by Unknown
"The place is still magical," said Pandur. "And not only in this quarter. Prague is full of magic. It's also present in the Hradschin. There have always been people who know that. The alchemists, for example, who tried to make gold there."
"And? Did they manage it?" asked Festus.
"Don't pretend you don't know. They didn't have any real access."
"I know others who don't have any real access." It was obvious the rigger was intending to wound Jessi. "As far as I'm concerned, I rely on the magic that comes out of the barrel of my Combat Gun."
Jessi looked at him furiously. "Acting the wild street samurai again, huh? You're too intelligent to be able to deny magic. A few hours ago Imogen's magic wand was very welcome, wasn't it?"
"I don't deny there's magic," Festus retorted sullenly. "I just don't like it all that much. And the people who use it I don't like all that much either."
"Oh, yeah? I've got kinda different memories of that."
Pandur listened to the two of them silently. As long as Jessi and he formed a team with Festus, tensions of this sort probably couldn't be avoided. He didn't feel comfortable with it. It didn't look as though, in the foreseeable future, the rigger would accept that Jessi didn't belong to him anymore.
He eyed the people they encountered. They were mostly elves and dwarfs. Trolls and ores were a rarer sight, humans even more so. Magnus hadn't mentioned whether Vladek was a metahuman. If he was a norm, then he was one of the outsiders in this district. Nevertheless, Pandur didn't have the feeling that he and the other two runners were being marginalized with unwelcoming looks. Indeed, people took hardly any notice of them, and the darkness was an additional ally.
The quarter still exuded a last trace of its one-time elegance, enough to raise it above the run-down slums in the megaplexes. The glass surfaces had been blacked out or covered over, but the reason for this had more to do with the metahuman's preference for caves, sub-levels and darkened buildings. The locals still out and about in the late evening made neither a sophisticated nor an impoverished impression. They seemed to belong to the lower middle class. High enough in the social order not to give street gangs a breeding ground, and far enough down not set up a hue and cry when strange figures made their way along to some holy place or den of iniquity.
Pandur didn't feel at ease. The runners were tolerated, there seemed to be no dangers, but they were not in the familiar haunts of the megaplex. He kept listening out for the sounds of footsteps following them, kept looking out for shadows lurking in doorways. Nothing. But at some time the killers would follow their trail. They were not to be shaken off. He even wanted another encounter with them, wanted to add a bloodier defeat in Prague to their rout in Wurzburg. But not now. In the next few hours he could do without them. He doubted, though, they would comply with this pious wish.
They passed the Pinkas Synagogue and the Jewish Cemetery. The sea of sandstone and pink marble gravestones, jumbled together and piled on top of each other, towered above the perimeter wall in wild confusion. They sank down to the dead, who were interred in up to ten layers. Since the 18th Century no one had been consigned to the mercy of the worms here but, with the Awakening of the Sixth World, rumors of spirits walking between the graves persisted. It was even alleged that Rabbi Loew and the golem he had created from clay had been seen here. The Magical Faculty of the University of Prague had investigated the phenomenon, but found no conclusive evidence. This had closed the case for the world of hermetic magic. However, there were influential shamans who regarded the golem as a separate magical being and heaped nothing but scorn on the findings of their colleagues of the hermetic school.
Ahead of them loomed the Old-New Synagogue and the City Hall. They had reached their destination. Cervena ulice. It couldn't be far now to Number 13. The buildings dating from the Twenties of the 21st century blended in with the historical relics in contrasting variants, picking up the style of the narrow, sharp-gabled houses that had once been the distinguishing feature of the Jewish ghetto. With their multicolored facades of glass and aluceramics, they had produced the effect of a replica of modernism based on the medieval, without including the narrowness of the alley in the concept. Now darkened, blackened, split and cracked, the houses were ageing to approximate their models and were merging to create a startling symbiosis. The former fashion boutiques and swank bars had given way to simpler stores and taverns. In the upper stories there were apartments in which the well-heeled Prague glitterati had lived thirty years ago. The apartments no longer met higher standards of security and comfort and the surroundings had become totally unacceptable for the trendsetters. They had turned their attention elsewhere.
