The Enemy Within (3 page)

Adolph glowered at her. “Why?”

“What if he isn’t a spy? I could be wrong.”

“True. You generally are. But from what you told me, this
seems to be the exception.”

“I don’t want him to die if he doesn’t deserve it.”

“We have to do what we have to do to protect ourselves and
serve the Changer,” Adolph said. “It doesn’t matter who deserves what.” He
scowled. “Did you spread your legs for him? Did you like it? Is that why you’re
baulking all of a sudden?”

His spasm of jealousy evoked the usual mixed emotions in her.
On the one hand, he’d known from the day they met what she did to earn her
living and serve the god, so what was the sense of getting angry about it? But
on the other, when the resentment flared, it showed he really did care about her
after all.

“No,” she said. “It’s nothing like that. It’s just… if he’s
a spy, who’s he spying for? Who has he talked to, and what did he say? Shouldn’t
we find out?”

“Well… maybe.”

“So we need to question him.”

“That would mean waiting for him to wake up, and we’re in
danger every moment we linger here. On top of that, suppose we try digging
answers out of him, and he lets out a yell?”

“It wouldn’t matter how much noise he made if he was in
Mama’s cellar.”

“It’s too far away. How are we supposed to get him there?”

“You’re strong. You could carry him. I’ll help. He’s a drunk
friend, and we’re taking him home.”

“No. Too risky.”

Unwilling to surrender but uncertain what to say next, Jarla
hesitated, and at that moment, Dieter groaned. Adolph wrenched himself back
around and poised his knife against the thin man’s throat.

Dieter woke coughing and retching, and the convulsions jammed
his neck against something hard and unyielding. After a moment, the object
pulled away, affording him the space to twist his head and expel the burning
foulness from his throat. Through tears blurred his vision, he saw that he lay
on a patch of earth that, despite the weeds overtaking it, still displayed
forlorn, fading signs of orderly rows and cultivation. Once, it had been
somebody’s garden, bounded and protected by a fence. Light rain pattered on the
ground.

Fingers grabbed him by the hair and jerked his head back
around. A square face scowled down at him. The hard object pressed against his
throat once more, and this time he felt that it was sharp—a blade, which had
already nicked him when he coughed. He began to feel the sting of the little
cuts, too. He was lucky the spasms hadn’t killed him.

That seemed to be the only bit of good fortune that had come
his way. He strained to remember what was happening, but the pounding in his
skull, the vile taste in his mouth and the nausea still churning his guts made
it difficult.

“I wanted to kill you in your sleep,” said the man with the
knife, “but Jarla wanted to question you. You’re awake now, so I guess we can
spare a moment to try it her way. But struggle, or raise your voice above a
whisper, and that’s the end of you, understand?”

“Yes.” The mention of Jarla’s name helped bring his thoughts
into focus. He recalled their final conversation in the tavern, and the
circuitous creep through the alleyways that followed. He’d thought he’d fooled
her, but now could only assume he’d somehow roused her suspicions, whereupon
she’d rendered him helpless with a drug or spell, then run to fetch one of her
fellow conspirators.

“Who are you?” asked the man crouching over him.

Dieter was frightened enough to tell him, except that the
truth was damning. “I already explained to Jarla who I am. I don’t understand.
Is this some kind of test?”

The knife pressed his raw, smarting neck a little harder.
“You don’t have time to play games.”

“I’m not.”

“Get over here,” the big man said. “Hurt him. Break his
fingers or something.”

“Me?” Jarla asked. When Dieter shifted his eyes, he could see
her standing off to the left, hugging herself as if she were cold.

“No, the Grand Theogonist!” her companion snapped. “Of
course, you. I can’t do it. I have to hold onto him and be ready to stick the
knife in if he struggles or squeals.”

Jarla’s features clenched with a mixture of reluctance and
resolve. She trudged forwards, knelt down, and took hold of Dieter’s wrist.

As every wizard knew, the energies required to fuel his
sorceries fluctuated from place to place and time to time, and that was the
problem. The man in the dark hooded cloak needed to act quickly, and it was just
his bad luck that his immediate surroundings had little power to offer. The
ambient forces wouldn’t support the manifestation he intended.

