City of Dark Magic

by Magnus Flyte

  “Nicolas brought me this from Nelahozeves,” said Moses, pointing to a large cabinet in the corner. “Lovely. Augsburg, late seventeenth century. It’s a traveling medicine and toilet chest. See this copper panel? It depicts an apothecary’s shop.”

  “Nicolas?” Sarah asked, trying not to sound too eager. “When? Is he around? I needed to ask him something.”

  “Haven’t seen him in a few days,” Moses said absently, lost in admiration of the chest. “But I think he called Daphne earlier.”

  As she dashed through Fiona’s room, shining with the immense collection of Delft china, Fiona herself, clad in a spotless apron and bent over a cabinet, called out, “Is there a glare? The Golden Fleece is terribly tricky to light properly.”

  Sarah stopped in her tracks, looked over the plates, jars, and flasks. “The 1556 dinner service,” Fiona said, in her high, fluting voice. “Commissioned to celebrate Polyxena’s father being awarded the Order of the Golden Fleece.” They were emblazoned with Polyxena’s family’s crest: a black bull, his nose pierced with a golden ring, and a badly painted yellow lamb tied to, or suspended from, some heraldic trim, almost like a pendant on a necklace.

  Sarah made her excuses and hurried into the portrait rooms, where she found Daphne in front of a large oil painting.

  “De frame is very correct,” Daphne said, in her usual crisp and humorless way. “Do you not agree?”

  Sarah looked up at the portrait of handsome Ladislav, brother of the 1st Prince Lobkowicz, in his nifty white-and-gold outfit, with the large key tucked into his pants. She remembered that Daphne had told them that Ladislav had plotted against Rudolf II, and had been sent into exile. “A traitor,” Daphne had called him. And yet the family had kept his portrait.

  “It looks great,” said Sarah. “Hey, have you heard from Nicolas?”

  “Miles,” said Daphne, as Miles came in, “I vould like to display that key Moses found, here vith the portrait.”

  Sarah remembered how Nico had been fixated on the key when Moses first produced it. “What does it open?” she asked.

  “No one knows, said Miles. “It’s very mysterious, because Rudolf made a big deal out of it. I mean, a key in a box was their whole wedding present from the emperor. Little bit like getting a car key for graduation, no? You kind of expect there to be a car outside. But in this case, where’s the car?”

  Sarah’s phone beeped. It was a text from Max. Meet me outside. Now. “I need your sign-off on the final catalog copy,” said Miles to Sarah.

  “Absolutely,” said Sarah. “But you know I was hoping to get over to the library at some point today. To find some household receipts there from the dates that concern Beethoven. I thought it might be nice to have a few more things to round out the general picture of the patronage of the 7th to Ludwig. Fees to the musicians that were hired for the private performances. That kind of thing.”

  “Okay, but by tomorrow at the latest.”

  Sarah came bounding out of the palace to find Max, resplendent in a perfectly pressed Brooks Brothers suit and gray fedora, revving his red 1930 Alfa convertible. Moritz sat in the back, lacking only a pair of goggles to complete the picture.

  “You know where Nico is?” asked Sarah, jumping in.

  “Someone at Nela just ordered a pizza with my credit card,” said Max as the little car sailed through the castle gate.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  “Friends don’t let friends do drugs,” said Max as they strode into the Knight’s Hall. “Not by themselves, anyway.”

  They hadn’t needed Moritz’s help to follow the trail of pizza boxes up the stairs to the second floor of Nelahozeves Castle. It seemed the Knight’s Hall had become Nico’s improvised laboratory. He was cooking something over a Bunsen burner placed in the enormous stone Renaissance fireplace. In front of this was a modern foldout table (horribly incongruous with the larger-than-life frescoes in delicate tints on the walls) covered in vials, boxes, and scribbled-on pieces of paper.

  “Hej god dag,” said Nico in what sounded like Danish, barely glancing up at them. “I think there are a couple of slices of pepperoni left. But the Czechs really don’t do a great pizza.”

  Sarah grabbed the little man by his shirt and lifted him off the ground. “Where is it?”

  “Where is what?”

