THE CHAOS BENEATH
By Mark Brendan


IN THE DANK, subterranean depths of the Marienburg Grand Sewer network, more than effluent was being carried along the crumbling, cavernous conduits. The stark glare of the flaming torches held aloft by four sinister, robed figures projected dancing shadows upon the tortured frame of a man dragged along the waste channel between them.
The captive was clad in fine, black leather britches and riding boots. Above the waist he had been stripped, revealing a gaudy patchwork of lurid bruises and angry red weals where a lash had bitten him, and most disturbing of all a mass of blisters and scabs which traced an unearthly, sinuous pattern where he had recently been branded on his breast. The cluster of sores formed a circular hub, from which a broad point projected from the bottom left quadrant, and a lithe tail twisted away from the top right to form a design as strangely fluid as the flames which had imprinted it onto the victim's flesh. A sack of purple velvet covered the man's head and was securely knotted around his throat, so that he was forced to stumble along, being shoved, kicked and whipped in the correct direction.
Passing beyond the grand arches of the main channel, they entered a little-used part of the system, where the walls once more narrowed about them like the jaws of a great serpent. It was here that they came upon a bizarre little iron bound door and the journey came to its end as the cultist bearing the lash unlocked the portal and the group passed into the dim glow beyond.
The room within was of a comfortable size to accommodate perhaps twenty or more people and had a high, vaulted ceiling. Low swirls of thick, choking incense from braziers situated around the walls carpeted the tiled floor. The central area of this floor was dominated by a huge mosaic, with a pattern delineated in slivers of coloured glass, marble and shell which bore a strong resemblance to the brand seared on to the prisoner's torso. At the centre of the design, four shackles anchored to the floor by thick steel chains awaited a victim.
On the opposite side of the chamber from the door was a slightly raised platform, upon which stood a large throne of twisted black wood and purple velvet. A tall, feminine silhouette rose from this throne and came down from the platform to stand before the circle. Like the other cultists she wore a long, deep purple robe, but rather than being belted by a simple cord, hers was a thick leather belt with a large, wrought-iron skull for a clasp. Also, there were long vents up to her hips in the sides of the robes, beneath which she wore fine purple velvet trousers and soft, doeskin boots. The tall figure wore her hood down, in contrast to the other disciples, and her face was concealed by an ornate black ballroom mask shaped like a raven. Delicate mother-of-pearl inlay chased around the eye slits of the mask, behind which blazed violet irises, and edged the elegant beak too, whilst a spectacular spray of midnight black feathers held soft golden hair back from her temples.
'Let the offering be brought forward to the circle,' she announced in a clear, cultured voice. At her behest, the four cultists thrust their prisoner forward into the circle and more robed figures hurried forth from the shadows to spread-eagle him in the centre of the mosaic. Only once he was securely shackled to the floor was the bag removed from the prisoner's head. His face bore none of the marks of the torment his body had suffered in the cultists' care, and for the briefest of instants his clear grey eyes locked upon the dreamy violet orbits of the figure looming over him, before he closed his eyelids in despair and submission. His jaw was clean shaven, and his features lean and predatory, with a suggestion of strong lineage in both his high forehead, with its sweeping collar-length black hair, and in the long, straight line of his nasal bridge.
'Well, well, well,' the woman mocked. 'Obediah Cain, second lieutenant of the Church of Sigmar's Holy Inquisition in Marienburg. You are welcome as our very special guest of honour. Indeed, you might even say that we need you.'
'Do what you will with me, witch!' groaned the man on the floor. 'Remember that when judgement comes, it is final!'
'It is good that you have given up all notion of redemption, and you are now looking to history for vindication,' the masked woman spat. 'For when M'Loch T'Chort, Weaver of the Ways, High Daemonic Prince of Twisted Destiny and Misguided Fate, comes to seize possession of your miserable skin, the last thing he needs is some lost soul contesting his right to it.'
With that, she delivered a stinging kick to his ribs, causing him to whimper as the scabs on his brand cracked with the force.
