No matter how tragic and momentous these two events were, and
no matter what feelings of guilt and sadness they might provoke, Dieter could at
last rest and recuperate from all the physical, mental and emotional stress he
had endured in recent months, safe in the knowledge that he had at least
conquered the darkness within himself, the darkness that had always been there,
waiting for an outlet.
It was as if he had faced one last test on the way to proving
that he was ready to be redeemed and, although it had come at the ultimate cost,
he had prevailed. He had become used to losing people in the past and he would
acclimatise to the inevitability again now.
Perhaps he was destined to achieve great things in the name
of Shallya, or even Morr, after all. As well as having trained for some months
as a physician and displayed some natural aptitude in that area he also
considered himself to be suitably qualified to go into the service of Morr. He
had the skills he had inherited from his father. And having seen the other side
of death first hand that year could only help him better understand what, as a
priest of Morr, he would be expected to guard against. After all, as his father
had once said, that which does not kill you only serves to make you stronger.
Of one thing he was certain, it was time to start a new life,
away from the decadent corruption of Bögenhafen. He called to mind all that had
come to pass in the nine months since he had secured a place at the physicians’
guild there and left Hangenholz to pursue his studies. Those memories left an
ashen taste on his tongue now.
Being at home, in the place of his birth again, had made
Dieter see sense at last and secured his change of heart. He was decided. He
would return home to Hangenholz permanently and find what course his life would
take there. What little he had left in the world that mattered to him was here,
in Hangenholz. He would set up as a doktor, perhaps even train as a priest of
Morr, and earn the people’s respect and acceptance.
But before he could do that there were some loose ends he
needed to tie up elsewhere. What was done was done, but it was time he made
amends for his transgressions.
It was time to return to Bögenhafen.
It was time to confess.
I have committed all manner of evils in my unnaturally
extended life as a necromancer, but the irony is that I was made a necromancer
by the misguided actions of others.
When Ernst Krieger accused me of being that dire spectre the
Corpse Taker at our first meeting, I was, as yet, innocent of any crime. If that
accursed witch hunter had put me to the ordeal of Madame Rack and inevitably
found me unjustly guilty, I would have been burnt at the heretic’s stake and
died as an innocent, instead of that wretch Anselm Fleischer.
But the true greatest irony is that if the irrational
brother-captain had had me put to death, I would not have lived to become the
very thing that the witch-hunting Templars of Sigmar set out so puritanically to
out destroy. I would not have become the very thing that Krieger had accused me
of being.
So I ask you, who was it that drove me to commit so many
unspeakable acts of depraved wickedness? Who was it that made me evil? And what
is one man’s traitor but another man’s redeemer anyway?
The carriage rumbled along the Nuln road under a bruised grey
sky. Kaldezeit had arrived in the Reikland, bringing with it near freezing
temperatures and lending the icy air the sharp cold smell of death. Ground mist
covered the swathes of yellowed meadow that lay beyond the skeletal trees lining
the road. Following the bitter frosts of Kaldezeit, in all too little time
Bögenhafen would enjoy its first falls of Ulriczeit snow.
But the stagecoach’s only passenger was oblivious to all of
this. Dieter Heydrich’s mind was on other things.
It had taken him two weeks to tie up his affairs in
Hangenholz and the nearby market-hub of Karltenschloss so that everything would
be ready for him when he returned from Bögenhafen. Back in Hangenholz, Dieter
had begun to treat those for whom the plague had been a life-threatening
condition. And his patients had started to get better. He had begun to feel part
of the community there for the first time in years. He had also slept well for
the first time in as long as he could remember, his dreams no longer haunted by
the restless dead.
With the black pox all but eradicated in Hangenholz, Dieter
had set off for Bögenhafen for the last time, on the thirtieth day of Brauzeit.
The coaching companies were still not able to run a full service and besides,
business was slow. But eventually Dieter had persuaded a number of different
drivers to carry him on short legs of the journey so that on the afternoon of
Wellentag, the second day of Kaldezeit, he came within sight of the market
town’s ominously looming walls again.
