CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The Mines of Sigmarsgeist

 

 

Kyros, the dark lord of Chaos, looked out upon the world through the eyes of Alexei Zucharov. Through those eyes he examined the citadel men had named after Sigmar, that old and obdurate enemy of the dark powers. In times past Kyros would have taken no comfort from that cursed name, but what he saw now gratified him beyond all measure. The forces of change, servants of his master, the dread god Tzeentch, had been loosed upon the citadel, irreversible and, ultimately, irresistible.

He gazed through eyes the colour of storm-beaten seas as Zucharov was led, his limbs still weighed down with chains, through the courtyards and corridors of the palace. He looked out upon the streets, across the face of the citadel. The Chaos Lord could sense what was—as yet—still invisible to the mortal eye.

The tide of anarchy, barely contained within the physical bounds of the citadel. Sigmarsgeist was growing too fast; it was close to tearing itself apart. The men who had built this folly had released a force which they barely comprehended. Soon, surely, the walls would crumble and blood would wash through this dry place. Sigmarsgeist would fall, and another piece of the puzzle would have been completed, another step taken upon the road towards the inevitable victory.

But the citadel of Sigmarsgeist was only a token, a gilding gift for his master to add to the greater prize. Kyros was concerned with what lay somewhere, far below the folly of timber and stone, a place possessed of powers that the rulers of the citadel could only dream of. Powers that would render his glorious master all but omnipotent. Kyros had vowed to claim the waters of Tal Dur for the glory of almighty Tzeentch, and Alexei Zucharov was going to lead him there.

Zucharov was strong, his will had proved stubborn and obdurate. Even now, weeks after the amulet had infected his veins with the elixir of Chaos, Zucharov still struggled to hold on to his former self—a man possessed of his own, indomitable will. Kyros would subdue that will, remould and recast Zucharov’s spirit until his single remaining purpose on this earth was to serve Kyros, his eternal lord and master.

Through Zucharov’s eyes, Kyros followed Anaise von Augen as she strode several paces ahead of the man she considered her prisoner. Surrounded by her retinue, she exuded a calm authority that Kyros admired and mocked in equal measure. She did not yet understand that the strongest shackles were those the eye cannot see.

The Chaos Lord studied her movements. She was so proud, so confident, possessed of absolute certainty and an iron resolve. Kyros would probe that certainty until he had found each and every weakness, uncovered the keys that unlocked the gateways to her soul, then he would put her resolve to the test, bear down upon it and not desist until it had been utterly, irrevocably broken.

But first came Tal Dur. Between them, Zucharov and the Guide would lead Kyros to the source, each of them drawn to its light by yearnings too powerful to ignore. Like moths to the fatal flame, they would lead Kyros there. And when Tal Dur had been delivered, the followers of Tzeentch would have need of no one, nor would anyone be able to stand in their way.

 

First, the light had faded until all that remained was the residual glow of the tallow lamps set at intervals along the length of the mineshafts. Then the air had begun to grow so stale and scarce that Stefan had begun to wonder if there could possibly be enough to sustain so many men. And this was not to be a brief stay below ground. The ordeal had begun with the descent into the underworld. The prisoners had descended a series of shafts linked by narrow, interconnecting corridors carved out of the rock. Each successive shaft took them deeper, plunging them further into the belly of the earth. Some had the luxury of a few crude steps, like a ladder cut into the sides of the shaft. Others offered nothing but a rope dropping down into the darkness. Either way, they were a single slip from their deaths. Stefan cast a wary eye about for the two Norscans from the wagons, but there was no sign of either man. In any case, Stefan reckoned, there were more pressing matters of life and death to occupy all of them for the time being.

He and Bruno joined the line of men descending down angled ladders into the gloom. For a while, on the surface, conversation amongst the prisoners had been animated, despite the attentions of the guards. Now, an almost eerie silence fell upon the men. One by one they disappeared into the dark void of the mine, interspersed between the guards. No one spoke. Each man was left alone with his own imaginings of what might lie ahead.

For what seemed an eternity, the descent continued, men clambering down into the suffocating darkness, whilst the newly-mined ore was hauled relentlessly up through the shafts towards the surface. Stefan counted at least a dozen heavy rope nets filled to the brim with rough hewn stone, passing above his head on the way back up the mine. He tried to keep some measure of how far below the surface they had travelled, but after the fifth shaft had given way to a sixth, he gave up. It was far enough, further below the face of the world than he had ever ventured before.

