“Bruncvik’s sword!” she shouted defiantly at Svetovit. “I have it now, Svetovit! It will protect me and I will use it to protect the city!”
Svetovit roared in fury as his cloud-horse veered up and away and then began another charge down toward Magdalena. He swept his empty sword hand through the green-black clouds and gathered a handful of sizzling lightning, which he threw at Magdalena. She cowered, but managed to keep the sword aloft. It swung and darted in her grip, deflecting the lightning. Sean and Victoria were struck nearly blind and deaf by the brilliance of the lightning ricocheting off the sword and the thunder that accompanied it.
Svetovit continued to cast bolt after bolt of lightning and the sword continued to dip and weave, keeping Magdalena safe from Svetovit’s assault. But the sword was heavy, too heavy to keep holding upright much longer, and she knew that once she dropped the sword, she would be all but handing it back to Svetovit. There was only one thing to do, though in the moment that she realized what must be done, she also realized what the cost would be.
She splashed through the shallows of the flood toward the nearest pier supporting the bridge. She raised the sword above her head to drive it into the stonework.
Svetovit roared in fury, rose to half-standing as his knees gripped the horse’s ribs, and hurled another fistful of lightning toward Magdalena.
The stonework of the bridge rippled and shimmered as it absorbed the sword back into the foundations of the bridge. Magdalena’s hands were empty.
“NO!” screamed Victoria. “Magdalena!”
Horrified, Victoria watched the lightning strike both the bridge and Magdalena, hurling her across the plaza against a wall. The stuccowork cracked from the force of the impact.
Multicolored rainbow ribbons of lightning exploded from the point of contact between lightning, bridge, and sword, ricocheting back to Svetovit and slicing him and his horse to shreds. The base of the bridge above the plaza rumbled and shook violently, knocking Dmitri, Sophia, and Theo to the ground. A wild gale screeched across the city, shattering windows and blasting grit and sand from the ground into the façades of buildings as if to scour them clean.
Spray whipped by the wind drenched Victoria and Sean as they cowered and tried to shield their eyes. The ground on which they stood rumbled, causing them to stagger into the walls of the buildings behind them. Victoria lost her balance, snapping the string taut in her hand, and the yew shot away from the rune and out of the circle Sean had etched. In the instant the yew was pulled from the magic circle, Fen’ka vanished. Victoria snatched up the yew before it could tumble away in the wind.
Storm clouds collapsed from the sky around Svetovit. Thunderclap after thunderclap rolled over the city, shaking the hills of the Little Town and the spires of the Old Town. Another roar—Svetovit? the collapsing of the bridge under the weight of the onslaught against it? the rushing of the river to consume whatever remained of the city? Victoria could not say—deeper, more solid even than the thunder, staggered into the sky.
The wall of sound assaulted the city. For Victoria, the world was nothing but spray in her face, stone walls at her back, and the roar in her ears.
Victoria gradually realized the wind had died away, the spray was no longer washing over her, and the half-light of a sky that was only overcast and no longer green-black had returned. The roar in the air was gone. Nothing was pressing her into the stonework.
She took a deep breath and dared to half-open the eye that was not pressed into the wall against which she had been driven. In the sky, she saw no sign of Svetovit, his horse, or the winged animals from the Royal Road. Turning her head, she saw Sean half-fall from the same wall and stumble a few paces into the water near their feet, rubbing his eyes. He looked around them, squinting, then pointed to the landing of the bridge. She saw Theo standing with difficulty and helping Sophia to her feet. Then she turned her attention to the pier of the bridge where the lightning had struck and remembered what had happened. Her glance darted around the edge of the plaza frantically until she saw Magdalena’s crumpled body on the ground against the cracked wall.
“Magdalena!” she cried, running to her friend, dropping to her knees, and clutching Magdalena’s shoulders. She dropped the yew bouquet and pulled Magdalena’s face towards hers.
“He’s gone! Svetovit is gone!” Victoria shook her friend and tried to pry open one of Magdalena’s eyes. “Magdalena! Wake up! Are you all right? He’s gone!”
