Felix hurried through the darkness, his cloak wrapped around him. He stopped to cast a glance over his shoulder and to fumble at the pomander full of herbs at his throat. The smell of some fresh night soil which had been cast from the windows high above assaulted his nostrils. He dreaded putting his foot in it as much as he dreaded stumbling into one of the heaps of rubbish that lay decomposing in the street.
Why were all the houses not connected to the sewers, he wondered? Why did people still insist on dropping their rubbish and filth into the streets? He realised that his long trek through the wilderness with Gotrek had changed him. Until then he had been a lifelong city dweller and would never even have noticed the trash which packed the city streets. He paused for a moment to listen.
Was that the distant echo of footsteps? Was he being followed? He strained his ears for any noise but heard nothing.
He was not reassured by the silence. This was the wealthiest quarter of Nuln, but not even the rich went abroad in the darkness without a full quota of bodyguards. Robbers and footpads were everywhere. It was not just the prospect of normal everyday robbery that bothered Felix. Ever since the night of the skaven attack he had dreaded another ambush by the rat-men assassins. He felt certain that he had survived their last assault by pure luck alone, and he was all too aware how quickly someone’s luck could change.
Still, he felt the potential gravity of the situation warranted risking these benighted streets. He needed help and he knew of only one source that might be able to provide the sort of aid he required. The door he sought was directly ahead of him. Drexler was an expert on diseases and he might be able to tell Felix something useful, if the skaven really were behind the current outbreak of plague. He knew that the man would most likely think him mad, but he was prepared to take that chance. He was out of his depth, dealing with an enemy that could wield noxious plagues the way a man might wield a sword. What he needed was knowledge, and Drexler impressed him as the man who might have it.
He reached up and pulled the handle of the doorbell. He noticed that it was moulded in the shape of a grinning gargoyle’s head. In and of itself this was not unusual, but the appearance was disturbing here and now amid the night and fog. He heard footsteps from within the building and a peephole within the door rattled open. A faint glimmer of light appeared, level with Felix’s eye.
“Who is it?” asked a voice. Felix recognised it as belonging to Drexler’s servant.
“Felix Jaeger. I need to see Doctor Drexler.”
“Is it an emergency?”
Felix considered for a moment before replying, “Yes!”
“Stand away from the door and be warned. We have firearms within.”
Felix did as he was told. He heard huge bolts being thrown and the barking of very large dogs. It was apparent that the physician took no chances with his own safety, and Felix in no way blamed him for this. Such precautions were only sensible in the great cities of the Empire.
“Throw back your cowl and stand where I can see you.”
Felix did as he was told and the beam of a lantern was shone full on his face. He saw that the old man had recognised him.
“Sorry, Herr Jaeger,” the manservant said. “You can’t be too careful these days.”
“I quite agree,” Felix said. “Now please take me to your master. I have urgent business with him.”
Drexler sat by the fire in a huge study. The flicker of the flames underlit his face and made it look vaguely daemonic. He leaned forward with a poker and prodded the glowing coals until they collapsed, then added more from the bucket beside the fireplace. When he looked up, the flames were reflected in his glasses. The effect was eerie.
“Now, how can I help you, Herr Jaeger?” he said calmly, then smiled. “You do not appear to be ill. Is it the girl?”
Felix glanced around the room. The servant had already retreated, the thick Arabian rugs absorbing his footsteps. It was an impressive chamber, even larger than, his father’s library in Altdorf and with a far greater selection of books. Felix’s keen eyes sought out dark corners as if he half expected to find enemies there, then he turned and looked directly at Drexler.
“What do you know of the skaven?” he asked bluntly.
Drexler stiffened for a moment and then carefully placed his poker back in the stand. He took off his glasses, polished them on the cuff of his robe and gave every appearance of serious consideration to Felix’s question.
“They are a race of rat-men, considered to be extinct by many scholars. Spengler thinks they were a sub-breed of human mutant. Leiber theorised that they might be the product of ancient sorcery. It is said that in ancient times they warred with the dwarfs but…”
“I know they are not extinct.”
Drexler looked at Felix sharply. “You know?”
“Yes. I have fought with them. They are here. In Nuln.”
Drexler sat back in his chair, placed his spectacles on the bridge of his nose and gripped an arm of the chair with each hand. “Please be seated. You interest me.”
Felix allowed himself to slump down in the chair facing Drexler’s. The heat from the fire had warmed one arm of it and made him uncomfortable. He pushed it away from the hearth slightly, before he started to speak. He told Drexler of his time in the sewer watch and their encounter with the rat-men in the tunnels beneath the city. He omitted only the fact that they had broken into the house of Fritz von Halstadt and killed him. He spoke of the skaven attack on the Blind Pig which he presumed was some sort of revenge attempt by the rat-men. He left out any mention that he and Gotrek had also fought with the rat-men within the College of Engineering on the night it had been burned to the ground. Drexler watched him with increasing astonishment. When Felix had finished, he spoke.
“Herr Jaeger, if all this is true, why have I not heard more of it. Why haven’t the authorities acted?”
