Come Hell or High Water, Part 2: Rising – Sample Chapters

The Magician

(Thursday, August 8–Friday, August 9, 2002)

(The first card of the Major Trumps, this card is about using raw materials to create beauty, art, magic.)

 

Elizabeth wandered the streets of the Little Town of Prague. She had said good night to Alessandro in the hotel lobby, having given him a quick kiss on the cheek. They had been flirting on the Charles Bridge when he seemed suddenly taken ill and had retreated to his room for the night. But she was awake. She was hungry.

She made her way back out into the night air. Prague was surprisingly lively. People filled the streets despite the hour. She stood in the darkness and breathed deeply. She knew the air at this time of year was humid but the city smelled remarkably fresh. She had never been to Prague and was eager to enjoy the delights it offered. She made her way back to the Charles Bridge.

Jazz was still playing at the other end of the bridge, the music swirling through the air. Couples walked along the bridge while small knots of tourists stopped to admire the views of the brightly illuminated castle from the causeway. Some people made their way to the base of St. John’s statue to rub the brass plates for luck. Teenage boys whooped and hollered, darting between the more staid adults. Elizabeth stepped onto the bridge and into the happy stream of humanity making their way through the night.

She walked along the bridge a short distance and then made her way down a staircase leading to a cobblestone plaza spread out along the river. The plaza was less crowded than the bridge, but the doors to the taverns and restaurants all stood open, filling the plaza with laughter and chatter.

She strolled along the plaza, smiling at the people she passed. Several of the men paused and smiled in return, nodding their acknowledgement of her presence to the consternation of their girlfriends and wives.

“Interesting,” she said to herself. “Several interesting possibilities here, but… No, none are quite right.” She paused and closed her eyes. She breathed deeply and caught the fragrance she was searching for. The whisper of a scent beckoned her and she followed it, continuing unhurriedly through the plaza and into the grassy park area beyond. The river was always beside her as she walked along the dark path. Fewer people were along the river here, all couples arm in arm in the moonlight. As she passed, nearly all the men turned their heads without even being aware there might be a choice to do otherwise.

Then she saw the one she sought ahead.

A man sat alone on a park bench, hunched forward with his elbows on his knees, leaning towards the water. He was in his mid-thirties, and swarthy. The sports jacket he wore was stretched tight across his broad shoulders. She made her way to his side and sat beside him. She put her elbows on her own knees. Their shoulders brushed.

Startled, the man looked up at Elizabeth. She could see his eyes glitter.

“Hello,” she purred in her Irish accent. “Do you speak in English?”

“A bit,” he acknowledged, smiling in return. The rough stubble on his cheeks was darkly etched in the stark light of the streetlamp beside them. This close to him and at this angle, Elizabeth could see that the top buttons of his shirt were undone. Elizabeth shook her long tresses to catch his attention.

“Where are you from?” she asked.

“Turkey,” he answered, his English decorated with the ripple of an accent. “Istanbul. You?” He pulled a cigarette pack from a pocket and offered her one.

“Dublin,” she replied, shaking her head gently to decline his offer. He took a cigarette from the pack and replaced the pack in his pocket. He lit the cigarette and turned towards her. He blew a stream of smoke up and away from Elizabeth’s face. “Have you come to Prague before?” he asked.

“No,” she admitted. “Have you?” She smiled again, resting the tip of her tongue against her teeth. She could feel the man’s nervousness dissolving as tension of another sort built.

“Me?” he asked. “No, no. I have not been to here before.” He glanced at his feet and then back into her eyes. He smiled.

“How long are you here for? You seem to be alone… Are you… sad?” Elizabeth leaned a bit closer and rested her hand on her new friend’s forearm. She could feel his excitement at her touch ripple through him.

“A few days,” he answered. “Alone? Yes, I came to see Prague myself. But sad? No… thinking. How do you say in English? Taking the night air.” He chuckled.

“Are you here on business?” she purred in his ear, her lips brushing the nape of his neck. “Or pleasure?”

His eyes closed in delight, the cigarette dangling from his fingertips. Then, realizing she had asked a question, he shook his head slightly as if to clear his thoughts. He opened his eyes and smiled.

“Would you believe both?” His voice had gotten deeper, fuller, richer. He stood and she could see his erection through his trousers.

“I might believe that,” she told him, standing too and taking the cigarette from him and tossing it into the river. “What kind of business?”

“Imports. Exports.” He reached his arms around the back of her shoulders and pulled her towards him.

“And what kind of pleasure?” She laughed quietly, tipping her head back and exposing the skin of her throat to his gaze.

“What kind might you think?” he laughed gently, running his cheek along her throat.

Elizabeth relished the effect she had on men like this one. Confident, handsome, self-assured men who quickly forgot whatever they had been concerned about once she turned her attention to them.

“Shall we go someplace a little more private?” she whispered, nibbling his earlobe. She felt him shudder with delight, pressing himself more closely to her.

“Hotel?” he asked, pulling his head back just a bit. He seemed to struggle to focus his eyes on her face.

“Hotel? No… that would be too far. Here… beyond the lamplight.” She gestured with her head. “Near those boulders.”

She wasn’t sure if he understood all the words but he understood the gesture. They slid out of the circle of lamplight and maneuvered into the shadows behind the boulders. She pressed him into a crevice between the great rocks and straddled his hips.

Her Turkish friend relaxed against the stone, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes, groaning softly in a language universally understood. Clasping his hands at the small of her back, his hips rose to meet hers as he pulled her down against him.

She slid her tongue along the taut muscles of his neck and then along his open shirtfront. She reached up to undo the rest of the buttons.

“There is no reason to maintain this mask now,” she thought, glancing around them. No one was there and in the dark, no one could see them anyway. She pulled the unbuttoned shirt off the man’s shoulders and drew her tongue along his collarbone.

His eyes jerked open. She knew the sensation of her tongue against his skin had become rough and sharp-edged. She knew he struggled to understand what was happening. She knew what he was seeing now that she had let her mask slip.

The Turk struggled, trying to push her away. Elizabeth knew her beautiful red hair and milk-white skin had melted away to reveal a leering skull, withered skin stretched taut across the ridges and valleys of bone. Ragged wisps of hair floated around what was hardly capable of being called her face. Her withered yet ponderous breasts hung out of the tattered red shroud draped around her. Her scrawny, almost skeletal hand reached out to stroke his cheek with grimy talons and her eyes were filled with desire and expectation, a sharp hiss escaping from between her razor-sharp teeth.

“No…” He strained to choke the syllable out.

Her talons raked his throat and shoulders. She pressed her face into the wounds, lapping up the blood as quickly as it spread across his skin. Her teeth frayed the edges of the wounds, the pain cutting deliciously through him—she knew—even as the blood flow into her mouth increased. She could still feel his erection against her and she pressed her hips into his.

Blood flowed down his chest as she cut the wounds deeper with one claw and clamped the other across his mouth, preventing him from calling out. Struggling against her, he mimicked the convulsions of sexual ecstasy despite himself. Elizabeth watched him swiftly sinking into unconsciousness from blood loss, and knew the last thing he would feel was his throbbing climax spewing onto her shroud.

When she had lapped up the last of the blood, she began to rip shards of flesh from the man’s abdomen with her teeth and then reached into the wound with her talons to slice through his internal organs. She chewed and swallowed, especially relishing the Turk’s liver and heart. What little blood there was left in her victim’s internal organs was smeared across her face, dripped down her breasts, spattered on her shroud. She peered around the boulders. There was no one in the park now. Picking up the corpse, she heaved it into the river and watched it hover a moment before it was swallowed by the current.

Readjusting her mask so that no one would guess the foul reality beneath, Elizabeth walked back along to the river towards the plaza, the bridge, and the hotel, where she could rest now that she was no longer hungry.

 

 

Victoria had worried and fretted anxiously all day. Her friend Magdalena had hidden some mysterious experience that she didn’t quite understand from her and had reached out to contact powers whose existence seemed more real to her than her oldest, dearest friend. It all made no sense. There had seemed no way to reason with Magdalena on the phone that morning. Magdalena had claimed to meet the ghost of a woman named… Fen’ka? Was that it?… burned for witchcraft in the Old Town Square during the 1350s. Magdalena had also said that a Jesuit named George had come to attend the conferences and that he was the Grand Master of the covens in New York and knew all about the occult and had promised to teach her his secrets. Magdalena had claimed the Jesuit thought she was talented and beautiful. Victoria was certain that Magdalena would make herself unavailable for any serious conversation as long as the conferences were going on, but Magdalena had even speculated that she might leave Prague with George for New York when the conferences were concluded. There might be no time, let alone words, to speak with Magdalena. Victoria was heartsick.

Could she talk with Magdalena’s employer, Professor Hron? “No,” she reasoned to herself. “He’ll be busy with the conferences himself, maybe even more busy than Magdalena. If he hears what she said, he might think she’s crazy and fire her, and then Magdalena will never speak to me again for sure. That won’t work. Oh, this whole thing is crazy. What can I do? Who can I talk to?” There seemed no one Victoria could turn to without further alienating her friend.

That evening, she hardly ate the simple meal she prepared. She poked at the food and didn’t even have the energy to put away the leftovers. She sat in her living room, staring ahead without seeing what she was looking at. A tear slipped down her cheek. If Magdalena left her, she would have no one she considered a real friend in the city. As the sun set and the room slipped into dusky gloom, the light from the kitchen sliced across the couch. Victoria felt totally alone and unable to do anything about it.

She was unsure how long she sat there but gradually realized that across from where she sat was her bookcase. On the shelf directly opposite, highlighted by the light from the kitchen and at the height of her eyes, were the handful of magical handbooks she and Magdalena had purchased together.

“That’s it!” An idea struck her with the force of lightning. It seemed outlandish and foolish, but if Magdalena was convinced that all this was real, then perhaps… Victoria leaped across the room and snatched the books from the shelf. Taking them into the kitchen, she sat at the table and began looking through them. Surely somewhere in one of these texts must be the answer to her problem, but what it would look like, she had no idea. She was only certain that she would recognize it when she found it.

She made her way, page after page after page, through one book and then another. Nothing in the books seemed directly related to her situation with Magdalena. Nothing that seemed even indirectly related to her situation. Would this be as fruitless as her conversation with Magdalena? Victoria hoped not and bit her lower lip as she opened the last book she had retrieved.

She turned a page and glanced at the table of contents. She turned another page. Then another. She ran her eyes over all the words printed there. It all seemed so foreign. How could either of them have ever thought any of these rites held the answers they had been searching for? How could Magdalena have become so convinced that the occult was everything they had ever hoped it would be? Victoria turned another page.

It was there, in a small paragraph at the bottom of a page. “In the Middle Ages,” she read, “it was thought that if a thief had stolen an object from a neighbor but there was no proof, then there was one method to induce the thief to acknowledge the truth about himself and his actions. The wronged villager would make a footprint in the earth and then light a candle in the footprint. When the candle burned itself out, the thief would be exposed to all for what he was and the truth discovered. The authorities would then be able to deal with the malefactor properly.” The text went on to describe some other method it recommended to recover a lost object.

That was it! Magdalena might not be a thief but the man who had stolen her friendship certainly was. His deception demanded exposure. What authorities would be equipped to deal with him, Victoria was not sure, but she was positive that someone would be in a position to deal with him properly. Magdalena needed to see the truth about this man. She needed to see the truth about herself and her actions and acknowledge that truth. Magdalena needed to be exposed to someone who could help heal the rift she had created between herself and Victoria. The candle-in-the-footprint seemed the perfect solution.

Victoria fumbled in her kitchen drawers, looking for a candle and some matches. She found a pair of new candles she had bought for a table centerpiece but never used. Would one of them work? No, she decided. Too big. It would take too long for one of them to burn itself out. She needed a short candle, one that was already almost used up. She kept looking.

Finally, she found the short stub of a nearly used-up candle in the far reaches of one of her kitchen cabinets. She had a box of matches on the stove. She was ready. Now all she needed was a patch of earth to make a footprint in.

“Oh, and a pair of shoes that will make a good footprint!” she realized. She rummaged in her bedroom closet for just the right pair of shoes. She pulled out an old pair of sneakers, dirty and worn, but with deep grooves and ridges still on the soles.

“Perfect!” she exclaimed aloud. She put on the sneakers and tied them tightly. “Better to do this now,” she whispered to herself, feeling slightly foolish. “There’ll be no one to see me tonight. If I wait until morning, someone will ask what I’m doing and I’ll feel stupid or get in trouble for lighting a candle under the hedges—or both!”

Taking her candle stub and matches, she set out the door.

Victoria lived a few blocks from Magdalena, further up the Little Town, towards the Hradčany hill but to one side from the castle and cathedral. It was dark when she stepped out. It was late. Pavement and cobblestones covered the ground. Where would she find a patch of earth to make her footprint in? She began walking, away from the castle and the Little Town and towards the plaza she frequented on summer weekends.

Loretánská Námĕstí. Loreto Plaza. That was the place. The plaza, though made of cobblestones, was ringed with hedges and flowers. There was earth along the edges of the plaza, plenty of it. She would certainly be able to make a footprint there.

She stepped from the side street and into the plaza. The walls of the Loreto cloister loomed above her on one side of the plaza. She hastened to the bushes near an empty bicycle rack. She glanced around. She saw no one. She looked over her other shoulder. No one. Good. But there was no telling if someone might step out into the plaza at any moment from a side street and might be dangerous. She stepped into the bushes and ground her foot into the earth and then stepped back onto the cobblestones.

“The book didn’t said anything about words to say or anything like that,” Victoria realized. “I suspect that the candle-in-the-footprint will know who needs exposing and how to manage it.” It needed no instructions from her.

“Just as well,” Victoria muttered. “Let the angels and saints tell it what to do. After all, this is the Loreto chapel!” The area around the chapel, built in the 1620s near a chasm that was said to lead down into Hell, was reportedly one of the few places in this world where the angels and saints and souls of the righteous were able to pause and rest, to “catch their breath” as it were, as they traveled between earth and Heaven. The air surrounding the chapel was rumored to be thick with angels, full of the souls of the righteous on some errand that required them to travel between dimensions. If this was not the perfect place to expose a wicked thief who had stolen her best friend, then no place in Prague was.

Victoria leaned over and wedged her candle stub into the middle of her footprint. She struck a match and held it to the wick, where the two blazed together briefly. Then, her fingertips burning, she blew out the match and ground it against the cobblestones.

The small candle flickered in the night air. Was it safe to leave it burning there? It wasn’t really under the bushes, after all. It was in the dirt and certainly near the bushes, but no branch or leaf hung directly above it. “Should I wait here for it to burn out?” Victoria couldn’t decide if she felt safer keeping vigil with the candle to prevent any accidental fire from burning out of control or back in her apartment behind her locked door.

The candle continued to burn gently. A drop of wax splashed onto the earth. She still felt uneasy leaving the candle untended though she felt even more uneasy remaining there alone. “What was I thinking? I must be as crazy as Magdalena!” Victoria sat on the bench beside the bicycle rack to watch the candle for at least a few minutes before walking back home. A star fell across the sky toward the castle. Though there was no breeze, she felt a chill and shivered.

“You wouldn’t happen to have any extra change, would you?”

“Maybe you’d like to share a beer with us, wouldn’t you?’

Victoria swung around to face the two deep, gravel-voiced figures behind her. Where had they come from? How had they walked up behind her without her hearing them? They were big men, husky but dirty and disheveled in torn jeans and leather jackets. Long chains hung from their belts and looped back into pockets. Victoria heard a “click” and saw a switchblade flash open in the hand of the larger of the two men, the one without a can of beer in his hand.

“Yeah, that sounds good,” growled the one with the knife. “Share a drink with a coupla new friends, why don’t ya?”

Victoria was terrified. Her mouth was dry. She couldn’t have spoken even if she had known what to say. Not long ago, when the Communists had governed the country, she would never have come out into the night like this. What had made her think it would be safe now that the Communists and their police state were gone? She stood and slowly took a step backwards but realized she was trapped between the bench, the bicycle rack, and the hedge. Why had she come here, alone, in the middle of the night?

“Not thinkin’ of cuttin’ out on us, are you?” asked the one with the beer can.

A flash of movement caught Victoria’s attention just beyond her field of vision. A dark shape hurtled through the air as a loud snarl ripped through the plaza.

A large coal-black dog lunged at the men and closed his jaws around the forearm of the one who held the knife. The man screamed and kicked at the dog, who held tight and continued to snarl. The knife clattered to the cobblestones. The man with the beer dropped it as he scrambled to get away before the dog turned his attention to him.

“Call yer dog off, lady!” cried the thug who had dropped the knife. “Call off yer dog!”

The dog dropped the man’s arm and took off after the other, barking and snarling and chasing him across the plaza. The one who had dropped the knife ducked into the shadows down a side street.

Victoria gasped for breath, realizing she hadn’t taken a breath since she’d heard the men’s voices behind her. Where had that dog come from? His timing was nothing short of miraculous. She collapsed onto the bench.

The dog came loping back across the plaza toward her. There was no sign of the men he had chased away. The dog, which looked to be some kind of black Labrador and was probably the largest dog Victoria had ever seen, came up to her. His tongue hung out and he panted slightly but seemed friendly enough now. The dog’s tail wagged energetically. He laid his head in her lap. The now docile animal licked his lips and chortled as if pleased with his night’s work.

Victoria heaved a sigh of relief and stroked the dog’s head and then brushed the back of his thick coat. She held her face close to his and he closed his eyes and seemed to smile with delight. He had no collar or tag but was clean and well-cared-for.

“Where did you come from, boy?” she asked. “Did the angels and saints send you to save me?” She stroked his head again and he pulled himself up and took a few steps back. He whined quietly, as if trying to tell her something. He gestured with his nose toward the street she had come from into the plaza.

