THE ULTIMATE RITUAL

Neil Jones and William King

 

 

Professor Gerhardt Kleinhoffer, Lector in Magical Arts at the University of Nuln, looked down at the pentagram and the triple-ringed circle his younger companion had just drawn in chalk upon the floor.

“Lothar,” he said nervously, “surely this is blasphemy?”

Across the chamber, Lothar von Diehl ran bony fingers through his dark beard and paused to give the appearance of reflective thought before replying.

“Herr professor, you were the one who taught me that it is those who seek to hold back the advancement of knowledge who are blasphemous. You and I are men of science. It is our duty to perform this experiment.”

Kleinhoffer adjusted his pincenez glasses and glanced at the leather-bound volume which rested on the lectern standing beside the two men.

“De Courcy’s book is an important piece of scholarship, no doubt of that. But Lothar, don’t you think that it wanders too close to the forbidden lore of Chaos… towards the end?” He shivered. “His final chapter is almost the ranting of a madman. Drunk on the wine of stars, false heavens, false hells, all of that stuff.”

Von Diehl glanced at his tutor, fighting down his mounting impatience. It had been Kleinhoffer himself who, years ago, had discovered The Book of Changes, written in Classical Old Worlder by the long-dead Bretonnian poet and mystic, Giles de Courcy. Kleinhoffer had spent the rest of his life translating it, worrying away at the cryptic symbolism until he was sure he had decoded it correctly. By then, he had become the foremost authority on magic at the ancient University of Nuln—and Lothar von Diehl, the single person in whom Kleinhoffer had confided, was his most gifted student.

“True,” von Diehl said, striving to keep his voice calm and reasonable, “but that should not deter us. As you yourself have said, all magic is based, ultimately, on Chaos. The only way to tell if de Courcy was right is to perform this ultimate ritual. And if it works, then it will lead us to the most profound understanding of universe.”

“My boy, I am as committed to the project as you are but… but…” Kleinhoffer’s voice trailed off.

Von Diehl stared at the old man’s pale, sweating face. “Herr professor, I thought you understood when I suggested this experiment. The ritual is not something that I can attempt without your help.”

The old man nodded shakily. “Of course, of course. It’s just that… Lothar, my boy, are you sure it’s safe?”

“Absolutely, professor.”

Kleinhoffer swallowed and once more glanced around the secret chamber in the basement of von Diehl’s residence. Finally, he came to a decision.

“Very well, Lothar,” he said with reluctance. “I know how important this is to you.”

Von Diehl allowed himself a brief sigh of satisfaction. “Thank you, sir. Now, please, if you will take up your position.”

Von Diehl lifted the rune-encrusted wand which he had carved from a beastman’s thighbone and advanced towards the lectern. He lit the braziers and threw handfuls of cloying incense to fizz on them. As the echoes died away he began the chant.

“Amak te aresci Tzeentch! Venii loci aresci Tzeentch! Amak te aresci Tzeentch!”

Von Diehl’s chant rumbled on, seeming to gain resonance from the echoes and the constant repetition. The fumes from the braziers billowed around him and seemed to expand his perception. It was almost as if he could see the edges of the world starting to ripple at the corners of his vision.

He continued to chant, visualising in his mind the form of the Tzeentchian steed he was attempting to summon, filling in the details, compelling it to take more concrete form. While doing so, he moved the tip of the wand through a complex pattern, pointing it at every angle of the pentacle in turn.

The effects of the narcotic incense, the constant chanting and visualisation distorted his sense of the flow of time. The ritual seemed to be going on for hours. He felt himself to be a vessel for transcendent energies. Finally, somewhere off at the edge of infinity, he sensed a hungry presence. He reached out with the power of his soul and touched it. The being sensed him and began to move closer, painfully slowly, seeking sustenance.

As if far off in the distance, he heard Kleinhoffer moan. The air was filled with the burnt smell of ozone. Von Diehl opened his eyes. The room was lit by a strange blue glow from the lines of the pentacle and circle. Sparks flickered in the air and his hair was standing on end.

“Venii aresci Tzeentch! Venii! Venii!” he yelled and fell silent.

There was a rush of air, a sense of presence and suddenly it was there before them: the steed of Tzeentch.

It took the form of a flat disc of sleek, silvery-blue flesh. The edges of the disc were rimmed with small, sardonic eyes. It flickered about within the pentagram as if testing the boundaries of its cage. After a while it seemed to realise it was trapped and ceased to struggle, simply hovering in mid-air.