That left him with a choice. He could go somewhere more
accommodating, or he could try to raise the raw energy he needed. As time was of
the essence, he’d opted for the latter.

Accordingly, he strode along the twisting little side street
seeking a fellow pedestrian. Damn it, people claimed Altdorf never slept, even
late at night. So where was everybody?

He rounded a bend and spied a yawning youth emerging from a
doorway. Perhaps the boy had apprenticed to a trade that required him to report
for work well before dawn.

“You,” the magician said, and the boy turned in his
direction. The warlock whispered a word of power and fixed his quarry with his
gaze. Fortunately, this particular cantrip required only an iota of mystical
force to power it, and the lad froze like a rabbit before a serpent. Only for a
heartbeat, but that was all the time the sorcerer required to dash across the
intervening distance, whip the dagger out from under his mantle and drive it
into the youth’s torso.

Even late at night, on a deserted little street with a
paucity of lamps, it was dangerous to commit murder right out in the open, but
the warlock had no time to worry about that. He kept on stabbing. The boy
grunted every time the blade rammed home, and fumbled at his attacker as if he
hoped to shove him away. But he no longer had the strength.

Finally the youth collapsed and lay motionless. Working as
quickly as he dared, given that a slip could ruin the magic and imperil him in
the process, the sorcerer carved sigils on his victim’s brow and cheeks. Then he
dipped his forefinger in blood and daubed additional symbols on a wall.

The act of desecration cracked the barrier between worlds,
and power flowed through. The mage could feel it rising like floodwater full of
drowned corpses and filth. He shuddered in mingled ecstasy and revulsion.

Since he needed a clear head for the conjuring yet to come,
neither emotion was useful. Drawing a deep breath, he did his best to quell
them, then declaimed words of power and flourished the gory knife in mystic
passes.

The glyphs he’d written sizzled and steamed, eating their way
deeper into the boy’s face and even into the brick wall. Faint but ominous
sounds, suggestive of a reptilian hissing, whispered from the empty air.

Then, abruptly, the creature appeared, its brightness driving
back the dark and making the warlock squint. He watched for any indication that
it meant to attack, for such defiance was always a possibility, no matter how
able the summoner.

Happily, the entity wasn’t inclined to resist. Rather,
writhing this way and that, its body throwing off heat, it simply awaited his
commands.

Dieter clenched his fist, and Jarla pried at it, trying to
get hold of one of his fingers to bend and snap. He had the feeling she was
reluctant, and wasn’t yet exerting her full strength. But if he continued to
resist, she would. It was only a matter of time.

Curse it all, he was a wizard, in theory, the possessor of
extraordinary powers. Surely his magic could extricate him from this nightmare?
But how, when the ruffian with the knife would no doubt slash his throat as soon
as he tried to recite a spell?

“I told you to hurt him,” the male cultist growled.

“I’m trying,” Jarla replied.

“Idiot! How difficult is it? If you can’t grab a finger,
gouge an eye.”

“Please,” Dieter said, “you’re making a mistake. I’m not your
enemy. I—” Something luminous and yellow streaked through the darkness above
their heads, and he faltered in fear and astonishment.

The long, sinuous creature appeared to be a flying serpent
either shrouded in flame or composed of that element entirely. Plainly, it was
some minor spirit of Chaos, although Dieter didn’t understand why it had come.
Jarla and her fellow cultist hadn’t alluded to summoning it, nor did they need
its help to control or kill their captive.

But whatever the reason, its arrival extinguished whatever
feeble hope he had left, and he wondered if he should deliberately provoke the
man with the knife into cutting his throat. It might well be a less excruciating
death than the one the fiery serpent would give him.

Then, however, Jarla somehow sensed the creature wheeling
above their heads. Perhaps she caught the all-but-inaudible hiss of its corona
of flame. She glanced up, then screamed and lurched off balance.