“Is that it, boy? And now you want me to go home before those two men come back?” Victoria asked her canine protector. But she seriously doubted that either of the men would hurry back to the plaza.

The dog bobbed his head and whined again and gestured toward the lane that he seemed intent that Victoria should walk down.

She stood. “Very well. The least I can do is take advantage of the opportunity you’ve given me to get home safely now that you’ve driven my attackers off.” She walked toward the street she had come along and the dog fell into position beside her. She rested her fingertips on the back of his neck and he beamed up at her.

The dog escorted Victoria silently back toward her apartment building. A block away from reaching it, though, he stopped and whimpered, pulling away from her side.

“Is this as far as you can come, boy?” Victoria asked. The dog nodded.

“Thank you again!” Victoria knelt down and ruffled the fur on either side of his head, behind the ears. The creature’s eyes rolled up into their sockets as if in bliss. Then Victoria stood and the dog turned, trotting briskly away.

She stood staring after him into the shadows. Why and how had he come into the plaza at that moment? She could think of no other explanation than that of the angels and saints hovering in the air around the Loreto cloister. But then she also recalled the stories she had heard as a girl. Stories that reported encounters going back hundreds of years. Stories of a large black dog that could be found in the Loreto Plaza just before midnight and who would escort the lost or the endangered safely back towards the Little Town or the castle. Was it the mysterious dog of the legends that had brought her home?

Victoria shook her head. A day before, she would have dismissed such a thought as a child’s fairy tale. Now, having just lit a candle in her own footprint to expose a man who had stolen her best friend, she wasn’t so quick to dismiss the possibility that the dog had emerged from the mists of legend just when she needed him.

 

 

Back under the hedge on the periphery of the plaza, the little candle stub continued to burn quietly. The dog lay on the ground and rested his head between his large paws, watching the candle as if waiting to raise the alarm if any foliage caught fire. It took only a few moments longer for the candle to burn itself out. The wick sputtered and collapsed into the pool of melted wax that had began to seep into the ridges and swirls of the footprint in the dirt.

The dog licked his lips again and slowly pulled himself up to stand again. He peered around the plaza, inspecting it one last time for any signs of danger. Then he turned and vanished into the shadows along the cloister’s wall.

 

 

Professor Sean O’Neill, from the Department of Folklore at Dublin’s University College, lay in bed under the ornately carved beams of the hotel room. It had been a wonderfully successful first full day of both the Monsters conference and the Evil conference. Although he always seemed to have difficulty maintaining conversations, he had joined a group of conference-goers for dinner and then followed them to a small pub tucked down an alleyway in the Old Town. They had eaten and talked, laughed and drank together until they could hardly keep their eyes open. The energy level at the conferences had been high all day and suddenly they all felt like collapsing. Sean had made it back to the hotel, certain he would fall into bed and almost immediately fall asleep.

But he lay there, unable to sleep. As much as he wanted to avoid thinking about the university politics back home, he could not help himself. He had nearly reached his fortieth birthday and his scholarship would be up for review for a promotion to full professorship this year. He knew he was not popular. He was awkward in social situations and had a difficult time concealing his opinion of the inferior academic work of most people in his department. He knew that others, whom he considered less academically gifted than himself, had been awarded professorships simply because they knew how to make friends and socialize with the important professors in the department. Professors whose scholarship and reputations were much overrated, as far as Sean could tell. He knew that his own work was vastly superior to theirs but they would be the ones to judge him. It was so patently unfair.

It was hot that night. Oppressively hot. The humidity was oppressive, too. The ceiling fan spun slowly, circulating the air in lazy arcs around the room, but to no avail if the goal was to make it comfortable enough to sleep. The damp sheet clung to his skin. More than just the heat and his concern about the politics of obtaining a full professorship, there was some other unidentified source of anxiety gnawed at him as well. Laying on his back, he peered into the darkness above him.

Even in the daylight, he had been unable to make out the figures in the centuries-old carving in the beams running across the ceiling. It had seemed like vines and clusters of fruit. He had also thought he saw strange misshapen faces peering into the room from the foliage running along the beams. Now, in the dark, he had only his memories to help him sort the curves, outcroppings, and indentations of the wood into coherent images. Through the open window, he heard a dog bark in the night but otherwise there was only silence.

Sean finally drifted off into a fitful uneasy sleep. Semiconscious, he tossed and turned, tangling himself in the sheets. His throat felt parched and, his mind never quite surfacing to the state he would have recognized as awake, he stumbled to the mini-bar to open a bottle of water. He swallowed it in two or three gulps and made his way back across the room and fell atop the bed. A little later, he made his way to the bathroom, again not sufficiently aware to qualify as awake. Once more he made his way back to the bed and threw himself down on it. It wasn’t long before he was caught again in the tangled sheets, one cheek pressed against a pillow as a thread of saliva slowly making its way from the corner of his mouth and through his auburn beard onto the pillowcase.

Dampness grew under his cheek. Half-awake, he was also certain that he was half-dreaming because one of the sprites leaped down from one of the ceiling beams. The foliage and bunches of grapes that wreathed its face rustled as it moved stealthily on its toes toward Sean’s bed. Nearing the bed, the forest sprite reached its bony, stick-like fingers towards his face. Sean felt the fragile green tendrils of its fingertips and rubbed his palm across his face. He grumbled in an almost-snore and rolled over.

Another wood sprite leaped down from another beam and tip-toed around the bed. It drew near the foot of the bed and reached towards Sean’s exposed foot. Its tendril-fingertips brushed against the sole and then ran up the man’s calf to where the sheets were wrapped around Sean’s leg. Sean’s toes twitched and he jerked his leg away from the ticklish touch.

A third figure jumped into the room from yet another beam. This one, another amalgam of misshapen humanity and leafy sticks and vines, slunk toward the now-snoring lecturer from Ireland. Flexing its knees momentarily, it jumped onto the bed, where it made its way through the ridges and valleys of the sheets, steadying itself by reaching out to lean against Sean. Sean, reacting to the sensations of the sprite navigating the bedclothes, rolled over. The sprite shrieked quietly and jumped back to the floor before it could be trapped under the man’s torso.

Sean’s snores rumbled through the room. In his dream, he saw small, shadowy figures—walking forms of sticks and foliage—slinking around the room. A wavering pinpoint of light caught his attention near the ceiling and he saw the stub of a burning candle just below the beam, near where it met the wall. The flame of the candle danced in the breeze caused by the ceiling fan. Weaving and dipping, the ghostly flame caught hold of a tendril of the carved foliage above it and—pausing a moment to gather its strength—began to consume the woodwork. The fire then raced along the vines, causing dozens of the strange sprites to jump out of their hiding places and onto the floor below.

Seemingly startled and disoriented, the sprites chattered among themselves, staring and pointing around the room. They all rushed towards Sean.

Sean watched the scene play out in his dreamlike semi-consciousness. He heard his own snoring. He saw the candle wink out, the fragments of the wick falling over into the pool of melted wax. He saw the ghost of the fire, however, continue to expand along the beams and drive the little vine-men down towards the bed. He saw them poke and tickle his sleeping form and heard his half-laughter mingle with the snores. He saw himself contort and writhe to escape their reach. Then they all swarmed to one side of the bed and, reaching under the frame, rocked it as if testing their strength and coordination. With a great heave, they began to tip the bed on its side. Sean felt himself begin to roll onto the floor.

He braced himself for the crash he was expecting. But the floor gave way and suddenly he seemed to be falling through the night sky, sailing and soaring on the air currents above the Little Town. He saw what he was sure was the roof of his hotel. He felt the air give way beneath him, his stomach lurching at the sudden drop. Then he felt himself buoyed up again as a different breeze caught him and the draft gently guided him away from the river and up the hill toward the castle.

He had never experienced a dream like this. The physical sensations were not the brief flashes he experienced on occasion as he slept. These sensations were continuous and ongoing and detailed. The night air rippled against the individual hairs on his arms. He flailed his legs as if swimming, half-able to control the direction of his flight but unable to control his altitude or even his position, upright, horizontal or upside-down. He could feel the sheets unfurling and then tangling around his body again. Since he had collapsed on the bed without even a pair of undershorts, he was glad to keep the sheets wrapped around him.

“Just in case someone looks up,” he thought. Then he realized, “But this is a dream. It doesn’t matter what anyone sees. This isn’t real.”

A sudden updraft caught him and he sailed higher, turning somersaults in the air as he careened higher and higher above Prague. Given that it was a dream, he was not surprised that he was able to both look down on the city as a whole and yet see incredible detail on the streets. The close-ups were as if a film had zoomed in on a scene to reveal the twitch of a character’s upper lip and betray the anxiety plaguing an amateur undercover agent in danger of being discovered. Even without his glasses, he could see the wrinkles in individual cobblestones and the crumbling mortar between them. He saw the glistening foam on the river’s surface and heard it rushing under the Charles Bridge. He saw the crumbling sills beneath the dark windows of the houses lining the streets that crawled up the hill toward the castle.

He narrowly escaped being driven by the breeze into the incredible spires of the Baroque church on the Little Town Square. Coming round the spire, he was shocked to see another person sailing along in the air tangled in a sheet. This man, sandy-haired and clean-shaven and seemingly in his mid-forties, seemed even more unable to control his movements than Sean, sending himself into a series of somersaults by his waving and kicking. The air currents swung the two men closer, and Sean recognized Professor Theodore Cooper, who only ever seemed to be called “Theo” and who had organized the conferences from Oxford. Sean called out, reaching for the Oxford don, but the wind pulled the Irishman away and Theo was twisted about on his head like a child’s plaything.

“How odd!” Sean ruminated. “What is he doing in my dream?”

Sean looked down and saw the Hunger Wall that slithered through the parks of Petřín Hill as well as the tracks of the small railway that connected the hilltop with its lower region. He was startled to see another of the men attending the Monsters conference. At first a small speck in the sky, the figure was soon close enough that Sean could make out the features of Alessandro DiFranceso, the Australian-Italian who had been quite the flirt with the women at both conferences. Alessandro’s taut and muscular torso was much more visible without his clothes; the bedsheet that Alessandro had brought with him into the sky was much more gracefully draped about him, almost like a Roman toga, than those wrapped around either Sean or Theo. Alessandro dipped behind the dome of the Strahov Monastery on the hill, without apparently having noticed Sean.

Sean kicked his feet against the wind, attempting to propel himself toward the monastery church to investigate this other conference-goer who had intruded into his strange dream. “Maybe this is the way my mind is processing all the people I’ve met?” Sean wondered. “Are all the conference-folk going to appear here? This could be more exhausting than the conferences themselves!” Try as he might, however, Sean’s efforts to come close to the Strahov buildings only seemed to propel him further in the opposite direction. He heard a voice call his name, though, and whirled about.

A tall, slim silver-haired woman in a nightgown waved and called his name again. She was holding the hand of a shorter, beefy, man with a salt-and-pepper beard who was wearing a striped nightshirt. Neither had any sheets about them, perhaps having lost hold of them earlier in their flight. The woman’s shorter male companion seemed too busy looking about him and pointing out various sights below to be bothered with noticing Sean.

“Father Dmitri! Sophia!” Sean called out to the couple. He waved to Sophia, who tugged her husband’s sleeve and pointed out Sean’s appearance. The priest nodded quickly, glanced in Sean’s direction, and returned to his efforts to identify the landmarks below. Before Sean or Sophia could call out again, a gust sent Sean head-over-heels past the Orthodox priest and his wife, who were sailing towards Strahov.

Sean eventually righted himself and was able to look around again. On his right was the cathedral within the walls of the castle complex. Beyond that, Golden Lane, with its alchemists’ apartments-turned-souvenir-shops. On his left, the hill continued to rise slightly. He was approaching the spire and roof of the Loreto cloister.

“What?” burst from Sean’s lips. Two portly figures in sheets clambered along the edge of the roof on unsteady feet, as if looking for a way down from the tiles to the cobblestone plaza. In the shadows of the night and without his glasses, it was difficult to make out who the two figures were. Whether this plaza was normally lit with floodlights, he was unsure, but they were all dark now and Sean had to rely on the moonlight and starlight to see. How had the figures gotten stranded on the tile roof?

As Sean drifted closer to the cloister, he realized that the two figures were stout, even bulky, older men and they were having as much difficulty walking with the sheets bunched around their legs as they were maintaining their balance on the steep incline of the roof tiles. The tiles clattered under their feet. One of the men slipped. His legs flew out from underneath him and he grabbed his companion to steady himself. Both men crashed onto the roof and slid off the gutter into midair. Luckily, the two men were caught by another drifting breeze and lifted into the air briefly before being gently deposited on the earth near a bench and bicycle rack in the plaza. A woman Sean did not recognize was sitting on the bench.

There was a sudden roar from the center of the plaza. Massive flames erupted from the cobblestones near the entrance gate of the Loreto. The heat from the fire smashed into Sean, nearly knocking him over. With the double vision possible in dreams, he clearly saw an old woman bound to a stake in the midst of the bonfire. Her voice cried out. She coughed and choked as the smoke filled her lungs. Steam rose from her water-drenched clothes and hair. Sean heard her even when her voice was little more than a whisper. But he didn’t question the logic of what he saw and heard. There would be time for that later, after he awoke back in his room. This was a dream, after all.

“Svetovit!” he heard the woman cry out. “Curse them, Svetovit! Teach them to fear you!”

Svetovit? That name sounded vaguely familiar, but Sean was unsure where he had heard it or how long ago. Where had his subconscious mind found it? Why insert it into this dream about the conferences?

“…let all their nightmares come to life.” The old woman’s chin fell forward. The fire rushed up to meet her face. The fire, intent on devouring its victim, did so with relish. The flames continued to curl and dance, rather than dying down or fading away. Then they parted, and in the clearing stood a woman robed in dazzling white and clutching an assortment of objects: a staff, a sword, a chalice, a disk inscribed with a five-pointed star. She faced the Loreto but seemed to be looking through it and across the cityscape beyond.

Two figures congealed out of the air and stood in the plaza, off to one side. One was a handsome man somewhat older than Sean himself and the other was a pretty woman with an almost-thirty face and a hint of make-up, brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, brown eyes. They both looked familiar and he realized they were more conference people: the man was the Jesuit from New York—“George, I think,” Sean muttered—and Hron’s assistant Magdalena. They seemed intently focused on a table or altar and they each drove a dagger into the surface. A lone voice caught Sean’s attention and he looked back to the woman in the glistening robes. She was sobbing and holding her face in her hands. As the dagger was driven repeatedly into the tabletop, she fell to her knees as if felled by the blows of the knife. One by one, each of the items in her arms seemed to be wrenched from her grasp by invisible hands. She struggled to keep hold of them even as she wailed and mourned, but her efforts were unsuccessful and they each vanished in turn. She collapsed onto the ground, one hand beating her breast. Her sobbing became more intermittent. She faded away and the fire knit itself together, subsiding.

Now the figures of George and Magdalena stepped into the center of the plaza and took turns emptying a chalice of the last drops of something in it followed by a cascading torrent of water poured from a flask into the chalice before it then splashed onto the ground and then a thurible of coals overturned. The ground beneath them rumbled and Sean could feel the air shake from the vibration.

A great but indistinct figure now hovered in the air above the fire, a figure of cloud and smoke astride a great eight-legged horse of cloud and smoke. The figure seemed to be looking over the Loreto and toward the city. Slowly the horseman guided the steed around the Loreto spire until its view of the castle, cathedral and entire city was unimpeded. The horse stood there a moment.

Then the horsemen drove his heels into the steed’s ribs and the horse charged toward the midst of the city below, towards the river where the Charles Bridge crossed it. More fire flared. Thunder roared. The figure dissolved in the crash and roar of an explosion that shook the entire valley. Buildings collapsed. Crowds ran through the street amid screams of pain and terror. Smaller but similar figures, shadows of cloud and fire, hunted the people running through the streets. The river burst from its banks and surged down the streets as well, knocking over other buildings and drowning the people it caught in the lanes and alleyways.

Sean saw the valley fill with destruction. All signs of the city vanished, covered by waves. The few smoldering ruins that remained were collapsing. The cries of the inhabitants gradually subsided, everyone a victim of either fire or drowning or the devilish figures that the great horseman had apparently unleashed. Lightning flickered over the devastation.

“Please let me wake up!” Sean demanded of himself, his strange dream having become a nightmare of destruction.

A lone voice caught his attention. He turned back to the plaza before the Loreto, the only man-made structure that remained in the night, even though its walls appeared cracked and damaged. The bonfire that had burned before the gates had burnt itself out, leaving great streaks of soot on the cobblestones and the cloister walls. A solitary cry rose from some unseen person. The wail resonated and echoed around the plaza, growing more intense, more piercing, as if an indescribable sorrow had seized hold of the person’s heart and there was no way to express this grief apart from the mournful keening. It snaked through the air and bore into Sean’s consciousness. Unbearable pain. Then it was gone, cut short as if the throat that had given it birth had been cut with a dagger.

The images shimmered and faded and grew clear again. But now Sean was looking down across a kaleidoscope of European cities. He saw the dome of St. Paul’s and Big Ben in London, the Eiffel Tower in Paris. He recognized the Plaza de España in Madrid and the chimneys of Sintra in Portugal. The streets of Berlin rippled out beneath him and merged with St. Peter’s Square in Rome. Churches of Florence hovered along the periphery of the vision and the statue of the mermaid in Copenhagen’s harbor sat beneath the walls of the Kremlin lining Red Square as the onion domes of St. Basil’s rose beneath him. Sean glimpsed the dome of the capitol building in Washington, D.C. to one side and a courtyard of Beijing’s Forbidden City that he recognized from a photograph. Even the black-draped Ka’aba in Mecca squatted beneath him.

