The Devil's Pawn

by Oliver Pötzsch

  “Romulus!” exclaimed Greta. “The cave of Romulus and Remus.”

  “Like Romulus, Augustus wanted to be considered a founding father of Rome.” Johann grinned broadly. “So wouldn’t it only make sense for Augustus to erect his magnificent domicile in precisely the same place where the first Romulus was suckled by a wolf?”

  “Even if you’re right—the former palace grounds are still huge.” Karl held up his torch, which was already halfway burned down. “And we won’t have light for more than an hour or two.”

  “Then let’s hurry up.” Greta was striding toward the hill.

  Here, on the southeastern side of the hill, steep steps led up its face. Every other step was broken, like a missing tooth, and bushes and weeds grew tall along the edges. Greta felt like she was in the middle of a wilderness. After the noise of the fireworks, this place seemed as still as a graveyard. Somewhere nearby, a raven cawed. Johann stopped.

  “What is it?” asked Greta.

  “Probably nothing. It could be coincidence, but lately I keep thinking I hear ravens or crows. They are Tonio’s messengers.”

  “And the birds of winter,” said Greta. “It doesn’t have to mean anything. And besides, if Tonio is the one you think he is, he hardly needs birds to find us.”

  “His powers are limited in human form. That’s what Agrippa told us, remember?”

  Johann carried on with a glum expression. Greta glanced at him. Her father seemed much older than he was, emaciated and haunted. He looked like someone who wouldn’t rest until he finally faced his old opponent. With his dirty, rash-covered face, his hair matted into a wild tangle, and his torn clothes, he resembled an avenging spirit risen from a musty grave. Greta doubted that Johann was primarily concerned about his grandson.

  It has only ever been about you. You and Tonio.

  The stairs were steep and treacherous. Once upon a time they might have been wide, elegant steps, but now they were overgrown and so covered in roots that at times it was difficult to find the path. Again a raven called; something fluttered. Greta looked up and saw a black dot move in front of the moon. Something cracked nearby.

  “Did you hear that?” asked Karl. “That sounded like—”

  Something knocked Greta off her feet.

  For a brief moment she thought a monstrous raven was throwing itself at her. But what she’d perceived as wings turned out to be the flaps of a coat, and the pointed beak hacking at her was actually the tip of a sword. A figure that had hidden in the thicket suddenly towered above her. Greta’s reflexes from her juggling days still worked. She instinctively rolled to the side, landing in one of the thorny bushes beside the steps. But at least her attacker had missed her. And now she saw who it was.

  Hagen was standing in the middle of the steps like Mars, the Roman god of war, his longsword raised above his head. The two-handed weapon was as long as the stairs were wide. Hagen made to take another swing at Greta in the bush, but Karl was faster. Even though he didn’t stand a chance against the giant, he rammed his elbow into Hagen’s side with all his might.

  It was as if he’d hit a tree.

  “Run, Greta!” shouted Karl.

  Hagen grunted. He grabbed Karl and hurled him away like a pesky insect. Karl screamed as he tumbled down the stairs. Meanwhile, Hagen raised his sword anew and brought it down hard. The blade dug into the ground next to Greta’s face, sending lumps of dirt flying. Cursing, Hagen pulled the sword out of the earth, giving Greta just enough time to scramble to her feet and look for a way out. The stairs were lined with dense gorse bushes to the left and right, so the only way was up. She couldn’t see her father anywhere.

  She started running up the steps and heard Hagen’s heavy footsteps behind her. The stairs were becoming even steeper; her muscles were burning and her heart was beating in her throat.

  Greta was under the impression that the creature pursuing her was no man but a fierce predator who wouldn’t rest until he caught his prey. But when she shot a glance backward, she saw that Hagen was lagging behind. He was limping heavily. Greta remembered that the mercenary had been injured atop the platform on Castel Sant’Angelo. But he wasn’t giving up. Slowly but steadily he followed her, his sword dragging loudly across the stones. He didn’t utter a word.

  When Greta took her next step, a stone broke away and her right foot slipped into a crack. She pulled and tore, but her shoe was stuck. The harder Greta pulled, the more her foot seemed to become lodged. Her ankle started to bleed. She tried to get up but every movement resulted in agony.

