Unless Elsa can manage another spell, he thought. Which doesn’t appear likely.
Elsa looked extremely weak, leaning heavily against the column, barely able to stay on her feet. Matthias, too, seemed to be nearing the end of his strength. His arcing swings with the two-hander were keeping the two frozen ones at bay, but now the newly arrived guards were pointing crossbows at him as well.
“Surrender!” the marquis barked. “The game is up! Rien ne va plus!”
Suddenly, the sound of rapidly approaching footfalls echoed out in the hallway, and more men burst into the vault. Lukas was a moment away from dropping his weapon, but then he saw who had just arrived.
Zoltan! It’s Zoltan and the others!
Lukas had a glimmer of hope again. Zoltan and Bernhard went for the guards, while Giovanni, Jerome, and Paulus tore a few swords from the walls. Soon they were fighting like the Devil, with Giovanni and Jerome wielding two rapiers apiece and Paulus hacking at one of the frozen ones with the schiavona and a massive curved saber. Jerome kicked over one of the suits of armor, and it crashed to the stone floor, sending its individual pieces flying in every direction. He bobbed and wove with agility, fending off two of the guards at once.
“Out!” Zoltan called from the doorway, where he was fighting two more soldiers. “Hurry!”
Lukas looked over at Elsa, who was still slumped weakly against the column. As he hurried toward her, he saw one of the frozen ones closing in from the right. Lukas was still clutching the gilded mace in one hand, and now he wound up and smashed it against the frozen one’s helmet with all his strength. The creature only grunted and continued walking. Lukas swung the mace again; this time he hit the frozen one in the face, hard enough that he actually stumbled back a little.
Giovanni hastened over to help. “Back to the exit!” he called, keeping the frozen one in check with his two rapiers. “We’ll take Elsa in the middle!” Giovanni threw himself against one of the display cases, knocking it over along with a nearby suit of armor and sending both crashing down onto the frozen one. The mercenary twitched and flailed, but he was wedged beneath a long lance and couldn’t get to his feet.
“Perhaps these frozen ones can’t be killed, but at least they’re dumber than rocks,” Giovanni wheezed when he caught up to the two siblings. “Now let’s get out of here, before these beasts get really vicious.”
Lukas used the short breather to look more closely at the mace he’d grabbed in desperation. He weighed it in his hand thoughtfully. It was about the length of his arm, and it was well balanced, though not particularly heavy. After peering at it in the dim torchlight for a moment, he realized that, beneath the thin layer of gold plating, it was made of solid silver with many decorative elements—like the golden acorn at the tip, encircled by leaves.
Lukas blinked. A golden acorn?
Now Giovanni was gaping at the mace in Lukas’s hands as well. Finally, he burst into loud laughter. “Do you know what you’re holding there?” he chortled. “We’ve been turning over every stone, rummaging through every goddamned chest in the mansion, and meanwhile, this fellow here’s been bashing helmets in with the imperial scepter!”
Lukas stared at the mace in disbelief.
Marquis de LaSalle seemed to notice what Lukas was holding at that very same moment. “The Imperial Regalia!” he shrieked. “Damn it, he’s got the scepter! Don’t let that boy get away!”
Crossbow bolts smashed into the wall all around Lukas and Elsa. Lukas took his sister’s hand and ducked down as he ran toward the exit, where Zoltan and Jurek were already waiting for them. Giovanni followed right behind them.
“Quickly, to the back door!” Zoltan ordered. “If the Lord God is well disposed toward us, Bernhard will have secured us a boat by now. He ran on ahead.”
They dashed down the hall toward the exit, with shouting guards in hot pursuit. At last, the door came into view, followed by the river shimmering black around the pier. Then, to Lukas’s surprise, Bernhard really was there, waiting with a boat! He was in the river guards’ rowboat, which was bobbing up and down on the Vltava. “In with you!” the giant called, laughing and waving an oar. “Every guard in the palace is after you. Lucky for us—means they don’t need their boat any longer.”
They jumped into the rowboat one by one, causing it to rock violently from side to side, nearly tipping it over. Bernhard rowed for all he was worth, his massive arm muscles bulging beneath his wet shirt. By the time the first guards reached the pier, the boat was already a good twenty paces away. A handful of bolts splashed into the water nearby, and then all was still.
