[Gotrek & Felix 02] - Skavenslayer

  The last thing Thanquol wanted at this moment was his army destroyed by a runaway plague. He considered the implications still more. Of course, the council did not argue with success. Perhaps the plague might succeed in weakening the humans without afflicting the skaven horde. But if it succeeded, the Council of Thirteen might extend its favour to Vilebroth Null, and withdraw its patronage from Thanquol. Null might even be rewarded with the leadership of the invasion force.

  Thanquol considered. What else could be going on here? If the scheme was an honest effort to help the invasion, why had Thanquol not been informed? He, after all, was supreme commander. No—this had to be some sinister scheme of Null’s to seize power. Something would have to be done about this treachery and this blatant defiance of the Council of Thirteen’s edicts.

  Then another thought struck Thanquol. His agents on the surface had already reported tales of some new and dreadful disease spreading among the human burrows. Undoubtedly Vilebroth Null had already begun to implement his wicked plan. There was no time to waste!

  “Quick! Quick! Where did those treacherous vermin go?”

  “I know not, most lordly of lords. My agents could not say!”

  “Run! Quick! Quick! Scuttle off and find out.”

  “At once, most decisive of leaders!”

  “Wait! Wait! Before you go, bring me parchment and pen. I have an idea.”

  “You sneezed!” Elissa said.

  “Did not!” Felix said, well aware that he was lying. His eyes felt puffy and his nose was dripping. He was sweating a little too. And was that the first faint tickle of a sore throat he felt?

  Elissa began to cough hackingly. She covered her mouth with one hand but her whole body shook.

  “You coughed,” Felix said, and wished that he had not. Tears had started to appear in the corner of the girl’s eyes.

  “Oh Felix,” she said. “Do you think we have the plague?”

  “No. Absolutely not,” Felix replied, but in his heart of hearts he was far from certain. Cold dread clutched at him. “Get dressed,” he said. “We’ll go and see a physician.”

  The doctor was a busy man today; that much was obvious, thought Felix. There had been a queue stretching halfway around the block from his small and dingy office. It seemed like half the city was there, coughing and wheezing and hawking and spitting into the street. There was an air of barely suppressed panic. Once or twice Felix had seen people come to blows.

  This was useless, Felix decided. They would never see a physician today under these conditions, and the aisles of the Temple of Shallya were full of supplicants. There had to be a better way.

  “Come on. I have an idea,” he said, grabbing Elissa by her hand and pulling her from the queue.

  “No, Felix, I want to see the doctor.”

  “You will—don’t worry.”

  “Felix! What are you doing here?” Otto did not look pleased. In fact, he had not looked pleased since Felix had refused his offer of returning to the family business and, instead, started work in the Blind Pig. Felix looked at his brother keenly. Otto was dressed particularly richly today in a gown of purple brocade trimmed with ermine, and Felix felt his own ragged appearance keenly. It had taken him nearly ten minutes to convince the clerks to let him in and see his brother.

  “I thought you might be able to help me.” Felix sniffed. There was a strange scent in the room, of spices and the sort of flowers that one usually only smelled at funerals. Felix wondered where it had come from.

  “I’ll do what I can, of course.” Otto regarded him warily.

  Ever the merchant, thought Felix, waiting to see what price was going to be asked.

  “I need to see a doctor.”

  Otto’s eyes darted from Felix to Elissa and back to Felix again. Felix could almost see the thoughts forming behind his brow.

  “You haven’t… got this girl into trouble, have you?”

  Felix laughed for the first time that day. “No.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  Quickly Felix told his brother about the man who had died in the streets, about his own symptoms and the huge queues at the doctor’s and the Temple of Shallya. Otto steepled his fingers and listened attentively, occasionally fumbling with a brass pomander which he lifted to his nose and breathed deeply from. At once Felix identified the source of the smell in the chamber.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “A pomander of wildroot and silverspice from Far Cathay. The vapours are a sovereign remedy for all airborne fluxes and evil humours, or so Doctor Drexler assures me. Perhaps you’d like to try it?”

