Deception of the Damned

by P C Darkcliff

  “Hush, handsome, hush,” she whispered. “There’s nothing to fear.” But her voice trembled.

  A few planks cracked in the darkness as the horse kicked the back wall. Anath started to despair. This skittish beast was her only means of coming to a timely rescue. But how on earth was she to mount him when he was this agitated?

  At that moment, a strong wind blew from the vineyards and carried strange noises toward the cottage. What was happening behind the river? It was as if all the dogs had gone feral in the Lesser Town—and as if all the swine were being butchered there. The insane howling and squealing was too much for the unnerved colt. He gave the back wall another kick, and then he bolted out of the stable.

  “Come back!” Anath called, but the horse was already so far she could no longer see its shadow. The beating of its hooves soon died out somewhere behind the cemetery.

  The dreadful noises slowly ceased as well. Black clouds rushed over the starlit sky, and it began to rain. Cold strings of water lashed her face. They washed away the goose’s blood and the tears that had risen to her eyes.

  It was impossible to get a ferry at night, and the bridge to the Lesser Town was on the other side of the ghetto. Even if she ran the whole way, the real noose would tighten around the real neck long before she got there.

  The desperate Anath knelt in the mud and jammed her fingers against her temples. She focused every particle of her mind on the one and only man who could be of any help. As she sent the telepathic message, she wondered whether he would be willing to interfere, after all that had happened between him and his former friend.

  THE PAST DECADE HAD turned Felix into an old man. The crown of his head was completely bald, and the remaining strains of his hair hung limply to his sloping shoulders. Two years ago, Felix had set up a small laboratory at his home—which he accidentally blew up only a few days later. The explosion had taken away the last digits of some of his fingers. The blast, combined with the mercury poisoning he’d suffered during one of his more recent experiments, had made him moody and neurotic.

  The regret about whipping Hrot and losing his friendship still poisoned some of his nights; the death of Rudolph II had rattled his nerves. He shared his colleagues’ premonition that the new king would soon close down the alchemical laboratory.

  The fear of getting old added to his depression, and the youthful and cheerful loudmouth he had once been now surfaced only once in a while. Just his animal sexuality was still intact. Since he had fewer and fewer opportunities to test mattresses for free, however, he had to seek alternatives.

  As he left his sad, empty, and partly burnt home, Felix thought he heard strange howling and squealing coming from the Lesser Town, but the night became quiet before he reached the bottom of Golden Lane. The starry sky clouded over as he crossed the Lesser Town Square and walked down a wide, arcaded street. He could still see well enough thanks to the open fire that burned at every corner, and the candlelight and torchlight coming from the public houses.

  A group of drunks passed by, singing at top of their lungs. An old woman was snoring in the middle of the street, her arms and legs outstretched as if she’d just been hit by a bludgeon. She did not even stir when the first raindrops fell on her face.

  This was the most notorious street of Prague, as it had more brothels and taverns than residential houses. Whores of all ages, sizes, and races lined the arcade. Felix leered at them hungrily. He knew that some of these unfortunate women would go with him for a drink, while others would do anything for a loaf of bread or a slice of meat. He had enough money in his pouch to get at least three of them for the whole night.

  The whores showered him with obscenities, and some of them lifted their skirts to show him their legs. A pretty, young girl with red hair came up to him, unbuttoned her chemise, and stuck out her large, freckled breasts. Felix grew feverish with desire.

  “Aren’t you a hot stove,” he told her as he ran the stumps of his fingers over her nipple.

  She only smiled and said something in a language he’d never heard before. Her smile broadened when her eyes slid down to his money pouch. She stroked his face, but when he tried to lick her mouth, she laughed and pushed him away. Her long finger pointed to a lit window of a house that stood across the street.

  “You want me to go up there with you?” Felix grinned. “And you only speak gibberish? Well, all the better! Let’s rip your mattress then!”

  They crossed the rainy street and entered the house. She squealed playfully and ran upstairs when he pinched her bum in the dark. Felix hollered with laughter and rushed after her. But then he froze, feeling that something was amiss.

