CHAPTER TWENTY

“Any news?” Rudi asked hopefully. Gerhard shook his head, and pulled up a chair next to the fireplace, where a small fire sputtered fitfully. The room was a large, but bare, with tiny vertical slots in the stone for windows. Its contents numbered two hard chairs, a bed, and a rickety writing table.

“No progress at all.” Their regular evening conversation concluded, both sat staring at the dying flames, as if a solution to their terrible dilemma might somehow be found within them. The form of words might have changed from night to night, but the import of them hadn’t, for the whole of the three weeks that Rudi had been staying in a secure room in the templar chapter house.

In all that time, he hadn’t left the temple precincts once. He’d hardly even been allowed to set foot outside the room, and the bustle and squalor of the city surrounding them had faded to a distant memory. The predominant odours were of incense, wafting on the breeze from the scores of small shrines scattered around the sprawling site, and cooking, exuding from the refectory. That, at least, was some compensation for being kept under arrest, he thought, the viands provided by the temple authorities were of the finest quality, even his uneducated palate able to discern subtleties of flavour that he’d never considered possible before. All in all, he was better off now than he’d had any right to expect, especially given the way things had been at first.

When they’d left the library annexe, he’d tried to make a run for it, but still weak from the near-fatal stab wound and the after-effects of Gerhard’s healing prayer, he’d stumbled within a handful of paces, and been mercilessly battered to the ground by the two witch hunters. By the time they’d finished with him, he’d been barely able to stand, let alone walk, and had acquired a grim understanding of what von Karien had meant by his assertion that needing him alive didn’t have to mean whole.

Certain that he was in no fit state to resist any further, the two men had hoisted him up between them and dragged him away to a small, windowless room somewhere in the cellars of the chapter house.

How long he’d remained there, he had no idea. Day and night ceased to have any meaning, and the only relief from the stygian darkness surrounding him was the faint glow of torchlight from the corridor beyond as it leaked around the jamb of the ill-fitting door, accompanied by a draught that chilled him to the bone. What sleep he could get was fitful at best, interrupted periodically by the clatter of boots in the corridor outside, and intermittent bursts of agonised screaming, so muffled by the intervening walls that he couldn’t tell whether they came from a man or a woman.

As if that hadn’t been torment enough, his head ached constantly from the talisman that Gerhard had fused to his forehead, just as he’d done with Hanna the first time the fugitives had fallen into his hands, in order to keep the daemon within him bound even more tightly than it already was. He’d soon given up trying to touch the thing, every attempt resulting in a blinding stab of pure agony, and if it was possible, he found himself hating the witch hunter even more than he had done before. Not so much on his own behalf, but because of his renewed appreciation of how much Hanna had suffered during their months in Marienburg, while a similar abomination had been suppressing her magical abilities.

Somehow, the anger had given him the strength to endure his captivity, and the growing hunger pangs, which, by the time the door finally creaked open again, had grown even more painful than the ache in his head. Forewarned by the rattle of the key in the lock he’d clawed himself upright against the moisture-slick stone, determined not to show his captors the slightest sign of weakness.

“It’s about time,” he’d snapped, blinking dazzled eyes at the silhouette filling the doorframe: Gerhard, of course. Of von Karien there’d been no sign, other than the distant screaming, some luckless member of the Silver Wheel, he assumed, or some even more luckless innocent mistaken for one. With an effort of will he ignored the sound, trying to sound confident. “Get me some food, unless you want me to starve to death and let the daemon out.”

“That won’t happen,” Gerhard said flatly. “We’ll keep you alive, you can be sure of that, and sooner or later you’ll tell us where the witches are hiding.”

“Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you,” Rudi said, not even trying to hide the sudden surge of joy he felt at the witch hunter’s words. Hanna was still safe. With any luck, she and Greta had both left Altdorf days ago, and were now far beyond the templars’ ability to find them. “I wouldn’t be so sure you can keep me alive, either.”

“Never make a threat you’re not prepared to carry out,” Gerhard said, understanding his meaning at once. A thread of contempt entered his voice. “You’re not the kind to take your own life.”

“Are you sure?” Rudi locked his eyes on the witch hunter’s, summoning up every iota of loathing and hatred that he could. “What have I got left to lose? The joy of being buried alive down here, being threatened with torture? I’d rather die now, and leave you to deal with the daemon. If you really think you can.”

“In the precincts of the temple of Sigmar? The holiest site in the Empire?” Gerhard laughed curtly. “Of course we could.”