The horseman charged across the vision again, trampling the landmarks beneath the hooves of his eight-legged horse. Black tides of thunderclouds erupted from where the stallion’s hooves punctured the air and spread across the scene, obliterating the landmarks. Lightning flickered between the tufts of the storm clouds and the sound of crumbling stonework reached Sean’s ears, mingled with the cries of those crushed beneath the collapsing monuments.

Sean was amazed at the intensity, the reality of the nightmare that was unfolding around him. The colors, the sights, the sounds, the physical sensations all seemed more real, more accessible on a visceral level than his waking life ever had. He covered his face with his hands.

“Wake up!” he ordered himself. “I can’t stand this anymore! Wake up!” He rubbed his knuckles into his eyes and peered around.

Then the city of Prague was back, intact and safe, exactly as it had looked when his dream began and he had first been tipped out of his bed and into the night sky by the wood-sprites in the first stages of his dream. He slowly shook his head.

Sean realized that he was drifting closer to the earth. His feet scraped against the rough cobblestones and he was rudely dropped onto his knees near the bicycle rack.

“Sean O’Neill! Good God, man! What are you doing here?” It was the obese, nearly retired British professor with the auburn hair, Peter Thomlinson, who had been clambering and sliding along the roof of the cloister a few moments before. The stout bald man he was with—who had also been up on the roof—was still looking about, as if befuddled and confused. Sean recalled having met Wilcox Hammond at the conferences.

“What am I doing here?” Sean exclaimed. He managed to stand up and keep his modesty intact with the sheet. “The better question is, what are you doing here? And who are you?” he demanded of the young woman on the bench, who had stood and turned to him as he approached. “I don’t even know you! What are you doing in my dream?”

“Your dream?” Peter responded, before the unknown woman could answer. “If that is what you think this is, then it is becoming a very crowded dream indeed!” He pointed to the plaza behind Sean, who turned to see what or who was there.

Approaching them across the plaza were Father Dmitri and his wife, Sophia. Still hand in hand, the priest still gawking around him, the couple drew closer. Sophia gasped and pointed at the nearby spire. They all turned to look.

Alessandro, in his toga-style sheet, was slowly descending. He waved towards the people on the ground and then, hearing a commotion behind him, pulled himself to one side as a tangled mass of sheets and limbs hurtled past him towards the ground. Theo cursed loudly and hit the ground with enough force that he lay stunned for a few moments before pulling himself up to sit and look around him. Moving with the urgency common to dreams, they all rushed to assist him but with feet that seemed mired in molasses. Alessandro’s feet touched the earth not far from the linen twisted around arms and legs. He reached out to hoist the Englishman to his feet. They both grunted with the effort.

Sean was dumbstruck. What was his subconscious mind trying to communicate by means of this strange, increasingly crowded dream? He shook his head in a daze. The academics soon found themselves standing in a group in the dark, wondering who would break the silence. Whoever spoke first would probably wake him, Sean thought, leaving him to puzzle out the meaning of the dream the next day. If he could recall the details of the dream at that point.

“So, who thinks this is all just a dream?” It was the priest, Fr. Dmitri, who spoke. There was a murmur of confusion among the others.

“What do you mean, ‘thinks this is all just a dream?’ What else can it be? It has to be a dream!” Sean found himself protesting.

“At the very least, it seems a group hallucination to me.” Wilcox scratched his double-chin and then gestured around the assembled group. “For us all to imagine the same thing is quite an extraordinary event. For us to all share the same dream would be nearly impossible.”

“Thank you, but I’ve had one hallucination tonight already and that was quite enough!” Alessandro quickly inserted his opinion. “I don’t need another group hallucination atop that one!”

“Of course we haven’t all imagined the same thing!” sputtered Sean, clutching his sheet more tightly around him. “I’m the only one who has imagined any of this because it’s the dream that only I am dreaming and the rest of you are here only because I’ve included you in my dream. When we all wake up back in our hotels and I tell you about this at breakfast, it will be a total surprise to each and every one of you!”

“I think it is neither a dream nor a group hallucination.” Sophia spoke up, her voice surprisingly calm. “I think that the most reasonable explanation is the truth: we have all experienced this extraordinary thing together.”

“What makes you so certain that I am in your dream and not that you are in mine?” Theo demanded.

“Because my dream began quite some time before you arrived in it!” responded Sean. He turned his attention to Sophia and her husband. “What makes you so damned sure that this is real?”

“How about the feel of the cobblestones, to begin with?” Fr. Dmitri offered for his consideration. “No dream ever included such sustained physical sensations.” He rubbed a foot against the ground. “Tell me you’ve ever felt such real cobblestones in a dream before, Sean. In addition,” he went on, “the similarities of our experiences but the fact that they each differ in significant ways speak to the reality of what is going on tonight, yes? I dare say that we were each launched into the night in a different way but we have all been brought together here for the exact purpose of seeing that vision of the destruction of Prague that we have just witnessed.”

Sean sputtered in protest. “But this is impossible! No one—let alone a group of people!—flies through the air and meets each other in the middle of the night!”

“Oh, really?” It was Peter’s turn to speak out next, his many jowls quivering. “Every one of us here is familiar with the accusations against the Renaissance and early modern witches, that they flew through the air to gather in the middle of the night at their witches’ Sabbat meetings. We’ve always explained away those stories by attributing hallucinogenic properties to the salves they anointed themselves with before embarking on those flights. But there is abundant evidence—in fairy tales and folktales also, I might add—that ordinary people are reported to fly in just such a way through the night to gather together. If this is real, and not a group hallucination or small group hysteria, I am inclined to agree with—excuse me, your name? Sean, is it?—that we have been brought here precisely for the purpose of seeing that vision which just played out.”

He rubbed the sole of his foot against the ground and then sat on the nearby bench with a loud sigh. “I am less and less inclined to think of this as a hallucination,” he added. “We would have all needed to ingest some psychotropic agent. I know I didn’t and I doubt anyone else did either. And I doubt that anyone slipped us all the same drug in secret.”

The Eastern European priest spoke up. “Such flights may not be common but they are known, even in Biblical material. You may not be as familiar with these as with the flights to the witches’ assemblies. The prophet Habakkuk was lifted up by an angel who clutched the prophet’s hair so that he could deliver lunch to another prophet, Daniel, who was locked in the lions’ den. So might our flight be a flight to aid another in distress, yes? I think our colleague—Peter, yes?—is correct in guessing that we have been brought together precisely for the purpose of experiencing that very impressive vision. But we have not only to experience it, but to interpret and then act on it. No vision is ever given simply for the purpose of seeing it. It is always a communication, a message, a warning to respond to. It shows us who is in distress that we have been brought through the air to assist.”

Sean threw up in his hands in frustration. “How can I make you people see reason? This makes no sense! This is a dream!” He threw himself down on the bench next to Peter and stared at them all incredulously. “But why should I care if you see any reason? This is a dream! Why even bother trying to convince you otherwise? When I wake up, it won’t matter if I convinced you that this is all just a dream, a nightmare!”

“Well, then, I think we should leave you here to appreciate the dream you are convinced you are having. We could all wait here with you until breakfast time, but that seems counterproductive.” Wilcox, one of the nearly retired professors, spoke up again. “I suggest we all return to the hotel—are we all in the same hotel?—and meet again over breakfast to consider the plausibility of all this and what it means.”

“I think returning to our hotels makes the most sense yet. I suspect that we will have to walk, given that we are unlikely to return the same way we came here, and the fewer people that see me in the street wrapped in a sheet—the better!” Theo exclaimed.

“Excuse me.” A small voice spoke up. Everyone turned to the woman standing alongside a nearby bench that none of them recognized. “I think I know why you are all here and what the vision means. This is all real, I’m sure of it, and I need to tell you how I caused it.”

A cacophony of voices broke out. “What? You caused it? Why do you say that? Tell us why. What does this all mean? Are you sure? Who are you?”

She seemed startled at their responses. She looked at the ground and then into each of their faces. She swallowed. She seemed about to speak, then paused. Finally, she began.

“I—I lit a candle in my footprint here, last night. There, under the hedge.” She pointed toward the place. “I read that if I lit a candle in a footprint it would expose a thief, the thief who stole my best friend from me and ruined our friendship, a man who filled her head with crazy stories of meeting the dead and… and clearing the name of an old woman burned for witchcraft here.”

She pointed to the plaza where the vision had played out. “After I lit the candle, I went home to bed. But I couldn’t sleep. I kept wondering how the candle-in-the-footprint would expose the man who had stolen my best friend. Finally, I couldn’t stand staying in bed any longer. I got up dressed, and came here. That’s when I saw you all coming down through the air! I sat here and saw the vision that you did! But I lit the candle to stop a thief. That’s what all that was about. Exposing the thief. Exposing his lies to Magdalena. The book said that the thief would be exposed and the appropriate authorities could then take action. That means that you—all of you—are the authorities to deal with him. But all this that we just saw is so much more than simply trying to save Magdalena. I don’t really understand it all. I need your help. I can’t do this alone.” Her voice held a tone of pleading. She gestured toward them all. “Please. Help me save my friend.”

As if an afterthought, she added, “My name is Victoria.”

There was silence in the plaza. The academics all looked at their feet before looking sheepishly at each other. Sophia walked to the young woman and took her hands.

“Of course, we will help you. We will do whatever we can to save your friend,” she promised Victoria. “We can do whatever we can to save your friend but I think you are right, Victoria. This seems to be about so much more than simply trying to save your friend. But first, I think Wilcox here is also right. We should return to our hotels—as our friend Theo says, before there are too many people to see us stumble about in our sheets and nightclothes—and then meet at one of our hotels for breakfast to discuss how to best proceed.” She looked around at the group. Everyone nodded.

“Will you be coming with us, Sean?” Peter asked as he struggled to stand from the bench to join the others, who were beginning to follow Sophia and Victoria from the plaza.

“No, thank you,” Sean replied. “I prefer to wait until I wake up in my bed.”

“Suit yourself.” Peter chuckled. “See you at breakfast.”

The sheet-wrapped professors, the academics who had spent lifetimes studying monsters and the ways and means of magic but never dreamed of experiencing or practicing any of it, slowly filed out of the plaza and down the hill. Sean sat on the bench and stared after them. A breeze rustled the sheet he still held around himself.

He caught himself dozing off and shook his head. He heard a bird twitter and realized the eastern sky was beginning to lighten. Streaks of pink and rose gingerly reached out to the few stars remaining in the west. Sean reluctantly considered that perhaps he was awake and had not been dreaming after all. Perhaps the only way he would find himself in his hotel bed was if he got up and walked back to the hotel as the others had done.

He stood. It seemed gangs of birds awoke at that instant and greeted his movement with an explosion of sound bursting from the trees around the edge of the plaza. He shook his head again and realized that, dream or no dream, he needed to get back to the hotel before he was forced to explain why he was wandering the early morning streets in nothing but a bed sheet. He turned to make his way out of the plaza.

Crossing out of the plaza, Sean got his bearings. He knew he should head down, down the hill toward the river. He would reach the hotel just before coming to the river. Having only seen photos of this plaza before in a guidebook, he only dimly recognized the street. Gathering his sheet more tightly about him, he set out downhill.

The birdsong behind him was silenced as if someone had turned off a recording or unplugged a loudspeaker. The growing light stalled and dimmed. The light was an odd off-shade of daylight. It wasn’t the sickly green he had seen once in the United States when the circumstances that could give birth to a tornado were gathering. It was if the sun itself were spilling shadow and half-light across the city, as if the dawn had given out and failed, wrapping the city in half-shadows. “Like an eclipse,” Sean muttered to himself and, turning his attention back to the earth, scurried toward the hotel.

He stubbed his toe against a cobblestone and cursed loudly. His voice seemed even louder to him than it probably was, given the ongoing eerie silence. The longer the silence went on, the more menacing it became. The realization that he had to come to terms with this new reality revealed over the course of the night was unavoidable. Yes, it was easier to do that than continue his attempts to convince himself it had all been a dream.

 

 

Sean came into the hotel breakfast room a few hours later. He had made it back to the hotel but, having no room key with him, had to stand in the sheet as if nothing were out of the ordinary while a desk clerk opened his door for him. (He’d made up a story of sleepwalking. That seemed not altogether dishonest.) Having lain down briefly, he had stood at the window on rising and saw the still eclipse-like light that bathed the city. He strained to hear the birds and heard the muffled sounds of the city waking and the river rushing past the bridge a few blocks away, but no birds, no sounds of nature met his ears. Here, in the dining room, the group already sat around a handful of tables pushed together. Those who were staying at another hotel down the block must have eaten breakfast there, but everyone had at least a cup of coffee or tea before them. He shook his head to clear the remnants of his short nap from his consciousness and, taking a deep breath, brought his breakfast roll and coffee to join them.

“So, how long did you stay up at the Loreto?” asked Theo.

Sean blushed. “Not long. When the birds woke up and the sun started to rise, I realized that there was no way I would wake up back here in bed.” He paused before admitting, “You were right.”

“Not to worry. All that is in the past.” Fr. Dmitri gestured to the waitress and his cup of coffee was quickly refilled. “Victoria was just telling us about her friend Magdalena and—what was his name? George, I think you said?—and their intentions to clear the name of a woman burnt as a witch in the Middle Ages.”

“Yes, but she must have been burnt by the crowd in what was, in effect, a lynching,” Wilcox interrupted. “To my knowledge, there are no records that indicate anyone was ever tried and burnt here for witchcraft.”

“She must have been the woman we saw in the fire. When the vision began,” Peter pointed out.

“Yes, but she was calling on someone or something,” recalled Alessandro. “What was the name?”

“Svetovit.” Fr. Dmitri provided the name invoked by the witch in the fire.

“Yes. Svetovit. She wanted him to bring all their nightmares to life. Presumably all the nightmares of the people responsible for her death,” Victoria reminded the others. “All the nightmares of the inhabitants of Prague.”

“Right.” Theo looked around the group. “If the woman in the fire invoking Svetovit was the witch, then who was the woman in white we saw when the fire parted? The one holding all those implements?”

Wilcox spoke up. “My background is in classical mythology and my first thought is that she might have been the genius of Prague, the guardian spirit of the city.”

“But what was she holding? What were all those things?” Sophia wondered aloud.

“Well, it is common knowledge that every occult practitioner needs four standard implements, each associated with one of the four elements of earth, air, fire or water,” Sean announced with a smug tone, still smarting from his refusal to walk back to the hotels with the others. “Those implements—sometimes even called the ‘elemental tools’—are the basic tools of magic and are the chalice or cup, the staff (which most of us know as the ‘magic wand’ of a fairy godmother), and the athame, which is a sword or dagger. The fourth is the pentagram or pentacle, the shield inscribed with a five-pointed star.”

“I recognize those!” interrupted Victoria. “Those are the four tarot suits as well: swords, cups, wands and pentacles!”

“Yes. They’ve come down to us in the four suits of a deck of playing cards, too: spades, hearts, clubs, and diamonds,” agreed Wilcox. Sean bristled at being interrupted and seized control of the conversation again.

“As I was saying, if the four magical tools are required for occult work, I’m assuming that there are four magical tools which are the patrimony of all Prague. It was those which the city’s guardian spirit was holding and which were apparently taken from her, perhaps to unleash Svetovit’s vengeance against the city.”

“Not ‘were taken’ but ‘are in the process of being taken’ from her,” corrected Peter, reaching for another slice of toast. “The ritual we saw performed by George and Magdalena must have begun the process of stealing the four magical tools of Prague. Since the city is still standing, the tools can’t have been stolen yet. As they struck the altar with their knife, the athame, they seemed to be attacking the genius, the city herself, to begin wrenching those things from her grasp.”

“Yes,” Theo broke in. “There seemed a confusing shift between past and present and future throughout the course of the vision. As well as between metaphor and reality. Such as, is this guardian spirit of Prague a real entity or just a metaphor?”

“I rather suspect she is a real entity,” replied Alessandro. “She must exist, on some plane or in some dimension, but the tools must be physical, must exist on our plane, in our dimension, and it seems—from the vision—that the power of those tools must be able to be harnessed either to protect the city or destroy it.”

“Just like the tools that Magdalena and George used.” Peter pointed out the similarities of those portions of the vision. “Magdalena’s tools can be used to either work white magic or black magic.”

“But she would never really use them for black magic. So she must not realize that what she’s doing is black magic.” Victoria leapt to her friend’s defense. “She would never use them for black magic, especially not against the whole city!”

“Well, then, what was she doing in that ritual?” demanded Wilcox. “If it wasn’t black magic, then…”

“What were they doing in that ritual?” Fr. Dmitri spoke up again. “I recognized some of what they were doing. George poured out a few drops of what looked like wine, wine full of clumps and a sticky mass of spices. At least, that’s what it looked like from where I was standing. It is an image of God’s judgment against mankind—in Psalm 74 or 75, I think—that the righteous drink a delightful cup of delicious spiced wine but that the wicked will be forced to drink and then drain the bitter dregs of that cup. Casting coals from a censer onto the earth is also a sign of God’s judgment, taken from both the psalms and the Apocalypse. The Book of Revelation, that is,” he added. A few confused faces cleared. “They were enacting ritual judgment and condemnation of the city by these actions. Certainly black magic, if you ask me.”

“Did they take any other rituals from the Bible?” asked Victoria. “After all, I think Magdalena said that George is a priest. What did she say? A Jesuit, I think.”

“Well, the interplay of past-present-future is actually very biblical, yes?” Fr. Dmitri told her. “The Book of Revelation, the Apocalypse, is especially written from a very unstable point-of-view, timewise. That’s one thing many people always misunderstand when they try to interpret it. It tells the same story, many times over, each time from a different point of view or vantage point, not simply telling one story in a linear fashion from beginning to end. As far as that goes, everything they did with the chalice and censer and the confusion of past, present, and future was biblical ritual twisted to perverse ends.”

