03 - Death's Legacy (32 page)

“I hope so.” Gerhard continued to stare at him, as if able to
read his thoughts. “You can’t trust her, whatever your heart tells you. Remember
that.” He broke his gaze after another moment of silence, and resumed their
conversation easily. “As for the shadowmancer, I needed assistance, and she
simply turned out to be a part of the group I hired. At least the Grey Order is
renowned for their loyalty to the Empire, which I suppose goes some way towards
mitigating the threat they represent to it by their very existence.”

“She saved your life,” Rudi pointed out. “And by using
sorcery, too.”

“Indeed she did.” Gerhard looked uncomfortable for a moment.
“I’m not denying that, on the whole, the Orders of Magic are at least
well-intentioned, and on occasion their abilities can prove beneficial in the
short term. We’d have had a far harder time throwing Archaon’s horde back last
year without them, for instance. But in the longer term, every time one of them
casts a spell it allows another minute trace of Chaos to seep into the real
world, nibbling away at the roots of existence.”

“That’s not how the colleges see it,” Rudi replied. Gerhard
shook his head.

“No, I imagine not, but the point remains that we’re not
desperate enough to enlist their aid in this matter.” He sighed, as if being
forced to confront an unpalatable truth. “Not yet, anyway.”

The more he thought about that conversation afterwards, the
more Rudi found himself wondering if the witch hunter had been right: had he
really fallen in love with Hanna, and if so, when? Not in Kohlstadt, certainly,
even if she had been the prettiest girl in the whole valley. They had cordially
detested each other then, and had continued to irritate one another even after
they’d been forced to flee the village together. At some point, however, on the
long and dangerous journey to Marienburg, he’d begun to understand something of
the complexity of her character, how hard it had been for her to conceal her
gift, and how much she must have trusted him to risk revealing her secret.

Not that she’d had much choice, of course. They would have
frozen to death if she hadn’t kindled a fire the night they’d fallen from the
riverboat and swum to the banks of the Reik. She’d revealed a lot more than her
talent for wizardry, he thought, flushing at the memory, discarding her sodden
clothes to keep warm.

Now that he was able to acknowledge his true feelings for the
girl, he found himself returning to the images of firelight flickering across
her skin, the shadows and highlights accentuating the curves of her body, the
warm orange glow making a nimbus of gold around her head as it reflected from
her hair with increasing frequency. He remembered the times they’d touched
briefly, the warmth of her hand in his, the yielding softness of her in a
fleeting embrace, and felt an absence and a yearning every time he thought of
her, which was somehow both painful and exhilarating at the same time. He
thought of her smile, and her knowing green eyes, and tried to imagine the
softness of her lips against his.

“All right,” he muttered irritably to himself, after another
fruitless attempt to fall asleep. His head was spinning with thoughts of Hanna,
as it seemed to do almost every night, robbing him of rest, and despite the
lateness of the hour he felt wide awake, almost feverish. “You were right, you
know-it-all bastard. I’m in love with her.” It was the first time he’d ever
dared to voice the thought out loud, and he felt a sudden lightness in his chest
as he did so. Saying it made it real, he thought. I love Hanna. So, what am I
going to do about it? Nothing.

The surge of exhilaration deflated again, as abruptly as it
had risen. He had no idea where she was, or what might be happening to her.
Greta would keep her safe, he was sure of that, but all of a sudden he was
desperate to see her again, and to hear the sound of her voice. Was there some
way he might be able to get a message to her?

“Bad idea,” he told himself firmly. Even if he knew how to,
he wouldn’t dare. The witch hunters might find out, and if they did, and tracked
her down… He shuddered at the thought. Besides, if Gerhard and von Karien
hadn’t been able to find a clue as to her whereabouts in all this time, what
chance would he have of locating her all on his own?

“To hell with this.” He rose and dressed quickly. All of a
sudden the room seemed unbearably cramped. He was a forester, for Taal’s sake,
he belonged in the open air, not festering away in a small stone box. He flung
the cloak around his shoulders, and opened the door.

“Master Walder?” The two templars outside stared at him in
vague surprise, their expectation of a long, dull watch while their charge slept
abruptly swept aside. “Is something wrong?”

