Zavant Page 4

  PART TWO

  Red Moon Over Altdorf, or The Case of the Morrsliebnacht Murders

  Author's Note. Readers, perhaps excited by the rumours that cir­culated when it became generally known that the author was commencing work on this tome you now have before you, may be expecting at this point to learn something of the details of the ever- mysterious Case of the Emperor's Envoy. Regretfully, it has not been possible to provide any kind of published account of this inci­dent. The documentary evidence needed is still under lock and key within the Imperial Archives, and it would seem that the full truth of the affair is still deemed too sensitive for public airing, even now, more than a century after the event. Indeed, certain parties have made it known to the author that it would not be in the best interests of his health and continued well being if he were to make public any of the inconclusive and fragmentary knowledge he has managed to gather regarding this case.

  So, alas, good readers, it seems that for now The Case of the Emperor's Envoy must take its place alongside those other lost Konniger cases about which much is speculated, but little is truly known. Like The Affair of the Tilean Rat-Idol and The Mystery of the Albion Monolith perhaps it is a tale which the world is not yet ready to hear.

  In compensation, I offer instead the following case notes, which I believe will provide some interesting and, in light of the recent thinly-veiled threats made against the author's person, timely information on the much-debated details of Konniger's involve­ment with the Imperial security services at various points throughout his career.

  Chronologically, I have been able to place this case as occurring between the grim events of The Legacy of the Last Heir of Drakwald Keep and the more whimsical proceedings of The Adventure of the Poisoned Halfling Chef.

  Blades, cruel and sharp, scratching on worn stone. Wan and sickly moonlight - Morrslight - ebbs down through a thin veil of clouds, casting shifting shadow patterns on the flag- stoned street. Faint chimes ripple from the wind-stirred charms that superstitious fools hang in the doorways of their homes to ward off evil on the nights when Morrslieb waxes full.

  The killer stretches, enjoying the exquisite sensation of the magic-born light playing across its body. It shivers in delight, drawing new strength from the unholy radiation shining down upon it, and raises its head, inhuman eyes altering to receive the invisible spectrum of secrets revealed only under the cold radiance of its heavenly patron.

  From its rooftop perch, it casts its magic-altered sight over the city below. The killer is old, ancient as its human cattle prey would reckon such things, and it has gazed out upon this scene many, many times before. Revealed under the light of Morrslieb, it sees the many different incantations it has known of this one city. Images and scenes blur and overlap. Tower-shapes rise and fall across the shifting time spectrum

  as the killer's gaze takes it back through centuries of growth and destruction.

  A blink, and it sees the city in flames as rival claimants to a vacant throne tear an empire apart in civil war. And it is there too, running in true form amongst the rioting crowds that fill the streets. It moves freely amongst them, just another horror in a night full of them, snapping its jaws in hunger and pulling down victim after screaming victim. Raising its bloody snout from the throat of its latest kill, it lets out a howl of exhilaration to the red bright moon overhead.

  A second blink, and it sees the city as a necropolis, cloaked in a pall of fear and despair as plague stalks the streets and decimates its population. Few lights burn in the darkness - even the Imperial palace lies dark and mostly deserted - and those that still live cower in their homes, waiting for the plague spectre to finally pass over the city. But the killer has no fear of mere disease and it prowls the empty streets unafraid, knowing that on this night none will dare venture out in answer to the screams of their neighbours.

  The killer looks again, dimly glimpsing the very first incar­nation of the city through the shades of all the others that came after. It sees a sunlit village on the banks of a wide fast- flowing river. It watches as the village's inhabitants run to greet a party of warriors returning from the woods. The killer's gaze is drawn to the tall figure at the head of the hunting party, a proud barbarian chieftain with hair like the sun, wielding a great dwarf warhammer. The killer was much younger then, its mystic senses far cruder and undisciplined, but even so it could perceive the invisible nimbus of light surrounding the barbarian. The killer growled to itself, unsettled by the sight of this bright being, and slunk back off into the comforting darkness of the forest. Time and time again, in the many centuries to come, it would make sure that the children of the tribe of Sigmar would pay for the shameful fear it felt for the first time that day.

