Session 54: I Think I See It

Altdorf smelled of river mud, horse dung, and other people’s money. Somewhere beyond its roofs stood the Colleges of Magic; somewhere beyond its northern gate lay the road to Middenheim. For the moment, the company had a sealed crate to deliver, a damaged boat being repaired at someone else’s expense, and the unfamiliar pleasure of walking past a wanted board without finding their own faces on it. Nora still had a likeness of Felrick tucked away. There seemed no reason to waste a perfectly serviceable portrait merely because the authorities had lost interest.

Their arrangements with Matthias Blücher had survived the journey downriver. The crate was bound for Captain Garlock in Middenheim, its contents protected from curiosity by numerous wax seals and the understanding that trusted agents did not pry. It took two people to move comfortably. Nobody had offered them extra money to discover why.

Behind them, in a bank in Kemperbad, another box sat under arrangements that were rather more elaborate. Its contents were evil, its declared value modest, and its loss insured. There were few matters in their affairs that could be described as settled, but they had done their best with that one.

The boat would take about a month to repair. Blücher had accepted the responsibility after studying the relevant clause in their contract, an experience that had apparently diminished his affection for his lawyer. In the meantime, he was paying their passage north. Felrick regarded this as a considerable improvement in their circumstances.

“Having our boat burnt down might be the best thing that’s ever happened to us.”

“Getting the boat was the best thing that ever happened to us,” Wanda said. “Now losing it is the best thing that’s ever happened to us.”

Both observations appeared sound.

Middenheim promised Carnival, which occupied a large and agreeable portion of Nora’s thoughts. It also promised Gotthard von Wittgenstein, whose letter had described intentions considerably less wholesome than drinking and public entertainment. His continued existence complicated Thindruk’s cheerful view of the ownership of what remained of Castle Wittgenstein. There was, admittedly, less castle than there had been.

“The parts we didn’t like are gone,” Wanda observed.

Thindruk saw no reason to dispute that assessment. Nor did he see any reason to neglect their travel arrangements while discussing the disposition of his prospective property.

They went to the Blücher offices, where the clerk examined Matthias’s letter, accepted its seal, and treated their arrival as ordinary business. This was unsettling. They had grown accustomed to people whose ordinary business involved deceiving them, arresting them, or turning out to be somebody else. He inspected the seals on the crate and agreed to store it overnight.

“You are responsible for it until we get back,” Wanda told him.

The clerk indicated where they should sign. She watched his face for some sign that he understood the weight of that sentence. He appeared to understand the weight of paperwork. Beyond that, she could establish nothing.

He would book them onto the next available Castle Rock coach to Middenheim, probably departing the following morning. They should return at the end of the day for the precise arrangements. The coaching house stood across the plaza, close enough for him to point it out without rising. Then he went into the back office and returned with two gold crowns. Blücher had provided an allowance for their lodging.

The coins landed in Thindruk’s palm with a small, persuasive sound. Whatever doubts they retained about the clerk, the company, or the wisdom of carrying mysterious boxes across the Empire, none applied to the immediate usefulness of gold. They left with an evening to spend.

Wanda had been thinking about demons. They kept appearing in the course of business. A person could accept a certain amount of misfortune as the ordinary cost of travelling, but repeated encounters with Chaos suggested that she ought to acquire some means of dealing with it beyond hitting it harder.

“Qavitrae. These different colours of magic.”

The elf looked at her.

“We’ve met a brown one, a yellow one, a grey one. Is there a school that specialises in taking down demons?”

Qavitrae explained that the colours belonged to the winds the colleges studied. For Wanda’s purposes, the Lore of Light seemed the most promising. The Arcana of Luminescence enjoyed the approval of the Church of Sigmar and concerned itself, among other things, with powers capable of resisting and banishing daemonic forces.

“I don’t want to worship Sigmar.”

Studying a wind of magic and worshipping a god were different matters, though Wanda’s preference for Ulric remained firm. What interested her was the practical question of how one learned to fight something that could crawl into a person and wear them.

Qavitrae considered her with an expression Wanda had come to recognise. It generally preceded an estimate of time that made human lives seem poorly planned. Learning to wield the winds effectively against such enemies, she warned, might require more years than Wanda had left.

“We could die any day,” Wanda said. “We have to seize the moment.”

There was no useful answer to that. Their recent travels had furnished ample evidence, and Qavitrae conceded the point with affectionate condescension.

“Well, mayfly, I appreciate your gumption.”

Thindruk offered necromancy as an alternative. They already had the books, which would reduce the initial expense.

