“I’ve liked you ever since I met you, Hrot,” Felix continued. “And I hope we can be friends again once this thing blows over. That’s why I convinced my brothers here to let you go—right after the flagellation. You’ll receive five lashes from me, and five lashes from each of the other alchemists.”
Felix turned around to avoid Hrot’s pleading eyes, and then he walked back to the throng. The two kidnappers ripped Hrot’s doublet and undershirt off his back. They spun him around. He tried to squirm out of their grip, but they shoved him against the wall so hard he banged his forehead and saw stars.
As they shackled his wrists and ankles, Hrot tried to look over his shoulder to see what the alchemists were doing. Was this another stage of the ritual of initiation? Perhaps they would take the whip to see his reaction, and then they would drop it and guffaw their heads off. Yes! That had to be it! They would give him a scare, and then Felix would burst out laughing and crush him in one of his bear hugs. They would unchain him and officially pronounce him a royal alchemist. Then they would all retreat to the banquet hall to drink his health and the health of the recovering tigress Aisha.
Things had gone too far this time, however. Hrot was determined to scold and curse Felix and all the alchemists as soon as the filthy rag came out of his mouth.
Felix reached under his cloak and produced a horsewhip. Until the last moment, Hrot thought it was just a cruel joke. But when the whip ripped his skin for the first time, he finally realized they had been serious. Aisha was dead—and so was his chance to become an alchemist and try to make gold.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Hrot shuddered when he heard the knock on his door. Were the masked men back? But what could they want? Weren’t two kidnappings enough? Hadn’t he already been degraded, humiliated, and tortured to their satisfaction? They had brought him from the dungeon only last night, and he’d spent most of the time lying on his belly, sweating in fever and pain. His mattress was red with blood, and the skin on his back was ripped into raw strips. And they were back for more?
Hrot lay still so as not to make a noise, determined not to open the door even if it was the king himself. But would the door hold if they decided to ram it? Why wouldn’t they just leave him alone?
Hrot had decided to stay as far away from the alchemists as he would have stayed from lepers. He didn’t even want to seek revenge on that treacherous Leopold, and he wanted to forget Felix, his best friend turned enemy. In fact, last night’s ordeal had made him despise not only his tormentors but also their science. Hrot began to suspect that ancient alchemists had not veiled their manuscripts in all the astral and mystical allegories to hide their discoveries from commoners but rather to conceal the fact that they’d had nothing worthwhile to say. Panacea was unattainable. The Philosopher’s Stone was a fools’ delusion. The formula for the gold liquid of Thoth and Enoch was a tangle of empty, whimsical lines.
Hrot had also realized that transmutation of metal into gold was impossible, which meant he was lost. And the Emissary must have known that when they’d made the pact.
Another knock shook the door. “Are you there, Hrot?” That voice stirred his heart into a gallop.
Hrot realized there still was a chance to be saved from the fiend. He lifted his head. “Anath?”
“Yes. Open the door, please.”
Hrot recognized her voice beyond any doubt. But was she alone? Wasn’t this just another act of treachery? Felix had hinted at her being the king’s mistress. But as he’d saved her life, Hrot could hope she wouldn’t betray him. But wait! Hadn’t he saved Felix’s life as well? And Felix was the first to take the whip. Oh, to hell with them all!
“What do you want?” he shouted, sounding more hostile than he’d intended.
“I’ve brought lotion for your back.”
“How do you know something’s wrong with my back?”
“Just open up, will you?”
Hrot carefully knelt on the bed. “Are you alone?”
“Of course I am alone!”
He moaned as he put his feet on the floor and shuffled to the front door. He decided to trust Anath. She might be the king’s mistress, but as she openly despised the alchemists, she would never become their tool of treachery. He had very little to lose in any case. And he needed her magic powers more than ever before.
Hrot opened the door a crack and peeked out. Anath was really alone in the dark corridor, and so he let her in. He blushed when she looked at him, ashamed of standing in front of her with nothing on but his breeches. But the mere idea of fabric grazing against his back made him cringe.
