(Sunday night, August 11, 2002–
Monday, August 12, 2002)
S
unday night. The hydroelectric dam was several miles upriver from Prague but was designed to deliver much of the power that the city and its environs depended on. It was always a delicate balance, a dance in fact, to keep the water flowing through the dam at the force needed to generate the needed electricity. That was how the engineer on duty late Sunday night had always described his work to student tour groups.
“There is a very fine line between what is enough water to keep the turbines turning and humming with life and too much water,” he always explained. “If there is not enough water, it will not turn the turbines with enough force and will fail to generate enough electricity,” he told the younger students. “Prague and all the towns around it will go dark very quickly if there is not enough electricity. There would be no lights, no television, no video games! But if there is too much water, the dam will overflow. So we need to monitor the water level all the time and release any water that we don’t need in small amounts so it does not cause any damage.”
Older students were always more interested in knowing what disasters might result if something went wrong. “What if there is not enough water?” they demanded to know. “How long would the lights be out? What if the dam overflows?”
“The lights could be out for quite a long time,” he confessed. “If the water level goes too low, it can take a long time to build up again. We need to keep a huge amount of water in reserve, just in case there is a lull in rainfall or snowmelt in the mountains where the Vltava has its source.”
“But the floods!” The older boys were always more interested in the possibility of floods. “How bad would the flooding be?”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” the engineer chuckled. “The water levels are watched very closely. Engineers on duty would release any excess water in such trivial, but constant, amounts that it would hardly be noticed. In the past, there have been terrible floods along the Vltava. Terrible! Prague was nearly destroyed, more than once, by such floods. But now, with the dam, the likelihood of such a flood ever again is nearly impossible. We can control the river so well now that its power can never destroy us again.”
The boys’ faces were always disappointed and glum after he explained that.
But now, he was alone in the dam’s control center in the middle of a Sunday night in mid-August. He checked all the gauges and dials and monitors again. He was responsible only for the water level behind the dam. Elsewhere in the dam complex were guards who were monitoring similar screens and detectors for security purposes.
An odd fragrance tickled his nose. He wrinkled his nose to dispel the irritation.
The water levels had been building behind the dam for several days now, fed by the heavy rainfall upriver. As chief engineer on several of the recent shifts, he had been tempted to release some of the excess water. Several times he had reached for the controls that would open the sluice gates of the dam. But something always stopped him just as his fingers grasped the controls. Was it the fact that the reserves had fallen low recently and they needed the excess water to restore the reserves? But there had been more than that. There had been a sense of foreboding, an irrational intuition that the right time to open the sluices and release the water would come soon but that time was not yet. So he had always held the controls for a moment and then let go of them.
That slight irritation—“Am I developing allergies?” he wondered—was back and he rubbed his nose in an effort to drive it away.
The indicators he examined all showed him that nearly impossible pressure was building up along the base of the dam under the hundreds of thousands of tons of water stored behind it. Cameras set along the top ridge of the dam revealed rivulet after rivulet of water escaping over the top. Some water escaping over the top was inevitable, given the waves and force of the river current. But these rivulets were growing in frequency and breadth, soon to become not many tiny rivulets but several broad streams and then one nearly uninterrupted surge of water coursing over the top of the dam.
Mesmerized, he watched the water cascade over the dam. Delicate, frothy clouds of feather-like droplets rose from the foot of the cascading water as it joined the free river below the dam. Although he could not hear the roar of the water from within the insulated control room under normal circumstances, the sound of it tonight filled his ears.
That unavoidable, strange smell tickled the back of his throat as well. A slightly metallic fragrance, not unlike the smell of fresh blood that he knew from bending down to kiss his five-year-old daughter’s skinned knee, hovered about him. He sensed a presence in the control room.
Thundering water. Warning lights flashing because of the increasing pressure on the dam. He reached out, but the controls moved even before he could touch them. Finally the sluice gates were opening and the flood that he had always promised was impossible began.
