Whoever owns this recipe rules the world, thought Greta. And they will sow death and fire.
Tonio had stolen her son because he wanted the igró pir. Sebastian was the hostage in a trade. It had probably been Tonio’s plan as far back as her journey to Rome with Lahnstein. They’d only have to hand over the recipe and Sebastian would be free. But then why wasn’t Tonio showing himself?
You must come of your own free will.
Evidently this, too, was a part of the sick game between Tonio and her father, a game whose rules Greta neither understood nor wanted to understand. She only wanted her son back.
Even if it means the death of thousands of people on the battlefields of Europe?
The thought was mind boggling. Greta’s feet hurt like hell. She had seen unimaginable things at Castel Sant’Angelo, had plunged into the ice-cold Tiber, had run through half of Rome in a wet dress, and had barely managed to escape death—she wouldn’t give up, not this close to the goal.
“We have to find this cave,” she said eventually.
Johann gave her a hard look. “So you have made your decision?”
“What decision?”
“We give the recipe to Tonio. You know what that means?”
“This is about my son, damn it! How can it be my son’s fault if some old men think up horrible things? Why should he pay for it? He is only a child!” She paused. “Even if we destroyed the recipe here and now, who’s to say that someone else won’t invent something similar, or that the old formula won’t reappear? I can only save my son, not the whole world.”
“Maybe we’ll still find a different solution,” said Karl. “But first we need to find the cave.” He stood and pointed uphill. “Augustus’s palace isn’t much farther. Let’s start our search there.”
Flinching with pain, Greta got to her feet. She was limping, but at least she could walk unaided, albeit slowly. Thus they eventually arrived at the ruins of the imperial palace. Here, too, all was overgrown with weeds. In the light of the moon, Greta saw arches and crumbling walls; in an old courtyard stood a headless statue with a broken sword. She sat down to rest on the remains of a wall at the edge of the courtyard while Johann and Karl set off to find any indications of a cave.
Meanwhile, Greta studied the mosaics on the ground in front of her by the light of her torch. There were birds, fish, and various creatures. She closed her eyes and took a moment to enjoy the stillness. Why couldn’t things just go back to the way they’d been a few weeks ago? She had tried to escape her fate, but fate had caught up with her.
Her father had caught up with her.
It seemed like a punishment from God that her love for her child had grown strongest at the very moment he was taken from her. Where had she been for the last two years? With the poor, the sick, and the elderly, with all those people who needed her. But not with her son.
“Nothing. Not a trace.”
Greta looked up when Karl returned with his smoking torch. Johann followed close behind.
“We searched everywhere, as well as we could in the darkness,” said Karl. “A few rooms are still intact, including some cellars full of trash, but no cave.”
“Damn it!” snarled Johann. “The cave is probably some way away from the buildings, somewhere in the gardens of Augustus. But that’s a huge area, and it is pitch black. Hagen must have seen Tonio, so the cave is here. But where? Where, in God’s name?”
“Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate,” said Greta softly.
“What did you say?” Johann asked.
“‘All hope abandon, ye who enter here.’ A fitting sentiment, I find.” Greta pointed at the wall she was sitting on. An Italian inscription had been chiseled into the stone. “Even if the phrase doesn’t at all go with the little birds, rabbits, and fawns in the mosaics.”
Her father hastily brought his torch closer and studied the inscription. Greta now saw that below the words, a square had been etched into the stone. A square with a circle at its center. It looked like a solitary, watchful eye.
“My God,” whispered Johann. “Could it be?” He turned to Karl. “Quick! Search the courtyard!”
“But why?”
“Jesus Christ in heaven, do I have to explain everything to you? This phrase is written in Italian, not Latin, so it was added much later. Most importantly, though, it tells us what is to be found here.”
Greta read the inscription again, and finally she understood.
All hope abandon.
“It is a quote from Dante’s Divine Comedy,” she exclaimed. “From the Inferno.”
