CHAPTER SEVEN

No one else made a move as the woodworker’s kicking feet disappeared through the wound in the fabric of reality. It had all happened too quickly.

But then Dieter shook off his paralysis. He circled around the lectern to a point from which he could look straight into the opening. He thought he saw a human figure in the multicoloured churning, but it was small, as if he was seeing it from far away. It floundered as though drowning, and other shapes flitted around it like sharks closing in on an injured fish.

At least Hanno was still alive, for the moment, anyway. Dieter wanted to rescue him, but didn’t know if he was up to the challenge. Had he understood the enchantment Adolph had cast, it might have been easier, but the imbecile had precluded that by acting so precipitously. Dieter drew a deep, steadying breath, preparing himself to cast a counter spell, and then hands seized him from behind. Arms wrapped around him and dragged him backwards.

He fought back, managing to grab the little finger of his attacker’s left hand, bend it back, and snap it. That loosened the bear hug sufficiently for him to twist and see who was grappling him.

A second tear had opened in midair, and another Chaos creature had reached through, torso and limbs elongating to cover the distance to its intended victim. Its head was vaguely lupine, and its six eyes flashed like mirrors catching the sun. It snarled and struggled to squeeze Dieter into immobility.

Fortunately, it didn’t seem to be any stronger than he was. Perhaps the pain of its broken finger even hindered it a little. He wrenched his right hand free and gouged one of its eyes with his thumb. That made it falter. He hammered its snout with the heel of his palm, then tore free of its embrace.

It reached for him again, but he sprang back beyond its reach. Evidently something constrained it from leaving the tear altogether; perhaps the opening would close behind it if it did. It snatched for him again, still falling short, and then he heard everyone else screaming.

He looked about. The scene was so frenzied it was difficult to take it all in, but more rips had split the air, and it looked to him as if a couple of other cultists had already been dragged into them. The rest struggled against their attackers, using punches, kicks, knives and blunt instruments for the most part, too panicked to think of attempting magic even if they were capable of it.

Mama Solveig was an exception. She conjured coils of shadow to bind one spirit, but a second burst from another hole, seized her by the hair, and yanked her towards it.

A cultist bolted for the door, but new holes opened in front of him to bar the way. New apparitions reached for him.

Hands grabbed Dieter’s throat and dragged him upwards like a hangman’s rope. Strangling, he peered up to see that, its orientation more horizontal than vertical, a rent had opened near the ceiling, and its inhabitant had reached down to seize him. So far, though, it couldn’t quite muster the strength to lift him into its domain. One moment, he was entirely off the floor, but then the creature let him slip, and the toes of his flailing feet brushed and bumped it once again.

He pounded, scrabbled, and tore at the apparition’s hands and arms until it lost its grip. He dropped, then staggered out from underneath it. Another creature lunged like a striking serpent, and he forced himself to scramble on beyond its reach before pausing to gasp for air.

He saw that he couldn’t stay still for long. There were too many tears, and more ripping open every moment. At least half the cultists were gone, Mama Solveig included. Those who remained were threatened from every side.

A few paces away, Jarla and Adolph stood together. She flailed at their attackers with one of the ritual staves. He cast splinters of shadow from his fingertips. Then a gap opened right beside him, and a spirit surged out of it. He hastily stepped behind Jarla. The creature grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her forwards.

Dieter rattled off an incantation and hurled darts of blue light into the apparition. It vanished. Jarla staggered a step, then caught her balance.

Dodging the hands that snatched for him, Dieter scrambled to her and Adolph. “You conjured the enchantment,” he panted to the scribe. “Do you have any notion at all how to dissolve or control it?”

Despite the dire circumstances, it took Adolph a moment to admit he didn’t.

“Then the two of you keep the creatures off me,” Dieter said, “while I see what I can do.”

He then visualised the sky, or projected a portion of his consciousness there. For mystical purposes, it was the same thing. The stars blazed, kindling flares of strength within his spirit, and the cold wind whispered secret counsel. When he felt focused, calm, yet full to bursting with power, he spoke the opening words of his incantation.

Meanwhile, Adolph and Jarla battled frantically.

Dieter reached the last syllable and swept his hands through a final flourish. For a moment, the apparitions flickered, and he grinned—prematurely. The entities reasserted their hold on reality and came back on the attack.

“It didn’t work!” Adolph cried.

