Three Emperors (9780062194138)

by Dietrich, William

  I needed to know how much or little Richter knew. “Is it nearby?”

  He shrugged. “Bohemia. Moravia. We’ll have to hunt.”

  “A cave?” I was trying to mislead.

  “A cave with a tomb.” He nodded as if he knew, convincing me that he didn’t. “Now you’re tantalized, yes? I’ve let your child live, brought back your oaf of a husband, and even delivered gold. All I seek is partnership. You and I can still be friends.” Such a ghastly grin, a slit in scar tissue. I tried to hide my shudder.

  “I’ll finish,” I promised him.

  “How long?”

  “Not long with the gold. It’s the seed I needed from the beginning.”

  “How long?” His dwarf danced behind him, like a child needing to pee.

  “A day or two to finish formulating the Spit of the Moon and then transferring its purity. The last step is dangerous, having killed more than one alchemist. Are you ready for risk?”

  “My whole life is a risk.” Richter blinked when he said it.

  “Partners, but nothing more. You must never touch me or my child.”

  “I’m talking about minds, not bodies.” How his eyes lied as he said it! Once he had what he wanted, we’d just hours to live.

  And to avenge his deformity, he’d humiliate and ravish me before the end.

  Chapter 29

  I’d bargained my way into prison, but solid rock and iron bars still separated me from my wife. “Let me help her,” I tried, speaking through the grille of my cell to Richter. “If we’re in alliance against Catherine Marceau and the French, treat us as equals. Astiza works faster when we’re together.”

  “People work faster from fear,” Richter said, reciting this as if it were a homily from Franklin. “You’ll be reunited when she produces what I want.”

  My chamber appeared to be a section of old mine tunnel first driven for silver, blocked at one end by a mortared wall and at the other by the bars. It was big enough to imprison a gang, twenty paces long and ten feet high. I had a straw mattress on the stone floor, two candles, a stool, and a bucket to relieve myself. I paced like a caged animal and exercised to continue strengthening my shoulder and arm. I measured time by how my wound healed. I measured my captors by their bearing, studying my guards. They lurked in the tunnel like vermin, not soldiers. Rogues are easier to defeat.

  My torture was continued ignorance. They told me nothing. I strained to hear sounds from the rocky hallway where I’d spied my wife, but her wooden door had slammed shut and latched. The muttering of the guards was boring. So I paced and pushed, paced and pushed, always waiting.

  I sorted the guards by face to count them, coming up with a dozen—three at a time on six-hour shifts. Auric waddled by occasionally on his way to Astiza’s chamber, and once I could hear sharp voices when the door was briefly open. I smiled at the thought of my wife giving the dwarf a scolding. He’d come back muttering to himself, cast an angry look at my cell door, then disappear. I knew he couldn’t be trusted. He was an imp, but dangerous.

  I waited like a cat in the confidence that Astiza had a plan, and my job was to be ready for it. Meanwhile, news was whatever I overheard. Apparently the Austrians had agreed to an armistice, and the Russians were running for home. In a single day of fighting at Austerlitz, Napoleon had reset the balance of power in Europe.

  The Invisible College “monks” entertained one another with tales of lost silver. The mines had sixty miles of honeycomb tunnels, were largely drowned by underground rivers, and delved deep. They’d been hacked by hand, long before gunpowder, and in most places were no wider than a miner’s shoulders. Seams of silver had been dug out by men writhing on their bellies like worms. Other places had domed chambers and deep pits where equipment had been staged. The legend was that thieves, embezzlers, or smugglers had secreted their loot below, but no one wanted to venture after it, since the mines were reputed to be home to bats, wolves, bears, trolls, ghosts, and gnomes.

  “This alchemical laboratory is an early drift hacked out six hundred years ago,” one guard told another. “They sealed off the rest for safety. The entire mountain is riddled as a hive, confusing as a maze, and crumbly as old cheese. Men who went exploring never came out.”

  “But what if there’s more silver down there?”

  “Played out or flooded. It’s a ruin now.”

  The tedium of imprisonment continued. And then one day Richter passed by with Auric and went to Astiza’s laboratory, where more argument ensued, voices rising. I strained to hear. Finally the dwarf came back to me, holding the sword Durendal.

