“Shut up already,” Giovanni grouched, clearly deep in thought. “How is a person supposed to . . .” He stopped. “Nuts!” he cried abruptly. “That’s it, isn’t it?” He turned to look at the marquis. “That’s why you said we had a hard nut to crack. ‘Nut’ is the solution!”
Lukas glanced over at the Marquis de LaSalle, whose lips had narrowed into a thin white line. The taunting look was gone from his face. Apparently, Giovanni had hit the mark.
“This is a pinecone from a cembra pine,” Giovanni explained, cheerfully pointing to the stone decoration. “It’s often used on tombs as a symbol of resurrection, and it’s also known as a cembra nut! So, let’s see . . .” He felt around on the pinecone, and then rotated it cautiously. It made a grinding sound.
“It twists off!” Gwendolyn exclaimed in surprise.
And indeed, there was a screw at the bottom of the pinecone, allowing it to be rotated out. Gingerly, Giovanni reached beneath it. “There’s a hollow underneath,” he murmured. “And there’s something inside, I can feel it.” He fumbled around a little more before pulling out a golden handle wrapped in silvery threads. “Help me, this thing is damned long!”
Paulus, who was nearly two heads taller than Giovanni, took the handle and pulled on it. An ornate golden sheath came into view, with a long sword inside it.
“The imperial sword!” Lukas exclaimed. “We actually found it!”
It wasn’t long before the holy weapon lay before them in all its glory. The golden sheath was adorned with likenesses of past leaders; blue enamel glinted here and there between them. The friends stared in awe at the most valuable of all the Imperial Regalia.
“When I think about how many German emperors have been crowned with this sword,” Paulus murmured, “it almost makes me feel like one myself.” He leaned over to pick it up, but Gwendolyn beat him to it, snatching up the sword and drawing it from the sheath to hold it up in the moonlight.
“Kneel before Gwendolyn, the redheaded queen of Wales!” she cried. “Well? How do I look?”
“We don’t have time for these games,” Lukas grumbled. “My sister is out there somewhere with a golem!”
“You’re right,” Paulus admitted. “I’m sorry. I can’t help it. I’m the son of a weaponsmith, so I’ve always had a weakness for swords. Hey!” he shouted, because Gwendolyn had nearly thrown the weapon down onto his feet. “Are you crazy?” he barked at her. “Do you have any idea what this sword is worth?”
“I know exactly how much it’s worth,” Gwendolyn replied in a tone that was completely serious—and furious. “Nothing! A traveling peddler might give you a few guilders for it, that’s all!”
“It’s not worth anything?” Giovanni stared at her, baffled. “What makes you think that?”
“It’s obvious, you idiots. This sword is nothing more than a cheap fake!”
They all fell silent for a moment, and then Lukas bent down and picked up the sword. Two of the blue enamel plates had fallen off and broken. “Gwendolyn is right,” he said, amazed. “This is just iron and colored glass.” Lukas scratched the sheath with his fingernail, and flakes of gold paint peeled away. “The whole sword is nothing but a cheap bauble. Now we know why Polonius didn’t take it with him.” He turned to look at Gwendolyn. “How did you know?”
Her eyes glinted with fury. “I’m a thief, have you forgotten? I’ve seen many such fakes in my life. We thieves have to be able to distinguish real jewelry from those fake glass-and-iron circlets that ladies drape themselves with. This fake isn’t even very well made.” She stamped her foot. “Damn it! The only reason I went along on this adventure was because I thought I would end up earning enough for Jussi and me. My brother needs a good home, where people will take care of him. Am I supposed to pay for that with this . . . this toy?” Tears shone in her eyes.
A derisive laugh suddenly rang out. Lukas turned around and saw that it had come from the marquis. “Well, you clever little scamps,” LaSalle smirked. “Didn’t I say you were in for a surprise?” He began laughing like a maniac. “It’s a game! An evil game, and you’ve all lost!”
“Do you know what this means?” Giovanni whispered to Lukas. “If this sword is a counterfeit, then the scepter and crown probably are as well. It was a trick this whole time.”
