She knows the ghost, too.
“Von Helmutter!” she says, then shoots him squarely between the eyes.
The arrow passes through him, shattering on the brick wall behind him.
“Stupid fairy,” he says, in a voice dripping with disdain. “I’m already dead. You can’t kill me again.”
“Again?” Pomp says, confused at his inference.
“And now I can’t even go to the place where I belong because of this damned . . . I mean, undamned . . . wall!”
Von Helmutter’s ghost again throws itself against the brick wall, unsuccessfully trying to smash the physical barrier with spiritual substance.
“Who put the wall there?” Pomp asks.
“I did!” It howls. “Oh, stupid, stupid, stupid. Our so-called intelligence indicated that there was something going on here, maybe even a breach of security, a tunnel dug by the Ottomans.”
“And now you are—”
“Dead!”
“How?”
“Don’t know, now, do I? Maybe that last meal I had was bad. It did taste a little funny. Though I’d been feeling sick for a while. I suppose I may have been killed. Yes, that’s it. I was murdered! But . . . Oh, does it even matter?”
“I’m sorry.” She almost believes that she’s telling the truth.
“And now I can’t even get to the place of my eternal torment, where I so deserve to dwell.” He starts to cry ectoplasmic tears. “I can’t even die and go to Hell right. What is wrong with me?”
Again, with the slamming against the wall. She is getting tired of his tantrums.
“There are other places—” she starts.
“Of course!” it says, elated. “How could I have forgotten? My books! I shall go consult my books to find the quickest route. Surely the new minister of defense hasn’t gotten rid of them yet.”
Its eyes narrow, and it gives a mumbled, begrudging “thank you” to Pomp. Then the ghost’s eyes widen in something akin to, but far removed from the innocence of glee. “Now I can get a head start on my suffering, building up all the more regret and spite waiting for the time when my murderer goes down, and he will go down. Oh, what perverse pleasure of agony shall be mine!”
It spitefully bangs its spectral head on the wall one more time. Then it wheels around and flies out of the apartment and up through the multi-level maze of Josefov’s streets to the open, if smoky, air above the Old New Synagogue.
Pomp flies right behind the now-departing recently departed, following the quickly fading wake of ectoplasm.
Pursuer and pursued dart across the sky, causing many a farmer to turn head, trying to figure out just what that was they thought they saw out of the corner of their eye and just where the laughter had come from that sounded at the limit of their hearing. Birds in their path drop to the ground, astounded and confused. Dogs bark, cattle moo, cats hiss at the unseen-by-human-eyes pair that hurtle through the air faster than a musket ball.
Vienna arises on the horizon quicker than Pomp thinks possible. Travel is faster when not waiting for a six hundred pound golem. Or when chasing a ghost.
Von Helmutter’s ghost knows it’s being hunted. It dives down into the market square near Heitzing, weaving between merchant stalls and crowds of well-to-do customers. Pomp narrowly avoids a flying fish, thrown by one merchant at another who has bargained prices down to a loss for himself and all other would-be fishmongers. A butcher’s dog snaps at her, momentarily distracting her and almost costing Pomp her prey, but she sees a knotted trail of glowing smoke disappear through the open balcony window of one particularly well-furnished apartment.
Pomp slows, draws a dancing arrow, though it will do her no good against the already-slain, and enters the window just as a finely dressed young woman, perhaps twenty years of age, reaches up to close the shutters.
The contented smile that spreads across the girl’s pretty face betrays her utter ignorance of the chase playing out in the invisible world.
Pomp realizes, though, that the chase has ended.
What looked like a simple apartment window from the street is, on Pomp’s closer inspection, a portal into the quarters of an aristocrat. Four open doors lead into long hallways, each lined with doors. The ghost is gone, and she won’t find it in such a place.
“Frau Kretzer,” the young woman turns to a plain-looking old maid, “bring me my candles.”
“As you wish, Lady Adelaide,” the servant responds, bowing and retreating from the chamber in obeisance.