  HROT WAS STILL SITTING on the filthy floor of his drawing room, listening to the strengthening rain and thinking of the best way to die. He gasped when Anath’s face flared in the darkness of his thoughts. Her mouth was open in a silent scream; her eyes were distorted with enough terror to make him scramble to his feet.

  Was something wrong with her? Was someone trying for her life again? Hrot sensed her powerful mind was whispering something, and he strained to receive the message. Someone was in danger, and she begged him to go and help.

  “To hell with it!” Hrot snapped.

  He was about to sit down, but the inner voice was too strong to disobey. In spite of himself, Hrot found his shoes, donned his cloak and a hat, and went downstairs into the rain. He saw nothing in the blackness, but an unknown force steered his steps securely across the Lesser Town Square and into the whore-infested arcade. As if led by an invisible hand, he splashed through the muddy puddles toward a solitary light flickering behind a second-floor window.

  Two burly men and a beautiful red-haired girl ran out of the house. The girl was carrying a heavy money pouch. They would have toppled him had he not jumped aside.

  He watched them fade into the night, and then he entered. Something pulled him up the stairs. He felt it was the same, benevolent force that had dragged him toward Anath’s cottage that evening of her attempted murder. Although he realized he could be walking into a trap, he kept groping his way up.

  The house was black except for the feeble light blinking under the door on the second floor. Hrot pushed at the door and entered. In the light of a flickering candle, he saw someone hanging by the neck from a piece of rope.

  Hrot couldn’t recognize his old friend at first. Felix’s face was purple, like a chunk of amethyst, and terribly distorted. Foam dripped from his twitching mouth. His swollen tongue hung out like a gorged leech. Felix kicked his feet and pawed at the rope, which was suspended from a stout crossbeam and dug deep into his neck. The gurgling sounds he made were barely human.

  Hrot sprang forward, hugged Felix’s thighs, and lifted him up. Felix was able to stick the stumps of his fingers between the rope and his skinned neck, and he loosened the rope enough to take a breath. He struggled to free his head, but he couldn’t pull the rope over his chin. His whole body convulsed as he tried to fill his lungs.

  “Help, help!” Hrot screamed into the yellowish gloom. But only the pouring raindrops replied.

  Felix was heavy, and Hrot was losing his strength. His hands shook uncontrollably, and armies of ants seemed to be scurrying up his arms. He let go and fell to his knees in utter exhaustion. Felix kicked his feet anew.

  Hrot looked around. The room was completely bare apart from a toppled stool. He scrambled to his feet and dashed to pick it up. As he rushed back to put it under Felix’s feet, he tripped over his own foot and went crashing to the floor. Two of the wooden legs broke off on the impact; he could no longer use the stool to support Felix’s weight.

  The edge of the stool had bruised Hrot’s ribs, too, and the pain soon enveloped his whole torso. Nevertheless, Felix’s desperate, moribund gurgling spurred Hrot back up. He hugged Felix’s legs and held him up anew. But Felix seemed to be slipping into unconsciousness. He no longer attempted to loosen the rope, and only his twitching feet indicated he was still alive.

  Fifteen mi
nutes later, Hrot’s arms felt like two dead branches attached to his body by an insane surgeon. Groaning with exertion, he did not hear the footsteps outside. He screamed in fright when he saw a black silhouette of a person holding an ax. But it was only Anath.

  She rushed forward and lifted the ax. She had to jump in order to swing it over Felix’s head, and even after a few attempts she only managed to slightly fray the rope.

  “Hurry up!” Hrot groaned desperately, feeling his arms going numb. Felix’s feet stopped twitching, and Hrot feared the worst.

  “It’s too high for me,” Anath screamed. “You try it, and I’ll hold his legs. But be careful, for God’s sake!”

  Hrot grabbed the ax, but it slipped out of his crooked fingers with a loud thud. Screaming with frustration, he flailed his arms like a madman who was trying to fly. He howled in pain when feelings rushed back to his numb fingertips. Then he picked up the ax.