'It's such a shame that we have to inflict punishment on your earthly clay before our lord can take up residence within it, but as you witch hunters are always so fond of demonstrating, the prisoner's cooperation isn't adequate grounds to carry on to the next stage of the procedure. You, more than anyone, should appreciate what is required to ensure the veracity of any actions or claims made by a prisoner, because, after all, their co-operation might be a falsehood to avoid torture. Isn't that the option presented to your victims, witch hunter?' she asked, bending down so that her face was close to his own pained visage. 'Isn't it, you pious worm?' she howled when he did not answer, and dug the points of her gauntleted fingers into the weeping wound on his chest.
'Yes! Yes it is, damn you!' sobbed the broken man squirming on the floor.
'Very good,' she said evenly, and stood up once more. 'Then let us begin the rite.'
The dozen or so cultists in the room took up positions around the circle and began to sway rhythmically, chanting in alien, melodious tongues an otherworldly mantra of damnation which rose up from the strange vaulted room and out into the still night beyond, inviting a thing which should not be into the realm of living men.
Led on by the strange, powerful sorceress, the cultists' performance became more frenetic, their exhortations more desperate, and a singular change began to take place within the eerily lit room. The heavy clouds of incense drifting languidly at waist height coalesced in the centre of the chamber, above the recumbent witch hunter, and then spiralled upwards into a point like some grotesque, ectoplasmic worm rearing its swollen bulk out of the foetid soil. The tip of the apparition dipped towards the unconscious man's face and infiltrated his mouth and nostrils, feeding itself, coil after coil into his twitching, choking body.
The ritual's leader suddenly ceased her rapturous chanting to command, 'It is time. Let the sacrifice be brought forth for the Sanguinary Binding!'
From a curtained alcove in the shadowy chamber, a night-spawned abomination of uncommon vileness shambled into the circle. It was a man in stature but, through constant exposure to the warping malignancy of the Chaos lord, Tzeentch, his head had puckered and inflated like an over-ripe fruit, the skin thick, wrinkled and lurid pink in hue, his mouth a broad, grinning slash filled with row after row of sharp, blackened fangs and his scalp studded with starfish's suckers in place of hair. His left arm, too, had become severely mutated and was grossly elongated and jointed in four places, covered in tough pink skin like his face, while the hand on the end of the offensive limb had grown to absurd proportions and its eight thick fingers were hollow tubes. In the daemonic limb he held a struggling lamb, while in his other, human hand he carried a large sacrificial knife. Taking up position over the witch hunter, the mutant prepared to complete the ceremony with a blood sacrifice.
Despite everything that Obediah Cain had been through, some spark of his original consciousness yet remained untainted by the invading entity, and the unacceptable presence of a Chaos mutant hovering over him stirred that faint ember into scintillating action. Cain did the only thing he could under the circumstances - he brought his knee up sharply, as far as the chains would permit, into the creature's shin. It was enough to cause the mutant's leg to buckle and deposit him in a heap on top of the witch hunter. The sacrificial lamb scurried free and gambolled around the room, adding to the confusion.
When the mutant picked himself up from the witch hunter's body, ready to give the prisoner one final taste of pain before the ritual erased his soul forever, pain and shock registered upon his grotesquely leering visage. Others, too, had noticed the unthinkable thing which had befallen their great plan and began gasping and crying out in fear and dismay.
'You fool! What have you done?' shrieked the sorceress.
The mutant backed away, shaking his bloated head, his eyes never leaving the terrible sight in the centre of the circle. The sacrificial knife jutted from beneath the chin of their prisoner - but worse than that an ephemeral glow was intensifying within Cain's open mouth and his cheeks were beginning to bulge with warp-born energies. Then the coruscating wash of power seemed to contract in upon itself.
The cultists eyed one another with deep trepidation. The mutant continued to back off, still shaking his head in pained denial.
Suddenly a brilliant, prismatic cascade of light erupted from the corpse's hideously stretched mouth, an otherworldly illumination which seemed to siphon the flesh from the cultists' bodies where it touched them, drawing out their substance in little lumps which evaporated within the searing beams. In the space of a minute, the screaming and pleading was done. A dozen charred skeletons clattered to the stone floor.
Obediah Cain's body writhed and jerked with unholy vigour, then sat bolt upright tearing the steel bonds from their fittings as though they were a child's paper chains. With an impatient gesture he yanked the knife from his throat and cast it aside. After a deep, gurgling cough, he clamped a hand over the hole in his voice box and uttered in a horrible, reedy, burbling timbre, 'Nec-ro-mancer! I must find a necromancer!'

