“If anyone had any doubts about Polonius being somewhere nearby, I presume they’ve been put to rest,” Giovanni panted. He’d run dozens of the bat-cats through with his blade, as had Paulus and Jerome, but most of the beasts had been brought down by Gwendolyn’s arrows. All around them, the forest floor was covered with the winged creatures, some of which were still in their death throes, stretching toward their feet, trying to bite them. Lukas and the others all had bite marks on their faces and arms, but luckily, they were mostly just minor scratches.
“Very likely that Polonius and Schönborn know someone’s coming now,” Lukas remarked. “The alchemist probably trained the beasts to let him know. We’d better hurry.”
They hastened onward through the woods, without a torch this time. Though the path was completely overgrown here, Gwendolyn still had no trouble finding her way, but the others kept bumping into low-hanging branches and tripping over tree stumps. Lukas felt like he was stumbling more than he was walking. Twigs brushed his face, startling him into thinking that those wretched bat-cats had returned.
Lukas’s thoughts revolved around Elsa, who was still in the clutches of that hateful alchemist. What in God’s name were Polonius and Schönborn plotting to do with his sister?
At the same time, he recalled what his friends said Elsa had managed to do to the Prague guards with a single spell. How had Giovanni put it?
Your sister really is a monster.
Had the book actually made Elsa into a monster, a daughter of Lilith?
The woods abruptly ended, and they stepped into a clearing with a small pond that merged into a canal on either side. The pale moonlight reflected in the water.
Castle Hvězda loomed somberly behind it.
It wasn’t a particularly big castle; it had no towers or any of the usual adornments.
From up close, Lukas could see that the building really was shaped like a six-pointed star. It seemed dilapidated. Most of the tiles on the tentlike roof had been blown off, and black holes stared back at Lukas where the windows had once been.
Soft, almost imperceptible singing floated out from the interior.
“The invocation,” Lukas whispered. “It’s already started.” He hurried toward the pond, but Jerome called him back.
“Hey, un instant! Surely we’re not going to swim in that? God knows what other types of creatures Polonius has created. Pike the size of a ship? Slimy white frogs?” Jerome grimaced. “I wouldn’t put anything past those alchemists.”
“We don’t have to swim,” Gwendolyn replied. “There’s a bridge over there.”
Sure enough, a bridge spanned the narrowest part of the pond, though most of its stone railing had collapsed.
“Oh, great,” Jerome groaned. “Is that even going to support you, Paulus?”
“Shut your mouth, or I’ll toss you to your white frogs.” Paulus strode ahead, and the others followed him.
The bridge didn’t exactly inspire their confidence up close, either. Several of the wooden pillars holding it up had rotted through, and there were holes the size of Lukas’s head in the planks.
“Don’t think about it, just go,” Giovanni told them. “The faster we cross, the better.”
Just as he was about to step onto the bridge, a large shadow appeared on the other side. The figure slowly approached, finally halting in the exact center of the bridge. A cloud had passed in front of the moon, so that the creature was hard to identify at first, but then a slight breeze picked up, clearing the sky again, and Lukas saw that it was a large buck.
A very, very large buck.
Its antlers were gigantic—it was a sixteen-pointer at least, Lukas thought. He’d only seen a buck like that once before, with his father, deep in Lohenfels Forest.
His father had lowered his crossbow in reverence, allowing the animal to run off unharmed. “The lord of the forest,” he’d called the buck.
This buck had an imperial air about him, too. But then he abruptly turned his head in their direction, and Lukas’s admiration gave way to sheer horror.
It had the head of an enormous wolf.
The creature opened its toothy maw and let out a loud howl. It was bound to one of the bridge pillars by a long, heavy chain.
“God in heaven!” Giovanni blurted out. “That’s the howling we heard when we were at the top of White Mountain! This horned monster here must be keeping watch.” He shook his head.
Jerome drew his rapier with a grim expression on his face. “Alors,” he said. “The way I see it, either we defeat this monster, or we have to swim. I prefer the monster.” He stepped resolutely onto the bridge. Lukas, Paulus, and Giovanni moved in behind him, blades drawn, while Gwendolyn nocked an arrow.