“I need some fresh air,” Rudi said, biting down on the
temptation to tell the earnest young man that there was more wrong than he could
possibly imagine. “I’m having trouble sleeping.”

The guard shrugged. “Did you try counting sheep?” the other
man suggested, sarcastically.

“I need to visit the temple,” said Rudi. “Maybe some prayers
will help settle my mind.”

Exchanging resigned looks, the two templars fell into step
behind him. Though he’d never been to pray at this hour before, Rudi thought,
they’d find the request a familiar enough one to grant without arguing or
referring it to a higher authority, and at least he’d be able to spend a short
time out of doors.

Outside, the air was sharp, biting into the exposed skin of
his face, and Rudi raised the hood of his cloak as much for warmth as to hide
the mark of heresy on his forehead. The young men a couple of paces behind him
did likewise, and Rudi was sure he heard a couple of muttered curses as they
followed his lead across the hoar-slick surface of the Templars’ Court. It was
bitterly cold, sharp points of frost glittering in the silver light of
Mannslieb, which cast pale shadows on the whitened ground. The lamps and torches
they passed, hissing slightly as a few stray snowflakes immolated themselves in
the flickering flames, spilled warm orange light in thick sticky pools across
the cobbles.

He entered the temple as he always did, through a back
entrance normally reserved for members of the clergy, quelling the rising sense
of panic from the daemon trapped inside him almost reflexively. It was strange
how easy it had become to tell which emotions were his, and which belonged to
the spiritual parasite embedded in his soul. A skill he wouldn’t need for much
longer, he sincerely hoped.

It was the first time he’d been inside the temple at night,
and he was surprised by how different it felt. The high, airy vault was still as
imposing as ever, the statues of Sigmar and his most faithful followers
dominating the congregation from their niches as always, but the ceiling was
hidden by shadows, and the vast stained glass windows were reduced to
blank-faced mirrors by the darkness beyond.

The floor of the temple was brightly lit, however, hundreds
of candles suffusing the great stone building with a welcoming warmth, which
still attracted a sizeable congregation despite the lateness of the hour. The
midnight observances were long over, but many of the celebrants still lingered,
contemplating the icons and statuary, or staying behind to continue their
private devotions at the many side chapels in the cross of the great T, which
mirrored the shape of Sigmar’s hammer so exactly. As he wandered up the aisle
Rudi found himself surrounded by one such group of worshippers, arguing amiably
about the most recent theological controversy to grip the Church.

“I’m not saying that Valten necessarily was Sigmar Reborn,
I’m just saying that even if he wasn’t, he was definitely blessed, wasn’t he? So
it would be nice if they had a statue or an icon of him or something.” This was
an argument that Rudi had heard all the sides of during his sojourn in the
temple complex, second only in popularity to the question of whether or not the
current Grand Theogonist should step aside in favour of his predecessor or have
him burned as a daemon-possessed heretic, and he ignored the rest of the debate
as he tried to make his way around the chattering pilgrims.

“Excuse me, sorry, coming through.” He sidestepped a
middle-aged couple, arm in arm, but still bickering amiably about whether the
blessed blacksmith merited his own shrine, and collided with a young woman on
the fringes of the group. Her face was shadowed by a warm woollen cloak, in
anticipation of the bone-chilling cold outside. “Pardon me.”

“That’s all right.” To his surprise, the girl took hold of
his arm. Looking straight at her in sudden perplexity, he saw inside her
enveloping hood for the first time. Blonde hair framed a heart-shaped face, with
a wide mouth, and green eyes that sparkled with mischief. His breath left his
body, as if he’d been punched in the stomach.

“This way, quickly,” Hanna said, smiling at him, and drew him
into the shadows beyond the candlelight. “We haven’t got much time.”

His heart pounding wildly, Rudi glanced around for his
escort, his sudden rush of joy and relief at finding Hanna again drowned out
almost at once by his fears for her safety. If the templars realised who she
was, she was as good as dead. Clearly sensing the reason for his agitation,
Hanna smiled.