  He unhooked the chain from around his neck and extended the small perforated sphere to Felix. The smell was very strong. He politely handed it to Elissa. She placed it beneath her nostrils inhaled deeply and began to cough.

  “It certainly clears the nostrils,” she gasped, eyes watering.

  Felix took the pomander and breathed deeply. He immediately understood what Elissa had meant. The vapours cut through the air like a knife. They had a sharp, minty tang and almost at once a feeling of warmth spread through his head and chest. His nose felt clearer and his breathing came easier.

  “Very good,” he gasped, returning the device. “But can you help us see a physician?”

  Otto pursed his lips primly. “Of course, Felix. You are my brother.”

  “And Elissa?”

  “Her too.”

  It’s amazing how money smoothes all paths, Felix thought, looking around Doctor Drexler’s chambers. Without the use of Otto’s name, he doubted the servant would have let him through the doors of the doctor’s luxuriously appointed townhouse. Felix had to admit that it was quite a place.

  On the oak-panelled walls were framed certificates from the Universities of Nuln, Altdorf and Marienberg, as well as hand-written testimonials from maybe half the crowned heads of the Empire. A massive portrait of the good doctor painted by the famous Kleinmann beamed down impressively from the middle of them all. Of course, for the fees that he charged, Drexler could certainly afford the services of the great portrait artist.

  Felix glanced over the doorway. The doctor and Elissa were in his consulting room. Felix had been left outside for the moment. He rose from the comfortable leather armchair and looked around.

  Along one wall was a collection of large glass jars which would not have been out of place in an alchemist’s shop. The bookshelves were lined with musty leather-bound tomes. Felix picked one up. It was Johannes Voorman’s Der Natur Malorum. A first edition, no less. The pages had been cut, which meant that someone around here had read it. It wasn’t just window-dressing, straight from the bookbinders. Felix examined the other titles and was surprised to discover that only half of them were medical or alchemical in nature. The rest dealt with a variety of subjects, from natural history to the motion of the Spheres. It seemed that the doctor was indeed a well-read man.

  “You are a scholar, Herr Jaeger?”

  Felix turned to find that Drexler had emerged from the consulting room. He was a short, slender man with a narrow, friendly face and a short, well-trimmed beard. He looked more like a successful merchant than a doctor. His robes were as rich as Otto’s and there was not a sign of blood stains anywhere. Felix could not even see the traditional pot of leeches.

  “I’ve read a little,” he admitted.

  “That is good. A man should always improve his mind whenever there is an opportunity.”

  “How is Elissa?”

  Drexler took off his glasses and breathed on them, then polished them on the hem of his robe. He beamed reassuringly. “She is fine. She has a summer cold. That is all.”

  Felix understood why the rich were so willing to pay for the services of this man. There was something hugely reassuring about his quiet soft-spoken voice and his calm, certain smile. “Not… not the plague then?”

  “No. Not the plague. No buboes. No lesions. No suppurating ulcers of the skin. None of the usual symptoms of any of t
he greater plagues. Of that I am sure.”

  Elissa emerged from the consulting room. She smiled at Felix. He forced himself to smile back. “I understand that you were exposed to a plague bearer yesterday, Herr Jaeger,” the doctor said, suddenly all seriousness.

  “Yes.”

  “Best have a look at you then. Let me see your arm.”

  For the next few minutes the doctor performed all manner of arcane rituals the like of which Felix had never seen. He touched his wrist and counted, while keeping track of a chronometer on the wall. He tapped Felix’s chest painfully. He looked into Felix’s eyes with a magnifying glass.