Number 13 stood out from the other buildings. The house was at a slant and leaned to the front. Not until Pandur had looked more closely did he realize that this was a deliberate optical illusion. Straight supporting girders had been concealed, slanting fake supports moved to the foreground and projections extended out over the street.
The house was no more than six meters wide and had two stories in addition to the first floor. Below there was a blacked-out talismonger's. The front entrance was to the left of the store's two tiny windows and door. An old-fashioned polished brass plaque pointed to the only resident of the upper premises: Nadros Vladek. The door itself looked plain, but gave the impression of being solid, and was secured with the most up-to-date electronics. There didn't seem to be a bell.
Pandur touched the door-knob. To his surprise, the codecard lock emitted a purring noise, clicked, and the door sprang open. Someone had noticed their arrival. They seemed to have been expected.
The runners entered the hallway. A wide winding staircase of sky-blue tiles, held by slightly darker, painted aluminum frames, led upward. Pandur took the lead. The stairs ended in an open room that occupied the entire second floor. What was more, the outward impression had been deceptive. There were no more stories. The room, approximately sixty meters square, extended up to the roof. It was done in deep-blue from floor to ceiling, a height of up to six meters, and indirectly lit by concealed spotlights. In addition, there were hundreds of tiny spots of light on the ceiling. The effect of the whole was of a satin-lined hollow under a starlit night sky. A huge white marble desk stood in the center of the room, dominating it. It looked like a sarcophagus. In front of it there were several armchairs covered in blue syntholeather that almost seemed to merge with the floor.
There was a man sitting at the desk, looking towards them. He wore a yellow cape and a yellow slouch hat, both covered in characters reminiscent of hieroglyphs. His hat was pulled down low over his forehead. The man's face appeared bland, almost blurred, smooth, ageless. He wore peculiar contact lenses that absorbed the light and spanned the iris with a milky-grey color.
Like the eyes of a dead man, thought Pandur.
Although the face was so unmemorable and the eyes so unmoving and rigid, something about it struck a familiar note. But Pandur was unable to say what it was. He had the vague feeling of having met this man before. But perhaps it was the absence of marked features that awakened associations with other faces.
"Very good," said the man. His voice sounded expressionless, matching the face. "I am very pleased you have found your way here."
"You're Nadros Vladek?" Pandur wanted to make sure, although he had no doubts about the identity of the man. He supposed the question held the wish to have it confirmed by the man himself. He wanted to hear that this faceless man was indeed none other than the miracle man praised by Magnus. A man who was allegedly competent in both magic and cybertechnics.
"Nadros Vladek," the man replied with a nod. "But please do sit down."
The runners slid into the upholstery of the blue armchairs and looked up at the mage behind his sarcophagus.
"D'you know an MCT exec called Krumpf?" Festus asked all of a sudden.
Vladek gazed at him for quite a while without answering. " Why?" he finally gave back.
"'Cause I'm gonna rip out his gu
ts and fiddle Smetana's Moldau on 'em!" said Festus angrily.
"An interesting instrumentation, even if a somewhat messy business," replied Vladek unemotionally.
"I asked if you know him."
"Should I?"
Now the rigger fixed the mage with a stare. "Yeah. He's working on the same stuff as you."
"I know him," said Vladek. "Very well even. I can only warn you. He's an exceptionally capable, exceptionally dangerous and exceptionally unpredictable man. What has he done to you?"
"Cybereyes." Festus pointed to his eyes. "Containing viruses that're eating away at my brain."
Vladek was once more silent, staring at the rigger with dead eyes. "You wanted too much, my friend," he then said. " Cybereyes you wanted to use to assense Astral Space, on top of everything else, hmm? An illusion, a false promise, no more. You can only ascribe your fate to yourself."
Pandur felt he couldn't believe his ears. Neither the rigger nor Jessi had mentioned the true purpose of the cybereyes. He felt duped.