The creature reared up on its hind legs, letting out another spine-chilling howl, and then galloped toward the friends. The chain appeared just long enough to reach the end of the bridge.
Gwendolyn’s arrows hissed through the air, but the wolf-buck kept right on running, the sharp, daggerlike tips of its antlers pointed straight at them. Lukas ducked away at the last moment, but he got caught and slipped. He felt something behind him burst, and heard it tumble into the lake with a loud splash. He stumbled, grasped at empty air . . .
. . . and then fell in as well.
The water was warm and stank of rotting algae. Lukas flailed wildly, feeling his feet snag on something slippery. Terrible images of Jerome’s giant monster fish and white frogs flashed through his mind. He opened his mouth to scream, but water rushed in and made him cough instead. His fear of the unknown horrors in the murky depths was so great that he couldn’t think clearly. He paddled and thrashed around like a drowning man.
“Here, my hand! Take my hand!” It was Gwendolyn, bending over the crumbling railing and reaching for him. The battle with the wolf-buck raged on behind her; Lukas saw Jerome lunging into another attack. Gwendolyn stretched out her hand, and Lukas grabbed it in desperation—but at the same moment, the creature kicked out one of its hind legs and hit Gwendolyn in the back. She let out a short shriek before tumbling into the lukewarm sludge directly beside Lukas.
She clung to him, kicking frantically. Lukas could feel her body underneath her soaked doublet; their lips were only inches apart. A warm feeling flooded through Lukas, making him completely forget his fear of the nightmarish creatures potentially lurking below them.
The feeling lasted for only a second, and then Gwendolyn released him and started swimming toward the shore. He crawl-stroked after her. Together, hand in hand, they climbed out of the water. She nestled against him once more for a moment. “I thought that . . . that some huge, pale frog was under my doublet and . . .” She shook her head, breathing heavily, and made a face as though the mere thought of frogs was worse than hellfire and brimstone.
Lukas couldn’t help grinning. For one brief moment, Gwendolyn hadn’t been quite as self-assured and arrogant as usual. She’d been genuinely afraid, and he’d been her protector, the person she could hold on to.
“Hah,” he said, “trust me, if there had been a frog under there, I would have—”
“Hey, lovebirds! Finished with your swim?” Paulus’s voice put an end to their moment alone. Lukas looked up toward the bridge, where his three friends were standing. The dead wolf-buck lay between them. Its long red tongue lolled out of its mouth; its once-glistening eyes were lifeless.
“Jerome hit it right in the throat,” Paulus told them, elbowing his friend in the side. “You know how it is—our pretty little Frenchman would rather go berserk than get pond scum in his perfect hair.”
“One more word and I’ll do it again, mon ami,” Jerome shot back.
“Save it for the palace.” Giovanni pointed to the building, which was now directly in front of them. The massive portal leading inside stood open a crack. Soft singing was still audible from within. “Everyone ready?” he asked.
The others nodded silently, grasping their weapons.
Then they entered the dark castle.
The first thing Lukas noticed about the palace was the smell. It stank of sulfur, and of some other scents he couldn’t identify. There was no light anywhere, and the windows were shuttered, so they were in absolute darkness. He could hear the quiet singing much more clearly now. It was more of a lament—a language he didn’t know, sung in high, sorrowful tones.
Lukas’s breath caught in his throat.
“Elsa!” he exclaimed, horrified. “That’s Elsa!” He wanted to run toward the sound, but Giovanni held him back.
“We don’t know if it really is Elsa,” his friend said, trying to calm him down. “It could be a trap, or someone else entirely. In any case, we should be on our guard. And we can’t do that if we just dash off blindly into the darkness.” Giovanni turned to Gwendolyn. “Do you mind if we light a torch? Hopefully those accursed bat-cats can’t fly through walls.”
Gwendolyn responded with a reluctant nod, and Giovanni lit one of the torches they’d brought. The room they were standing in was triangular, with the entrance at the point. There was another door in the broad side, across from them.