“Oh, my poor Hrot,” she said as she kissed his cheek. “Go lie down. I’ve got something that will make you feel better.”
He led the way to the bedchamber and lay down with a groan. She sat beside him on the edge of the bed, reached into her handbag, and produced a small ceramic jar.
“Poor, silly Hrot,” she said, uncorking the lid and scooping out the lotion with the tip of her finger. He noticed her hands were no longer bandaged. “Didn’t I warn you not to trust anyone, especially the alchemists? I knew something like this would happen. But don’t be sad. I told you they were nothing but charlatans, and brutish drunks on top of that.
“And the king . . .” she added, and he noted a stale yet incredibly deep sadness in her voice. “The king looks friendly and harmless. But he’s a self-serving villain.”
Hrot turned his head and looked up at her in surprise. She wouldn’t meet his eye, and she suddenly looked so brokenhearted he decided not to pry—at least not for now.
The lotion smelled like burning boots. He hissed whenever her fingers touched a lash wound, but the pain swiftly subsided. Hrot sighed in relief when he felt his back go numb.
“This is real medicinal magic, my dear,” she said after a while, pushing the cork back into the jar. “You probably won’t even have any scars. You see, most alchemists look down on me as if I were an illiterate witch. But they have no idea about the real secrets of the occult—or the healing powers of Mother Nature. I used the same lotion on my hands.” She showed him her unblemished palms. “Do you think alchemists could brew an elixir that would restore and heal my skin in just a few days?”
Hrot shook his head. He noticed her neck was no longer bruised.
“I know you’re hurting,” she continued. “And I know your heart aches even more. I feel fear pouring through your veins like venom.”
She was right, as usual. With his alchemical dream dead and buried, his fear of the future had grown to monstrous dimensions. The first year of his new life—and the first year of his projected doom—was coming to an end with a dizzying speed. Nine more years, and the Emissary would become his master. Hrot would spend the rest of his life using deception—or murder—to obtain souls for the fiend.
“The thing you have done, insane Hrot, was an abhorrent deed,” Anath continued as she wiped away the tear that rolled down his cheek. “Didn’t you realize that in time you would have to pay the biggest price? Didn’t you know you would have to sacrifice your soul, mind, and body, along with your liberty and free will?”
He clutched at her hand. “Can you help me, Anath? Can you rid me of the pact and the Emissary?”
Anath said, “I know someone who might prove more powerful than the Emissary. And to show you my gratitude for saving my life, I’ll take you to see her. We will depart when the moon is full.”
“Thank you!” He kissed her hand. “But where will we go?”
A mysterious smile played on her lips. “Some people think I live in the Jewish Quarter because of the cemetery. My enemies talk about underground tunnels that connect my house to the graveyard, and of desecration of corpses, and even of ritual killing of babies and virgins. Nonsense! I do sacrifice animals, but I would never harm a human being, let alone a child.
“You see, I live in the Jewish Quarter because of the synagogue. Or, rather, because of what is underneath the synagogue.”
“What is it
?”
Anath kissed his forehead and stood up to leave. “Just come to my house when the moon is full, curious Hrot. Then you will see.”
IN THE LIGHT OF THE full moon, the Jewish cemetery was a gruesome place. The ancient tombstones cast craggy shadows on the crumbling walls, making them look like the backdrop of the rocks of Gehinnom. All the markers were crooked, leaning back, forth or sideways as if the poor souls beneath them had been buried alive and tried to claw and punch and kick their way out before finally suffocating.
As he followed Anath down a weedy path, Hrot couldn’t help thinking about the horrors sprawling under his feet. Only a thin layer of dirt separated him from dozens of staring skulls. The roots of the weeds he trampled poked at the helpless bones of those who had once been as strong and alive as he was—and who one day simply ceased to exist. A thin mist slithered around the graves in the swaying light of their lanterns, like a lost ghost who was trying to decipher the Hebrew inscriptions and find his grave.
