Since tantalizing whiffs of frying sausage had somehow been making their way to the bath room for the last half hour, it would have taken more than a few bruises to keep Rosa away. “Quite,” she said, firmly, and rose from the bath like a weary undine. Marie wrapped her in one enormous towel, her hair in a second, and helped her out.
She bit back a few groans as the maid also helped her into fresh clothing; for once, having Marie help her dress was welcome rather than faintly embarrassing. The willow tea Marie had given her in the bath was finally doing something about her aching shoulder.
Well, tonight’s “theme” was a bierhalle, and that meant she would be able to dress comfortably. She only had the one loden jacket, but there was the jacket from the riding habit that was similar, and evidently Marie judged it to go well enough with her divided skirt that it would pass muster. At this point, Rosa was putty in the maid’s hands when it came to a clothing selection. All she wanted was a plate of sausage and kraut and a stein of beer. Preferably a very large stein of beer.
Marie probably sensed her impatience, because all she did so far as a hairdo was concerned was to braid Rosa’s long hair and coil the braid into a knot at the nape of her neck. “There!” she said, when she had driven the last hairpin home. “Go, and I advise that you do not polka, unless you want your shoulder to complain mightily about being bounced about.”
Since Rosa had absolutely no intention of dancing, that was going to be a very easy order to obey.
Her arrival at the ersatz bierhalle that the Graf had set up in the morning room was greeted with mingled enthusiasm and concern. A comfortable, heavily padded chair had been brought from another room for her, and she settled herself gratefully into it at the end of the table rather than taking a place on one of the benches.
This wasn’t a bad imitation of a bierhalle. The servants were wearing what looked like their second-best clothing for holiday and fair days, and the ones in the brass band even boasted Bavarian lederhosen, fancy suspenders and dashing hats. Garlands of ivy had been looped over the windows, and all the furniture had been taken out and replaced with tables and benches. Literally all the furniture, down to the rugs; it would have been a daunting task for just a single evening’s entertainment by Rosa’s standards, but . . . this was the Graf, and his palace alone had more people living in it than many villages in the Schwarzwald. Grilled sausages warmed over chafing dishes, and barrels of beer were lined up on stands along one wall. Of course, a real bierhalle at home would also have had deer, bear and boar heads, and mounted deer antlers stuck up wherever there was room on the walls, and the floor would never be so polished, but these were minor things and did not at all detract from the general atmosphere of great cheer. A servant brought her bratwurst and sauerkraut on a tray for her lap; another set a gratifyingly large stein of beer on a little table at her elbow. The little amateur brass band was reasonably in tune, and made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in skill—reminding her strongly of the band her Vati played in. She devoured her plate of sausage and kraut, and was brought a second, which she likewise demolished, and finally was brought a plate of sliced apples and cheeses—sweet cakes not going very well with beer. The children were alternately romping to the music and devouring sausage—the littlest ones eating with their fingers, while their mothers indulged this momentary lapse in table manners. There were larger chunks of cheese and bowls of apples on the tables, and anyone who wanted to could just carve some cheese off with the huge knives placed nearby and help himself to apples.
By now, Rosa was basking in the warm glow that surrounded her thanks to some really excellent beer. The company was good too; she had Markos on one side, and the Graf’s secretary, Rudolf, on the other. Rudolf was regaling the company with a story from his university days, a complicated tale of getting a donkey into a professor’s rooms that had nothing to do with magic. Both young men were paying her flattering attention, and she had drunk just enough to lose her self-consciousness about that, but not so much that she would say or do something stupid. It was a fine balance, but nothing like as hard to keep as balancing magical energies. Perhaps the only fly in the ointment was that she really liked to dance, but she knew it would be a very, very bad idea. Her shoulder was just beginning to settle down to a dull ache, and it was definitely not going to cope well with dancing.
Rudolf finished his tale to applause and laughter, and Rosa sipped her beer and nibbled a little truly excellent cheese to balance it out. The band returned from having devoured their own mountains of sausage and sauerkraut, and headed for the bandstand. This can’t possibly get better! Good food, tolerable music, good beer, excellent company . . .
“Ho! Markos!” An exuberant shout from the door turned all eyes in that direction, and Markos shot to his feet, waving at the figure that stood there beside the impassive footman.
“Dominik!” Markos called back happily. “You are here at last!”
The dark young man who came striding into the room was just as handsome as Markos and a great deal more flamboyant. He could not ever have been mistaken for German, not even by a blind man.
Anyone with an eye to costume would recognize him as Hungarian, with his red vest, black trousers tucked into shining black riding boots, and red, fur-trimmed coat worn on his shoulders like a cape, rather than with his arms in the sleeves. He had an impressive moustache, his hair was slightly long by Rosa’s standards, and his eyes glowed with good humor.
Or perhaps it was just that all of him glowed with Earth Magic.
And even those two words, “Ho, Markos!”, had been infused with a rich Hungarian accent. Has the Graf responded to Gunther sending three of the Bruderschaft to Romania by importing mages from Hungary, now? Rosa thought to herself with amusement. Well if all of them are going to be handsome young men, I am not going to object!