Sean joined her, pocketing the sodden yew as he knelt beside the women.
“Sean! Why isn’t she waking up?” Victoria demanded. She pressed her cheek to Magdalena’s and began to rock.
Sean reached for Magdalena’s wrist to search for her pulse.
One eye fluttered open. Magdalena’s voice was little more than a dry whisper. “Svetovit is gone, isn’t he?”
“Yes, yes he is!” Victoria said.
“We stopped Svetovit,” Magdalena murmured, closing her eye again. “We saved Prague.” She smiled weakly as her head tipped gently to one side. She shuddered as she drew her next breath and Sean set her hand down to touch Victoria’s shoulder. “No!” Victoria choked out and burst into sobs.
Magdalena shuddered again and took another breath.
Victoria was still sobbing and cradling the unconscious Magdalena as Dmitri, Sophia, and Theo came down from the bridge. Sean explained what Fen’ka had said.
“You made him drop the sword,” Sophia said, facing Dmitri, picking up where Sean left off. “Then Magdalena took it and…?”
“It protected her from Svetovit’s lightning as long as she held it, but then she drove the sword back into the foundations of the bridge,” Sean resumed his report. “Then Svetovit threw another handful of lightning, but she was no longer holding the sword and the lightning threw her against the wall.”
“Isn’t there something we can do?” Sophia demanded.
Sean shook his head. “It’s hard to say. I’m not sure if anything is broken or how badly she struck her head. ”
Magdalena stirred.
“Magdalena! Are you all right?” Victoria exclaimed. “Can you walk?”
“I think so,” she said after flexing her fingers and feet. “But I’ll need help.”
Eventually, they made their way back to Victoria’s apartment as they all took turns supporting Magdalena. Although there was no electricity, the gas was still in service and she was able to light the stove. As the tea was brewing, the kitchen was filled with the quiet, excited chatter of the triumphant friends. Only Magdalena was resting on the sofa, quiet and apart from the others. Sophia pulled up a chair beside her.
“How could I have been so misled?” Magdalena wanted to know, asking the question with no preamble. “How can I make up for all the destruction I’ve caused?” A tear slipped down her cheek and she stared at her folded hands.
Sophia reached out and wrapped both hands around Magdalena’s. Dmitri came and stood beside the women, wrapping an arm around Magdalena’s shoulders. The apartment grew quiet.
“Fen’ka no doubt told you what you wanted to hear,” Sophia answered softly. “She made it easy to believe her words, twisting the truth to gain your sympathy and pity. She was an expert at lying and deceiving. Any one of us could have believed her if she had approached us.”
“But the flood. All the destruction. How could I have helped to nearly destroy the city?” Magdalena’s shoulders collapsed as she burst into great sobs of regret and despair.
Victoria stood with the others, letting the grief pour from Magdalena. Sophia kept her hands wrapped around Magdalena’s. Gradually Magdalena’s sobs subsided and she raised her tear-stained face to them.
“Why do you think you listened to them?” Victoria asked.
Magdalena thought a long moment; Victoria wondered if she was afraid of what she might discover within herself.
“I think… I think I listened because I wanted to do something important.” She considered again. “No, I wanted to be someone imp
ortant,” she said at last. “I wanted to escape being lonely and afraid.”
“Loneliness and fear can haunt you only if you allow them to do so,” Sophia said gently. She clutched Magdalena’s hands tightly and looked into Magdalena’s eyes.
“You have Victoria. You have us now, as well,” Sean told her. “If that doesn’t make you important, what will?” They all laughed and Magdalena slowly smiled.
Sean went on. “You need to make changes in your life, Magdalena. We all need to make changes sometimes. But those changes never come quickly or easily. But now that you know what you are looking for, that alone is a tremendous step forward!” Magdalena blushed and bobbed her head in agreement.
“In the meanwhile, what can you do? You can help drive the flood from the city,” Dmitri told her. “Go to each of the places you sprinkled water with the yew and recite the opening verses of the Gospel of Saint John,” the priest instructed. “That will counteract the charm’s attraction to the river and force the water back into its normal course.”