'I'M SORRY, DE la Lune, but after careful consideration the Guild's senior tutors have concluded that you are simply not possessed of the finer skills of meditation and concentration required to make the grade as a qualified Wizard in this academy.'
Michael de la Lune perched on the edge of a comfortable leather chair in the opulent office of Paracelsus van der Groot, the Marienburg College of Magic's master of apprentices. Across the magnificent teak table, strewn with arcane trinkets and scrolls, van der Groot was telling him the awful, unbearable news that he had failed his apprenticeship. De la Lune was a slight man, who had witnessed the passing of no more than twenty summers, and his boyish, Bretonnian face wore an expression of crestfallen astonishment. A lock of dark, wavy hair fell across his forehead as he hung his head in defeat.
'But don't take on so, lad,' continued the corpulent van der Groot, toying with one of his enormous rings in embarrassment, 'There are plenty of careers wanting for resourceful, educated fellows like yourself. Have you considered perhaps something in one of the mercantile professions - they're always looking for accountants and administrators. Or if you still want to work with magic, how about the Alchemists' Guild? I know a few people there and everything they do is academic. Not quite so esoteric as our stuff, eh?
'I could get in touch with-'
Against all the protocols, the young man dared to interrupt one of the masters and spoke for the first time since entering the office. 'Please sir? By your leave, I think I'd just like to collect my belongings and be gone.'
'Yes, yes. I understand lad,' van der Groot said breezily. 'I know it's a sore blow to you young ones to be told that you've failed, but only a few ever succeed. There's no shame in it, so you stay in touch and-'
There was the sound of the door shutting.
Michael strode down the tangled web of corridors which burrowed through the great edifice that was the Marienburg College of Magic. He kept his head down on the way to his private quarters, ignoring the greetings of other wizards of his acquaintance along the route. His head was a whirl of confusion and resentment. What had he done to fail the test? He had thought this establishment to be an enlightened one. After all, hadn't they offered him a second chance after he had failed the entrance exam to the exalted Altdorf college. Though he had long suspected that entrance to Altdorfs college had more to do with money than ability, and he reasoned that his Bretonnian lineage being of freeman stock, rather than the aristocracy who more usually gained admittance there, was the real reason that he failed the exam. However, he couldn't understand why the establishment which had eventually permitted him entry to the field of his beloved magical research would now turn their backs on him. Their reasoning seemed to be beyond him.
Michael reached his spartan quarters and began packing such meagre possessions as he owned into the sling bag which had accompanied him from his home city of Lyonesse four years earlier. What would become of him now? It was a bitter irony that he had travelled so far, learning two new languages in his pursuit of magical expertise and the Classical script employed in conjuration, just to seemingly have to return to Bretonnia with nothing to show for it but a couple of apprentices' parlour tricks. Oh, he might stay in Marienburg as van der Groot had suggested, but that would be taking an almighty risk with his dwindling funds. If he couldn't find some way to sustain himself here then he might end up a beggar or worse, and he was in no mood for taking chances at present. It would be much more sensible, he reasoned, to use what money he had left to buy passage back to his homeland whereupon he could take up employment in his father's textile trade, much though the idea pained him. On the face of things, however, he didn't see any other reasonable options open to him.
'Damn it! Everything is a mess. Damn magic and damn merchants too!' he muttered, swinging the heavy satchel over his shoulder. With that, he left the little room he had inhabited for the past four years for the final time and headed out of the building.

BLINKING OWLISHLY IN the light of day, Michael passed beyond the portals and out into Guilderstraase, pausing briefly to hand his room keys over to the gatekeeper. Eyes which burned with intent unknown marked him as he proceeded down the broad thoroughfare, then a dark figure hurried from the alley whence it had observed him so that it might intercept the youth before he passed from sight.
Michael was still in a condition of shock, his thoughts lost in fanciful notions of how he would spend the rest of his life, when a hand clapped down heavily upon his shoulder. Michael almost leapt clean out of his skin at the sudden contact and whirled to face whoever it was that presumed to be so familiar.
It was a tall man, garbed in the traditional attire of the religious puritans who made the vanquishing of heretics their lives' work: wide-brimmed hat, leather britches and high riding boots, a half cloak worn over a blouson shirt, and a burnished steel gorget to protect his neck from Vampires. At his belt he wore a long, heavy bladed sabre and a fine duelling pistol, along with pouches for powder and shot.