  It shakes its heavy head, dispelling such visions, and alters its gaze to a different spectrum. Now it sees the fatelines of thousands of human lives interconnecting across the face of the city, forming bright and confused patterns of colour and providence. Many such lines interconnect with itself, and one already fading line leads back to the torn, bleeding thing

  lying somewhere in the alleys below. The killer studies the pattern of lines than fan out from it, sensing the short and shallow lives of several soon-to-be victims who wait unsus­pecting at the end of each one. Several of the fatelines lead promisingly towards the imposing shape of the Imperial palace - the killer had always considered aristocratic blood to be a rare savoury treat - but one other intriguing possi­bility leads off on a tangent towards the city's academic quarter, a rambling maze of bookshops, libraries and dusty old sage-dens clustered around the University.

  The killer studies this new fateline, its snout twitching in anticipation at the rich scent of the life at the other end. Its mouth fills with hot juices, its jaws dripping with drool as it considers the complexities - and promises - of this new challenge. This new hunt that has suddenly been revealed. A new hunt, but on familiar territory. Altdorf was a very old hunting ground, one it visited every century or so, but which never ceased to offer something new.

  The killer raises its snout and howls, offering up a prayer of thanks to its patron moon Morrslieb, second moon of the Old World.

  Red moon.

  Killer's moon.

  Chaos moon.

  Zavant Konniger awoke with a start. There was the taste of something thick and unpleasant in his mouth, and he reached for the glass of red wine he kept by his bedside, curs­ing when he found it empty. Mixed with certain herbs, the Reiklander wine made an effective sleeping draught, keeping at bay the dreams which often haunted him on nights such as this, nights when the Chaos moon waxed strong. He sat up, the chill night air cooling the sweat that covered his face and glanced out of the window, noticing with a sense of vague irritation that his ever-superstitious manservant had hung one of those moon-warding charms from the top of the open window. Morrslieb itself hung high in the sky, casting its baleful influence over the city below and filling Konniger's bedchamber with a strangely limpid, translucent light. Konniger's eyes ached in reaction to the otherworldly light. There was no mirror in the room, but he knew that if

  he could witness his own reflection he would see a dull but unmistakable red glow in his eyes. He had made the study and opposition of Chaos his life's work, but on nights such as this he keenly felt the side-effects of the minute doses of warp-stuff which he had imbibed over the years in order to better understand the workings of his enemy.

  Konniger gazed through the open window at the city beyond, his mind chasing the stray phantom memory of whatever premonition had awoken him from his sleep. He closed his eyes in concentration, seeing flashing teeth rip­ping into soft flesh and razor claws sparking off stone cobbles, but when he opened them again there was only the shimmering red disc of Morrslieb mocking him in the sky above. Something, he thought to himself. Something is abroad out there and stalking my city.

  He reached for the rope-pull at the side of his bed, throw­ing off the covers and grabbing the robes lying nearby. After a moment, f
rom far downstairs, he could hear his servant's footsteps and muttering voice coming up the stairs in answer to the ringing bell. Konniger paused to smile to himself. For someone who was once reputedly the stealthiest cutpurse in the Empire, the halfling could make quite a racket when he wanted to broadcast his unhappiness at being roused in the middle of the night.

  Vido opened the door, the light from the candle in his hand intensifying the ache in the sage-detective's eyes and causing him to flinch in discomfort. 'You rang?' Vido grum­bled, in his best disgruntled servant tone.

  'I fear our services will soon be called upon before the night is out, Vido. Give my courtier robes a dust down and put on that servant's livery suit that I know you hate wearing so much. Both of us must look our best when the messenger from the Imperial palace arrives.'

