Book of the Night

by Oliver Pötzsch

  “Let’s see if I understand this,” Paulus said. “It wasn’t just your mother who was a white witch, but also your little sister, who can change herself just like that into a boy? And these tattoos can lead us to a magic book, in fact, the most powerful magic book there is?” He snorted. “This Schönborn is pulling a trick on you just like the quack Senno, and you’re falling for it again!”

  “Just look at Elsa,” Lukas pleaded. “She was Daniel. Just look what she did with her face. That was magic!”

  “What I see is a little girl with her head in the clouds, and that’s all,” Paulus replied. “God knows what happened to Daniel, but in any case, he’s not here.”

  “Elsa?” Lukas turned to his sister. She still seemed engrossed in Schönborn’s magic and not really following the conversation. “I’m afraid we have to clarify things for my friends,” he said. “They won’t help us until we can convince them. Can you do that again?”

  “What?” Elsa asked, looking up from her book.

  “Well, turn yourself back into Daniel.”

  Elsa shrugged, looking bored. “If that’s all you want . . .” She got to her feet, placed her right hand over her face, and lowered her fingers slowly. Paulus, Jerome, and Giovanni gasped.

  Before them stood Daniel.

  Elsa passed her hand again over her face, and now Lukas saw his little sister before him. She changed her appearance a few more times in just seconds until she was finally Elsa again.

  “Is that all you want?” she asked.

  “That . . . is simply unbelievable,” Paulus said. “How did you do that?”

  “That . . . is simply unbelievable,” Paulus said. “How did you do that?”

  “Do you also want to see how she can set off a blinding flash of light in your head?” Lukas asked. “Or how she—”

  “Thanks, I don’t think that’s necessary,” Jerome said, raising his hand. “We are . . . uh . . . convinced.”

  Giovanni shook his head. “Real magic! Who would have thought that possible? My apologies, Lukas. We were beginning to wonder if your imagination was running away with you.”

  “You don’t have to apologize,” Lukas replied. “For a long time I didn’t believe it myself. The important thing now is to keep the Book of the Night from falling into Schönborn’s hands.”

  “There’s nothing simpler than that.” Jerome clapped once. “Let’s just get out of here. Without the tattoos, Schönborn won’t find the hiding place of the magic book. Voilà!”

  “You idiot!” Giovanni growled. “Can’t we assume Schönborn has made copies of both images?” He turned to Lukas, who nodded. “So, we have to solve the riddle before he does.”

  Paulus groaned. “You are the one responsible for the deep thinking.” He cracked his knuckles. “My job is breaking bones.”

  Jerome pointed to a corner of the room, where Lukas’s sword and pistol still lay on the floor. “At least you’ve been thoughtful enough to leave your weapon there, but if we get into a fight—”

  “Damn, don’t you understand?” Lukas interrupted. “What good are all the weapons in the world if Schönborn has this book? You saw that frozen man in the battle at Nürnberg. Just imagine what would happen if Schönborn created hundreds of them with the help of the Grimorium. He could win any battle! We must prevent that.”

  “But first we have to solve this riddle. Hmm . . .” Giovanni took a quill and ink pot, sat down on the chair with the demonic carvings, and motioned for Elsa and Lukas to kneel down in front of him. “Let me first draw both tattoos. Perhaps it will help us to understand this.” With the skilled hand of a former monastery schoolboy, he sketched the patterns on a thin piece of parchment. Now the two images stood side by side.

  “They are similar, yet not quite the same,” said Giovanni. “The lines go in different directions, even though both are circles with a dot in the middle.”

  Once again, Lukas thought he remembered something, but the longer he looked at the lines, the more they seemed to blur before his eyes.

  “What in God’s name is it?” he murmured. He blinked, and now he saw tiny letters running along the bottom of the circles, spelling two words, though neither of them made any sense.

  H-R-U-P-L-T-N-S O-T-S-A-A-I-U

  “Hrupltns and Otsaaiu?” Jerome giggled. “What language is that? Arabic, Coptic, or perhaps idiotic?”

