“Polonius!” Lukas whispered. Somehow he had the feeling that he’d seen the man before, but he couldn’t remember when or where.
“Welcome to my laboratory,” the old man replied in a gravelly voice. “My favorite little flier was right. Intruders!” He giggled. “Or should I say, new material for my experiments?” He glanced with pleasure around the room, where the others were still motionless on the floor. “Hm, fresh, strong human stock. Not like those starved creatures the captain normally brings me. This is good. Very good.” He turned back to Lukas and Elsa. “Only you two were able to resist the scent of the lotus. The Devil knows why.” He giggled again. “Well, then, Barnabas can play with you instead. He is my most successful hybrid to date. Barnabas, fetch!”
With that, Polonius released the chain, and the giant bear-man stormed toward Lukas and Elsa.
XV
At the last moment, Lukas managed to draw his rapier. Only then did he realize how exhausted he was. The spell had cost him a great deal of strength. On heavy legs, he moved into starting position and then lunged at the bear-man. His rapier bored deep into the fearsome creature’s thigh.
The monster retreated, growling.
“Silly child!” Polonius chided him. “You hurt my little darling. Too bad that will only make him even more furious.”
As if on cue, Barnabas let out a loud roar as he charged at Lukas again. Lukas dodged out of the way, but the bear-man caught him in the chest with one claw, leaving a bloody trail behind. Lukas gritted his teeth to keep himself from crying out.
All at once, he realized that the strange pink bubble around him and Elsa had disappeared. The sweet scent was gone, too. The poisonous cloud had dissipated. The others were still lying lifeless on the ground—dead or asleep, Lukas had no idea. Rapier in hand, he positioned himself in front of his younger sister, who stirred on the floor, moaning.
“Why don’t you crawl back into the hole you came from?” Lukas snapped at the bear-man, trying to suppress the tremor in his voice. “I am a Black Musketeer, you don’t frighten me!”
The bear-man took the chain between its massive paws and began swinging it in a large circle. The tough, heavy links flew just inches from Lukas’s head. Lukas ducked underneath, risked a feint—and landed another hit on Barnabas, this time at chest height. But the monster only shrieked furiously and reached for a table, which he threw at Lukas.
“Elsa! Can you hear me?” Lukas looked over at his sister, who was still not quite conscious. As much as he hated it when she did magic, he could use her help right now. But Elsa’s eyelids fluttered; her face was white as chalk.
The sinister creature was in such a battle frenzy that it seemed to feel no pain.
Lukas weighed his chances. Bringing the monster down would require a well-placed blow to the neck or chest. But was the creature standing before him truly a monster? He thought about what the alchemist Polonius had just said about Barnabas.
My most successful hybrid to date . . .
Lukas hated to think that the bear-man had perhaps once been an innocent prisoner, one of those unlucky souls the captain had given the alchemist for his experiments. What had Polonius done to him? Had he really once been named Barnabas? Could he have had a wife and children?
Another table splintered against the wall beside Lukas. Surely the guards had heard the noise by now. Fortunately, it seemed the poison had merely incapacitated the others, not killed them—Paulus and Jerome were beginning to stir again. There were signs of life from Giovanni and Zoltan, too, but his friends seemed a long way from being able to help Lukas fight the beast. He searched the room for Gwendolyn, and sighed with a little relief when he saw her twitch.
He would have to stake everything on one move.
When Barnabas stormed toward him again, Lukas feinted once more, so that Barnabas grasped at empty air. Then he aimed a high cut directly at his opponent’s throat. The point of the rapier dug into the beast’s rubbery skin, and for the first time, the bear-man appeared to feel pain. He stumbled back, pressing his clawed hand to his neck to stanch the gurgling blood. His eyes were wide, and something deeply human flickered to life within them.
In sympathy, Lukas lowered his rapier. He suddenly couldn’t bring himself to deal the deathblow to the bear-man. Deep down, he knew that he was right—the monster had once been a man, and Polonius had abused him for his own purposes.
Lukas slowly approached the monster, who staggered away, whimpering. “You’re a man, aren’t you?” Lukas asked him in a soft, calming voice. “I’m sorry someone did this to you. Whoever they are, they should pay.”