  Vido was unhappy. He was unhappy at being up and about at such an early hour. He was even more unhappy at finding himself in a stinking back alley that only a few hours before had apparently been used as a convenient stopover point by every late night reveller on their way home from an evening of over-indulgence at the nearby Street of a Thousand Taverns. He would normally have been deeply unhappy that

  lie hadn't eaten yet, but the sight of the mutilated corpse lying at the far end of the alley had since made all immedi­ate thought of food a queasy and unappealing prospect. He was truly unhappy at being surrounded by so many mem­bers of the City Watch. A cordon of them, cudgels at the ready, were keeping at bay the restless mob that went part in parcel with any unusual event on the streets of the Empire's capital city. Most of all, he was especially unhappy at the wretched servant's uniform that Konniger had insisted he wear for the occasion, and for what seemed like the hun­dredth time that morning he tugged uncomfortably at the stiff collar which constantly chafed against his neck. Zavant Konniger, deep in conversation with the dark-cloaked figure kneeling over the corpse, certainly gave no indication of noticing his servant's unhappiness.

  'They do say, Herr Konniger, that one can sometimes dis­cern the identity of a killer by staring into the eyes of the cadaver. The last thing the victim saw - the face of their killer - is imprinted forever on the retina of their eyes.' The witch hunter looked up expectantly from where he knelt over the corpse, waiting to gauge Konniger's reaction.

  Konniger met the gaunt witch hunter's gaze, confidently meeting the casual challenge. 'Indeed. I have heard similar notions. As I have also heard the theory that a system could be devised to identify criminals from the patterns and marks on the skin of their fingertips, with every criminal unwit­tingly leaving their own invisible but identifiable signature at the scene of each crime. If only such fanciful notions were true, Herr van Sandt, then perhaps both our duties would be far less taxing. Not that your observation would have much bearing in this particular case, since the killer has seen fit to remove not only most of the victim's face, but also both of his eyes.'

  Vido had seen witch hunters do various unusual things in his time. He had seen them foaming at the mouth in a blaze of righteous anti-heretical fury. He had seen them flay the skin off their own backs in a zealous display of the joys of purification and self-chastisement. He had seen them weep and gnash their teeth in woeful despair as one heretic after another confessed their guilt. Once he had even seen one witch hunter show a rare flash of mercy and allow a heretic

  to be garrotted at the stake before the flames even reached them. But this one here, this Marius van Sandt, Imperial- appointed witch hunter and blessed of Sigmar, actually did something that Vido had never seen one of his kind do before. He smiled. Not the thin-lipped smile of secret plea­sure that often flickered across a witch hunter's face during the torture of suspected evildoers, but a genuine smile of amusement, one that spread all the way to his dark glitter­ing eyes.

  The witch hunter stepped forward, taking care, Vido noted, to keep his trailing cloak clear of the pool of con­gealed blood around the corpse, and extended a handshake to Konniger. 'A pleasure to finally meet you, Herr Konniger. Your name and work is familiar even to an uncultured fanatic such as myself. In particular, I have found your notes on Gottlieb the Stern's Treatis Necris and the theories you advanced in your own Principia Chaotica to be of much use to me in my own work.'

  Konniger smiled - Vido knew that intellectual flattery was one of his master's main weaknesses - and gave a nod of pleased acknowledgement as he took van Sandt's proffered handshake. You give me too much credit, Herr van Sandt. As Leonardo da Mirigliano was reputed to have said, "If I have seen further than others, it is only because I have stood upon the shoulders of giants".'

  The witch hunter had been here since before they arrived, apparently summoned to the crime scene by the same palace decree that had roused Konniger and Vido out of their beds so early this morning.

  Witch hunters were rare in Altdorf, Vido knew. The Church of Sigmar had its headquarters here, and, while the often overzealous heretic hunters were free to ply their busi­ness in many of the more distant rural provinces of the Empire, here in the capital the Church preferred to deal with such matters itself. That someone within the Imperial palace had seen fit to allow a witch hunter to operate on the streets of Altdorf was unusual enough, but it was the pres­ence of an even more ominous figure in the alley that troubled Vido the most. He still remembered the shock of recognition that ran through him as he and Konniger had arrived at the scene under escort and had caught their first

  glimpse of the grey-garbed figure waiting for them at the entrance to the alley.