He paused and then asked, “Can you tell us anything else that you or George or Elizabeth did to conjure the flood or endanger the city?”
“Elizabeth and I—we used the staff to jam the gears of the Astronomical Clock and break its magic. George—he said that he had poisoned the power of the bridge,” she whispered.
“The clock? Its magic was in its timekeeping gears and I think the best way to repair its magic is to repair its gears,” Dmitri said. “I am certain that the city will see to it that repairs are made to the clock as soon as possible. Even if the authorities are only concerned that tourists see it in operation again, yes? But the bridge? Even with the sword in its foundations again, I do not know how best to heal the damage—the poison, you say—George has done.”
“I recall a ‘Great Antidote’ against all known poisons,” Theo told them. “Something from the Greeks and Romans. We could look it up and give the bridge a dose of it.”
“Then that should be our immediate concern,” Dmitri said. “Victoria, give us all the books you have that might have something to say about the Great Antidote. Let’s get to work, yes?”
“Wait—I still have this,” Sean announced, pulling the drooping and bedraggled yew from his pocket. “What should we do with this? Is Fen’ka still tangled in it?” He scowled at it as if it might bite him.
“I think she might still be,” Magdalena told them. “I had the impression that the ghosts whose bodies were in the river could not escape the water or go far from the river. But George had to give Dalibor permission to be free of the yew. I released George from the yew when I used it in the river to get his hands off my throat so it would catch Fen’ka instead. Did we ever give Fen’ka permission to be free?” She looked at Victoria and Sean, who looked at each other and then shook their heads.
“But she is too dangerous a ghost to let go free,” Sophia insisted. “We cannot simply let her return to the river and snare someone else to destroy the city.”
“What can we do with it, then?” Theo asked.
“We should do what should always be done with the dead,” Dmitri answered the group. “It should be buried. But we need a safe place, yes?” He looked at Victoria and Magdalena, who looked at each other.
“Loreto!” Victoria exclaimed in the same instant Magdalena did. She continued, “We should bury it on the Loreto grounds where I lit the candle in the footprint.”
“Where George buried… where George and I buried the dough figures,” Magdalena whispered. “Whatever hex that placed on each of you…” She looked around at all of them. “I am so sorry!” She wept again.
Dmitri took her hands and lifted her chin to look into her eyes. “Regret is meaningless without action,” he told her softly. “It is by acting to undo all that you have done that you will be able to set this all behind you, yes? Each time you recall something to regret, find a way to correct it. Do you understand?”
Magdalena nodded but continued to quietly sniffle. Victoria took her friend’s hands from Dmitri and sat beside her on the sofa as the others milled awkwardly around the room.
“The antidote!” Sophia exclaimed. Victoria pointed to her shelf with the magical handbooks that might contain a reference to the antidote against all poisons and Sophia took the books down. Then Sophia, Theo, Sean, and Dmitri each took one or two of the volumes, found chair, and looked for the antidote’s recipe. The apartment was quiet except for the rustle of pages turning and Magdalena sniffling as Victoria continued to sit with her.
“Here it is!” Sean exclaimed at last. “The ‘Great Antidote of Mithridates,’ it says!”
“What does it say?” Sophia, Theo, and Dmitri put aside the books they had been examining.
“Well, it is not a specific recipe,” Sean apologized. “But it says the antidote included walnuts, rue, figs, and salt.” He looked further down the page, turned the page, and examined the text there. “No, that is all it says,” he announced. He looked up at Victoria and Magdalena.
“Do you have any of those things?” Sean wanted to know.
“I have walnuts,” Victoria told them. “I imagine I also have figs—one or two dried ones. I did have salt,” she added. “We used it all this morning.”
“I think I have salt at home,” Magdalena told them.
“What about rue?” Sean asked. “It’s not something people cook with anymore.”
Victoria thought a moment. “Wait! That I might have!” She jumped from the sofa and darted into the bathroom, returning holding a small sachet aloft in triumph.