'Forgive me,' wheezed the stranger in a voice curiously thin and consumptive for one so impressive of stature. 'It was not my intention to startle you.'
A witch hunter! Michael's heart dropped into the pit of his stomach, just when he thought things could get no worse, along came the practitioner of wizardry's worst nightmare. These religious zealots were notoriously indiscriminate in their inquisitions, and many an innocent whose only crime was an interest in sorcery had suffered torture and death under their regime. It would be a bitter irony indeed if he were to get into trouble for practising magic now of all times, and he briefly wondered if the gods were having sport with him.
'What can I do for you?' asked the young man guardedly.
'Please. You have nothing to fear from me,' continued the witch hunter in his unhealthy tone of voice, 'My name is Obediah Cain. Would I be correct in assuming that you have come from the College of Magic?'
'Well, yes, but I won't be going back there. My apprenticeship came to an end today, and I shan't be going on to indoctrination in the higher mysteries.'
'Ah. I am sorry to hear that,' answered the man, his eyebrow and the corner of his mouth raising a little in unison. 'Despite that, I should still very much like to talk with you concerning your days at the college. If you can spare me the time over a drink that is?'
'Alas, it seems that I have all the time in the world now, and a drink would be most welcome at this juncture.'

THE TULIP WAS a ribald establishment in a side street off Guilderstraase, patronised mainly by labourers and menial workers. Cain had suggested it so that they were not likely to encounter any of Michael's erstwhile colleagues, and any reservations the youth had about entering such a bawdy house in his academian attire were dispelled when he saw how the presence of the witch hunter discouraged the clientele from even a cursory glance in their direction.
Cain himself refused to drink with Michael, proclaiming that his religious ascetism would not permit him to partake of alcohol, but he generously provided the youth with a jug of foaming table beer from which he could refill his tankard.
'So what's this all about then?' enquired Michael once he had properly introduced himself to the sinister witch hunter. He was eager, he realised, to get this encounter over with, since he instinctively mistrusted this strange man. But at the same time a resentment for the world of magic and wizards which had so cruelly rejected him was beginning to fester in the undertow of his shattered emotions - a resentment which was stirring up faint notions of respect for the work of such men as Cain, even as he spoke.
'As you can imagine, where I am involved it is about heresy, blasphemy and cult activity!' Obediah Cain smiled.
'You surely can't think that I-' Michael blurted, but he was silenced by an impatient wave from the witch hunter.
'No, no, no, lad! Of course I don't think a failed apprentice is involved. But answer me this: why do you think capable young men like yourself fail at that academy all the time?'
'Well, I mean, the course is very rigorous, isn't it? It takes a high degree of spiritual fortitude as well as academic prowess. They told me that only rare individuals are cut out for such a challenge,' Michael answered carefully, not yet prepared to damn his erstwhile colleagues, but somewhere deep inside he was starting to entertain the notion that damnation was perhaps their lot.
'Ha!' Cain spat. 'And do you suppose that all those bloated old men up at the college are possessed of such purity? Don't you believe it, lad! Why, you can reckon the sins of the flesh on their fat carcasses like the bites on that serving wench's neck. They haven't the moral fibre to do what they ask of you young apprentices who fail, but they'll happily take your money. No, the easy route to arcane power is the path trodden by their well-shod soles, and that means bargains with daemonic powers. Dark magic and necromancy, pacts with Chaos daemons is their mystical currency, you mark my words. Now listen well, young Michael de la Lune. I have it, from an unimpeachable source, that there are ancient books of necromancy, and the unguents used in the mummification rituals of distant Araby, in the college libraries.'
'No, it's surely impossible,' Michael gasped, shaking his head to clear the ale fumes, aghast at the enormity of what he was hearing. 'I spent four years in that place. I would have known.'
'Do you think that such a well-established secret society would reveal itself to a mere apprentice? Even one under their own roof? Now I'm not saying that everyone at the college who isn't an apprentice is in on this. That would be madness.' Cain smiled enigmatically. 'But certainly the top echelon of the guild are guilty of the vilest crimes against the Church. I'm appealing to you now to perform a deed that could save countless souls. You're the only one who can do it Michael. I can't go in there, so I want you to go and steal the books and the oils and give us solid evidence to bring these blackguards to trial.'