“I do not know. Perhaps the skaven have allies in high places.” He was thinking of von Halstadt now. How many more like him occupied positions of power in Nuln and the rest of the Empire? “I sometimes think that there is a conspiracy within our society to cover up the effects of Chaos and all its works.”
He noticed that Drexler flinched slightly at the word “conspiracy”, but that the mention of Chaos did not seem to disturb him at all.
“If you were not so obviously sane, I would suspect you of being a lunatic,” Drexler added. “Certainly, some of what you are saying sounds like the ravings of a madman.”
“I know it,” Felix said. “Unfortunately, it is all true.”
“That is certainly a possibility. In Arabia they do not consider the rat-men legendary and I have spoken with several dwarfs who have claimed to have encountered them. The elf seafarers also tell tales of the rat-men’s power. But I fail to see why you have come to me other than to confide your tale.”
Felix handed over the letter that Gotrek had received. Drexler unrolled it and read it calmly.
“Clan Pestilens,” he said eventually. “Yes, I have read of them.”
“What?”
“Clan Pestilens. Certain of the old tomes, most notably Leiber’s The Loathsome rat-men And All Their Vile Kin, claim that the skaven are divided into many different clans, each with its own role in skaven society, and its own unique brand of sorcery. Leiber claims that Clan Pestilens were plague makers. He goes so far as to state that they were responsible for the Great Plague of the year 1111. If whoever sent you this letter is a hoaxer, he is certainly an erudite one. I doubt that there are more than twenty people in the Empire who now own a copy of Leiber’s book.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. I came across references to Leiber’s theory about the Great Plague in Moravec’s work and sought it out. I have what you might call a professional interest in these things.”
“May I see it?”
“Of course. But first, you must answer a few of my questions.”
“Certainly. Ask away!”
“Do you really ‘serio
usly’ believe that the skaven may be behind this new outbreak of plague in the city?”
“Yes. From what I’ve seen of them it would suit their method of warfare. I believe that perhaps they are undergoing a resurgence and that soon our world will no longer doubt their existence.”
“Such would accord with Leiber’s own theories.”
“What do you mean?” Felix looked up.
“Leiber claims that the skaven have a very high birth-rate and that when the conditions are right their population grows explosively. At such times they devour all the food in their own realms and must seek food and resources elsewhere. At such times, they explode onto the surface world in huge, hungry hordes. And they keep fighting until either they conquer, or so many of them are killed that they can once more subsist in their own realm.”
“I must read this book.”
“Yes. It is very interesting. He makes other claims that are difficult to verify.”
“Such as?”
“He claims these eruptions usually correlate with strange disturbances and erratic behaviour from Morrslieb, the lesser moon.”
“Such as the one which preceded the Great Plague in 1111?”
“You are a learned man, Herr Jaeger. Yes, such as that occurrence and the one which preceded the great Chaos Incursion two hundred years ago. I believe that another may be due to occur in our own time.”
“So all the soothsayers and astrologers claim.”
“There may be truth in it.”
“Do you have any other questions?”
“Yes, but they can wait. I can see you are anxious to get at Leiber’s work and far be it from me to stand between a fellow scholar and his books.”
Drexler brought a small set of steps and a lantern and they proceeded through the rows of bookcases to the furthest corner of the room. From the highest shelf Drexler dragged down a musty leather-bound tome, handling it reverently with both hands. He blew the fine patina of dust off its cover and handed it to Felix.
“There is a table and a reading lamp over there. I will leave you for a few minutes. I have some tasks to perform.” Felix nodded, now totally wrapped up in his excitement over finding this volume.
It was heavy. The title and author’s name embossed in gold leaf on the spine had been almost rubbed away. Two massive hinges of brass held the covers in place and helped them swing outwards.
Felix sat down at the table and lit the reading lamp from a candle, turning the tiny handle at the base to extend the wick to its fullest length then placing the shade back over the flame. The pungent smell of aromatic oil filled the air as he began to read.
The book’s title page said it had been printed by Altdorf Press over one hundred and eighty years ago. That meant that Leiber had most likely been around during the last great incursion of Chaos, or had at least known people who had been. It was possible that he might even have had first-hand experience of the rat-men.
As he read, Felix discovered that this was exactly what the author claimed. In the introduction he stated that he had encountered a horde of rat-men during the Great Chaos War. Unlike his fellows, Leiber had been convinced that they were not simply a new form of beastman but a completely separate race, and he had devoted the next ten years of his life to uncovering all manner of information about them. He referred to various scholarly sources, such as Schtutt, van Hal and Krueger, which Felix made a mental note to consult later.
His book was divided into short chapters, each dealing with an aspect of the structure of skaven society and its various clans. Felix read, horrified, as Leiber dwelled on Clan Moulder’s vile experiments with living creatures, changing them into all manner of foul mutant monsters. He recognised the artificers of Clan Skryre as the creatures he and Gotrek had encountered at the College of Engineering. The thing which had set the monster on them in Fritz von Halstadt’s mansion was a grey seer, some sort of verminous priest. Leiber may have written like a ranting maniac but everything he wrote tallied with Felix’s own hard-won experience. Even if the scholar was discredited, he was also correct.