  Steiner! he had thought, with a thrill of fear. Ranald's leeth, whatever business we've got ourselves mixed up in now, things must be serious indeed if someone has seen fit lo let the Emperor's pet hunting hound off its leash!

  Officially, Vaul Steiner was merely the Emperor's personal bodyguard. Unofficially, and in an open secret known by everyone in Altdorf, he was the Emperor's personal assassin, one of the most feared killers in the Empire and a man who had sworn his loyalty wholly and completely to the Imperial I louse. Steiner's skills with sword, dagger and crossbow were legendary, and Vido and the rest of Altdorf had seen him out-fence and out-shoot every challenger at the public games held every year in the Kaiserplatz to celebrate the Emperor's birthday. However, Vido had also heard the stories of the many other skills Steiner exhibited, in the torture chambers beneath the palace, where it was rumoured that he could keep a suspect alive and in agony for weeks if necessary - until they would gladly implicate their own children in a plot against the Emperor if it would mean that Steiner would grant them a quick death.

  Right on cue, Vido heard the soft scrape of the Imperial assassin's hunting boots on the cobblestones behind him. In his worn boots, plain and threadbare clothes and patched cloak, the Imperial assassin looked every inch the forest huntsman he once was as he swept along the alley towards Konniger and the witch hunter. Vido instinctively shrunk against the rough brickwork of one of the alley walls, merit­ing no more than a casual glance from the assassin as he passed by Looking into Steiner's cold grey eyes for a second, Vido remembered what the members of his old thieves' fra­ternity used to whisper about the sinister Reiklander: He never forgets a face, Steiner. One look, and he's got you measured up and marked away in his mind for the rest of your days.

  The assassin stopped short before the two figures bent down over the corpse, neither of them apparently noticing him. He shifted uneasily and loudly cleared his throat to catch their attention. 'Good sirs,' he growled, in a voice akin to those of the wolves he once hunted in the wild forests of the Reikland. 'If you have finished your inspection of the

  cadaver, I have a carriage waiting to take you to the palace. His Excellency the Lord Chamberlain awaits your findings with much impatience.'

  It was dark in the Chamberlain's personal staterooms. The thick drapes were closed, as was often the tradition on the days surrounding Morrsliebnacht, when the Chaos moon was visible in the day sky and even the sunlight had a pale and unhealthy quality to it. The only light c
ame from the lit fireplace, before which sat the hunched figure of the Chamberlain. Konniger and van Sandt sat facing him and they could both sense the grey shadowy presence of Steiner standing silently but no doubt alertly close by. The Chamberlain leaned forward, pouring himself a glass of the familiar sickly sweet mulled wine which Konniger remem­bered so well.

  Konniger looked at the gnarled and withered hand hold­ing the wine goblet. The Iron Graf, they called him, he thought. Old and weak he may be now, but there was still a soul forged in iron within that failing body.

  Graf Otto von Bitternach, Lord Chamberlain to both Emperor Karl-Franz and his father Emperor Luitpold before him, settled into his great leather-padded chair and sipped loudly at the goblet of wine in his shaking hands. He was a small wizened man, his sunken eyes rheumy with age, with only a few wisps of white hair left on his bald, liver-spotted head, but Konniger wasn't fooled. He had heard that the wily old spymaster and diplomat sometimes affected an air of senility these days, but the Iron Graf s position at the heart of Imperial politics was as secure now as it had been for the past half century. If Vaul Steiner was the Emperor's favourite hunting hound, then the Graf was the packmaster who had bred and trained him for the role.

  You have examined the corpse, no doubt?' Graf Otto rasped, looking at Konniger. What are your conclusions?'

  Konniger set down his wine glass and composed himself before answering. 'Foul play has been committed, certainly. But it was not a robbery-turned-murder. The victim had wealth - we found letters of credit on him identifying him as a grain merchant from Marienburg - but his killer left a full purse of gold behind him. And Altdorf s footpads and

  cut-purses may be an occasionally bloodthirsty lot, but I have yet to meet one who would make a habit of ripping out his victims' throats with his bare teeth.'