  “Most likely it’s not a language at all, but a code,” Giovanni replied, rubbing his temples as he contemplated the images. “But what sort of code? I once read a Greek book about coding, but that was a long time ago.”

  Elsa, too, leaned down to look at the parchment, then turned to the boys. “It’s actually rather simple,” she said with a shrug.

  “Rather simple?” Giovanni looked up at her. “What do you mean by that? Do you know the solution? I hardly think that’s possible, so don’t get in our way now with your precocious words.”

  “If you needed any proof that she’s Daniel, now you have it,” Paulus said, grinning. “Both are just as impudent.”

  Elsa stuck her tongue out at him, then she continued, as defiantly as Daniel. “I don’t know the solution, but at least I know how to escape from both labyrinths.” She ran her finger along the lines to the middle. “This way, then that way, then this . . . As I said, it’s really very simple. But you boys are probably too dumb to see it.”

  For a while, no one said a thing, and they just stared at Elsa.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she asked. “Did I do something wrong again? If you don’t need my help, I’ll just keep quiet.”

  “Labyrinths!” said Lukas, slapping his forehead. “Of course! How could we be so dumb. They’re labyrinths! Elsa’s right. Our mother often drew mazes like that for us, and that’s what these patterns made me think of.”

  “Indeed, you’re right,” said Giovanni, running his finger over the lines again. “They’re labyrinths.” He laughed. “Sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees.”

  “Or because of the magic,” added Lukas, realizing the lines no longer looked blurry now that Elsa had revealed the truth.

  “Very well, so they’re labyrinths,” Paulus said. “Now when we’re bored, we can always play guessing games on their heads. But what does that all have to do with the book of magic?”

  “Maybe the tattoos are trying to point to some other labyrinth,” said Giovanni.

  Jerome rubbed the side of his nose. “I don’t know anything about labyrinths—you only find those in the castle gardens of noble people, and people like us never get invited to those places.”

  Lukas bent down again over the sketch. “Let’s have another look at these letters,” he suggested. “Our mother always liked to play word games with us. Maybe we can figure it out.” He turned to Elsa. “Can you make any sense of this?”

  “Aha, do you need my help now after all?” She crossed her arms. “I don’t have any other suggestions.”

  Lukas groaned. “Oh, come now, don’t be so touchy.”

  But Elsa refused to talk.

  “Damn!” Giovanni said. “These letters have to mean something. We can’t sit around forever waiting for an idea.” Outside, loud cannon fire could be heard. The battle was clearly continuing here and there around Weißenfels. Lukas looked out the window anxiously. It wouldn’t be long before plundering soldiers broke into the monastery.

  “Our mother thought that only Elsa and I together could lead the searchers to the hiding place,” he said. “That makes the matter even more difficult. Why are there two labyrinths? There can be only one hiding place, isn’t that right?”

  “You’re right.” Giovanni nodded. “Just the two of you together, but—”

  He stopped short, then quickly started ripping the parchment sheet down the middle.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” Jerome protested. “Now we have to do it all over again, and we don’t have time for that.”

  But Giovanni had torn the document in two so that there was now just one la
byrinth on a page.

  “Wait,” he whispered excitedly. “I have an idea. You need to put the two of them together to get the meaning . . .”

  Carefully, he laid one document precisely on top of the other. The parchment was so thin that the part underneath was visible. Lukas was the first to notice.

  “The lines!” he shouted. “They come together to form a single new labyrinth, and just look at the letters—they suddenly make sense.”

  HORTUS PALATINUS

  The letters in the first tattoo fit exactly in the gaps of the other, forming two Latin words.

  “Hortus Palatinus,” Giovanni exclaimed. “That means the Palatine Garden. We’re getting close.” He turned to the others. “Have any of you ever heard of a Palatine Garden?”

  “Oh, in the Palatinate, there are lots of beautiful gardens,” Paulus replied calmly. “Orchards, flower gardens, vineyards, vegetable gardens . . .” He stopped, looking at Lukas, who had turned pale. “What are you thinking? Do you know which garden it means?”