Lady Adelaide is beautiful, contrary to the common peasants’ belief that noble inbreeding inevitably causes ugliness among the aristocracy. Her long brown hair is clean and full, her alabaster skin without visible flaw, and her eyes gleam blue as the night sky. She sings a lilting song, a quavering lullaby from her childhood, as she rearranges sconces and candle holders around the room and straightens an old portrait of a stately-looking couple, who just might be her parents, judging from their features. Pomp likes her singing.
“Mum, Daddy,” the woman says to the portrait, “he’s back! Viktor is back from Istanbul. You would be so proud of your nephew.” A hint of sadness softens her eyes. “I wish you could see him in his proper station. You would be so very proud.”
Frau Kretzer returns with a large crate full of tallow candles and sets it on the floor. “I’ll be back with matches,” she says as Lady Adelaide, ignoring the servant, begins filling the candleholders and wall sconces with the candles.
Lady Adelaide is perhaps halfway done placing candles in the hundred or so receptacles ringing the room when the servant reenters with a box of matches. “Set them on the floor, by that door,” the noblewoman orders. Frau Kretzer concedes, bows, waits at attention in the doorway.
“Viktor says that the candles aid in concentration and are a purgative for the soul,” she says to the servant. “They will burn away sadness and illuminate the heart.”
“The mind!” a deep voice calls out from behind Frau Kretzer, “not the heart, the mind!”
Adelaide smiles broadly. “Yes, silly me, the mind!”
The maid steps aside, and in walks a tall, thin man with a carefully preened mustache and pointed beard. He is darkly handsome and a touch foreboding, though his gleaming smile banishes any vapors of ill-intent that his swarthiness might cause. His dress doesn’t help the dark appearance, for he is dressed in a black uniform with white epaulets. Long, curly hair shows underneath his hat, a black fez embroidered with a Totenkopf and festooned with a brilliant white tassel. Several medallions, all tastefully small and lacking the gaudiness so often displayed on military garb, are neatly lined up on his chest. About his neck is a silver chain from which hangs the double-headed eagle of the Holy Roman Empire. His cufflinks, Pomp notices as he reaches up to remove his hat, are stylized sterling Totenkopf. He is, in a word, charming, though Pomp cannot yet bring herself to put him in the same category of “good” as Von Graeb.
Viktor approaches Adelaide and they embrace, though it’s apparent that Adelaide is more comfortable with her display of affection than he. He holds her shoulders with his hands at arm’s length and smiles that charismatic smile again. “You are, indeed, beautiful,” he laughs softly. “And someday soon, you, we, will bring our family back to greatness!”
“You have already done so, my cousin,” she says with a slight bow. “Now that you are the Minister of Defense, Graf Von Edelweir.”
“I have only regained my rightful place,” he says, returning the bow. “Besides, if it weren’t for you and your relationship with our distant coz, the emperor, I wouldn’t be where I am today. And what have I been, but a bachelor, married to my sword? You, you sweet Adelaide, will bring much more to our family’s glory than I could ever do alone.”
Frau Kretzer rolls her eyes behind him.
“Well, my sweet . . .” Viktor stops in mid-sentence, looking about the room suspiciously.
“What is it, Viktor?” Adelaide says, her brows furrowing.
“Nothing, I think. Just a sudden u
nease, as if something or someone was watching . . . almost . . .” he shakes his head. “Ah, I am sensing things where there is nothing. It’s time I was back to my quarters. Parade’s tomorrow!”
“Excellent!” Adelaide says. “I shall watch from my window.”
“Good! Then tonight, after I leave, be sure to light the candles that will illuminate your heart!”
“Mind!”
“Ah, yes . . . mind. I’m glad you caught that. You are sharp!”
Frau Kretzer rolls her eyes again, begins to shake her head until Viktor wheels about, at which point she stiffens to attention, eyes straight ahead. She follows the soldier out of the room, closing the door behind her, but not before Pomp has slipped through, unseen.
“She has so much potential,” Viktor says to the stone-faced servant. “I don’t think she understands just how much of a difference she will make in the world.” He pauses, thoughtfully. “No, she doesn’t understand at all.”
Pomp follows from above and behind as the pair continues down a short hallway lined with floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Viktor continues on, speaking affectionately about the Lady Adelaide while the servant dutifully follows, silent and unemotive.