The two young men embraced, and Markos turned to the rest of the company. “This is my cousin, Dominik Petro,” he said, proudly. “The best man with horses in all of Hungary! And an Earth Master.”
“Now, now, don’t give me such flattery, I might get used to it,” Dominik laughed, mock-cuffing him.
The Graf rose; Dominik clicked his heels together and bowed. “Count. It is good to meet you at last. I—”
The Graf held up his hand. “Is your business so urgent that it cannot wait a few hours?”
Dominik shook his head. “If it were, I would have come faster,” he admitted. “We have had this mystery for years and have put off dealing with it because—”
“Then sit. Don’t think about it for now. If it has endured for years, it can endure a few more hours.” The Graf waved at the table. “Enjoy the food, the beer, and the company. You are just in time to listen to Hunt Master Rosamund tell us what she encountered invading my property. By balloon, no less!”
“Balloon!” Now Rosa definitely had the young man’s attention, and he eyed her with speculation . . . and something else that made her flush a little. The Count gestured for him to take a spot on the bench next to Markos, and one of the servants brought him food. “This sounds like a fantastic tale from Jules Verne! I am eager to hear it!”
“Well, we are getting a little ahead of ourselves,” Rosa replied, giving her empty plate to the servant that had brought Dominik his food. “We didn’t know there was a balloon involved until the end, and I need to begin at the very beginning.”
She described very briefly why she and Hans had gone to Romania, then in more detail how she had met Fritz when the train had been stopped, and how she had killed Durendal—“Or so I thought,” she told her audience. “I sent the body off with a minotaur so there would be nothing in this world to hold a spirit—and so there would be nothing for any followers to find.” She looked to Rudolf and the Graf. “Did anyone know he had a sister?”
“Until Fritz found him, we didn’t even know who he was,” Rudolf said for both of them. He craned his neck upward. “Frit
z? Can you join us?”
Rosa expected Fritz to come from the other end of the table, but to her delight, the tuba player put down his instrument—and it was Fritz! He walked toward them, looking very self-conscious in his lederhosen. “What is it that I can contribute?” he asked diffidently.
“Did you have time to learn that Durendal had a sister?” Rudolf asked.
Fritz shook his head. “I am afraid that everything I learned, I learned in the course of no more than three hours. I managed to isolate Durendal’s magic signature over the course of a few days, and eventually connected the signature to the living man. I followed the man to his home, asked a neighbor who lived there and described the man I had seen, and got his name. I was actually going to the telegraph office when I was attacked by Air Elementals and fled.” He hung his head. “I am very sorry—”
“Really, Fritz, if you keep saying you are sorry that you retreated in the face of great peril, I am going to have to become quite cross with you,” the Graf interrupted. “You are no good to me or anyone else dead, and dead you would have been if you had stayed. So please, stop apologizing for not being dead!”
Fritz looked relieved. “If the Count does not object, may I go back to the band?” he said meekly.
“Your tuba playing is excellent, and please let the rest of the band know that I am very much enjoying the music,” the Graf replied, and gave him a kindly pat on the shoulder as he passed.
The attention turned back to Rosa.
“Does anyone know about possession?” she asked.
The professor cleared his throat and came to the fore. “In theory. I have studied such things.”
“We are all ears, my dear Professor,” said the Graf, leaning on the table. “Enlighten us.”
“According to my studies, it is easier when one is either a blood relation, or has been in close proximity to the possessee.” The professor pursed his lips. “It can be accomplished with various spells, but it can also be accomplished by persuading the—well, I will call her, ‘the victim’—to invite possession. The nearer the relation in blood or proximity, the easier the possession.”
“The young lady had the same cast of features as Durendal,” Rosa observed. “And she seemed to be about the same age.”
“Then until we learn otherwise, I will speculate that this was a twin sister, and one he kept under his constant control. And evidently he had prepared her to become his vessel if anything ever happened to his physical body.” The professor nodded. “It is often the case with twins that one is very much the more dominant of the two. And we know nothing of Durendal’s upbringing. His family has not been known to us as one that contains mages, so—”
“We must assume he was taught coercive magic by someone in his family. His father, probably,” said the Graf. “This may go back generations, but only with Durendal did they produce a Master, or we would have uncovered them before this.”
“I suppose,” Rosa said, slowly and reluctantly. “It is even possible the sister was so devoted to Durendal that she not only cooperated, she actually called his spirit to herself when he died.” She frowned; the mere idea revolted her.
“Is that even possible?” asked someone behind her.
The Graf answered for her, mouth set in a grim line. “Oh yes. Very possible. The nearer one is in familial relationship, the easier it is. And the more that the primary can mentally dominate the secondary, the easier it is.”
“Such devotion is not unheard of,” the professor seconded. “Lovers calling back the spirits of their loved ones, siblings doing the same. Usually, however, the spirit wishes to be set free, not remain bound to this earth.”