What do you wish from me, mortals? asked a voice within von Diehl’s head.

“We seek knowledge,” von Diehl answered certainly. “We wish to travel across the Sea of Souls and converse with He Who Knows All Secrets.”

Others have requested this in the past. To their regret. The minds of mortals are fragile things.

“Nonetheless, we wish to go. Once we are safely returned here you will be released from this compulsion.”

Very well. Advance, human, and meet your fate!

With no hint of trepidation von Diehl walked down the corridor of chalk which connected the circle to the pentagram. He stepped over the side of the magical sigil and put one foot on the creature of light. Surprisingly it supported his weight. He felt a strange tingling pass through his foot and up his body.

I will take both of you, the voice said in von Diehl’s head. Both of you or neither…

Von Diehl turned. Kleinhoffer had not moved. His lined face seemed to float amid the darkness, lit from below by the glow from the pentagram.

“Herr professor,” von Diehl called urgently, “you must join me. Quickly now!”

Kleinhoffer licked his lips. A sheen of sweat had formed on his forehead. “Lothar, I can’t! I just can’t!”

Anger pulsed through von Diehl. “The book is explicit. We must be two—or else the steed can refuse to transport us, can break the binding spell. You knew. You agreed!”

“I know, but—Lothar, forgive me, I’m old. Old and afraid.”

“But Gerhard, you’ve worked for this all your life. Ultimate knowledge. Transcendence.” The old scholar shuddered.

“Join me,” von Diehl commanded. “Join me, join me, join me!”

Kleinhoffer sighed, and then, almost as if hypnotised, he shuffled down the chalk corridor and took his place aboard the steed beside von Diehl.

Two, the daemon said. Two in search of knowledge. Now we go! There was a screaming rush of air, and the sound of a thunderclap.

 

Von Diehl looked down and found they were far above the city of Nuln itself. He could see the University quarter with its aged, many-spired buildings. His gaze wandered to the docks and the dark curve of the River Reik as it snaked northwards. Although he was hundreds of feet above the tallest tower of the Temple of Verena he felt no fear. Standing on the back of the Chaos-steed was like standing on solid earth.

The daemon-thing began to accelerate but there was no sense of motion or of the wind tearing at his clothing. He stood at a point of absolute calm. Only when he looked down at the Great Forest rushing past did von Diehl get a sense of their terrific speed.

In a few moments he saw an open glade where beastmen danced around a great bonfire and a two-headed black-armoured figure looked on. He saw strange monsters moving in the depths where no man had ever penetrated. Their steed hurtled like a meteor until the ground was simply a blur. They gained height until they were above the clouds. It was like skimming over a misty white sea whose surface was illuminated by the twin moons.

Excitement flooded through von Diehl’s veins as they flashed along. He felt like a god. It seemed to him that no one could ever have travelled so fast before. The energy of the daemon passed up through his legs, filling him with a tremendous sense of well-being. Perhaps it was the steed’s power which protected them from the cold air, he thought. Through a break in the clouds he saw that they were passing over a bleak steppeland only occasionally blotched by the lights of cities. Surely they could not have reached Kislev already?

Soon after, he felt no such doubts. They were moving across snow-covered tundra towards a bleak, stony land. The sky to the north was illuminated by a dancing aurora of dark-coloured lights. They had entered the Chaos Wastes.

Below he could see great troupes of warriors fighting. Champions in the blood-red armour of Khorne fought with dancing lascivious daemonettes. Enormous slobbering monsters pursued fleeing beastmen. The land itself writhed as if tortured. Lakes of blood washed across great deserts of ash. Castles carved from mountains erupted from forests of flesh-trees. Islands broke off from the earth and floated into the sky.

It was a horrific and awesome sight. Beside him, he heard Kleinhoffer call out in fear, but he cared not.

They flew straight towards the aurora, picking up speed as they went. They passed over a flight of dragons that seemed frozen in place so slowly did they move compared to the steed of Tzeentch.

Now von Diehl could make out a vast dark hole in the sky. It was as if the firmament were a painting and someone had torn a square from the canvas to reveal another picture beneath. He peered into a realm of flowing colours and pulsing lights, an area where the natural laws which governed the physical universe no longer applied. Von Diehl pointed the bone wand towards the Chaos Gate and the steed surged forward in response. They crossed the threshold into a new and darker universe.