“What about the water they poured into the chalice and then to the ground?” asked Sophia. “Is that a biblical sign of judgment also?”

“Imitative magic,” announced Sean, as if simply using those words explained everything. The announcement was met with a momentary pause.

“That was an old ritual enactment of a flood. Splashing water, lots and lots of water, from a cup onto the earth was the way to summon a storm or flood.” Peter said, glancing at the Irishman and then away as he expanded Sean’s announcement of imitative magic. There was another pause as the group considered their discussion thus far.

“So they have summoned a flood to destroy Prague?” Victoria finally spoke up. “Is that why the river has been rising? But it’s been rising for weeks. But there hasn’t been a flood here for… since I don’t know when!”

“Well, maybe not simply summoned a flood but certainly a flood seems to be a part of whatever they are planning,” Alessandro offered as everyone stared into their coffee. “It seems to me that a flood would certainly be among the nightmares of Prague that might be unleashed.”

“The newspeople and weather forecasters have been talking about flooding in Central Europe for weeks,” Wilcox announced. “I doubt that—”

“Doubt that they could be responsible for all that?” Fr. Dmitri cut him off. “Never underestimate the dark power of those intent on destruction. It is the good people underestimating the power of evil that allows evil to gain strength.”

“Remember the Nazis?” his wife added. Another hush descended on the table.

“Well, what else was going on in that vision?” Alessandro broke the silence. “This Svetovit the witch was calling on. Who was he?”

“Who is he, you mean,” Peter corrected, rubbing the many folds beneath his ample chin. “It seems apparent at this point, does it not, that he is, not was, a power to be reckoned with.”

“And he is dangerous. Not just to Prague.” Sophia spoke up again. “After destroying Prague, don’t you remember how the vision showed that nothing seemed to prevent him from rampaging across Europe? He was destroying everything recognizable about the Western world.”

“Beijing. Beijing was there also,” Peter pointed out, shaking his butter knife toward Sophia and scattering bread crumbs across the table. “And Mecca. Not just the so-called Western world. He seems intent on destroying modern civilization.”

“The name sounds familiar to me,” Theo confessed, pulling the conversation back to the identity of Svetovit. “But where I know it from escapes me.”

“He was—should I say, he is—the old devil worshipped atop the castle hill,” Fr. Dmitri announced.

“Hold on! Wait a minute!” Wilcox angrily broke into the priest’s explanation. “Just because he was worshipped on the castle hill—before Christianity arrived, right?—doesn’t mean that he was a devil. Isn’t ‘devil’ an outmoded and dated religious construct to apply here? Why not just say that he was the old god worshipped on the hill? Why attach the ‘devil’ label and make him out to be so wicked? Because that’s what the ancient Christians did when they arrived here? They only called Svetovit a devil in order to malign the competition!”

“Because some of the old gods were devils.” Sophia leaped to the defense of her husband. “You might think ‘devil’ is simply an old idea but it is a true thing. Can you deny that there is real evil in the world? Some of those devils might have been merely spirits or demons, in the ancient Greek sense of incorporeal entities, but some of them—like Svetovit—were truly devils in the Christian sense. Didn’t you see him unleash the nightmares of Prague to destroy the city? Any spirit that would want to destroy the place where he was worshipped must be a devil!” She glared at Wilcox, who squirmed in his seat. He gave a dismissive rumble and looked away, unsatisfied with her answer but not thinking her worthy of an argument.

“Well, he was a particularly vengeful and angry deity,” the priest offered by way of explanation. “He was a proud spirit and always looking to avenge slights to his honor. Any spirit that proud and demanding must be a devil, as far as I am concerned.”

“Proud and vengeful, I understand,” Wilcox snapped. “Eager to destroy the city that rejected him makes sense. But why would he then go on that rampage against the rest of the world? How does that make sense? For either an old god or an old devil?”

Tense silence answered him.

“Might it make sense because he is so proud, so vengeful that he wants to be worshipped by more than just the residents of Prague?” Victoria suggested at last. “If he was the chief god of the Slavic peoples as well as the chief divinity here in Prague, must he not want his power and dominion and worship extended as far as possible? Anything that stands in the way of that worship would have to be eliminated, yes? Like Ghengis Khan or Atilla the Hun? Or the Nazis?” she added, echoing Sophia’s mention of the Third Reich.

Wilcox was still unhappy but did not pursue the matter. Instead, he asked, “Well, in that case, maybe you think we should all just say our prayers and let you perform an exorcism up on the hill? Isn’t the Christian God supposed to be all-powerful?” Several people around the table bristled uncomfortably.

Fr. Dmitri sighed. “Well, prayer is certainly one very important weapon in fighting a devil like Svetovit. But it is not the only weapon. Any struggle against any devil demands action as well as prayer and we must act if our prayer is to have any effect. Jesus fought the devils and healed, you know, not just with prayer but with direct commands to the devils and anointings with mud and spit. When Jesus healed the blind man with mud and spit, he was using a folk magic remedy. The apostles used handkerchiefs and bandanas to heal the sick, yes? Theirs was a very active battle with evil that demanded very real physical action as one aspect of the spiritual struggle. It is the same here. We must act.”

“But magic?” Alessandro asked. Sean’s eyebrows arched as Alessandro questioned the priest but Alessandro’s tone was that of honest curiosity. “It seems that we must fight fire with fire—you know, fight magic with magic. I was surprised the other night to hear you say that Tarot cards had once been used as a legitimate way to discern the will of God. Is that your attitude towards magic as well?”

Fr. Dmitri opened his hands as he answered, as if inviting the others to join him in his opinion. “This was, in fact, to be the subject of my paper at the conference. In general, what is the relationship between magic and religion and, in specific, what is the relationship between magic and Christianity? Well, it seems that if we look at the history of this relationship, the activities that came to be called ‘magic’ were often those considered religions ‘foreign’ or ‘exotic.’ More often, the acts called ‘magic’ were simply illegal religious practices. In my paper, I cite one Russian canon which stipulates that the recitation of a certain text by a priest is a ‘prayer’ while the recitation of that same text by a layman is a ‘spell!’ So the distinction between religion and magic appears to be an artificial one. Furthermore, much of what most modern people—even faithful Christians—now consider magic was once considered the scientific, legitimate manipulation of the world and its natural processes, all of which had been created by God. Not unlike our using the natural properties of certain molds to make penicillin. So, if white magic works, it should not be rejected out of hand. It should be used the same as any tool God has provided for the benefit of humanity… like modern science and medicine. Such a tool should be used especially in cases like this.”

He folded his hands and looked at his knuckles. “That is the one-paragraph summary of my paper.” He looked up, his fingers still interlocked. “Jesus did tell us to be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves. So, if black magic is used against Prague, it is only fitting to fight back with white magic.” He grinned at them all.

Victoria spoke up, apparently curious to hear more about the history of her own city and its past involvement with the supernatural. “If Svetovit was worshipped on the castle hill, is that why the castle was built there? And the cathedral? I always wondered how they decided to dedicate the cathedral to St. Vitus. Is it because his name Svaty Vit sounds so much like the old god’s?”

“Precisely,” Fr. Dmitiri said. “That is why the cathedral was dedicated to St. Vitus in the first place. Svaty Vit and Svetovit sound almost identical, yes? It was a way for the Church to appropriate the site of the old worship and replace it with Christian worship.”

“All right, then. He was the god worshipped where the cathedral was built. He was angry and vengeful. But what, in particular, was he the god of?” Theo asked.

“He has often been identified with Perun, the chief of the pre-Christian Slavic pantheon,” the priest explained. “He was a god of thunder and lightning and fire, of storms and war and fertility. Life and death were his to give or take, yes? Svetovit was the principal pre-Christian deity worshipped here and was apparently still worshipped by those—like that woman in the fire—who rejected Christianity.”

“How do you know all this?” interrupted Alessandro. “You’re not from around here. Why should you know so much of the local legend about this god?”

“I am not so much interested in Svetovit as I am in St. Vitus, whose veneration replaced that of Svetovit. I have cousins from Estonia as well as Serbian cousins on my mother’s side,” explained Fr. Dmitri, “and St. Vitus’ Day has always been an important holiday for the Serbs. It was on St. Vitus’ Day in 1389 that the Ottoman Turks conquered Serbia at the Battle of Kosovo.” He paused. “Besides, I am a priest.” He smiled at Alessandro and chuckled. “It is my business to know these things about gods and saints and devils.”

“What else do we know about Svetovit?” Alessandro wanted to know.

“We know that he rode a great horse, a white horse with eight legs, like the horse of Odin, and that he had four faces that each looked in another direction,” the priest went on. “The figure of the horseman that appeared over the city—after George and your friend Magdalena,” he nodded to Victoria, “poured out the dregs of the spiced wine and the coals of judgment against Prague—must have been Svetovit. The nightmares of the city were unleashed, if you recall, as he charged down the hill toward the bridge.”

“So George and Magdalena have unleashed Svetovit and he has begun destroying the city?” cried Victoria in alarm. “The old god has already arrived? What can we do then? If he is already here, there is no time left! It is already too late!”

“Hush, child. Calm yourself.” Sophia, the priest’s wife, reached across to pat Victoria’s hand.

“Really. The situation is dire enough without making a scene here in the hotel,” grumbled Sean.

“No, Svetovit has not arrived yet,” the priest reassured Victoria as he ignored Sean. “They have done what they can to awaken him but not in a very traditional or efficient manner. But perhaps it was the most efficient way that George could think of.” His voice dropped as he seemed to be thinking to himself aloud. “No. Not very traditional or efficient at all.”

“Why do you say that? What would be, as you call it, the most efficient and traditional way to summon Svetovit?” Theo asked.

The priest seemed to consider his words carefully before answering. “Svetovit was worshipped by the sacrifice of a coal-black rooster. These roosters were said to have always had their throats cut on the hilltop where the cathedral now stands.”

“That must be why I noticed so many decorative roosters in the old building carvings in Prague! Especially here on the castle side of the river,” Sophia interjected. “Black roosters for Svetovit.”

The priest glanced at his wife and then continued. “Obviously, George and Magdalena could not sacrifice a rooster where the cathedral is. I suspect that they could not sacrifice a rooster at all because live roosters—especially coal-black ones—are so hard to come by these days. Unless you have a farm, the only roosters and chickens available to most people are already dead and cut up and in a supermarket’s meat case—wrapped in Styrofoam and plastic!”

“So, what was it they were doing to summon Svetovit?” asked Alessandro.

“They were clearly performing a ritual of judgment and condemnation.” Sean had become impatient with the priest. “A ritual in which they slew the genius of the city and poured out condemnation and wrath against Prague. Awakening Svetovit would be one result of that but the ritual was not aimed only at awakening Svetovit.”

“Precisely.” The priest corroborated the explanation proposed by the Irishman. “Without the black rooster atop the castle hill to get his attention, Svetovit might not immediately notice or be able to respond to George and Magdalena.” He looked directly at Victoria. “So we have some time. Not a great deal of time perhaps, but some time in which to gather our wits and prepare a response.”

“What about that place? Where we saw the vision. What is it called? Loreto? Is it important that we saw it there?” asked Peter, emptying his third or fourth glass of juice. “It seemed the one building spared when Svetovit destroyed the rest of Prague.”

Victoria began to speak but Sean interrupted. “Yes, yes. We know that you lit the candle in your footprint under the hedge. So that might be one reason the vision played itself out there. But Wilcox is right. That did seem to be spared when Svetovit unleashed the nightmares of Prague. Why would that be?”

Silence. Theo finally ventured to speak.

“Well, as I recall, the Loreto was built in the 1620s as a way to provide people an opportunity to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land without having to actually travel there. It is built around a small house which is a reproduction of the Holy House of Loreto in Italy, which is itself the reproduction of a house in the Middle East said to be the house in which Jesus, Mary, and Joseph had lived.”

“It is also said to be the place,” Victoria ventured, “one of the few in the world, where the angels and saints can rest as they travel between heaven and earth. It must be some kind of door between the worlds and the air around the Loreto is supposed to be thick with the righteous. That’s partly why I lit the candle there. Another is that there is dirt in which I could make a footprint. But also the saints and righteous would be sure to help expose the thief and gather authorities to deal with him.” She spread out her hands. “You. Just like I said this morning.”

“So it is a door between heaven and earth?” asked Sophia. “No wonder it stood intact when Svetovit attacked. It must be the one place that could withstand him.”

“That is good to know,” Wilcox admitted. “It may prove useful later. The place itself may be a weapon of some kind against Svetovit.” There was another pause as everyone considered his words. A waitress walking past refilled all the coffee cups and then strolled away.

Alessandro spoke up. “So what comes next? Make a plan? But do we really believe that a magical rite stirred up a devil bent on destroying Prague? If we do, then of course we must make a plan though I doubt any of us have any idea how to stop an angry old god, awakened by a ritual of judgment and condemnation. But do we believe we can prevent the destruction of Prague?”

“You mean, the destruction of the world as we know it,” Wilcox grumbled. “If we believe the import of the vision’s conclusion.”

Everyone began talking at once and it was with some difficulty that Fr. Dmitri was able to make himself heard.

“Do we believe that a rite has awakened Svetovit and that he intends to first destroy Prague and then the world as we know it?” the priest asked everyone at the table. “That there is real evil in the world, I do not think any of us would deny. That ancient powers that we do not understand are afoot also seems undeniable. We were carried through the air to Loreto. We saw a series of visions.”

Wilcox snorted.

Sophia continued the argument her husband had started. “Perhaps this is much more than most people, even people who count themselves believers of some kind, would happily accept. But how can we not respond? We have our own experience to guide us. If I had not been taken myself through the air to Loreto, I do not think that I would believe a report such as this. But I was. So I do.”

Sheepish, embarrassed scowls and grimaces blossomed on the faces of most of the others at the table.

“We were summoned by whatever power was in that candle-in-the-footprint,” Theo agreed. “We need to do something about that vision and stopping the ruination of Prague before it goes any further. Although we all have studied magic and monsters and evil and the occult, it has always been as a theory, a social or historical phenomenon. I’m afraid the time has come to put what we know to good old practical use.”

“I agree.” Peter looked around the group, splashing milk into his coffee. “We need to figure out what each of us have in the way of specialties and then apply that knowledge.”

“I think we would be better off thinking how first it is possible to stop George,” Sophia countered. “Then figure out how everyone’s specialties might fit that overall plan.”

“Well, then,” Wilcox sniffed, “how do you first propose to stop them? Call the police? Tie them up?”

“We can’t call the police,” Victoria snapped. “We can’t tie them up. There is no proof that they have done anything the police would consider illegal. We would simply be charged with kidnapping—or worse! Then Magdalena would never speak to me again, for sure! Not only would George be free to steal Magdalena and call Svetovit, the only people able to stop him—us, here, around this table—would be stopped ourselves before we had even started!”

“Based on the vision”—Alessandro leaped into the debate—“it seems they need to control the four magical tools of Prague in order to bring their plans to fruition. So perhaps the best thing to do would be to seize those four tools before they can get hold of them.”

People looked around at each other, nodding and murmuring agreement.

“That seems to make the most sense,” Theo announced the group’s consensus. “But what are those four tools? How do we go about figuring that out? And then how do we go about seizing control of them?”

“If they are even real objects,” muttered Wilcox.

“We could sit here all day and argue about the tools,” objected Sean. “And then all of us go after each one of them?”

“Too cumbersome,” Alessandro agreed. “Better we should break up into four teams and each team devote itself to locating one of the tools. Since there are … how many of us?” He counted. “Eight of us. We should divide into four teams of two people each and go about hunting down the four magical tools.”

“Excellent.” Fr. Dmitri pushed his coffee cup away as if ready to leap into action.

“How do we decide who is on which team? Or which team searches for which of the tools?” Victoria asked.

“We could engage in some divination of our own,” began Alessandro.

“Why not just break up into pairs and then worry about which tool we go looking for?” Sean argued.

Sean saw Theo eyeing him and suspected no one would want to work with him. But someone would have to if they were to have any chance of success. It clearly wouldn’t work to count off around the table and make teams of people who simply had sat down next to each other.

Sophia pulled a small notebook from her handbag and tore a page from it. She glanced at Theo and announced, “I will write each of our names on a paper and then we can pull names to see who works together. Then we can sort out which team searches for which of the four tools.” She proceeded to fold and tear the page into eight small squares and then wrote a name on each, occasionally asking how to spell a name. She folded each of the papers and then dropped them in a pile in the middle of the table. She looked around.

“Who wants to draw the names?” she asked.

“Shouldn’t we perform some divinatory ritual first?” sneered Wilcox.

The priest crossed himself and then traced a cross in the air over the slips of paper on the table.

“Thank you, Father. Now, I think simply pulling names will do quite well.” Peter reached out and picked a paper and then set it to one side. He gestured to Wilcox, sitting next to him. Wilcox took another paper and set it with the first. The rest of the breakfasters fell into the pattern: each person selected a paper and set it aside, making pairs of papers. When they had all been set aside, Theo looked at Sophia who nodded her agreement with his unspoken decision. He reached over and took her notebook and pulled out another sheet. He tore the page into four pieces.

“Remind me—what are the four tools called?” he asked everyone.

“Cup. Chalice.”

“Wand. Staff.”

“Athame.”

“Pentacle.”

Different voices named each of the four tools, which Theo wrote down. Then he folded the papers and dropped one onto each of the four pairs of names already sitting around the table.

“All right. Now we have four teams of two people each and the tool each should identify and prevent George and Magdalena from possessing. Who wants to read the teams and the tools?” Theo asked.

Everyone seemed politely shy, reluctant to step forward. Finally, Fr. Dmitri said quietly, “I will.”

With dignity and solemnity, he opened the paper atop the nearest stack of names and read, “Pentacle.” Then he opened the two papers with names and read, “Wilcox. Victoria.” He flattened the three papers and set them in a stack again, though open if anyone cared to inspect them.