The words had a strange effect on the bear-man. “Barnabas . . . ,” the creature croaked, drawing each syllable out. Tears sprang to his eyes. “I . . . am . . . Barnabas. A . . . man . . .”
“Whatever you were, you’re my creation now!” Polonius screeched. “Obey your master, and kill this boy!”
Barnabas shook his head. “A . . . man,” he rumbled. “No . . . creation.” The look in his eyes hardened again, and he turned to Polonius. “No creation!” he repeated loudly. “And you . . . are . . . not my master!”
Claws raised, he started toward Polonius, who retreated in horror. “Stop that!” the alchemist ordered. “Didn’t you hear me? I am your master! I command you to stop.”
But Barnabas continued toward Polonius, one step at a time. Just as he was lifting his paw to attack, Elsa’s voice rang out, loud and clear and strangely emotionless.
“PARNATIUS, EXCELSOR . . .”
To his horror, Lukas saw that Elsa was awake, pointing the first two fingers of her right hand at Barnabas. Her other hand was resting on the Grimorium, which she had taken out from beneath her dress.
“No, Elsa!” Lukas cried. “He can’t help it!”
“FULGUR INFERNI!” Elsa continued. A satisfied smile played on her lips as a bolt of blue lightning shot from her fingers and hit the bear-man directly in the chest. His eyes flickered one last time, and for a brief moment, Lukas thought he saw the man that Barnabas once had been.
He collapsed, dead.
“What did you do, Elsa?” Lukas shrieked in despair. “He wanted to help us!”
“Is that the thanks I get for keeping that animal away from you?” Elsa grunted. Her eyes were cold and strangely unfamiliar. “You miserable traitor. I suppose you think I don’t notice that you want to forbid me from doing magic so that you can become a wizard yourself? I see through you.” Suddenly only the whites of her eyes were visible.
And once again, Lukas had the feeling that it was not Elsa speaking to him, but someone else.
“Elsa, what . . . what are you t-talking about?” he stammered. “I . . .”
Lukas stopped short when Elsa crumpled to the floor again, unconscious. The spell had apparently sapped her last ounce of strength. Trembling with rage, Lukas turned back to Polonius, who had followed the conversation with a secretive smile on his face. “You’re the monster!” he shouted. “Not Barnabas!”
“And yet your sister is the one who killed him,” Polonius replied with a giggle.
Lukas rushed at the alchemist, who barely defended himself. Lukas reached for his dagger and pressed it to Polonius’s throat. The old man’s skin smelled of cold ashes and sulfur.
“The crown!” Lukas demanded. “So Barnabas’s death is not in vain, at least. Where is it?”
“Well, where do you think it is?” Polonius gasped through the headlock Lukas had him in. “In the chest, of course, you fool! I was planning a couple of fine experiments with it. My friend Waldemar von Schönborn was going to let me borrow it for a little while, so that I could uncover the secret of making gold.” The alchemist let out an evil giggle. “The captain of the Red Archers promised me a pair of nice young prisoners to research on. But please, if the crown is that important to you, go right ahead and take it.”
From the corner of his eye, Lukas saw Zoltan rise unsteadily to his feet, swaying. The others were slowly coming to as well. Above,
in the stairwell, they heard furious pounding. The watchmen had heard them and were now attempting to force the door open.
“The crown, Commander!” Lukas called to the still visibly confused Zoltan. “It’s in the chest!”
Zoltan staggered over to the chest, panting. He brought out a bundle wrapped in slightly singed velvet. He removed the cloth, revealing the shimmering octagonal golden crown. It was encrusted with colorful gemstones and pearls on every side, and a small cross gleamed at the front. “The imperial crown,” Zoltan whispered in a weak voice, holding it reverently in both hands. He straightened up, seeming to recover a little more of his strength. “Let’s get out of here!” he commanded at last.
Paulus rose from behind one of the fallen tables. “Ooohhh, my head,” he complained, struggling to stay upright. “Worse than five liters of Bohemian dark beer. What kind of hellish poison was that?”