Monday morning, Dmitri was making his way from his hotel to the bridge. The five of them—himself, Sophia, Theo, Victoria, and Sean—had gotten back to their hotels safely the night before. Tossing and turning, Dmitri’s fragile dreams kept replaying the attack of the Dearg-due and the death of Wilcox, the attack of crows, the screams of the Dearg-due, the roar of the blue-white fire. Each time the dream reached the point where Elizabeth’s screaming reached its crescendo and was cut short, Dmitri woke, bolting up in his bed, sweating and gasping. He finally stopped attempting to sleep and simply waited for the dawn. He struggled with what his companions might be able to do to protect the city from the coming flood but was too tired to think coherently. He had finally dressed and made his way to the hotel breakfast room and was now walking to the bridge to think quietly before rousing his wife and attending the final day of the conferences.
“We need to talk, to plan what to do next,” he muttered. “Sean and Victoria will be meeting to go to Alessandro’s room. We all need to make changes in our flights back home. Maybe we should ask Theo’s friend Professor Hron for help. Maybe the time has come to admit what we’ve been doing and ask for his suggestions.” He ran his hand through his hair and shook his head. “We won last night. It worked. Sean got someone in Ireland to build a cairn on the Dearg-due’s grave and pin her back under the earth. One of our three enemies is gone! And we escaped from that fire that hunted us across the Old Town Square! So why don’t I feel more triumphant, more like a winner?” He adjusted the small chain suspending his pectoral cross around his shoulders and stepped onto the cobblestones of the bridge.
The day was humid but overcast. The bridge was beginning to fill. Tourists mingled in groups, examining the statues standing guard along the balustrades. Vendors were setting up stalls to sell souvenirs to the tourists. A pipe player was blowing a few shrill practice notes in anticipation of tourists filling his cup with coins.
Dmitri pulled his shoulders up around his ears and pressed on across the bridge. He wanted to shut out the distracting sights and sounds so as to better marshal his thoughts. He glanced at the people wandering on the bridge so as to not walk into any of them and couldn’t help but notice the statues he was passing.
The stone figures of the saints had stood vigilant guard along the bridge for centuries. Dmitri passed Cosmas and Damien standing together, the physician-martyrs looking ready to distribute medicine the way a priest might distribute Communion. He saw Saint Vitus, whose cathedral atop the castle hill had displaced the worship of the devil Svetovit.
“Well, Saint Vitus,” Dmitri muttered, “If there was ever a time to finish your displacement of Svetovit, now is it! And you,” he addressed another statue that he passed. “You, Saint Jude, you are the patron of impossible causes, yes? Well, if this is not an impossible cause, I don’t know what would be! Can’t any of you get down off your stone pedestals and help us? Or give us a good idea? Something?” He sighed.
The usual large crowd was already forming around the base of the next statue, a green copper priest c
rowned with five gold stars and holding a gold palm frond in one hand. The brass plaques on the stone base of the statue could hardly be seen through the forest of people growing at the statue’s base, but Dmitri knew them to be ancient and dark scenes from the story of the priest’s life, except for the three gleaming bright spots where the fingertips of the crowd had polished the metal to the highest sheen imaginable.
“If they touch the plaques, it will bring them good luck,” a short and dowdy tour guide was explaining to her charges, pointing to the plaques with her tightly furled umbrella’s crooked nose. “Touching the plaques also brings the saint’s promise that you will return to Prague!” she concluded with a flourish, her group bursting into appreciative laughter. They all surged for a closer look at the statue of the priest and to touch the plaques.
“Ah, Saint John Nepomuk,” Dmitri addressed the statue under his breath. “Tour guides always oversimplify everything!” He could never escape his academic and theological training. “They don’t realize that venerating those plaques was originally done to curry your favor and win your intercession.” He charged ahead again and then stopped short.