Wanda declined. The books themselves raised an awkward question. Altdorf surely contained someone willing to buy horrible knowledge. It also contained authorities who might reward the surrender of such knowledge, provided they did not decide to burn the people carrying it. Neither prospect invited haste. Wanda preferred to begin by finding the College of Light.

The directions she received were less reassuring than she had hoped. People knew the quarter where the colleges stood. They also knew she ought to avoid it. The streets were strange, and people got lost in them. Getting lost, one informant implied, was among the happier possible outcomes.

She went anyway. At one hedge she paused long enough to prod the greenery. Their previous experience had demonstrated that wizards could emerge from such places, though none obliged her now.

Eventually the streets brought her towards the northern end of the wizards’ district, near the city wall. The buildings there made little concession to the rest of Altdorf. White stone rose in broad, severe masses. Pyramids stood above a plaza marked with unfamiliar carvings. Huge creatures with cats’ bodies and human heads watched without blinking. Other symbols resembled crosses fitted with loops, though what use anyone had for such a thing Wanda could not guess. At least the colour suggested she had come to the right place.

She intercepted a young man in a white jerkin. His clothing was so clean that it seemed almost a professional qualification. He stopped when she stepped into his path and looked up at her with the apprehension she often inspired in people from whom she merely wanted information.

“Who does one speak to about entering the school?”

The young man explained that the great masters sought out those who had demonstrated talent.

“And how does one demonstrate talent?”

An innate knack, he said. An ability. Something already present. He looked at her again.

“What is your business here?”

“Information.”

He hesitated, then gestured towards the plaza.

“Can you see the third pyramid?”

Wanda counted two.

She looked again, more carefully this time. There was an open space large enough to accommodate another pyramid. That might be where it stood. It might equally be where someone wanted a hopeful fool to point while the real building lurked somewhere else.

For a moment she considered watching his eyes. People gave things away, and she had found enough truth in nervous glances to know the value of them. But she had come to discover whether she could learn this. Guessing the answer would tell her nothing.

She stood still and tried to look beyond the white stone and empty air. She waited for some unfamiliar sense to stir, some pressure behind the eyes, some recognition that would explain how other people saw a building that she could not. The plaza remained a plaza. There were still two pyramids.

“It’s probably there,” she said at last. “But no. I cannot see it.”

The admission disappointed her more than she had expected. The apprentice accepted it without mockery. Seeing the college was the first test, he explained. If she could find its door and knock, someone might speak with her. He was only an apprentice. There was little he could do.

Wanda let her gaze rest on the empty space a moment longer before asking what the college actually taught. This, at least, he knew how to answer. He straightened slightly, and the words came with the rhythm of something learned from a lecturer and repeated often enough to feel like personal wisdom.

Hysh, the white wind, was thinly spread through the world. Its power had to be gathered with care. The discipline was difficult, among the most difficult, but concentrated light could form a mighty defence against the forces that corrupted and destroyed.

“You mean Chaos.”

“Do not speak its name.”

“I travel with an elf who speaks its name all the time. She was in the wars. She’s always telling us we have to fight it.”

The apprentice’s alarm acquired a touch of authority. Those who had fought the enemy and tasted victory could underestimate it, he warned. Defeat did not prevent it from seeking an advantage. A person could believe the danger ended while carrying some part of it away.

The hilt of Wanda’s great sword stood above her shoulder. The blade had belonged to a Chaos knight. She listened.

“Well. Thank you, young lad. You’ve given me something to think about. Perhaps one day I’ll see the door.”

Her earnestness seemed to loosen something in him. Before she left, he offered advice. In the evening she should meditate. Quiet herself. Remember goodness and purity wherever she had encountered them. Attend to sensations beyond those she ordinarily trusted. Perhaps there would be a sound nobody else could hear, or warmth from a person that no one else felt. If she learned to extend her senses, perhaps the college would be visible when she returned.

Wanda thanked him and walked away beneath the gaze of the stone creatures. Behind her, the apprentice watched the sword hilt recede and began to look as though he was reviewing how much he ought to have said.

Their rooms that night were comfortable enough to justify the clerk’s allowance. Wanda attempted the meditation. By morning she had a report.

“It hurts your legs,” she told Qavitrae. “And I think I fell asleep.”

“Another couple of dozen years. I’m sure you’ll get there.”

The Castle Rock coaching house was already busy. Porters carried trunks across the yard while horses stamped and harness rattled. The coach itself was a considerable vehicle, built to carry a small society northward, with finer seats inside and a broad railed roof for everyone whose purse or standing failed to secure shelter.

Their names were on the booking. So was Alex Eichen’s.

He arrived with the confidence of a man who had never suspected that anyone might find him tedious. On seeing them, he grinned.

