Zavant Page 5

'Surely it is the work of some wild animal, then? Some beast loose within the city walls?'

  Konniger paused, sensing that he was being tested. 'Animals kill for food. Whatever killed this poor unfortunate did so only for its own savage pleasure. The fleshier parts of the corpse were untouched and the fact that the killer removed the victim's face - stripped it clean away from the bone, indeed - suggests a greater and more malign intelli­gence than some simple hungry forest predator is at work here. I assume, of course, that there have been other victims previous to this one?'

  Konniger's sudden question was directed at Graf Otto, but it was the until-now silent figure of the witch hunter who answered. 'Six in the past four nights. Despite our best efforts to keep the connections between all these killings a secret, there are already rumours of a daemon creature loose in the city.'

  'But it will not have escaped the Grafs notice that the period of these killings coincides exactly with the current time of Morrsliebnacht?'

  Graf Otto nodded to himself, tutting in approval at Konniger's observation. 'Ha! What a disappointment you have been to me, Zavant. I groom you for great things, only to see you join the priesthood. And then, to add insult to injury, after you finally come to your senses and leave those holy fools to their prayer-mumbling, you take up the life of a hermit and busy yourself with the dry scribblings of heretics and lunatics! If your life stands for anything, it is the waste of a fine mind. The only reason I have stayed alive this long is because I still hold out some hope that you will finally see sense and once again take up your rightful place in the service of the Empire.'

  As if to emphasise his point, the Graf s body was suddenly wracked by a series of coughing spasms. Konniger stepped forward to attend to his former mentor, but the ancient spy- master waved him away with a gesture of irritation, reaching for his glass and slurping thirstily from it. Noisily clearing his throat, he continued: 'Morrslieb, yes. We have long

  known of the correlation between the phases of the Chaos moon and the ebb and flow of the strength of the Dark Powers.'

  At this, Graf Otto's fingers briefly made the sign of the hammer of Sigmar. Despite his professed scorn for the priesthood of the cult of Sigmar, Konniger observed, the pragmatic old realpolitiker still instinctively made the tradi­tional ward of protection gesture when speaking of the Ruinous Powers. 'As its brother Mannslieb influences the tides, so too does its darker twin exert its own effect, but on the minds of men rather than the rise and fall of the oceans.'

  'Indeed,' Konniger agreed, feeling the Graf s expectant gaze upon him. 'Any City Watchman can tell stories of "Morrslieb Madness": of the lawlessness and fits of violent dementia that appears to seize many of our citizens at the time of Morrsliebnacht. But my own studies tell me that there is more to the effects of the Chaos moon than a mere increase in offences against public order. When the Red Moon lies high in the night sky, many unnatural things emerge from the shadows to bask in its unholy radiance, and I fear that something far more malefic than some moon-crazed mad­man has come to Altdorf.'

  Graf Otto sank back into his chair, gesturing towards the witch hunter. That is what Herr van Sandt thought, when he first came to me. For months now he has been following the ravages of some unnatural predator - a were-beast, he believed - across the northern reaches of the Empire. The trail led steadily south, and it is his belief that the creature is now in Altdorf. I have granted Herr van Sandt dispensation to operate here in the capital, but it is his suggestion that you too join the hunt. After all, when pursuing a creature of Chaos in a tangled and unfamiliar city, who better to call upon than the renowned Zavant Konniger, sage-detective and tireless chronicler of the many vile ways of the servants of evil?'

  Konniger looked directly at the witch hunter, his mind still reeling at what he had just been told. 'A were-beast? A lycan- thrope? I thought them all centuries extinct within the borders of the Empire. Gottlieb the Stern claimed to have wiped out the last nest of them during his Great Cleansing of Sylvania in 2158/

  The witch hunter nodded grimly. 'Aye, and so I thought also. But I have seen the evidence for myself and I have to say, the signs are unmistakable.'

  He paused, meeting Konniger's steady gaze. 'It would seem I hat for once Stern was as fallible as the rest of us humble servants of Sigmar.'

  Konniger lowered his head in thought, then looked towards his mentor. 'And we are to hunt down and destroy (his killer, this were-beast?'