He was right. Though it was one of the most powerful counter spells the Lore of the Heavens had to offer, it hadn’t broken this particular enchantment. Which meant only dark knowledge could save them now.

Dieter cast his thoughts over all the sickening, fascinating, half-comprehended information he’d gleaned from the blasphemous texts, hideous truths that, yielding to curiosity, he’d lapped up avidly and secrets that forced themselves on his consciousness despite his attempts to resist. His forehead throbbed in time with his pounding heart, and he shuddered as though he’d imbibed some stimulant drug.

Until he saw a possibility.

“Keep fighting!” he said, then attempted the counter spell once again but this time in altered form, weaving a skein of Dark Magic into the pure wizardry of the sky. If it worked, it would enable the spell to strike more accurately, to cleave to the very heart of the enchantment Adolph had wrought. It would quell a manifestation of Chaos, but even so, it was a perversion of the Celestial Order’s teachings and felt like the vilest thing Dieter had ever done, worse even than poisoning Sophie and her unborn child.

And at the same time, he revelled in it, glorying in new magic, new power, as any sorcerer would.

He slashed his hands through the ultimate pass and shouted the final word. The cellar blazed white as though contained in a lightning bolt, and he had to close his eyes against the glare.

When, blinking, he opened them again, both the Chaos creatures and the gaps in the air were gone, and the latter had evidently disgorged their prisoners as they closed.

He felt a surge of joy at his victory, but the feeling died when he realised it had come too late to save everyone from genuine harm. Nevin and another man lay torn and motionless on the floor, and even folk who were still conscious bore bloody wounds and blisters too, as if they’d swum in acid. One sobbed, another ran his fingers through his hair over and over again, and in general, they looked as if their reason hung by a thread.

The floor tilted abruptly, and Dieter pitched forwards into blackness.

Jarla squealed and started towards the fallen Dieter. Adolph lifted his hand to grab her and hold her back, but then thought better of it. Under the circumstances, it might make a bad impression on the others.

Meanwhile, Mama Solveig, tough old hag that she was, ignored her own burns and the gash in her shoulder to scurry to Nevin, squat down, and examine him. After a moment, she shook her head, then moved on to Maik. He proved to be dead as well.

Adolph realised the situation had the potential to become even more unpleasant than it was already. He considered making a break for the exit, but didn’t. The cult meant everything to him, and he wouldn’t forsake it no matter what the risk.

Mama Solveig strode to the door and peered out the peephole. From the calm manner in which she turned away again, it seemed she hadn’t observed anything alarming. The coven’s struggle for survival, frenzied though it had been, hadn’t made enough noise to attract the notice of neighbours or passers-by. Maybe she had a ward in place to muffle any commotion.

“How is Dieter?” she asked.

Kneeling beside the miserable whoreson in question, Jarla rolled him onto his back, then poised her hand in front of his mouth and nostrils. “He’s breathing. I think he just fainted. But you should look at him.”

“I will,” the healer said, “but first I need to tend the folk who are actually wounded, and you need to help me. Fetch my basket.”

Adolph noticed that, though he was still essentially unharmed, Mama hadn’t asked for his assistance. Perhaps it was because she was angry with him, or maybe she felt his proximity would agitate the people who’d been pulled into the holes.

In any event, he was left to stand and watch as she ministered to both the flesh and spirits of the injured. Along with catgut sutures, bandages and ointments, she dispensed soothing words, and perhaps she infused them with a subtle magic, because they seemed to exert more influence than Adolph might have expected. People stopped weeping, gasping and shaking. Their eyes no longer shifted wildly to and fro. Unfortunately, once they regained their composure, they glared and glowered at Adolph, and he felt another pang of uneasiness.

Finally, as Mama lowered herself to examine Dieter, Hanno snarled what everyone was evidently thinking: “You stupid, arrogant bastard! You killed Nevin and Maik and nearly the rest of us too!” Others growled in agreement.

Adolph felt anger, alarm, and a pang of guilt as well, but the latter emotion only heightened the others. “I did what we’re all supposed to do! What we’ve vowed to the god to do: try our best to master whatever spells we uncover. And what an enchantment this one is! You could use it to destroy the Emperor and his entire court.”

“Perhaps so,” Mama Solveig said, pressing her fingertips against the side of Dieter’s neck, “but we’re not obliged to work recklessly. We have a method for studying a new spell, a patient, careful way that lessens the risk. You know it. I taught it to you. But you forgot all about it tonight.”