At last, they left the haunted garden behind and hurried toward the synagogue. Once they had reached the back door, Anath took out a massive iron key and shoved it into the lock. As the door groaned open, Hrot wondered where she could have got the key from. But he suspected this was the least of Anath’s mysteries and the smallest of tonight’s surprises.
Only a ghostly shade of moonlight limped in through the narrow windows. The light of their lanterns looked weak and inadequate in the gloom of the double nave, whose brown somberness resembled a Gothic church. As they walked through the nave, Hrot froze whenever a rat scurried under the pews or a drop of water fell from the high, groined ceiling. Like the rats, they were intruders on sacred ground. What would happen if they were caught?
Softly as he tried to tread, his clumsy footsteps seemed to crash against the flagstones and echo for ages around the cold walls. He cringed with every step he made. Anath, on the other hand, looked as composed as if she were walking down the hallway of her cottage. She even laughed when Hrot tripped over a pew and nearly fell.
They crossed the nave and halted by the large pulpit. She pushed at a secret spring, and the back wall of the pulpit slid open. They squeezed through and walked down a spiral stairway. Hrot didn’t know how many stairs they descended but he could have never imagined a building to go so deep underground. Although he expected to arrive in a small crypt or a catacomb, they reached a wide open space. If the place had walls, he couldn’t see them.
Anath led the way toward a large spot that was even blacker than the darkness. The lantern bobbed in her hand, and her shadow stretched and shrunk across the stone floor like a leaping she-devil. Hrot shuddered at the sight. Would he ever learn who this woman really was?
She led him to the ruin of a circular building. “An ancient race used to dwell in the place where the cemetery stands,” she said. “Their bones rest well beneath the remnants of their Jewish successors. The synagogue was built on the site of this pagan shrine. Here is where the ancients worshiped Krverah, the three-headed keeper of ancient wisdom.”
“Is she the one who could save me from the Emissary?”
Anath nodded. “She is the most powerful goddess of the pagan pantheon. She might hide you in her realm once the pact is up.”
Everything was distorted in the light of the lanterns, and he felt this space was too large for a subterranean cavity. When he looked up, he saw only blackness. Were they still beneath the synagogue? He felt as if they were outside, under a foreign, overcast sky. This feeling only increased when they entered the shrine: his footsteps echoed loudly against its ruined walls only to quiet down again as soon as he followed Anath through the back aperture.
“Where are we, Anath?” he whispered, afraid to speak out loud in such an eerie place.
She gave him an enigmatic smile. “Questions only spoil the magic, curious Hrot.”
They walked toward a crimson wall which, as far as he could see, ran upwards and sideways indefinitely, hindered by neither a ceiling nor sidewalls. As they got closer, he noticed the wall was carved with fantastic landscapes that resembled the images he’d seen on Anath’s tapestries. Hrot ran his fingers over the carvings as though hypnotized. The red stone was warm and smooth like human skin; it almost seemed to be pulsing.
Anath led him along the wall to a wide niche covered with columns of strange symbols and hieroglyphics. “This is the key to the worlds beyond the wall. And the goddess is awaiting us. Let’s drink the potion.”
She produced a wineskin and drank about half of its contents. She coughed and handed it to Hrot, who—after a short hesitation—drained it in a few gulps. The next moment, his tongue turned into lead, and his throat burned as if he’d swallowed a blazing torch. His pupils dilated. He thought he saw shadows swirling among the hieroglyphics. A blend of thrill and apprehension spurred his heart into a gallop.
The carved lines deepened, eating further into the stone, which seemed to be melting like an ice block in the spring. The landscapes flared up in rich colors. Anath ran her fingers over the hieroglyphics and recited the ancient text. Her eyes were closed, and she looked like a blind person reading an inscription on a monument.
Hrot felt a warm breeze blowing from the carvings. Anath’s voice dropped into a deep and strangely hollow murmur. And suddenly he was dragged forward, like the time when he was sucked into the portal during that accursed winter solstice. He screamed with fear.
