Dmitri was still staring intently at the clock.
“Victoria. Sophia.” He said their names thoughtfully, thinking aloud, not sure where his ideas might lead. “The principal attribute of a pentacle is the depiction of a star within a circle, proclaiming the harmony and balance of the universe, yes? In most instances, that harmony and balance is represented by the five points of the star each touching the circumference of the circle, yes? But might that harmony and balance be depicted in some other manner? Might the star be, in fact, a very small piece of the pentacle rather than its most prominent feature?”
He glanced at the two women. Sophia looked from his face to the clock and back again. Victoria turned to the clock and stared, a light dawning in her eyes. Dmitri pulled the tourist guide from his wife’s shoulder bag and began talking again, more rapidly this time, pointing to the various features of the clock as he described them.
“Do you see it there? A very small star at the tip of one of the hands of the clock. I missed it when we were here before. It is so small. Do you see it?” He consulted the guidebook as the two women nodded. “The star indicates the sidereal or star time, just as the larger representations of the sun and the moon indicate the solar and lunar time,” he paraphrased the guidebook’s description. “The smaller, rotating dial displays the zodiac and the earth’s current position among the twelve signs, while the larger dial—which doesn’t move—marks the twenty-four hours of the day. The various hues and shades of blue and red on the back of the clock’s face indicate the differing stages of night and day, as well as twilight and dawn, which are also labeled in Latin.”
Victoria seemed to have trouble finding all of the details enumerated by the priest but Sophia pointed more clearly at some of the features of the clock.
“Do those curving gold lines on the clock face mean anything?” Victoria asked.
Dmitri flipped a page in the book. “The more usual, Arabic numbers along the outer edges of the dial indicate the regular twenty-four hours of the day while the Roman numerals, positioned along the curving golden lines of the interior clock face, display the twenty-four hours of the day in terms of relative sunlight and darkness, so that some hours are much longer or shorter than others!” the priest announced. “And see the other disk below?” he asked, his eyes still on the book in his hand as he gestured vaguely at the clock.
“Of course!” Sophia answered. “How could we miss it?” She and Victoria both laughed.
“Well, the clock was built in 1490 and the calendar disk below was added in 1870 to demonstrate in even more detail the orderly progression of time. There is a depiction on the calendar of each of the twelve months and the activities associated with each, surrounded by the saints or historical events commemorated on each day of the year,” he told them. They nodded. He looked up just in time to see them smirk.
He checked the book again for the dates of the clock’s construction. “There seems to have been a very simple clock installed here in 1410 which was then replaced by this much more elaborate one in 1490 by a famous clockmaker-astronomer-astrologer named Hanuš who was then blinded by the Old Town council to prevent him from ever making another one like it.”
Sophia winced. “How awful!”
“I remember that story,” Victoria said.
“Don’t you see?” he exclaimed. “When the astronomer-astrologer-clockmaker elaborated the workings of the clock, he must have included a great deal of magic as well as science in its construction! The clock is a large, round, flat image—just like the Round Table! Remember our discussion with that professor the other night, Sophia?—of a star-in-a-circle that serves as an icon of the harmony and balance of the universe. The details of the clock—star time, sun time, the interrelationship of light and dark—all come together to show how these are integrated and make the universe a stable whole.”
Victoria’s mouth dropped open. “You mean, the Astronomical Clock is the pentacle of Prague?”
Dmitri nodded. “Yes, it seems that it is! You helped prove it, Victoria! We would never have thought about it without the clues you obtained from your reading of the tarot cards!” He clapped Victoria on the shoulder.
“And the stories associated with the clock,” Sophia reminded them both. “Professor Hron brought us here on the tour our first evening. Remember? He said that the ghosts of the executed nobles come every year to see if the clock is still running, because time itself will stop and Judgment Day arrive if the clock ever stops. Doesn’t that also fit into the description of the power of the pentacle? If it falls out of harmony, so does the world. Or the other way round: if the world falls out of harmony, so will the pentacle.”