Felix paid particular attention to the section on Clan Pestilens, and about how they created diseases and used all manner of foul devices to spread their filthy plagues. The descriptions of the Boil Lurgy and the Flea Buboes made his skin crawl. There were horrors here that went beyond any he had previously imagined.
A shadow fell on him and he looked up to see Drexler standing over him. He realised that he must have been reading for hours in the gloom, and that his eyes hurt from the strain.
“Have you found what you were looking for?” Drexler asked.
“More than I ever wanted to know.”
“Good. Come and see me tomorrow and I may be able to help you. You may take the book with you if you wish.”
“Help me. How?”
“We will visit the city morgue.”
“How will that help?”
“You will see tomorrow, Herr Jaeger. Now go home and sleep.”
Gotrek looked up from his plate as Felix entered the Blind Pig. “Look what the cat dragged in,” he said, and stuffed a hunk of black bread into his mouth.
Elissa looked up from her place beside him. “Oh, Felix, I was so worried. You said you’d be back in a couple of hours and it’s almost dawn. I thought the rat-men might have got you.”
Felix laid the book down on the table and hugged her tight. “I’m fine. I just had to find out a few things.”
“The Loathsome rat-men And All Their Vile Kin,” Gotrek read, tilting his head and reading the spine of the book.
Elissa looked at him in astonishment. “I didn’t know you could read,” she said.
Gotrek grinned, showing the blackened stumps of his teeth. He flicked the book open with one greasy finger and began turning pages until he found the one bookmarked at Clan Pestilens. “He knows his stuff, this Leiber. Must have consulted dwarfish sources.”
“Yes, yes,” Felix said tetchily. “Must have.”
“Where did you get this, manling?”
“Doctor Drexler.”
“He’s a man of many interests, your friend Drexler, if he owns books like this one.”
“You’ll get a chance to find out for yourself.”
“Will I indeed? How so?”
“Because we’re going with him to the morgue.”
Grey Seer Thanquol scurried backwards and forwards, pacing the floor of his lair like one of the captured humans he kept working the treadmills back in Skavenblight. His mind raced faster under the pressure of all the warpstone snuff he had consumed.
Still those verminous Clan Pestilens traitors had conspired to elude him. Their sorcery had proved effective, even against his most subtle and potent divinations. His spies had not been able to uncover another word about their location no matter how deep they dug. It was all very frustrating.
Somewhere deep in his bowels, Thanquol could sense with ominous certainty that the hour when the plague monks’ plan would be implemented was drawing very close. He knew that he must be correct in this, for in the past such premonitions had never been wrong. He was a grey seer, after all.
A terrible sense of impending doom filled Thanquol’s mind. He wanted to run for cover, to scurry to a hiding place, but right at this moment he could think of nowhere to go.
Plague, he kept thinking. Plague was coming.
“Good morning, Doctor Drexler,” the priest of Morr said, and coughed. He looked up from his table set in an alcove at the entrance to the city morgue. His black cowl hid his face, making him seem as sinister as the god he served. The air was filled with the smell of black roses, fresh-plucked from the Gardens of Morr. “What is it you require?”
“I would like to see the corpses of the latest plague victims.”
Felix was astonished at the calm manner in which the doctor made his request. Most of the people in the city would rather run a thousand miles than do what the doctor wanted to do. The priest obviously thought so too. He threw back the cowl of h
is robes to reveal a pallid, bony face framed by a stringy black beard.
“That is a most unusual request,” he said. “I will have to consult with my superiors.”
“As you wish,” Drexler said. “Tell them I simply want to ascertain whether all the victims died of the same disease or whether we’re going to have a variety of plagues to deal with this summer.”
The priest nodded and retreated within the shadowy depths of the temple. Somewhere off in the distance a great bell tolled gloomily. Somewhere, Felix knew, another funeral service was about to begin.
The priest returned presently. “The arch-lector says you may proceed,” he said. “However, he also asked me to tell you that most of the bodies have already been sent to the Gardens of Morr for internment. We only have the four who came in last night.”
“That should be sufficient,” Drexler said. “I hope.”
Felix, Gotrek and Doctor Drexler all paid the ceremonial copper piece and donned the black robes and headpieces of Morr. This was sacred ground, the priest told them, and it was needful that they do so. The robes had obviously been made for humans and the hems of Gotrek’s dragged along the floor. Without another word they set off into the gloomy interior of the mortuary.
It was cool and it was dark. The floors were clean, washed with some sacred unguents. The smell of attar of black roses was everywhere. It was not what Felix had expected. He had expected rot and the smell of spoiled meat. He had expected the scent of death.
The central chamber of the Death God’s house was arrayed with marble slabs. Upon each slab lay a corpse. Felix averted his eyes. The bodies belonged to people who had died under unusual circumstances and who needed special rites said over them to ensure their soul’s easy passage into the afterlife. Many of them were not pretty. On one slab lay the blue and bloated corpse of a fisherman which had obviously recently been dragged from the Reik. On another lay the body of a woman who had been hideously cut up and mutilated by some madman. They passed the body of a child which, Felix saw when he looked closer, had had its head separated from the body. He looked away swiftly.