  'Hunt down, yes. Destroy, no,' the Graf rasped, indicating Steiner, who had glided silently out of the shadows at his master's summons. 'Steiner will be joining you in the hunt. You will be my bloodhounds, Zavant, seeking out the quarry and running it to ground. But Steiner knows everything there is to know about the killing of both men and beasts. This creature - this man-beast - will not be such a new challenge for a hunter of his abilities.'

  In the glow of the light from the fireplace, Konniger could see the look in the eyes of his old mentor. Graf Otto had faithfully served his beloved Empire for half a century and in (hat time this frail old man had signed thousands of death warrants, overseen the torture of countless suspects, and ordered the assassination of hundreds of enemies of the Emperor. And Konniger knew, too, that on every one of those occasions, this venerable hero of the Empire had had the same look in his eyes as he had now - the cold determi­nation that comes with the brutal and calculated exercise of power.

  'Understand this, Zavant. This is no mere murder hunt I am setting you on. All my life, I have served the Empire, and the Empire stands for Order. This city is the heart of the Empire, but now a daemon-beast - a creature of darkness - stalks its streets under the light of the Red Moon. The Chaos moon is in the ascendancy, and our citizens are afraid. They see Chaos winning out over Order, and perhaps they begin to question the laws and traditions - the foundations of that Order which bind the Empire together. If such seeds of doubt take root here in the Imperial capital then they will soon spread, and the Empire of Sigmar - the Empire that has now endured for over twenty-five centuries - will be fatally weakened. This I will not allow to happen.'

  The old man reached out his bony hand, grasping Konniger tightly by the wrist and pulling him close. 'Find this daemon, Zavant, and quickly. Find it, and dispel the shadow of fear that hangs over Altdorf.'

  Officially, Vido had never been inside the Imperial palace before. Unofficially, in his former capacity as one of the most celebrated thieves in Altdorf, he had been here any number of times, and was well acquainted with the layout of the huge and imposing fortress. The seat of Imperial power always held rich pickings for any thief daring enough to test their wits against the Palace Guard, and, in moments dedi­cated more to pleasure than business, Vido had also made numerous night-time excursions to the bedchambers of a certain halfling scullery maid who had once worked in the palace kitchens...

  He sighed, wishing he was back there now rather than waiting here in a draughty antechamber with the imposing shapes of two of his old adversaries of the Palace Guard glowering suspiciously down at him. It was with a great sense of relief that he saw the doors to the room beyond sud­denly swing open, the guards stiffening to attention as the cloaked figures of Konniger and the witch hunter swept out of the room, followed by the silent shadow-form of Vaul Steiner. Vido instinctively shrank away from the Imperial assassin and then hurried down the corridor in pursuit of his master, who was deep in conversation with the witch hunter.

  Your thoughts, Herr Konniger?' van Sandt asked.

  'Tonight is the night of true Morrsliebnacht, when the Red Moon's cycle reaches its peak and the power of Chaos will be in full ascendancy,' Konniger noted. 'If the old tales are true, then the were-beast's bloodlust will be almost uncontrol­lable. It must kill tonight, repeatedly, and in ways as savage and as shocking as possible.'

  'Agreed,' the witch hunter said. 'I have ordered all City Watchmen and members of the Palace Guard on duty tonight. It is to our advantage that few honest citizens will dare venture out on Morrsliebnacht
. There may be more armed guards than citizens on the streets of Altdorf tonight. With any luck, a show of strength may deter the creature from seeking out further victims.'

  'Perhaps,' the sage-detective said. 'But I would much rather catch and destroy it than merely frighten it off.'

  Van Sandt paused, looking speculatively at Konniger. 'You have another plan, Herr Konniger?'

  'Not so much a plan,' Konniger answered. 'But I have always found it a wise precaution to try and learn something dI the true nature of the enemy. Make your arrangements for (he guard patrols. I shall join you later for our night vigil.'

  'Where are you going, Herr Konniger?' Vido heard the witch hunter call out after them, as he hurried down the cor­ridor after his master.

  'Where else would one go to learn the secrets of the ser­vants of Chaos?' Konniger said. "Where else, but to the madhouse?'

