Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy

by Stephen Morris

  “Those are more difficult to identify,” Hron admitted. “The pentacle has never been the focus of any legend. Nor has anything that resembles a pentacle. On the other hand, there are so many possibilities for which chalice is the magical chalice of Prague that it is hard to say which might be considered most authentic.”

  “So many possibilities?” Theo repeated Hron’s assertion. “What do you mean?”

  “That there are an infinite number of chalices and cups of historic or symbolic significance in Prague,” Hron told him. “Communion in both kinds—receiving the wine as well as the Host at Mass—was the rallying cry of the Utraquists, the first Protestants here in Bohemia. So there are emblems of chalices all over the city. Even the gold statue of the Madonna on the façade of Our Lady of Tyn in the Old Town Square was a golden chalice before it was melted down and refashioned into the Madonna. Then there are the actual chalices of historic importance, such as that used by the first monks in Bohemia or that used by Charles IV at his coronation. To say nothing of whatever cups might have been used for magical rites by Rudolf II or his alchemists in the castle. Any one of them might have been identified as the magical chalice of Prague at some point.”

  Theo chewed his lower lip. The conference-goers were wandering back into the rooms for the next session. Disappointed not to have identified all four magical tools, at least he had leads on two.

  “All right.” Theo folded the program back into his back pocket. “Thank you, Hron. I’ll pass this on to the woman and maybe she can find a slide of Bruncvík’s statue or the rabbi’s synagogue. Anyway, this is more than she had to go on this morning.”

  “Glad to help.” Hron set his coffee cup down on the window sill next to an abandoned plate full of pastry crumbs and a napkin wadded into a ball. He moved towards the room where a session of the Evil and Human Wickedness conference on the Nazi’s “Final Solution” that he wanted to hear was scheduled to begin in a few minutes. “Coming along?” he asked Theo.

  “I… I think I will check in with Magdalena at the registration table and see if there are any messages or anything to deal with,” Theo hurriedly thought of an excuse to not go into the session with Hron. “Then I was thinking of going to the Monsters session on lyconthropy down the hall.” Theo hoped Hron wouldn’t realize he was trying to hide something from him.

  “Very good. Then I will see you at lunch!” Hron clapped Theo on the back and stepped into the session on the Holocaust.

  Theo stood a moment and then moved toward the lush staircase. He had no intention of checking with Magdalena for any messages, or meeting Hron for lunch. He trotted down the stairs, nodding in a friendly way to Magdalena, who was standing behind the registration desk. Theo stepped out on the street and turned left. He wanted another coffee and some time to chew over what he had learned from Hron.

  Theo found the rest of the “breakfast club” milling about the lobby of the Angel House when the conference sessions broke for lunch. Even Victoria had managed to get away from her office to join them. Theo quickly shepherded them out the door and up the street, back to the restaurant he had just come from. He knew that all the nearby eateries would quickly fill with conference-goers and had asked a waiter to “hold my table until I return with my friends.” They were quickly shown to their seats by the waiter, who probably anticipated a healthy tip from such a large group of Western tourists.

  After they ordered, Sean asked, “Well, what did you learn from Hron? Where—and what—are the four magical tools of Prague?” Luckily, there were enough other people in the restaurant that the air was full of the buzz of conversations. They could speak freely yet privately while sitting in full public view.

  “It seems that I have what can be considered both good and bad news,” Theo announced. “It seems fairly likely that two of the implements are clearly identified though difficult to obtain. The other two are much more difficult to even hazard a guess about their identity, let alone their location or the likelihood of obtaining them.”

  “Which two are the easier to identify?” Sophia asked.

  “The staff is probably that of the rabbi said to have constructed the Golem here in the Old-New Synagogue,” Theo told them. “The rabbi is buried in the Jewish Cemetery and the remains of the Golem are in the synagogue attic, according to the stories. But the location of the staff after the rabbi’s death is not mentioned in any of the stories.”