“If they can touch the plaques to win a bit of good luck and a promise that they will return to Prague, why shouldn’t I venerate the plaques as they were intended and win the protection of the saint?” Dmitri asked himself. “Saint John is one of the most popular protectors of the city, after all. Why not enlist his support?” He joined the happy throng bustling around the statue.
“Plenty of time, no need to rush,” the dowdy tour guide was cooing. “Mustn’t knock each other down to see Saint John, now,” she warned. Dmitri wormed his way into the mesh of her charges and found himself moving closer to the statue as those in front had their photos taken while touching the plaques and then moved away for the next wave of tourists.
Dmitri hadn’t venerated a statue in years, not since his first visit to western Europe so long ago. He had passed the statue of the martyr-priest each time he had crossed the bridge but had not felt the need to greet the statue before. But now they needed whatever assistance the saint could provide. His veneration of the plaques might get the saint’s attention and persuade him to join their efforts.
The laughing teens immediately in front of him finished touching the plaques and climbed to perch on the statue’s base, followed by a whole series of photos taken to immortalize the event, then peeled away from the stonework. The tour guide, not recognizing Dmitri as one of her responsibilities, moved up the bridge, followed by the crowd. Dmitri was alone with the statue.
He looked at the saint’s face, the gold stars of apocalyptic glory around his halo shining even in the half-light of the overcast morning. He was not a Roman Catholic. How had he come be standing at the feet of Saint John Nepomuk, a priest martyred here in 1393 for refusing to betray the queen’s confession to her husband? The gestures and even the attitude of veneration felt foreign, out of place apart from the two-dimensional religious art found in Orthodox churches. Yet…
“Saint John,” Dmitri began, still looking up into the saint’s eyes. “You know what we need. Better than I do. Do what you can to help us.” He closed his eyes and slowly crossed himself, kissed his fingertips and reached out to touch the plaques that showed St. John hearing the confession of the queen, his killers dropping his body over the bridge into the river, and the king’s faithful hound remaining true and honest, even when the king had not. Dmitri felt the cold metal of the image of the hound. He crossed himself again and kissed his fingertips, reaching out to the silhouette of the priest hearing the queen’s confession. He closed his eyes, feeling a hum of energy in the air. He crossed himself a third time and kissed his fingertips again, and reached for the scene of the killers disposing of the body. Energy like static electricity tickled his fingertips.
His hand was wrenched away from the statue, his arm twisted behind his back. Dmitri dropped to one knee in pain and surprise, his eyes popping open. He cried out and turned his head to look over one shoulder, expecting to see either George interrupting his act of veneration or a young man attempting to rob him.
No one was there.
His hand was twisted more tightly, pulled further up between his shoulders. Dmitri winced, gasping in pain.
“What—? Who?” tumbled from his lips.
“I cannot allow you to get the attention of the saint!” a man’s voice hissed in his ear, the breath of his attacker tickling the hair on the back of Dmitri’s neck. “If you try to venerate the statue again, I will be forced to pitch you over the bridge, just as the saint was!”
Dmitri peered behind and around him as best he could. There seemed to be no one there and none of the people wandering the bridge seemed to notice his predicament. Perhaps they all thought he was kneeling in prayer?
“Who are you?” The words were odd guttural strings of syllables that Dmitri pushed out between his teeth. “What is your interest in keeping me from the saint?”
“Who am I?” the voice sneered. “It is enough for you to know that I am one of the men charged by the king with the disposal of this wretched priest. My interest has always been to keep the priest from those who would foolishly ally themselves with him.”
“But why now? Why me?” Dmitri demanded. “People seek the priest’s intercession all the time. They have for centuries. That tour group did only moments ago!”
“Few of those who come to the statue actually seek the priest’s intercession. They touch the plaques because they are simple-minded fools, fools who follow whatever instructions they are given,” the specter snarled. “Those of us who threw the saint into the river were ourselves drowned in the river at different times. Some of us drowned ourselves in foolish remorse for our role in the priest’s death. Some of us were thrown from the bridge by order of the king to keep his secret. I was killed and thrown from the bridge by the mob when they discovered that I had led the king’s loyal servants to kill the priest for him. I was the last living member of our small company.”