It all seemed to make sense to Michael in some awful, surreal sort of way. He prayed earnestly that the witch hunter with the strange voice was labouring under a gross misapprehension, but now that those things had been said, he knew he had to find out whether it was true for his own peace of mind. He had spent such a large part of his life within those walls, under the tutelage of those implicated, that he must discover the truth. And if the truth should prove as the witch hunter would have it? Then damn all practitioners of magic! He would name every last one of them to clear the taint of their sorcery from his soul. He must keep reminding himself that he was no longer a wizard, and the only thing of any consequence now was the pursuit of truth. He had been lied to for long enough; although Michael knew not what was to become of him in the years to come, he determined that honesty would characterise it.
'How will I know?' Michael asked quietly, 'You said yourself that such a society, if it exists, has kept its secrets well hidden.'
Cain smirked triumphantly and reached down inside his boot.
'I have a map.'

MICHAEL EMERGED FROM his hiding place in one of the smaller, and lesser-used libraries of the Marienburg College of Magic. It was a strange twist of circumstance indeed which had caused him to return to this building the very next day after he had been evicted from it.
Obediah Cain had remained with Michael during the previous day, and had provided for the youth's comfort generously, paying from his own purse for both their lodgings. The next morning Cain had instructed him on using the map and drilled him thoroughly on the need for secrecy in the mission he was about to perform for the good of the Old World. Cain had also provided him with a curious little serpentine charm of blackest obsidian, hung upon a pendant of brass. The witch hunter assured him that the talisman would negate the power of any wards he might encounter in liberating the evidence he sought, but also warned him that whilst wearing it he should be quite unable to use any of his own magical powers, such as they were.
As to what pretences Michael would employ to gain access to the college, Cain left him to his own devices. So Michael had simply used Paracelsus van der Groot's invitation to keep in touch in order to convince the gatekeeper to permit him access.
Following the spidery lines traced upon the parchment map, the young man crept stealthily through the familiar halls. Although it was late at night, he knew there would still be many powerful Wizards awake within these ancient walls.
After a fraught journey, he eventually arrived at the location of his quest. The Library of Forbidden Mysteries was on a floor which had always been deemed off-limits to apprentices and it was a part of the building he had never before visited, since he was an obedient student. Although the room was unlocked, various magical alarms and warding devices existed to discourage the excessively curious. Those who had tried in the past to gain unwarranted access to this place had paid the price of their folly by expulsion from the academy, or worse in some cases.
The atmosphere within was one of timeless serenity, and thus far the power of the witch hunter's talisman seemed to be holding out. Most of the dusty volumes on the creaking shelves seemed to be historical texts warning of the dark side of magic, texts which chronicled and cautioned the unwary against the machinations of Chaos and evil rather than actually instructed one in the Dark Ways. Nevertheless, even the knowledge that such practices existed at all was deemed too unsafe to reveal to impressionable apprentices.
According to the parchment given to him by Cain, the things he sought were in a safe behind the large portrait of the rather stern-looking founder of the college, Zun Mandragore, that hung upon the back wall. Perspiration pricked Michael's forehead as he tremulously reached his hand out to the heavy frame of the picture. Gently sliding the portrait to one side the map proved true, for sure enough a bulky steel safe was embedded in the wall.
But before he could react, a previously invisible rune on the metal safe door blazed with arcane power. There was no time to react: a brilliant bolt of cerulean lightning arced from the rune at his hand... only to fizzle into harmless ozone an instant before he bettayed himself with a scream. Gingerly Michael shook his head as the coppery tang of blood wet his tongue where he had bitten his lip in alarm, and then resumed his task with vigour, desiring only to be free of this oppressive place. The world of Magic had turned upon him so quickly and profoundly now that he no longer experienced wonder and awe in its presence, just fear and revulsion.
Feverishly Michael trialled the combination provided with the parchment, vague questions about how such a map had come into existence subsumed by his excitement. The door swung open without a sound. Before him lay an enormous volume, bound in what seemed to be very soft, thin leather, entitled Liber Nagash vol. Ill, together with six stoppered vials of brackish liquid. He quickly stuffed the contents of the safe into his satchel and fled the room.