  Beneath her, the dragging of the sword was accompanied by heavy steps.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  Greta’s dress was laced with thorns, a rivulet of blood ran down her face, and still she tried to pull her foot free. The giant in the long black coat was coming closer and closer, like a larger-than-life wolf on two legs. Yard by yard, step by step.

  In her despair, Greta looked searchingly toward where Karl was probably lying with his bones shattered.

  Someone was standing at the bottom of the stairs.

  Greta blinked. At first she thought it was Karl. But then she recognized her father. He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, carrying in his hands the leather bag that gave off a strange glow, as if it was shining from the inside.

  “Hey!” shouted Johann as he laboriously climbed the steps, raising the bag so that Hagen could see it. “Let my daughter go. It is me you are seeking.”

  Hagen stopped and looked around. Slowly, he lowered his sword.

  “I’m not seeking any of you,” he grumbled. “I am merely the guardian. You know the rules, Doctor. You must come of your own free will. And alone. The master wants you and no one else.”

  “So he told you,” said Johann. “You know who you’re serving?”

  “Oh yes.” The giant bared his teeth. “In some ways I have always served him. Since the beginning of time. On the battlefields of the world we sang his song, and when we covered our swords with blood we wrote in his language. The church curses him, and yet she collaborates with him when she sends her sheep to their deaths. But the chaos isn’t perfect yet.”

  Hagen’s voice sounded strange, changed somehow, as if someone else was speaking through him.

  “Give the master what he desires,” Hagen continued in a sonorous bass. “You won’t regret it, Faustus!”

  “This, you mean? Why not? He can have it.”

  Johann hurled the satchel at Hagen.

  “Catch it and give my regards to your master in hell!”

  The bag flew through the air and the mercenary reached out his hand. The moment he caught it, a glowing red mass spilled from inside the sack, and sparks and fire rained onto Hagen.

  The giant roared when the fire burned his chest. From there it spread across his entire body, red, blue, and white flames licking in all directions. Hagen dropped the sword and beat at the flames with his hands. But Greta saw to her horror that the movement only made the flames grow faster. Now Hagen’s beard and hair had caught fire. He fell to his knees, and his roaring became louder until it turned into beastly screeching as the flames consumed him.

  An image from Dante’s Inferno, thought Greta.

  Never before had she seen such a powerful fire.

  Hagen knelt upright as a human torch for a few more heartbeats, then he let off one last long moan. Slowly, he tilted forward and then rolled down the stairs. Faust jumped aside as Hagen hurtled toward the bottom like a burning thornbush.

  In the end, the giant was but a ball of fire that burned out in a shower of sparks somewhere on the overgrown tracks of Circus Maximus.

  Hell had come to take him.

  Karl groaned and palpated his limbs like he had learned during his studies of medicine at Leipzig. All his bones seemed to be intact, which bordered on a miracle. After all, Hagen had thrown him headfirst down the stairs, but a protruding tree root had stopped his fall and prevented the worst. When the mercenary had sped past him as a living torch, Karl ha
d quickly sought shelter behind a weathered column. Now he emerged from his cover and looked down. There was no sign of Hagen, but it was obvious that the giant was dead, burned to death like a dry pine tree in the middle of summer.

  Karl knew how high-proof alcohol burned, and he knew the effect of blackpowder. But this fire had been something else. Something more deadly than anything he had ever seen. It was like the wrathful finger of God had touched Hagen.

  Or that of the devil, he thought involuntarily.

  He limped up the stone steps until he reached Greta and Johann. Greta sat leaning against one of the steps, her face twisted with pain. Her right foot was stuck in a crack.

  “Hold on,” said Karl. “The more you move the worse it’ll get.” He pulled and wiggled the slab until he managed to break it free. Groaning, Greta pulled out her tattered leather shoe.

  “Thanks,” she said breathlessly and cautiously moved her foot. “I don’t think it’s broken. The worst part was the fear of being utterly defenseless against that giant.”