“That was close,” Zoltan said, breathing heavily. He shook his head in disappointment. “Too bad our mission was a failure.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Giovanni grinned, gesturing to Lukas. “See for yourselves. Our friend here brought us a little present from the armory. The marquis was so vain that he had the thing on display with his collection.”
Lukas held up the golden scepter, which shimmered faintly in the moonlight. The oak leaves at its tip glittered like tiny tongues of flame.
“The scepter!” Zoltan blurted out, thunderstruck. “I’ll be damned, this Lohenfels boy is a little devil.”
They all cheered, and their celebratory whoops echoed in the night as the boat slowly glided beneath the stone bridge. The Vltava flowed sluggishly along; only a few lights were still aglow in the city.
Lukas was excited, too, but had a strange feeling he couldn’t shake. He sensed they were being watched from somewhere in the darkness.
A short time later, they were all back at the Black Boar, which was illuminated by only a pair of candles. They sat around a table with the scepter in the center. Lukas could still scarcely believe that they’d actually succeeded. The battle with the frozen ones had left the imperial scepter slightly bent, but at least it hadn’t broken. The friends had managed to carry off a few other weapons from the marquis’s armory as well. Paulus had taken the Venetian schiavona, and Giovanni and Jerome had new rapiers that leaned gleaming and freshly polished against the counter beside Matthias’s enormous crossbow and Bernhard’s two-hander.
“And we can say with certainty that this is the imperial scepter?” Giovanni asked after a while, running his fingers along the gilded handle.
“Of course,” Zoltan said, slapping his hand away. “There’s no doubt of it.” He rummaged around in his bag and then showed the boys three yellowing sketches of a diamond-studded crown, a golden sword, and a scepter with oak leaves at its tip. “Senno sent us these drawings last month. This is the imperial scepter, there’s absolutely no doubt.” Zoltan glanced around the table with a severe expression on his face. “And to make sure none of you boys get any stupid ideas, I’ll be locking the scepter in my chest. If anyone tries to open it, I’ll break their fingers. Several times. Just so that’s clear.”
“Which brings me to another question.” Giovanni spoke up. “Who the hell sent us that anonymous tip about where to look?”
“Maybe it was someone who wants revenge on Schönborn and the marquis?” Matthias suggested. “Some confidant of theirs whose identity must be kept secret?”
“Maybe,” Giovanni replied. “Still strange, though. And so is Senno’s disappearance.”
“That reminds me,” Lukas interrupted anxiously. “Marquis de LaSalle knew about me and Elsa! In the armory, he mentioned ‘the Lohenfels siblings.’”
“So? Of course he’d have heard of you.” Jurek was cleaning his dirty fingernails with the point of his knife. “Schönborn and the marquis are friends.” He glanced up at them with a sneering grin. “Besides, you introduced yourself in spectacular fashion in front of Wallenstein’s palace.”
“I know that was a mistake,” Lukas snapped. “You don’t have to remind me. But it occurs to me that I didn’t see you anywhere during the fight with the frozen ones. Where were you? Drinking wine with the masked ladies?”
Jurek leapt up furiously, but Zoltan held him back
. “Jurek was the rear guard,” the commander assured Lukas. “We’d planned it that way. So stop bickering or—”
“Shh!” Elsa sharply interrupted. “Don’t you all hear that?”
“Hear what?” Paulus asked from the corner where he’d been silently polishing his schiavona.
“Above us!” Elsa hissed, pointing toward the ceiling.
Now Lukas could hear it, too. It was a creaking sound, as though someone was tiptoeing across floorboards. Lukas remembered how he’d felt like they were being watched back in the boat. “Is there an attic up there?” he asked Jurek softly.
Jurek shrugged sullenly. “There’s a ladder to it in the storeroom. It’s no bigger than a chicken coop, you can barely stand up in there. It’s probably just a cat.”
“If so, it’s a pretty damned big cat.” Lukas signaled to Giovanni and Jerome, and the three of them crept past the counter to the storeroom. From there, a rotting ladder led up to a hatch. Lukas went up first, trying to make as little noise as possible, but the ladder still squeaked and groaned under his weight. Something rumbled overhead. He took two rungs at once the rest of the way, and finally popped his head through the opening.
