Tales of the Old World (82 page)

“Forgive me,” wheezed the stranger in a voice curiously thin and consumptive
for one so impressive of stature. “It was not my intention to startle you.”

A witch hunter! Michael’s heart dropped into the pit of his stomach, just
when he thought things could get no worse, along came the practitioner of
wizardry’s worst nightmare. These religious zealots were notoriously
indiscriminate in their inquisitions, and many an innocent whose only crime was
an interest in sorcery had suffered torture and death under their regime. It
would be a bitter irony indeed if he were to get into trouble for practising
magic now of all times, and he briefly wondered if the gods were having sport
with him.

“What can I do for you?” asked the young man guardedly.

“Please. You have nothing to fear from me,” continued the witch hunter in his
unhealthy tone of voice, “My name is Obediah Cain. Would I be correct in
assuming that you have come from the College of Magic?”

“Well, yes, but I won’t be going back there. My apprenticeship came to an end
today, and I shan’t be going on to indoctrination in the higher mysteries.”

“Ah. I am sorry to hear that,” answered the man, his eyebrow and the corner
of his mouth raising a little in unison. “Despite that, I should still very much
like to talk with you concerning your days at the college. If you can spare me
the time over a drink that is?”

“Alas, it seems that I have all the time in the world now, and a drink would
be most welcome at this juncture.”

The Tulip was a ribald establishment in a side street off Guilderstraase,
patronised mainly by labourers and menial workers. Cain had suggested it so that
they were not likely to encounter any of Michael’s erstwhile colleagues, and any
reservations the youth had about entering such a bawdy house in his academian
attire were dispelled when he saw how the presence of the witch hunter
discouraged the clientele from even a cursory glance in their direction.

Cain himself refused to drink with Michael, proclaiming that his religious
ascetism would not permit him to partake of alcohol, but he generously provided
the youth with a jug of foaming table beer from which he could refill his
tankard.

“So what’s this all about then?” enquired Michael once he had properly
introduced himself to the sinister witch hunter. He was eager, he realised, to
get this encounter over with, since he instinctively mistrusted this strange
man. But at the same time a resentment for the world of magic and wizards which
had so cruelly rejected him was beginning to fester in the undertow of his
shattered emotions—a resentment which was stirring up faint notions of respect
for the work of such men as Cain, even as he spoke.

“As you can imagine, where I am involved it is about heresy, blasphemy and
cult activity!” Obediah Cain smiled.

“You surely can’t think that I—” Michael blurted, but he was silenced by an
impatient wave from the witch hunter.

“No, no, no, lad! Of course I don’t think a failed apprentice is involved.
But answer me this: why do you think capable young men like yourself fail at
that academy all the time?”

“Well, I mean, the course is very rigorous, isn’t it? It takes a high degree
of spiritual fortitude as well as academic prowess. They told me that only rare
individuals are cut out for such a challenge,” Michael answered carefully, not
yet prepared to damn his erstwhile colleagues, but somewhere deep inside he was
starting to entertain the notion that damnation was perhaps their lot.

“Ha!” Cain spat. “And do you suppose that all those bloated old men up at the
college are possessed of such purity? Don’t you believe it, lad! Why, you can
reckon the sins of the flesh on their fat carcasses like the bites on that
serving wench’s neck. They haven’t the moral fibre to do what they ask of you
young apprentices who fail, but they’ll happily take your money. No, the easy
route to arcane power is the path trodden by their well-shod soles, and that
means bargains with daemonic powers. Dark magic and necromancy, pacts with Chaos
daemons is their mystical currency, you mark my words. Now listen well, young
Michael de la Lune. I have it, from an unimpeachable source, that there are
ancient books of necromancy, and the unguents used in the mummification rituals
of distant Araby, in the college libraries.”

“No, it’s surely impossible,” Michael gasped, shaking his head to clear the
ale fumes, aghast at the enormity of what he was hearing. “I spent four years in
that place. I would have known.”

