Rilke was discredited, and, with his fall Konstantin, his patron, was fatally
weakened. In one simple move, a vacuum had been created that Zucharov had been swift to fill. Even then Anaise could
have stopped him, even as he freed the blond butchers from the cells and had
them don the white uniforms of the disgraced elite guard. Even then she could
have intervened, and drawn a line beneath the madness. But she did not, and she
did not because she too was part of the madness now.
Zucharov had given her the thirst for power, and to slake that thirst she was
prepared to see all Sigmarsgeist destroyed. With Anaise in the ascendancy and
Konstantin rendered impotent, Rilke’s men—the elite guard—were swiftly
disarmed, and imprisoned. Rilke himself would be made an example of. Zucharov
would see to it that his would be a very public death: a symbol of the new
regime that would seize hold of the citadel, and then, stone by stone, break it
apart.
There were other matters that now concerned Zucharov. He tormented himself
with the knowledge that his battle with Stefan Kumansky had been cut short, and
cut short with him apparently at the mercy of his opponent. Zucharov had already
had more than enough of the taste of submission. To taste it again in combat,
and against a man who was in all senses his inferior, was unthinkable. He must
finish what he had begun, and the only acceptable conclusion now would be
Stefan’s death.
Kyros too, had cause to want the swordsman dead. Stefan had already caused
trouble enough for Zucharov’s malign master, and it was he who had done most to
deny Kyros the prize of Erengrad. But the Dark Lord knew that Stefan Kumansky’s
death would be incidental, a small victory within the bigger game. It would
count for nothing if his plans for Tal Dur were allowed to unravel. Through
Zucharov he watched from afar as Bea fled Anaise’s chambers. Only through the
girl would he uncover the source of the waters. So far, he had been content to
wait whilst Anaise snared the healer and turned her to their purpose. But it was
taking too long; so far the girl had delivered nothing. If persuasion would not
prevail, then some other, cruder means would have to be found to exploit Bea’s
naive but precious potential.
Zucharov waited until the girl was well clear before entering the Guide’s
chambers. He found Anaise perched upon the edge of a chair, petulant and angry.
She barely reacted when Zucharov appeared in the room, but continued drumming
her fingers upon the arms of the chair.
She grows comfortable with looking upon our disciple,
Kyros noted.
So
much the better.
“Your men have control of the White Guard?” she said, more as a statement than
a question.
Zucharov nodded. “What of your brother?”
“What of him?”
“Konstantin is weak. He is the stone that would weigh down our ambition.”
“My brother would never directly oppose me. Without the White Guard to
support him, he has no choice but to follow my lead.”
Zucharov continued to stare, impassively.
“Is this not enough for you?” Anaise asked. “What else do you want?”
“Progress,” Zucharov responded. “You have had days to work upon the girl, but
we are no closer to finding Tal Dur.”
“Does your dull mutant mind appreciate nothing?” Anaise snapped back. “I have
delivered you the White Guard on a plate. Rilke is yours to do with as you wish.
We are masters of Sigmarsgeist in all but name. And yet all you can do is chide
me on account of the girl. She is not so simple, nor so compliant, that I can
bend her like the branch of the tree.”
“There are always other ways,” Zucharov responded. “Sooner or later, she will
yield.”
“No,” Anaise insisted. “We will do this my way, or not at all. You say we
have achieved nothing. That is not true. Have you not looked around you? Have
you not seen what is happening in Sigmarsgeist?”
Zucharov inclined his head towards the window and gazed across the citadel,
taking in the choking mass of buildings and stony growths that had become
Sigmarsgeist, and the turmoil upon the streets.
“The forces of strange magic are loose upon this place,” he concluded. He
looked towards the mouth of the well. “You have set them loose.”
“I have had Bea draw the energy here,” Anaise asserted. “She is the catalyst
for all this.”
Zucharov made no response, but, behind his eyes, Kyros made note of the
arrogance that would be the Guide’s downfall.
“The forces at work here are not Tal Dur,” Zucharov said at last. “They are
tainted and impure, nothing but distant echoes of its mighty energy.”