The moonlit attic was full of old boxes and kegs. A nearby roof hatch stood open. For just a moment Lukas thought he spotted a leather-clad figure looking through it, then he heard rapid footfalls scurrying away across the roof.
“Damn it!” Lukas hissed and clambered the rest of the way into the attic as fast as he could. But he was too late—the stranger had already escaped.
Jerome and Giovanni finished climbing up the decaying ladder and joined him in the low-ceilinged room. Jerome shone a torch around the dusty attic, and soon they discovered a knothole in the floorboards large enough that they could peer down into the tavern.
“Damn,” Giovanni muttered. “Whoever was here heard everything we said, and probably knows about the rest of the Imperial Regalia now, too.”
“Who says he didn’t know about them already?” Lukas added, looking thoughtful. “Remember that big secret informant of ours?”
“I don’t think I would call him big, whoever he is.” Jerome pointed down at the footprints in the dust. Sure enough, they were practically petite, like a child’s. Jerome walked over to the roof hatch and gazed out at the clear night sky stretching above the rooftops. “Whoever it is, he must be an excellent thief, if he can climb so well and so quietly,” Jerome added in an admiring tone. “I really hope we catch him next time around. I’d like to meet this fellow.”
VIII
They spent the next few days waiting.
No new tips came in, and there was no sign of the mysterious eavesdropper, either. The imperial scepter remained in Zoltan’s chest, which was kept in Zoltan’s well-locked room. One look at his face was enough to tell the boys that even thinking of stealing it might cost them their heads.
Senno was still nowhere to be found. Lukas’s hopes of him joining them were beginning to fade. Maybe the spell really had sent him to the other side of the world. At any rate, Lukas seemed to be the only one who was worried about Senno’s absence. The others had never trusted the astrologer much anyway.
The young friends spent their time exploring the old imperial city of Prague, while Zoltan and his men did reconnaissance work. As far as Lukas was concerned, wandering through the Prague alleyways was one big adventure. The only city he’d ever known was Heidelberg, but Prague was far, far bigger. Everything here was louder, more colorful, more impressive. Unfortunately, it was also smellier, particularly in the summer heat.
Lukas often sensed ancient dark magic still lurking in Prague’s nooks and crannies, in its out-of-the-way courtyards and churches, its rustic inns and patrician manors. He thought back to his mother’s many stories of bridge spirits, house gremlins, and evil alchemists. There truly was something magical about this city.
The muddy roads were long and rambling, winding in every direction. Lukas often got lost in them, as though he were in a deep forest. Before the Great War, Prague had been the home of the German Kaiser, but then the Bohemian Protestants had taken up arms against Kaiser Matthias, throwing his governors out of a castle window. The Bohemians had wanted their own king, but in the end, they had been utterly decimated at the Battle of White Mountain. After that, the world had turned its back on Prague, and the old imperial city had been all but forgotten.
Around noon on the third day after their arrival, Lukas and Elsa strolled through the huge, lively marketplace, surrounded by shouting vendors, cartwheeling acrobats, and energetic musicians. A puppet theater in front of city hall was performing a play about a clever harlequin and a stupid king; the audience laughed and slapped their knees as they watched. Despite the heat, both Lukas and Elsa were wearing the simple farmers’ hats Zoltan had given them that morning to help keep them discreet. There was always a chance that the marquis might have spies in the marketplace.
It was the first time that Lukas and his sister were out in the city alone. Elsa had hardly left the tavern; she’d spent most of her time poring over the Grimorium. Whenever Lukas tried speaking to her, she’d wave him away gruffly. Her face was pale, and there were dark circles beneath her eyes. Lukas had to remind her that she hadn’t eaten anything since the night before. Only then did she finally agree to take her nose out of the magic book and leave the tavern with him. Even so, she still had it with her, like some kind of protective talisman.
“You’re really spending too much time with that book,” Lukas told her as he bought the two of them some boiled eggs and a small loaf of rye bread at one of the many market stands. “If you keep this up, you’ll start eating the pages instead of breakfast.”
