The Enemy Within by Richard Lee Byers - (ebook by Undead) Read Free Book Online Page A

last time: will you carry out your end
of our bargain, without any more foolishness?”
    “Yes,” Dieter groaned.
    “I’m glad to hear it. I’m afraid the caravan is long gone by
now, but don’t worry about it. My friends and I will take you to Altdorf
ourselves.”

 
 
CHAPTER FOUR
     
     
    Jarla and Adolph led Dieter down a short flight of steps to a
door below street level. Adolph pounded on it, and then, as the wait for a
response dragged on, growled, “Come on, come on.”
    Dieter sympathised with his impatience. In the wake of their
encounter with the fiery serpent, he was just as eager to get off the street,
even though he realised that for him, it would only mean heading into new
danger.
    Finally a small panel in the centre of the door slid open.
Despite the darkness, Dieter could just make out the gleam of an eye on the
other side of the peephole.
    “It’s us!” Adolph said. “Jarla and me. Let us in.”
    “Of course, dear,” quavered a scratchy woman’s voice. Dieter
heard a bar slide in its brackets, and then the door creaked open.
    On the other side stood an old woman clad in a nightcap,
nightgown, ratty slippers and a crocheted shawl. Her stooped, skinny frame
looked fragile as an eggshell, she had the serene, gentle face of a perfect
grandmother, and all in all, on first impression seemed as unlikely a Chaos
cultist as Jarla.
    Or at least she did until she caught sight of Dieter standing
behind his companions. Then, where another person’s eyes might have widened in
surprise, hers narrowed, and just for an instant, her pale, wrinkled features
seemed calculating and sly.
    She ushered her callers into a dark space illuminated only by
the red coals glowing in the hearth, then, moving with a quickness that belied
her years, barred the door behind them. After that, though, she doddered. She
used the embers to light a punk, which in turn served to kindle two stubby
tallow candles and an oil lamp.
    As the sources of light wavered to life one by one, they
revealed that the old woman occupied a sizeable portion of the building’s cellar
or conceivably even all of it. Suffusing the air with their aromas, bundles of
dried herbs hung from the ceiling, and pots of moss, mould and mushrooms sat on
a table alongside a chopper, mortar, pestle, forceps and a lancet. Tattered,
yellowed anatomical diagrams, inaccurate in certain respects, hung on the walls,
and a stained cot sat in one corner.
    “I take it,” she said, “that this is the unfortunate fellow
you told me about.”
    “Yes,” Jarla said, “Dieter, but he isn’t what I thought he
was. Something happened, and he showed he already knows how to work magic. Even
better than Adolph, maybe.” Then, realising what she’d said, she tensed as if
she expected her fellow cultist to berate or even strike her. In fact, he
glowered, but let it go at that.
    The old woman beamed at Dieter. “I can see we have a great
deal to talk about. My name is Solveig Weiss, but everyone calls me Mama
Solveig, or just Mama. I’m a midwife, a healer, and something more. I assume you
already have some inkling what, or my young friends wouldn’t have brought you
here. But where are my manners, keeping you all standing? Please, pick up the
lights and follow me.”
    Dieter took one of the candles and a drip of molten wax stung
his finger. Mama Solveig led them out of the clinic and into the area that
apparently served as her parlour, where they all settled on one shabby piece of
furniture or another.
    “Tea?” Mama asked, and looked disappointed when they all
declined. “Well, just let me know if you change your minds. Now let’s have the
story.”
    Jarla started it, but once she reached the part where she
went to fetch Adolph, the latter broke in and insisted on continuing it himself.
To Dieter’s ear, his account of the skirmish with the fiery snake was an
ambivalent and somewhat inconsistent affair. It was plain that