“Lothar,” Kleinhoffer murmured, his voice full of awe. “I believe that this must be—”

“Yes,” von Diehl replied distantly, “we have entered the Sea of Souls.”

For a moment their steed paused on the threshold between the two worlds and von Diehl stared into what was the final and strangest realm of Chaos.

Off in the farthest distance, further away than the stars, he saw the things that he decided must be the Powers. They were vast eddies and whirlpools of luminescence, bigger than galaxies. Their twists and flows illuminated the Sea of Souls. Was that mighty red and black agglomeration Khorne, wondered von Diehl? He noted how its spiral arms of bloody light seemed to tangle with long pastel streamers of lilac and green and mauve. Could that be Slaanesh? It was like watching two nests of vipers fighting.

Then he made out a third pulsating mass that was clearly greater than the many lesser ones in this vast realm. It writhed and pulsed obscenely, and something about this one made the hair on the nape of his neck bristle. From his instinctive reaction he knew that this one had to be Nurgle.

Yet another form came into view. It was the most complex and convoluted of the gigantic structures of energy and he knew it to be Tzeentch, his ultimate goal.

These were clearly the Powers, the Four Great Ones and the many lesser. And this was the true realm of Chaos.

Beside him, Kleinhoffer clutched at his sleeve in panic. “Lothar, what is happening?”

Von Diehl understood the old man’s confusion. His own brain was reeling under this sudden influx of sensation. “Our human minds are adjusting to the Sea of Souls,” he said happily.

He realised that they were not seeing the whole of this twisted realm. Their human minds were not capable of it. Instead, they were simply imposing their own ideas of scale and form and function on a place where these did not apply. It was a staggering thought.

Much closer than the Great Powers were tiny points of light that von Diehl somehow knew were the souls of mortals. They glittered like stars. Cutting a swathe through them, like a shark through a shoal of fish, von Diehl could see a long streamlined creature, all sucker mouths and questing antennae, a soul-shark. It devoured the small panicky shapes as they swam towards their distant, unseen destinations.

Again he felt Kleinhoffer’s hand on his sleeve. “Lothar,” the old man cried in a frightened voice. “Lothar, look down!”

Beneath their feet, their daemon-steed had changed shape, so it now resembled the soul-shark. It, too, feasted upon the glittering souls as it swept ever on.

Von Diehl was not surprised. The beast was dangerous. He did not doubt that it would devour the essence of both of them if it could. Very softly, he chanted the words of a spell he had prepared. A thin line of radiance streamed from his bone wand, a pink-hued light that was indescribably richer here in the Sea of Souls. As the light touched the steed it opened up a delicate channel between their steed and himself.

As the creature fed it passed the merest trickle of that energy to him through the channel his spell had created. The energy flowed through von Diehl’s veins like liquid ecstasy. He breathed deeply and sucked the pure essence of magic into his lungs. It was a totally exhilarating experience.

“It cannot harm us,” he reminded the terrified old man. “Not as long as it is compelled by the binding spell.”

But Kleinhoffer only stared down with a look of utmost horror on his face, as if the steed were already dining upon his lower limbs.

The daemon-thing surged forward once more. Von Diehl felt that whatever awesome velocity it had achieved in the mortal world was nothing compared to what it was doing here. It seemed as if the creature was capable of traversing the universe.

As they raced along they passed other great rents in the fabric of the sea. Sometimes what von Diehl saw through them beggared his imagination. Worlds laid waste by war, hells presided over by false gods and heavens of endless serenity.

Suddenly he sensed a change of mood in their steed. He looked back and understood why. They were being pursued. Other creatures chased them, creatures not controlled by any binding spell. More soul-sharks. They could devour their flesh and their souls.

Kleinhoffer followed his gaze and cried out in alarm.

The soul-sharks came closer, their great jaws gaping. They were fast, faster than their own steed, not hindered as it was by two human riders.

Von Diehl raised the wand of bone and prodded the daemon with it. “Save us,” he commanded the thing. “Save us or you will never be free!”

A wordless cry of mingled rage and despair echoed inside von Diehl’s skull. The daemon-steed suddenly veered and plunged through one of the gates.

Reality rippled like the surface of a pond. They hurtled over a desolate plain on which great pyramidal cities sat. As von Diehl watched, great beams of force flickered between the pyramids. Some were absorbed by huge, thrumming black screens of energy, but one city was reduced to slag in an instant. Their mount swept into an evasive pattern to dodge the webs of force-beams. Several came too close for comfort but none hit them. Von Diehl watched one of their pursuers get caught in the cross-fire and wink out of existence. The others came on.

