03 - Death's Legacy (24 page)

Rudi’s head spun, and he felt sick to his stomach. So much he
hadn’t wanted to acknowledge, had all but willfully closed his mind to, began to
make sense at last. Somehow, he knew, she was twisting things, cloaking her
actions in a semblance of reason. It was the same kind of blindness that Gerhard
had shown, he thought, an unassailable conviction that there was only one path
to follow, and that any action was justified in the name of the greater good
they claimed to be serving.

“That’s why you tried to kill Magnus in Marienburg,” he said.
“He’d been spreading the plague in Kohlstadt, hadn’t he? Those other people in
the woods with him, you led the beastmen to them!” Despite himself, his voice
was beginning to rise, and he fought it back to a whisper. “You killed my
father!”

“Your father died a long time ago, a long way from
Kohlstadt,” Greta said calmly. “As for Gunther, he was a decent man, snared by
the lies of Nurgle, just as Magnus and the others were. If they’d been permitted
to finish their ritual, something far worse than disease would have been
unleashed, believe me.”

“I don’t understand,” Hanna said. “You mean Magnus really was
the leader of a Chaos cult, just like Gerhard said?” Greta nodded. “Rudi’s
fath… Gunther Walder was a member?”

“As I said, he was ensnared by the lies he was told.” Greta
sighed, sadly. “Nurgle promises his followers much. The more diseased they
become, the stronger they feel. It’s a seductive delusion.” She looked at a
mangy cat that looked up from scavenging in the gutter just long enough to stare
at them with cool disdain, before scuttling off into the shadows. “You must have
realised that, after seeing what Magnus had become in Marienburg.”

Rudi nodded, remembering the preternatural strength of the
madman’s ravaged body, and the degenerate creatures that had served him. There
was something else: his adopted father’s dogged insistence that he’d felt better
and stronger than ever before, despite the clear signs of infection spreading
from his injured arm.

“You realised what he was, and what he was doing?” Rudi
asked.

“I suspected as much,” said Greta. “I knew something was
going on, and that he had secrets he didn’t want revealed. Come to that, he
never bothered to conceal the fact that he harboured doubts about me, but
suspicion isn’t proof, whatever Gerhard might think. The two of us circled one
another for months, waiting for the other to slip up in some way and reveal
their true allegiance. If I’d only had the courage to act sooner.” She sighed
regretfully.

“You were right, he did think you knew something.” Rudi
remembered the enigmatic note from Magnus that he’d discovered in the lawyer’s
office. “I found a letter among van Crackenmeer’s papers, one you missed when
you searched the place after Hans had killed him.” He hesitated, waiting for the
sorceress to confirm or deny it, but she said nothing. He tried to look her in
the eye, but found he couldn’t. The more intently he tried to focus on her face,
the more it seemed to shimmer, remaining at the edges of his vision. When he
went on, he couldn’t quite keep the air of desperation from his voice. “Do you
know? Am I the von Karien heir?”

“You’ll have to ask them that when you find them,” Greta
said. “The Changer maps everyone’s path, but we all have to walk it alone.
You’ll know your destination when you reach it, but I can’t show you any short
cuts, I’m afraid.” She turned to her daughter. “Come , my daughter. We have
friends who can help us not far from here, and it wouldn’t be polite to keep
them waiting.”

As she turned away to follow her mother, Hanna hesitated, and
Rudi caught her eye.

“Hanna, wait!”

The girl looked back at him, her expression a curious amalgam
of doubt and hope. “You can’t go off with her just like that! You heard what she
said. She’s a Chaos worshipper, for Taal’s sake!”

“She’s my mother!” Hanna said fiercely. “And she’s kept us
safe so far, in case you’ve forgotten.” For a moment, the flicker of uncertainty
was back in her voice, and she forced it away with an obvious effort. “Besides,
where else can I go? The witch hunters will kill me on sight.”