  A few of those sitting with him were straining to hear his words in the busy restaurant. More than one crestfallen expression greeted his news of the staff’s unknown whereabouts.

  “And the other fairly easily identified tool?” asked Fr. Dmitri. “Which is it?”

  “Hron is fairly certain that the athame of Prague can be identified with the sword of Bruncvík, an early medieval hero,” Theo reported. “We even know where the sword is said to be kept. The only problem is that it was buried in the foundations of the Charles Bridge on the Little Town side of the river.”

  “I remember that story!” Victoria said.

  “That means that we would need to blow up the bridge to get it, doesn’t it?” Wilcox muttered.

  “Yes, but maybe that means George and Magdalena will have as difficult a time getting their hands on it as we will,” Sean pointed out.

  “Did Hron have any idea about the chalice or the pentacle?” Peter asked.

  Theo repeated Hron’s words about the unidentified pentacle and the apparently limitless possibilities for which chalice was the correct one.

  Theo watched them all react to his news. Several shoulders drooped and he was greeted by looks of dismay. “I felt the same way,” he shared with them. “Then I sat down to think about it all. Hron said—when he was talking about the difficulty of identifying which chalice might be the correct chalice—that at least one of the possibilities had been melted down and refashioned into a statue of the Madonna. Isn’t it possible that the same thing happened to other tools? Any one of them, including the sword of Bruncvík, might have been refashioned into something else. And if that happened, would the new article it was fashioned into possess the same magical capabilities of the original object?”

  “Probably not,” he answered his own question when only arched eyebrows and quizzical looks passed around the table. The waiter appeared, noisily depositing their lunches on the table. Plates clattered and glasses clinked. Silverware wrapped in napkins was passed around and dishes were inspected and then identified so they could be delivered to their proper places. Ale and beer quenched parched throats before the conversation resumed.

  “Would the refashioned tools possess the same power they had in their original form? I’m guessing not,” Theo reprised his last words. “That means that either that the particular tool had to be replaced by another—a new chalice? another sword?—or was simply lost from the occult arsenal of Prague.

  “But if the tools could be lost due to refashioning,” Theo continued his line of thinking, “they might also be lost by historical accident. The staff might have been burnt in a fire. The pentacle or chalice might have been confiscated by the Nazis and deported during the war. Or the Communists could have sent things back to museums or private collections in the Soviet Union. A precious artifact might have been sold to a foreign museum and shipped abroad. There’s no telling where any of these things might be anymore. If any of them still exist.”

  “They must exist,” Victoria spoke up, still chewing the beef in the goulash she had ordered. “We saw them in the grip of the—what did you call her? the genius? the guardian spirit of Prague?—did we not? If they were in her grasp, they must exist.”

  “But you make a good point, Theo.” Alessandro spoke up next. “Any one of them might be in a museum somewhere else. That would not effect their power, necessarily. Right? In fact, that might have been a way to protect them. By sending them away, they might have been safer than remaining to be plundered by the Nazis or the Communists or whoever else.”

  “It certainly does make
the whole business much more complicated that it seemed even at breakfast,” sighed Sophia.

  “Hron mentioned another point.” Theo paused as he took a bite of food. “Even more than these four tools, the primary magical weapon that defends Prague is the Charles Bridge itself. Fashioned by Charles IV with the assistance of the greatest magical masterminds of his day, it has always been said to possess incredible power and strength. If George—and Magdalena, whether she realizes it or not—intend to destroy Prague, they will need to disengage the power of the bridge even more than they need to collect the four tools.”

  “But that must be nearly impossible!” gasped Victoria. “Are we supposed to reinforce the bridge as well as stop them from seizing the chalice, pentacle, staff, and sword?”

  “I think we can leave the bridge to fend for itself,” Theo conceded. “If its power is as awesome as Hron thinks, then our efforts should focus on preventing them from obtaining the magical tools. I agree, Victoria. There is precious little that we are in a position to do to reinforce the power of the bridge, apart from using those tools to support it.”