He remembered the excitement he had felt when he had first
seen those towering battlements. Now the sight left him feeling cold, with a
bitter taste in his mouth. There was nothing here for him now.
Dieter could not return to the guild; too many questions
would be asked. Too many people knew too much or had too great an interest
invested in the one they had called the Daemon’s Apprentice. And that was
assuming that he would be welcome there; that Professor Theodrus would accept
his prodigal protégé back into the fold. No, too much water had flowed under
that bridge which Dieter had then quite successfully burnt.
Dieter still had what was left of his father’s money but
there was no place for him in Bögenhafen. Brother-Captain Krieger was still
securely ensconced within the templar chapter house, as far as he knew, and he
would always be watched.
He was as much an outcast from the town and the guild, as he
had been as a child, the son of a priest of Morr, living in Hangenholz. Dieter
was giving up on the dream that had become a nightmare. After all, he had
nothing to lose anymore.
But there was also hope in his heart, in spite of all this.
He had decided upon the course he wanted his life to take. He had been wrong to
ever leave Hangenholz, and there was a place for him there now, a role to
fulfil, helping to rebuild the plague-ravaged community. Dieter was also
beginning to give credence to the old adage that some good really could come out
of any evil. He would put all the skills and knowledge he had acquired at the
guild of physicians to good use back in Hangenholz.
Frau Keeler’s lodging house in Dunst Strasse was empty when
he arrived. Having let himself into the attic room, Dieter half-expected to meet
a crazed, pox-eaten, Erich and have to explain to him why he was leaving
Bögenhafen. But no matter what his fellow apprentice of the dark arts said or
did, Dieter was not going to be dissuaded from his chosen course of action.
But Erich wasn’t there.
Dieter glanced into the chaos and clutter that was Erich’s
dark-shuttered room. Having seen that the youth wasn’t there, he did not want to
linger any longer. Seeing the dissected bats, toads and rats pinned out on every
conceivable surface—from the walls to the very head of Erich’s bed—brought
back too many unpleasant memories; memories that he was trying his very best to
expunge from his mind altogether.
It also smelt like something had died in the room. Dieter
just wondered how many somethings it had actually been.
It was hard to determine how long it had been since anyone
had been in the garret apartment. It could have been anything from several weeks
to only that very morning; the place was in such a state of disarray.
Dieter found his own room just as he had left it on the day
he had received Josef Wohlreich’s summons to Hangenholz. Anything that he might
once have kept here that he now wished to forget had thankfully been taken to
the warehouse and destroyed in the fire there. There was very little for him to
do before he would be ready to leave Bögenhafen once and for all.
But before he went anywhere there was one last, vital
obligation Dieter had to fulfil; one that he had sworn on his sister’s soul that
he would carry out in her memory, in penance for all that he had done that he
was now so ashamed of.
Sitting down at his desk, he took a clean piece of parchment
from his scrip, along with his writing tools. Dipping his quill into the
ink-well Dieter began to compose a letter, taking care to make sure that he got
all of the details right, in the correct chronological order, but taking pains
not to reveal his own identity as the writer.
His report finished, the paper folded and sealed, Dieter went
out into the street and hailed an urchin who was tossing stones into the gutter.
For a farthing the boy agreed to deliver the letter, running off down the street
laughing excitedly.
Going back to his room, Dieter hauled his trunk from under
his unmade bed. Those items which hadn’t been lost to the fire—a few clothes
and little else—he quickly packed into the small chest that he had brought to
Bögenhafen with him when he had first arrived at the beginning of the year, in
Nachexen. He slung his battered scrip over his shoulder, quill, paper and ink
safely stowed inside again, and prepared to heft the trunk back down the stairs
and across town to the Reisehauschen.
He looked up and an icy chill entered his heart.
Standing in the doorway was Erich Karlsen. Having been in the
company of normal people again for the last fortnight, Dieter realised just how
unhealthy, unkempt and demented Erich had become. His robe alone looked like it
had not been changed in weeks. Madness glinted in his eyes but the expression on
his face was one of utter panic.