'BOUND IN THE skin flayed from the backs of living men,' Obediah Cain breathed almost reverentially. A small table set before him in their small upstairs room in the Tulip inn was dominated by the hulking tome. 'It was a Classical translation,' the witch hunter had been explaining, 'of one of the original nine treatises on necromancy penned by the Supreme Lord of the Living Dead, Nagash of Nagashizzar himself. And here too, the sacred preserving fluids of the ancient Tomb Kings,' continued Cain in a sort of distant rapture. 'Natron, imbued with the dust of cadavers, to bind a spirit to empty, dead flesh, and protect the carnal vessel from the ravages of time.'
'However, I grow weary now, young Michael, and I must rest. Know that there is yet one more thing I would ask of you on the morrow before you shall be properly compensated for your service. A dangerous thing in which we both must share but, before all that, I would urge you to read... here for example...' A slender finger tapped the dry parchment page. 'The binding ritual used to create mummified undead creatures such as the Tomb Kings themselves. Read this and drink deeply of the corruption and easy power with which your former tutors dabble. Forewarned is, after all, forearmed.'
With that, Cain swung his legs up onto his bunk and passed immediately into such a deep stupor that it almost seemed to Michael that he was not breathing at all.
It seemed odd to Michael, who in his own estimation might be a touch naive but certainly wasn't gullible, that this champion of holiness, this supposed paladin of temperance, should encourage him, a young disgrunded practitioner of magic denied the way to naturally progress his art, to read forbidden texts. As far as Michael knew, one could be burned at the stake for simply having seen such a work as Liber Nagash, never mind actually having read it. The young man suddenly grew very suspicious and deeply afraid of his strange new mentor.
However, he determined to read the extract, as Cain had decreed, in order to perhaps gain a clue as to what was going on, but no more. He would have to play along for the time being, until he found out what Cain's game was and then act in whatever small way he could. He was scared, but a sudden determination not to mess this up, as he had done the rest of his life, steeled him and prevented him from bolting from the room that instant and catching the first stagecoach to Bretonnia. Eyes darting sideways, as if he dared not the read the words he was even now taking in, Michael began to read.

IF ANYTHING, DESPITE his long rest, the witch hunter seemed even wearier the next day. Michael himself didn't exactly feel in the peak of condition himself, and noted the deep black rings under his own eyes whilst shaving his downy chin in the tiny silver mirror he carried. It was afternoon, Michael having spent most of the night poring over the crumbling pages of Liber Nagash's mummification ritual. Abhorrent lore permeated his mind, but unlike weaker men, Michael had no desire to exploit this easy power, which he knew would only lead to self-serving evil. Nevertheless, a part of his innocence had gone forever with the knowledge that vast earthly gain could be bought for the meagre price of one's soul. His optimistic idealism, already damaged by rejection from the college, was further undermined with the realisation that in these dark times there would be no shortage of desperate people prepared to pay such a price. Somewhere deep within his soul, a vow to set this bitter world of greed and opportunism to rights was starting to take shape.
For his daemonic part, M'Loch T'Chort could feel the hold he had over Cain's body growing weaker by the hour. He knew that he did not have much time left to salvage his diabolic plot. He was pleased to note the taint of horror on the boy, and could sense a nascent treachery flowering in him. Although the daemon prince could not read the minds of men, he was possessed of certain intuitions for the darkness in their hearts, and he felt assured that Michael's corruption was now advanced enough to offer the young man a daemonic bargain. Until that time came, he must conserve his energy.
Michael found the witch hunter to be uncommunicative for the remainder of the day, and noted how he had never once seen the man eat or drink anything. When Michael suggested they dine, Cain grunted noncommitally and tossed a few coppers in the youngster's direction, but did not stir from his bunk when Michael left the room and descended the stairs to the bar alone.

WHEN THE EVENING finally drew around, the witch hunter was suddenly galvanised into action. The cadaverous figure rushed around, collecting up his belongings and instructing Michael to bring the oils and the book. Michael hurried to comply, fear of Cain and curiosity about his intent blending in equal measure to bring about his obedience. The witch hunter was obviously in a hurry to be away from the Tulip, and Michael almost had to run in order to keep pace as Cain strode out of the premises.