The monastery of Santo Spirito owned a large library that, of course, included the books of Dante, Italy’s most famous poet. About two hundred years ago, Dante Alighieri composed his best-known work, the Divine Comedy, in which the poet himself travels through hell, purgatory, and paradise. The description of hell, of the inferno, had gripped Greta strongest of all.
Johann pointed at the letters. “These words are written at the gateway to hell! The porta infernale. Do you understand? It is a sign, perhaps for Tonio’s helpers, like Hagen. The entrance must be somewhere very close.”
“But we searched everywhere,” said Karl dejectedly.
“Then we’ll just search again, damn it!”
Karl slowly walked across the courtyard with his torch. “There is nothing here,” he said after a while. “Only weeds and rubble.”
“Keep looking!”
“What is the meaning of this symbol?” asked Greta, pointing at the square with the circle inside. “It almost looks like an eye.”
“Possible.” Her father shrugged. “Perhaps it represents the entrance to hell. Or—” He broke off. Then he suddenly gave a hoarse laugh. “Of course, a circle! How could I have missed it!” He stood up and tightened his grip on his torch. “The cave isn’t here!” he called out to Karl. “This is just the beginning of our search.”
He gestured at the symbol on the stone. “It is the first sign and refers to the first circle of hell. There are ten of those in Dante’s Inferno. Following the gate are the vestibule of hell and the nine circles representing various sins and crimes. Lust, gluttony, greed, wrath. In the last circle, Lucifer is trapped in a lake of ice.” He smiled grimly. “Tonio truly has a sense of humor.”
“Does that mean we’re not looking for a cave but for another square, this time with two circles?” asked Karl, who was now gazing at the symbol.
Johann nodded. “Then three, then four, and so on. They are markers that will lead us to our destination. To the porta infernale.” He raised his torch and marched ahead. “To the devil in his hell.”
It wasn’t long before they found the second clue, a square with two circles, on a wall a little farther away. From there they followed the third sign, the fourth, and the fifth, gradually getting farther from Augustus’s palace until they reached a small wood at the edge of Palatine Hill. There probably used to be flourishing gardens here a long time ago, but now low-hanging branches blocked out the moon, moss hung down in curtains, and the air smelled of rotting leaves and winter. Greta remembered the first lines from Dante’s Inferno.
In the midway of this our mortal life, I found me in a gloomy wood, astray.
The sentence seemed deeply fitting, as if this poet from long ago had seen right into her heart.
Greta would have loved to bound ahead and search the clues herself, but every time she tried to walk for longer, the pain in her ankle became so great that she was forced to sit for a while. She felt as if someone had tied her up! And somewhere nearby was her son, perhaps already dead. To help her move along a little better, she had found herself a sturdy branch to use as a crutch.
Meanwhile, Johann and Karl had discovered the square with all ten circles and were exploring the surrounding area. The terrain was flat with no rises, and Greta wondered how there should be a cave here. An artificial one, perhaps, but not one in which two infants were suckled by a she-wolf. That was just a myth, nothing more. Just like the st
ory with the gateway to hell was probably no more than the spawn of Johann’s imagination.
Greta had been calling out for Sebastian, but the woods swallowed up her voice. Eventually she gave up. The long branch in one hand and the nearly burned-out torch in the other, she hobbled through the woods. Karl had told her to stay put, but she couldn’t sit still if her son might be nearby.
“Sebastian!” she called again. “Sebastian, can you hear me? It’s me, your mother!”
The silence was oppressive. In the distance she saw two moving lights, the torches of Karl and Johann, still searching for the entrance to the cave. A pale moon shone through the branches; it was bitter cold. Greta’s dress had dried, and Karl had given her his coat, but she still shivered as pitifully as if she were somewhere in the Alps, not Rome.
Something cawed.