Victoria beamed at Wilcox as he reached for the stack of crumpled papers nearest him. “I’ll read these, since I am out of the running.” He opened all three and read them himself before announcing them to the group, “Chalice. Sean and Peter will search together for the chalice.”

Sean sensed a collective sigh of relief from the rest of the table. But everyone seemed to be taking the selection process very seriously and refrained from making any comments.

Following Wilcox’s precedent, Peter opened and read the papers near him. He swallowed nervously and said, “Sophia, you and Alessandro will search for the wand. The staff.”

Alessandro winked at Sophia.

“That leaves Theo and Fr. Dmitri.” Victoria opened the papers near her and confirmed what she had already announced. “The athame will be protected by Fr. Dmitri and Theo.”

“So,” Fr. Dmitri voiced the question the rest were thinking, “how do we discover where these objects are? Or how do we discover even what they are? Victoria, you live here. Theo, you’ve been here many times. Do either of you know what—for instance—the athame of Prague is? Or where it might be hidden?”

Theo and Victoria looked at each other and simultaneously answered, “No.”

“Why not just follow George and Magdalena as they hunt down the four tools?” Wilcox asked, pouting.

“If we only follow George and Magdalena, then they will reach the four tools first and then they will have them, not us!” Victoria exclaimed. “We cannot let them reach the four tools before we do! We must find the four tools to keep them out of George’s hands!”

Alessandro picked up the priest’s line of thought. “Wouldn’t it avoid a lot of wasted time if we could find someone who really knows Prague? Another local person, probably. But it would have to be someone local who knows the practice of magic and who would be able to at least point us in the right direction.”

“Who might that be?” asked Sophia. “Wouldn’t such a person have been gathered with us at Loreto last night if they existed or were appropriate to get involved? Doesn’t the fact that we were the ones summoned indicate that we have the resources between us to figure out these things?”

Theo mulled that over before responding. “You make a good point, Sophia. But it couldn’t hurt to double-check with a knowledgeable local before we start chasing down suppositions and possibilities that are obviously fruitless.”

“Who might such a local person be?” Sean asked. He turned to Victoria. “I take it that you do not feel competent to be that local person?”

“I could try.” Victoria said. “But there is much I do not know, both about the history of Prague and its magical resources.”

“Then who?” Sean demanded.

Theo and Victoria looked at each other again and nodded before announcing in concert, “Professor Hron.”

“Excellent!” Fr. Dmitri seemed pleased at the quick resolution of the problem. “When can you speak with him?”

“I can try to speak with him between sessions of the conferences this morning,” Theo said. “We should get going there, especially if we do not want to draw any attention to ourselves and give George and Magdalena the idea that we are aware of their plans. The less they realize we have been alerted to them, the less careful they will be to cover their tracks and the more likely they are to make a mistake. If we watch them carefully, they might even be able to help us. If they know where these magical tools are, we might follow their lead and get to the tools before they do.”

“So we shouldn’t all go charging off this morning, I take it. Is that what you are saying?” Sean shot back.

“For the time being. We should attend the conference sessions and I will talk to Hron as soon as I can. We can meet again at lunchtime and I can relay whatever Hron is able to tell me,” Theo suggested. “Does that sound good to people?” He looked around to a general murmur of agreement and the nodding of heads.

Theo turned to Victoria. “Where do you work? Can you meet us for lunch later?”

Victoria nodded. “Yes, I work nearby. I can meet you then.”

Theo pushed back his chair, scraping it across the floor, and stood. “Then I will see you all at lunchtime.” They all stood to gather their things and head to the first morning session of the conferences.

 

 

Theo caught Hron by the elbow during the noisy break between the two morning sessions. Hron clapped him on the shoulder.

“Glad to see you this morning, Theo! Sleep well? When I didn’t see you before the first session, I was afraid you had overslept or had a bit of a hangover.” He grinned. Then he seemed to notice Theo’s seriousness. “Is everything all right, old boy? Has some problem developed with one of the conference participants?”

“No, no,” Theo reassured his friend as he gently led the Czech academic away from the table of coffee cups and pastries that had been set out for the break. He was able to steer Hron toward the tall windows with their velvet draperies. The light that streamed in, which should have been clear and bright, was still an off-color that reminded Theo of an impending storm.

“Hron, I need your advice.” Theo thought the direct approach best but did not want to alarm Hron by sounding as if he had completely lost his mind. He had struggled to devise a reason to discuss these matters with Hron that would not raise his suspicions.

“Certainly. What is it?” Hron peered into Theo’s face.

“Well, it does involve a conference participant,” Theo began. “It seems that this woman is presenting a paper this afternoon about Crusader magic in the Middle East and wants to include some local color in her presentation. She came knocking on my door—before sunrise this morning!—expecting that I would answer all her questions on the spot. Of course, I told her that I would speak with her later. But she wanted to know about the four magical tools associated with defending Prague so that she could compare them to those in the Crusaders’ occult arsenal against the Moslems. I’m afraid that’s not a subject I know much about but it could make for a more lively presentation after lunch. Help to keep everyone awake, you know? She was also hoping to maybe get slides of the Prague tools to show, if she can. But I was wondering if you could tell me anything about these magical tools. What they might be and where they might be found.” He looked expectantly at Hron and raised one eyebrow.

“Hmm, well that is certainly an interesting question,” Hron admitted. “Would you like me to meet with this woman?”

“Oh, no. No. That won’t be necessary. I’m sure you have enough to do between sessions and don’t need to spend your time dealing with this. I will just pass on whatever suggestions you can make and let her track them down from there,” Theo said.

Hron replied, “So you want to know about the four magical tools of Prague? As in athame, pentacle, staff, and chalice?”

“Yes, I believe those were the four she was interested in.”

“Well, there has never been a definitive list of such tools,” Hron admitted, “but there certainly are some likely contenders for at least two of them. Unfortunately, they all range somewhat widely throughout history so they don’t all date from the earliest days of Prague or come down from the hand of the Princess Libuše as some would suppose.”

“So it’s as if the tools were constructed or assembled to fill real needs at specific times?” Theo asked him.

“Almost. Or the stories about them developed to fill certain needs at certain times,” Hron reformulated the question. “In any case, you recall that the primary magical weapon built to protect Prague was the Charles Bridge, yes? It was constructed in such a way as to be a, a masterpiece as it were, of occult science to defend the city.”

“Yes, I recall that,” Theo confessed, “though I don’t recall the details of the story. But I think this woman is more interested in the four standard tools of occult practitioners.”

“All right.” Hron’s brow furrowed as he thought. “Well, the first is intimately tied up with the bridge. An athame is a dagger or knife, correct? Well, the equivalent of such a dagger would be the sword of Bruncvík.”

“Bruncvík? Who was Bruncvík? And why is his sword tied up with the bridge?” Theo asked.

“Bruncvík was a knight about whom a whole cycle of sagas evolved. He was a hero and a traveler who some say fought with Roland at Roncevaux. Bruncvík is usually depicted with his two principal attributes: a lion who served as his companion and a great sword said to be enchanted. This magic sword is buried in the foundations of the bridge, perhaps near the statue of him standing next to the bridge in Kampa Square,” Hron explained, sipping his coffee.

“The magical staff is almost certainly the staff of Rabbi Judah Ben Loew, which he used in his cabbalistic rites,” Hron continued. “The most famous of those, of course, involve the construction of the Golem in the Old-New Synagogue, but where the staff was put after the rabbi’s death was never recorded in the legends.”

Theo pulled out a conference program booklet from his back pocket and, unfolding its crumpled cover, made brief notes on the back. “So, let me be sure I have this correctly: the athame is the sword of Bruncvík buried in the bridge and the staff is that of the rabbi who made the Golem but no one knows where it is hidden.” He looked up at Hron. “What about the chalice and the pentacle? Any stories about those?”

“Those are more difficult to identify,” Hron admitted. “The pentacle has never been the focus of any legend. Nor has anything that resembles a pentacle. On the other hand, there are so many possibilities for which chalice is the magical chalice of Prague that it is hard to say which might be considered most authentic.”

“So many possibilities?” Theo repeated Hron’s assertion. “What do you mean?”

“That there are an infinite number of chalices and cups of historic or symbolic significance in Prague,” Hron told him. “Communion in both kinds—receiving the wine as well as the Host at Mass—was the rallying cry of the Utraquists, the first Protestants here in Bohemia. So there are emblems of chalices all over the city. Even the gold statue of the Madonna on the façade of Our Lady of Tyn in the Old Town Square was a golden chalice before it was melted down and refashioned into the Madonna. Then there are the actual chalices of historic importance, such as that used by the first monks in Bohemia or that used by Charles IV at his coronation. To say nothing of whatever cups might have been used for magical rites by Rudolf II or his alchemists in the castle. Any one of them might have been identified as the magical chalice of Prague at some point.”

Theo chewed his lower lip. The conference-goers were wandering back into the rooms for the next session. Disappointed not to have identified all four magical tools, at least he had leads on two.

“All right.” Theo folded the program back into his back pocket. “Thank you, Hron. I’ll pass this on to the woman and maybe she can find a slide of Bruncvík’s statue or the rabbi’s synagogue. Anyway, this is more than she had to go on this morning.”

“Glad to help.” Hron set his coffee cup down on the window sill next to an abandoned plate full of pastry crumbs and a napkin wadded into a ball. He moved towards the room where a session of the Evil and Human Wickedness conference on the Nazi’s “Final Solution” that he wanted to hear was scheduled to begin in a few minutes. “Coming along?” he asked Theo.

“I… I think I will check in with Magdalena at the registration table and see if there are any messages or anything to deal with,” Theo hurriedly thought of an excuse to not go into the session with Hron. “Then I was thinking of going to the Monsters session on lyconthropy down the hall.” Theo hoped Hron wouldn’t realize he was trying to hide something from him.

“Very good. Then I will see you at lunch!” Hron clapped Theo on the back and stepped into the session on the Holocaust.

Theo stood a moment and then moved toward the lush staircase. He had no intention of checking with Magdalena for any messages, or meeting Hron for lunch. He trotted down the stairs, nodding in a friendly way to Magdalena, who was standing behind the registration desk. Theo stepped out on the street and turned left. He wanted another coffee and some time to chew over what he had learned from Hron.

 

 

Theo found the rest of the “breakfast club” milling about the lobby of the Angel House when the conference sessions broke for lunch. Even Victoria had managed to get away from her office to join them. Theo quickly shepherded them out the door and up the street, back to the restaurant he had just come from. He knew that all the nearby eateries would quickly fill with conference-goers and had asked a waiter to “hold my table until I return with my friends.” They were quickly shown to their seats by the waiter, who probably anticipated a healthy tip from such a large group of Western tourists.

After they ordered, Sean asked, “Well, what did you learn from Hron? Where—and what—are the four magical tools of Prague?” Luckily, there were enough other people in the restaurant that the air was full of the buzz of conversations. They could speak freely yet privately while sitting in full public view.

“It seems that I have what can be considered both good and bad news,” Theo announced. “It seems fairly likely that two of the implements are clearly identified though difficult to obtain. The other two are much more difficult to even hazard a guess about their identity, let alone their location or the likelihood of obtaining them.”

“Which two are the easier to identify?” Sophia asked.

“The staff is probably that of the rabbi said to have constructed the Golem here in the Old-New Synagogue,” Theo told them. “The rabbi is buried in the Jewish Cemetery and the remains of the Golem are in the synagogue attic, according to the stories. But the location of the staff after the rabbi’s death is not mentioned in any of the stories.”

A few of those sitting with him were straining to hear his words in the busy restaurant. More than one crestfallen expression greeted his news of the staff’s unknown whereabouts.

“And the other fairly easily identified tool?” asked Fr. Dmitiri. “Which is it?”

“Hron is fairly certain that the athame of Prague can be identified with the sword of Bruncvík, an early medieval hero,” Theo reported. “We even know where the sword is said to be kept. The only problem is that it was buried in the foundations of the Charles Bridge on the Little Town side of the river.”

“I remember that story!” Victoria said.

“That means that we would need to blow up the bridge to get it, doesn’t it?” Wilcox muttered.

“Yes, but maybe that means George and Magdalena will have as difficult a time getting their hands on it as we will,” Sean pointed out.

“Did Hron have any idea about the chalice or the pentacle?” Peter asked.

Theo repeated Hron’s words about the unidentified pentacle and the apparently limitless possibilities for which chalice was the correct one.

Theo watched them all react to his news. Several shoulders drooped and he was greeted by looks of dismay. “I felt the same way,” he shared with them. “Then I sat down to think about it all. Hron said—when he was talking about the difficulty of identifying which chalice might be the correct chalice—that at least one of the possibilities had been melted down and refashioned into a statue of the Madonna. Isn’t it possible that the same thing happened to other tools? Any one of them, including the sword of Bruncvík, might have been refashioned into something else. And if that happened, would the new article it was fashioned into possess the same magical capabilities of the original object?”

“Probably not,” he answered his own question when only arched eyebrows and quizzical looks passed around the table. The waiter appeared, noisily depositing their lunches on the table. Plates clattered and glasses clinked. Silverware wrapped in napkins was passed around and dishes were inspected and then identified so they could be delivered to their proper places. Ale and beer quenched parched throats before the conversation resumed.

“Would the refashioned tools possess the same power they had in their original form? I’m guessing not,” Theo reprised his last words. “That means that either that the particular tool had to be replaced by another—a new chalice? another sword?—or was simply lost from the occult arsenal of Prague.

“But if the tools could be lost due to refashioning,” Theo continued his line of thinking, “they might also be lost by historical accident. The staff might have been burnt in a fire. The pentacle or chalice might have been confiscated by the Nazis and deported during the war. Or the Communists could have sent things back to museums or private collections in the Soviet Union. A precious artifact might have been sold to a foreign museum and shipped abroad. There’s no telling where any of these things might be anymore. If any of them still exist.”

“They must exist,” Victoria spoke up, still chewing the beef in the goulash she had ordered. “We saw them in the grip of the—what did you call her? the genius? the guardian spirit of Prague?—did we not? If they were in her grasp, they must exist.”

“But you make a good point, Theo.” Alessandro spoke up next. “Any one of them might be in a museum somewhere else. That would not effect their power, necessarily. Right? In fact, that might have been a way to protect them. By sending them away, they might have been safer than remaining to be plundered by the Nazis or the Communists or whoever else.”

“It certainly does make the whole business much more complicated that it seemed even at breakfast,” sighed Sophia.

“Hron mentioned another point.” Theo paused as he took a bite of food. “Even more than these four tools, the primary magical weapon that defends Prague is the Charles Bridge itself. Fashioned by Charles IV with the assistance of the greatest magical masterminds of his day, it has always been said to possess incredible power and strength. If George—and Magdalena, whether she realizes it or not—intend to destroy Prague, they will need to disengage the power of the bridge even more than they need to collect the four tools.”

“But that must be nearly impossible!” gasped Victoria. “Are we supposed to reinforce the bridge as well as stop them from seizing the chalice, pentacle, staff, and sword?”

“I think we can leave the bridge to fend for itself,” Theo conceded. “If its power is as awesome as Hron thinks, then our efforts should focus on preventing them from obtaining the magical tools. I agree, Victoria. There is precious little that we are in a position to do to reinforce the power of the bridge, apart from using those tools to support it.”

Waiters and waitresses appeared to clear away the empty dishes and make way for more of the waiting diners who stood in the restaurant’s entryway. The waiter Theo had dealt with earlier handed him the check and Theo winced. He could easily imagine Wilcox and Sean and a few others objecting to paying equal portions of the bill and the thought of attempting to divide it according to who had ordered what was daunting. Anytime he was forced by academics to divide a bill in such a way, there was never enough cash and he always had to make up the difference.

He retrieved his wallet from his back pocket and pulled out a credit card to hand the smiling waiter. It would be easier this way.

Several voices burst out in protest that Theo should not be obligated to pay for everyone’s lunch and demanded to sort through the various entrees and drinks ordered. “No, no problem,” he insisted. “Just give me the cash that you each think is right, and we’ll call it even.” A small pile of wrinkled Czech bills accumulated in front of him, nowhere near enough to cover the bill. Theo counted out enough for a tip and pocketed the little that remained leftover. The waiter returned with the receipt for him to sign.

“So, then, what is our next step?” Alessandro asked before everyone stood to walk away.

“We begin our searches for the four tools.” Fr. Dmitri spoke up, in a tone that was both matter-of-fact and authoritative. “We break up into our teams and set about identifying, locating, and obtaining the tools we were assigned. We do not know if George already knows what these tools are and where they might be, so we cannot afford to let him maintain any greater lead than he already has.”

“Indeed. It’s clearly about more than just saving Magdalena from this man,” the priest’s wife chimed in. “It’s about more than saving Prague from him. It seems that modern civilization depends on stopping Svetovit.”

 

 

“Scatter their bones near the mouth of hell!”

(October 1356)

 

Djordji stood in the Old Town Square, looking around. It was remarkably empty for a late September afternoon. He had come down into the Old Town from his family’s camp inside the old forest across the open field from the castle’s western walls. He had come into the marketplace, the most famous in Central Europe, intending to see what goods were for sale and what the prices were. He also intended to pick a few pockets or relieve a merchant or two of their day’s profits.

But the square was nearly empty. No market open, no goods being sold, no profits being made, no pockets waiting for his nimble fingers to empty them. Only a lonely pole erected at one side of the square, surrounded by bales of hay and kindling. A stake. Waiting for an execution. So Djordji waited for the execution.

A crowd erupted into the square, shouting and screaming and pushing and pulling. Djordji, anxious to avoid notice too early in the proceedings, melted into the alleyway that ran alongside the church dominating the east side of the square. The crowd surged across the square toward the stake in swirls and eddies, like the tide encroaching on a rocky shore. He could not understand their words but the tone made their intention clear. An old, dripping wet woman was bound to the stake and the kindling lit.