  Lukas nodded silently. It was so obvious. Even when he saw the tattoo the very first time, the thought had flashed through his mind, but he had pushed it aside. Now it came back with striking clarity.

  A game . . . Laughter and the fragrant odor of wild roses . . . “Let’s play hide-and-seek, Mother . . .”

  “The garden in the Heidelberg Castle,” he said. “I went there a few times as a child with my mother. It’s a beautiful place, like something out of another world, with statues, fountains, hedges clipped in the shape of strange beasts, and—”

  “A labyrinth!” Paulus groaned. “Do you really think that’s the garden we’re looking for?”

  Lukas nodded. “It’s called the Hortus Palatinus. I remember now how Mother sometimes spoke of it. She loved the place. Jerome gave me the clue that I needed. He said he’d heard of such labyrinths only in castle gardens.”

  “Ha!” Jerome puffed out his chest. “And everyone says I can only look good but don’t know how to think. Now you can take that all back.”

  “You’re the most handsome, smartest, and above all, most egotistical of the four of us, Jerome.” Giovanni grinned. “In any case, Schönborn will be mad as hell he didn’t figure that out.” He stood up and wiped the ink from his hands. “Let’s go then.”

  Lukas stared at him. “You don’t really—”

  “What should we wait for?” Paulus broke in. “For Schönborn to come back and roast us over his grill? Of course we’ll come along with you and Elsa to the Hortus Palatinus. Your trip began in Heidelberg, and with our help, it will end there, too.”

  “It’s almost three hundred miles to Heidelberg,” Lukas said. “Are you really sure you want to go on this long trip with me and Elsa?” Elsa’s eyes widened at the mention of her name, but now she seemed too stunned by the turn of events to speak.

  “One for all and all for one. Did you forget that?” Paulus tossed Lukas’s pistol and sword to him and headed for the exit. “Who knows what awaits us in this labyrinth? You’ll be glad to have me and my sword.”

  “But what about Zoltan?” Lukas asked. “We would be deserters, and didn’t you and Jerome say that you wouldn’t let down our comrades-in-arms?”

  “We’ve sent a message to Zoltan that we’re not deserting, but just taking an indefinite leave from the regiment,” Giovanni replied. “Anyway, when the old man saw you weren’t in Lützen, he drew his own conclusions. I think he’ll understand.” He headed after Paulus, then hesitated. “All right, I think he’ll give us hell when we come back. But for us, you’re worth it.”

  XXV

  They rode as if the devil were on their heels.

  That very same day, after leaving the monastery, they’d stolen five horses in a poorly guarded stable of the army camped nearby. In the days following the Battle of Lützen, the entire region was in turmoil, and not much attention was paid to the theft. Carts full of groaning men wounded in the battle rolled along the muddy roads, some regiments marched to the beat of drums and playing of flutes toward their winter quarters, and looters destroyed the few remaining villages and cities. Wherever Lukas looked, he saw burning houses, smoking church steeples, and wailing peasants fleeing from the soldiers with their few remaining possessions.

  This is hell on earth, he thought. Will this war never end?

  The friends rode through the wind, hail, and rain, stopping only occasionally to rest, water their horses, or have a bite to eat themselves. For the first few days, Elsa was very tired, and it appeared that Schönborn’s magic had an aftereffect not unlike that of a slowly dripping poison. Eventually she regained her strength and was able to keep up with the others on her small pony.

  Lukas, however, became increasingly tired and pale and dreamed again of the huge black wolf that pursued him night after night through billowing clouds of mist, watching him with its red, glowing eyes.

  And now Lukas no longer had the amulet to protect him . . .

  “It’s Waldemar von Schönborn,” he mumbled to himself after the third restless night. “The inquisitor is looking for us, and I have the feeling he will soon find us.”

  They were sitting together in the forest alongside a small, flickering fire that gave off little warmth. The last of the provisions they had brought with them from the monastery were now gone, and all they had for breakfast were a handful of beechnuts they had gathered in the forest the night before.