“To be honest, the scepter did feel surprisingly light to me when I had it in my hand,” Lukas mused. “And none of us looked closely at the crown except for Zoltan, who was a fine soldier, but no goldsmith.”
“Actually, I looked at the crown for a very brief moment yesterday when Zoltan was away,” Jerome confessed. “He left the chest open for a minute or two when the third message came in. I swear, I only put it on for a few seconds. Some of the gold flaked off. I thought I’d broken it, so I put it back as fast as I could.”
Paulus stared at him in outrage. “And you’re only telling us this now, you French charlatan?”
“If you’d let me look at it just once, I would have noticed that it wasn’t real,” Gwendolyn chided them. “But no, I’m just an honorless thief that nobody trusts.”
“Stop fighting already!” Lukas ordered. “That doesn’t help anything. Think about what all of this can possibly mean.” He shook his head. The longer this went on, the less he understood what was happening. First, it turned out that Matthias was the mysterious messenger who had led them to the Imperial Regalia. Now they had discovered none of the three pieces of Regalia were even real. What was the purpose of the whole charade?
“Why go to all the trouble with hiding places and counterfeit Regalia?” Lukas wondered out loud. “None of this makes any sense.”
“Hm, the messages, the treasure hunt, the battles . . . if you ask me, someone was trying to distract us,” Paulus mused. “Someone who wanted to make sure we didn’t get in the way of his real plan. And I think I know who that someone was.”
“Schönborn!” Lukas balled his fists, feeling the color drain from his face. “You think the inquisitor is behind all this?”
Giovanni nodded. “Schönborn probably orchestrated it all just to lure Elsa to Prague.” He scowled. “And he succeeded. Because of this supposed Imperial Regalia, we followed him out here blindly, like mice following a cat.”
“But what exactly is his plan?” Lukas asked.
“Whatever it is, Polonius probably used the golem to bring your sister to him.” Giovanni muttered a curse in Italian. “I knew there was something fishy about those messages. How could we be so stupid? Schönborn led us all around on a merry chase, even Zoltan and Senno!”
Lukas ran over and grabbed the marquis, who was still laughing. “Where did Polonius bring my sister? Where is Schönborn? Tell us, or I’ll make you pay!”
LaSalle’s laughter died away. He seemed very tired. He had obviously lost a great deal of blood. “I don’t know, I swear,” he insisted. “He never told us. That was his big secret. But I have a guess.”
“Which is what?” Giovanni asked.
“I’ll make you all a deal. You let me live, and I’ll tell you. Do I have your word?”
They were silent for a while, but finally they all nodded in agreement.
“Enough blood has been spilled already,” Lukas said with a shrug. “Your death won’t bring back Zoltan and the other Musketeers.” He raised his hand. “All right, I swear. If you talk, I’ll bind your wounds, and we won’t harm another hair on your head.”
“As much fun as it would be with that wig of yours,” Paulus grumbled.
The marquis scowled at him, but then he straightened up and began to speak in a low voice. “The master frequently mentioned White Mountain to me. I saw him travel up there on occasion. Not many people seek out that sinister place!”
“White Mountain?” Jerome asked. “I’ve heard that name somewhere.”
Lukas nodded. “Yes, you have,” he said quietly, shivering—and not only from the cold wind howling around the gravestones.
The circle is closing, he thought.
“Whit
e Mountain isn’t far from Prague,” Lukas went on in a shaky voice. “The first major battle of this eternal war was fought there nearly fifteen years ago.” He hesitated and then added, “That’s where my parents met.”
After they had finished bandaging the marquis and tying him up, Lukas explained how he and Elsa had stumbled upon a dark secret at the cloister library—and that his sister had seen visions of the Battle of White Mountain.
“The Grimorium must have been hidden there for a long time,” he said. “It conjured horrible images into Elsa’s head, battle scenes with many dead men. Our mother was in the vision, fleeing from the frozen ones. My father stood in their way and saved my mother. After that, the book came into my family’s possession, and Schönborn has been looking for it ever since.”
“And now the book is returning to that sinister place.” Jerome shuddered. “Mon dieu! Cemeteries aren’t especially nice destinations, but old battlefields? I hate to think of all the things that might still be lying around there.”