She was screaming at the crowd now. A breeze stirred and ruffled the clothes of the mob. Thunderclouds massed above the stake. Flames danced around the woman. Djordji stepped from the alley and into the fraying edge of the crowd focused on the woman at the stake.

“They will be heeding the old woman and the fire even more than they would have been heeding their trading and bargaining,” Djordji chuckled to himself. “It will be easier to relieve a few of their moneybags than if the market had been open.” Certain no one would notice him in the disorderly chaos in the square, he slowly made his way closer to the stake, carefully plucking small leather bags filled with coins from the belts of a few men he passed.

The clouds grew thicker, blocking the sunlight. Lightning flickered. Djordji glanced up and noticed the strange figure that seemed to be lurking in the clouds across the river. The woman cried out again and still he did not understand her words but he was certain she was crying out to some deity she had trusted to protect her but had apparently abandoned her.

“Scatter their bones near the mouth of hell!” Fen’ka called out from the stake. Lightning filled the sky, momentarily blinding Djordji as thunder deafened him.

 

 

A caravan of three wagons filled the small clearing in the forest. The tumultuous afternoon storm the week before, while Grandfather Djordji had gone into the city to see the marketplace and had instead seen the old woman burned at the stake, had been followed by days of clear sunlight and crisp, cool nights. The forest was in the midst of changing from green to scarlet and yellow and orange. Leaves were drifting to the ground. Autumn had embraced the forest and the first kiss of winter was little more than a month away.

Djordji’s caravan was the most elaborate of the three, carved and painted in wild, exuberant extravagance. His wife long dead, he lived in the caravan alone, though the grandchildren were allowed inside as a special treat. The other two caravans belonged to his two sons and their wives. One son had two daughters and the other had two daughters and a son, so the camp was always full of the sound of children running and laughing and singing. The baby boy was the youngest, not yet a year old, and the four girls ranged in age from three years to twelve. Since they did not count birthdays much after marriage, it was hard to know how old Grandfather Djordji was, but his thick, silver beard bristled with age.

Djordji had gone back into the Old Town and the Little Town each day since the old woman had been burned. He had taken one of his sons on each expedition and once both together. Each time, they returned to the camp with a few coins and some provisions from the markets. Sometimes the men went hunting in the forest. But the children were never allowed to come with their fathers and grandfather on any of these expeditions, either for hunting or to the towns in the valley below. They were not allowed to step beyond the edge of the trees. So they helped their mothers wash and cook and they played among the trees.

Although the bright caravans filled the clearing and the well-traveled road to the castle ran through the trees nearby, the trees hid the wagons well and none of the merchants, politicians or other travelers that filled the road ever knew how close to the camp they were passing.

Djordji had brought his family here to explore Prague, the famous capital. They had traveled far in their sturdy wagons, but the three gentle, heavyset, dependable horses that had each pulled one of the wagons had gone mad the afternoon of the storm when the woman had been burned by the mob. The horses had reared up, screaming and neighing and plowing the air with their hooves before galloping off between the trees. Now the three wagons were unable to go anywhere. Djordji, his sons and daughters-in-law, and his grandchildren were trapped until they could gather enough coins to purchase three new horses. Or obtain the horses in some other manner. But horses they needed if they were to continue their nomadic life and avoid the chains and snares of the settled townships they passed through and never stayed in for long.

 

 

The week after Fen’ka’s death, a young man paused along the road running through the forest towards the Prague castle. He was alone on the road, all the usual travelers having already made their way into the city. Bonifác stood in the forest, listening to the sounds of the fading day. His knapsack was slung over his aching shoulder and his feet hurt, but he was glad to be standing near what he hoped was the end of the forest.

“The end of the forest and the beginning of Prague,” he said quietly to the large black dog beside him, afraid to disturb the rustling of the undergrowth and the birdsong above. The man stopped, the reek of brimstone inescapable in the air. He looked about and pointed to the rough gash he saw in the earth visible through the trees, not far from the road.

“See that stinking chasm, my friend?” Bonifác asked the dog. “I believe that is the famous chasm which the Devil himself tore open to make an entrance into hell for the wicked queen Drahomira in the days of our good king Vaclav. It is said that it leads directly into hell and that the Devil made it to receive the wagon bearing the wicked queen to her intended burial, lest her soul escape his grasp.” The dog peered through the trees, his large tongue hanging out as he panted. He looked back up to Bonifác and barked.

“If we are passing the mouth of hell, then the great Prague Castle cannot be much further!” he promised the dog.

The animal barked again, as if in agreement.

The growing shadows of the late afternoon seemed to reach out and wrap Bonifác in their gentle arms, almost like a lover. He closed his eyes to listen more closely. Even with his destination so close, he could not tear himself away from the caress of the sunset. This had always been his favorite time of the day. Even as a small boy, he would escape his errands, running to the edge of the woods near his home to experience the daily transition from day to evening with the trees and small animals that made their homes there.

Clatter! Loud laughter and the sound of metal pots clanging against each other rang out nearby and Bonifác jerked open his eyes. Several voices mingled in the air, speaking with an accent he could not quite recognize.

“Aishe!” a man’s voice rang out. He seemed to be giving directions to someone, and the laughter of young girls wafted through the trees as other adult voices Bonifác couldn’t hear well spoke to each other. The black dog sat at attention, his ears taut as if trying to understand.

“I must be close to Prague,” Bonifác told himself. “Very close. But perhaps not close enough to reach before dark and the city closes its gates. These seem to also be travelers and perhaps I could find a place to sleep among them for the night.”

The voices seemed to come from every direction, deflected and redirected by the trees around him. He was unsure of which direction to go, though he was sure the travelers he heard could not be far away. Maybe only a few steps. The trees were dense enough along the road in this part of the forest that it was impossible to say.

There was a dull “thump!” off to his left.

“Drina!” a girl, probably Aishe, shouted. One girl seemed to be giving orders to a younger sister or cousin. The only response was laughter and the sound of small feet skipping through the fallen leaves on the forest floor. Bonifác turned forward and backward, unsure where the girl was skipping.

The large dog leapt up and barked, turning and twisting around Bonifác’s feet.

Giggles and a voice singing a song he did not know, ending in a sharp gasp behind him, answered his question. He turned to see a small girl, perhaps five or six years old, standing between the trees at the side of the road opposite the ravine he had pointed out to the dog. Her eyes were open wide in her lightly bronzed face. Dark ringlets tumbled down beside her face and her colorful dress seemed to have been well-worn by an older sister, its tattered hem hanging between the girl’s knees and her bare feet.

The dog froze, facing her, his head cocked to one side as if to study her. He barked once, but in a way that was more greeting than menace or threat.

She stared at Bonifác and then scuffed her foot in the dry leaves.

“Good day,” Bonifác said to the girl, smiling as he tipped his hat to her. “I hope you are well this evening… Drina?”

The girl nodded solemnly.

“Shall we go back to your sister? Can you introduce me to your sister Aishe… and your father?” Bonifác guessed the identity of the man he had heard.

The dog barked again.

Drina nodded again. Bonifác, followed by the dog, who trotted a half-step behind him, walked toward her and reached to take her hand, which she slowly reached for, then wrapped her small fingers around three of his much larger fingers. She reached the dog with her other hand and he closed his eyes, pressing against her in pleasure. Bonifác smiled down at the girl and she blushed, quickly looking down at the ground, then straight ahead of her, glancing furtively back into Bonifác’s face and over to the dog. No longer skipping and singing, Drina led Bonifác back through the trees with a certainty that surprised the young man.

“I always get lost in the woods,” he confessed to his young guide. “I am very glad to have you here to lead me.” He winked at Drina and she blushed again, but smiled. Did she understand his words? He thought not. But she seemed to understand his intent to put her at ease. She walked with a lighter step, and by the time she led him back to her family, she was nearly skipping again, the dog barking and licking her face with his rough, wet tongue. She laughed.

Drina had led him to a large clearing, and in the clearing stood three covered wagons that looked more like small cottages on wheels. Each was elaborately painted and adorned with decorative carving in patterns that distinguished each wagon from the others yet clearly announced they were part of the same caravan. The empty tongue and yoke of each wagon lay on the ground before it. A campfire crackled merrily in the center of the clearing around which the wagons stood. Another girl in a colorful but tattered dress, perhaps ten or twelve, stood next to the fire with her back toward Bonifác and Drina, and seemed to be stirring the contents of a pot hung over the fire. A large kettle lay on the ground not far from where they stood on the edge of the clearing.

Several adults, men and women, milled around the wagons, talking and laughing. Bonifác guessed they were unpacking what they would need to eat their supper or to camp that night. One man, with brilliant silver hair and beard, sat in the driver’s seat of one of the wagons and seemed to be carving a stick of some sort. Glancing up from his carving, he saw Drina holding Bonifác’s hand and a bright smile lit the old man’s face. He waved to the girl, who dropped both Bonifác’s hand and the dog’s fur as she charged across the clearing to the old man, who dropped down to the ground from the wagon.

“Puro dad!” Drina exclaimed, the old man sweeping her up in his arms and swinging her about. “Puro dad!” Drina cried again. She babbled in a language Bonifác could not understand. Everyone in the clearing, including Aishe tending the pot on the fire, dropped what they were doing and turned to stare at Bonifác and the black dog. Silence enveloped the clearing.

The grandfather slowly stopped swinging Drina and set her back onto the ground. He looked in Bonifác’s direction and then walked towards him.

Bonifác could see that the grandfather was the patriarch of the travelers, as they all watched his every movement in silent respect. He was also clearly quite strong for his age, much stronger than Bonifác’s father, who needed the support of a cane to walk and would need to sit after only a few steps. Drina’s grandfather moved with strength and assurance. He wore a supple leather vest over a faded linen shirt and well-oiled leather boots into which he had tucked his rough, baggy trousers. Even in the fading light, Bonifác could tell that none of the adults were dressed in what might be called finery, though all of the clothes seemed well-cared-for and clean.

Drina’s grandfather stood before Bonifác and looked the young man in the eyes. Bonifác felt himself being examined, his soul weighed in a scale, and feared he would be found wanting. The old man looked steadily into the dog’s face as well. Then the old man broke into a large grin again and slapped Bonifác on the back.

“Welcome, young man! Welcome to our caravan!” the grandfather exclaimed in German, which Bonifác understood in large part. “Thank you for bringing our little Drina back to us safely. She is forever running away into the forest to find a squirrel or a bird to play with and we are forever looking for her when it is time to eat or sleep.”

He clapped his hands and the clearing burst back into life as the travelers resumed their talking and laughing and preparations for the night.

The dog jumped and barked happily. Drina called something across the clearing and the dog rushed over to her, barking and licking her face and tumbling with her as the rest of the people turned their attention away from Bonifác. Other children appeared from the wagons and joined the game with Drina and the dog.

“She… she really brought me to you,” Bonifác stuttered, embarrassed to be taken for a hero.

“You must stay and share our simple meal!” the grandfather continued as if he had not heard Bonifác’s protest. “You and your dog both! Share our meal, for that is the only way we have to show our gratitude!” He drew Bonifác into his arms and embraced him, then turned and led him back toward the fire.

Bonifác embraced the old man in return and nodded with enthusiasm. “Yes, yes! I will be happy to share your meal with you! I am so glad, so happy to share what little I have as well!” He pulled his knapsack from his shoulder and retrieved a small bottle of wine he had obtained in a market town a few miles back. “Will you drink with me?”

“We will drink together, yes!” the old man cried, his eyes twinkling. “But put your small bottle away, my friend. Put it away and share a bottle of ours!” One of the women brought an open bottle to the grandfather and Bonifác while another found two tin cups and brought them.

The old man poured wine into one of the cups and gave it to Bonifác, then gestured toward an abundant mountain of pillows and cushions that had been deposited against one of the wagon’s large wheels. Both he and Bonifác eased themselves onto the pillows without spilling a drop of the precious wine that filled the tin cups now, and soon Bonifác nearly forgot they were sitting in the midst of a camp of busy, hardworking folk.

“Where have I come from? Where am I going?” Bonifác repeated the old man’s question.

“Yes, yes,” the man encouraged Bonifác to answer, nodding and smiling.

“I am from Kostelec, a small town three days’ journey from here, and I am going to Prague, the great city of our great king,” Bonifác answered proudly. He drank deeply from the tin cup in his hand and the old man generously refilled it.

“What brings you, my son, from your home in Kostelec to the great Prague?” the elder man asked.

“I have loved nothing so much as learning, even from the time when I was a small boy. My father, though poor, found the few coins he could to hire a tutor that was able to teach me the rudiments of how to read and write,” Bonifác confessed. “But that only made me thirst even more for learning the great secrets of this world and so I used what few coins I could earn to then hire another tutor who would unlock the secrets of this world to me.”

He leaned forward and spoke in a quieter voice, as if he were sharing the plot of a conspiracy. “That second tutor was an alchemist but I am afraid that I have exhausted everything that he has to teach me,” Bonifác went on. “He taught me what words of German I know, so that I am lucky enough to speak with you now. But I am coming to great Prague to find a master alchemist and serve as an apprentice to him and study all the secrets of the universe that he can teach me.” He beamed with pride in his accomplishments and attempted to sit a little straighter, hold his head a little higher. But the wine was rapidly making his head spin, as he had not eaten since he had chewed and swallowed the hard crusts an old woman had given him just after dawn.

“Ah, I see,” the old man nodded thoughtfully. “An alchemist, your tutor was? And now you go to the great city of Prague to serve as an apprentice to one of the great alchemists there?”

“Yes,” Bonifác agreed. “I dare to hope that I can serve as apprentice to an alchemist as learned as John of Rupescissa, the Franciscan from Catalonia—who I have heard has been imprisoned by our father Pope Innocent because of the lies the pope’s advisors fill his ears with—I hope to serve one of the alchemists serving the great court of King Charles himself!”

The old man nodded again thoughtfully and filled the tin cup in Bonifác’s hand again. “Such ambition for such a young man.”

Silence hung between them as Bonifác drank from the cup.

“So, tell me, young man… What is your name?” the older man asked.

“My parents gave me the name Bonifác,” he answered.

“And your dog?” the old man asked. “What do you call him?” The dog’s barking and children’s laughter came from somewhere in the trees behind the wagons.

“I have no name for him,” Bonifác confessed sheepishly. “He is not, in truth, my dog at all. He joined me on the road yesternight, and has kept at my side since then. He is clearly well-fed and well-cared-for, but I know not where he comes from or which manor house he ought to be returned to. But so long as he travels with me, I am happy of his company.”

The grandfather nodded. “A faithful dog can be a man’s greatest treasure,” he agreed.

“And you, sir?” Bonifác realized he had expressed no interest in knowing his host’s journey and hoped the old man would not consider him rude. “What is your name and where have you come from? Where does your journey take you… if I may be so bold to ask?”

“Me? I am called… I am called Djordji,” the man answered, seemingly unsure of his own name. He gestured about them, with the almost empty bottle in one hand and his tin cup in the other, to the other people in the camp. “My family and I—my sons and their wives and children—we all travel together the roads of the world.”

“What do you look for on your journeys?” Bonifác wanted to know. “Are your sons looking to be hired by craftsmen and tradesmen in the towns you pass through? Are you merchants that buy and sell as you go?”

“We neither look for work nor buy and sell,” Djordji told Bonifác. “We are Roma, those whom many call gypsies, and we travel the roads of the world because that is what our people, the Roma, are called to do in this life.”

Bonifác could not recall ever hearing of the wandering Roma or gypsies before.

“We are the first of our people to come so far west,” Djordji explained. “But we hope to return to our clan in the east and tell them of the treasures and riches and magnificence we have seen here in Bohemia and the German lands.”

Bonifác nodded and sipped the last drops of wine from his cup.

“Tell me,” Bonifác asked, “do you know how much further through the forest I must follow the road until I reach the castle and towns of Prague? Must I walk many more miles? I think I passed the great chasm that is said to be one of the mouths of Hell as I met your granddaughter on the road. I have been told that the chasm is not far from the castle. I am hoping it is less than a day’s journey!”

“A day’s journey?” he laughed. “The great city you seek with its master alchemists and great court of the great king is near, but not so near as that. A day’s journey? Perhaps it is the journey of only two days, but only if you walk quickly the entire way.” Djordji laughed so heartily he had to wipe the tears from his eyes.

Bonifác was crestfallen. “Two days’ more walking? I was certain it was much closer than that. Many on the road with me earlier today promised that I might even reach the walls of the city this evening, if I had but the strength to walk as quickly as a horse could trot.”

Djordji shook his head and clapped Bonifác on the back, his eyes twinkling. “They misled you, boy. Travelers are terrible judges of distance, especially the distances that others must travel to reach the destination of their hopes and dreams. Even the tales of that chasm do not speak the truth about its distance from the castle. But, stay with us tonight and you will be safe in the forest from the brigands and thieves that wander these woods.” Djordji gestured and a woman brought another bottle of wine and filled Bonifác’s cup again.

 

 

Bonifác had sat around the campfire with Djordji’s large family, eating and drinking until the fire had sunk into the coals and the children had all fallen asleep around their mothers. Only Djordji knew enough German to speak with Bonifác but the others had all laughed and smiled and encouraged him to eat and drink and sing with them. The dog had run and jumped with the children until the stew was ready and then was happy to throw himself down on the ground beside Bonifác and eat whatever tidbits he was given, gnawing on the bones from the pot at the end of the meal.

But at some point, sleep—sleep and wine and exhaustion from walking on the road all day—overcame Bonifác and his head fell forward. His chin touched his chest more than once and he bobbed upright again, struggling to not seem rude to Djordji and his sons, who seemed to sit upright and drink and talk without ever growing tired. The women stirred finally to put the children to bed and even the great dog beside him began to snore and Bonifác felt his chin tipping forward one last time.