He had expected it to be cold below ground, but it was not. A thick, sticky heat had been apparent from the moment he reached the bottom of the first shaft, and with each successive descent it grew worse. Long before he had reached the bottom of the climb, Stefan was drenched in sweat.

For a while the darkness was near total, the men finding their way by touch alone. But as Stefan neared the bottom of what he. counted as the seventh shaft he saw a faint glow of light beneath him, and heard the sounds of iron beating upon stone. At long last they reached the face of the mine itself, and joined a queue of prisoners shuffling slowly forward along a cramped, narrow gallery. Up ahead the space opened out, temporarily at least, and there was enough room to walk two abreast, and more or less upright. At one end of the gallery, guards were handing out a supply of tools, spades and pick-axes.

Bruno came alongside Stefan. “One of those could be turned to a useful weapon,” he commented, quietly. “Maybe we have a chance of getting out of here.”

They came level with the guards, and Stefan reached out to take one of the picks. The guard issuing the tools gave him a knowing look and pulled the tool from out of his grasp.

“Not you, friend,” the guard smirked, unpleasantly, then raised his eyes. “Orders from up above. You don’t get one of these, not today, at any rate.” He moved the line along and then gave the pick to a prisoner further down the queue.

“How do you expect us to work then?” Bruno demanded. “With our bare hands?”

“You learn fast,” the guard replied, sarcastically. “With your bare hands. The ones with the picks hew the ore, the rest of you gather it up. With your bare hands.”

Stefan counted the guards he could see. There were four of them positioned around the space where the prisoners were collecting their tools. There was a chance that they could overpower them. But only a slim chance. And once they were free, they still had to find their way out of the mines. The only way that Stefan knew to do that was through the long climb back to the surface, back the way they had come.

“Even if we could get our hands on a pick we’d be lucky to make it,” he told Bruno, shaking his head. “Once we started to climb out of here they’d have us caught like rats.”

“Then our best hope rests with Rilke,” Bruno said. “Which hardly brings me comfort.”

“Nor me,” Stefan agreed. “But at the moment that may be all we have.”

“What are we digging for anyway?” he demanded of the guard. “If I’m going to break my back in the service of Sigmarsgeist I’d like to know why.”

“Metal ore,” the guard replied. “To be forged into steel in the furnaces above.”

“How much are you expecting us to dig out?” Bruno asked.

“You’ll dig till you drop,” the guard told him. “And then some. Here,” he thrust a sack into Bruno’s hands. “Get a move on.”

The line pushed forward, marched briskly on into a linking galley on the other side. The heat, and the reek of the bodies pressed in all around him, was overpowering. The guards were herding the prisoners through as quickly as possible, but progress along the galley was still slow. The floor of the mine was slick and wet, treacherous underfoot, and the threat of a roof-fall looked ever present. Despite the order to stay silent, sporadic conversations broke out once more, as prisoners planned hopeless escapes, or offered prayers for their gods to intervene on their behalf. A voice spoke, somewhere right behind Stefan.

“You can believe them about the ore if you want,” the voice muttered. “I reckon there’s more to it than that.”

Stefan turned in the confined space of the passage, and glanced over his shoulder. In the flickering half-light cast by the tallow lamps he could just make out the features of the man standing a few paces to the rear of him. He remembered that sallow, knowing face. It was the man he had spoken briefly with whilst they were waiting to be sent to work on the walls. He looked pale and ill, but for all that still exuded a stubborn air of survival, a refusal to give in.

“I shouldn’t be here,” he reminded Stefan. “They owe me. It’s a misunderstanding.”

“You said as much yesterday,” Stefan responded. “And something about how you came to be here.”

The sallow man grinned, but there was bitterness in his smile.

“The tattooed one,” he said. “Damn him to Morr. A blessing that turned out to be a curse, he was.”

“He’s lost his mind,” Bruno observed, not without some sympathy for the man.