“There must be a reason why Waldemar von Schönborn has chosen that particular place,” Giovanni said thoughtfully. “The inquisitor lured us here to Prague so that he could get his hands on Elsa—that much is clear. He wants her and the book, because she and the Grimorium are a unit. But what is he doing up on White Mountain?”
“The wigged hobgoblin mentioned Schönborn going up to the mountain regularly,” Paulus noted. “He’s obviously making preparations of some kind there.”
Lukas pondered, gazing up at the sky. The fog had completely cleared by then, and the stars overhead glittered like diamonds. He wondered if Elsa was looking up at them as well. Or was she unconscious . . . or perhaps even dead? As children, they’d often sat at the top of the Lohenfels keep and stared up at the firmament. When their father was off at war, they’d imagined he was seeing the same stars at that very moment. Then the distance between them hadn’t seemed quite as drastic.
The stars . . .
Lukas gave a start. He thought back to Rabbi Bushevi’s words. And then to what Matthias had said.
The fog will lift soon . . . then nothing will be standing in the master’s way . . .
“The stars!” Lukas cried. “It must have something to do with the stars! The rabbi said something about an ominous night, remember?” He knitted his brow. “What did he say again? Mars is in Leo, or something?”
“Astrologers and fortune tellers always associate Mars with war and destruction,” Giovanni replied with a dark look on his face. “Not a good sign.”
“Wait a minute,” Jerome broke in. “You mean that now the fog has lifted, Schönborn is doing some kind of horrible ritual underneath these stars?”
Giovanni nodded. “And Elsa must play an important role in that ritual.”
“A sacrifice!” Lukas gasped. “My God!” He grabbed his rapier. “Time’s wasting. Hurry, we need to go!”
He looked over at Gwendolyn, who was standing uncertainly beside the fake, dented iron sword. He assumed this was good-bye, and Lukas was annoyed at himself for having such a hard time with it. He still felt almost magically drawn to the red-haired girl. “I suppose you’re staying here,” he said haltingly. “There aren’t any more treasures to retrieve, and I can’t promise you a reward. The only prize I’m after now is my sister’s life. So . . .”
“Why, don’t you want me around?” Gwendolyn interrupted him gruffly.
“No, that’s not it, it’s just . . .”
“Then stop talking such nonsense.” She picked up her bow and checked the string. “A girl’s been kidnapped. You think I plan on sitting around in the cemetery, twiddling my thumbs? We women have to stick together.” She grinned. “Besides, none of you have any idea where White Mountain is, so I will have to help you out of a bind yet again.”
Paulus rolled his eyes. “If she were a boy, I’d have strangled her by now,” he whispered.
“And if you were a real man, I’d have peppered your boastful ass with arrows by now,” Gwendolyn said, smiling. “But I don’t shoot at children.” Her expression turned serious. “Now, let’s get going before it’s too late.”
XXIV
They had no time to give Zoltan and the other Black Musketeers a proper burial, so they simply carried their bodies over to the cemetery wall and laid them beneath an old willow tree, whose branches hung down like a protective tent. One last time, the friends bowed to the legendary commander of the Black Musketeers before starting off to look for Elsa.
As they hurried past the rows of gravestones toward the cemetery gate, Lukas’s thoughts turned back to the friendly giant, Bernhard—and especially to Jurek. Lukas felt terrible for having falsely suspected Jurek for so long. Yes, the one-eyed knife thrower had been rude, often vicious, toward him. Perhaps he’d even hated Lukas. But he’d been no traitor.
The moon had traveled farther in the clear sky, and Lukas guessed it was already after midnight. Elsa had been kidnapped hours ago. Time was running out.
They ran as fast as they could through the deserted-seeming Jewish quarter, and soon arrived at one of the gates in the wall. Gwendolyn exchanged a few words with the watchmen, who then let them pass without delay.
“I told them to go check the cemetery,” she said quietly. “The guards will tell Rabbi Bushevi as well.” Grinning wickedly, she added, “And the wigged fellow we’ve left tied up there will have to explain what he’s doing among all those dead men.”
