs of alarm turned to sighs of wonder as they watched the cool burning flames. Even Titus, his mind turning to assassination, found the sight of them mesmerising: the way they flowed, the way they flickered, the colours.

Oh, the colours. They were so beautiful. So, so beautiful. So…

He blinked hard, and looked away. When he had shrugged off the hypnotic effect, he peered past the column of sorcerous fire to Grendel. The sorcerer was lost in his own rapture, his eyes white marbles and his beard wet with the saliva that drooled unnoticed from his chanting lips.

Titus smiled grimly. Now was his chance to finish this cursed job, once and for all.

He had considered merely reaching out to stop his enemy’s heart, but even as he began his preparations, the flames of Grendel’s conjuration gave him a better idea. The shadows they cast scoured the cave, and what more fitting end could there be, than for these shadows to become the harbingers of his doom?

Titus began to prepare his own contribution to the cultists’ meeting.

 

Zhukovsky tried to hide his disappointment. The mesmerising flames that danced around the two embracing figures might be enough to impress his fellow celebrants, but they weren’t enough to satisfy him.

These days, not much was. A man as blessed by Slaanesh as he was, the count reasoned, deserved more than a mere light show. After all, hadn’t he worn out three other human beings in the service of his god? True, they had only been underlings, but even so.

He had sunk so deep in his resentment that it took him a moment to realise what was happening. He looked more closely at what was happening to the figures caught within the column of fire, and his mood lifted.

He had always wondered what it looked like from outside, this melting process. As the two forms fused together, his interest quickened. There was a delicacy to the way their flesh rippled and flowed, and a piquancy to the muffled squeals of alarm as the change took hold of them.

Truly, Zhukovsky thought as he watched two become one, this was poetry in motion.

But wait. This was something different. The writhing lump of the two bodies was growing into something else. The count felt a stab of jealousy as the shrieks of the two celebrants grew ever more unhinged.

What heights of sensation must they be experiencing, he thought, what debaucheries!

Around him, the other cultists shifted, drawn towards the burning horror in front of them like moths to a flame. With a final, high-pitched shriek, the cries that came from within the monstrosity fell silent.

For a moment, Zhukovsky wondered if they had died, their organs ruptured by the honour of their god’s favour. Then he saw the fresh movement within the sack of skin. It squirmed with an enthusiasm that had a pleasing air of desperation to it.

The count drew closer, peering through the flames at the transformation that was taking place. Even as he did so, there was a wet, tearing sound and the bag of skin split open.

The thing that emerged bore no relation to the humans whose flesh had created it. As far as Zhukovsky could see, it bore no relation to anything. Only its claws, as black as onyx in the burning remains of its creation, were familiar.

Zhukovsky watched them snap, open and closed. He thought of the lobster he had eaten only a week before, and began to laugh.

His fellow cultists were less amused. Some of them fell to screaming, lost in their own hysterics. Others had the presence of mind to flee.

“Stop!” Grendel shrieked, his eyes fluttering open. “Stand still you fools. Don’t break the circle.”

The panicking coven paid no heed. Already, the first of them had reached the stairs, only for the man behind him to drag him back by his cape and vault over him.

The daemon, perhaps impressed by his energy, lashed out with a whip that looked horribly like a tongue, and jerked him back into the cave.

Grendel snarled with frustration as the perfection of his creation began to spiral out of control. He cursed savagely, cast a final, vindictive glance at the coven, and disappeared.

In that same instant, Titus struck.