  “Open the electrician’s door.”

  Even though I emerged from candlelight to mere lantern light, I still blinked at the brighter illumination. Auric looked up at me sourly. “The witch needs your help.”

  “You’re referring to my wife, runt of warts?”

  “Your pagan priestess of a whore.” He shoved me into the corridor, and the guards covered me with pistols, lest I be tempted to shove back. “She’s offered you for a risky experiment with noxious liquids. Richter thinks it better that you be boiled than him.”

  “Why the sword?”

  “Magic. She says it plays a role.”

  Richter was waiting, looking impatient and nervous, hand on his own sword. Something was about to happen. I was pushed inside Astiza’s chamber, which was some kind of alchemical laboratory.

  “Papa!” Harry tried to run to me again.

  Auric intercepted him with ape-like power. When my boy tried to struggle anyway, the dwarf slapped him. “Stay where you are, pustule!” I lunged in fury and got a guard’s musket butt in my groin for my trouble, bringing me to my knees. Harry bit Auric’s hand, the dwarf howled, and then Astiza snatched our son up and shouted at Richter.

  “Another move by that beast and I won’t do the test!”

  “Auric, get over by the door.”

  “Give me the whelp to hold, master! Give him to me so that they don’t get him back until they do our bidding!”

  “No. If that monster touches my son again, I’ll smash every vessel.” Astiza’s tone was quiet, but as menacing as a snake’s rattle.

  Richter looked at my wife. There was frustration in his eyes. There was also, I saw with disgusted horror, longing. I longed, too—for my old tomahawk, and a chance to settle accounts. But as I grunted and stood, sucking air, Astiza shook her head emphatically at me.

  Richter stood erect as a knight. “Enough. Worries about her son could pollute the formulation. You know that, Auric.”

  “I don’t trust them. Any of them!”

  “Then stay for the final transformation,” my wife told the dwarf coldly. “Watch us if you will. But if you touch my son, I’ll transform you—into a puff of smoke.”

  “Don’t threaten me,” he growled. “Witches can be burned.”

  “Then leave and let me do my work.”

  “I’ll stay,” the dwarf said sullenly. “On the far side of the room. With a loaded pistol. No, two of them, one for each parent. If you don’t create gold, I’ll cripple you both and then have the boy.” He licked his lip.

  “Auric, enough!” Richter’s voice was a whip.

  “This is quite the fraternity you’ve assembled, Baron.”

  “Silence, Gage.” Richter scowled at his assistant, actually embarrassed by his crude appetites. “Auric, you on one side, the hellion on the other, and Gage and his wife to do the risky work.”

  “Gold—and immortality. That’s our goal, is it not, Baron Richter?” Astiza asked, with soft warning.

  “It’s your only path to freedom.”

  Astiza addressed me. “I’ve been refining the components for months, but I think I’m ready.” I’d no idea what she was ready for. Yet I trusted her.

  “For many weeks I’ve been refining and reducing to isolate the Philosopher’s Stone,” she explained to us all, “the essential unity behind all elements and existence. I’ve recently concocted what the ancient texts call the Spit
of the Moon, an aqua regia solution to dissolve gold into a crystalline salt. If my studies are correct, this will catalyze the transformation of base metals into fine ones. The next step is the most delicate, the most dangerous, and the most precise. The dwarf must stand clear. Should he interfere, a year of work in this pit will be wasted.”

  Astiza pointed. “It will be safest over there,” she told Auric. He truculently sidled to a new station next to a crude bookcase of raw planks full of heavy tomes. “No, a little further, to be safe. Sit.” He squatted on a low stepstool, looking even more ridiculous than usual. To give himself dignity, he leveled his guns.

  “Harry, you’ll stay behind this table that I’ve turned on its side.” My son obediently went where he was told, no doubt glad to be as far from the wicked dwarf as possible. He didn’t show fear, and for that I was proud. Instead he looked at me for guidance, and that made me immensely prouder. I gave him an encouraging nod. He, being not quite five, believed it.

  “The rest should leave this chamber,” Astiza said. “The reaction I’m seeking can produce a flare of flame and gases.” She pointed to a black cauldron dangling from a pulley on the ceiling, the rope holding it in suspension tied off to the bookcase. “Even I dare not get too close.”