They smiled at her and continued on.
“Say,” Giovanni asked as he strode alongside Lukas through the dark, empty Prague alleys, “was it true, what Gwendolyn said earlier? Can you really do magic? You never told us that.”
Lukas sighed quietly. He’d been afraid this conversation was coming. “To be honest, I don’t know myself,” he replied. “I’ve only managed it three times so far, and never until we came to Prague. I healed my own wounds, then Gwendolyn’s fatal injuries, and I managed to protect myself and Elsa from that poisonous cloud in Polonius’s lab. I don’t know why it worked or how I did it. I tried it again a little while ago, and nothing happened.”
“And you didn’t use any spells or books or magical hand gestures, like Elsa does?” Giovanni asked.
Lukas shook his head. “Elsa once said that all these words and gestures and talismans are just helpful tools, they’re not strictly necessary. Remember how she brought us to Prague? There were those cute little wooden figures of the castle, the cathedral, and the bridge, but Elsa said she didn’t actually need them—the power came from inside her. The objects just helped her awaken it.”
“Well, then, you just need to awaken the power inside you, too,” Giovanni replied.
Lukas let out a mirthless chuckle. “If only it were that easy. My insides are pretty mixed up at the moment.”
“All right, then, we’ll have to rely entirely on our weapons,” Giovanni said decisively. “It wouldn’t be the first time. I just hope they’re enough against dark sorcery.”
Lukas recalled the blessing the rabbi had given them not long ago—the word “gevurah,” which stood for strength and victory. Both of those seemed hopelessly optimistic to him at the moment. But no matter how dire the situation seemed, he couldn’t leave his sister in the lurch. Not even now, when the book was clearly drawing her to the dark side, turning her into an evil sorceress.
Lukas had lost Elsa to Schönborn once already. That time, it had taken him over a year to find her again and rescue her from Schönborn’s clutches. The inquisitor was probably stronger than ever now, and he wasn’t alone. He had Polonius at his side, that alchemist who could create hybrid creatures, and he had a real, live golem.
Plus, I still don’t know if I can really do magic, Lukas thought. And if so, how?
Staying away from the main roads, Gwendolyn led the friends along the Vltava toward the south. They came to a decrepit suburb full of shady-looking drinking holes and shabby inns; the mud in the alleys was an inch thick. From time to time, sinister-seeming figures appr
oached them, but then quickly retreated at the sight of the boys’ rapiers and Gwendolyn’s bow.
They found a fishing boat bobbing beside a putrid pier, and used it to cross to the other side of the Vltava. Now they had left the city behind; meadows, farms, and barley fields stretched out before them. Out here, the moon and the countless stars shone so brightly that they could see their way fairly well.
A cool breeze wafted across the river. Shivering, Lukas glanced around. On the other side of a forested valley, a bare hill rose up from the horizon, dark and threatening. A chill ran down Lukas’s spine, for reasons he couldn’t quite explain.
“White Mountain,” Gwendolyn announced. “All around us here,” she said with an expansive gesture at the shadowy meadows, “people fought and died during that first great battle of the war. People have avoided this area ever since, claiming that it’s haunted. Especially up on the hill.”
“Haunted?” Halfway out of the boat, Jerome hesitated. “You all know I’m not afraid of any fight, not even with those frozen ones. But ghosts?”
“Oh, don’t be like that,” Paulus muttered. “This certainly isn’t the first battlefield we’ve ever seen. And that fight was years and years ago.”
“The people of Prague say that the ground on White Mountain was completely soaked with blood,” Gwendolyn continued. “Thousands of their countrymen lost their lives.” She gestured up at the hill. “The Bohemian rebels barricaded themselves up there. The hill was considered impossible to take, but then a monk showed the Kaiser’s army a portrait of the Virgin Mary, claiming the Bohemians had defiled and destroyed it. After that, there was no stopping them. The imperial troops stormed the hill, shouting ‘Santa Maria’ all the way. It was a terrible slaughter.”
“One that continues even today,” Lukas murmured. “And it all started here. Schönborn truly couldn’t have chosen a better location for his ritual.”