“From the flower market!” she announced. She sat down on the couch again and pulled the string to open the sachet, spilling the thimbleful of dried gray-green sprigs and yellow buds into her palm.
“I got this in the flower market months ago for use in bathwater,” she explained. “But I never used it.”
“Excellent!” Sean congratulated her.
“But how do we administer the antidote?” Victoria asked, looking from Sean to Magdalena and back to Sean.
“The bridge has to ingest it. We have to insert the mix of ingredients into the bridge. But how to do that? I have no idea,” Sean admitted.
Magdalena spoke hesitantly. “I remember George explaining how the bridge was a masterpiece of occult workmanship. One of the ways its inherent power as a bridge was bolstered was the inclusion of eggs in the mortar. He said eggs were emblematic of the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water—and that including them in the mortar strengthened the bridge immeasurably, both its chemical and its alchemical structure. He also mentioned something about an egg when he told Dalibor that he had poisoned the magic of the bridge, so maybe he used an egg for that.”
“An egg then!” Sean concluded. “We add the ingredients of the Great Antidote to an egg and then insert the egg into the bridge!”
“I have an egg!” Victoria went into the kitchen area and retrieved an egg from her refrigerator.
“Do you have a needle? A sheet of paper?” Sean asked. Victoria nodded and retrieved those as well, the needle from a sewing kit and a torn page from a tablet near the telephone.
“Prick open a small hole in the top of the egg,” Sean instructed as they all sat around the kitchen table. Magdalena hobbled from the sofa into the kitchen to join them. He curled the paper into a funnel, and Magdalena watched closely as Victoria carefully pierced the top of the egg several times and then pulled away the small triangle of shell she had outlined. Sean inserted the tip of the paper funnel into the opening and Victoria slid the dried rue from her hand into the funnel. It rasped down the paper and into the egg.
“Now we only need to add the other ingredients and insert it into the bridge,” Victoria declared, rummaging through the kitchen and placing the walnuts and figs on the table.
“Someone should get the salt from my apartment. Or come with me to get it,” Magdalena announced. She struggled to push herself up from the table.
“We’ll go,” Sophia told her.
Dmitri agreed and, taking Magdalena’s keys and directions, set out to fetch the salt from Magdalena’s apartment.
Victoria chopped a walnut into tiny chips. Theo sliced one of the dried figs. Sean added each ingredient of the Great Antidote in turn to the egg. Then he returned the egg to the darkened refrigerator for safekeeping. When Dmitri returned a little later, he added the salt.
“What shape is the city in now?” Theo asked.
“People are out on the streets,” Dmitri said.
“They say the flood has crested and begun to recede,” Sophia elaborated. “But there is still no electricity.”
“But if people are on the streets, we cannot get past the barricade and onto the bridge,” Dmitri warned them.
“We can if we go very early in the morning,” Sophia offered.
Given the small size of Victoria’s apartment, she was glad when Magdalena suggested that Dmitri, Sophia and Theo spend the night at her flat. They all agreed to meet back at Victoria’s early the next morning.
That night, as Theo was preparing to sleep on the sofa in Magdalena’s apartment, Dmitri and Sophia retired to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, holding hands in the pool of flickering light from the candle on the bedside table. Shadows twisted and furled around them.
“I never meant to kill him,” Dmitri confessed to his wife. “George. I wanted to stop him. Wound him, even, if I had to in order to stop him. But I never meant to kill him, Sophia.” He stared into the darkness across the room. Sophia stroked the back of his head.
“I know,” she whispered. “I know.”
“But the sword… It seemed to have a life of its own,” Dmitri went on. “I picked it up and it… felt alive, Sophia. I swung at George, to stop him, and… the sword jumped out of my hand as if it were a snake attacking a rat. It was uncanny. It killed George of its own free choice and then jumped back into my hands. My hands were stained with George’s blood.”
Sophia shuddered involuntarily.
The two sat quietly.
“I might have to surrender the priesthood, Sophia,” Dmitri said at last.
Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy Page 125