The wall hauled him in like the eye of a tornado. He outstretched his hands, certain he was about to crash into the stone blocks. Instead of a harmful impact, however, he only felt a powerful gust of hot wind sweeping over him. There was a disorientating moment of blackness. He screamed again.
A pair of cruel, yellow eyes opened wide at the sound of Hrot’s voice. Peering through a curtain of dark fog, the eyes filled with fury. So the sneaky little fluffy chin was about to beg for asylum in the realm of Krverah. It was time he learned a lesson.
HROT FELT AS THOUGH only his mind and eyes had flown into the world of magic, and as if he’d left his body on the other side of the crimson wall. As the darkness dissipated, he found himself floating through a vast tunnel, squinting into the glare of fluorescent stalactites. He noticed a shoal of large, finned earthworms swimming below, but he didn’t see any water. The roots that stuck from the orange dirt of the tunnel’s walls squirmed like hooked worms.
Although he couldn’t see Anath, he felt she was near. He even thought he could still hear her reciting the magic text. The words seemed to come from three different mouths: it was as if the goddess Krverah spoke through the sorceress.
Hrot flew out of the tunnel and glided like an albatross over a vast body of restless water. An unknown power steered him toward the shore. He heard the waves scream in pain as they clashed against the rocks on the beach. The rocks squatted and hunched as the sea washed over them. When the tide went out, their crevices opened wide to gasp for air.
Having circled a few times above the shore, Hrot dropped toward the ocean. He thought he heard himself scream in fright. Then he plunged into the roaring waves and rushed through the sparkling currents.
Although he wasn’t sure whether he was still attached to his earthly body, he tasted the salt on his lips, felt the pressure in his ears, and noted the wet cold on his skin. A thick-skinned leviathan surged by. It reminded Hrot of the picture of a rhinoceros he’d seen in the library. This creature, though, had dozens of gills and fins.
Hrot plunged deeper and deeper, toward a coral bottom which was covered with hundreds of turtles with eyes bulging all over their shells. Then he entered a large cavern.
A flock of winged otters scattered at his sight. The feeling of wetness was gone; he’d somehow become airborne again. He flew over a forest of tall trees whose branches and aerial roots squirmed and pulsed like gorged veins. Their gnarls winked at him with childlike curiosity.
Beyond the forest, a high mountain heaved like a feverish chest, topped with a cluster of cylindrical towers and eq
uiangular buildings that defied all laws of geometry. A large fortress loomed in the center of the city. So high it was it seemed to be hanging from the overcast sky.
Hrot’s soul filled with excitement. This had to be the abode of the goddess Krverah. He flew through an arched aperture and glided above a vast hall whose walls were alight with purplish fires. When he spotted a three-headed figure sitting on a wooden throne, Hrot recalled the statuette on Anath’s table. Krverah’s heads were crimson, large, and conical. All he could discern on the faces were enormous, shining eyes. He couldn’t tell whether she was naked or whether a crimson dress hung closely to her slender body.
Hrot couldn’t see Anath, but he could hear her speak again, this time in her own voice. Hrot felt a surge of hope when Krverah looked at him and nodded her heads. The goddess had heeded Anath’s supplications! She was going to protect him!
Then Anath screamed.
A thick fog enveloped Krverah like a storm cloud. A tremendous force pulled him out of the fort. The feeling of fear and desolation crushed him like a falling boulder.
“Anath!” he heard himself shout. “Anath, where are you?” The only answer was insane grunting and squealing.
A powerful gale slammed into him, bringing a rotting stench on its furious wings. A dark crevice ripped open in the fog. Its magnetic force sucked him in like a black hole. It absorbed the air and all the remaining light, making him choke in tangible darkness. An enormous pressure ripped the skin off his face and gouged his eyes out of their sockets.
When the darkness dissipated, he found himself gliding like a vulture above the horrid lands of his nightmares. A giant sow squealed somewhere below him, and suddenly he was plummeting and screaming in terror. Although he plunged into a soft morass, he could feel his bones snap and his muscles rip on impact.
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