Dmitri stared at the clock again and then agreed with his wife. “Yes, this particular pentacle seems inextricably tied in with the workings of time itself. If one stops, so will the other.”
“But if this is the pentacle and it is so large and on public display, how do we take it and use its power to defend Prague? How are we supposed to channel its power to support the magic of the Charles Bridge?” Victoria asked in consternation.
Dmitri considered that. “I do not know,” he finally admitted. “You are right, though. It is too large to take away and there is no obvious way to use it the way a smaller pentacle would be used in ritual magic.”
“But if we don’t know how to use it, wouldn’t George and Magdalena and Elizabeth have the same difficulty?” Sophia wondered.
“Unless they break it, I suppose,” Dmitri ventured. “Maybe the most important way to use the clock to protect the city is to simply keep it in good working order.”
“Well then, how do we do that? Does not the city have maintenance men to do that?” Sophia asked Victoria. “What more can we do?”
“Post a guard? Make certain that no one sneaks in to break the gears?” Victoria suggested, only half in jest.
Dmitri shook his head. “That is not practical. But we should report to the others that we have located the pentacle and that it seems safe, at least at this point. But we should not assume that George will not discover a way to damage it. We should consult with the others about how we might do something to protect the clock.”
“If we hurry back to the conference, we might catch everyone as they return from the lunch break,” Sophia suggested.
Her husband agreed with the need for haste. “Yes, let’s try to get them now, if we can.”
Even walking briskly, Dmitri and his companions arrived at the conference site before the majority of people returned from their dispersal for the lunch break. The priest, his wife, and Victoria made their way up the grand staircase, their footsteps echoing in the silence. They poked their heads into several meeting rooms, hoping to find at least some of the others intent on defending Prague against George, but they found only the occasional academic gathering up papers into a file folder or a pair of speakers continuing an earnest discussion. The priest and two women decided to get lunch themselves, ducking into a nearby sandwich shop Victoria recommended.
“Victoria!” several voices exclaimed as they entered the crowded shop, where several people were still standing in line waiting for tables to be vacated. Theo, Alessandro, Sean and Wilcox were all seated in a corner with steaming bowls of soup. Theo waved the three new arrivals over to join them and waiters made way. Unused chairs from other tables were scraped across the floor and the three newcomers squeezed in among the four already there.
“Victoria! It is so good to see you!” Theo reiterated, a bit more quietly, once everyone was settled and waiters were bringing more drinks and bowls of soup. “We didn’t know how to contact you.” He turned to Dmitri and Sophia. “How did you find her?”
“We were crossing the Old Town Square, coming back here after church,” explained Dmitri. “She was in the crowd. Right in front of us.”
“Where have you been?” Alessandro asked Victoria.
Victoria blushed and looked down at her hands, folded in her lap. Sophia nudged her with an elbow.
“Go ahead,” Sophia urged. “Tell them.”
“All right.” Victoria looked up at the others. “I read the tarot cards on Friday night.” She gave them a very brief version of her life since then, pausing when she came to the point where she met Dmitri and Sophia at the base of the Astronomical Clock.
“That was when we identified it,” Dmitri interjected. “The pentacle we have been looking for is the Astronomical Clock.” He repeated both Victoria’s clues from the tarot reading and his reasoning, based on the information in the tourist guide they had consulted. The other men all seemed impressed, nodding appreciatively as Dmitri spoke.
Waiters brought sandwiches to join the clutter of soup bowls.
“So the Astronomical Clock is one of the four magical tools of Prague,” Theo mused as they began eating the food. “Hidden there in the plain sight of everyone. Just think of all the times I’ve walked past it over the years—and I had no clue! Amazing!”
“Yes,” Sophia agreed. “But now that we know where and what it is, we face an urgent problem. What is it that we do next? We have identified three of the four tools and have no real access to any of them.”
“Yes,” Theo agreed with her. “We know where the sword and the staff are, and they are totally inaccessible. As are the inner workings of the clock.”