"Fuck!" Festus yelled. "Are you hand in glove with the drekhead, or why're you defending him?"
Pandur had the feeling everything was going wrong. They were here because Vladek was supposed to help them. Instead he was being abused by Festus.
Jessi seemed to feel the same way. "Don't louse everything up for us!" she warned him. "We made an agreement. First the data, then your eyes!"
The mage remained calm, not responding to Jessi's interjection. He seemed to be concentrating totally on Festus. " I'm not defending, merely stating facts. As it happens, I know precisely what it's about. It's an experiment by MCT to develop cybereyes for mages. The aim is to enable them to operate simultaneously in normal space while they are in Astral Space. The cybereyes are a result of this research. But they were conceived exclusively for people with magical potential. To think one can assense with them is utter nonsense! What you erroneously describe as viruses is a program for brain cells controlling magic. It reorganizes some of them, or concentrates their energies for additional cyberware applications. It can have a devestating effect on normal brain cells. And it is by no means suitable as a plaything for dilettantes."
Before Festus could fire off any more abuse, Pandur quickly said, "Can his illness be cured?"
"Not by traditional means. He has set a process in motion in his brain that is not reversible. And, in his case, the process is not bringing about a restructuring of the cells, but rather their destruction. The purifying fire of concentrated magic could perhaps stop the process. Perhaps, please note. One mage alone would not be capable of it. A magical site, a ritual team... possibly a temporary merging with a spirit being... There are no other options."
"How come you're so sure?" asked Festus suspiciously. "
Because I'm involved in these matters at MCT." Vladek replied. "I have already said I know Krumpf very well. I know him personally very well, and I know his work very well."
"Please!" said Jessi. "Important as all this is for Festus, we ought to close this subject for the moment. There are killers on our trail that will stop at nothing to prevent the Klabauterbund from publishing the data stored in this deck. You gave Magnus your assurance you would help us. I hope you haven't changed your mind."
"By no means." Vladek leant forward. "I should like to take a look at the cyberdeck."
Pandur was already holding the case in his lap. He took out the deck, stood up and passed it to the mage. For a fleeting moment he wondered if it was still under a spell. Maybe the magic had long since departed. He was kicking himself for not having at least tried to use the deck one more time.
Vladel laid the deck down on the desk in front of him. He stretched out both hands and moved them lightly at some distance above the deck. Pandur noticed precious rings with sparkling stones on the man's ring, middle and index fingers. The stones began to shine more intensely than could be accounted for by reflections of light. Presumably they were force focuses.
The white sarcophagus answered the rings. The desktop started to glow red. The glow grew in intensity. The whole sarcophagus emitted a gently pulsating red light. The cyberdeck, the mage's hands and face were drawn into this light. There was something eery about the whole scene.
As if Lucifer were bending over a consecrated altar, examining a sacrificial offering.
Then Vladek drew back his hands. The red light faded.
Finally, the cold white of the sarcophagus reasserted itself. Even the mage's rings now gave off only a matt light, as if the luminous power of their stones had been exhausted.
"A powerful magic," Vladek murmured. He looked at the runners. "You have no clue as to who imposed this spell?"
"Not the slightest, " said Pandur, who had no wish to expound his theories about a grey eminence to Vladek. He was disappointed with the man's reaction. Obviously, the mage felt as little able as Magnus to remove the spell from the deck. Where was Vladek's expertise in cybertechnics? Had Magnus been wrong about him? "Too strong for you, isn't it?"
Vladek graced him with one of his dead glances. "No hasty judgements, if you don't mind!" he said acerbically.
"I have assensed the structure of the spell. It was only possible because I understand a cyberdeck's systems. I now know how the spell can be broken. But to do that I need power, a great deal of power. More power than I myself possess." He paused briefly and then went on, "Luckily, I can obtain this power."