  “Don’t give me that. Is it in Faust House or not?”

  Nico smiled in an aggrieved way. “Your tone—why, you didn’t suspect that I would— Sarah. Really.” Nico sounded terribly disappointed, and Sarah felt ashamed for half a second. Then, less so.

  “You disappeared. And so did everything else. What was I supposed to think?”

  Max stepped forward and Nico gave him a courtly bow.

  “It is all safe and sound in Faust House. Where Marchesa Elisa will not think to prowl and where the conditions are . . . sympathetic.” He brushed himself off and turned ba">

  “We?”

  “Tycho called it ‘Westonia,’ after Edward Kelley’s stepdaughter, Elizabeth Weston. I find that very appropriate, Miss Sarah Weston. I don’t know if I’ve got the formula correct. There may be . . . impurities.”

  Sarah could already feel her heart pounding in anticipation.

  “Remember, it is not really about moving through time,” Nicolas instructed her. “It is about perception. And about releasing the notion of linear time, which turns out to be a very difficult task for most people. Impossible, really. Like contemplating infinity. You really need to be on drugs to do it. LSD works fairly well. Psychotropic mushrooms. Which are child’s play to what we have here.”

  “What do we have here, Nico?” Max sounded concerned.

  “The master’s journal is a palimpsest,” the little man explained. “There are markings that have been erased and written over. It’s difficult for me to know exactly what does what. I did not often assist in the laboratory, although I collected many of the materials.”

  “You mean stole.” Max arched an eyebrow. “I bet you did.”

  “And toward the end,” Nicolas continued smoothly, “the master became very secretive. Dee left Prague, he was frightened of what was happening. Kelley, in his foolishness, tried to warn the emperor against Tycho and nearly lost his life for it, too.”

  “But this Westonia,” Sarah insisted, struggling with the odd fact of sharing her name not just with a long-dead poet, but also . . . “This is really the drug?”

  “Yes, I believe it is. Unfortunately, making just the small amount I did completely exhausted our supply of several key ingredients. I have used up the last measure of golem’s dust, for instance. Which is not an easy thing to replace.”

  Sarah watched him work, the reality sinking in that the person she was looking at was over four hundred years old. Nico appeared to be in his forties, with a slight salt-and-pepper effect in his hair. What must it be like, to be alive for so long, to have seen so much?

  The little man picked up the iron tongs and reached into the pan over the Bunsen burner, extracting a small square, about the size of a sugar cube. He placed it on a tiny plate.

  “Is that it?” Sarah sniffed. Musky, resinous. Amber. Her body began trembling. God, she thought, I’m like an addict.

  “This is it,” Nico agreed. “But it’s only enough for one person.”

  Sarah looked at Max.

  “If it’s not safe, then it should be me,” he said.

  “Your life is more valuable,” she said. “You have a lot of stuff to look after. I don’t even have a cat.”

  “Your lives are equally valuable, and equally insignificant,” Nicolas interjected, fussily. “This is merely a matter of maximizing our potential. Sarah is particularln Pro">“y suited for the drug, and I believe it was Professor Sherbatsky’s wish that she follow in his footsteps.”

  Max shot the little man a dark look.

  “Oh, you know what I mean.” Nico stamped his small foot. “Sarah, I believe you are better at navigating on the drug than Max, and we might only have this one cha
nce until I am able to locate a corrupt rabbi in Josefov who can get his hands on some more pulvis golem and I manage to track down sixteenth-century elk bones, etcetera. You can’t just order these things on Amazon, children. And yes, to be frank, Sarah, if you die your death will be much easier to clean up than Max’s, so there you have it.”

  “What we need to discuss next,” Max said, “is focus. The Golden Fleece.”

  “I haven’t heard it spoken of since Tycho’s time,” said Nico.

  “If we can find it, then we don’t have to worry about Tycho’s formulas. If we can find that Fleece . . .”

  “We’ll know everything,” said Sarah. “But it’s like a needle in a haystack. We don’t even know what we’re looking for.”