“Do you think that such a well-established secret society would reveal itself
to a mere apprentice? Even one under their own roof? Now I’m not saying that
everyone at the college who isn’t an apprentice is in on this. That would be
madness.” Cain smiled enigmatically. “But certainly the top echelon of the guild
are guilty of the vilest crimes against the Church. I’m appealing to you now to
perform a deed that could save countless souls. You’re the only one who can do
it Michael. I can’t go in there, so I want you to go and steal the books and the
oils and give us solid evidence to bring these blackguards to trial.”

It all seemed to make sense to Michael in some awful, surreal sort of way. He
prayed earnestly that the witch hunter with the strange voice was labouring
under a gross misapprehension, but now that those things had been said, he knew
he had to find out whether it was true for his own peace of mind. He had spent
such a large part of his life within those walls, under the tutelage of those
implicated, that he must discover the truth. And if the truth should prove as
the witch hunter would have it? Then damn all practitioners of magic! He would
name every last one of them to clear the taint of their sorcery from his soul.
He must keep reminding himself that he was no longer a wizard, and the only
thing of any consequence now was the pursuit of truth. He had been lied to for
long enough; although Michael knew not what was to become of him in the years to
come, he determined that honesty would characterise it.

“How will I know?” Michael asked quietly, “You said yourself that such a
society, if it exists, has kept its secrets well hidden.”

Cain smirked triumphantly and reached down inside his boot.

“I have a map.”

Michael emerged from his hiding place in one of the smaller, and lesser-used
libraries of the Marienburg College of Magic. It was a strange twist of
circumstance indeed which had caused him to return to this building the very
next day after he had been evicted from it.

Obediah Cain had remained with Michael during the previous day, and had
provided for the youth’s comfort generously, paying from his own purse for both
their lodgings. The next morning Cain had instructed him on using the map and
drilled him thoroughly on the need for secrecy in the mission he was about to
perform for the good of the Old World. Cain had also provided him with a curious
little serpentine charm of blackest obsidian, hung upon a pendant of brass. The
witch hunter assured him that the talisman would negate the power of any wards
he might encounter in liberating the evidence he sought, but also warned him
that whilst wearing it he should be quite unable to use any of his own magical
powers, such as they were.

As to what pretences Michael would employ to gain access to the college, Cain
left him to his own devices. So Michael had simply used Paracelsus van der
Groot’s invitation to keep in touch in order to convince the gatekeeper to
permit him access.

Following the spidery lines traced upon the parchment map, the young man
crept stealthily through the familiar halls. Although it was late at night, he
knew there would still be many powerful Wizards awake within these ancient
walls.

After a fraught journey, he eventually arrived at the location of his quest.
The Library of Forbidden Mysteries was on a floor which had always been deemed
off-limits to apprentices and it was a part of the building he had never before
visited, since he was an obedient student. Although the room was unlocked,
various magical alarms and warding devices existed to discourage the excessively
curious. Those who had tried in the past to gain unwarranted access to this
place had paid the price of their folly by expulsion from the academy, or worse
in some cases.

The atmosphere within was one of timeless serenity, and thus far the power of
the witch hunter’s talisman seemed to be holding out. Most of the dusty volumes
on the creaking shelves seemed to be historical texts warning of the dark side
of magic, texts which chronicled and cautioned the unwary against the
machinations of Chaos and evil rather than actually instructed one in the Dark
Ways. Nevertheless, even the knowledge that such practices existed at all was
deemed too unsafe to reveal to impressionable apprentices.

According to the parchment given to him by Cain, the things he sought were in
a safe behind the large portrait of the rather stern-looking founder of the
college, Zun Mandragore, that hung upon the back wall. Perspiration pricked
Michael’s forehead as he tremulously reached his hand out to the heavy frame of
the picture. Gently sliding the portrait to one side the map proved true, for
sure enough a bulky steel safe was embedded in the wall.