“We’re definitely at the bottom point of the Star Palace,” Giovanni mused. He was silent for a moment, listening. “The singing is coming from closer to the center.” He began walking to the door, toward the sound, but stopped in his tracks when Jerome let out an astonished cry.
“Hey, look over here!” Jerome pointed to the middle of the chamber, where a symbol was drawn on the floor in black.
Lukas craned his neck to look at it. A large L had been smeared hastily onto the stone floor in soot.
“An L, just like the hexagram on the garden gate.” Giovanni scratched his chin. “If this castle has six corners, each one probably has one of these symbols. This has to be some dark ritual. On your guard, everyone.”
They left the chamber, with Lukas hastening out in front. His fear for his sister’s safety made him forget all caution. He knew they had to be alert, but he felt like storming on ahead alone. He turned down a dark hallway—and shrank away in alarm when, out of nowhere, a figure appeared across from him in the torchlight. The stranger jumped back as well. When Lukas glanced around the corner, the other person appeared again. Slowly, Lukas reached for his rapier . . .
. . . and the other person did the same thing.
Lukas let out a sigh of relief. “A mirror,” he exclaimed. “I thought some new monster was coming out to fight us.”
“Would have been an awfully small monster.” Gwendolyn grinned, shaking the pond algae out from her red hair. Only then did Lukas realize that he, too, was shivering in his damp doublet. It was far colder inside these stone palace walls than outside in the park. It pained him that Gwendolyn was back to teasing him like he was a little boy, when he’d been her protector just moments ago.
“A hall of mirrors.” Giovanni nodded. “I’ve heard of these. Supposedly counts and barons often have these in their summer palaces. I’ll never understand how someone can spend money on such a thing when their own farmers are starving to death.”
Lukas walked ahead with the torch, seeing his own frightened face staring back at him. The hallway branched off again and again, often leading around in a circle or coming to an abrupt end.
When Lukas glanced into the many mirrors, he realized how tired and weary he looked. He’d lost his hat somewhere up on White Mountain, and his wet, stringy hair hung into a strangely unfamiliar face—one that was older and more experienced, but also harder and colder. Lukas would be fifteen soon. Just two years ago, he’d been playing with his father in the forest. It felt like an eternity had passed since then.
You’ve become a fighter, he told himself. Like Zoltan was. He wasn’t sure he liked this change in himself.
After a while, the friends got used to the mirrors. They felt their way through the labyrinth and finally came to a door. It led into another triangular room, with another symbol on the floor.
“An I,” Giovanni murmured. “Just as we suspected, one letter in each field.”
Lukas listened to the singing that was still emanating from the center of the palace. Suddenly, he wasn’t quite so sure that it was Elsa’s voice he was hearing. It sounded shriller, spookier, almost not of this world. “We need to keep going,” he urged the others. The smell of sulfur was getting stronger now.
“Before we go face our enemies, I need to tell you all something,” Gwendolyn announced in a somber voice. She touched the quiver at her side. “I’ve already shot a lot of arrows. I managed to collect a few in the park, but then that wolf-buck came along, and I fell into the water.”
“How many do you have left?” Lukas asked.
Gwendolyn checked inside her quiver. “Three.”
“Three arrows?” Giovanni stared at her, aghast. “Well, this is just getting better and better. A demonic ritual including a golem, a sorcerer who can’t do magic, and now just three arrows.” He let out a pained laugh. “But who ever said the Black Musketeers had it easy? There’s no turning back now, anyway.”
They returned to the hall of mirrors, which seemed to extend throughout the entire castle. Another room followed, with another symbol on the floor—an L again this time. The singing was very loud now, and the stench of sulfur was so strong that it nearly made Lukas gag. A huge portal with tall double-winged doors led into the center of the palace. It was standing slightly ajar, and Lukas thought he saw moonlight on the other side. There was a cool breeze blowing in.
“I think we’re nearly there,” he whispered. He gave the others one last, resolute look, and then nodded. “One for all and all for one.”
“For Elsa,” Paulus said quietly, drawing his schiavona from its sheath. “Let’s go give that golem and all its henchmen a good, solid kick in the ass.”