“Then why haven’t you?” Rudi challenged him. “Just cut my throat, let it out, and exorcise the damn thing.” He took a tottering step towards the witch hunter, who was still standing barring the door. “But you won’t, will you? You’re afraid you won’t be able to handle it once it takes possession of my body.” He was standing nose to nose with the man in black, practically spitting in his face with the vehemence of his words. “Come on, I’ll make it easy for you.”

The knife in his boot had gone, confiscated after a brief search, along with the one from his belt, but that didn’t matter. Gerhard kept a dagger concealed up his sleeve, and with one convulsive motion he snatched at the witch hunter’s shirt, ripping the fabric. The blade flew reflexively into the witch hunter’s hand, and he took a step back into the corridor outside, instinctively making room to use the weapon effectively. Rudi followed, pushing his chest against the point of the blade.

“Go on,” he challenged. “Let it out. I dare you.” For a moment he feared he might have overplayed his hand, but Gerhard hesitated, and he knew he’d won his gamble. Turning abruptly, he shouldered past the man in black, and took a step towards the door leading to the yard outside. Then he turned, and glanced back. “I want a meal, a wash, and a bed, in that order. Then we can talk.”

Rather to his surprise, his ultimatum had proven more successful than he’d expected. The quarters provided for him were a slight improvement on the dungeon he’d so briefly occupied, but despite their relative comfort he was still a prisoner, and the sense of enclosure the four walls created in him was stultifying. There was nothing to do, no one to speak to, and his body cried out for exercise. Most of his days were filled with reading, or practising the sword drills that Theo had shown him so long ago, with the aid of a pewter candlestick to simulate the weight of a weapon.

His only visitor was Gerhard, occasionally accompanied by von Karien. Monotonous as these conversations were, concerned solely with the progress that the witch hunters were failing to make in finding a way to rid him of the daemon, or trying to get him to reveal whatever he could remember that might help to find Hanna and Greta, he almost looked forward to them. Despite the veneer of politeness that both he and Gerhard tried hard to maintain, the simmering hostility between them was never far from the surface.

“Have you eaten yet?” Gerhard asked after a while, having failed yet again to trick Rudi into disclosing what he didn’t know. Rudi shook his head.

“I’m not particularly hungry,” he said. Somehow the limitless supply of gruel and dry brown bread had blunted his appetite.

“I’m heading down to the refectory,” said Gerhard. “If you’d care to join me.” Rudi hesitated for a moment before replying. No doubt an ulterior motive lurked behind the apparently casual invitation, Gerhard probably hoping he might let his guard down away from the room and let something slip that could be used against him. Then he shrugged.

“Might as well,” he agreed. “I could do with the exercise.” Not that the few hundred yards they’d have to walk would stretch him at all, but it was better than nothing. In the three weeks he’d been here he’d only left the chapter house a handful of times, to pray in the temple, a concession that Gerhard could hardly refuse, and once to go to the temple library, to select a few books to while away the hours of his captivity. On every occasion, he’d been accompanied by a group of armed guards, and after the first visit to the archives he’d simply asked someone else to collect books on his behalf, finding their lurking presence among the bookshelves while he tried to make his selection intolerable. Rising, he reached for the thick woollen cloak that Gerhard had provided for him. “I assume it’s still cold outside?”

“It’s stopped snowing, if that’s what you mean,” Gerhard said, rising too.

Catching a glimpse of himself in the glazed window, rendered reflective by the darkness outside, Rudi was struck by how different he seemed. Gone were the battered clothes in which he’d fled across the Wasteland and up the Reik. He was dressed like a templar, all in black, his new cape fastened with a small silver hammer. He could almost have passed for one of his own guards, had it not been for the ugly weal of wax in the centre of his forehead, which continued to induce its faint, throbbing headache without respite.

When Gerhard had first given him the hooded cloak, he’d hesitated for a moment before putting it on, seized by an unaccountable nervousness at the sight of the hammer on the clasp. Then he’d donned it impatiently, aware that the unease was the daemon’s, not his, and that he had nothing to fear from the holy symbol. Indeed, if anything, it seemed to strengthen his resistance to the daemonic parasite nestled against his soul.

Now he knew the reason for the panic attacks that had afflicted him whenever he’d tried to set foot on consecrated ground. He had ventured into the temple itself several times since his stay began, initially, simply to prove to himself that he could do it. The first time had taken a tremendous effort of will, he had to concede. He’d stood outside the great doors, sweating and shaking for what had felt like several minutes before he’d been able to force his trembling legs into motion, and he’d left after only the most cursory inspection of the wonders inside, but he’d felt a surge of triumph in the victory over the thing within him, and subsequent visits had been a great deal easier.