“So you are going to Carnival.”

“Of course,” Qavitrae said. “We have to see how it compares to Schaffenfest. Despite your boasts, it sounds like something one must judge for oneself.”

Nora remained unimpressed by the lack of anticipation in Altdorf. For a celebration supposedly so grand, remarkably few people seemed to be talking about it. Alex had an explanation readily available. Altdorfers had their heads up their rumps.

Several nearby Altdorfers looked round.

He continued undeterred. They lacked the common sense of river folk. The failings of the capital appeared to be a subject upon which he could speak at any length required. Other passengers assembled while he did so.

Ulrike and Bertha Jung introduced themselves politely. The sisters wore fine clothes and travelled beneath the protection of a large man in a leather jerkin whose axe seemed excessive until one looked at the rest of him. His heavy brow sloped over a flattened, twisted nose. His jaw projected beyond it with the stubbornness of a fortification.

Wanda took an interest. Meditation had so far failed to disclose any mysterious warmth. There were other varieties, though she doubted the apprentice had meant those.

Sister Adelaide Kruger greeted them quietly. They knew enough of Shallyan temples to recognise her calling before she named it. She was middle-aged, composed, and prepared to climb onto the roof without complaint.

Captain Matthias Voss introduced himself as recently retired from the Reikland army. Another young woman arrived with several leather satchels and a trunk. Her good clothing and the care given to her baggage suggested a passenger who expected to sit inside.

A plainly dressed man kept apart from the finer company. Qavitrae noticed him. His clothes made the fare seem an extravagance, which was no proof of anything but offered a place to begin.

“It’s good to see another working person on such a fancy coach,” she said. “I’m Qavitrae.”

His attention went first to her ears. He had not known there were elves in Altdorf.

“It is the capital.”

“My name is Conrad.” He hesitated. “You’re a labourer?”

She indicated her swords, which required him to adjust his understanding once more.

“I’ve never met an elf before,” he admitted. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”

“You introduced yourself. That’s a good start.”

He was making a pilgrimage to Shining Rock. Did she know it?

She did. Both Sigmarites and Ulricans revered the place, each claiming it for their own god. The stories differed in particulars while agreeing upon the useful parts. A god rested after battle, deprived of his weapon. Enemies attacked. He seized a strange stone to fend off their blows, and when it shattered, a long sharp fragment remained in his hand. With it he killed five hundred attackers before the survivors fled. There was a shrine around the rock now. Men travelled great distances to pray beside it, and disagreed about whose prayers it ought to hear.

“Are you a warrior?” Qavitrae asked.

Conrad was not. He lowered his voice.

“Ulric’s strength gives me strength.”

She directed him towards Wanda. The prospect of another follower of the Wolf brightened him at once.

“You’re not like I thought you’d be,” he told the elf.

“Have you met any elves?”

He conceded that he had not. There were even elves who had served the Empire, she added. He looked as though she had complicated his morning considerably. Whether that complication concealed anything more dangerous than ignorance, she could not tell.

The luggage was almost secured when the shouting began.

“Wait! You can’t leave without me. I’ve already paid!”

Qavitrae turned towards a familiar voice. Count Otto Bormann hurried into the coaching yard, followed by men dragging his trunks. She opened the coach door.

“Count Bormann. Of course we’ll wait for you.”

Surprise crossed his face. Then he saw the rest of them, and his expression darkened.

“What are you doing here?”

His eyes searched until they found Thindruk. The count approached him while the porters dealt with the luggage. His jowls trembled, but he kept his voice low.

“I know you did it. I don’t know how.”

Thindruk received this with injured courtesy.

“Surely you’re not upset that we had to leave your company early. We were called away on urgent business. How did the remainder of your visit turn out?”

Poorly. The records of Kemperbad’s obligations to the Emperor had gone missing or failed to agree with the imperial records. Confusion had followed. Anticipated revenue had not arrived.

“Scandalous,” Thindruk said. “Wasn’t verifying those records the purpose of your visit?”

The count answered through his teeth. It had been. His failure had earned him less desirable duties. He was now travelling to Middenheim, where he would have the pleasure of their company.

“Oh, Middenheim,” Qavitrae said. “You can visit Carnival. I’ve heard middling things about it.”

“I’ll be working.”

Wanda jumped down to help with his luggage. A porter objected that she did not belong to the guild.

“I’m not after your tips. Don’t strain yourself.”

Thindruk had not finished with the count. An accusation was an accusation, however delicately delivered, and Bormann’s position hardly justified making enemies. The dwarf advised him to consider the value of his remaining friends before insulting them with speculation.

