The guard held the door open for the Guide and stood at attention.
“A carriage is waiting below,” he reported. For a moment the man forgot his
deference, and stared earnestly at his mistress.
“Some of the men say it is the wrath of the gods, my lady. That gods have
come to punish our ambition. Could it be so?” he asked of her. “Has vengeance
come to Sigmarsgeist?”
Anaise hurried on, no longer interested in what the Red Guard had to say.
“No,” she said to herself. “Tal Dur has come to Sigmarsgeist.”
As soon as she heard word of the floods, Bea knew that she had no option but
to go. She no longer had any fear of Konstantin, or Anaise, or of what either of
them might do. She knew that she must answer her calling, and that the time for
concealment was over.
The streets of Sigmarsgeist beyond the palace were as full as ever, but now
the crowds flowed in only one direction, towards the higher ground on the
northern side of the citadel, away from the rising waters. Nearer to the palace
people were jostling each other out of the way. Some were not even sure what the
commotion was about. But as Bea got closer to the lower reaches of the citadel
the angry flow became a stampede of frightened, panicking humanity. Against it
all, Bea pressed on, a solitary figure moving against the tide. She watched them
fleeing all around her: men and women from the foundries, labourers cut loose from their gangs, children with even smaller infants in their arms, fleeing
servants and dishevelled officers of the Red Guard. All kindness and patience
had been swept aside. Order was breaking down. All that would soon be left was
the law of survival, the strong enduring over the weak. The final act in the
history of Sigmarsgeist was beginning.
Bea had no clear notion of where she should be going, only that she must go.
She let the massing crowds be her guide, and, before long, the water had begun
swirling about her feet. After an hour the flood reached above her ankles. Soon
after that it had reached her knees. Now she knew for sure that what the people
were saying was true: Sigmarsgeist was drowning.
She fought her way past the fleeing crowds towards the bottom of a wide
avenue that was fast becoming a canal. At the bottom of the avenue the road
forked sharply to the right then turned downhill again. As Bea reached the turn
in the road, a wall of water rolled out towards her and, when it had subsided,
the icy waters had risen up above her waist. Soon she would need to swim if she
were to make any further progress. She could feel the current plucking at her
feet, trying to pull her over. She reached out and caught hold of the first
thing that came to hand, the chassis of a cart that had been thrown over and
upended in the stream, one set of wheels poking up towards the sky. All around,
bales of clothes and possessions bobbed up and down on the water, the remnants
of a life swept away.
Bea clutched tightly to the shattered iron frame and took a moment to look
around her. The streets—if they could still be called that—were emptier now,
as most of the people had fled. The bodies of those who had failed to escape lay
around her on every side, face-down or face-up in the water, some still
clutching the sticks or bundles of rags that they hoped might save them. Further
ahead, Bea could now see where the flood was entering the citadel. Great plumes
of water were shooting into the air, bursting from the grates and holes in the
ground above the sewers. The force of the water still forcing its way from below
ground was enormous; there was no possibility that the waters were about to
subside.
A terrible noise from somewhere ahead made Bea look up. She turned her face
to the sky just in time to see a huge marbled shard break off from the structure
above her head and tumble into the rushing waters. The maze of mad bridges and
pathways that had taken a parasitic hold upon the citadel was being broken apart
by the power of the surging waters. As Bea looked on, sections of the bone-like
mass sheared off and crashed down into the waters, bringing great slabs of
masonry tumbling down with them. Those people still looking on screamed out, in
wonder or in horror at the sight. Some proclaimed it the vengeance of Sigmar,
others the might of the Dark Powers. Bea kept her counsel and looked on. She
already knew that it was neither of these things.
Still the waters rose, relentless, pushing up out of the ground, overwhelming
Sigmarsgeist. Another surge caught Bea, and plucked her feet away from under
her. She managed to clutch hold of the abandoned wagon, still just visible above
the water. But when she tried to place her feet again she could find no solid
ground. She would have to swim from now on.