“I’m not so sure,” Stefan replied. He wanted to hear more of the man’s story, but he was too late. The prisoners were being separated out into two work parties. Stefan, Bruno and about a dozen other prisoners were taken down a passage to their right, their new companion taken off in the opposite direction. Stefan caught a brief glance of the flaxen-haired Norscans, towards the tail end of the second work-gang. The bigger of the two men turned, as if sensing Stefan’s eyes upon him. He smiled at Stefan, his face registering neither warmth nor humour. Stefan met his gaze for an instant, then, as the guard’s whip cracked down, he turned away, following Bruno and the others toward the seam. One less problem to contend with, for the moment at least.

The guards forced the pace as far as they could, but, bent almost double in the half light of the subterranean tunnel, progress was still barely more than a crawl. After about ten minutes the passage opened wide enough for the men to stand upright. Here more guards waited for them and extra lanterns had been set, but there was still barely enough light to work by The far wall of the chamber had been hollowed out from digging, and hewn stone lay stacked in great piles to either side. One of the guards indicated Stefan and Bruno and several others, the fittest and strongest amongst the gang.

“Don’t stand there staring,” he barked. “This is what you’re here for. Those that have picks, use them. Those that don’t, use the tools Sigmar gave you. I want at least six sack-loads of ore out of every man today. You others can start carting the loads back to the head of the mine.”

Stefan waited whilst the man ahead of him struck at the rock-face with his pick. The first strike jarred against the solid rock, and made hardly any impact at all. The second dislodged a fist-sized fragment of stone, and the third another piece of about the same size. Stefan and the others moved in, and started to pull out the fragments loosened by the work of the pick. The interior of the mine was already roasting; a hot, stinking pit starved of both light and air. It was going to be slow, exhausting work.

But Stefan’s sallow-faced friend might have been wrong about the purpose of the mine. There was certainly ore here, about half the stone quarried out was flecked with a silver metal that shone with a dull lustre in the light of the lanterns. But, for all that, it looked like a poor return. Mining enough ore to fill even half a dozen sacks would take an eternity.

They worked for perhaps an hour under the unwavering gaze of the guards. A good part of the stone quarried out was useless, and at the end of that time Stefan had managed to fill barely half a sack. At some point the guards must have decided that the seam had nothing left to offer. New instructions were issued, the gangs were reassigned a second time, and Stefan and Bruno found themselves separated.

Stefan and five others were led away, deeper into the mine, to where—he assumed—the ore-seam might be thicker. The men squeezed through another tunnel barely big enough to accommodate their bodies, and emerged into a lower chamber that was smaller and darker than the first. By now Stefan’s body was drenched in sweat, and his throat parched dry. A flask of water was produced and thrust into his hand, and Stefan drank, gratefully.

It was now so dark that Stefan could barely make out who else was in the chamber with him, or how many. He stumbled, momentarily losing his footing on the slippery granite floor. When he grabbed out to steady himself, a shower of loose rock and stone fell down around him, peppering his face and shoulders. It wouldn’t take much for the whole mine to collapse in on itself, and a man could easily end up buried alive.

Stefan looked around, his eyes still battling the gloom, trying to orientate himself. The voices that had been around him a moment ago had dropped away. He had the sudden, disorientating sense of being alone inside the dark cavern of the mine chamber. Then, out of the silence, a voice quiet but clear called out, “Over here.”

Stefan’s first thought was that it was Rilke. He didn’t recognise the voice, but it had been in his mind ever since they had entered the mine that Rilke had promised to find them and help them escape. Perhaps this was part of that plan. He couldn’t be sure either way, but took a step forward all the same. Somewhere in the space in front of him, someone moved, emerging out of the shadows. He still couldn’t make out the figure ahead of him, and he certainly hadn’t seen the second, closing in behind.

And he didn’t see the knife coming at him until it was all but too late.

 

Anaise looked upon Zucharov, fixing him with an unblinking stare.

“Don’t delude yourself,” she told him. “Your surroundings may have changed, but you are still a prisoner.” She paused, reflecting on her words. “You are still my prisoner.”

Alexei Zucharov returned her stare with his own cold, unblinking gaze. Through him Kyros looked upon the Guide, appraising her with a disdain that he would never confuse with pity. How haughty she was, how proud. How greatly he would enjoy the mighty fall of Anaise von Augen, once her work was done and her purpose spent. But to do that he must win her trust. Kyros would see her drink from the bottomless cup of Chaos, drink with a thirst that could never be extinguished, then they would see who was the prisoner, and who the guardian of the keys.