Their supernatural steed raced through another gate above the greatest of pyramids. There was a sense of space stretching. Now they were above a hell of sulphur pits and dancing flames. Toad-like daemons pitch-forked the souls of some strange amphibian race into the volcanic fires. Von Diehl wondered whether this was real or the dream of one of the Old Powers. Perhaps it was a real hell of a real race brought into being by the imaginations of an alien people stirring the Realm of Chaos.

Their steed dived into one volcanic pit. Beside him, Kleinhoffer screamed uncontrollably, surely convinced that the creature had betrayed them and that they were going to die. He covered his eyes with his hands.

Von Diehl felt only exhilaration.

Once more though they hurtled through a gate. Fewer of the pursuing daemons followed.

They were in the blackness of space, hurtling through a void darker than night over a small world that had been re-shaped into a city. They raced by bubble domes from which creatures much like elves stared out. The workmanship of the buildings within the domes was as refined and delicate as spider-webs. They dipped and swooped into a great corridor holding another gate. Once more they vanished.

Von Diehl had no idea how long the chase lasted. They passed through vaults where rebellious daemons plotted against the Powers; frozen hells where immobile souls begged for freedom; leafy Arcadias where golden people made love and dreadful things watched from the bushes.

They swooped across worlds where great war-machines, shaped like men eighty feet high, fought with weapons that could level cities. They blazed along corridors in doomed hulks that had drifted for a thousand years in the spaces between worlds and where sleeping monsters waited in icy coffins for new prey. They zoomed across the surface of suns where creatures of plasma drifted in strange mating dances.

But eventually their twists and turns through the labyrinth of space-time threw off the last of their pursuers, and they returned once more to the Sea of Souls.

 

Their steed raced along the threads of the vast disturbance in the sea that was Tzeentch, picking their way along great arteries of energy until they came to the very heart of it all. They swept past great winged creatures which gave von Diehl knowing smiles. He felt as if the daemons were looking into his very soul and probing his innermost secrets. He did not care. He was exalted. He knew they were nearing the end of the quest and that soon they would both have what they had come for. Kleinhoffer was exhausted, his face bloodless. But the exhilaration of the chase and sharing their daemon-steed’s energy had only buoyed von Diehl up.

They approached a mighty sphere of pulsing light. Colours danced and shifted on its surface like oil glistening on the surface of water.

They drifted closer and slid into, then through the wall. Within was a huge being, larger than a castle. In form it was similar to a man although its head was horned. It possessed great beauty but the shifting lights of the sphere reflected dazzlingly off its no-coloured skin and the brilliance caused von Diehl to look away.

Welcome, mortals, to the House of the Lord of Change!

The voice spoke within the travellers’ heads. It was calm, polite and reasonable, but there was an under-current of malicious amusement.

Von Diehl peered back at the great figure, looking up into glittering gem-like eyes. He thought that those eyes could take in the entire universe at a glance. Before it he felt as insignificant as a flea.

“Thank you, lord,” he said gravely. He nudged Gerhardt Kleinhoffer with his free hand. The old man mumbled a greeting of his own.

Why have you come here? boomed the voice. Why have you disturbed my servants who have other more important tasks to perform?

“We have come,” von Diehl said, “seeking knowledge, lord.” He gestured at his companion.

“Yes,” Kleinhoffer stammered after a moment, a dazed expression on his face. “That’s it. That’s why we’re here. Knowledge.”

Knowledge. For what purpose do you seek it? To change yourself or your world?

Von Diehl turned and waited for his companion to speak. The old man’s gaze went back and forth between his student and the gigantic being. His mouth opened and closed several times but no words emerged. Still von Diehl said nothing.

“Neither,” Kleinhoffer blurted at last.

Lothar von Diehl smiled and turned back to face the Power. “Both,” he said.

Gerhardt Kleinhoffer blinked, and then finally appeared to realise what von Diehl had said. He jerked around to face von Diehl. His face was ashen. “Lothar, what are you saying? Have you forgotten the ritual?”

So then, mortal, the gigantic being boomed, addressing only Gerhardt Kleinhoffer now. Why then do you crave knowledge?