Now, as he was waking again, Bonifác felt sick and his head felt like it would burst with pain. He struggled to sit up and could not; tight knots of rope bit into his wrists and ankles. He raised his head, fighting to open his eyes.

Phlegm, crusted around his eyes, clutched his eyelashes and made it even more difficult to open his eyes. His head fell back onto the hard ground he realized he was bound to, exhausted with his efforts. He gasped deeply for air and fought back the mounting fear in his chest.

“A nightmare! That is the only thing it can be!” Bonifác argued with himself. “How else would I think myself trapped here, tied to the earth? I must wake!”

He tried again to pry his eyes open with sheer strength, unable to bring his hands to his face. He could feel the phlegm and crust crack and gasped for breath again. He twisted his face, contorting his nose and brows as much as he could in order to dislodge the crust binding his eyes shut. He tried to forget the rope biting into his flesh. With one more valiant effort, he cracked open one eye and almost cried with relief. A moment later, he was able to open the other eye.

The sunlight hurt his eyes but as his vision slowly adjusted, he realized it was the gentle light of early dawn dancing in the air and darting through the autumnal leaves. Lifting his shoulders and head, he was able to make out four stakes in the earth to which his hands and feet were tightly bound with many knots of stiff rope. He was lying on the bare ground and could only see trees around him. There was no sign of Djordji, his Roma family, or their wagons.

“I must wake myself!” Bonifác realized that only by waking could he free himself from this nightmare of sunlight and rope, so he shouted in both German and Bohemian. “Help me! Someone! Please! Come cut these knots!”

No one came. His throat felt parched, as if he had not had a drink of water for many days. He tried to lick his lips and shouted again.

“Someone! Help me! Please!”

Only birds answered him, their songs taunting and mocking his cries. He was about to cry out again when footsteps crunched in the fallen leaves behind his head. He twisted his neck around as best he could to see who was coming.

The toes of well-worn, supple leather boots came into view. Did he know those boots? He squinted against the sunlight and made out the shadow of a man looming above him.

“Help me!” Bonifác croaked. “Cut these knots and help me up!”

No answer.

Bonifác repeated himself, in German this time.

“Help you?” the man answered him in German. “Of course I will help you, lad. After you have helped me and my family.”

Did Bonifác know that voice? He thought it seemed familiar but his ears seemed as clogged as his eyelids had been. Or was that one of the after-effects of drinking? He remembered drinking many tin cups of wine last night, but with whom?

“Who are you? Have we met?” Bonifác whispered, as afraid to know the answer as he was hopeful.

“Have we met? How could you forget me, boy?” the man chided. “Do you not wish to know how you can help me and win your freedom?”

“So this is not a dream?” Bonifác forced himself to ask the shadow in the boots.

The shadow-man laughed and walked around to Bonifác’s feet and squatted down. There, without the sunlight shining so directly into his eyes, Bonifác could see the man’s face and the memory of last evening rushed back.

“Djordji!” Bonifác exclaimed. “What is it you want? I have no coins to buy my freedom nor does my family have any means to pay a ransom…. Please!”

Djordji clucked his tongue in his cheek. “Patience, boy! Do not excite yourself! Your difficulty is easily resolved.”

“What… what is it you want?” Bonifác begged, shutting his eyes tight to hold back the tears.

“I only want to know the secrets you have studied with your tutor, the alchemist,” Djordji told him. “Our horses ran away a week ago. My granddaughters are many and will each need a large dowry. We need coins; we need gold for these reasons and for many more. Surely you understand? We need gold and you have studied with alchemists. Tell me the secrets and that will buy your release.”

“Gold? Alchemists?” exclaimed Bonifác. “I have studied with the one alchemist at home and hope to continue these studies, but I have no idea of how to make gold! That knowledge is far beyond what I have studied!”

“Is it really?” Djordji asked. “Perhaps a few hours here on the ground will help you remember some secrets you have studied but forgotten.”

“No! I cannot remember what I have never studied!” whispered Bonifác in despair.

“Ah, but I think you can,” answered Djordji. “But I also think you might make a great deal of noise and try to avoid remembering your studies.” He pulled a large bandana from a pocket and rolled it into a ball.

“No! Please, no!” gasped Bonifác as Djordji leaned forward and stuffed the bandana into Bonifác’s mouth, leaving the young man unable to do more than sputter feebly.

The old gypsy studied the face of the young Bohemian. “We need coins and Sarah-la-Kali, the great mother of all gypsies, surely brought you to us for this very purpose. She looks out for us and will care for you as well, if you obey her in this one small matter.

“I will return later,” Djordji promised. “I hope your memory will have improved by then.”

He stood and walked into the forest.

 

 

With the bandana in his mouth, it was difficult for Bonifác to swallow the spit that pooled in the back of his throat. It felt at times as if he might drown in his own saliva. It did not take long for his muscles, stretched taut against the hard earth, to ache and cramp. Even though the day was cool, sweat drenched his shirt and more than one bird relieved itself from the trees above him. The breezes that occasionally rustled the undergrowth or the branches high above chilled him. No voices, no sound of humans passing nearby reached his ears. Although he thought he had eaten well the night before with Djordji, his stomach began to growl again by what he guessed was midafternoon.

At first Bonifác thrashed and struggled against the ropes, hoping the knots might come undone or he could pull up the pegs the rope bound him to. Neither proved possible and he grimaced as he struggled to adjust his position to avoid further chafing the skin rubbed raw by his efforts.

“Proboha! My God, help me escape this place!” Bonifác cried in his mind. “Svaty Bonifác, pray for me!” But no miracle set him free.

Occasionally a crow would flutter to the ground beside him and strut about the little area of the clearing that was not filled by Bonifác’s outstretched limbs, but would then return to the branches. Once, two birds, starlings, Bonifác thought, descended and pecked along his trouser leg, but he shook his leg as best he could and they flew off again.

As the day wore on, he felt the stirrings of his bladder, gentle at first, a quiet need he might not have noticed if he had been free and walking along the road. But tied down, the rope biting into his flesh, every need that rose within him—whether for water to slake his thirst or to stretch his muscles or for a crust of bread or to empty his bladder—seemed extreme. He struggled to avoid urinating on himself but later in the day, he was unable to stop the urine from flowing and soaking his trousers. At some point, he gave up the struggle against fouling himself with excrement as well. The stench nauseated him.

His hands and feet grew numb. Sensation waxed and waned along his lower legs and arms, tingling came and went over the course of the day. He drowsed off into short naps, and though the sunlight told him it was still midday, the canopy of branches and leaves hid the sky and he could not track the progress of the sun, and so the passage of time was the hardest to gauge. The hours seemed to last forever and he began to doubt Djordji’s promise to return. But even if Djordji did return, what could Bonifác tell him? He had not studied many of the physical transformations that some alchemists were famed for accomplishing, least of all the transmutation of base metals into gold or other precious elements.

Day became night and then day again. His waking dreams and sleeping dreams became almost indistinguishable. It became impossible to judge the passing of time and he could only guess that late afternoon had come because the sunbeams were slanting through the darkening shadows of the trees. Bonifác thought he heard footsteps approaching him through the undergrowth again. There was a rustle as branches parted, a harsh “swish!” as one snapped back into place, and then Djordji stepped from behind a tree near Bonifác’s left foot.

Djordji stood surveying Bonifác.

“Has your memory improved?” Djordji demanded.

Bonifác stared at him, struggling to hold his head up and look Djordji in the eye, and then nodded. Djordji leaned over and pulled the sodden bandana from Bonifác’s mouth.

The student gasped, eagerly drinking air down his parched throat.

“Water?” Bonifác asked. “Did you bring water?”

“I will bring water when your recipe for making gold proves successful,” Djordji answered. “Until then, your thirst may help you remember what I wish to know.”

Bonifác considered this with mounting despair and fear. “You’ll not release me when I give you the recipe, will you? You will want to test it before you cut me free.” Bonifác let his head fall back onto the ground, grinding earth into his scalp. “Many of these processes take time. The transformations can often be slow. I could die of thirst or starvation before you release me!”

“Or the brigands that wander these woods might find you,” the Roma grandfather suggested. “Or the wolves that hunt in the night.” Djordji flashed a smile at Bonifác. “So many things might happen to such a fine young scholar here in the forest.” Djordji paused. “It would seem that the sooner you recall what I need to know, the sooner you will be safe again.”

Bonifác winced.

“You may be interested to know that your great dog has become a close friend of my granddaughter Drina,” Djordji continued. “The dog never leaves her side. He insists on remaining with her, even as she sleeps in the night. She delights to play with him and he seems to regard himself her special protector. He seems to have completely forgotten you, Bonifác. Forgotten you and left you to perish, if you cannot recall the recipe I need. His loyalty was short-lived, indeed.”

Bonifác’s chest heaved with anger. He had not known the dog long, but the theft of the animal’s affection felt like his most trusted companion and friend had been stolen. He strained against the ropes, smearing blood around the rough cords. Distracted by the pain and his anger, he lost control of himself and his urine spilled out, drenching his trousers and the ground beneath him.

Djordji smirked. “Think about what you have studied,” he told Bonifác, who struggled to hold back tears. “Perhaps your memory will have improved in the morning.” He leaned over and pushed the wet bandana back into Bonifác’s mouth.

Bonifác sputtered in anger and frustration, frantic to keep Djordji with him for another few moments. But the gypsy patriarch turned and strode away between the trees, and Bonifác heard the tendrils of undergrowth snap and swish at his passing.

His headache, which he realized had faded away earlier, returned now as the shadows gathered him up in the deepening gloom. His throat cried out for water even as he struggled to avoid choking on the saliva that dripped in the back of his throat, although the dripping was considerably less than it had been the first morning he found himself staked to the earth.

He closed his eyes, hoping that sleep would come, but the rippling, sharp pricks that swept across his shoulders and buttocks because of the constant, unavoidable pressure on them kept him awake. His teeth wanted to chatter, but because of the bandana, it was only his jaw that fluttered in the chill, which would have seemed slight if he were sitting up and eating his supper.

At some point, he realized that he was waking and had indeed fallen asleep. But for how long? It was impossible to know. The darkness was total and little light from the moon or stars reached him through the leaves. Strange noises in the underbrush around him, magnified in the dark by his fear, kept him darting his head from side to side in his attempts to see what animals might be coming near. He heard whining in the night and only realized it was himself whimpering when the sound paused as he gasped for breath.

With his senses heightened in the dark and nothing to distract him, he could feel tiny insects—ants? flies?—walking over the raw and bloodied wrists beneath the ropes. He shook his hands as vigorously as he could to drive them off without exacerbating the pain by rubbing against the stiff rope any more than necessary. The insects scattered and then returned. Bonifác grimaced and began to cry again.

Then, as he gasped for breath between sobs, he heard a low, steady growl in the bushes to his left. Terror pierced him. What was coming? A stray dog? A wolf? He was certain his death was only moments away. He held his breath and closed his eyes, tears still slipping from beneath his eyelids.

The growling continued and grew louder as the animal prowled closer, slowly stalking the man tied to the earth. The only sounds Bonifác could hear now were the sound of his own heart pounding in his ears and the approaching growling. His muffled screams caught in his throat.

From his right, another growl—deeper, more powerful, and more threatening—emerged from the bushes. Bonifác could feel urine spilling out along his leg again in his fright.

Did he dare open his eyes and watch? Which was more frightening: to hear death come or see it approach? He peered into the darkness just as the larger, more threatening animal charged from the shadows and leaped over him. He screamed and gagged on the bandana trailing into his throat.

In the darkness, he was unsure what had jumped over him, but he heard the two animals snarling, jaws snapping, paws scrabbling in the dead leaves. The trees shivered in the night as the beasts fought. Snarls and growls filled the air as the animals threatened and intimidated each other, circling around each other between bouts of bloody battle. Tufts of dark fur wafted through the air and settled on or around Bonifác.

The animals remained in the deeper shadows interlaced with the undergrowth, and gradually the fight seemed to move further off into the woods, away from Bonifác. The snarls and yaps came less frequently and eventually silence descended once more.

His chest heaved. Had the animals retreated and forgotten him in the midst of their fierce struggle? Or would the victor return to claim him as its prize? Bonifác was terrified of the silence and terrified that the snarling, snapping jaws would return.

At some point, he realized one of the creatures was plodding through the trees back towards him. He trembled uncontrollably, the chill and the terror overcoming him. The creature paused just beyond where Bonifác could make out shapes in the darkness. Was it pausing to gather its strength before charging back to attack him? A scream grew in his throat, unable to escape through the bandana in his mouth.

The huge black dog loped from under the trees and over to Bonifác. His large tongue hung from between his teeth as he panted. He came to a stop over Bonifác’s hand, bent over, and licked the man’s chafed wrist.

Bonifác wept with joy and relief. He could not believe that the mysterious dog had returned to him just as the other animal—wild dog or wolf—had drawn near to attack him. The black dog dragged his rough, wet tongue in sloppy strokes over the first wrist repeatedly and then strolled to Bonifác’s other side and did the same for the second wrist. The tongue scraped the smeared blood and the insects feasting on it from Bonifác’s flesh, and the pain of the rough tongue against the raw skin was delicious.

Having completed the cleaning of Bonifác’s wrists, the dog stood over the man and peered into his face. He seemed to be studying the man in the dark, making sure Bonifác was the man the dog recalled. Then the beast leaned down and carefully grasped the corner of the soggy bandana in his teeth and plucked it from the man’s mouth. Bonifác coughed, gulping air. The dog then lay beside the man and dropped the bandana between his paws and panted again, his heavy tongue hanging out. The animal lay his head down on his front paws, blinked, and yawned loudly.

Bonifác tried to call out but his throat was too parched and his weeping too copious to do much more than croak like a bullfrog in the night. But he kept weeping in delight. Simply having the dog there, keeping watch beside him, restored the man’s hope that he might regain his freedom and his life.

 

 

The morning sun woke Bonifác. The salt of his tears and the dust from the ground had caked together in streaks across his face, and although he could see his limbs, he could not feel them. The muscles in his shoulders and back, his thighs and buttocks were warping in opposing spasms. His throat felt cracked and dry. His stomach was knotted with hunger. But the dog still stretched out asleep on the ground beside him, and his hope still soared. A bird sang above them and the sound was glorious.

The dog had several bloody wounds that had escaped Bonifác’s notice in the dark, wounds borne as a result of the fight to protect him last night.

Bonifác heard dry leaves crackle under a boot and turned his head. Djordji stepped from behind a tree. Was his memory tricking him or was Djordji always approaching him from a different direction? Bonifác wasn’t sure his memory was trustworthy.

Djordji stood drinking in the sight of Bonifác and the dog sprawled together on the earth. But when the gypsy whistled, the dog leaped to his feet and looked about, startled. Seeing the gypsy, though, the dog sat back on his haunches, and again his tongue fell out of his panting mouth.

“I see that your companion has found you,” Djordji observed. “Again.”

Bonifác nodded as best he could.

Djordji walked over and squatted down beside Bonifác, across from the dog. Djordji retrieved the crumpled bandana from between the dog’s paws. The dog’s panting was the only sound for a while.

“My granddaughter said that the dog jumped out of the wagon during the night.” Djordji spoke again at last. “We thought he had run off to find a new traveling companion, but here he is, sleeping with you. Should I leave him with you? Perhaps I shall. Perhaps I shall not.” Djordji looked sternly into Bonifác’s eyes. “Has your memory improved? Do you recall the recipe for the making of gold?”

Bonifác nodded again. “I have,” he croaked from parched, cracked lips. “Not every detail, but enough for some measure of what you desire.”

“I thought your mind might work more clearly after some time alone to reflect here in the forest,” Djordji crooned, stroking Bonifác’s dirty and salt-streaked forehead. “Tell me the recipe.”

Bonifác slowly recited a recipe that he had performed under the direction of his master in Kostelec, but it was a recipe for… Bonifác could not recall. But it was not the recipe for making gold. No matter. The lie would keep Djordji busy for the day and perhaps Bonifác and the dog could make their escape in the meantime.

Djordji listened carefully to the directions Bonifác gave him and nodded when the directions seemed complete and Bonifác lapsed into a hacking cough and then silence.

“Very good,” Djordji congratulated him. “I will test this recipe.” He took the sodden bandana and stretched it lengthwise between Bonifác’s teeth and then tied it behind the would-be alchemist’s head, the knot making it difficult for Bonifác to rest his head against the earth. Turning, Djordji began to walk into the forest but then paused and turned back to Bonifác.

“Come along with me, rikono!” the gypsy called cheerfully to the dog, slapping his palm against his thigh. The dog cocked his head to one side and barked but did not move. The gypsy slapped his thigh again. The dog barked once in response but continued to sit beside Bonifác.

“Sit there, then!” the gypsy laughed, waving at the beast. Djordji disappeared among the trees, his hearty laughter trailing behind him.

Bonifác waited briefly and then grunted at the dog. The dog cocked its head, as if to ask a question.

Bonifác grunted again and shook his hands and feet as best he could, trying to convince the dog to try gnawing the ropes. The dog stared in apparent amusement. Bonifác struggled against the ropes again, realizing that his arms and legs were growing numb. The dog barked once and then came closer.

“Yes!” exploded in Bonifác’s mind. “Chew the ropes!” he attempted to say, hoping the animal could somehow comprehend his thoughts, if not his words. The dog leaned over, licked Bonifác’s face, and then lay down.

“No!” Bonifác was ready to cry again. “Chew the ropes! Chew the ropes!” Even the young man could not understand the words that tumbled against the gag, tied so tightly it was cutting into the parched and cracked corners of his mouth.

The dog tilted his head.