Anaise had had Zucharov brought to the chamber of the high council. The guards had stood him in the centre of the circle of the council, the dozen places now all empty. Anaise circled slowly around the man who, she had decided, would become her personal slave. In truth, he excited and appalled her in equal measure. Although his body was clearly still that of a mortal man, the sinewy flesh and terrifying musculature reminded Anaise more of an ogre than any human creature.

Then there was the tattoo. The dark, fluid bruise covering Zucharov’s left arm, crawling its way slowly up towards his face as if possessed of some malign existence of its own. It was hideous, disfiguring, yet at the same time a work of wonder. Zucharov knew that Anaise was both repelled and yet excited by it. He sensed her longing, her desire to touch the tattoo, to feel the blood flowing in the images beneath her fingertips.

Anaise reached out her hand, then drew back. “The pictures on your skin,” she said, curtly. “The pictures of Sigmarsgeist, of my brother Konstantin and me. It’s all a trick. How is it achieved?”

Zucharov moved his lips, and the words flowed from him. Slow, awkward at first, but sonorous and clear. They were his words, but they were orchestrated by Kyros.

“It is no trick,” he intoned. “My flesh is become a mirror to the truth. It reflects all that has come to pass, and all that will.”

“If that is true,” Anaise replied, fighting to hold her excitement in check “then you can show me what the future holds for me, and how I am to achieve it.”

“That future is not yet foretold,” Zucharov told her. “Your destiny is there to be shaped, and for you to choose how to shape it.”

“What choices do I have to make?” Anaise demanded.

Zucharov’s face folded into a semblance of a smile that faded almost as quickly as it had appeared. “You may choose to ally yourself with me,” he said, slowly. “But I serve no mortal being. I shall not be your slave.”

“And you shall not be my equal, either,” Anaise retorted, indignantly. “What makes you think you can bargain with me for your salvation?”

“Tal Dur,” Zucharov reminded her, Kyros turning the words carefully upon his servant’s tongue. “Tal Dur, and the knowledge that will allow you to claim the prize that is your right. To allow you to rise above the failings of those around you.”

“Such as?”

“Your brother,” Zucharov replied. “Konstantin. There is weakness within him.”

“My brother is a righteous man,” Anaise replied, her anger in that moment genuine and impassioned. “Sigmarsgeist owes him everything. He is its creator, its inspiration.”

“And the architect of its ruin,” Zucharov continued. “You owe him nothing.”

Anaise rose up, her face a mask of practiced fury. Around the room, guards drew their weapons, anticipating the command. A tense silence hung upon the council chamber. “You are deluded, and a liar,” Anaise announced. “The corruptions of Chaos have rotted your mind.” She looked around at the guards, then, dismissed them with a curt sweep of her arm.

“Go,” she told them. “Leave us. This creature is no threat. His body is weighed down with iron, and his mind is enfeebled. Go about your business, you are dismissed.”

The guards exchanged glances, wondering perhaps if they had misunderstood the Guide’s orders. When Anaise said nothing more, but simply folded her arms across her breast, they began, one by one to file out of the chamber. Only when they were gone did Anaise seat herself again.

“How dare you defile my brother’s name in their hearing,” she began. “You claim yourself worthy of my trust, yet at the first opportunity you seek to undermine me. I should have set my men upon you like dogs.”

She glared at Zucharov, her expression a studied mask of angry grandeur. Yet the mask was fragile. Beneath its surface was a curiosity, and an aching need that she already found hard to deny. “You spoke the name of Tal Dur in their presence,” she added, with less certainty now. “You are not worthy of my trust.”

Kyros was in no hurry to have Zucharov answer.

“It is those others around you that you cannot trust,” he said at last. This is the time of change. The time for old ways to be swept aside, for a new order to be forged. I shall guide you to Tal Dur, and I shall show you how to use its power/

“I have no need to be taught the ways of power,” Anaise retorted. “I know how to use it well enough.”