  “Tell me again what’s going to happen,” Richter said.

  “Ethan will carefully push forward the pan reduction with the sword. The noble metals of the legendary blade are required as a bridge to the five elements. He must be quick to crouch if flame erupts.”

  “And if I’m slow?” I asked reasonably.

  My wife ignored me. “The cauldron with the refined Spit of the Moon will tip toward the precipitate, which is a slag of lead seeded with flakes of gold.” Having my last coins ground into gold pepper seemed a terrible investment to me, but then, I hadn’t read the moldy texts. “There will be a flash of light, a puff of smoke, and, if I have studied correctly, the creation of a red substance that will make gold. If dissolved and drunk, the concoction will extend life indefinitely.”

  “Why me?” I asked, hoping my wife could hint what she was up to.

  “I’ve sacrificed my face,” Richter said. “I decided it’s time you risked yours.”

  “Simply be careful,” Astiza said. “You must push the pan just so, retaining contact with the sword. I must measure the pour exactly. If we stumble or miscalculate, there can be injury.”

  “Could we move all this upstairs, where there’s more ventilation?” This cell was a trap, and I wanted a place where we could escape these scoundrels.

  Astiza didn’t understand what I was trying to do, and didn’t back my suggestion. She shook her head vigorously. “Time is critical. I’m told Napoleon has won. French agents will be seeking the Brazen Head. We need to finish and get ahead of them.” She turned to Richter. “Close and bolt the door to contain any flare or fire. When the smoke clears, I’ll shout.”

  This plan seemed about as pleasant as pipe smoke in a powder magazine, but alchemists are famed for risk taking. I also knew my wife must be up to something. The others reluctantly retreated just outside our chamber, and the heavy door slammed. We were alone except for a malevolent dwarf with two pistols and a suspicious glint. So I cooperated while she maneuvered me into position, thrilling even to her businesslike touch. We hadn’t embraced in more than a year.

  She leaned close. “When I command,” she murmured, “cut the rope with the sword and then dive.” She stepped away.

  So I stood gamely close to a pan of olive-green precipitate as Astiza grasped the cauldron rope to pour. I had no idea what to expect.

  Astiza addressed Auric. “After I pour, I’m going to leap behind the table to join my boy. My husband will duck. I advise you to shield your eyes.”

  He looked at her suspiciously. “No tricks, witch.”

  “If you wish, wait outside with the others.”

  “No. I don’t trust the three of you alone.”

  “Then you’ll succeed with us or burn with us. Now, for all our sakes. Ready?”

  I nodded uncertainly. I’d get one sword swing before Auric let loose with his pistols. I thumbed Durendal’s edge to confirm its sharpness.

  She pulled to tilt the cauldron. “Harry, stay down! Ethan and Auric, squint!” A plume of purple liquid spewed forth, and I pushed the pan forward with the sword tip to catch the acid as it dribbled, ready to duck. My wife vaulted to crouch next to our son. The liquid hit, and I braced for a roar of flame and puff of smoke.

  Nothing. The precipitate hissed, bubbled, and curdled but didn’t catch fire. Auric, despite his bravado, had closed his eyes.

  Astiza looked at me. “Now!”

  I swung Durendal, which was keen enough to chop through taut line as if it were spider thread. The cauldron plunged, gonging like a bell as it hit the stone floor. The line to the bookcase went slack.

  Auric uncovered his eyes and stood, pointing his pistols. “Nothing happened.”

  “Not yet,” Astiza called.

  “Where is the red stone you promised?”

  “Patience, dwarf.”

  “Why did he cut the rope? Master, it didn’t work!” he called. And his eyes, fixed on us, didn’t see that the massive bookcase was coming apart. With the line tension released, boards leaned and books began to cascade. More significantly, a carefully positioned heavy iron hammer tumbled off the topmost shelf to fall toward a clay egg the size of a goose.

  Auric raised his guns.

  I fell flat. So did Astiza and Harry.

  The iron hammer struck the container.