When Greta looked up, she saw an old raven with blackish-gray feathers sitting upon a branch. It seemed to be eyeing her, and Greta wondered whether her father was right. Could the ruffled bird actually be a messenger from Tonio?
“Nonsense,” she murmured. She still thought it was delusional of her father to consider Tonio to be the devil incarnate. Nonetheless, she spoke to the raven. “If you know where my Sebastian is, then tell me. Please!”
Christ, what was she doing? She was talking to an animal! But then she remembered that there were plenty of people who didn’t believe that a person’s death could be foreseen in the palm of their hand. And yet she could do it.
“Where is my little Sebastian?” asked Greta again, this time even more desperately. “Tell me, please.”
The old raven lifted with a caw, flew for a few yards, and landed on another branch. It rubbed its beak on the branch and flapped its wings restlessly. Greta followed it, limping through the undergrowth with her crutch. Again the raven flew for a few paces, just as if it wanted her to follow. Then it came to rest on a branch above a large patch of herbs. The intense fragrance told Greta that it was parsley. She took another step.
And plunged into darkness.
Karl gave a start and listened. A high-pitched scream echoed through the grove.
“Greta?” he shouted. “Is that you?”
He and Johann had been searching the area around the tenth sign for a long while now but had found nothing. Despite the tension and the gnawing fear, he was awfully tired, and he was shaking with cold. But the scream made him wide awake.
Another one! It was definitely Greta, and she was crying for help. Was she being attacked? But who by? Karl was briefly overcome by a vision of Hagen, walking through the woods as a burned monster, his skin black and charred and his limbs molten, swinging his sword until Judgment Day.
“I’m coming, Greta!” shouted Karl.
He ran toward the screams, which were growing louder. To his right he could hear quick footsteps. It was Johann, following him with grim determination. They ran until they came to a patch of weeds. The screams seemed to come from inside the knee-high, bushy plants. But where was Greta? Karl was about to walk into the plants, but Johann held him back.
He knelt down and crawled forward on all fours. And still Greta called for help, her voice sounding strangely hollow, as if it came from deep below.
“A hole,” said Johann.
Karl went down on his hands and knees, too, and crawled toward a gaping hole in the ground that was almost entirely concealed by the weeds. It was roughly one pace wide, and Karl felt a warm breeze from inside it. When he held his torch into the opening, he saw that Greta was hanging from her crutch right in the middle. The branch had become lodged in the shaft, but it wouldn’t be long before it broke. There was a crack, and the crutch moved down a little farther.
“Take my hand!” shouted Karl.
She looked at him with a mix of despair, fear, and spite, then her right arm shot up. For a heartbeat she hung from the crutch only with her left hand—one wrong movement and she’d fall into the depths. But then Karl grasped her hand tightly. He pulled Greta until her upper body was lying on solid ground. Breathing hard, she crawled away from the hole. The stick fell rattling into the darkness.
“That was close. And you found the entrance,” Johann said, gesturing at the wild parsley. “This herb is dedicated to Proserpina, a Roman goddess of the underworld. In ancient Rome, parsley was used during funeral ceremonies for the journey to the underworld. Now we know why Karl’s vegetable farmers knew of the cave and why they believed it was cursed.”
“But this is no cave—it’s just a shaft,” said Karl.
“Perhaps the entrance used to be at the foot of Palatine Hill, but it collapsed,” suggested Faust. “Now there is only this shaft.” He sniffed. “Can you smell it?”
Karl took a deep breath. Indeed, he could also smell a waft of rotten eggs.
Sulfur.
“The porta infernale,” said Johann with a smile. “We have reached our destination.”
29
JOHANN CAUTIOUSLY CREPT TO THE EDGE OF THE SHAFT and peered inside. The hole was pitch black, and yet he thought he could make out a faint glow far below. The smell of sulfur was becoming stronger. On closer inspection of the hole’s surroundings, he discovered a thin hemp rope that led down the shaft. It was tied to a nearby tree and practically invisible in the tall weeds.