  “You’ll feel it when you’re close,” said Nico. “The energy of it. For the few moments I carried the bag it was in . . .” He shook his head, still shaken by the memory

  , four centuries later. “Think of what you’ll experience today as an enormous orchestra score,” Nico continued. “You are listening in for one instrument among thousands. Well, tens of millions really.”

  “Golden Fleece,” Max said. “That’s the instrument we’re looking for. We’ll start here, and then if nothing turns up, and you’re . . . okay . . . we’ll head back to Prague Castle.”

  “Okay,” Sarah said.

  “There isn’t much time,” said Max. “So you can’t let yourself get distracted. You’re only looking for the Fleece.”

  Sarah nodded.

  “It will not have a pleasant taste.” The little man indicated the sugar cube. “I could add a little vanilla extract maybe.”

  Sarah picked up the cube.

  “If I die, look after Pols,” she said to Max. “And give her my backpack.”

  Pollina should have the Immortal Beloved letters. She should know that Ludwig van Beethoven had heard her play and had been moved.

  “I will,” said Max. “You’re not going to die.”

  “A toast to Brahe,” Sarah said, and swallowed the drug.

  FORTY-NINE

  Sarah’s father had kept an old radio in the garage. He had taught her to spin the dial slowly to find the different radio stations. It was perhaps the first time that her keen aural perception had been noted. She had always been able to hear the music beyond the white fuzz. Tuning. That’s what she was doing. Tuning.

  She could still see Max and Nico quite clearly. She could hear them asking her if she was okay. It was hard to answer them at first, because forming the words seemed to activate some part of her brain that felt numb, or sleepy, but she managed to say, “I’m okay.” She wasn’t entirely sure what language she was speaking. Words came more quickly if she didn’t worry about it. “I want to go outside,” she said.

  It was raining when she stood in the courtyard of Nelahozeves, but she wasn’t getting wet, which was how she knew it was raining then, not now. Not now. Earlier. Raining. She heard the sound of horse’s feet upon gravel, and a carriage pulled up in front of her. No. Not the right one. Another time. Yes. She waited, trying to block out the strains of music coming at her from all sides, listening, reaching. New Year’s Eve 1806, she repeated to herself.

  She had lied to Max and Nico. She would look for the Fleece. But first, she wanted to see Beethoven one last time. She wanted to know why Sherbatsky had left her the note marked 12/31/06. What had he seen? What did he want her to see? Whatever it was, it was here at Nela.

  So she was standing outside, where she would see Beethoven come into the castle.

  And then there he was, stocky form encased in a leather coat, mud-splattered knee breeches, waistcoat, disheveled hair, climbing out of a carriage in front of her. He was so small! She took a deep breath, memorizing his scent, and followed him inside.

  “What do you see?” asked Max. His voice was far away.

  “Nothing yet,” said Sarah. “Or rather lots, but nothing about the Fleece.”

  Back inside Nela, it was more difficult. The castle was crowded, and she lost the scent.

  Then somewhere, from another century, she heard the word “Fleece.” It was hazy, whispered, distant. She was trying to find it when she heard the notes of a pianoforte. The Fleece was gone. She moved toward the music.

  A room, cold, with a fire flickering in the fireplace, and candles fighting off the December gloom. Luigi, seated at a small instrument. The 7th Prince Lobkowicz stretched out in a low armchair, two whippets at his feet. In his hands he held a small lute.

  Beethoven stopped playing and said something to the prince in German. Sarah was startled at the loudness of his voice. It took her a moment to accustom her ear to the tenor and the German they were speaking.

  “We are trying to keep the theater open, Luigi,” said Prince Lobkowicz. “You act as if we are stealing something from you.”

  “It is absurd that I should have to beg,” said Beethoven. “I have been waiting now for three months to hear back from that pig-faced imbecile and you princely rabble.”

  “You wouldn’t hear a thing, would you?” shouted the prince. “You’re deaf.”

  Luigi laughed. “If you were a horse, you would have been shot at birth,” he hollered back.

  This seemed to amuse the two men greatly.

  “Have a drink, it’s a new year tomorrow,” said the prince, setting aside the lute and moving to a decanter and glasses upon a marble table. “Maybe something good will happen this yÀs aear.”