'Where are we going now?' Michael enquired guardedly as they left the inn.
Cain smiled in a paternal way. 'To the sewers, lad. There is to be a ritual this very night and I need you with me.'
'Why don't you just inform the authorities and let them deal with it? It sounds terribly dangerous.'
'Ah,' said Cain with a snort, 'we prefer to work independently of such institutions, and I want you to positively identify the participants. We'll observe quietly and bring them to trial later, so I can guarantee your safety.'
This explanation rang false to Michael but, with no one else to turn to, he knew he had to rely on his own resources to get to the bottom of this mystery. So it came to pass that he found himself scurrying along behind the bobbing lantern of the witch hunter on the slippery walkways of Marienburg's sewer network. They had entered through a disguised door in the cellar of a silent, shuttered town house. Before descending, Cain had slipped away for a moment before returning bearing long robes of purple velvet. They were a disguise, Cain explained, that would allow them to get close to the ritual.
After slogging through the foul, dank underground for what seemed like hours, eventually they came to the threshold over which, only scant days before, the cultists had dragged the tortured body of the second lieutenant of the Church of Sigmar's Holy Inquisition. M'Loch T'Chort, struggling to maintain a grip on the dead body of Cain, went about the room, igniting flambeaux held in sconces to illuminate the scene for a plainly shocked Michael.
Grey traces of ash delineated the skeletons of those whom the daemon prince had consumed in panic, in order to fuel the strength he had needed to hold on to the rapidly expiring body of the witch hunter. In one corner of the chamber, a lamb stood tethered, contentedly munching on a bale of hay. M'Loch T'Chort had clearly made some preparations for his salvation before ascending to the surface of Marienburg.
'What- what is going on?' Michael asked slowly.
'You are,' the witch hunter hissed. 'To better things!' He leapt up to the throne and snatched up a parchment.
'You see this?' he continued in a wild voice. 'This is a contract I have prepared for the one who would solve my dilemma. This contract holds the keys to the greatest magical mysteries of the age! Its clauses have been set down in the name of the unchallenged master of magic, Lord Tzeentch himself! Aid me now and sorceries beyond your wildest imaginations shall be yours to command, if you but dedicate yourself to the service of the Changer of the Ways!'
Michael stood open mouthed in astonishment. He had expected some sort of elaborate con trick, but nothing of this magnitude. 'So you're not a real witch hunter then?' was the best he could manage in that frozen moment.
Ignoring the young man, Cain's face become deadly serious and his hand grasped the hilt of his sabre. 'I am the High Daemonic Prince of Twisted Fate and Misguided Destiny, from the nethermost planes of the Void!' he hissed. 'Do you accept these terms?'
Michael's mind raced. He was terrified, but also strangely thrilled. Temptation was before him, or death. What would he do?
'I- I accept,' he announced, struggling to keep a level tone of voice. 'What is your dilemma?'
'Excellent!' Cain wheezed. 'I will talk plainly. I am a spirit from beyond this world, and the body I have acquired is dead. It cannot be brought back to life, and I do not have the energy to sustain it much longer. However, the necromantic process of mummification will preserve the corpse and allow a spirit to control it. I believe you are now familiar with that ritual. I want you to carry out such a ritual and then spill the lamb's blood over me, a requirement I have as a daemon to indefinitely exist upon this realm, for reasons too complex to explain to you just yet. I will now prepare.'
Cain hastily stripped off his clothes and lay in the circle on the floor. Michael saw now the hideous wound that was the source of the witch hunter's speech impediment, and no doubt the demise of the real Obediah Cain. He wondered briefly how the great man had come to such a tragic end, then falteringly began the rite. He poured the natron potion over the body before him in the prescribed fashion, enunciating the words from the pages of Liber Nagash, using the vocal techniques he learned at the college to craft the phrases into vibrations of mystical power:
Within moments, dark energy gathered in the room, it's easy, exhilarating flow threatening to consume the boy with more and greater secrets yet. There was the scent of lightning in the air, and death.
When he completed the mummification process, Michael untethered the lamb and fetched it across to the ritual circle. Then, taking a deep breath, he reached down for the sacrificial knife. Now would come the part of the ritual which completed the binding.