The hallway opens up into a large parlor—a music room, furnished with a harpsichord; a few dark green upholstered chairs; and a circular wooden stand that holds a cello, a viola, and a pair of violins. This room’s walls alternate between floor-to-ceiling mirrors, like the ones in the hallway, and wallpapered segments of gold fleur-de-lis on a dark green field. These latter panels are hung with landscape paintings in the old Renaissance style, with careful attention to fine details such as the individual leaves on a tree or the careful representation of each blade in a tuft of grass. It all seems so overly fastidious to Pomp, too perfect.
Several doors provide exits to the room. Viktor heads to one near the far right corner, while Frau Kretzer turns immediately left. Pomp follows the stern servant, but looks back toward Viktor as he waves and bids Frau Kretzer “goodbye” without looking behind him.
He stops suddenly, however, and looks into one of the mirrored panels that he was, up to that point, passing. Pomp sees, out of the corner of her eye, a faint flash, like twice-reflected candlelight seen through a white curtain down a long hallway, enough to know that something, some movement, had taken place, though the evidence had faded almost before it began.
“Frau Kretzer!” Viktor calls out.
The servant stops, turning wordlessly to the master of the house.
“Did you see something flash just now, Frau Kretzer?” His face holds a trace of suspicion.
“Some . . . thing, Graf?” she stifles a smile.
He turns to look at her, his smile gone.
Her smile is subdued behind pursed lips. “No, milord.”
“No,” Viktor repeats. Then, turning his back to her, “Thank you, Frau Kretzer.”
The nobleman quickly exits the chamber.
Frau Kretzer stands still, at attention, staring at the space the graf has vacated. Pomp thinks that the old woman is staring far longer than is needful. The master is gone, shouldn’t the servant be attending to other duties?
Then, as if a spell had been broken, the maid wheels around and quickly walks through her destination door.
Pomp follows, taking careful note of all she sees. Von Helmutter’s ghost had fled here, intentionally. What was it he had said about finding his books? Something about another entrance to the underworld?
This, then, will be Pomp’s base of operations. She will watch the residents closely and learn whatever she can until Heraclix returns, when she and the golem can flush out and exact vengeance on the sorcerer. She will continue to learn more of this, what was it called? Patience?
And yet . . . and yet.
CHAPTER 17
At first, Heraclix thought that he had again lost a part of his senses. He heard voices and the trundling of wagon wheels beneath him. Somewhere nearby horses snorted and whinnied. He tried to blink his eyes, but they were stuck wide open. His vision was not completely gone, but he was confined to a tight, dark space. He strained to move, but only his eyes responded, allowing him to see his circumstance, though he could do nothing about it. He was in a leather-lined box. The box was moving. And he was very cold. He wished he could at least shiver a bit in order to warm up, but even this pitiful comfort was denied him.
He listened carefully, taking in all the sounds his scarred ears could receive. Laughter above, and a loud thump to the side of him—along with the sound of horses and wagon wheels—helped him to understand the position he was in. He was encased in a box or coffin, with Al’ghul and Mehmet and possibly another sitting atop the box. The horses were off to his right, which must have been the front of the wagon. The riders and driver would occasionally shift their feet, inadvertently kicking the right side of his box. Once in a great while, someone would intentionally kick the box hard and Heraclix would hear Mehmet shout out “How are you doing in there? Still . . . alive?”
There were surprisingly few stretches of quiet. Mehmet really liked to talk. Amidst the seeming hours of banality, Heraclix was careful to mentally note and memorize certain snippets and conversations.
“Kaleel? Ha! You needn’t worry about him, young one. I have sent him on a quest, which he is compelled to fulfill by forces inside him that even he cannot understand. You see, a bit of the warrior exists in all men, even the most effeminate. You should know this. When that warrior is coaxed out into the open, willingly or otherwise, the bloodlust can be unleashed by those who know the right charms, a bloodlust that is not easily sated. Kaleel’s was easy to entice. I didn’t have to do much to send him off to war. Presuming he makes it to the Sahel alive, he will fight the Fulani Jihad for Sileymaani Baal, an appropriately surnamed devil, a ruthless devil rat. Oh, Kaleel will be too busy to bother you for the remainder of his short life. Ha!”