  Anath screamed when the first blow skinned the top of Felix’s head. Hrot aimed better the second time, and suddenly they were all rolling on the dusty floor.

  Felix’s eyes were shut, and he didn’t seem to be breathing. Anath loosened the rope, slapped his cheeks, and called his name, but Hrot feared she was trying to revive a corpse. Then Felix’s chest heaved, and he opened his eyes so wide Hrot shuddered. Felix gasped for air, retched and coughed.

  Laughing and crying at the same time, Anath pressed her cheek against his. “I’m so glad you’re alive,” she sobbed. “I’m so glad.”

  Sitting on the floor and rubbing his sore arms, Hrot wondered why she made so much fuss over the man she’d always seemed to hate. The was no doubt in his mind now: Felix and Anath had really been lovers.

  Felix struggled to speak as soon as he managed to catch his breath. “That whore,” he wheezed through his frayed vocal cords. “The men . . . jumped on me. Stole . . . my money.”

  “And then they hung you to make it look like a suicide so that nobody would think of going after them,” said Anath as she stroked his forehead. “You shouldn’t speak, though. You’ll tell us everything when you feel better.”

  But Felix had one more thing to say. His eyes filled with tears as he turned to Hrot. “Once again . . . my lust has put . . . my life in peril. And once again . . . you’ve saved me. I beg you, my snotnose . . . forgive me. Be my friend again!”

  Hrot looked at the man who had once whipped him like a dog. His first impulse was to get up and leave, but Anath put her hand on his forearm. “Forgive him, Hrot,” she pleaded. “Please, forgive my foolish brother!”

  “Brother?” Hrot’s surprised eyes flew to Felix, who nodded. A storm of questions raged in Hrot’s mind, but he was too astonished to speak. After a short hesitation, he took Felix’s mutilated hand into his and pressed it firmly against his chest. Anath hugged Hrot with all her might. Her tears drenched his shoulder.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Felix and Anath had been estranged for countless years and countless reasons. They’d begun to drift apart when he’d caught her ritually killing a rooster, and his blatant scorn for sorcery only widened the gap.

  Although he’d always been a libertine, Felix was appalled to find out that Anath was expecting a “royal bastard.” When the king had later refused to let Anath see her daughter, Anath begged Felix to plead with the king to change his mind. Felix never did, however, out of fear that Anath would try to kidnap the child again, and he would be in trouble with the king. Following a terrible fight, Anath had sworn she would shun her brother until the day she died.

  For long years, the only thing that tied them was the memory of their mother, whose likeness was depicted on their medallions. Nevertheless, Felix’s recent ordeal had made Anath break the oath—and the siblings became inseparable.

  When Anath told him about Hrot’s peril, they began to conspire against the Emissary. Anath insisted they could try to hide Hrot in the realm of Krverah again. The old Felix would have laughed at the idea. The fact that Anath’s magic had saved his life, however, had made him far less skeptical about his sister’s approach to the occult. Nevertheless, Hrot would not even hear of crossing the crimson wall for the second time. In the end, Felix and Anath decided to accompany Hrot to the Ruins and place him into a protective circle.

  One night, Felix smuggled Hrot into the castle’s library. There they plunged into a search of a formula for a powder that would create a wall between their world and the realm of the Emissary. They snuck out at dawn, with their arms full of ancient scrolls of parchment. However, they doubted they’d ever be able to unravel everything that was scribbled on the fragile, brownish sheets.

  Puzzling sigils dotted the frayed scrolls more abundantly than actual letters and words, and the ink had eaten here and there through the soft pages. A week later, they felt like tossing those damned rags into a blazing fireplace. Fortunately, Hrot thought of consulting Albius the librarian, who plowed through mountains of manuscripts in search of clues to the sigils and allegories. And when these three minds worked together, no ancient mystery could be safe forever. In about two months, they managed to read through the last time-gnawed line.

  Anath had been equally busy, obtaining and enchanting all the elements the formula required. She spent long hours preparing for a rite to appease the goddess Krverah and beg her for protection in case the Emissary managed to worm through the protective circle.