Gradually, a kind of eerie calm settled upon the scene as most of those around
her in the water were swept away. She scanned the empty windows that lined the
buildings on either side. Two or three of the tallest still had floors that rose
clear of the water line. After a while, from those windows, the cries started to
come. The last desperate cries of those who had all but abandoned hope.
Bea drew down a lung full of air and prepared to cast herself adrift from her
fragile place of sanctuary. She was at one with her calling now. She knew what
she had to do.
News of the great flood had reached Konstantin much as the waters themselves
had breached Sigmarsgeist. Slowly, at first, no more than a trickle of rumour
and speculation. But the rumours had quickly become an unstoppable tide of
reports, all of them bad, all of them pointing towards the destruction of the
citadel that had been his life’s achievement.
Konstantin knew he should act. His action should be bold, and decisive; an
intervention that would turn back the waters and reverse the ill fortune that had stricken Sigmarsgeist. But he did
not act. He could not act. He had become paralysed by a sickness that had taken
hold of both mind and body. It was a sickness seeded in the belief, deep within
his heart, that all of this was his doing.
Konstantin had sat and listened in silence to the reports of death and
destruction brought to him with ever-increasingly regularity by his men, those
of them that he could still trust. At length, even that became too much, and he
barred all messengers from his chamber. He could hear them still, beyond the
door, pleading to be admitted to the presence of the Guide, begging for him to
save the citadel.
Konstantin sank his head into his hands and wept. They did not understand
what he now knew. It was the judgement of Konstantin that had brought things to
this. All that was left for him was to oversee its final undoing.
There was a pounding upon the door, louder and more insistent than before.
Konstantin did not know who it was. Perhaps it would be his sister. They had not
spoken since Rilke’s act of betrayal, and the overthrow of the White Guard.
Anaise had taken her opportunity to seize all power, and he had let her take it,
for in that same moment he had known for certain that he was broken. Konstantin
raised his head as the knocking came again.
“I will speak with nobody,” he cried. But he knew instinctively that his
authority would no longer hold. A few moments later, the door was opened and
Hans Baecker strode in, accompanied by three or four of his men. Konstantin
favoured him a weak smile. Baecker, he knew, was still loyal. He would be loyal
until the death, but that counted for too little now.
“What have you come to tell me?” he asked, quietly. “What grim news can you
be bringing me that I do not know already?”
“The waters still pour into the citadel,” Baecker reported. “There is no hope
of their abating. At this rate of progress, Sigmarsgeist and all its souls will
be lost by daybreak.”
Konstantin gazed up at his lieutenant. After Rilke, Baecker was the most
trusted of all his men. But then, after Rilke, Konstantin no longer had confidence in any man, himself included.
“What of the gates?” he asked, distractedly, looking about the room. “Why
have the gates not been opened to abate the flood?”
The guard to Baecker’s left exchanged an anxious glance with his commander.
Baecker nodded, signalling that he should continue.
“The gate on the south wall is already submerged,” he began. “As for the west
gate—” he hesitated. “Sire, it seems the west gate is no longer accessible—it
has been—blocked.”
“Blocked?” Konstantin spoke the word as if unable quite to grasp its meaning.
“Built over,” Baecker said, firmly. “Blocked by timber and stone. We are cut
off by our own endeavour.”
“But what of the main gateway, on the north side of the citadel?” Konstantin
asked.
“That will not solve our problem,” Baecker told him. “By the time the waters
reach that far, most of the citadel would already have been laid waste by the
floods. And all those left in the lower reaches will have drowned.”
“Then there is no hope,” Konstantin said. “No chance for Sigmarsgeist?”
“That is not the news I bring, majesty,” Baecker replied. His voice was terse,
his impatience with his master barely masked. “But if there is to be hope, then
we must act, and act now.”
Konstantin looked about him, trying to draw some inspiration from the spartan
surroundings of his chamber. He found none, only the image of the waters as they
rose, higher and higher, until he, too, had been consumed.