Obviously, she was right. It had irked him to see them all so delighted with Dieter’s paltry little trick of luminescence, and so he’d jumped on what had seemed an opportunity to remind them of his own abilities. “Maybe I did act rashly, and obviously, I mourn the loss of our friends. But we all know that being one of the Red Crown is dangerous, and because I took a chance, we’re weeks, maybe months, ahead of where we’d be if we’d tackled the spell in the usual plodding way.”

“Only because of Dieter,” Hanno said.

“Because of him and me!” Adolph snapped. “Maybe, stuck inside your hole, you couldn’t see, but we both used our magic to fight the enchantment. Tell them, Jarla!”

Refusing to meet his eyes, Jarla shrugged her shoulders and mumbled something inaudible.

Her betrayal outraged and astonished him. Was it because he’d used her for a shield? Hadn’t she understood the necessity? He was a genuine sorcerer, she wasn’t, and magic had been the only hope of extricating everyone, including her, from danger. So it had been vital that he protect himself at any cost.

Or maybe, fickle, ungrateful trollop that she was, it was her manifest letch for Dieter that kept her from speaking up in his defence.

Either way, she’d pay for it. They both would.

“Dieter and I, working together, saved you all,” he insisted. “He couldn’t have accomplished anything without me protecting him.”

“I don’t see it that way,” Hanno said. He reached for the knife at his belt. Adolph lifted his hands to cast an attack spell.

“Stop!” Mama Solveig said. Hanno faltered with his blade half-drawn, so Adolph hesitated as well. “I won’t have you fighting with one another when the cause needs you both.”

“Didn’t it need Nevin and Maik?” Hanno demanded.

“I suppose it did,” she replied, “but killing Adolph won’t bring them back. Better to let him atone for their deaths by serving with zeal and obedience from now on. That is what you intend to do, isn’t it, dear?”

“Yes,” Adolph gritted. Apparently they weren’t all going to try to tear him apart, and he supposed he should be grateful for that, but he still resented the old woman’s attitude. He hadn’t meant to hurt Nevin and Maik—and in fact, he hadn’t, the spirits had—so what was the point of upbraiding him over an accident? Hell, with his magic, he was far more useful than the two of them had ever been.

“Good,” Mama Solveig said. “You can start by lifting Dieter onto the cot.”

At present, the sky was an inverted rippling green ocean, and the three suns, luminous blurs shining in its depths. On the yellow plain underneath it rose a white marble palace capped with minarets, and on one of its terraces sat Dieter and the priest. Below them, a giant with the head of a cat lay staked spread-eagled on the ground while inhuman torturers vivisected it. It tried to scream but could only manage a sort of hiss. Perhaps its tormentors had begun by cutting its vocal cords.

The priest gestured towards the raw, bloody morsels on Dieter’s plate, meat freshly extracted from the giant’s body. “Try the liver.”

A part of Dieter wanted to sample it, so why not do it, or indulge any other urge he happened to feel? He suspected this was only a dream, so what was the harm? Still, the portion of him that clung to a measure of caution, or that, perhaps, simply found the repast repulsive, compelled him to refrain. “I don’t want it.”

“Are you sure? Cook went to quite a lot of trouble. The giant actually only existed for a little while before it changed into something else entirely. It had to be recalled from the void.”

“Why bother?”

The priest raised his eyebrows. “Why, to punish it for trying to hurt you. No one and nothing is permitted to do that, unless, of course, the attempt succeeds.”

“Why would the lords who rule here seek to protect me?”

“Now you’re being wilfully obtuse. It’s a good thing you don’t play these foolish, stubborn little games when your life is in danger.”

“What do you mean?”

“You turned to dark lore for salvation.”

Dieter shook his head. “I used a spell I learned at the Celestial College.”

“Infused with the power of Chaos.”

“I… modified it slightly to make it more effective, but it was still fundamentally the same magic, and I’m still the same man. Whatever you imagine, your poisons haven’t changed me.”

“Then why are you eating giant meat?”

He looked and saw the gory slice of flesh in his red-stained hand. He tasted the gamy, salty aftertaste in his mouth. He retched and screamed at the same time, choking himself, and the palace, plain and ocean-sky dissolved into something altogether different.