“If you’re looking for your watchdogs, they’re over there.”
She pointed to the other side of the nave, where the two guardians assigned to
him were ambling away after another young man in a templar cloak, his face
concealed by the enveloping hood, just as Rudi’s was. They’d evidently lost
sight of their charge for a moment in the milling crowd of worshippers, and
seeing someone of the same height and build, dressed in the same way, began to
follow the wrong man by mistake. Rudi sighed with relief.

“Luckily for you,” he said. “If they’d caught sight of
you…” He didn’t dare to complete the sentence, for fear of tempting fate.

“Well, they didn’t.” Hanna grinned at him again. “I thought
you’d be a bit more pleased to see me.”

“I am pleased,” Rudi assured her fervently. The impulse to
blurt out his newly admitted feelings for her was almost impossible to resist,
but this was hardly the time, or the place. There could only be moments left
before the templars discovered their mistake and returned to look for him.
Hanna’s expression softened a little as she gazed into his face, perhaps
divining more of his meaning than he’d intended from the intensity of his voice.

“I’m glad. I’ve… missed you too,” she said. The pressure of
her hand on his arm increased a little as she spoke, and something seemed to
turn a somersault in the middle of Rudi’s chest. Perhaps his feelings weren’t
entirely unreciprocated after all. The sudden rush of elation that followed the
thought made him feel breathless and giddy.

“What are you doing here?” he asked urgently. Hanna had drawn
him into the lee of the pedestal of one of the statues of heroes lining the
nave, and they stood almost concealed by the shadow it cast, tucking themselves
back into the space between the monument and the niche it occupied. No one
around them seemed to have noticed their presence yet, perhaps Sigmar really was
looking out for them, he thought.

“Waiting for you.” Hanna moved a little closer as she pushed
him further into the concealing cleft, and Rudi became aware of a soft, yielding
pressure against his chest. “Something’s going to happen soon, and I wanted to
make sure you stay safe.”

“What kind of thing?” Rudi asked, a faint echo of Gerhard’s
warning floating to the surface of his mind despite himself.

“I’m not sure. Something to do with the daemon inside you, I
think.” Hanna glanced at the talisman on his forehead, with a grimace of
sympathy. “I’ll say one thing for Gerhard, he’s certainly consistent.”

“Yes, he is.” Refusing to be distracted, Rudi returned to her
previous remark. “What do you know about the daemon?”

“Not a lot,” Hanna admitted. “Mother was hoping to find a way
of getting rid of it for you, but it looks as though you’ll have to rely on your
new friends instead.”

“They’re not my friends,” Rudi said vehemently. Hanna grinned
again.

“I’m delighted to hear it. But it’s not like you to sit back
and wait for someone else to solve your problems, especially someone like
Gerhard.”

“I’m not!” Rudi protested, before the realisation dawned that
that was precisely what he had been doing. “Anyway, it’s not as if I have a
choice, is it?”

“You always have a choice,” Hanna said earnestly. “You’ll
find a way. Trust me.”

“I… I suppose…” Rudi said, overwhelmed with the reality
of her presence. The scent of her hair was in his nostrils, and despite himself
he couldn’t prevent his arms from rising to encircle her. To his delirious
surprise, instead of pulling away, Hanna returned the embrace. Then, after a
moment, she began to pull away, with palpable reluctance. “I can’t stay any
longer, Rudi, it isn’t safe for me here. I have to go now.”

“Wait!” One nagging question rose to the surface of his
befuddled mind. “How did you know I’d be here tonight?”

“The Changer maps everyone’s path,” Hanna said, with a trace
of amusement. “Yours isn’t so hard to follow.” She leaned in again, and kissed
him lightly on the lips. Astonished, Rudi began to return the kiss, hungrily,
but she pulled away. “Our paths will cross again, you can be sure of that.”

His mind whirling, Rudi watched her slip away through the
thinning congregation without a backward glance, lost within moments in the vast
echoing space. Taking a deep breath he moved away from the shadowy niche, and
made the sign of the hammer in front of the main altar. He’d hoped for a miracle
without actually expecting one, and that seemed to be precisely what he’d been
given.