“I don’t think so, child.” Greta smiled maternally at her
daughter. “Your powers are growing all the time. Tzeentch gifted you with extra
powers just when you needed them, and after what I saw in Marienburg, I suspect
it’s not the first time that’s happened.” Remembering how Hanna had suddenly
discovered the ability to throw fireballs when the skaven attacked them, Rudi
felt she was probably right. “The Changer has marked you already, and he
protects his own. You’ll soon be so powerful that you need never fear anyone
again, and I can help you to walk that path.” The pride was back in her voice,
along with a faintly rueful air. “At least until you leave me behind.”

“I’ll never do that.” Hanna’s voice was decisive, and she
linked arms with her mother. “Where are we going?”

“Away from here,” Greta said. She turned to look at Rudi, who
remained stupefied in the mouth of the alley, trying to assimilate all that he’d
heard. “I’m afraid you’re better off not knowing where. You’ll understand why
soon enough.”

“Hanna!” Rudi shook off the paralysis that had him in its
grip, and took a step forwards, reaching out a hand to hold her back. Before his
fingers could close, he stumbled, his shins meeting something soft and yielding,
which let out an unearthly screech as it shot away down the darkness of the
alleyway. Cursing the cat that had tripped him, he regained his balance and
looked around, but the momentary distraction had been enough. Hanna and her
mother were gone.

Searching for the two women would be pointless, Rudi knew,
but he still cast around the reeking alleyways for several minutes before
accepting the inevitable and giving up. At length, and conscious that he was
beginning to attract the attention of the local residents, he made his way back
to the main street and, with his back to the wilderness of ash, studied the
directions that von Eckstein had scribbled for him by the light of a guttering
torch, clearly meant to illuminate the sign of a nearby tavern. They seemed
simple enough, and after orientating himself with respect to the burned-out
wasteland behind him, he set off, more or less retracing the route that he and
Hanna had taken to get there.

At first, shaken by what had so recently happened, Rudi had
to force himself to concentrate on finding the way. His thoughts kept returning
to the girl, wondering if she was all right, and fearful for her safety. Soon,
however, as he felt himself getting nearer to his destination and the answers he
craved, a growing excitement took hold of him, and his pace quickened.

“Third on the left,” he reminded himself. None of the streets
he passed had name plaques visible, but then most of the residents around here
probably wouldn’t have been able to make use of them anyway. Many of the people
he passed wore patched and ragged garments, and the smell of excrement in the
gutters seemed unusually strong. As it had on a few previous occasions, though,
far from making him gag as he might reasonably have expected, the stench seemed
almost pleasant, an effect, he assumed, of his growing hunger and the series of
shocks he’d experienced since leaving the riverboat such a short time before.

Stepping around the contents of a chamber pot, which someone
had flung from an upper window and which had missed him by inches, he started
down the side street that he’d been looking for with renewed determination.

At first, Rudi thought he must have missed his way after all.
The houses here were narrower and more cramped than any he’d yet seen, and
crowded with people who spilled from windows and doors as if forcibly expelled
by the pressure of their fellows within. Even at this hour, many of them were
abroad, and all stared at him with barely concealed hostility. Clearly,
strangers were a rarity here, although his muscular build and visible weapons
were all the passport he needed to walk the length of the street without any
overt challenge.

Scanning the buildings on either side in search of a clue as
to their ownership, he found himself making eye contact with a woman loitering
in front of one of the seething tenements. Even before she spoke, her dress, or
lack of it, was enough to tell him what she was doing out there on a night as
cold as this.

“Wanting a good time, dearie?” Even from this distance, Rudi
could tell that her face was deeply lined beneath her thickly applied makeup,
and she was missing a couple of teeth.

“I’m looking for someone,” he said diplomatically. The woman
laughed, her years of practice almost managing to stifle the insincerity of it.

“Aren’t we all, dear? Anyone in particular, or will Maggi do?
You won’t do better for tuppence round here, I guarantee.”

“Osric von Karien,” Rudi said. “I was told he lives somewhere
nearby?”

He read his answer in the ageing doxy’s eyes even before she
spoke, the pretence of friendliness vanishing like dew on a hot summer morning.
Withdrawing a pace, she pointed to a house about twenty yards down the road.