He’d meant it as a joke, but Elsa scowled. “We need the book to beat Waldemar von Schönborn, don’t you see that?” she snapped. “And I still don’t understand even half of what’s written in there! If we find ourselves face to face with Schönborn, what do you plan on doing? Are you going to defeat him with your ridiculous little rapiers and swords?”
“We did it once before,” Lukas retorted.
“And nearly got yourselves killed in the process.” Elsa shook her head. “Lukas, he’s my father. Don’t forget that. I know what he’s capable of. I can feel it.”
“And what are you capable of, Elsa?” Lukas asked softly. “I hardly know you anymore. You’ve changed. The book has changed you.”
“You mean now I’m not the sweet little sister that can be bossed around,” Elsa replied in a snippy tone. “You’re just jealous that I can do magic and you can’t, because the symbols in the book speak to me, not to you!”
Lukas stopped short and stared at her. Elsa had made that accusation once before, in Lohenfels Forest. “What are you talking about?” He sounded angrier than he’d intended. “I’m worried about you, that’s all!”
“You and your friends ought to be worried about finding the other two pieces of Imperial Regalia instead.” Elsa crossed her arms defiantly. “Leave the thinking and the sorcery to us women. All you men are good for is fighting.”
Lukas was so furious that he crushed one of the boiled eggs in his fist and threw it against the side of a building. “Oh, do whatever you want!” he barked at her. “You’ll see where that gets you!”
He turned away and stalked off amid the market stands, trembling with rage. Didn’t his sister realize how much the book and the sorcery were changing her? Lukas knew they needed the Grimorium to help them find the Imperial Regalia and defeat Schönborn, but he also sensed that Elsa was increasingly losing herself in the book. Wasn’t there any way out of this?
He was so deeply lost in thought that he didn’t notice he’d left the marketplace and turned down a narrow alley. A handful of children hurried past him, and a beggar shuffled by, and then he was alone.
All at once, Lukas sensed that he was being watched yet again. It was the same feeling that he’d had back on the boat as they were escaping from the marquis. He jerked his head around and saw a s
hadowy figure duck into an alcove. Lukas hesitated. It might be a robber, some common thief on the hunt for another defenseless victim.
Or maybe it’s the eavesdropper from the tavern, he thought. Well, whoever it is, he’s in for a nasty surprise. Lukas drew his rapier and walked toward the shadowy alcove, ready to fight. The wound he’d gotten outside Wallenstein’s palace was still throbbing. It had broken open again as he was fighting the frozen ones, and his arm had been slightly stiff ever since. But there was no time to worry about that now.
“Whoever you are, come out and fight like a man!” Lukas called. “Or are you too much of a coward?”
He was perhaps ten paces away when a leather-clad figure leapt out of the alcove, moving with lightning-fast reflexes. A cowl masked the short stranger’s face. A leather quiver of arrows dangled from the figure’s belt. A pair of almost delicate-looking hands were clutching an unusually small, sharply curved bow. Suddenly, an arrow came flying in Lukas’s direction, grazing his upper arm, piercing his shirt, and nailing him neatly to a door.
“What the hell?” Lukas muttered, tearing free. But the next arrow followed immediately after. The stranger fired off half a dozen shots in quick succession, darting through the alley and changing direction again and again—ducking behind a barrel here, rolling across the ground there, even jumping over a pushcart parked in the alley. Each time, the arrows missed Lukas by a hair’s breadth. The last arrow bored through his boot and nestled precisely between two of his toes. Lukas slipped off the boot, stumbling forward, and could only watch helplessly as the figure escaped. Soft, mocking laughter rang out as the stranger shouldered that odd little bow, leapt up onto a wall, and then sprang to a roof overhang, moving as nimbly and gracefully as a cat.
Lukas hurried toward the wall, but there was no sign of the mysterious archer. He shook his head, dumbfounded, as he stared at the holes in his shirt and his boot.
Who in the world was that?
Whoever it was, he was a champion marksman. Lukas bent down and picked up one of the arrows, squinting at it thoughtfully. Two unfamiliar symbols were etched into the shaft. The other arrows all bore the same two symbols.