“Doesn’t matter now.” Giovanni was standing, knocking the dust from his trousers. He pointed to the upper stairwell where the noise was rising steadily. “From the sound of it, every Red Archer in Prague Castle is up there waiting for us.”
Zoltan hastened over to Lukas and Polonius. The commander grabbed the alchemist and shook him like a sack of flour. “Is there another way out of here?” he shouted. “Start talking, now! Otherwise I might come up with a few experiments to perform on you.”
“All right, all right, keep calm,” Polonius whined. “I’m an old man! If you continue to treat me this way, my heart will stop, and then I won’t be able to say anything more.”
“The way out!” Zoltan repeated as the guards above them began breaking the door down.
“Yes, there’s a way,” Polonius gasped. “Down in the tower cellar.” He giggled. “It may not be the most pleasant escape route, but it does lead out of the castle.”
“Show us,” Zoltan ordered, gripping Polonius by the scruff of his neck and dragging him down the stairs like a doll. The others had regained consciousness now, though Gwendolyn still looked particularly weak and needed Paulus to prop her up. Matthias was carrying Elsa, who had yet to reawaken. Bernhard and Jurek were holding each other upright, though the small one-eyed man was nearly collapsing under the bearded giant’s weight.
Lukas was about to join the rest of the group, but he let his gaze sweep around the room one last time—and stopped. There, under one of the tipped tables, was the Grimorium! It must have fallen from Elsa’s hands after her last spell. No one else seemed to have noticed that it was gone, Elsa included. Beside it lay the waxed cloth and the small leather bag Elsa kept the book in.
He shivered a little as he recalled the words she’d spoken earlier, the coldness in her voice. She’d called him a traitor, claimed he wanted the Grimorium all to himself. Well, she was probably somewhat out of her senses. That had to be it—the spell had weakened her.
But another thought had crept into Lukas’s head, and he couldn’t seem to drive it out.
The Grimorium is changing Elsa. It’s making her evil.
Gingerly, Lukas picked up the book and slid it into the bag with his fingertips. Then he followed the others down to the tower cellar.
Here, too, there was another perfectly round room. A small, dirty cell was connected to it—presumably the place where the bear-man Barnabas had been locked away. On the other side of the room, there was a tiny bay with a dirty cloth hung in front of it. The others were gathered around it.
“It’s the latrine!” Jerome shook his head in disgust. “Merde! This lousy alchemist wants to send us through the filthy latrine! Doesn’t anyone ever think of my clothing?”
“I’m afraid you have no other choice,” Polonius said and gestured toward the stairs, where the footfalls of the approaching watchmen were growing progressively louder. “I occasionally use this shaft to dispose of the remains of my experiments, so I know it leads directly to the castle moat.”
“You’d better be telling us the truth, or I’ll make you regret it,” Zoltan growled.
“We really want to let this bastard live?” Bernhard asked, drawing his two-hander and coming threateningly close to Polonius. “Are you serious about that, Commander?”
“He’s the Kaiser’s alchemist,” Zoltan responded. “As much as I would love to hack him into tiny pieces, we don’t want to end up with any more trouble on our hands than we already have.”
“A wise decision, gentlemen.” Polonius smiled cruelly. “Now hurry up, or you’ll end up full of Red arrows. And that would be such a pity, wouldn’t it?”
Zoltan drew the curtain aside, revealing a bench with a hole in the middle. When he pulled the bench away, a foul-smelling shaft came into view.
“My doublet is practically new!” Jerome complained.
“Your doublet or your life,” Zoltan replied. “And now, in with you.” He lifted Jerome into the rank, excrement-clotted shaft and dropped him like a stone.
The guards came thundering down the second flight of stairs.
“Hurry!” Zoltan called to the others. “I’ll hold them off!”
He drew his broadsword as the others slid down the shaft one by one. Lukas hesitated when he saw that Elsa was still out, but Matthias nodded to him. “I’ll take care of her, don’t worry.” He smiled reassuringly. “Go on, jump. And wipe that shaft nice and clean for me with the seat of your pants.”