  Felix began to prepare the powder in mid-December. The royal laboratory was almost empty: some of the alchemists had resigned soon after Rudolph’s death while others came to work only sporadically, as they hadn’t been paid for months.

  Having placed the translated formula on one side of his desk and Anath’s additives on the other, Felix kindled a fire under the nearest cauldron. He measured and weighed the initial ingredients, which created a red, oily liquid. As soon as he poured it into the cauldron, the liquid bubbled furiously, belching thick smoke that changed colors by the minute. Felix watched the process with alarm: if the mixture exploded, he was likely to lose more than just a few digits of his fingers.

  Felix spent the whole night at the laboratory. When the first rooster crowed in the courtyard, he was half dead from all the fumes he’d inhaled. His head spun, and only the drilling pain in his back kept him from fainting. Fortunately, the first and most complicated phase of the procedure was completed.

  The liquid turned into powder as soon as it cooled down, and he poured it into a ceramic basin. The second step was to wait until it turned from red to gray and boil it for an hour in a special solution. Felix mixed the solution and poured it into the cauldron. Then he sat down to wait. Although he was beyond exhaustion, he knew he couldn’t fall asleep. The manuscript said clearly that the powder had to be boiled as soon as it turned gray.

  Felix nodded off and woke up with a start. The powder was still red, fortunately, but it was growing pinkish pale. He chewed on his lower lip and pinched his wrist to stay awake. Every now and then, he got up to add another log to the fire under the cauldron. But the world around him was getting increasingly blurry.

  He was falling asleep again when he felt somebody’s hand tap him on the back. He opened his eyes and saw the old alchemist, Leopold. Although he was completely bald, Leopold still proudly sported that waist-long beard. Over seventy years old, he’d lost all his remaining teeth.

  “What do you have in there, Feliksh?” Leopold lisped, his weak but cunning eyes peering over Felix’s shoulder. “What ish it that you’re preparing?”

  “Nothing,” Felix snapped. “Just a little experiment.”

  “You sheem to be trying not to fall ashleep.” Leopold produced a vial full of dark orange liquid. “I’ve got shomething to help you shtay awake.”

  “What is it?” Felix asked.

  “It ish my own elikshir of energy, my latesht mashterpeesh.”

  “Is that so? And how do I know it will work?”

  “How do you know that it will work? That’sh it! I’m leaving right now! I wush the firsht al
chemisht our poor King Rudolph brought here from hish Vienna court. And you ashk if my elikshir worksh? Good day to you, shir!”

  “Wait, wait,” Felix exclaimed, tugging at Leopold’s sleeve just as the old man was about to stomp away. Felix’s eyes stung and his head buzzed. He would try anything to stay awake—especially since he didn’t know it was one of Leopold’s “masterpieces” that had killed the black tigress Aisha. “Nobody’s questioning your ability. I was just . . . Well, fine, I’ll give it a try.”

  “I knew you were a shenshible man,” Leopold said with a toothless grin. “We’re friendsh, Feliksh, sho I’ll only charge you a thaler, even though thish gem ish prishelesh.”

  Felix grumbled but produced the money, and Leopold shuffled away.

  A wave of energy truly swept over Felix as soon as he drained the bitter potion. Then came the stomach cramps. Felix gritted his teeth, cupped his butt with both hands, and ran to the nearest privy.

  The diarrhea kept him seated for over half an hour.

  “Damn that, Leopold!” he groaned as he finally emerged. “I’ll personally stick that stupid elixir up his old white ash!” But Leopold was gone.

  When Felix returned to his work desk, the powder was already gray. He quickly rekindled the dying fire, praying it wasn’t too late. Unfortunately, the powder turned deadly white before the solution started to bubble. Felix boiled it anyway, hoping it didn’t matter.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Anath, Hrot, and Felix spent the last night of autumn in the old inn between Turnov and the sandstone rock labyrinth. Having left the sleigh in the inn’s stable, they set for the Ruins on horseback after lunch. The horses paced briskly through the snow, their nostrils open wide with thrill. The vast white forest gave them a feeling of wild freedom in spite of the burdens on their backs.