  Waiters and waitresses appeared to clear away the empty dishes and make way for more of the waiting diners who stood in the restaurant’s entryway. The waiter Theo had dealt with earlier handed him the check and Theo winced. He could easily imagine Wilcox and Sean and a few others objecting to paying equal portions of the bill and the thought of attempting to divide it according to who had ordered what was daunting. Anytime he was forced by academics to divide a bill in such a way, there was never enough cash and he always had to make up the difference.

  He retrieved his wallet from his back pocket and pulled out a credit card to hand the smiling waiter. It would be easier this way.

  Several voices burst out in protest that Theo should not be obligated to pay for everyone’s lunch and demanded to sort through the various entrees and drinks ordered. “No, no problem,” he insisted. “Just give me the cash that you each think is right, and we’ll call it even.” A small pile of wrinkled Czech bills accumulated in front of him, nowhere near enough to cover the bill. Theo counted out enough for a tip and pocketed the little that remained leftover. The waiter returned with the receipt for him to sign.

  “So, then, what is our next step?” Alessandro asked before everyone stood to walk away.

  “We begin our searches for the four tools.” Fr. Dmitri spoke up, in a tone that was both matter-of-fact and authoritative. “We break up into our teams and set about identifying, locating, and obtaining the tools we were assigned. We do not know if George already knows what these tools are and where they might be, so we cannot afford to let him maintain any greater lead than he already has.”

  “Indeed. It’s clearly about more than just saving Magdalena from this man,” the priest’s wife chimed in. “It’s about more than saving Prague from him. It seems that modern civilization depends on stopping Svetovit.”

  “Scatter their bones near the mouth of hell!”

  (October 1356)

  D

  jordji stood in the Old Town Square, looking around. It was remarkably empty for a late September afternoon. He had come down into the Old Town from his family’s camp inside the old forest across the open field from the castle’s western walls. He had come into the marketplace, the most famous in Central Europe, intending to see what goods were for sale and what the prices were. He also intended to pick a few pockets or relieve a merchant or two of their day’s profits.

  But the square was nearly empty. No market open, no goods being sold, no profits being made, no pockets waiting for his nimble fingers to empty them. Only a lonely pole erected at one side of the square, surrounded by bales of hay and kindling. A stake. Waiting for an execution. So Djordji waited for the execution.

  A crowd erupted into the square, shouting and screaming and pushing and pulling. Djordji, anxious to avoid notice too early in the proceedings, melted into the alleyway that ran alongside the church dominating the east side of the square. The crowd surged across the square toward the stake in swirls and eddies, like the tide encroaching on a rocky shore. He could not understand their words but the tone made their intention clear. An old, dripping wet woman was bound to the stake and the kindling lit.

  She was screaming at the crowd now. A breeze stirred and ruffled the clothes of the mob. Thunderclouds massed above the stake. Flames danced around the woman. Djordji stepped from the alley and into the fraying edge of the crowd focused on the woman at the stake.

  “They will be heeding the old woman and the fire even more than they would have been heeding their trading and bargaining,” Djordji chuckled to himself. “It will be easier to relieve a few of their moneybags than if the market had been open.” Certain no one would notice him in the disorderly chaos in the square, he slowly made his way closer to the stake, carefully plucking small leather bags filled with coins from the belts of a few men he passed.

  The clouds grew thicker, blocking the sunlight. Lightning flickered. Djordji glanced up and noticed the strange figure that seemed to be lurking in the clouds across the river. The woman cried out again and still he did not understand her words but he was certain she was crying out to some deity she had trusted to protect her but had apparently abandoned her.

  “Scatter their bones near the mouth of hell!” Fen’ka called out from the stake. Lightning filled the sky, momentarily blinding Djordji as thunder deafened him.