Bonifác held his breath.

The dog brought its mouth around the peg the man’s right foot was bound to and began to chew and gnaw.

Bonifác was ready to scream with excitement, though he tried to keep quiet so as not to distract the dog. The dog’s saliva dripped in great gobs onto the rope and Bonifác’s ankle. The peg shivered in the dog’s teeth. Bonifác held his breath, expecting the ropes to fray and come undone.

The dog continued to gnaw at the wood and the rope, moving its head to various angles, and the wood continued to tremble. Bonifác heard an occasional crunch, and a splinter would fall to the ground. But the ropes did not fray. The dog struggled to get its teeth around the ropes but they seemed too close to the ground and its head too large for it to twist into the proper angle. The canine drool that soaked the ropes also seemed to be making them tauter and more resilient, harder to shred.

The longer the dog struggled to free Bonifác, the more frenzied its chewing became. It snapped and snarled at the wood as if trying to tear the small stake from the earth. The dog raised himself and planted its front feet as if for better leverage and lunged at the wood as if it were a living adversary, like the wolf in the undergrowth last night.

Bonifác heard the wood crunch between the sharp teeth and in the same instant, the great black beast leapt back from the peg as if it were a snake poised to strike. Bonifác lifted his head as best he could to see the wood.

The stake seemed intact though the wood had been scored by the dog’s teeth. The top of the peg looked rougher than he recalled it having looked before, but the stakes had never been great pieces of workmanship. The rope showed small signs of fraying but seemed intact. Bonifác could not understand what had happened.

Then the dog choked and coughed and gagged, dancing wildly around the man on the earth. It hacked and retched but nothing came from its mouth.

Bonifác watched the dog in terror. What was happening?

The dog’s wild dance became frantic. The animal was in a panic. Great droplets of spit from the dog’s jaws showered the man. The dog coughed and coughed and choked but still nothing came up. It was trying to heave up something. But what? Had it suddenly been taken sick? Was it trying to vomit up some vile thing the gypsies had fed it before it came to Bonifác?

Then small flecks of blood were raining down on Bonifác as well as the drool. Bonifác realized a shard must have broken off from the stake and gotten lodged in the dog’s throat. The dog was choking to death.

The animal’s leaping gradually subsided even as the gagging sounds became more desperate. The dog shook and twisted its head in its effort to clear its windpipe, but to no avail. It collapsed onto the ground beside Bonifác, very nearly in the same position it had taken when first chewing on the rope. Bloody, foamy spit bubbled from the animal’s jaws. It continued to gag and try to heave up the shard of wood, but its struggle became weaker and fainter.

At last the dog gave up and lifted its eyes to Bonifác’s. The dog whimpered and seemed to shrug its shoulders as if in resignation before it stretched out on the ground beside the man and lay still.

Bonifác wanted to cry but could not because his eyes had become so dry.

 

 

Bonifác closed his eyes and waited.

There was a sudden chill and he realized that he had fallen asleep for part of the day. Now the sun’s rays slanted sharply through the trees and the sight of the dog’s body beside his reawakened the despair that had engulfed him earlier, the despair he had escaped while sleeping. His protector, his hope of escape, was dead beside him, having died in the effort to save him. He cried again but with no tears, his throat even more parched and dry than it had been earlier. He turned his face to avoid the sight of his faithful canine friend’s dead body.

Then Djordji stepped from between the trees, and the fury was plain to see on his face. Bonifác turned aside to avoid looking at the gypsy but only confronted the dog’s corpse again. Bonifác felt himself wracked by dry sobs.

“The recipe was a failure!” Djordji exclaimed. “It was a more than a failure! It was a lie! You knew it would not produce gold, did you not? Filthy liar!” He kicked Bonifác’s leg. The would-be alchemist groaned with this new pain.

“How dare you lie to me?” the gypsy wanted to know. “Did you think I would not discover the lie? Did you think I would forgive such treachery? You must think me a fool! But I am no fool!” Djordji kicked Bonifác again, the sharp pain cutting through Bonifác’s haze of grief and despair.

The gypsy noticed the dog’s corpse as he lifted his foot to kick Bonifác a third time.

“Dead? The dog is dead?” Djordji demanded. “Did you think to call down some vengeance on me and strike the dog instead? Are you such a poor student of alchemy that you cannot bend the most simple powers of nature to your will?” Djordji laughed at the alchemist’s anguish and kicked his ribs. Bonifác whimpered and cried.

Djordji leaned down to Bonifác. “The time will come when you will bless this day as the least of your afflictions,” Djordji hissed. “Do you hear me? The least!”

The gypsy stood upright and strode to Bonifác’s feet, turning to face the abject man again. The gypsy pulled a small leather pouch from his belt. He pulled a handful of small things—pebbles?—from it and held them in his fist.

“Great dogs guard all the gates of hell,” Djordji told Bonifác. “They keep the living out and the damned within. These dogs have many names: Cerberus, Anubis, Barghest. As a chovihano, I have collected the skulls and teeth of dogs for many years, collected them for just such a day as this. And now these teeth of earthly, mortal dogs will bare the sharp teeth of those dogs of hell against you.”

Djordji walked slowly around Bonifác, dropping the dogs’ teeth in a circle on the earth.

As he walked, the gypsy spoke even as he pressed the teeth into the earth with his boot. “When I am done with you, I shall bury one skull of a dog near the chasm into hell that you passed. I have already buried the skull of one dog in the garden of a cottage at the edge of this forest, not far from our camp. Are you surprised, boy? If you had kept walking along the road and not stopped to sup with us, you would have reached the edge of the forest in less than an hour.” He chuckled at Bonifác’s growing dismay.

“Yes, boy, you were less than an hour from seeing the walls of the great castle of Prague,” Djordji taunted. “Do you know what can be found between the edge of the forest and the walls of the castle? A great open field, a field used in years long gone by to bury the dead. Soldiers have fought battles there as well, in more recent days. I have buried the first dog’s skull in the garden of a small house that sits there, where the burial field and forest meet.”

Bonifác wanted to weep but the tears would not come to his dry, sore eyes. He closed them, hoping somehow that Djordji would vanish if he could not be seen, but Bonifác could not stop his ears against the terrible words the old man spoke as he completed the circle of dog’s teeth around the would-be alchemist.

“When I have buried the dog’s skull at the chasm to hell, it—together with the skull at the edge of the forest—will form two barriers impossible for you to cross,” Djordji explained. “When you have died here—yes, death cannot be far now that you have had nothing to drink for days—your corpse will rot here unburied, like the body of a dead traitor on display to warn other would-be traitors against such treachery. Your spirit will be unable to rest, tethered to this circle and doomed to wander between the two dog skulls. Your ghost will come to the edge of the trees and see the great city you so yearned to enter… you will see it but be unable to enter it!” Djordji’s hideous laughter echoed in Bonifác’s head. “Trapped here forever, denied what you can see!”

Bonifác opened his eyes again and saw Djordji standing near his feet, the circle of canine teeth around dying man and dead dog complete. The standing man leered at the man outstretched on the ground.

““Do you know what that means, boy? That I am chovihano? Know you perhaps the name the Germans give to such a man as myself? They would call me hexenmeister. Do you know that word, alchemist? Even I, a humble chovihano of our people, have a great many more skills than you, alchemist-boy,” Djordji boasted. “I am sorry that you drive me to use my skills in this manner. We might have been able to do many great things together.” He kicked Bonifác’s shin and walked off between the trees.

Bonifác closed his eyes, his chest heaving with dry sobbing.

“Death take you, Djordji!” he cursed the old man. “If you are anywhere near this forest when I have died and am trapped here, I will be sure to hasten your journey to join me!”

 

 

Djordji pulled the small trowel from his belt and knelt on the earth. Shadows deepened and filled the air beneath and between the trees as dusk fell. The chasm that was said to lead directly to hell was not far, only a few steps away. The scent of brimstone hung in the air above its rough and rocky edges. Djordji dug a hole in the earth, deep but not wide, and then pulled the second canine skull of his collection from the small wooden chest in which he had kept the pair. He inspected the skull a final time, making sure it had not been damaged or chipped, and placed it in the earth. He scraped the earth back upon it and tamped the dirt down tightly.

“Deep enough to not be disturbed or dug up by some wandering animal,” Djordji muttered, surveying his work with satisfaction. “The ghost of the alchemist-boy may even try to dig it up himself but he must not be able to.” He raised his voice and called out to the forest. “Do you hear, Sarah-la-Kali? He must not discover either dog skull nor dig up one or the other, lest the spell be broken! Guard my workmanship, Sarah-la-Kali! Protect these skulls I have hidden, insure my vengeance against this stupid boy who thought to call himself an alchemist! Do this and I will offer you such homage all the days of my life, such homage that no chovihano will ever be said to have honored you more than I!”

As he stood there, calling to the mother of the Roma, he did not hear the leader of the wolf pack approaching behind him. The great, hungry beast stood in the gathering dark. Its lip curled back in a silent snarl, saliva dribbling down the side of its jaw and then dropping to the forest floor. The wolf watched the man as the rest of the pack silently drew near, a half-dozen gray shadows coalescing behind and around Djordji.

“Do you hear? Such homage!” The chovihano turned to return to his family’s caravan and the pack sprang upon him, their leader’s howl echoing in the now complete darkness.

 

 

Bonifác lay there that night, hearing the wolves howl. He trembled with fear in his soiled trousers, afraid that the wolves would come for him. But they did not come that night and he lay there for another day and a night. He waited. He slept. He shivered with the chill and shook with a fever. Sometimes strange waking dreams came to him and it seemed that he could see imps and gnomes dancing in the forest. His dead grandfather came to him, walking carefully around the circle of canine teeth but saying nothing. Neighbors from his childhood came to him but would turn their backs when he begged with his eyes for a sip of the beer from the mugs in their hands. He grew more desperate for water or ale or anything that could quench his thirst. Even raindrops would have been some small relief. But no relief came.

The second night since Djordji left him, Bonifác heard the wolf howling again.

“What is it hunting?” the would-be alchemist wondered. “Will it come for me next? Perhaps it should… The quicker this misery is finished, the better!” He thrashed about in his bondage, forgetting that he had exhausted himself in his struggles against the ropes before. The cords cut into his wrists and ankle again, but the pain only drove him to struggle more valiantly. He kicked his feet against the earth and twisted his hips, hoping that the struggle might fray the ropes. Surprisingly, it did! The rope that bound his foot to the peg the dog had chewed on suddenly came undone.

Momentary hope sprang up in Bonifác’s heart. The now-free foot might help him free the other that was still bound. He brought the free foot down against the peg to which the other was bound, and would have screamed were it not for the bandana stuffed into his mouth.

“God in Heaven,” he prayed, wrenching his free foot away from the peg, “what is to become of me?” His dry, cracked lips chafed against the bandana.

Exhausted, he listened to the sounds of the forest. Gradually he forgot where he was and was only aware of the dark, the chill in the air that set him to shivering, and the sounds of rustling leaves and undergrowth around him. His numb limbs forgot they were bound to the earth and even the pain of the rope against his raw flesh faded away. He seemed to be floating, aware only of the pain in his shoulders that twitched and shuddered.

Finally, he opened his eyes.

“Are those the stars above me?” He wasn’t sure what he was looking at, but there seemed to be hundreds or thousands of points of light glittering and dancing above him. He still seemed to be floating, nearly as high as the highest tree limbs, though he was still unable to feel his limbs or cry out. Night birds called to one another. Again a wolf howled nearby. The night grew colder.

He delighted in the stars dancing about him and felt the despair and anger that had filled him begin to unravel But then he felt the ropes against his limbs and the earth against his shoulders and his buttocks and he was back on the earth, tied to the pegs of his imprisonment. He rolled his head from one side to another.

The dog’s corpse was still there, dark and still.

“My friend,” Bonifác whimpered. “Poor pes, dear pes! What is to become of us both, here in the forest?”

Something moved in the darkness, the dog’s body seeming to shudder and groan.

“No! No!” Bonifác screamed in his mind, terrified that the wolves had come upon them at last.

Again the canine corpse seemed to shudder.

“No!” cried Bonifác in his thoughts, expecting to feel the teeth of the wolf close upon him at any moment. He thrashed about in the ropes and then collapsed against the dirt beneath him and looked about again.

He squinted and peered as best he could but could still see no wolves in the dark. But he heard a beast groan and the rough slurping of a large animal sliding its tongue across its teeth. From the direction of the dog’s corpse. He refused to turn his head, not wanting to see the attack he was certain was coming. He pressed his eyes shut, his face contorted with fear.

“Will the wolf eat the dog before it comes for me?” he wondered. “Would it not prefer the warm, fresh meat of my corpse to the cold flesh of the dog? How long before the wolf realizes that I am here and alive, a better meal so close by? Should I attract its attention? Or perhaps it will fill itself with the dog’s flesh and slink back into the forest… Might it leave me here after all?” Bonifác was unsure if slow death was better than the quick death of the wolf’s attack. He tried not to breathe.

But the sounds faded into silence and no teeth closed upon his limbs or torso. The waiting became unbearable and Bonifác turned his face again toward the dog’s body and opened his eyes.

The dog’s body was jerking and twitching. Its tail thumped the earth. Its head rolled and then lifted up, and the animal opened its eyes.

Bonifác nearly screamed as he watched the dog shake itself as if waking from a deep slumber and then slowly climb onto its feet. It licked its lips and barked once. Twice. It swung its head from side to side as if unsure where it was or what might be lurking in the dark. Then it trotted to Bonifác and leaned down over the man’s face.

Unsure if he was awake or asleep, Bonifác shook with fear and joy as the dog’s great, rough tongue licked the man’s cheeks, drenching his face with drool. Bonifác did not understand how, but the dog had been raised by some magic in the circle of canine teeth that Djordji had not expected.

Bonifác, still unable to feel his limbs, felt himself relax the taut muscles he could still control. He closed his eyes as the dog’s tongue slurped his forehead. His short, shallow breaths became slower, deeper. He felt a strange rumbling sensation within his torso. His heart pounded but then skipped a beat. And another. The pounding in his chest became erratic. He felt himself drift up from the ground again, slowly rising toward the sky. But this time he felt a wrenching, a twisting and pulling, and he opened his eyes as the dog hesitated in its slobbering and backed away a step or two.

The sensation of rising became stronger. The twisting and pulling became more intense, the ligaments and cartilage in his shoulders and hips seeming to be torn from their sockets. The erratic thunder of his heartbeat filled his ears and then fell silent. He gasped for breath one last time and then felt a suffocating panic as the solid earth fell away beneath him. He felt as if he were climbing upright and the ropes melting away from his limbs. But in the dark, he seemed to still see himself stretched out on the ground and bound to the pegs. The dog looked from the prone Bonifác to the upright Bonifác and back again several times. Then, with a bark of recognition, it lunged at the alchemist and generously licked his outstretched hands.

Bonifác knelt and clutched the dog’s jowls with both hands. The dog enthusiastically licked his face, chin to forehead and cheek to cheek. Another strange set of sensations gripped the man and he felt himself melt into the dog, and when Bonifác opened his eyes again, it was as if he were looking out from the dog’s eyes. He could see the alchemist’s body stretched out on the ground. He could see the dog’s great front paws when he looked down as if he were looking at his own hands. But when he tried to walk, it was the clumsy first steps of a newborn puppy trying to coordinate all four limbs that rewarded his efforts. Bonifác, now within the mysteriously dead but revitalized dog, trotted into the deeper shadows of the forest.

 

 

The pack of wolves enjoyed their kill under the trees and feasted on the gypsy chovihano, leaving the bones and other remains scattered near the edge of the brimstone reeking hell-chasm that Bonifác had passed the afternoon he had first met Djordji and which Djordji had used to mark the extent of Bonifác’s after-death roaming. Fen’ka’s plea that there be “bones… scattered near the mouth of hell” had been granted.

 

 

In the days after his death, Bonifác discovered that he would wake within the dog again each night from a deep, uninterrupted sleep. He-and-the-dog would remain awake for little more than an hour and then, exhausted, would slink back into the shadows surrounding the chasm’s mouth and lose consciousness, the dog’s body seeming to melt into the shadows and darkness until the next night.

Exploring the limits of his freedom during the hour they were awake each night, Bonifác and the dog discovered that the gypsy wagons had gone from the forest. He found his way to the hell-chasm, the stench of brimstone still drifting up from it, and recognized the rags and tattered clothing mingled with the bones and remains of Djordji.

“Perhaps the curse has no power now that Djordji is dead!” Hope flared in the heart of the ghostly dog-man. He began to trot around and past the chasm, but as his first step came down onto the earth beyond the mouth of the chasm, innumerable but invisible dogs began to bark and howl. He felt their sharp teeth close around his legs and torso, the pain of the attack by the canine guardians of hell identical to how he had imagined the attack of wolves would feel. Then invisible flames roared around him and he felt as if his innermost human soul was withering to ash. It was only by stumbling back that he could save himself from that “second death” of both man and dog. He whined and whimpered with the pain, however, and it took many nights of licking his wounds to recover from his attempt to escape the prison Djordji had created.

It was the same when he placed a foot beyond the house at the edge of the forest. Placing his paws on the ground beyond the cottage was like stepping onto a bed of coals. What felt like a wall of flame roared and crackled before him, blistering his face beneath the dog’s fur. Although the blast of heat was searing and unmistakable, he could see neither coals nor flames. Infernal dogs howled and barked, locking their unseen jaws around his limbs. But he could see the castle across the great field, and the pain of knowing he had come so close to the city of his dreams burned even more fiercely than the invisible flames.

“No one,” Bonifác promised himself, “will suffer again like this because of men like Djordji! As long as we are able—the dog and I together—we will guide the lost and protect the endangered… in the area between the dog’s skull at the hell-chasm and the dog’s skull in the cottage garden, at least!”