Her outcry startled the other cultist, and his head snapped
around. He looked where she was looking, and then, as the snake turned for
another pass—to all appearances, studying the mortals on the ground—his eyes
opened wide, and his face turned white. As though steadying himself, he
swallowed, sucked in a ragged breath, then jumped to his feet. He apparently
didn’t care about immobilising Dieter anymore. He wanted to be ready to dodge,
run or fight if the serpent dived at him.

So, obviously, he and Jarla were just as afraid of the entity
as Dieter was, even if that didn’t make any sense either. The pair worshipped
Chaos, and the unearthly reptile was a manifestation of that universe of blight
and madness. Judging from its form, it might even serve their particular deity.

“What does it want?” Jarla whimpered, rising.

“Shut up!” Adolph said. “Don’t talk, don’t move, and maybe it
will go away.”

It didn’t. Instead, as lightning danced in the clouds behind
it, it opened its jaws and dived at Jarla.

She screamed and threw herself to the side. Fearful that the
serpent’s blazing mass was about to slam down on top of him, Dieter rolled.

Fierce heat swept over him and receded just as quickly. He
looked up and saw that the snake, after missing its initial strike, had pulled
out of its dive and was spiralling skyward once more. Its lack of wings
notwithstanding, it flew with an agility no terrestrial creature could match.

The cultists bolted from the forsaken little garden.
Proceeding more warily, Dieter rose and peeked out into the alley—

—to see that his erstwhile captors’ flight had accomplished
nothing. The serpent could fly faster than they could run and had manoeuvred to
cut them off. At the moment, it hovered in the air ahead of them.

Its behaviour suggested it was more interested in Jarla and
her ally than in Dieter. Was it possible that if he simply stayed put, it would
kill the cultists and go away? It seemed worth a try.

Except, what then? He wouldn’t be any closer to accomplishing
his task. Indeed, if he allowed Jarla to perish, he might be forfeiting his only
hope of ever succeeding. Whereas if he saved her…

That, of course, was assuming he could. His training had
included some battle magic. Afterwards, serving the Empire as a journeyman
wizard, he’d even fought in a few skirmishes. But never without a rank of
soldiers standing protectively in front of him, and never against a foe like
this.

Still, he decided to try. He stepped out into the alley, and,
as the serpent whipped itself around and dived at Adolph, raised his hands to
the heavens and rattled off an incantation.

Power shivered through him, and despite his desperate
circumstances, he thrilled to its exhilarating touch. He thrust out his right
arm parallel to the ground, and a dart of blue light streaked from his
fingertips.

Down the alleyway, the serpent’s fangs clashed shut in a
burst of flame, and Adolph threw himself flat to avoid them. The creature
dropped on top of him, and probably didn’t need to do anything more to kill him.
If it stayed where it was, and he couldn’t struggle out from underneath the
weight of its coils, its mere proximity would roast him alive.

Except that at that moment, Dieter’s luminous missile struck
it at the base of its wedge-shaped head. It hissed and turned to glare in his
direction.

When he met its gaze, he shuddered, for its blank eyes
somehow conveyed infinite malice and the promise of savage retribution. He
yearned to run, but quashed the impulse, instead conjuring a second dart. When
that one pierced the spirit, it sprang back into the air. Adolph rolled and
slapped at himself to extinguish the flames now nibbling at his clothing.

The serpent hurtled straight at Dieter. He rattled off the
first words of another spell. Dangerous to work so many in succession, dangerous
to cast them so quickly, but, as was always the case of late, he had no choice.

He felt the heat of the onrushing creature’s body. He recited
even faster. Disembodied voices howled and gibbered, a warning of botched
casting and magic twisting awry.

It didn’t, though. Despite his haste and the fear gnawing at
his concentration, he’d evidently got the spell right, or near enough, because a
great wind roared, smashed into the serpent and tumbled it backwards. It
shrieked, caught itself and, its aura of flame blowing out behind it like a
comet’s tail, attempted to struggle forwards once more. So far, though, it
wasn’t having any luck.

Dieter pierced it with another glowing dart. On his feet once
more, black, charred patches on his clothing but essentially unharmed, Adolph
snarled a spell of his own. Dieter couldn’t make out the actual words above the
scream of his conjured wind, but they had a vile, rasping quality that made his
skin crawl.