“Then we shall track those echoes to their source,” Anaise responded,
defiantly. “The healer will lead us there, else she will draw the power of Tal
Dur to us.”
“Yes,” Zucharov agreed. “That she will.”
Inch by careful inch, yard by yard, Stefan and his companions continued their
subterranean journey back towards Sigmarsgeist. Progress was slow, sometimes
almost impossible. Tunnels would end abruptly; the way blocked by barriers of
stone or roof-falls. In other places the passageway had silted up, and they
found their way blocked by a solid wall of earth, an impenetrable crust of
hardened mud. But somewhere, somehow, by doubling back or searching out other
routes, Lothar Koenig always found a way through. He had given up his complaints
now, and was applying himself to the single task with a silent tenacity that
Stefan could not help but admire. He was truly a survivor, and through him,
Stefan hoped, they might yet all survive. Bea too.
For a while the three of them had had to crawl on their hands and knees
through a section of the dry sewer where the tunnel was almost totally blocked
by rocks and broken debris. Now at last they emerged into clear space and were
able to stand upright once again. Lothar brushed himself down and looked around
with a quiet smile of satisfaction.
“I reckon we’re below the city walls now,” he declared. “We’ll start thinking
soon about finding a way up. Don’t forget,” he looked at Stefan and Bruno in
turn. “They owe me. So do you. When we get up top we’ll see what’s what.”
“Where should we look for?” Bruno asked. “I mean, where do we need to be?”
“Inside the palace would be a good start,” Stefan suggested. Lothar raised an
eyebrow and grunted in derision.
“Perhaps you’d like to choose a particular room!” he sneered. “Look, friend.
I said I was good. I didn’t say I had second sight. We’ll take what we can find.
Wherever that puts us up top, that’s down to luck.”
“There’s that sound again,” Stefan cut in.
All three stopped and listened. The sound of tearing and rending was still
faint, but insistent, like a deep vibration shaking at the very core of the
earth. There could be no doubt. It was getting steadily louder.
“We must be getting nearer to it,” Bruno said at last.
“It’s getting nearing to us, more like,” Stefan said. “Whatever it is, it’s
coming from somewhere behind us, and getting closer all the time.”
“By the gods,” Lothar declared. “It sounds like something dying.”
“Or something being reborn,” Stefan said, quietly. “A wakening beast.”
He turned to the bounty hunter. “You’re right, Lothar. Let’s not worry too
much about where we reach the surface. Let’s just concentrate on getting up.
Fast.”
They moved on, in silence now, through the stale gloom. Then Bruno stopped
dead again. “That’s strange,” he said. “I can hear water.” His voice was suddenly
tinged with anxiety. Lothar raised his arm to call for quiet, then strained to
listen to the sound. He turned and grinned broadly at the others.
“It’s the sewers,” he said. “Not these dead worm-holes. The real, working
waterways running beneath the citadel. This must be where the two systems meet
up, where the tunnels below the old city meet with those of the new. Come on,”
he said. “We’re close now. There must be a way through.” He started running his
hands across the crusted surface of the tunnel wall. “Somewhere near here,” he
said again. “Further on, maybe. Here,” he said to Bruno, “give me your knife.”
Bruno handed the knife over. Lothar moved steadily down the length of the
tunnel, keeping his head pressed close to the wall, listening all the time. Half way down he stopped, and began to
prise the stones loose with the point of the blade. Soon he had worked a hole
large enough in the tunnel wall to put his fist through. Dank air gusted through
the breach in the wall, ripe with a familiar stench.
“Help me,” he called out, “we’re almost there.”
Stefan and Bruno joined in, working with their bare hands to pull out the
stones. On the other side of the tunnel they found a second, almost parallel
passage. As Bruno hefted the torch, light glittered upon the surface of a dark
stream, flowing sluggishly at its base.
“We’re home, boys,” Lothar muttered. “Let’s hope it was worth it.”
Stefan stepped through the breach into the second tunnel, taking the torch
from Bruno. “I can see a ladder,” he called back. “Barely twenty yards further
down. With any luck it will take us all the way to the surface.”