He’d become particularly fond of the tiny shrine to the dwarf gods, in one of the side chapels, although he couldn’t have said why; perhaps because no one else ever seemed to go in there, and he was able to savour the solitude he’d grown to love in the woods around his home near Kohlstadt. Even his ever-present bodyguards would hang back outside, leaving him to his own company for a while, no doubt feeling that nothing much could happen to him in there.

“A little snow won’t hurt you,” Rudi said, trying to keep the conversation light.

They left the chambers that Rudi had been given, and the pair of templar initiates who had been waiting outside the door fell into step behind them. After a pace or two, Gerhard turned, and dismissed them with a gesture.

“He should be safe enough with me,” he said, and the two young men disappeared back into the shadows from whence they’d come. They, or others like them, had been within arm’s length of Rudi every time he left his room since he’d arrived, and their absence felt like a small liberation. Gerhard smiled thinly at Rudi. “Perhaps that will sharpen your appetite,” he said.

“Perhaps it will.” Rudi pulled the hood of his cloak up over his face, concealing the wax stigma that marked him out as a heretic. He still didn’t trust the witch hunter’s intentions.

Despite Gerhard’s assurances to the contrary, it seemed that the snow was beginning to fall again, a few desultory flakes drifting in the flickering light from the torches outside many of the buildings. A few spots along their route were illuminated by the clearer, steady light of lamps at the top of iron columns, like those that Rudi had been told were set to light the streets around the temple, the Imperial palace, and a few of the wealthier areas of the city. Passers-by were few, driven into the light and warmth by the onset of winter, although the snow that had already settled was trampled to slush by the evidence of their passing.

“I’m sure it’s only a matter of time,” Rudi said, certain that they wouldn’t be overheard in the maze of narrow passageways between the buildings. “I won’t die of old age for years yet, and you’re bound to find an answer before then.”

“I wish I shared your confidence,” Gerhard said, as they stood aside to make way for a small procession of dignitaries following an icon of Sigmar into one of the innumerable subsidiary chapels scattered across the site, clustering around the temple like skiffs around a carrack. This one, Rudi vaguely remembered, had been endowed by the cordwainers’ guild centuries before as a mark of gratitude for Sigmar’s protection against the siege of the vampire counts. As the last of the celebrants vanished inside, sweeping the accumulating patina of snow from his shoulders, the witch hunter’s voice rose again to a conversational level. “We have to proceed as if time is of the essence.” He led the way up a narrow stone staircase, which seemed to lead directly to the refectory through the Scribes’ Cloister. “Suppose you slipped on a patch of ice this evening, and broke your neck? Accidents happen.”

“Then I suppose I’m lucky to have so many of your colleagues looking out for my welfare,” Rudi said sarcastically. He shrugged, brushing the melting snowflakes from his shoulders as they gained the shelter of the cloister. The patch of ground inside the main quadrangle was bare of anything, even footprints, save for the white-shrouded shape of a sundial, denuded of purpose by the fall of night.

“It’s not a random accident I’m worried about,” Gerhard said. This was new, he’d never admitted to being apprehensive about anything before. Perhaps that was why he’d wanted to talk away from the chapter house, eliminating even the possibility of being overheard. “We have reason to suspect that our enemies are drawing their plans against us. I’m far less concerned about the possibility of an accident than I am about a deliberate attempt on your life, or something even worse.”

“You mean Hanna, I suppose,” Rudi said.

Gerhard nodded. “Her mother, too. No doubt she’s been using this time to instruct the girl in still darker sorceries. She clearly has some long-term aim in view, involving you, or the taint of raw Chaos you carry. What that might be, however…”

Rudi felt his jaw tightening, and kept his voice level with an effort.

“You know what I think. I think they’re both long gone, somewhere they’ll be safe from murderous fanatics like you, and as soon as we get this abomination out of my head, I’ll be gone too.” He looked at Gerhard challengingly. “Unless you intend to kill me as soon as you safely can, just to be on the safe side.”

“It has crossed my mind,” Gerhard admitted, his voice still conversational, “but that’s a problem for another day.” He glanced across at Rudi, his expression neutral. “After all, there’s no guarantee that you’ll survive whatever we have to do to destroy the daemon.”