“That one there.” She stared at him warily, and Rudi was
suddenly reminded of the crone who’d thrown a brick at him when he tried to ask
directions to Magnus’ house in the Doodkanal. No one in the vicinity seemed
quite that hostile, at any rate, but the brief conversation had clearly been
overheard. The space around him suddenly seemed much greater, even in the
narrow, crowded street, and as he looked around, gazes were suddenly and
unobtrusively averted. It seemed that the family was indeed shunned, even in so
unprepossessing a quarter as this; hardly the sort of place Rudi had expected to
find the sole surviving member of a noble family, however minor their lineage.

“Thank you.” He dug a penny out of his purse. “You’ve been
very helpful.” He flicked the coin into the air, expecting the woman to catch
it, but she flinched back, letting the metal disc fall unheeded into the filth
choking the gutter between them. Feeling vaguely disconcerted, Rudi walked away,
conscious of eyes upon him, and studied the house she’d indicated.

At first sight it was little different from any of its
neighbours, looking somehow as if it had been jammed into a space too small for
it, although as he approached the building Rudi became aware that it stood out
from the others surrounding it in one significant respect at least. All the
other houses he could see were seething with life, lamplight leaking from behind
every shutter, accompanied by the sounds of human habitation: shouting,
laughter, the crying of infants and the chatter of children. Von Karien’s house,
by comparison, was dark, deserted and desolate. Its shutters were firmly
fastened, and its front door was thick and solid looking, in marked contrast to
the flimsy timberwork visible along the rest of the street.

Forcing down the sudden stab of apprehension that the house
was indeed empty, and that he’d made the journey here for nothing, Rudi walked
up to the forbidding portal. It opened directly onto the street, and as he stood
there in front of it the local inhabitants kept stepping around him as if he was
cocooned inside an invisible barrier, instead of jostling past him as he might
have expected.

A large, ornate knocker, in the shape of Sigmar’s hammer, was
mounted in the middle of the door. The workmanship was impressive, the
decoration intricate, and it felt very solid in Rudi’s hand. Taking a deep
breath he lifted it, rapping several times. The noise it produced was
surprisingly loud, audible even over the babble of the street, booming away into
the depths of the dark, shuttered house.

Rudi waited for what seemed like a long time, but which was
probably no more than a handful of minutes. Gradually, his stomach sinking
slowly with the weight of disappointment, he began to accept that his initial
impression had been the right one, and that the house was as deserted as it had
first appeared. He was on the verge of turning away, and had just decided to
knock again to make absolutely sure the place was empty, when the sound of a
lock being turned arrested his attention.

“Yes?” The door opened, just wide enough to reveal a man,
standing a pace or two inside the entrance hall. Rudi could make out little of
the house’s interior, as the hall itself was in darkness. A faint glow in the
distance suggested lamplight, as if an interior door had been left ajar, but
that was scarcely sufficient to see by. Even the man who’d answered his summons
was indistinct, blending into the shadows within. Rudi could just make out the
shape of a plain white shirt, dark trousers, and a pale face surmounted by
closely cropped blond hair.

“I want to see Osric von Karien,” Rudi said, as decisively as
he could, suddenly aware of how he must look in his battered and travel-stained
clothes. The man smiled sardonically.

“Well, you’ve seen him.” He made as if to close the door.
Before he was even aware of what he was doing, Rudi stepped forwards, blocking
the doorway with his loot, and held out the letter addressed to von Karien,
angling it so that von Eckstein’s seal was clearly visible.

“I’ve a letter of introduction from the Graf von Eckstein,”
he said, hardly able to believe that the man he was talking to wasn’t a servant
as he’d at first assumed. Aristocrats didn’t answer their own front doors, did
they? Von Karien, if that was who he really was, glanced at the missive.

“Run across something unexpected in one of his little plots
again, has he?” The shadowy figure stood aside, and for the first time Rudi
became aware that he’d been holding a dagger behind the door. “You’d better come
in, then. It’s too dark to read out here anyway.” The empty hand gestured
towards the glow of lamplight. “After you.”