“I—I—” Kleinhoffer’s eyes bulged. He put his hands to his head, clearly wilting under the gaze of this enormous entity. “Lothar, for pity’s sake, help me!”

Von Diehl raised both hands. “Lord, he seeks knowledge—for its own sake.”

That is unfortunate. The creature smiled malevolently. Still, what does he wish to know?

Again Gerhardt Kleinhoffer’s mouth opened and shut and again no words emerged. Smiling, von Diehl said, “Everything.”

Suitably ambitious. So shall it be.

Lord Tzeentch reached out and touched Kleinhoffer. The old man went rigid.

At the same moment, von Diehl again murmured the words of the spell which had linked him to the steed as it had fed. Leaning forward, he pressed the tip of the bone wand to Kleinhoffer’s temple. Knowledge was flowing into his companion, filling him. And Lothar von Diehl intended to witness it—from a safe distance.

A vast ocean of information cascaded into Kleinhoffer’s brain. Von Diehl glimpsed the birth of the universe and the Sea of Souls, the creation of stars and planets, the rise of races, the structure of molecules. He saw the universe burst into a great flood of change and understood the nature of the power that drove it relentlessly onwards. He saw that the universe was never still but constantly altering itself. He knew instantly that he could never know everything because there were always new things coming into being.

Kleinhoffer’s face contorted as the flow of knowledge continued inexorably. His mind was drowning in a flood of information, far too much knowledge to cope with. It had stretched his mind to the breaking point and beyond. As if from a great distance, von Diehl sensed the man’s personality erode then finally collapse as he descended into screaming madness. And still the torrent of knowledge did not stop.

Slowly, still clutching feebly at von Diehl’s tunic, the old man sank down to von Diehl’s feet.

Enough, thought von Diehl, sensing his own mind begin to strain. Chanting the words of his spell, he drew back the wand, breaking the contact with the old man.

Lothar von Diehl.

He looked out at the vast unknowable being that was, or represented, Tzeentch.

Your companion’s wish has been granted.

“Yes, lord,” von Diehl replied, glancing down at the huddled figure at his feet. He smiled. “And I offer you thanks—on his behalf.”

A rumbling sound issued from the creature before him that perhaps was laughter on a cosmic scale.

And you, Lothar von Diehl. You have also been granted the gift of knowledge—knowledge that you may take back with you into the mundane world you came from.

“Accept my gratitude for that gift also, lord.”

Of course, for that gift, too, there is a price.

“I understand, lord, and one I am quite prepared to pay.”

You will be bound to my service for eternity.

Von Diehl bowed his head. Tzeentch the Great Mutator. Tzeentch the Changer of the Ways. “Willingly,” he said.

Tzeentch, his chosen Power of Chaos.

You will serve me in your world. You know what it is that I wish, that I thrive upon.

“I know.”

 

Once more there was a flickering in the air and the smell of ozone. The steed reappeared in the tiny cellar chamber, a glowing disc of light within the pentagram. This time it bore two riders, one standing, the other slumped at his feet.

Lothar von Diehl stepped down from the daemon-steed. The secret chamber was just as he had left it. The Book of Changes still rested on the lectern, open to the page upon which Giles de Courcy had inscribed the secret of the ultimate ritual, the secret von Diehl had felt it wise to share only partially with his tutor.

In his mind, the memory of the ocean of knowledge still glittered. He had glimpsed at least some of what was to be. Change was coming to the Old World. Elves returning from their long exile in the west, eager for trade, disrupting the nations of men. The Empire itself about to totter as, tempted by that elven trade, its wealthiest province sought to secede from its rule. And a hint, a deep darkness growing in the north. The ancient paths. A shroud removed, to be replaced by the bloodied fog of conflict.

A truly moment for magic to take its place upon the battlefield, to become a weapon of war for the first time in recorded human history.

Von Diehl laughed aloud. The battle magic spells were in his mind now, knowledge Lord Tzeentch had granted to him. He would have a considerable part to play in the events that were to come.

Change.

This was what Tzeentch, the Great Mutator desired—what any true servant of Tzeentch craved more than life itself. And outside this chamber was an entire world, crying out for change. Eager to begin his master’s work, von Diehl strode for the door.

Behind him, sprawled across the pentagram, Gerhardt Kleinhoffer raised a thin hand. Pure madness gleamed in his eyes.

“Seas of lost souls,” he mumbled as the door closed on his departing pupil. “False heavens, false hells. All is change and the dreams of Dark Gods.”