His right hand slid into a pocket in his robe and dug out a chip. He used it to open a drawer in the marble desk. He drew out a nondescript, well worn, brown leather pouch. It might have been mistaken for a tobacco pouch. He reached into the drawer again and put an old-fashioned inkpot, a quill pen and a few small sheets of thick, yellowed paper on the desk. The sheets arched up and he carefully smoothed them flat. Then he dipped the quill in the inkpot and wrote something on one of the sheets of paper. He took a second one and this time wrote a somewhat longer text.
"Hebrew," said Vladek, as if that explained everything. He straightened up and put on a smug expression. "I have studied the old Prague legends, especially that of Rabbi Loew and his golem. The Rabbi created an artificial human being from clay, a colossus, to serve him. At the Rabbi's behest he helped the Jews of Prague in their hour of need. The golem received his commands by his master writing his wishes on a piece of paper that he placed under the tongue of his creature. Admittedly a somewhat old-fashioned method, yet appropriate for the 16th Century... But magic that works shouldn't be altered. Magic knows no technical innovations."
"You've found the Rabbi's commands and draw magic powers from them?" Jessi asked in astonishment.
"Nonsense!" Vladek put down the girl. He leant back. "But I followed the Rabbi's tracks. He was active near here and is buried in the Jewish Cemetery out there. Not, however, in the tomb worshipped now as his burial place, but much deeper, in one of the lowest layers."
"You know what, chummer?" said Festus impatiently. "You oughta keep this magic crap to yourself, have fun with it and do conjuring tricks in the comfort of your own home. What is all this? You dig up the Rabbi's moldering bones, use his nut as a candlestick? Festus resisted Jessi's attempts to stop him coming out with more crudities. "That's all okay, conjurer, got nothing against it. But what d'you say to just getting on with cracking the cyberdeck without all this bullshit and giving us the chips with the data on them, huh? That'd be quite a performance and would earn you more respect than writing dumb stuff on scraps of paper and filling our ears with stories of clay giants. I know some guys that're made of shit. You can't do anything with 'em, whether you stick a note in their mouths or up their asses. Doesn't even work with good cyberware."
Pandur hadn't bothered to try to interrupt the rigger's speech. He didn't want to irritate Festus even more.
Vladek had listened patiently. "Finished?" he now asked. " Ignorance is not the way. Have you forgotten what I told you before? You of all people should accustom yourself to magic. It's your only chance."
"Ju
st forget what he said." Pandur now came in. "Festus is impatient. It's understandable if you put yourself in his shoes. So ka?"
"Your friend is not so far wrong with his supposition," Vladek continued. "Initially, I sought the golem where everybody looked for him, where legend said he rested when the Rabbi didn't need him: in some attic. I investigated the attics of the Old-New Synagogue, the Pinkas Synagogue and the City Hall. I scraped together dust from every nook and cranny, analysing and assensing it in the hope of finding remnants of the clay the golem was made of. Nothing doing. The dust possessed no magical attributes."
"I could've told you that straight away," Festus broke in. " The only dust that contains any type of magic is gold dust. In nuggets or bars, though, the magic is much stronger."
The mage paid no attention to him. "Then I reduced the legend to its magical kernel. A mage, Rabbi Loew, developed a magic formula with which he bound a spirit to a clay colossus. The formula is lost, but the spirit is still bound to the matter if the Rabbi didn't release it. I considered what I would have done if I had been in Rabbi Loew's position, old and facing death. I would have wanted to have the golem with me in death too, to be able to fall back on his services in a different dimension. I would have made sure that he was buried with me. Either in his full size or, and this would have been simpler, in the form of an essence or even just a sample of his body. Doubtless, his shape would have crumbled to dust in the Rabbi's lifetime anyway. What would have been simpler for Rabbi Loew than to have carried dust from the golem with him at all times and to stipulate that he was to buried as he was found when he died? So I examined the cemetery, illegally of course. I sent automatic soundings through the layers of the dead. I won't bore you with the ponderous details. In any event, in here..." He pointed to the small leather pouch. "... there's dust from Rabbi Loew's grave. Dust from Rabbi Loew himself. But most importantly - dust from the golem."