He had noticed something else. The men carrying Bormann’s luggage were leaving once their work was done. The retinue that had once surrounded the count was absent. Thindruk’s companions were all still present. The distinction required no explicit explanation.

Wanda supplied a gentler version.

“All we did was show you things you wanted to see. We’re on your side.”

Bormann climbed into the coach and took the last seat, which Qavitrae had intended to occupy before opening the door for him. She stepped towards it, discovered the consequences of her courtesy, and stopped.

“Enjoy your lovely carriage ride.”

Then she climbed onto the roof. Sister Adelaide was preparing to follow when Felrick addressed Captain Voss.

“Surely, sir, your honour would allow such a woman a more comfortable seat. You can come up with us and have a grand time.”

The captain’s jaw tightened, but only for a moment.

“I was just thinking it would be good to trade stories with you folk,” he said. “Sister, please take my seat.”

Adelaide thanked him and entered the coach. Voss joined the company above. Felrick suggested that he speak with Qavitrae about military affairs, which turned out to be an agreeable enough compensation. The captain liked discussing campaigns, and the elf knew what she was talking about.

Wanda settled her great sword between her legs and brought out her bow. Felrick had a clear view from the roof. Nora had the road to Carnival at last. The coach rolled out of the yard, joined the main street, and passed through the northern gate. By midmorning, Altdorf was behind them.

The horses worked hard. Castle Rock maintained its pace by changing teams along the route, leaving the passengers to admire the efficiency with which one set of exhausted animals could be exchanged for another. The roof jolted beneath them. High summer offered less rain than their earlier travels, though the growing heat made the shaded interior increasingly attractive. Below, the finest passengers enjoyed softer seats and exactly the same holes in the road.

Conrad found Wanda’s wolf medallion reassuring. His family came from the north, he told her, although he had grown up in the Reikland. They had kept the old faith. There was a small community of them in his home town, devout people who received news from Middenheim.

He began cautiously. Sigmar had been a great warrior. Nobody disputed that. But a god? Were they obliged to go so far?

Wanda listened. There were disagreements within a faith, and there were disagreements between faiths. She was interested in discovering which sort Conrad meant to have.

“Have you got your own wolfskin yet?”

He had not, though he had thought about it. He would be travelling through the Middenland forests. Had she? She had. That encouraged him.

The Ulrican church was beginning to stand up for itself, he said. No longer would it permit the Sigmarites to place Ulric beneath their own god. Middenland belonged to Ulric. People who worshipped other gods ought to think seriously about that.

Wanda remembered reports of Ulricans attacking Sigmarites in the north. Conrad spoke with the satisfaction of someone receiving welcome news.

As he continued, his earlier awkwardness fell away. Dwarfs, for example. Their ancestor worship. They did not even worship proper gods, only other dwarfs. And elves had their own strange beliefs. Things were going to change.

Wanda looked at him with closer attention. He carried no weapon. He was not strongly built and had none of the easy balance of a practised fighter. The man spoke eagerly of a faith of wolves and battle while sitting among people who had actually fought beside the folk he despised. Below them, Thindruk rode in the coach. Qavitrae was close enough to hear the wheels grind over loose stones.

“What do you mean to do at Shining Rock?” Wanda asked.

Pray. Feel the presence of his god. Perhaps meet others who thought as he did. That last prospect seemed to please him.

Wanda looked across at Felrick. The gnome met her eyes, and a hand drifted towards his pistol. Nothing more passed between them. Conrad remained on the coach, and the road continued north.

Wanda let her fingers rest against the wolf at her throat. She had sought advice about fighting corruption and found a young apprentice afraid to name it. Now she had found a fellow worshipper quite willing to name his enemies, and some of them were her friends. She had not expected the second conversation to leave her colder than the first.

Farther along the roof, Captain Voss spoke with Qavitrae. His retirement would begin with Carnival. Afterwards he intended to join a mercenary company and seek employment in the east. Talabecland and Ostland had been testing one another along their borders. He expected the disagreement to become profitable.

Qavitrae mentioned the rumours concerning Ostland’s ruler.

“The prince,” Voss corrected. “It was the prince I heard about.”

They had nearly entered his service, she said, but never quite caught up with him. Perhaps that had been fortunate.

“They say he went up into the mountains and vanished with the mist.”

So they did. The captain spoke of the coming conflict with professional interest. Whatever had happened to the prince, there would be men willing to pay other men to fight. He meant to enjoy himself in Middenheim before reporting for work. Qavitrae understood the calculation. She had heard versions of it before.