“What do you hope we shall divine from the giant?” Al’ghul asked.
“His experiment was, obviously, successful. No doubt the knowledge that he holds will be of great worth to the society at Istanbul. This is something they have been aspiring to for hundreds, thousands of years. We have exclusive access to the receptacle for the information they wish to extract. It is mine . . . ours to sell for whatever price we wish.”
Several hours after Heraclix awoke, the wagon stopped. Those above shuffled their feet about, scuffing the wood of the footrest.
“I would like to check him,” said Al’ghul.
“Suits me,” said Mehmet. “He’s not going anywhere. Only don’t touch the marks on his forehead. You’ll regret it if you do.”
Heraclix couldn’t tell if this was a warning or a threat.
He heard the boy unlatch the box and watched as the lid lifted. Cold air cascaded into what Heraclix could now see was a coffin. Al’ghul’s face slipped into view against a background of stars. The moon cast its light from somewhere off to the side, giving the boy a malformed glow that rendered him hideous in the night.
“He’s breathing,” the boy said.
“Merely a formality,” Mehmet called out from somewhere below. “Breathing isn’t as important when you’re halfway between life and death.”
“No, I suppose not,” the boy mumbled while looking into Heraclix’s unblinking eyes.
“You’ve done well, my giant friend,” Al’ghul said softly. “I have what I want now. Fuskana is mine. She is bound to me. I had hoped, but never really believed, that a girl such as her, a girl so beautiful, so pure, could be mine. I’m sorry it had to come to this. But thank you.”
Then, turning his face toward the direction from which Mehmet’s voice had sounded, the boy asked, “Will he be okay in there?”
“Yes—for our purposes, at least. He might be a little cold, a little uncomfortable. He might even suffer a panic attack, being unable to move, but what is that to us?”
Heraclix hadn’t felt, up to that point, panic. Now, though, he had to suppress the anxiety
that began to swell up from his gut into his chest, throat, and head. He tried to speak aloud to himself, but whatever power gripped his body also held his tongue. Not that having a voice would help him. Judging from the lack of noise, they were in some remote location away from civilization. All he could hear were Al’ghul, Mehmet, the horses and . . . someone else. Another pair of feet, he thought, slowly shuffling around the wagon. When the wagon door below him opened, then shut with Al’ghul in plain sight and Mehmet’s droning voice distant, he was sure of it. There was another person, a silent person, moving slowly, with them. Could it be Fuskana, brokenhearted by the departure of her beloved Kaleel? There was no good way to tell.
Al’ghul shut the lid. Heraclix thought he heard a whisper of weeping beneath his coffin, then a hush fell over all.
A crack of thunder (or was it an explosion?), sounded without warning. The source was so close that Heraclix could hear the sizzling of electricity as the bolt disintegrated.
“Don’t be frightened,” Al’ghul’s muffled voice rose up through the bottom of Heraclix’s coffin. “I will protect you. I love you, you know.”
There was no response as the rain began pouring down in a torrent.
Heraclix soon found that his coffin wasn’t watertight. There was definitely a leak at the seams. He could do nothing to stop the water as it trickled in, taking refuge from the thunder that crashed outside. This continued for what seemed like a long time. Then, thankfully—though painfully—the rain drops stopped plopping into his box, freezing into icicles instead. He thought he could hear wind-whipped snow spattering against the side of his coffin. The thunder slowed, but continued for hours.
On what must have been the next morning, grunts of effort preceded the rocking of his coffin and the crack and tinkle of shattering ice.
Al’ghul’s breath came out in steamy vapors as he spoke.
“There he is, Fuskana. Do you remember? The giant who rescued us.”
Over the boy’s shoulder the beautiful young Fuskana’s face appeared. But it was devoid of the cheerfulness she had earlier shown. Her mouth was flat, neither smiling nor frowning. And her eyes were vacant, like the eyes of one who was raised during the trauma of war, eyes that have seen too much—vacant.
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