William King - The Queen's assassin

He peered down into the vat. The fluid churned and he thought he made out two dark shapes down there. An almost overpowering urge to bend closer and look in filled his mind. He fought it back. He knew the price such inquisitiveness could exact from bitter experience. He was somehow not surprised when a head broke surface. He found himself face to face with a pale animated corpse, blood dripping from its hair and open mouth and eye-sockets. It reached for him, and instinctively he brought the blade up into the guard position as Karim has taught him. The point of his blade almost touched the hellish thing's chest.

It did not stop the creature. It pushed forward, trying to clamber out of the blood-filled tub despite the point piercing its breast. Rik leaned forward, putting all his weight on his front leg as he drove the blade home. Dark fluid flowed. There was an odd sizzling sound and the smell of burning flesh as the magical blade bit deep. Wisps of smoke flowed from the wound, more reddish black fluid dribbled from the corners of the corpse's mouth. It slid forward along the blade reaching for him. Its yellow-toothed, grey-gummed smile was ghastly, for there was no expression in its filmed, dead eyes.

Rik sprang back, ripping his blade free. From out of the gloom something streaked by. It buried itself in one eye of the creature and came out the other side. A moment later Rik realised it was a black fletched arrow. Barely a heartbeat later, another one took out the other eye. The corpse tumbled forward and lay still on the ground.

Everyone stood frozen like statues for a long minute while they waited to see what would happen next. Eventually Asea broke the tableau and advanced to inspect the corpse and the bubbling vat of hell-broth it had emerged from. She sniffed the air.

She swept over to the nearest of the corpses. The stink was awful. There was a suggestion of rot and chemicals and something else, curdled milk perhaps. Asea bent over the corpse, took out a small steel pin from her purse and collected a sample of the nauseating fluid. She studied it quite closely, sniffing it. Rik wondered how she could do that without showing any signs of illness. He supposed that after two millennia of practicing sorcery you could get used to anything.

"What is it, Milady?"

"Necroplasma," she said.

"What?"

"Necroplasma. It is a substance used by alchemists and necromancers when re-animating corpses. It is based on blood and used instead of it. You drain the blood from a corpse, fill it full of chemicals, perform certain unholy rituals over it and then re-inject it into the dead body to animate it."

"It's obviously been used here then."

"Nothing much escapes your keen eye, does it, Rik?" He looked at her sharply. Asea was not often given to the use of sarcasm. Perhaps she was feeling more strain than she showed.

"What is going on here, Milady? Why would anybody want to make these things?"

"A good question, Rik, and one to which there are several answers. The most obvious one is that they were making soldiers from the corpses."

"One cellar full would hardly be enough to hamper our whole army."

"Indeed, therefore it would be perhaps be wise to assume that there is more than one hiding hole for these things."

"Perhaps it was only one Necromancer going about his business."

"It would be nice to think that, but these days I find myself overly suspicious."

"If it's any consolation I share that trait. What are we going to do now?"

Asea examined the alchemical furnace under the vat. It was a complex device and she studied the workmanship almost admiringly. "We shall empty this vat and bring this equipment up into the light. I want to study it and see what clues I can find about its builder."

Rik wondered if that was the only reason she wanted to study it. In his association with the Lady Asea, he had discovered she was possessed of a certain fascination with the darkest of lore. There were times when he found that quite worrying about his patron.

He moved round the corner of the room. Looking behind the hanging corpses, he saw that there was another door that had been concealed by their bulk.

“I think I’ve found something,” he said. He picked the lock and opened the door. It swung ominously open.

The area Rik had found was much bigger than the cellar, and it was full of machinery. Asea pushed through with her wand and illuminated the area. Rik made out a vast complex of brass pipes and alembics. There were more corpses on tables. Someone had been dissecting one. Others had pipes stuck into their arms and had a strange shrunken look.

“What now?” Rik asked. He did not like the look of this in the slightest. There was something very strange about the bodies on the tables. He moved over to the one on the dissection table. It had a weird elongated look and its skin had a scaly quality. Vestigial fangs filled its mouth.

“Bloody hell,” said the Barbarian, pushing up behind Rik. “It’s a ghoul. Somebody’s made a fair mess of it too.”

He was not wrong. The flesh of the stomach had been flayed away, and various organs had been removed. Judging by the expression on its face, it had been alive at the time. Or as alive as such creatures ever got. Blackened, diseased-looking kidneys and other entrails half-filled the abdomen still. There was something odd about it. It took him a while to realise what.

“No blood,” he said.

“No bodily fluids of any kind, I would guess,” said Asea. She pointed at the pipes that ran into the bodies. Rik followed her gesture and noticed that the metalwork all flowed towards a complex of vats and alchemical engines.

“Why?” Rik asked. “Is somebody draining their bodies to make potions?”

“I don’t know. What could anybody hope to gain from the bodily fluids of ghouls? I know of no spells or alchemical serums that require them. I don’t like this at all. Everything here is in working order. It looks as if the owner just left.”

“Perhaps we should put a guard on the place?”

Asea nodded, preoccupied. She began to search the place. She found some leather bound books on the shelves at the back of the laboratory.

“Anything useful?” Rik asked.

“I don’t know. This seems to be gibberish. It’s most likely written in some personal cipher. It may take some time to break.”

“Malkior claimed that there were many Thanatomancers at work in the Dark Empire. Is this the sort of thing they would do?”

Asea nodded. “It has the feel of their peculiar madness. I just can’t work out what exactly this was intended for.”

“But you are going to find out.”

“Our lives may depend on that.”

The voices whispered in Rik’s head. They liked this place. They really liked it. He shuddered and made his way out, even as Asea called for Sardec and gave him instructions to see that this place was sealed off.

Jaderac watched Asea and her minions emerge from the building and cursed. The warning from his brothers had come just in time. A few minutes later and he would have been found in situ, not hiding in the shadows of this ruin. Fortunately most of what they needed was away now, shifted by dead of night to abandoned mausoleums in the Grand Cemetery, the contents already being put to good use in preparation for tomorrow night’s ritual. At least there was nothing in the lab that would lead back to him.

He pulled his cloak tight against the cold and seethed with fury, wondering who had betrayed him. Was it that dolt Sardontine? Or that treacherous little bitch Tamara? She had been playing her cards very close to her chest recently. Rumour had it that her father was in Halim, but Jaderac was inclined to discount that. What would he be doing here? He should be heading back to Askander to contest control of the Brotherhood with Lord Xephan, his replacement as Chancellor and as head of their secret order.