Konstantin looked away. Gradually his head sunk into his hands, and he
moaned. “I never imagined such a thing could come to pass.” He looked up again
at Baecker, a look of pleading on his face. “How could I have anticipated it?”
he demanded. “It is not as we planned. These were not the forces we built
Sigmarsgeist to withstand. It is not as we planned at all.”
“Majesty,” Baecker cut in. “There is another way. Another chance that may yet
save the citadel.”
Hope flickered like a weak flame upon Konstantin’s face. “Then what?” he
asked. “Tell me, tell me now.”
“The walls of the citadel must be breached,” Baecker said. “As much as we can
manage, they must be laid to waste. Only then is there hope that the waters can
be dispersed, and the citadel saved.”
Just for an instant, Konstantin was re-energised. He got up from his seat,
almost majestic again in his wrath, and would have clutched hold of his
lieutenant by the throat, had Baecker not abruptly backed away.
“Destroy the walls? Are you mad?” Konstantin demanded. His face, so drawn
and pale only moments before, flushed a hot red. “The great walls that girdle the
citadel are the very symbol of all that we stand for, all that we have built and
striven for. Destroy the walls and you destroy the very heart of Sigmarsgeist
itself!”
Baecker glanced around at his men, and stood his ground. “Leave the walls
standing and Sigmarsgeist will be destroyed anyway,” he replied. “In body as
well as in spirit, as sure as darkness follows light.” He paused for a moment to
let his word settle with the Guide, then added, “Sire, we have no other choice.”
Konstantin turned from Baecker and walked towards the high window. Night was
starting to fall across Sigmarsgeist, but the carnage on the far side of the
citadel was still clearly visible. More than a quarter of the city lay beneath a
raging flood that had come from nowhere. And, where the waters boiled, the
crazed, alabaster structures that had taken hold across the citadel were
crashing down, taking towers, walls, whole sides of buildings with them. Years
of pious toil were being rolled back in the space of hours as one madness
collided head on with another.
Finally he turned back, as he knew he must do, and faced Baecker again. He
did not look at him when he spoke.
“Very well,” he said, his voice cracked and low. “Do whatever is necessary.
Bring down the walls of Sigmarsgeist.”
* * *
Zucharov had had no need of mortal word to bring him news of the flood. His
master, Kyros, had already whispered to him of the waters coming. The time of
reckoning was at hand. The time for waiting was at an end. Now was the time for
action. After so many long months of inaction and subservience, Zucharov could
feel the desire rising strong inside him to get out upon the streets of the
citadel, to engage with the maelstrom and taste again the spoils of bloody war.
But first Kyros had one further duty for him to perform in the cells deep
below the palace where the wretched prisoners rotted, unaware of their newly
altered fate.
He had left it to the Norscans to look after Rilke. As soon as he stepped
into the cell, Zucharov could see that the brutal northerners had paid close
attention to their task. Rilke was still standing, but only because he had been
chained upright to the wall of the cell. The Norscans had stripped him of his
uniform, and beaten much of his life from him as well. Rilke’s once haughty
features were barely recognisable, his face covered by bruises and blood. As
Zucharov entered the cell, Rilke opened one eye and looked at him. With what
strength he had left, he spat upon the ground to make his feelings clear.
Zucharov did not care about Rilke’s feelings, or about Rilke himself. He was
one of the weak, and Zucharov had not cared whether he lived or died. The task
he had to perform was to deliver his master’s bidding, and that was all.
He clamped one hand to the side of Rilke’s head, and turned the prisoner’s
face towards his own. Rilke grimaced and tried to suppress a cry. There was
still some capacity for pain within him, Zucharov noted. That was good. The
Norscans had not, after all, over-stepped the boundaries of their command.
“Do you know who I am?” Zucharov intoned. Rilke struggled to force his
swollen tongue around the words, but eventually managed to speak.
“You’re the servant of evil. I don’t need to know any more than that.”
Unmoved and untouched by Rilke’s words, Zucharov left a lengthy pause before
he replied.