Before climbing into the shaft, Lukas secretly wrapped the Grimorium in the waxed cloth, slipped it back into the bag, and then stuffed the bag beneath his shirt.
A second later, he was falling.
The shaft was nearly vertical. It was smeared and slick, and Lukas didn’t want to think about what kinds of things Polonius had sent down it. Above him, he heard shouts and clashing weapons, and then he reached the end of the shaft and fell silently into the night, down the castle wall. Almost immediately, he landed in the putrid water of the moat.
Lukas held his breath, struggled, got caught on some sort of slimy algae, and then finally reached the surface. He glanced around and saw to his relief that Matthias and Elsa had survived the fall unharmed as well.
Like the others, Lukas crawl-stroked to the shore of the moat, where he lay, breathing hard. They all struggled out of the water, exhausted. Lukas shivered in the rain, which was still pouring down from the sky. At least the moat water had washed away the worst of the shaft residue.
A gasp cut through the air behind him, and Lukas saw that Zoltan had reached the shore, fresh blood dripping from a cut on his cheek.
“Respect,” the commander wheezed. “Those accursed Reds are skilled not only with their bows, but with their swords as well.” He heaved himself out of the moat. “But at least now they know what it means to tangle with a Black Musketeer.” He wiped some mud and a few dead leaves from his hair, and then he held the crown up, grinning. “Through the shite and back into the light,” he said.
Zoltan limped a little as he led the way back into the city. Relieved, Lukas fell in step with the others.
With the filthy crown in hand, the commander really did look like a severe, indomitable king.
XVI
When they finally returned to the tavern, long after midnight, Lukas couldn’t fall asleep. Too much had happened up there at the castle, and the scratch he’d gotten from Barnabas the bear-man was hurting. But the wound wasn’t all that deep. This time, he wouldn’t need magic powers—a simple bandage and a little herb salve would suffice.
Lukas tossed and turned in bed, while Paulus, Giovanni, and Jerome all snored loudly nearby. Elsa, lying beside him, twitched in her sleep. She had only awoken for the briefest of moments when Matthias had laid her into bed. Occasionally she mumbled something indistinct, as though talking to someone. Apparently, she was having nightmares.
Lukas regarded his sister, who had changed so much over the past two years. She looked young and vulnerable, but earlier at the White Tower she had seemed much older.
Old and evil.
Like an evil old witch, Lukas thought, shiveri
ng.
Elsa’s sleeve had slipped upward a little, revealing the thumbnail-sized mole near her right elbow. Her father, the inquisitor Waldemar von Schönborn, had the same mole. Elsa had always denied their similarities, but Lukas was beginning to suspect that they were more alike than either of the siblings had suspected.
Far more alike . . .
Lukas thought back to what Elsa had said just after she had brought down the bear-man with that bolt of blue lightning. She’d called him a traitor, but it had been as though some stranger was speaking through her—she’d seemed completely different. Lukas knew what had caused that change.
It’s the book.
Immediately after they’d returned to the tavern, Lukas had hidden the Grimorium underneath their bed. He still wasn’t sure what to do with it. Now, as he stealthily reached for it, Elsa began tossing and turning violently in her sleep. Lukas froze when he realized his sister was staring at him with open eyes. Once again, only the whites were visible.
“The power . . .” she murmured. “Don’t risk it . . .”
But then she closed her eyes again and rolled over onto her side.
Moving as silently as he could, Lukas got up and sneaked to the door, Grimorium in his hand. His friends remained blissfully asleep as he hastened downstairs. He needed to be alone for a while so he could think. Zoltan had scratched the worst of the muck from the crown and then returned it to the chest beneath his bed, where he kept the scepter. Gwendolyn was sleeping in a small chamber next to his.
Gwendolyn was the only person Lukas would have enjoyed seeing at that moment. He thought she might be able to advise him on what to do with the Grimorium.
He certainly didn’t know.
Lukas went into the kitchen, where a few embers were still glowing in the oven. After laying on some fresh pieces of wood, he sat down near the reddish glow of the fire and began cautiously flipping through the book. It was the first time he’d looked at the Grimorium closely—Elsa had always kept it from him.