The smile rose again on Zucharov’s face, slow and faintly mocking. “You do not,” he said. He held his hands up in front of his face, the heavy irons glinting in the light. “You think this is power,” he said. “You think this is captivity.” Zucharov flexed his wrists, tensing his muscles against the shackles. The iron fastening groaned then suddenly snapped apart. The shattered links sprayed across the floor of the chamber. Zucharov lifted his unfettered arms into the air in a moment of silent triumph.

“It is not.”

Anaise flinched, involuntarily, at the sight of the chain ripped open so effortlessly, but she held her ground, and her voice betrayed none of her anxiety. “Are you trying to intimidate me?” she asked. “Perhaps you think you can escape from this place at will?”

Zucharov laughed, the laughter of his dark god, a dry, rattling sound like bones stirring in a grave. “I will leave this place only when I am ready,” he said. “And I am not ready yet. As for you, I wish only to show you the true meaning of power. How you may attain it, and what riches it may buy.”

Anaise drank down Zucharov’s words. She wasn’t sure yet whether the creature of Chaos could possibly be believed. But she knew that she wanted to believe, wanted with a passion that burned inside her. She had been born to power. If Zucharov was right, and Sigmarsgeist and all that Konstantin stood for came to nothing but dust, then her whole life would have been in vain. All of this—Zucharov, Bea, Kumansky and his comrade—had come to pass for a reason. And the reason was surely her. The time of reckoning was close at hand.

But Anaise was not driven by impulse alone. Not for the first time, reason and suspicion intervened. “You haven’t come here to offer me something for nothing,” she said, carefully. “If you are offering me such riches, then you must want something in return.”

Zucharov nodded once, signalling that he had understood. “What would you give, my lady Anaise?” His eyes flashed dark thunder. “What would you give in return for the keys to eternity?”

Anaise hesitated over her answer for just an instant. So far, she might just have been toying with this painted monster. But if she went further, this would be real. A bargain would have to be struck. Did that matter? In her mind she was already envisaging the time when Zucharov would have outlived his purpose. That would be the moment when he would be destroyed. If she turned back now, called back the guards and had him thrown into the cells, it would be over. Zucharov would rot in the dungeons of Sigmarsgeist, and Anaise von Augen would once again be captive to her brother’s dreams of—what? Mere survival?

That was not the better world for which she had sacrificed more than ten precious years of her life. That was not the promise that they had made, when the first foundation stone had been laid. Zucharov was right, though she had not conceded it. Her brother had grown weak; his courage and his vision had waned. He could no longer be trusted to carry the hopes of all his people. She must take her destiny into her own hands.

Anaise could still hear the other voices, those warning her to turn back from this course whilst there was still time. But she was no longer listening to their counsel. She had made her decision. In that instant of lightening thought, she had convinced herself. There was nothing to lose, and all eternity to be gained.

“There is a girl,” she said, calmly. “A healer. She has gifts far greater than she knows. Tal Dur has drawn her here. It is calling to her, and she will heed the call. Her gift can lead me to the well-spring, the source of its magical power.”

She took a deep breath, and parted with the next words as though relinquishing a treasured gift. “I will share that gift with you,” she said.

Zucharov’s expression did not alter. Anaise was disappointed, and angered. It was as if her revelation held no surprise for the tattooed man. Zucharov stood, his head slightly to one side. He was not listening to Anaise now. Her voice faded away as the words of Kyros entered his mind.

There is more…

“There is more,” Anaise continued, insistently. “I have something else to offer you. A chance to purge your past.”

An image flashed into Zucharov’s mind, a face drawn from the pool of fading memory that was all that remained of his former life.

“Show me,” he said.

 

In an instant, the other man was on top of Stefan, bearing down upon him in the darkness. Through the gloom Stefan saw the steel blade of the knife and recognised the zigzag scar running down the side of the Norscan’s face. It seemed the time had come for the bloody resolution of their differences. Stefan blocked the first blow then stepped out of range of the blade. He was about to strike back at the Norscan when someone took hold of both his arms from behind, holding him as though in a vice. Rancid breath wafted in his nostrils, and a voice, heavily accented, spat out: “Kislevite scum!”

Stefan struggled to pull himself free, but with his arms pinioned by his side there was little he could do. The guards—either by accident or design—had melted away, as had the other prisoners. He was trapped in the darkness deep below the ground, alone save for two natural enemies who were determined to kill him.