“But does that mean they are inaccessible to George and Magdalena and Elizabeth?” asked Wilcox. “Not necessarily. To err on the side of caution, we must assume the worst-case scenario and presume that George and the others have some way of obtaining the staff and sword and damaging the clock. Maybe the chalice, too, even though we have no idea where it is or anything else about it.”
“I am afraid that I must agree,” Sean added. “It seems only prudent to guess that George has access to more information than we do and has some means of obtaining the four tools and bending their power to serve his purposes. We have none of the four tools we set out to identify and keep out of his hands. Now what do we do?”
Silence.
Finally, Sophia spoke up. “I think it might be more useful to consider what we do have rather than what we do not.” She made eye contact around the table. “We may not have the chalice specific to Prague, but we do have the chalice of Magdalena that she used with George. That must be worth something in confounding their plans.”
Theo bit his lower lip and then nodded. “We have Magdalena’s chalice. We may not have the four tools but we have the whole city. There are untold monuments and historical artifacts here. There must be some, like the Charles Bridge, that have been associated with magical or supernatural protection of Prague. What are they?”
“What about city walls?” suggested Sean. “Every medieval city had walls to protect it. Why not trace their location?” He looked at Victoria. “There must have been walls around at least the Old Town.”
“There were,” Victoria answered. “But only small portions or individual watchtowers still stand. The rest of the walls have either been torn down or incorporated into other buildings as the city grew. It would be impossible to trace their locations at this point.”
“Besides,” Wilcox added, “the evil is already here. Reawakening whatever power may have once resided in the walls would not stop what is already inside them.”
“How would you recharge the walls? None of you were willing to join me in a prayer, let alone ritual magic, to protect even our small group,” Dmitri pointed out quietly. “Have you changed your minds overnight?”
An awkward, uncomfortable silence resulted.
“I think we must act,” Alessandro finally spoke up. “Even if it feels foolish or seems silly or irrational and superstitious. We all saw what happened at the Loreto chapel. Victoria read tarot cards and they were able to identify the pentacle.” He gestured to Dmitri, Sophia and Victoria. “Victoria also had an out-of-body experience. If we take seriously our experience at the Loreto chapel and are looking for the four magical tools of Prague as a result, it is a false rationality to then refuse to use magic rites to stop George and the others.” He paused and took a deep breath. “I, for one, am willing to take the chance on performing a ritual, whether along the walls or somewhere else.”
Sean spoke up next. “I think that makes sense. I sent that e-mail to my nephews last night about the Dearg-due. How can I ask them to perform a superstitious act of magical importance and then refuse to participate in such acts myself?”
Theo and Wilcox looked at each other and Theo shrugged.
“Why not?” Theo said, but Wilcox hung his head as he muttered something under his breath and shook his head. Everyone stared at him a moment. When no one else spoke, Theo turned to the others and repeated his question. “What other Prague monuments are said to protect the city?”
Dmitri hesitated and then asked Sophia to hand him the guidebook. He took it, closed his eyes briefly, and whispered a prayer for guidance. He pushed aside his half-eaten sandwich and opened the book. He turned to the section describing monuments.
“Well, the Loreto chapel—as Victoria told us—is said to be a rest stop for the righteous and the angels as they travel between Heaven and earth,” he reminded them. “It seems to have been built where it was in order to close a chasm that was rumored to lead directly to Hell,” he read from the guide. “So that is one supernatural defense of Prague.” They all nodded and Alessandro took a card from his pocket and began making notes.
“It seems that the Loreto may have already played its role in this drama,” Theo suggested. “Victoria, you lit that candle there and it brought us to witness our vision. Rather than place all our eggs in one basket, as it were, and go back to the Loreto, we should involve as many different monuments in this act of defensive ritual magic as possible.”
Dmitri returned to the guidebook. “You may be right. The more monuments, the more defensive power.” He turned a few pages in the book. “The statue of the Infant of Prague has always defended the city.”