  This was not what Felix had expected. Where were the scalpels, and unguents, and leeches? Was this man some sort of charlatan? He was certainly most unlike any doctor or barber Felix had ever encountered. His robes were not filthy and crusted with dried blood, for one thing. And the man was tanned, unusually so for a man who spent most of his life indoors. Felix mentioned this fact and Drexler looked at him sharply.

  “I have spent time in Araby,” Drexler said. “I studied medicine at the great School at Kah Sabar.”

  Felix looked at the wall. There was no diploma there from any Arabic university. Drexler obviously understood his train of thought, for he laughed. “They do not give degrees in Kah Sabar! By the time you leave you are either a healer or you are not. If you are not, no piece of paper will make you one.”

  “A fair point. But what did you learn there that you could not learn here in the Empire?”

  Like all of its citizens Felix considered the Empire to be the most advanced and enlightened human nation on the face of the planet. He could not conceive that there was anything the Arabs had to teach one of its people. The elves and dwarfs, certainly—but not the Arabs.

  “Many things, my friend. Including the fact that we have no monopoly on wisdom and that much of what our doctors teach is simply wrong.”

  “For example?”

  “Well… I do not bleed my patients. It does more harm than good.”

  Felix was at once relieved and shocked. Relieved because like most people he dreaded the physician’s scalpel. Shocked because the man was obviously a charlatan! Everybody knew that bleeding was essential to release the foul humours in the blood and speed the patient’s recovery. And yet, Otto had claimed that this man was the best doctor in Nuln and had cured more people than all the other surgeon-barbers put together. Furthermore, Drexler did seem like a profoundly civilised and educated man.

  “Do you think I have the plague?” Felix asked suddenly, surprised at the fear and anticipation that filled him as he waited for Drexler’s reply.

  “No, Herr Jaeger, I do not. I think you have a slight cold, nothing more. I think most of the people in this city who think they have the plague probably have the same, and I think that the panic such beliefs cause will be more harmful than the plague itself.”

  “You don’t think the plague is real, then?”

  “Oh I certainly believe it’s real. I think many people will die from it, as the summer heat comes on, and more people come in from the country. But I know you do not have it, nor do any of the wealthy people who come to see me. If you did, you would already be dead or dying.”

  “That would make it easy to diagnose,” Felix said dryly. Drexler laughed again.

  “I will give you and Fraulein Elissa the same herbal pomanders as I gave your brother and his family. The herbs are a protection against plague emanations, and I have cast a few spells on them as well.”

  “You are a magician as well as a doctor, then?”

  “I am a healer, Herr Jaeger, and I use whatever means best help my patients. I dabble in enchantments of a protective sort. I cannot utterly guarantee their effectiveness, you understand, but they should help if you are exposed to the plague.”

  “I thank you for that.”

  “Don’t thank me, Herr Jaeger. Thank your brother, after all he is paying my bill.”

  Just as Felix turned to go, he noticed that Drexler was staring at him hard. His face had turned pale and his eyes hard.

  “What is it?” Felix asked.

  “The… the sword you carry. Would you mind telling me where you got it?”

  “Not at all. It belonged to a friend, a Templar of the Fiery Heart named Aldred. He died and I took it, hoping one day to return it to his order. Why do you ask?”

  “You were a friend of Aldred’s?”

  “We travelled together in the Border Princes. He was on a quest when he died.”

  “I knew Aldred. We were friends for a long time. We studied in the Sigmarite Seminary together. I had not heard word of him in a long time.”

  “Then I am sorry to be the bearer of such bad news to you.”

  “He died well?”

  “He died like a hero.”

  “It is what he would have wanted. I’m sorry to have bothered you with this, Herr Jaeger.”

  “No, I am sorry to be the bearer of such bad tidings.”

  “He seemed like a very nice man,” Elissa said. “And so wise. Very reassuring.”

  “What did you say?”

  Felix looked up at her. He was disturbed by the coincidence that Drexler had known the dead Templar, and he felt vaguely guilty about not having made a greater effort to return the blade. Still, it was a very fine weapon, and it had saved his life on more than one occasion.