  A caravan of three wagons filled the small clearing in the forest. The tumultuous afternoon storm the week before, while Grandfather Djordji had gone into the city to see the marketplace and had instead seen the old woman burned at the stake, had been followed by days of clear sunlight and crisp, cool nights. The forest was in the midst of changing from green to scarlet and yellow and orange. Leaves were drifting to the ground. Autumn had embraced the forest and the first kiss of winter was little more than a month away.

  Djordji’s caravan was the most elaborate of the three, carved and painted in wild, exuberant extravagance. His wife long dead, he lived in the caravan alone, though the grandchildren were allowed inside as a special treat. The other two caravans belonged to his two sons and their wives. One son had two daughters and the other had two daughters and a son, so the camp was always full of the sound of children running and laughing and singing. The baby boy was the youngest, not yet a year old, and the four girls ranged in age from three years to twelve. Since they did not count birthdays much after marriage, it was hard to know how old Grandfather Djordji was, but his thick, silver beard bristled with age.

  Djordji had gone back into the Old Town and the Little Town each day since the old woman had been burned. He had taken one of his sons on each expedition and once both together. Each time, they returned to the camp with a few coins and some provisions from the markets. Sometimes the men went hunting in the forest. But the children were never allowed to come with their fathers and grandfather on any of these expeditions, either for hunting or to the towns in the valley below. They were not allowed to step beyond the edge of the trees. So they helped their mothers wash and cook and they played among the trees.

  Although the bright caravans filled the clearing and the well-traveled road to the castle ran through the trees nearby, the trees hid the wagons well and none of the merchants, politicians or other travelers that filled the road ever knew how close to the camp they were passing.

  Djordji had brought his family here to explore Prague, the famous capital. They had traveled far in their sturdy wagons, but the three gentle, heavyset, dependable horses that had each pulled one of the wagons had gone mad the afternoon of the storm when the woman had been burned by the mob. The horses had reared up, screaming and neighing and plowing the air with their hooves before galloping off between the trees. Now the three wagons were unable to go anywhere. Djordji, his sons and daughters-in-law, and his grandchildren were trapped until they could gather enough coins to purchase three new horses. Or obtain the horses in some other manner. But horses
they needed if they were to continue their nomadic life and avoid the chains and snares of the settled townships they passed through and never stayed in for long.

  The week after Fen’ka’s death, a young man paused along the road running through the forest towards the Prague castle. He was alone on the road, all the usual travelers having already made their way into the city. Bonifác stood in the forest, listening to the sounds of the fading day. His knapsack was slung over his aching shoulder and his feet hurt, but he was glad to be standing near what he hoped was the end of the forest.

  “The end of the forest and the beginning of Prague,” he said quietly to the large black dog beside him, afraid to disturb the rustling of the undergrowth and the birdsong above. The man stopped, the reek of brimstone inescapable in the air. He looked about and pointed to the rough gash he saw in the earth visible through the trees, not far from the road.

  “See that stinking chasm, my friend?” Bonifác asked the dog. “I believe that is the famous chasm which the Devil himself tore open to make an entrance into hell for the wicked queen Drahomira in the days of our good king Vaclav. It is said that it leads directly into hell and that the Devil made it to receive the wagon bearing the wicked queen to her intended burial, lest her soul escape his grasp.” The dog peered through the trees, his large tongue hanging out as he panted. He looked back up to Bonifác and barked.

  “If we are passing the mouth of hell, then the great Prague Castle cannot be much further!” he promised the dog.

  The animal barked again, as if in agreement.

  The growing shadows of the late afternoon seemed to reach out and wrap Bonifác in their gentle arms, almost like a lover. He closed his eyes to listen more closely. Even with his destination so close, he could not tear himself away from the caress of the sunset. This had always been his favorite time of the day. Even as a small boy, he would escape his errands, running to the edge of the woods near his home to experience the daily transition from day to evening with the trees and small animals that made their homes there.