“It could easily have been both. Durendal prepared his sister, both as his vessel, and fostered a slavish devotion to him to cause her to actually open herself to his possession,” Rudolf said, dispassionately. “Twins often have a spiritual bond and know when something has happened to each other. If she felt him die—and if he had prepared her both to receive his spirit and to call it to her—it would not have mattered if they had been half a world apart. It would have happened.”
“I’ve read of such things, but this is the first time I actually saw a possession,” Rosa confessed. “And it didn’t immediately occur to me that this was what I was seeing. Still, the fact that I was running for my life should be some excuse.”
She described how the trap had been sprung, how she had seen both Air and Water Mastery in her attacker, how she had been confused at first, then realized there actually were two spirits in the same body. She related how the dark beast had given her the openings she needed to get her defenses up and to call her allies, and how she and the fauns had fought the revenant.
“It was the death of the undine that weakened it, though,” she continued. “I am not sure why.”
“I think it was probably because Durendal was too distracted,” the Graf said, as Gunther nodded agreement. “Too many attackers at once. It kept him from using the energy released as the poor undine perished; possibly at that point he was having to stave off the nix as well. Instead, when the undine perished, he found he then had less of the pain and fear energies he needed. That loosened his hold a little on the undines, the nix attacked in force, which strengthened the undines, and—”
“And the fauns and I directed our fire at the ice, rather than Durendal. We broke the ice, allowing the nix to seize their prey, and that was the end of it. I hope,” she added, looking to the Graf.
“I have people out at the pond, still. There is no sign of Durendal.” The Graf grimaced. “I find it unlikely that he could have a third vessel waiting, but we are on the watch for anything of the sort. I must see about setting up a Lodge in Vienna.”
“Well, that is all the tale there is,” Rosa concluded. “I regret, Master Petro, that there is absolutely nothing of Jules Verne about it. Except that after the rest arrived and we did a search for any traps, allies or other mischief, we found the balloon. It was a gas balloon, and the Count believes Durendal had such things on hand in case he needed to travel swiftly. He was an Air Master, after all. And wealthy enough to afford such things, it seems.”
Dominik nodded. “Rather than being at the mercy of the wind, he would be the master of the wind, directing it to take him precisely where he wanted to go, and as fast as he cared to, with only needing to keep in mind how fragile such constructions are. Which would explain how he was able to get ahead of the train and set up the ambush there.”
“And he always intended to abandon the contraption, both here and at the train, I suspect,” Rudolf said, looking very thoughtful. “I wonder if he didn’t intend to take Fritz’s ticket and board the train in our friend’s place, then take the return train to Vienna.”
“And Fritz would simply—vanish.” The Graf nodded. “But—here? He was setting down in the middle of territory belonging to the enemy! And how did he—”
“His Elementals probably told him all of our plans; it wasn’t as if we were keeping anything about this party a secret,” Gunther pointed out gruffly. “And they would have kept him informed as he drew nearer to your estate, old friend. By the time he was ready to land, he would have known exactly what Rosa was going to do. It isn’t as if we guarded against errant sylphs when she and Markos were planning their trails.”
“But how, in the name of Heaven, did he think he was going to get away?” the Graf protested.
The professor held up a finger and they all turned toward him. “Mind you, this is all speculation—” he said, after clearing his throat.
“But—” the Graf prompted.
“But my studies of the supernatural seem to indicate that spirits without their proper bodies degrade over time, as it were,” the professor said, gravely. “This is why haunts repeat the same actions over and over. And the more of themselves that spirits devote to a highly emotional task, such as revenge, the faster that degradat
ion occurs.”
The Graf looked impatient for a moment. “I do not see why this is relevant,” he complained.
“It is relevant, my dear host, because I don’t think that Durendal was thinking of escape at all,” the professor replied. “His ability to think was severely compromised. He could hold only one thing in his mind at a time. That is, if the theory of spirit degradation is correct.”
“It’s as good an explanation as any,” rumbled Gunther.
“So it seems that all our puzzles are answered, or at least have an answer, though we can’t know if it is the right one—well, except one.” Rosa looked to the Graf. “Have you any old churches near that forest? Very old, I mean, old enough to have had a dog buried at the foundations to serve as a bargeist? I don’t recall any ruins, but if it had not been for that bargeist distracting her—him—I would not have been able to get my own shields up and mount a counterattack.”
Markos coughed politely, as the Graf, somewhat to Rosa’s puzzlement, looked amused—and so did Dominik. “You might as well tell her, Markos,” Dominik said. “Tell them all, since it seems only the Count knows.”
“That wasn’t a bargeist, Hunt Master,” the young Hungarian said diffidently. “That was—er—me.”
At first, Rosa wasn’t sure what he had said. Then she wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly. Then—
“Oh, you mean you spirit-rode a dog?” she said, puzzled. “But where did you get a dog of that size? Or did—”
“No, I don’t mean that at all, Hunt Master,” Markos replied. “I mean, that really was me. In my shifted form. I am a werewolf.”
“What?” Rosa was not the only one exclaiming over that, though she might have been the only one wishing for a coach gun and cursing that, once again, she was unarmed.
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