Cautiously, Lukas pushed against the doors, and they swung open without a sound. The room on the other side was large, with high ceilings—extremely high, in fact. Torches burned in holders on the walls, their flames waving back and forth in the wind. Lukas looked up and realized that there was no roof here at all—only a few old, rotten beams. The stars gleamed brightly above him; together with the torches, they bathed the room in an almost unearthly glow.
They had reached the center of the Star Palace.
Lukas glanced up ahead, and his heart leapt into his throat. Elsa was there, at the center of the room.
But she wasn’t alone. Elsa was kneeling inside a hexagram drawn on the floor, rocking back and forth as though in a trance, with the Grimorium lying open in front of her. It really had been her singing all this time, and her song still sounded high and eerie, like a chorus from the underworld. She kept her eyes closed; her face was deathly pale.
“NABOR, ULEXIS,” she murmured. “AD XANATAS AETERNITAS . . .”
Polonius stood beside her.
The alchemist looked just as he had at their last encounter near Prague Castle: gaunt and hunchbacked, with deep wrinkles and thinning gray hair. But now his frock was red rather than gray, and in the moonlight, it gleamed like blood.
What horrified Lukas the most, however, was the sight of Polonius’s thin, gnarled hand resting affectionately on Elsa’s shoulder, stroking it gently from time to time. It was a scene of intimate togetherness, and it made Lukas sick to his stomach. Both Polonius and Elsa were so caught up in what they were doing that they hadn’t noticed the friends yet.
A wave of fury crashed over Lukas. All he could think about was Elsa. She was in danger! That accursed alchemist was plotting to do something with her. What, exactly, he couldn’t say. It almost looked like he was planning to suck her power out of her like a giant, bloodthirsty spider. Lukas dropped his torch. He drew his dagger and stormed toward Polonius without waiting for his friends. Yelling, he thundered toward the hexagram . . .
. . . and bounced off.
He let out a yelp of surprise as he tumbled back, and gripped his bleeding forehead. He was so surprised that he didn’t even feel pain. What had just happened?
Only then did Elsa’s singing stop. Polonius’s laughter rang out in its place, which only enraged Lukas even more. He got to his feet and ran toward the hexagram once more, but again he slammed into some kind of barrier.
He was about to throw himself at the invisible wall a third time when he felt Gwendolyn’s hand on his shoulder, pulling him back.
“Don’t!” she exclaimed. “You’ll only end up with more bruises.” She gazed straight into his eyes, speaking in a calming voice. “We can’t step inside the hexagram, understand? Not like this. There’s some sort of spell protecting it.”
Lukas nodded, breathing heavily. The others had stepped up beside the hexagram as well, and now all of them stood there, weapons drawn, staring at the six-pointed star with Polonius and Elsa at its center. The hunchbacked alchemist was still chuckling. Elsa’s eyes were open now. She looked in Lukas’s direction, but it was as though she was staring right through him.
Unbearable pain shot through Lukas’s heart. His sister had never looked at him that way. So cold and indifferent, not like a brother, not even like a human being. More like a thing.
Like an annoying obstacle, he thought. Like a bug she wants to squash.
Only now did Lukas have the opportunity to look more closely at the star on the floor. Here, too, he saw letters spelling out the name “Lilith.” Three of the shapes also contained flickering candles, along with smoking pots emitting that nauseating sulfur stench. The other three had objects in them. Lukas gave a start. He knew those objects all too well.
The Imperial Regalia!
The scepter, the crown, and the sword.
Lukas knew immediately that these were the real Regalia, not the counterfeits that had been planted for them to find.
Polonius’s laughter died abruptly. For a few moments, the hall was completely still; the only noise was the distant rushing of the wind.
“So, you’ve actually found your way here.” The alchemist’s voice was sharp and sinister. “Let me guess: that cringing little French sneak of a marquis let it slip, didn’t he? And you defeated my guards in the park and in front of the palace, too. My compliments.” He clapped sarcastically as he regarded them with his penetrating stare, particularly Lukas. “But you actually thought you could just march in here and kill me? Me?” Polonius shook his head as though disappointed in them. “You ought to know me better than that.”
Sword of Power (The Black Musketeers Book 2) Page 21