  There was a concussive roar, and the crucible exploded like a keg of gunpowder. Being trapped in the stone laboratory was like being trapped in the muzzle of a cannon. Air punched my ears, glassware shattered, flame erupted, rock flew, and I dimly heard screams that were not my own.

  It was the dwarf.

  Everything had gone dark. Rubble slid somewhere, while ceiling bits pattered like heavy rain, bouncing off my back.

  Astiza was already up, bleeding, blackened, and triumphant. She used a glowing fragment from the wreckage to light a candle. “Ethan, get the workbench against the door!” I could barely hear her through the ringing in my ears.

  My wife jerked me up in choking smoke, and we dragged the heavy bench over a shoal of debris and slammed it against the cell entrance, wedging it so Richter couldn’t easily get inside.

  I felt half-witted and could barely see in the fog. Auric had been thrown and was still.

  “Here, Papa, the pistols.” A surprisingly calm Harry was shoving guns into my hands. “Mama killed the bad man, just like she promised.” He said it with great satisfaction, and who could blame him?

  Good riddance, but what good if we were trapped in a hellhole?

  Astiza hauled on me again. “This way!” She pulled me to a place where the smoke was clearing. Through my ringing ears I could dimly hear shouts outside, and then thuds as bullets blasted into the laboratory through the door, beams of lantern light popping as they fired. The feeble light played over the body of the dwarf, hurled into a corner.

  We were already groping the other way. The cell wall had blown out where the crucible had exploded. Beyond was cool air and the smell of water.

  “What the devil?” I asked my wife, not for the first time.

  “Piss and gold make a fine explosive,” she said. “I’ll explain in the mines, but Harry and I have been working on this for months.”

  Her makeshift bomb had blown through the cellar wall, into a mine tunnel. We were going to flee into the labyrinth of Kutná Hora.

  There was just one problem. According to the guards, it was a flooded death trap with no way out.

  Could Harry swim? Getting an idea, I grabbed the black cauldron.

  Chapter 30

  The smoky tunnel angled downward—not a good sign. It was narrow as a coffin and low as a gun deck on a warship. I banged my head twice, and the cauldron I’d snagged gonged as it hit walls of rock. The three of us held h
ands, our beacon Astiza’s lone candle. Behind, a glimmer showed where fire still burned in the ruined laboratory. The flames should slow pursuit, but they might also consume our air. We could hear shots and great crashes as Richter and his men rammed the door we’d blocked.

  “I can’t see, Papa.”

  “I’ve brought more candles,” Astiza said. “Let’s get further out of sight and I’ll light another.”

  With better illumination, I saw that the shaft was unevenly hewn from pick and shovel, twisting like a worm into the earth.

  “What happened back there?”

  “Christian Rosenkreutz made such an explosion in another prison,” Astiza explained. “I discovered his formula in old books. It’s called fulminating gold, and it has killed more than one alchemist. To make a volatile mixture, you dissolve gold in aqua regia, a form of nitric acid that can be gleaned from urine.”

  “I peed to make it, Papa.”

  “We all work together, don’t we?”

  “We do now that you’re home.” That Harry called a maze a home shows how low I’d set his expectations. I resolved to do better, should we survive.

  “The urine salts have to putrefy for forty days, and then are distilled into crystals,” my wife said. “The result, when mixed and purified, is a powder that explodes when struck. I refined enough to fill that clay egg and rigged the bookcase to spill the hammer onto it.”

  “You’re as odd and dangerous as my friend Robert Fulton.”

  “Useful in other ways, too.” She gave me a kiss, hot and hurried. Her lips were soft, her waist taut as a bowstring, and her hair fanned across my cheek like salve. I kissed back, mashing mouths with a colt’s enthusiasm, but my son gave an impatient kick as we heard the door give way. There were shouts of dismay as our enemies stormed into the room and discovered Auric. “Later,” I gasped. We hurried on.

  Astiza led, Harry was in the middle, and I was the rear guard, Auric’s pistols in my belt and the sword and cauldron handle clutched awkwardly in my one free hand. My wife selected twists and turns as decisively as if walking a path to her front door, even though we had no map. I didn’t argue, taking heart when we seemed to be climbing toward the surface and despair when our flight took us deeper into the earth. I’d already experienced being buried and had no desire to be permanently entombed.