  Somewhere in the dark, the killer snarled to itself in pleasure. It stretched, chafing against the confines of the body in which it hid. Soon the Red Moon would rise as night fell over the city. Soon it would be free again. The prey had been found and the bait taken. Soon it would feed.

  Soon.

  Insanity seemed to be a peculiarly human phenomenon, thought Vido, as he followed his master along the dark stone passageways of the asylum. It was almost unknown amongst his own race, although there were many back home in the Moot who would have judged Vido himself mad after he left the family brewing business - helping himself to a generous advance on his inheritance from his father's cash box - and ran off to seek his fortune on the streets of Altdorf. Vido shivered. No matter how dull and sedate the pace of life in the rural backwaters of the Moot, it was surely preferable to the atmosphere inside the Altdorf city asylum on Morrsliebnacht.

  The passageways echoed with the screams, moans and gibbering cries of the insane. A filthy and emaciated hand suddenly reached out through the bars of a nearby cell and clutched desperately at the hem of Vido's cloak. 'Help me, help me!' croaked the dark shape on the other side of the bars, in a voice clearly struggling to remember the proper sounds of human speech. 'Everything is dark here, and I

  cannot see the night sky. Take this back outside with you, I beg you, and let me gaze upon the face of the moon once more!'

  With a lurch of revulsion, Vido looked down and saw the grisly object staring up at him from the palm of the mad­man's bloody and outstretched hand. Vido recoiled in horror, almost falling under the feet of Klebb the jailer. Snarling in anger, the asylum keeper thrust his burning torch through the bars of the cell. There was a scream of pain, and the outstretched hand disappeared from sight, the madman retreating into a dark corner whimper. Crying from the one eye he had still left.

  'My apologies, good sirs,' the giant figure of the madhouse jailer growled, pulling Vido roughly to his feet. 'It's the same every Morrsliebnacht. We keep the worst ones locked up down here where there are no windows, but somehow they still know when it is the time of the Red Moon.'

  'And the Bretonnian?' Konniger asked, stepping aside as they reached the locked door at the very end of the passage­way. 'How do the phases of the Red Moon affect him?'

  Klebb made an ugly grunting noise at the back of his throat - Vido suspected there was some ore blood some­where in the brutal jailer's ancestry - and drew open the bolts of the door. 'Him? He just sits quiet in his cell and writes. All the time, since the day he got here. We don't give him no paper, not since one of the priests saw what he was working on, but that don't stop him writing.'

  The jailer heaved the door open and stepped aside, allow­ing Konniger and Vido to enter into the cell beyond and see for themselves what he had meant. Vido stifled a cry of dis­belief. The rough stone surfaces of the cell - the floor, the walls, even parts of the ceiling - were covered in scratched writing, every flowing word and character stroke painstak­ingly etched into the stonework. The author of this demented text sat crouched on the floor in the middle of the room. Using a small metal fork, worn away to nothing more than a fine sliver, he was putting the finishing touches to his latest couplet.

  The prisoner worked by the dim light of a solitary candle, his long blond hair hanging lankly over his face, hiding his features, but Vido did not need to see his aristocratic profile

  to know who he was. Valois de Simone, the infamous 'Mad Poet of Moussillon', now confined here at His Imperial Majesty's Pleasure after the church authorities deemed his last collection of works to be Chaos-inspired heresy. Konniger had defended the young poet at his trial, and Vido knew that it was only because of his master's intervention i hat the crazed genius had been sentenced to the madhouse rather than the stake.

  'Herr Konniger? I trust you are well?' The poet spoke with­out looking up, his refined Bretonnian accent smoothly rounding off the rough sounds of the guttural Reikspiel of the Empire.

  'I prefer not to receive callers when I am working, but I am always willing to make an exception in your case. I take it you have come to consult with me about le loup garou, the were-beast?'

  Vido and Konniger exchanged glances. Madmen and poets were all the same to the pragmatic halfling, but Vido knew (hat Konniger considered the Bretonnian to be truly special, his madness and his genius combining with his morbidly poetic imagination to give him many strange insights into the workings of the Ruinous Powers. 'Un savant fou' was how Konniger had once referred to the poet, although Vido, who prided himself on not knowing a word of Bretonnian, had no idea what his master meant.