“Sebastian!” shouted Greta. “Are you there?”
“Quiet, damn it!” Johann snapped. “Do you want the master to hear us?”
“If your master really is down there, he has already heard us.”
Greta’s pointed remark reminded Johann that he hadn’t called Tonio del Moravia “master” in a long time. Not since Tonio had been his teacher, but that was nearly thirty years ago. They had made a pact back then, a pact that would help Johann become the greatest wizard in the world—and also the most unhappy man, as Johann often thought. He sensed Tonio’s presence as if his former master were a part of him.
My journey is coming to an end. One way or another.
“Hagen probably used this rope to climb down with Sebastian,” he said. “Which means this shaft leads straight to—”
He broke off when they heard something.
A soft whimpering.
“Oh God!” cried Greta. “Sebastian really is down there.”
She made to climb into the shaft, but Karl stopped her. “Greta, you’re hurt. If you climb down there, who knows if you’ll ever make it back to the surface. Maybe if just the doctor and I—”
“You expect me to wait here while my child is crying down there, suffering, trapped by a lunatic? Forget it!”
Karl sighed. “I didn’t expect anything else.”
“I will go first, then Greta, and then Karl,” decided Johann. “We have no weapons, but I doubt that weapons would be of any use down there. I only have this to bargain with.” He held up the small globe on the chain around his neck. “The deadliest weapon in the world.”
Johann picked up the rope, gave it a couple of probing tugs, and started his descent. He held the remainder of his torch between his teeth. It probably would only burn for another few minutes, but Johann felt certain that there would be plenty of light down below.
Hell is brightly lit.
As he slowly climbed down, Johann studied the walls of the shaft. It seemed to be natural and possibly used to serve as the cave’s vent. The stink of sulfur was increasing, as was the temperature, so that Johann soon began to sweat. He could also hear the child’s crying more clearly.
After a while Johann made out solid ground below. When he arrived at the bottom, he waved his torch to signal the others to follow. While he waited, he inspected his surroundings. He was standing at the end of a low tunnel that led to the west, and that was also where the glow was coming from. The wailing of the child sounded very close now—he couldn’t be more than a few paces away.
Then something strange happened. Something that was more unsettling than the crying.
It stopped.
Instead, the child began to chuckle—yes, now
he whooped, giggled, and laughed. At the same time, Johann could hear the soft jingle of small bells.
Ding, ding, ding.
And in that moment Johann knew behind which devilish mask Tonio del Moravia had been hiding these past few years.
In some ways the devil has always been a buffoon, he thought. He laughs at God right in the dour face.
Greta now heard the laughing, too. She had climbed down the rope next and now stood beside her father. Her heart started to beat faster. The child laughing down the tunnel was definitely her son. But how could that be? Sebastian was being held captive—he had just been crying. Something jingled, and then she heard a faint voice at the end of the tunnel.
“Bumpety, bump, rider. If he falls, he cries out. If into the ditch he falls, he’ll get eaten by the crows.”
Greta thought of the raven that had led her to the shaft. The old nursery rhyme she herself had sung to Sebastian many times suddenly sounded gruesome and creepy, like the lyrics to an ancient demonic ritual.
“If he falls into the swamp, the rider, he goes plomp,” echoed the voice through the corridor.
Sebastian squealed with delight in the way only small children can.
“Who in God’s name is that?” whispered Karl, arriving at the bottom of the shaft.
“I believe I know,” said Johann grimly. “He’s been making a fool out of us, in the truest sense of the word.”
Greta could no longer bear it. She hobbled ahead down the tunnel, which took a bend after a few yards and ended in a grotto with a vaulted copper ceiling. The walls were covered in fading mosaics depicting a wolf mother and two infant boys. The center of the verdigris-covered dome was dominated by a large eagle, the symbol of the Roman emperors. In the middle of the grotto stood a stone fountain adorned with small statues of nymphs and fauns.
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