  “At least that is one concern we’re rid of,” said Johann, slumping down beside Greta and wiping soot from his face. “That bastard will never lie in wait for us again. He is burning in hell, in the truest sense of the word. He didn’t have Sebastian, though. I suspect he’s already delivered the boy to Tonio.”

  “Don’t you think you owe us an explanation?” asked Karl.

  Johann raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  “If I didn’t know better, I would believe you had conjured up some sort of hellfire. But I’m guessing it was the contents of your bag, which you lit with your torch just before throwing it.” Karl pointed at the flickering stump of a torch that the doctor had stuck into the ground next to him. “So? What was in the bag? I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

  “It . . . it’s a weapon that no longer exists.”

  “What are you talking about?” Still visibly in pain, Greta looked at her father. “It’s something to do with that accursed alchemy, isn’t it? What did you brew up?”

  “It . . . it was more of a coincidence. Although I was hoping it might work. I had most of the ingredients, but no time to combine them according to the exact recipe. In all the commotion the various substances must have started to mix and—”

  “What recipe are you speaking of?” asked Karl impatiently, sitting down beside the doctor, who was stinking of smoke and sulfur like a veritable demon.

  “I’ll have to tell you at some point, so why not now?” Johann sighed deeply. “We talked about Constantinople earlier, the city of Emperor Constantine, formerly Byzantium. As far back as the time of the Greeks, a certain knowledge was gathered there which was kept secret from the rest of the world, and for good reason.” His jaws clenched. “It is just like Leonardo da Vinci once said. Some knowledge ought to never see the light of day. And yet it happened.”

  “My son is held captive somewhere around here,” urged Greta. “And you are delivering a lecture. If you’ve got something to tell us, spit it out.”

  “It is important for you to understand,” replied Johann, turning to Greta. “You especially. It’s something to do with your son. My grandson.” He swallowed hard and continued. “About three hundred years after the founding of Constantinople by Emperor Constantine, a new power entered the world’s stage, a power that swallowed up entire empires. They were fanatic peoples from the deserts of the east who turned up outside the walls of the city. No one had been able to stop them. Not the Sasanians or the Egyptians. It seemed as if all of Europe would soon be under their rule. During those dark times, a Greek inventor by the name of Kallinikos fled to Constantinople. He brought with him an ancient secret, a forbidden recipe, and he refined it. It would be the most terrible weapon the world had ever seen.”

  “My God,” whispered Karl, who suddenly had an inkling what had killed Hagen. “Are you saying—?”

  “The Byzantines called this weapon igró pir, liquid fire,” continued Johann. “The recipe was a state secret and included resin, sulfur, lime, saltpeter, and most importantly, an ingredient that in our climes is more commonly used in healing salves. I am talking about rock oil, or petroleum, as the Greeks call it. The effect is enormous. The Byzantines used pressure pumps, so-called siphons, to shoot igró pir at the ships of the Arabs. The sea turned into an inferno because the flames couldn’t be put out. On the contrary, they spread on the water. Thousands of soldiers died in this sea of fire, the ships of the Arabs burned, and the siege of Constantinople was abandoned.”

  “That’s why it didn’t matter that the bag was wet,” Greta said. “So you found this old recipe and—”

  “Impossible!” interrupted Karl. “Igró pir no longer exists. If the recipe had been saved, people would have been using it in war.”

  “Karl is right. The recipe was lost with the demise of the Byzantine Empire. Until recently no one knew how to make igró pir. Until the day someone invented it anew.”

  “Leonardo da Vinci,” exclaimed Karl. “You got the recipe from Leonardo.”

  “Yes. He reinvented igró pir. His mixture is probably even deadlier than Kallinikos’s original recipe. If it is manufactured correctly, it can even be lit with water and cannot be put out.” Johann gave a dry laugh. “Apparently, Leonardo also toyed with the thought of producing an invisible deadly gas. Thankfully, he didn’t succeed. But he soon realized that with igró pir he had invented a weapon that had the power to send the world into chaos. In the wrong hands, he knew, Greek fire could topple whole empires and create dark imperia. And that is not all.” He paused before he went on, with a grim expression on his face. “Leonardo must have sensed that someone profoundly evil was after his recipe. Someone he couldn’t fight. Someone who sent me to Cloux to find the secret for him—without me knowing that I was.”