“How?” Wilcox asked.
“The statue was taken in procession around the city to drive away invaders and to stop the plague,” Dmitri reported from the book.
“Well, we can hardly walk into the church and ask to take the statue out and walk around the streets of Prague with it,” Wilcox grumbled.
Alessandro drew a line through the words he had just jotted on his card, but then pointed out, “No, but even the medals from the gift store help protect the city.” He reminded them of his vision on the bridge. “It showed me the real Dearg-due under her masquerade of humanity.”
“So it might be worthwhile to get a medal for everyone,” suggested Sophia.
Dmitri turned a handful of pages. Victoria spoke. “What about the Golem?” she asked. “That was created to protect the Jews of Prague. Why could it not be used to protect the entire city?”
“Because it is in the synagogue attic,” the priest pointed out, finding the description of the synagogue in the guidebook. “If it wasn’t taken out to the plague cemetery in the late 1800s,” he summarized the legend as reported in a sidebar.
“We couldn’t get into the attic to retrieve the rabbi’s staff,” Sophia reported.
“There is no way they would allow us into the attic to reassemble the Golem,” Alessandro agreed, remembering the two women guarding the shul.
Dmitri turned a few more pages in the book, skimmed, and turned more pages. Then he looked at Victoria.
“The tarot cards have been extremely helpful recently, have they not?” he asked.
“Yes,” Victoria answered. “You know that. They helped identify the pentacle. They…”
“Do any of you recall what the name ‘tarot’ may be derived from?” he asked.
The others exchanged glances and slowly shook their heads.
“The name ‘tarot’ is sometimes said to derive from a gypsy dialect meaning ‘royal road.’ The cards are said to be the royal road to enlightenment,” Dmitri explained. “Does that sound familiar, Victoria?”
Victoria stared at him for a moment and then a broad grin spread across her face. “Do you really think so?”
“It may sound familiar to Victoria, but none of the rest of us recognizes what you are talking about, Father!” objected Sean.
Dmitri caught a flicker of a smile on his wife’s face also. Alessandro frowned, apparently puzzled. Dmitri propped up the guidebook against a soup bowl and turned it around to display the inside with a triumphant flourish. Sean and Theo and Alessandro leaned forward to peer at the book as Wilcox pulled himself back from the table with a sour grimace on his face. There, atop one page in boldface type, were the words “The Royal Road.” Photos of a street in Prague that looked vaguely familiar filled the facing page. The three men fell back into their seats.
“Sophia pointed this out to me earlier,” said Alessandro. Sophia nodded.
Dmitri took the book back and scanned the smaller print on the page. “The ‘Royal Road’ was the route taken by the Czech kings on the day of their coronation,” he announced. “It led from the former royal residence in the Old Town, near what is now the Powder Tower—a remnant of the system of fortifications and walls that once surrounded the Old Town—and goes to the Old Town Square and then to the Charles Bridge and from there through the Little Town and up to the castle complex overlooking the river,” he quickly read aloud. “The route of the Royal Road follows what is one of the oldest streets in Prague: Celetna Street, named for the calty or buns and rolls that were sold there.” Dmitri turned the book around again for them to see the photographs.
“These photos are from Celetna Street,” he explained, having read the fine print identifying the pictures. “Hron led us along part of it during the tour our first night here.”
“Must be why it looked familiar,” Wilcox grumbled.
“So what do you think this ‘Royal Road’ of Prague and the ‘royal road’ of the tarot have in common?” asked Sophia.
Dmitri set the book down and closed it. “It seems to me,” he began, “that the Royal Road is a channel for the power of sacred kingship here in Prague. It was used by the kings primarily on important state occasions, and also served as the funeral procession route when the kings died. One of the duties of an anointed, consecrated king was to protect the people of the kingdom. There must be an enormous storehouse of power accumulated along the Royal Road from its use by those kings for so many centuries. It only needs to be revitalized and reawakened to protect the city again.”
Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy Page 75