In the final nightmare, a creature resembling a colossal hornet stung Dieter in the centre of his forehead. When his eyes snapped open, the agony of that wound turned to a sensation that fell just short of pain but throbbed with every heartbeat.

He lay on Mama Solveig’s lumpy cot with Jarla sitting close at hand. He studied her and the cellar, looking for anomalies, trying to verify that he was truly awake at last. The delirium had fooled him before.

Everything looked all right, and he felt weak, feverish and queasy, as was frequently the case when he’d studied or sought to use the dark lore. “This is getting to be a habit,” he said, struggling to sit up. “Me passing out. You keeping watch over me. Damn it, I thought Mama told me I wouldn’t throw any more fits.”

“It wasn’t like the first time. You didn’t thrash and roll about, and you didn’t stay unconscious nearly as long. Mama said you just strained yourself. Or something like that.”

He tried to figure out if that was good or bad and decided he lacked the knowledge to make a judgement.

“Are you thirsty?” Jarla asked. “Or hungry?”

He remembered the smell and taste of raw giant meat, and his stomach churned. “Not yet.”

“While I sat here, I practised the light spell. I think I’m getting good at it. I never understood much of the magic before, but you made it plain what I needed to do.”

Curse her, why did she keep babbling when he felt so jittery and strange? He drew breath to bark at her to shut up, and then his perspective shifted. He remembered he was fond of her and recognised that she was trying to take care of him. “You were a good pupil. You have a knack for that particular charm. It must be because of your sunny disposition.”

She blushed and lowered her eyes. “Do you remember what we talked about before Adolph arrived?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I want for us to be together, if you still do. If not, I understand. I mean, I’m just a—”

He reached out and laid a finger across her lips. “Hush.” Wondering if he knew what he was doing or even what he truly felt, he leaned forwards and kissed her.

The days and nights slipped past, and some Dieter spent afraid of everything. At such times, he longed for his safe, pleasant life in Halmbrandt with an intensity that twisted his guts and made him want to cry. It was generally then, too, that he made another attempt to locate the Master of Change, each such effort merely repeating a ploy that had already failed. But he’d already tried shadowing Mama Solveig, ransacking her possessions, quizzing the other members of the coven and casting divinations, all to no avail. What was left?

But on some days, or at least for certain hours, the grinding fear abated. During those times, awareness of his old life faded, and he spoke of his fraudulent past as a hedge wizard glibly, as though it were the reality. Except for Adolph, the cultists seemed friends and kindred, their treasons and blasphemies simply a routine albeit covert part of life. Even when Mama Solveig poisoned a patient with the taint from Tzeentch’s icon, he sometimes had to remind himself what a foul, despicable crime it actually was. Dark lore was just an engrossing study, and his spasms of anger, seething restlessness and aching brow, merely familiar, unremarkable aspects of who he was.

The moments following such interludes, when he felt he had nearly warped into an entirely different person, were the most alarming of all. Then he yearned to run but didn’t, for fear of Krieger, or because he still clung to the hope of recovering what he’d lost. Or maybe the forbidden texts held him, tempting him back for just one more perusal and one more whispered secret, seducing him again and again and again.

The coven gathered anew, and Mama Solveig quavered, “It’s time for another trip into the forest. There’s a fellow who needs to get away from the city, and Leopold could use some fresh supplies.”

“I’ll go,” Adolph declared. Dieter wasn’t surprised. Ever since the debacle with the spell that jabbed holes in reality, the scribe had worked hard to regain his status among his peers.

Mama Solveig smiled. “You’re a good, brave boy. You always volunteer.”

Adolph smiled back. The expression looked out of place on his surly face. “Well, I’m not so brave that I wouldn’t like some help. The raiders have been almost too successful lately. They’ve got everybody stirred up, and I believe the army suspects Leopold has allies here in town. Will you lend me a hand, Dieter? You’re a good magician, and you need to meet our allies sooner or later.”

Dieter could think of few things he was less inclined to do then venture into the wilderness with Adolph. The latter plainly still harboured a grudge against him even though, in recent weeks, he’d struggled to hide it. But it wouldn’t look well to the other cultists if he refused.

“I’ll go,” he said. Jarla stared at him as if he’d lost his mind.

Shrewd as she was, Mama Solveig must have harboured the same suspicion that Adolph meant him ill, but it didn’t show in her demeanour. She beamed as if they were two quarrelsome grandchildren who’d finally learned to play together nicely.