“I see,” Rudi said, masking his anger as best he could. “And if I do?”

Gerhard shrugged. “That rather depends on how cooperative you are at the moment.” The refectory was growing nearer, and Rudi found that the combination of cooking smells and the keenness of the air had sharpened his appetite.

“I am co-operating,” Rudi said, pushing the heavy wooden door open. Warm, steamy air and the babble of conversation rolled out to meet them. “I’ve told you all I know.”

“You’ve told me all you think you know,” Gerhard said, following him inside and doffing his hat. Rudi pulled the hood of his cloak a little lower over his forehead, hiding the brand of heresy as best he could. “You, of all people, must understand what’s at stake if we fail. Perhaps in a more relaxed environment you might be able to recall some new little details that can help us.”

So that was it. Gerhard was hoping he’d let his guard down after a breath of fresh air and a decent meal. Rudi nodded, as if considering it carefully.

“There are a couple of seats over there,” he said at last, indicating a gap in the long bench flanking one of the tables that stretched the length of the hall. Gerhard nodded.

“That should do,” he said evenly.

Discussing their real business during the meal would have been impossible, surrounded as they were by other ears. Since they had virtually nothing else in common, they fell back on discussing the books that Rudi had been reading.

Not unnaturally, the majority of the volumes the temple library contained had turned out to be theological material of a degree of abstruseness that was far beyond his understanding, but he’d discovered a shelf full of travellers’ tales during his brief foray into the labyrinth of bookshelves, and had spent his days since then learning all that he could of the ways and peoples of the Empire, and the lands beyond its borders. For some reason books on Lustria held a particular fascination for him, and he wondered if that was because of the items he’d seen in the package that Shenk had brought up the Reik for von Eckstein.

“Possibly,” Gerhard conceded, polishing off the last of his veal. “It’s a fascinating place, they tell me.”

“It seems to fascinate the Amethyst College,” Rudi said. He’d already mentioned his encounter with Magister Hollobach in a previous conversation. Von Eckstein’s letter of introduction was proof that he’d met the nobleman, and Gerhard had seemed as interested as von Karien in how they’d become acquainted and the nature of the package that Rudi had defended aboard the riverboat. Rudi had, however, glossed over Fritz’s presence in Altdorf. Gerhard had ordered him burned once before, and would be certain to try and arrest the young bodyguard if he was reminded of his existence.

“I’m not surprised,” Gerhard said. “The lizard folk would seem to have a long tradition of death magic.” He shrugged. “I’ve no doubt that was why Magister Hollobach was so keen to get his hands on the bauble you described. I’m certain he was hoping to learn something of their methods.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t rush off to confiscate that too,” Rudi said, as they approached the chapter house again. It was snowing in earnest, thick white flakes blurring the outlines of the buildings surrounding them, and no one else was abroad. The only sign of life that Rudi could detect was the sound of singing from the service in the cordwainers’ chapel as they passed by it. “I’m sure you think it’s some artefact of Chaos, like everything else magical.”

“On the contrary,” Gerhard said. “From what I’ve read on the subject, the lizard people are implacably opposed to Chaos in all its forms. If we could only reach some kind of accommodation with them, what formidable allies they would be.” He shrugged, with a trace of self-mockery. “Other than being stuck on the other side of the world, of course.”

“That makes sense,” Rudi said, without thinking. “When I saw the artefact, I felt panic-stricken, like the first time I tried to get into the temple. It must have been the daemon, recognising something belonging to an enemy.”

“That seems plausible,” Gerhard said. He stood aside, motioning Rudi up the staircase leading to his room. As always, the two young templars were standing outside the door, awaiting his return. Gerhard turned, ready to depart. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight.” Rudi began to climb the stairs without a backward glance, angry for having given the witch hunter the satisfaction of seeing his stratagem rewarded. True, he hadn’t made the connection between the Lustrian artefact and the daemon inside him before, and the new shred of information might prove useful in some way, but he felt as if he’d granted his enemy some kind of moral victory by sharing it.

“Excuse me, sir.” The senior of the two templars called after Gerhard. “Master Walder has a visitor. He specifically said he wanted to see you both when you returned.”

“Did he indeed.” Gerhard hurried up the stairs after Rudi, just as the young forester pushed open his door, and followed him into the room.

“There you are.” Von Karien looked up from one of the chairs by the fireplace. He glanced from one of the men to the other, barely suppressed excitement threatening to break through a thin veneer of self-control. “I think I’ve discovered a way to break our little deadlock.”