However, instead of picking up the dagger, at the very last moment Michael swept up the witch hunter's sabre instead. Its wicked steel blade incised the still, dark air with a hissing silver arc as it plunged towards the form on the floor. For the second time in its short existence, the lamb had a narrow escape and skipped away unharmed as Obediah Cain's blood poured out onto the mosaic. There was no redemption for the daemon prince this time. The ex-apprentice had totally severed Cain's head. The glassy eyes blinked once in astonishment before expiring forever.
'Never underestimate humans, daemon filth!' Michael gasped, still clutching the sword in both hands, his whole body heaving in uncontrollable spasms.
M'Loch T'Chort's grasp upon the Earthly Plane had not totally loosened yet, however. Tendrils of vapour began to emanate from the corpse's neck, rapidly ballooning into a twisted, ropy tentacle. Behind the tentacle a burgeoning cloud of foul gases pumped out of the awful, headless body. As it formed, howling, enraged mouths manifested across its horrendous surface. It was a dank, nebulous obscenity which writhed and billowed before Michael's panic-stricken eyes with an oozing, hypnotic plasticity.
It reared up before the young man as a towering column of smoking, stinking Chaos, its absolute horror profoundly changing his outlook on the world forever, and turning his luxuriant black locks snow white in the passing of but an instant in its unholy presence.
'Innn-ssect!' sputtered the ephemeral nightmare. 'I sshaall crussshh you!'
And then the most intolerable of all the violations of nature, beyond anything Michael ever dreamt possible, unfolded before him. For the headless body of Cain rose jerkily to its feet. It groped towards him, the dank cloud of daemonic essence dancing above it, whispering its vengeance in grossly distorted tongues. It was all too much and Michael turned and fled for the door, sick with the knowledge that humanity could never stand against abomination of this magnitude.
Before he could make good his escape, though, M'Loch T'Chort reached out purposefully with Cain's hand, making a curious sign with the fingers, and the door slammed shut with such force that the brickwork of its frame cracked from the impact.
'Now, boy!' wheezed the daemon. 'I will flay the meat from your bones and eat your very soul!'
In panic, Michael shrunk against the wall, trying to steel himself for the inevitable end and turned his eyes away. White hot light burst all around him. Michael was shocked rigid and, blinking his eyes seconds later, he wondered if he was in the Halls of Morr.
But no, he was still in the chamber and had somehow survived the daemon's magical assault. Not three paces from him, he saw to his horror, the last wisps of M'Loch T'Chort slithered free from Cain's ruined neck and the witch hunter's corpse slumped, almost gratefully it seemed, to the ground.
The daemon was yet abroad, though, hovering like a wrathful thunderhead of pure magical essence in the centre of the room, swelling rapidly as hatred and rage fuelled its murderous purpose. Knowing that it had to be the end for him this time, Michael's mind, which had been feverishly calculating ways to survive this ordeal quite simply overloaded, and pure instinct took over. Rolling himself into a tight ball on the floor, he unconsciously clutched the amulet at his neck and prayed over and over to Sigmar as the hell-begotten daemon cloud washed over him. There was an awful, agonised wailing like the lament of a legion of tortured spirits... then nothing.
After a moment, Michael risked opening his eyes again, just in time to watch the last flickering trails of M'Loch T'Chort's magical form disappearing between his fingers, into the curious little obsidian talisman he wore at his throat - the very talisman that the fiend had given him.

'SO THAT WAS a daemon,' Michael said to himself.
He looked thoughtfully at the remains of Cain, who had given his life in the battle against these plagues and vexations of decent folk, and reached for the sword with which the witch hunter had set out to right such wrongs. Hefting the sabre and picking up the pistol from the floor, he gauged the weight of them both. They felt good. He had carried on Cain's good work, ensuring that the heretic-slayer's death had not been in vain.
It had been the first thing he had done right in his entire life, he reflected.
'Truth? Inquisition? Balance?' he muttered, donning the wide-brimmed hat that Obediah Cain would definitely be needing no longer, and scooping up the other belongings of the late witch hunter.
'Work to be done,' Michael de la Lune, one-time apprentice sorcerer, said in a stronger, more determined voice as he left behind the carnage of the small cultists chamber. As he strode through the sewers, a strange gleam shone in his eye and he clutched the witch hunter's sabre in his white-knuckled fist.