“But why now?” Dmitri repeated.
“I have waited in the river for centuries, trapped by the troll Jarnvithja, who keeps all who either die in the river or whose bodies are consigned its waters. Only the priest escaped the troll, when his body was retrieved from the river.” He heard what sounded like the invisible attacker spitting on the cobblestones in contempt.
“But someone has caused the power of the bridge to wither now. It is dying and nearly dead,” the voice went on. “Soon it will tumble into the river as well. So Jarnvithja was able to charge me to wait here and prevent any who would truly seek the priest’s assistance.” There was a pause. “So I can escort you from the bridge or throw you over its side. Which do you prefer?” A snide chuckle followed and Dmitri’s arm was twisted even more tightly in a direction it had never been meant to rotate.
Dmitri cringed, nearly weeping with pain. “Escort me from the bridge,” he whimpered.
His attacker spat on the cobblestones again. “I thought as much. You are an old man and a coward. A fool. Stand up!” Dmitri was wrenched up from his knees and the grip on his arm relaxed slightly, enough to allow him to stand upright. His assailant roughly twisted his shoulders so that he faced the Little Town, then pushed him. Dmitri stumbled forward, nearly tripping on the hem of his cassock.
“Now go!” the guttural voice ordered. “Get off the bridge! Do not think that I am not watching your every step. Dare to come back to the statue and I will throw you over the bridge, pull you into the river to join us in Jarnvithja’s watery domain, without stopping to ask you why you would disregard my warning. Go!” Dmitri felt the assassin drop his arm and, at the same time, push him forward again. Glancing repeatedly over his shoulder, Dmitri began walking as quickly as he could back to the Little Town.
As he neared the bridge’s landing, he noticed police officers gathering near the towers standing guard over the entrance to the Little Town from the bridge. More than a dozen seemed to be conferring, poi
nting to the bridge as they spoke in hushed tones.
“What’s going on here?” Dmitri whispered, stopping and glancing back toward the statues on the bridge.
As if in reply, his hand was twisted sharply into his lower back. He stumbled from the cobblestones of the bridge and onto the plaza sloping down to the right. The pressure on his hand and shoulder vanished. He turned around sharply, hoping to see some trace of his assailant.
He saw none, but did see half the police move from the towers to the bridge and wave at those on the bridge. Other police officers approached from the Old Town side of the bridge, speaking to the vendors and also gesturing to those walking along the bridge. Vendors began to pack up their stalls, loudly complaining and pointing at the potential customers walking by. Tourists started coming back to the Little Town, clearly confused by directions in a language most of them did not understand. The police who had come from the Little Town pulled rolls of yellow police tape from their pockets and began to string it across the end of the bridge. Metal gates clattered against each other somewhere nearby and rang as they hit stone.
Fr. Dmitri turned to see the police at the base of the towers pulling metal barricades from a storeroom inside the towers, which they proceeded to assemble into an interlocking barrier.
“They’re closing the bridge,” Dmitri realized.
“We have to get to the conferences!” exclaimed Magdalena. “This is the last morning and Professor Hron will be angry as it is that I am getting there so late!” She had come back to meet George as he had instructed and waited for nearly an hour.
“Yes. We must maintain regular appearances as much as possible,” George agreed. He had risen and dressed, then had a leisurely breakfast with some of the conference attendees staying in the same hotel. When he had finally emerged into the lobby, Magdalena was standing near the door, looking frantic. He smiled and she… relaxed.
Leaving the hotel, Magdalena wanted to ask George how he thought they should respond to the academics’ attack on the city. But the streets seemed unnaturally full of people, none of whom were moving as quickly as they would normally. A crowd seemed to be gathering in the street ahead and Magdalena stood as tall as she could, peering forward to see what the difficulty might be.
Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy Page 100