  Nico and Max were trying to talk to her, but she tuned them out. Just a few more minutes, then she would look for the Fleece.

  Sarah did the math. In 1807 Beethoven had petitioned for an annual fixed income from the Imperial Royal Court Theater, and threatened to leave Vienna if he didn’t get it. In 1808 he would not get it, but would stay in Vienna, finishing the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, as well as the Mass in C Major and Piano Concerto in G, to name just a few. A superhuman outpouring of brilliance without equal. His personal life in 1808 would be the usual train wreck. Antonie Brentano was still to come.

  “Sarah?” said Max. “You just said the word ‘Beethoven.’”

  With great effort, Sarah turned her head to look at Max.

  “Yes,” she said. “You look just like him,” she said. “The 7th.”

  “Sarah, no,” said Max. “You have to focus. We don’t have much time.”

  Beethoven played a few notes, reached for a scrap of paper on top of the pianoforte, made a notation.

  “Shall we?” the prince asked, coming forward with a small pillbox in his hands. Sarah leaned in to look. Inside were what looked like two communion wafers.

  “What will you do?” asked Ludwig. “Will you go hunting now, your nose as keen as your dogs? Will you go looking for your lost Fleece with your sharp eyes?”

  Max and Nico were fighting with each other about how to focus her.

  “They’re talking about the Fleece,” said Sarah. “Shut up.”

  “Stop bellowing,” said the prince. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “No? Perhaps not,” said Luigi. “But I think you should stop looking.”

  “I will never stop looking,” said the prince.

  “No,” said Beethoven, more softly now. “I suppose you will not. Can you hear me?”

  “I can hear you.”

  “I cannot hear you, my friend. I am reading your lips. Today, I hear nothing.”

  Mutely, the 7th held out the pillbox and the two men swallowed the wafers.

  Ludwig went back to the pianoforte. Prince Lobkowicz poured himself a glass of claret and, calling to his dogs, left the room.

  Sarah and Beethoven were alone together. She could hear Max and now Nico, faintly calling to her, but she ignored them, moving toward the piano.

  Ludwig began playing softly, the Piano Trio in D. He will finish this next year, she thought, as Beethoven began to hum the part for cello.

  Sarah swallowed and hummed the violin for him. Largo assai ed espressivo. Not in Beethove
n’s time, but later, this would come to be known as the “Ghost” trio. Sarah reached out a hand to place it on Ludwig’s shoulder. Her hand did not move through his body though, as she expected. Indeed she felt cloth beneath her fingers, and, under that, muscle and bone. She snatcheÀig’sd her hand back. No, she had imagined it. She hadn’t actual

  ly touched him, had she? Her hand felt like it was in flames.

  Beethoven turned and looked straight at her.

  “Wie viel Zeit habe ich?” he whispered. How much time do I have?

  Sarah shook her head. Somewhere she could feel Max’s hands on her wrists. She could hear Max’s voice, coaxing her back into some form of the twenty-first century.

  “Wie viel Zeit habe ich?” Beethoven shouted. He pointed to his ears. “Wird es noch schlimmer werden?” Will it get worse? There were tears in his eyes.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Sarah shouted. “The music will get better! You are immortal!”

  “Play for her,” said a voice beside her. “Luigi, play for her.”

  Sherbatsky. He was standing right beside her, faintly outlined, snapping with energy.

  And now it all made sense. Sherbatsky had known she would come to Prague, he had known she would find the note with this date. He had known because he had visited this time and he had seen her here. Had he also known that he was going to die? Sarah felt tears come to her eyes. Sherbatsky, too, she saw, was weeping. But with joy, with awe and wonder.

  And Beethoven played.

  FIFTY

  Sarah felt something cool against her forehead. A cloth? Ice? She brushed it away impatiently. When she straightened, the scene in the room had shifted somehow, and Beethoven and Sherbatsky were gone. How long had she stood there listening? Hours? A few seconds? There was something she was supposed to be looking for. What was it?

  Sarah flicked away Max’s hands. She could hear music. She wanted to get back to Ludwig. She squinted, brushing aside mothlike ghosts battering at her peripheral vision. She felt a hand tugging hers back, clamped tight across her wrist.