  “Maybe we should have let Zoltan in on our plans,” Paulus said. “He might have helped us. As it is, we’re nothing but deserters and outlaws that any officer who comes along can put on the gallows.”

  “Zoltan wouldn’t have believed a word we said,” replied Giovanni. “Aside from that, if Schönborn really can use his magic to find us, even the legendary Black Musketeers can’t help us. Not even Zoltan.”

  “But there’s something else that can help us,” Elsa said. She’d been sitting by the fire carving a tiny figure. Now she put the wooden angel in Lukas’s hand. She also had similar gifts for Giovanni, Paulus, and Jerome. “Here, take this.”

  “What’s it supposed to be?” Paulus asked suspiciously. “A toy? I’m too old for that, child. I’d prefer a homemade cudgel.”

  “They’re figures that can make us invisible to Schönborn,” Elsa said earnestly. “I’ve cut them for you from linden wood and have put a magic charm on them. It doesn’t really matter what they represent, but I like the angel most. Do you like them?”

  “Eh, oui, très belle,” said Jerome. He took the clumpy figure with the two crooked wings in his hand. “And what shall we do with it?”

  “You must always carry it with you, day and night.” Elsa gave them all a stern look. “This is very important! If I know Schönborn, he’s raging mad and will do everything he can to find us. If he does, then God help us.”

  “And these little puppets will protect us?” Paulus asked skeptically. In his big hands, the angel looked like a fragile matchstick.

  Giovanni spoke up. “The fact is that Schönborn is looking for Elsa and Lukas, and perhaps by now he has solved the riddle himself. Then he’ll also come to the Hortus Palatinus, and these puppets won’t do us any good.” Impatiently, he looked up at the overcast sky, where the first gray light of morning had appeared. “We should get started again soon. We still have a long way to go.”

  After they’d been riding for almost two weeks, the first flakes of snow started falling, though it was just the end of November. A white cover now lay over the destroyed houses and the corpses still lying at the roadside. The air got colder and colder.

  “Can’t you conjure up some fire to keep us warm while we’re riding?” said Jerome, turning to Elsa with chattering teeth. “N-not even a small one I can put in my pocket?”

  Elsa smiled wearily. “Believe me, if I could, I would have long ago used my magic to bring back the summer, but unfortunately, I’m not as powerful as you think. My magic works only on small things.”

  “But how about that blue flash
you used to blind the Swedish soldier?” Paulus asked, leading his robust stallion alongside Elsa’s pony. “That was real magic as I imagine it.”

  “And it took a great deal of my strength. For hours afterward, I was completely exhausted.” Elsa shook her head. “People always expect great things from us witches, but basically all we can do with our words and gestures are trivial things. Schönborn believes that with the help of the Grimorium, however, we can do more.”

  “God help us if he gets his hands on the book of magic,” Giovanni observed grimly. “I’m afraid then this war will go on forever.”

  “Hasn’t it already? And I can’t see any end in sight,” said Lukas. He spurred his horse to a gallop as it sloshed through the snow, neighing. “Sometimes I think it will last a full thirty years.”

  After another week of hard riding, they finally reached the Palatinate, by now in Swedish hands. Here, in enemy territory, they had to be even more careful. A few times already during their trip, they’d had to fend off minor attacks, but after a few well-placed blows and a shot from Lukas’s pistol, the attackers usually ran off. Only once had there been a battle with a large band of robbers, but Paulus held them off with his sword, giving the friends a chance to escape.

  Now they proceeded only in the early morning hours or at twilight. They wore dark coats, and the fog and falling snowflakes were their best companions. Through the trees they could see shadowy outlines of destroyed villages from time to time, but steered clear of the few people they saw on the slushy roads. Whenever they could, they found nourishment in nuts, as well as the last of the shriveled autumn apples, and caught rabbits and partridges in the forest with snares and traps.

  Lukas’s stomach growled constantly, and the first signs of frostbite appeared on his fingers, but an unwavering will drove him onward. His hair, as well as Elsa’s, had grown back a bit, so that the tattoos were concealed now under a covering of fluff, but he could sense it there, stinging slightly.