“Where have you been?” Erich asked sharply.
“I had to go home,” Dieter replied, not telling Erich any
more, not wishing to vocalise the horrid truth behind his homecoming as that
wound was still raw and it still hurt too open it again.
“B-But this is your home,” Erich said manically.
“Not anymore.”
Erich’s glittering eyes fell on the trunk on Dieter’s bed.
“Where are you going? We have work to finish here.”
“Not anymore we don’t.”
“Oh, b-but we do,” Erich insisted, the look of desperation
still written boldly across his features.
“What do you mean?” Dieter asked guardedly.
“I-It’s easier if I sh-show you.” The youth was now hopping
from foot to foot in nervous anticipation. “Come quickly. I-It’s urgent!”
Dieter took off his scrip and laid it on the bed next to his
trunk.
“Very well,” he agreed, “but it cannot take too long. I do
not have much time to spare,” he said, thinking of the letter he had just sent.
He owed it to his old roommate to go with him, Dieter
decided. It pained him to see Erich like this, and his roommate wouldn’t have
been like this if it hadn’t been for his own obsessive quest to discover the
identity of the mysterious Doktor Drakus. Dieter would go with him now, quickly,
and then when the matter was resolved, whatever it might be, he would collect
his luggage and set off on the return journey to Hangenholz.
Erich led Dieter out of Dunst Strasse, along the Eisen Bahn
for a hundred yards and then down into the maze of back streets in the vicinity
of the carpenters’ guild and Langen Strasse. As the pair hurried on their way
they talked.
“Erich, where are we going?”
“I c-can’t tell you.”
“Why not? Are we heading for the docks?”
Erich paused before answering. “Y-Yes. Th-that’s right.”
“But I thought you said you couldn’t tell me.”
Logic seemed to have escaped Erich along with his senses.
“I-I c-can’t! B-Because you’ll be h-horrified.”
Dieter’s blood ran cold. What could it be that Erich was so
desperate to show him and yet at the same time could not even bring himself to
talk about?
Suddenly all of Dieter’s suppressed doubts and worries
returned in a pulse racing moment of panic. Erich was pulling away, getting
several steps ahead of him, turning into a narrow alleyway between looming
neglected tenements, their doors marked with peeling red crosses.
“Erich!” he said, running after his companion and grabbing hold of the
apprentice by the shoulders, spinning him round to face him. “Is it to do with
Leopold?”
The look of apprehension melted from Erich’s face to be
replaced by an even more unnerving smile.
“You could say that.”
Dieter let go of Erich’s shoulders and let his arms drop,
taking a few slow steps away from the grinning maniac. As he did so he began to
take in more of his surroundings. There was something uncomfortably familiar
about the street in which they were now standing. Twisting his head round he
took in the street sign secured to the disintegrating facade of a crumbling
building and his suspicions were confirmed. He hadn’t been back to this street
in over three months. Erich had led him back to Apothekar Allee.
Dieter took another step backwards as a black shape detached
itself from a darkened doorway beside Erich. An appalled whimper escaped from
Dieter’s open mouth. He thought that he was going to be sick.
Leopold Hanser’s corpse dragged itself a step closer, a low
moan escaping its own blistered lips. The corpse was virtually unrecognisable
but how could it be that of anyone else? Its flesh was a crisped black and red
mess from the burns it had suffered as the warehouse fire consumed it. Its lank
blond hair had burnt away completely. But the cadaver’s slack-jawed expression
hadn’t changed, and Leopold’s corpse still wasn’t Dieter’s to control.
Dieter turned on his heel to run but then froze again.
Advancing towards him with slow yet certain steps were two thugs he had hoped
never to see again. The body snatchers—the town’s sexton and his collaborator—were blocking the end of the alleyway. To make matters worse, their shambling
gait was that of Leopold’s walking corpse, and skin of their hands and faces had
developed a sickly grey-green pallor.