But before he could react, a previously invisible rune on the metal safe door
blazed with arcane power. There was no time to react: a brilliant bolt of
cerulean lightning arced from the rune at his hand… only to fizzle into harmless
ozone an instant before he betrayed himself with a scream. Gingerly Michael
shook his head as the coppery tang of blood wet his tongue where he had bitten
his lip in alarm, and then resumed his task with vigour, desiring only to be
free of this oppressive place. The world of Magic had turned upon him so quickly
and profoundly now that he no longer experienced wonder and awe in its presence,
just fear and revulsion.

Feverishly Michael trialled the combination provided with the parchment,
vague questions about how such a map had come into existence subsumed by his
excitement. The door swung open without a sound. Before him lay an enormous
volume, bound in what seemed to be very soft, thin leather, entitled
Liber
Nagash vol. III,
together with six stoppered vials of brackish liquid. He
quickly stuffed the contents of the safe into his satchel and fled the room.

“Bound in the skin flayed from the backs of living men,” Obediah Cain
breathed almost reverentially. A small table set before him in their small
upstairs room in the Tulip inn was dominated by the hulking tome. “It was a
Classical translation,” the witch hunter had been explaining, “of one of the
original nine treatises on necromancy penned by the Supreme Lord of the Living
Dead, Nagash of Nagashizzar himself. And here too, the sacred preserving fluids
of the ancient Tomb Kings,” continued Cain in a sort of distant rapture.
“Natron, imbued with the dust of cadavers, to bind a spirit to empty, dead
flesh, and protect the carnal vessel from the ravages of time.”

“However, I grow weary now, young Michael, and I must rest. Know that there
is yet one more thing I would ask of you on the morrow before you shall be
properly compensated for your service. A dangerous thing in which we both must
share but, before all that, I would urge you to read… here for example…” A
slender finger tapped the dry parchment page. “The binding ritual used to create
mummified undead creatures such as the Tomb Kings themselves. Read this and
drink deeply of the corruption and easy power with which your former tutors
dabble. Forewarned is, after all, forearmed.”

With that, Cain swung his legs up onto his bunk and passed immediately into
such a deep stupor that it almost seemed to Michael that he was not breathing at
all.

It seemed odd to Michael, who in his own estimation might be a touch naive
but certainly wasn’t gullible, that this champion of holiness, this supposed
paladin of temperance, should encourage him, a young disgruntled practitioner of
magic denied the way to naturally progress his art, to read forbidden texts. As
far as Michael knew, one could be burned at the stake for simply having seen
such a work as
Liber Nagash,
never mind actually having read it. The
young man suddenly grew very suspicious and deeply afraid of his strange new
mentor.

However, he determined to read the extract, as Cain had decreed, in order to
perhaps gain a clue as to what was going on, but no more. He would have to play
along for the time being, until he found out what Cain’s game was and then act
in whatever small way he could. He was scared, but a sudden determination not to
mess this up, as he had done the rest of his life, steeled him and prevented him
from bolting from the room that instant and catching the first stagecoach to
Bretonnia. Eyes darting sideways, as if he dared not the read the words he was
even now taking in, Michael began to read.

If anything, despite his long rest, the witch hunter seemed even wearier the
next day. Michael himself didn’t exactly feel in the peak of condition himself,
and noted the deep black rings under his own eyes whilst shaving his downy chin
in the tiny silver mirror he carried. It was afternoon, Michael having spent
most of the night poring over the crumbling pages of
Liber Nagash’s
mummification ritual. Abhorrent lore permeated his mind, but unlike weaker men,
Michael had no desire to exploit this easy power, which he knew would only lead
to self-serving evil. Nevertheless, a part of his innocence had gone forever
with the knowledge that vast earthly gain could be bought for the meagre price
of one’s soul. His optimistic idealism, already damaged by rejection from the
college, was further undermined with the realisation that in these dark times
there would be no shortage of desperate people prepared to pay such a price.
Somewhere deep within his soul, a vow to set this bitter world of greed and
opportunism to rights was starting to take shape.