Inside the coach, Thindruk discovered that the woman with the leather satchels was Bella Kurz, an appointed imperial cartographer. She was educated, well informed, and pleased to find someone who could offer news from farther south. On learning that he had recently passed through Kemperbad and Nuln, she asked after matters there.

Thindruk suggested that her maps might require an alteration around Castle Wittgenstein.

“Has it moved?”

“Mostly downwards.”

She frowned, then remembered the cliff. The inner bailey, he explained, had stood upon a spire that collapsed during a mysterious calamity. An unknown noble and his rowdy companions had performed acts of heroism. The details were naturally difficult to establish.

Bella seemed more interested in the foundations. The location had never been secure. Much of the surrounding cliff had already fallen away, and the bridges between the surviving portions hardly inspired confidence.

“An irresponsible place to hold power,” Thindruk agreed.

He asked whether she was travelling on imperial business. She was. A geographical discrepancy had troubled maps of the Reikland for roughly twenty years. Her task was to establish the truth.

“There is a town called Delbers,” she said. “Nobody can agree where it is.”

Thindruk looked at her. He was familiar with Delbers. He had lived there for decades. It stood on the road they were presently travelling. Their coach was scheduled to stop there.

Bella opened a satchel and drew out maps. The coach rocked as she unfolded them. Roads crossed her lap. Rivers creased at the folds. She showed him where one authority had placed the town, then where another disagreed.

Thindruk attempted a careful approach. He could point to Delbers himself, he said, but he was curious about the source of the controversy. The coachman had visited it many times. Of course, going to a place and placing it accurately on a map were not necessarily the same thing.

“Precisely.”

She tapped a river. Delbers ought to stand beside the Delb. That was the difficulty.

Thindruk studied the map. The river under her finger was not the Delb. He explained this. He was a river trader when circumstances did not compel him to travel by coach. Rivers could change their courses, certainly, but the watercourse she indicated bore another name. The Delb ran here, beside Delbers.

Bella disagreed. She had seen several maps.

For a while, Thindruk examined her as carefully as he had examined the count. There were many reasons for a person to insist upon something plainly wrong, and some of those reasons had recently tried to kill him. But Bella appeared sincere. Her certainty rested upon the documents in her hands. His account of having lived in the town carried less authority than the ink that placed it somewhere else. A mistake on a map ought to have been a small thing. He found her determination to correct the town more troubling.

“Well, Imperial Mapmaker, if my home suddenly moves somewhere nicer, I’ll know whom to thank.”

She thought the settlement might more accurately be called Talbers.

“Sounds as though you’re doing the Emperor’s work.”

Bella searched her baggage and produced an imperial seal. She intended to speak with the mayor. Surely that would settle matters. Thindruk offered his assistance. He was, after all, a person of some influence.

She asked whether he was known in Delbers. He was very well known. There had been a time when that fact made departure attractive. Thindruk saw no reason to burden a promising new acquaintance with such qualifications. Any past unpleasantness was water under the bridge, whatever river Bella ultimately decided ran beneath it. He expected they would welcome him back.

The coach was approaching Frederheim when Sister Adelaide saw a figure beside the road. At first the traveller looked like a beggar, another worn person moving slowly through the dust. The coach might have passed without anyone giving them further thought.

Adelaide asked the driver to stop. Wanda felt the change in pace and turned. The horses pulled up. Conversation dwindled as the nun got down to investigate.

The traveller had been attacked by bandits. There were wounds beneath the dirt and the poor clothing. Adelaide attended to them there beside the road, then arranged for the injured traveller to accompany them to the Great Hospice. Her destination had become theirs.

They made room. The delay was small, and soon the wheels were turning again, carrying one more person towards help. Wanda watched the roadside for a while after that. Somewhere out there were the people who had done it. They did not appear, and the coach went on without a fight.

Frederheim offered little to detain a traveller who had no business with the hospice. The Dove coaching inn served the road, and a handful of shops supplied what passing people needed. By midday they had arrived, and Sister Adelaide saw that the wounded traveller received care.

The others ate while fresh horses replaced the team in the yard. After the jolting roof, even an ordinary seat at an ordinary table was welcome. Nora still had Carnival ahead of her. Thindruk had a cartographer to assist and a count to endure. Felrick would return to his place above, where he could see what approached. Wanda’s legs ached less from the journey than they had from trying to meditate.

She remembered the apprentice’s advice about goodness. He had made it sound difficult to find, something she must coax from memory in a quiet room. Adelaide had found work for hers at the edge of the road.

Outside, a coachman called the passengers. They gathered their things and went back into the sunlight. The crate still had to reach Middenheim. Bormann was already making for the interior, and Conrad was waiting near the roof ladder.

Wanda took hold of the rail and climbed up.