The Method in the Madness

Nine breaths did Ortollos Sak wait before slipping into the winding back-alleys of Gildenhollow. Enough for the veteran dockworker to see the Freeguild patrols pass by on their nightly route. Enough for gloomy banks of cloud to obscure the faces of the alembic moons. Enough to become just one more shadow.

Secrecy and intrigue were offerings to the Ninefold Father. Just as importantly, the Order of Azyr was always watching. The hidden war between Ortollos’s ilk and Sigmar’s witch hunters had persisted for many a long year. Their names were known to the cults, discerned from stolen missives or whispered by daemonic patrons. Balthorial Shalyr. Hanniver Toll. Gildenhollow’s own Prelate of Vigilance, Tolomon du Majir. Equally, the eyes of the Order and the accursed Lord-Veritants saw further than many Magisters expected. More than one cult had been undone by the vengeance of Azyr. It was all part of the endless game.

But Ortollos had no time for games. He had been chosen for greater things.

His feet echoed across the silver-lined stones of the alleyway. One of Ortollos’s hands remained under his cloak, gripping tightly the package he had been sent to acquire. He stepped over the somnolent bodies of irondust addicts and maimed factory workers begging for scraps, rough-spun cloak ghosting centimetres above the ground. Under the moon’s lambent glare, the fabric appeared an iridescent purple.

The sanctuary wasn’t far. The Cult of the Bronze Vulture delighted in making their lairs amongst tap-houses, gambling dens, amidst the rafters of illegal fighting pits – places that the great and the good of Sigmar’s nascent empire chose to pretend did not exist. The doorway that granted entrance to the Molten Ingot, one of Gildenhollow’s many ale-houses, glowed with an inviting warmth. Ortollos ignored it, giving one more furtive glance around before slipping behind the building.

He soon found one brick amongst many marked with a subtly carved vulture’s skull. Crouching, Ortollos exhaled gently into the sigil. As he did so the mark pulsed with a vivid blue-pink light, glowing brighter as Ortollos offered a whispered code-phrase.

‘Three times three, the offerings be.’

A few moments passed before the wall folded inwards. Beyond the opening a spiral staircase wound down into the bowels of the Molten Ingot. Pausing only to invoke a brief cantrip, conjuring a golden raptor-mask to obscure his features, Ortollos stepped inside. Another cantrip saw an orb of flickering flame ignite before him as the wall closed. As the opening resealed itself with a thud, he stepped into the darkness.

The staircase terminated in a long corridor concealed amongst Gildenhollow’s sewer channels. Every other flagstone was inscribed with arcane symbols. From the ceiling hung shards of stolen metal and avian skulls, each marked with sigils of the Ninefold Father and studded with precious gemstones. A dimly lit chamber was visible at the corridor’s end, from which a sonorous chanting echoed. As he neared the chamber, the sound of the unnatural syllables fanned the fires of ambition within Ortollos. He had joined the Bronze Vulture precisely to learn such words of power. With this offering, he would surely move deeper into the cult’s circles.

A Tzaangor guardian emerged from behind a pillar to block Ortollos’s passage just before he could step into the central chamber. Its eyes were unblinking, its plumage threaded with topaz and moonstone. The cultist tried not to quail as he held the beast’s gaze. Seemingly satisfied, the beast nodded its horned head before stepping aside. Ortollos crossed the threshold and into the domed chamber in time to see the last captive die.

The prisoner – likely one of Gildenhollow’s many back-alley thugs – thrashed in their captors’ grip, caught on the precipice of the last change a moment before Magister Sakhormet dragged the crystalline blade over their neck. Blood spouted as the body slumped to the ground, joining eight others in deathly repose. Ortollos felt his gut churn. He had witnessed the bloody rituals of the Bronze Vulture before, but not enough to be desensitised to them. He steadied himself before glancing at the angular crystal set on a plinth at the centre of the corpse-pile. Within its depths, unknowable colours swirled. It was the vessel through which the cult contacted their infernal patrons, and Ortollos soon looked away as he felt his sanity quiver.

‘Brother,’ Sakhormet’s voice cut across the dockworker’s thoughts. Blood dripped from the Magister’s knife as he spoke; Sakhormet’s face had been turned inside-out, a gift from the Ninefold Father, muscle and skin writhing beneath an exposed skull covered with runic carvings. ‘You join us.’

‘I took the long way round, brother-magister. It seemed most prudent,’ Ortollos nodded as he stepped closer. Other masked Acolytes lurked in the shadows, watching him alongside hulking Tzaangors. Pausing to offer a bow to the daemon-crystal, Ortollos returned his gaze to the Magister. From beneath his cloak he produced the package he had hauled across the city, still wrapped in its satin cloth covering. ‘Brother Galan—’

‘Elixia twists under the gibbering moon’s light,’ Sakhormet said without preamble. ‘Galan is on his own. But that is above your station. Now … do you have it?’