  You have something to tell me, de Valois?' the sage-detec- tive asked, knowing that the mad poet's answers were always, at best, vague and elliptical.

  'Of les loups garoux? What would a simple poet know of such things? Go ask a witch hunter, if you would hear tales of such horrors. But it is Morrsliebnacht, is it not? I have been writing a poem about the two moons. Have you ever thought about them, Herr Konniger? Mannslieb and Morrslieb, chasing each other forever round the heavens, neither one sure which is the prey and which the pursuer. It is a curious relationship, is it not?'

  The poet muttered something to himself, seemingly dis­tracted by whatever it was he was scratching into the stonework of the floor. Konniger waited patiently, knowing there was more to come. 'Which of the two moons interests you the most, Valois?'

  'Oh, most definitely Morrslieb,' the poet answered. 'It is the darkest and most mysterious of the two. One face - its dark side - remains forever hidden from us. But even its more visible face is ever changing, different every Morrsliebnacht. Perhaps it only has one face, its dark face, and all the others are but masks to conceal this fact from us? An interesting thought, is it not, Herr Konniger?'

  Konniger waited, but soon even Vido sensed that the inter­view was over. The sage-detective bowed politely, although if the madman noticed, he did not acknowledge the gesture. 'My thanks, de Valois. As ever, it has been an enlightening experience. Is there anything I may do for you in return?'

  'They allow me no paper, but fresh writing tools would be much appreciated,' the poet called out as his visitors left. 'My last quill is almost worn away to nothing, and I fear I will have to start using my fingernails before very much longer!'

  'Enlightening...' Vido muttered once they were safely out of the cell, Klebb securely locking the door behind them. 'How could you find anything "enlightening" in the drivel said by that madman?'

  Konniger smiled, clearly anticipating such a reaction. 'On the contrary, my dear Vido, there is much method to the man's madness, if you have the proper sense to listen to what he is trying to tell you. And poor insane de Valois was very much trying to tell me something - to warn me, even, in his own misguided way. Indeed, he has only confirmed certain suspicions I have had since the very beginning of this aff-'

  He broke off suddenly, sensing something that Vido could not. (Even after all these years, it still irritated Vido that his master - a mere human, for Ranald's sake! - had sharper senses than he, a halfling thief of no little skill.) A split-second later, Vido heard it too: m
en in armour, descending the dungeon stairs towards them. A half-minute later, and they met two out-of-breath members of the Palace Guard at the foot of the narrow stairs.

  'Herr Konniger!' puffed one of them, a ruddy-raced Reiklander sergeant. 'A message from the witch hunter, Herr van Sandt. You must come at once. The creature has struck already tonight!'

  Konigplatz was the very heart of Altdorf, the great open square where spectacles of all kinds - military parades, offi­cial proclamations, feast day fairs, the weekly public executions - were held. Normally, it would be full of life even at this late hour, but tonight it was deserted save for the ting of guardsmen and city militia which had now sealed it off from the rest of the city. Vido could hear the guardsmen shouting to each other through the thick river mists that cloaked the city, and see their lanterns bobbing as they spread out in search of the killer which had no doubt long ago left the scene of its latest savage crime.

  Vido turned back to the scene behind him, breathing hard through his mouth to avoid the thick smell of blood that pervaded the air. Before him towered the imposing statue of Magnus the Pious, saviour of the Empire who more than five centuries ago had turned back the tide of Chaos that had threatened to engulf the Old World. The statue of Emperor Magnus I stood in its rightful place at the top of the square, its arms held out in a protective blessing. Only now the fig­ure was smeared from head to foot in blood, its arms and open hands hung with human offal, making it seem as though the statue was making its own obscene offering to the citizens of Altdorf. At the foot of the statue's plinth lay a tangle of dismembered bodies, over which crouched Vido's master and the figure of the witch hunter.

  'Three of our own - three dead militiamen of the City Watch - and the defilement of a memorial to one of the Umpire's greatest heroes here in the very heart of the city,' van Sandt said, holding his cloak to his face to avoid the smell of human butchery. The creature could not have made its point more clearly!'