He found some movement in one arm, enough to jab an elbow back into the body of the man holding him. The blow had some force, but it was not enough. The Norscan grunted then redoubled his efforts, gripping hold of Stefan even more tightly. The first man took a step closer. Stefan could see him clearly now, even through the murk of the mine. He was a thick-set man Stefan’s own age, or slightly older. His straw blond hair was matted with grease, and his once pale-white complexion was tinged with a faint luminescence, the first glimmering of the evil blooming inside of him. He fixed Stefan with a lopsided grin, and licked his lips. He passed the knife through the air in front of Stefan’s face, like a butcher ready to cut away at a carcass.

Satisfied that Stefan was no longer a threat, the Norscan dropped his guard. As he positioned himself to cut Stefan with the knife, Stefan lashed out with his booted foot, putting as much of his weight as he could into a kick placed squarely between the Norscan’s legs. The Norscan howled in agony and the knife clattered upon the stones at their feet. With the first Norscan doubled up on the ground in agony, the second was now torn between keeping hold of Stefan, and retrieving the knife. His hesitation was just enough to grant Stefan the space he needed. He clamped his hands around the beefy arms holding him captive, and shifting his weight, heaved the man’s body over his shoulders. The Norscan hit the ground hard, causing a storm of grit and stone to hail down from the roof of the cavern. Stefan wiped the filth from out of his eyes and plunged forward towards where he hoped the knife would be.

For a moment there was nothing but confusion, Stefan and the two Norscans all scrambling upon the ground, trying to locate the blade. Stefan found it first, fastening a grip upon the short shank of the weapon and stabbing it up into the face of the Norscan who had been holding him. The man screamed, the sound echoing through the mine, and Stefan’s own face was suddenly wet with hot blood. The Norscan fell forward like a toppled oak, on top of Stefan. As Stefan pushed the body aside, he felt something tug at his hand, and in a moment the knife was gone.

The remaining Norscan was on him in a second, stabbing out wildly with the short knife. A thrust missed Stefan’s body by less than an inch, deflecting away off the hard rock. As he struck out again, Stefan caught hold of his attacker’s wrist with both hands. Now it was a trial of pure strength: the Norscan trying to turn the blade towards Stefan’s face, Stefan pushing it back toward the cavern wall. He twisted his body and found room to bring his knee up hard into the other man’s gut. The Norscan gasped and flinched back.

Stefan compressed all that remained of his energy into a final push, and slammed the other man’s arm against the wall of rock. The Norscan released his grip, and Stefan punched him hard in the face. The blow would have felled an ordinary man but the Norscan hardly flinched. It did buy Stefan enough time to seize the knife. As the Norscan lunged back at him, Stefan thrust the blade squarely into the throat of the other man. There was a moment of almost total silence as the Norscan stood staring at Stefan, blood dribbling from each corner of his mouth. He aimed a last desperate blow at Stefan, a blow that was never struck. The Norscan sank slowly to his knees, and his head dropped.

Stefan watched him for a few moments, then tucked the knife away beneath his tunic. He could hear footsteps now, and voices in the tunnel behind him. He didn’t know who it was, and, right now, he didn’t care. He had no strength left.

The Red Guards quickly surrounded him, four of them materialising out of the darkness as fast as they had disappeared. One made a cursory check of the Norscans, just to be sure that both were dead. A second kicked out at Stefan, a half-hearted blow aimed at his ribs.

“You were trying to escape,” one of them said, matter-of-factly. “The punishment is death.”

“I was trying to stay alive,” Stefan shot back. “I only hope you managed to collect whatever bribe my Norscan friends were offering you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said another, ignoring Stefan’s comment. “All dissent is punishable by death, for the greater glory of Sigmarsgeist. Get him up.”

Two of the guards took hold of Stefan and hauled him to his feet. The knife was plucked away from him in a single, deft movement.

“This time you’re lucky,” the same guard told him again. He seized Stefan by the hair, and turned his face towards his own. “Seems someone wants you back up above,” he said, a vexed curiosity mixed with the anger in his voice. He had the bloodied knife in his hand, but Stefan knew he wasn’t going to use it. Not this time.

“Looks like you have friends in high places,” the guard told him. “Very high places indeed.”

“Better pull yourself together,” the second man advised. “You’re on your way back to the palace.”