Lothar clambered through behind Stefan, dragging Bruno after him. “Come on,”
he said to Bruno. “Didn’t you hear him? We’re getting out of here.”
But Bruno didn’t move. He had stopped, straddling the gap between the two
tunnels, his attention fixed on something back the way they had just come.
“Water,” he said. “It’s water.”
“Of course it’s water,” Lothar replied. “The sewers on this side are teeming
with it. Lovely, stinking, filth-laden water.”
“No,” Bruno shook his head. “That’s not what I mean. That’s not what I mean at
all,” he called, more urgently now. “Listen—can’t you hear it? The sound of
rushing water, like a flood… Can’t you hear it?”
But they did not need to hear it, for by now they could feel it, a shock wave
as a great shudder passed through the belly of the earth, and somewhere from out
of the depths, an unstoppable tide broke free. Everything around them began to
shake, violently. Great slabs of stone and earth tumbled into the sewers as the
walls of the tunnels blurred then began to break apart.
Stefan turned to shout back to Bruno, but his words were lost in the
pandemonium. Almost at the end of their journey, they had stumbled upon the end
of the world.
Anaise von Augen had lost track of how long she had been sitting in the
shadows of the chamber, staring deep into the void which was the Well of
Sadness. She was not a woman given to stillness, but, for at least the last
hour, as the shadows lengthened and daylight fell to grey, she had not moved
from that place.
Surely, she reasoned, she had done enough for it to come to pass. She had
taken each of the cards that the gods had offered her, and she had played them
well. They had given her the girl, Bea, and the monster Zucharov. Two opposite
and opposing forces that, combined, could nonetheless deliver her unfettered
power. And they had given her the opportunity now to use that power.
Konstantin had stumbled; his judgement had been shown to be weak, fatally
flawed. The gods had loosened her brother’s grip upon Sigmarsgeist, prised the
chalice that was power from his grasp. Now it could be hers. Everything was in
place, her destiny stood ready to be fulfilled. And yet she found herself
waiting, for what she did not know. Perhaps for the next, decisive chapter in
the story to unfold, and for a sign, some signal that it had begun. Anaise stared
down into the depths of the Well of Sadness, but found only dark silence in
answer to her questions.
The sign, when it finally came, was from a quite different, and at first
unwelcome, source. It came in the shape of a knock, tentative and brief, upon
the door. Anaise looked up, pulled away from her contemplation by the sound.
“What is it?” she demanded, irritably. “I gave clear instructions that I was
not be disturbed.”
The door opened just wide enough to reveal an officer of the Red Guard
standing upon the threshold, his head bowed.
“I beg your forgiveness, mistress. But these are exceptional circumstances.”
Anaise beckoned the man inside with a curt wave of her hand. “Come in, then,”
she snapped. “And make it quick.”
The guard stepped into the chamber and made a further bow before the Guide.
“Well?” Anaise asked him. “What do you want?”
“My lady,” the guard began. “There is water in the streets of Sigmarsgeist.”
Anaise was still vexed by the interruption. For a moment the significance of
the guard’s words was lost upon her. “That’s good news indeed,” she replied,
caustically. “Perhaps now the miserable wretches will get on with their work and
stop complaining they don’t have enough water.”
She shot the man a look to indicate he was dismissed, and turned back towards
the well. The guard hesitated, but did not move.
“I ask pardon, mistress. I did not express myself clearly.” He paused,
marshalling his words. “There is water pouring into the streets. A great deal of
water, mistress. I have received word that the lower quarter of the citadel is
flooding.”
Anaise turned around. Now the guard had her full and undivided attention. She
crossed the room and seized the man by the arm.
“Have you seen it?” she demanded. “Have you seen for yourself?”
“Madam, no,” the guard replied. “Word has only just been received from the
Watch. But if they tell true then the levels are rising quickly.”
Anaise pushed the guard to one side and went to the window that looked south,
towards the lower levels of the citadel. Little could be seen beyond the
flickering of the lamps. Sigmarsgeist looked calm, almost tranquil in the
moonlight. Anaise uttered a curse, then reached for her cloak, and drew it
around her. “Hurry,” she commanded. “I need to be taken there. I must see for
myself. Now.”