  “Tonio del Moravia,” said Greta.

  Johann nodded. “Now I know that this was his plan. I assume that he blackmailed Agrippa or made a pact with him also, so that Agrippa would send us to Cloux to visit Leonardo. Tonio wanted me to find the recipe for him.”

  Karl stared at him, feeling a small pang in his heart. “A setup, right from the start?” Once again the doctor hadn’t told him a thing; as always, there had been secrets that Faust didn’t share with anyone. Not even with Karl.

  “I believe that’s how it was.” Johann wiped his sooty hands on his filthy coat. “Tonio sent me the disease and, through Agrippa, slipped me the clue that only Leonardo could heal me. He knew that I would never have done him such a favor voluntarily! But he was counting on my curiosity and hoped that Leonardo would open up to me, trust me.”

  “And?” asked Karl. “Did he trust you?”

  “Leonardo wanted to ensure that no one else would get their hands on the recipe. But he couldn’t bring himself to part with it.” Johann sighed. “Inventions can be like a curse that clings to a person. And so Leonardo hid the formula. Inside his own world.”

  “Inside his own world?” Karl frowned. “What is that supposed to—?”

  Johann held up a thin chain he had pulled out from under his shirt. Dangling on the chain was a tiny silver globe.

  “The recipe is inside this.” Johann rolled the ball between his fingers. “Written in mirror writing, in tiny letters upon tissue paper. Leonardo took every precaution so that only I would find the globe. He wanted me to decide what would happen to his invention.” He smiled thinly. “A tempting thought, isn’t it? All those wars in Europe, and this weapon could be the decisive factor. Maybe, with the help of this weapon, a unified, peaceful empire could be founded.”

  “An empire built on terror,” said Greta.

  “Is that why you kept the recipe?” asked Karl. “Because you haven’t decided who to give igró pir to? Hardly to the church, nor to the French king. Let alone the German emperor. They would only cause mass destruction with it.”

  Johann shook his head with a grin. “Even when they only thought I could make gold, the high and mighty prac
tically bashed each other’s heads in. What would happen if they learned of this weapon? No.” His expression turned serious. “I kept the recipe because I hoped it would serve me as a pawn. As a pawn in a bargain with Tonio. At first I thought I could use it to win back my daughter. But now it seems I am going to need it for someone else.”

  Johann looked at Greta.

  “For Sebastian. The fate of the world for your son.”

  Somewhere deep below them, in the belly of Palatine Hill, the master bathed in a fountain full of blood. His eyes were closed and he hummed his old song.

  Because everything that exists deserves to perish.

  This was the oldest place in one of the oldest cities of mankind. The place where everything had begun. The master loved such places, because where there was a beginning, there would always be an end.

  Finis terrae. The end of the world.

  His great plan had failed. Once again, little Faustus had foiled it. But unlike men, the master had time. Plenty of time.

  There was a flutter of wings, and moments later, a raven came flying into the cave and settled on the edge of the well. The bird opened its beak and cawed. If one listened very closely, one could hear a voice that—many, many years ago—might have been human, the voice of a child. The master nodded.

  “So he came. And of his own free will. That is good, very good! Prepare everything, Baphomet.” He grinned, his fingers stroking the scuffed beak of the raven. “If you fulfill your tasks to my satisfaction, you shall have something especially sweet to eat, my pet. Not salted and dried, but fresh—as fresh as if it was still screaming.”

  Inside a cage in the corner whimpered a small two-year-old boy.

  Greta kept staring at the little silver globe, swinging before her eyes like a pendulum.

  She had heard what her father had said, but she still struggled to comprehend. If it was true, then contained inside the silver ball were the instructions for a weapon the likes of which mankind could not fathom. Greta had no trouble imagining that someone like Tonio del Moravia was interested in it. He could sell the formula to the highest bidder. Clearly, the pope had been interested. But perhaps also the young German emperor who was locking horns with the French king over Italy, or the English king Henry VIII, who was also considered highly ambitious.