Swallowing, Ortollos removed the shroud covering the secreted package. Revealed was a broken metal panel, inscribed with runes – either Azyrite or Hyshian, though Ortollos couldn’t tell which. As he touched the broken artefact, a mental fog suffused the dockworker’s mind. He fought to deny it even as the masked cultists around him shuffled closer for a better look.

‘Smugglers brought it in from the docks bordering the Shimmering Sound.’ Ortollos said, casting a glance to the daemon-crystal. ‘Just as the burning masters described. I don’t think they know what they had. When they found out I was willing to keep silent in return for this one piece, they were happy to trade.’

‘A fragment of the storm king’s shadow engines,’ Sakhormet whispered. With trembling, feather-scaled hands, the Magister took the item from Ortollos. The dock worker was happy to let him. Whispers from his fellow cult members filled the air as Sakhormet turned towards the daemon-crystal, dropping to a knee and raising the fragment high. ‘A tangible link to his vaults of the profane. With this in our possession, we will track down others of its ilk, and claim the treasures within in the name of the Ninefold Father.’

‘And he thanks you for it.’

The triumphant chanting of the Acolytes ceased as the words echoed. The Tzaangors trilled and twitched. As the temperature rose, Ortollos felt his stomach drop. He tried to stop shaking as he, and every other cultist, turned to the crystal. So violently did the prism pulse with unearthly light that it seemed it might explode.

The nine bodies around the plinth’s base convulsed. They writhed and rattled, before sitting up as one. The corpses were joined together in perverse geomantic shapes, their limbs and heads tilted and held aloft as though puppet strings tugged upon them. As they turned to look at Sakhormet, flickering flames burning within their eyes, their flesh ran like molten steel poured into a mold.

‘You do serve us well, little mortals,’ the corpses croaked, nine dry voices speaking as one. Within the crystal, light became shape. An avian head formed within, its beak long and hooked. From its eyes leaked thick plumes of bronze-coloured smoke.

‘You steal for us. You lie for us. You kill for us. And always to satiate the same desires. Power. Secrets. Change.’ The vulture-lord’s eyeless sockets lingered on the object Sakhormet held. Ortollos was suddenly glad the Magister had taken it. ‘You go places we cannot. And you bring us such pretty gifts.’

A cry went up as the crystal cracked horizontally, the top half tilting backwards like an unlocked chest. From within, two oversized talons reached out. They grasped Sakhormet tight; as the Magister wailed, his form twisting unnaturally, he and the object he held were dragged into the shimmering abyss within the crystal. It snapped shut in his wake. The face within was gone, but the presence remained.

‘Another secret, to lay before my master. No doubt he shall puzzle over this latest mystery most deeply. You are not the only beings to chase favour and status, ephemerals,’ the voice chuckled. ‘But now, I tire of your prattling. I think new supplicants are in order. Yet you begged for knowledge, and I shall provide. Meddle not in the games of gods, lest you become a piece on the board.’

From the far end of the corridor through which he’d entered, Ortollos heard the sound of a wall exploding inward, of pounding feet and echoing cries. The daemon’s voice echoed through his mind once more.

‘The smugglers were pleased with their lucky escape. A pity that they were struck by a sudden compulsion to turn themselves in to the Order. But fear not, light-fingered one – I do not think you will fall this day.’

Bolts of storm-magic exploded into the chamber. Acolytes were punched from their feet, or toppled backwards, their heads replaced with sprays of crimson gore. Robed warriors of the God-King burst into the chamber, blades drawn, bellowing in stentorian voices.

‘By order of the Prelate of Vigilance, heretics, consider yourselves judged in the God-King’s eyes!’

One of the Stormcasts looked directly at Ortollos. The warrior extended an arm before unleashing a burst of corposant power; the dockworker cringed backwards, squeezing his eyes shut, but before the bolt could connect a shimmering wall of violet force manifested to devour the spell. The Stormcast’s gaze was blocked as a Tzaangor lunged forwards and obscured Ortollos from view.

The dockworker was not about to squander the brief respite. He turned and ran, darting through the swirling melee and ducking beneath arcane missiles. Instinct led him to one of the many hidden exits to the cultic chamber; as the sound of battle raged, Ortollos slipped into the dripping sewer tunnels. His breathing pounded through his head as he ran.

‘Why? Why me?’

‘Because the Vulture must find a new nest, little mortal,’ whispered the voice from the daemon-crystal. ‘Sakhormet bored me. But in you, I see potential. Now go. Find me new souls with which to pluck the weave of fate.’

Ortollos couldn’t help but smile. Opportunity and disaster were but two sides of the same coin, for such was the nature of change.

And so, in the shadows of Sigmar’s empire, the endless game continued.

PRODUCED BY GAMES WORKSHOP IN NOTTINGHAM

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