  “I said, he was very reassuring.”

  “Very.” Felix looked at her sourly. She had been singing the doctor’s praises all the way back to the Blind Pig and her hand had never strayed very far from the herbal pomander. Felix wondered if it was possible that he was jealous. He actually agreed with the woman but admitting it was difficult for some reason. Elissa seemed to sense this. She looked up at him and smiled teasingly.

  “Why Felix, are you jealous?”

  Why did women seem to have such an uncanny instinct for these things, he wondered—even as he muttered his denials.

  * * * * *

  Gotrek looked up as they entered the tavern. He held a rolled tube in one massive fist. He tossed it straight at Felix.

  “Catch,” he said.

  Felix snatched the tube out of the air and recognised it at once for what it was. The parchment was of the same crude weave as the earlier message they had received, the one which had warned them of the skaven attack on the College of Engineering. He hastily unrolled it, and was not at all surprised to find that it had been written in the same semi-literate scrawl:

  Frends—be warned!! The evil trechrus rat-men of Klan Pestilens do plot to spred playgue in yoor city, may the Horned Rat gnaw there entrails for it. I do not no wher or how they plan to do this. I kan only tell yoo to be ware of the Kaldrun of a thousand poxes.

  Yoor frend.

  “It was delivered when you were out,” Gotrek said.

  “Same messenger?”

  “No, another beggar. Claims it was given to him by a monk.”

  “You believe him?”

  “I saw no reason not to, manling. I got him to show me the place where he had met this monk. It was close to spot where the last message was delivered.”

  “You think we should check out the sewers in that area?”

  “What are you talking about, Felix?” Elissa asked.

  “Skaven,” Gotrek said ferociously, and the girl’s face went pale.

  “Not those creatures which attacked the inn the other night?”

  “The same.”

  “What do they have to do with you and Felix?”

  “I do not know, girl. I wish I did. It seems like we have become involved in some feud among them.”

  “I wish you had not told me that.”

  “I wish you had not told her that,” Felix said.

  “Do you think they will attack the Pig again?” Elissa asked, glancing at the doors and windows as if she expected an attack at any second.

  “I doubt it,” Gotrek said. “And if they do, we’ll just slaughter them again.”
r />   Elissa sat down in a chair near to the Slayer. He cocked his head to one side and smiled, showing several missing teeth. “Do not worry, girl. Nothing will harm you.”

  Gotrek was not normally what Felix would consider a reassuring sight, but his words seemed to calm Elissa.

  “Do you think the skaven could have anything to do with this new plague?” Felix whispered, hoping that no one could overhear him.

  “Our ratty friend would like us to believe this.”

  “Then why hasn’t he told us any more?”

  “Perhaps he does not know any more himself, manling.”

  Thanquol stared into his divining crystal. It was no use. He had no luck locating the plague monks and their accursed cauldron, and that in itself was not reassuring. A seer of his prowess, having invoked the proper rituals and made obeisance in the correct way to the Horned Rat, should have been able to detect an artefact of its power easily. Instead he had found no trace of it or its bearers anywhere. It suggested to Thanquol’s keen mind that they were using magic of their own to cover their tracks. He knew that Vilebroth Null was a powerful sorcerer in his own right, and must have invoked spells of bafflement. Further proof of his treachery—as if any were needed!

  Of course the traitor would claim that he had used the magic to escape detection by the human authorities, but Thanquol could see through such transparent ruses. He had not been born yesterday. The plague monks were simply trying to keep themselves hidden from their rightful leader until they could implement their plan and claim unwarranted glory.

  Thanquol knew he must prevent this eventuality at all costs—as well as enforcing the Council of Thirteen’s edict, of course. He would simply have to find another way of locating his prey. He wondered if the dwarf and his human ally had taken any action yet. Or were they too stupid to do anything without prompting from Thanquol?