“What about the others?” Victoria asked Sean. “Do you think there is any way we can find them now that the hotels have all been evacuated? Maybe they are still sick and have been taken to hospitals? We might be left all on our own to stop George and Magdalena.”
“There must be a way to find them,” he protested.
“But how? I do not have a book on magic to find lost people,” she objected.
Sean considered that. “Nor am I familiar with any Celtic magic to do that,” he was forced to admit. “But even without magic, there must be a way to locate them.”
“We cannot simply wander the streets,” Victoria answered. “Without electricity, we cannot call hotels to find them, either.”
Sean thought again. “But when you were first worried about Magdalena and George, what did you do?” he asked. “You lit a candle, correct?”
Victoria nodded. “I lit a candle stub in my footprint. Near the Loreto chapel.”
“And we all were carried there in our dreams,” he reminded her. “We met at the chapel that morning. So that will be a place to start.”
“At the Loreto chapel?” she exclaimed. “Do you think the others might be there already, waiting for us?”
“It is the best place I can think of to start looking,” he answered. “If they are not there, then we will have to think of something else.”
“We need to send someone to retrieve the sword and staff from the hotel room where I hid them,” George explained to Magdalena. “The police and the flood both make it too difficult to attempt to retrieve them myself. So we need a reliable emissary, someone or something that will be delighted to help avenge an injustice against the city. Are there records or stories of anyone unjustly executed in the Little Town on this side of the river?”
Magdalena struggled to remember what history of executions in the Little Town she might have ever studied. “Not that I know about,” she said slowly, not wanting to disappoint George. “Not in the Little Town Square… Wait! Of course! There was an execution. Not in the square, but in the castle. In a tower on the edge of the castle hill, overlooking the Old Town and the Jewish quarter across the river. A very famous execution!” She was proud to have remembered it and embarrassed that she had not remembered it immediately.
“In the castle itself? In one of the towers? What happened? Who was it?” George wanted to know.
“There was a new prison tower built in the… When was it? In the 1490s, I think it was.” Magdalena felt like a schoolgirl showing off for a favorite teacher. “Now it is called the Daliborka Tower because the first man imprisoned there was a knight called Dalibor. He was imprisoned for supporting the rebellion of another knight’s serfs and so was lowered into a deep cell, a hole, called the Jug. He was kept there, alone and in the dark, until his execution.”
“Excellent! Dalibor should be eager to help us. And help Fen’ka, of course.” George added.
Magdalena barely registered George’s mention of Fen’ka almost as an afterthought. “Yes, he will surely understand—and sympathize with—Fen’ka’s situation. He must have felt some kindred with the poor and unfortunate even during his lifetime. Otherwise, he would not have supported the rebellion, would he?”
“No, probably not,” George agreed. “Is it possible to enter that tower now? Or his prison cell? Why was his execution famous?”
“The Daliborka Tower is still there but tourists haven’t been allowed into it for some years. But with my university identification, I could take you into the tower and the main rooms, though I do not think anyone can get into the Jug. Or out of it, for that matter!” She laughed at her own joke and George chuckled politely.
She covered her mouth and tried to turn her laughter into a cough.
“Why was it such a famous execution?” she repeated George’s other question. “Dalibor was alone down in the Jug,” Magdalena explained. “The jailor felt sorry for him and brought him a violin to play in the dark, so that he would have some way to pass the time. He played the violin in such a haunting, beautiful way that it could be heard all across Prague—the music slipped through the crevices of stonework and the narrow windows further up the tower. People all across Prague felt sorry for him and came to the base of the tower to listen to his music. They brought him food and wine, which the jailor delivered to Dalibor. The king feared a public outcry if it were known when Dalibor was to be executed, so the date was kept secret and it was only known that the execution had been carried out because the music stopped. When no one heard him play the violin, everyone knew poor Dalibor was dead.”
George’s eyes lit up at the mention of the violin. “Violin? Really? This makes Dalibor even more suited to the task at hand!”
“What does the violin have to do with Dalibor’s willingness or ability to help Fen’ka?”
George seemed a bit exasperated, and Magdalena was concerned she was missing some obvious connection between the dead knight’s musical skill and Fen’ka. “The violin is thought to embody both male and female principles, since the body of the instrument is shaped to imitate a womb and the bow represents a phallus. Brought together, the womb and phallus create new music, new life. Violin music is associated with very powerful, very creative magic.” He drew the shape of a violin in the air with his hands and pretended to place it under his chin and balance it on his shoulder as he drew a bow across its strings.
“I had no idea!” exclaimed Magdalena.
George continued, “The bow of a violin is also strung with horsehair, at least according to traditional violin making. Remember that I told you that horses and horse goddesses are associated with the dead in the mythology of many different cultures? And that horsehair is often used in magic to communicate with the dead? We can reuse the yew and horsehair bouquet I gave you earlier to summon Dalibor from the Jug and ask him to bring us the sword and rabbi’s staff. His fondness for the violin and its magic will make him especially easy to pull from the Jug. But can we enter the prison? This evening?”
Magdalena thought a moment. “The gates of the castle complex will be locked by the time we could reach it. If they are able to follow their usual schedule, though, the gates will reopen very early tomorrow morning. We could go right after sunrise.”
“Then tomorrow at sunrise it will be!” George exclaimed. “How perfect! The flood will no doubt crest early tomorrow morning. If we can get Dalibor to deliver the sword and staff to us in the cathedral plaza where Svetovit was worshipped before the cathedral was built, we will be able to defeat Fen’ka’s enemies at the very moment they think the bridge is about to be washed away, leaving Prague defenseless. We will strike just as they think their triumph is complete!”
Dmitri found his way back to the plaza, clutching the one bottle of water he had been able to find left on the shelves of a local grocery. He lifted it to wet his lips. As he turned the corner into the plaza in front of the Loreto chapel, he saw Sophia still sitting on the bench. But there were two other figures with her.
“Sean! Victoria!” The priest could not stop himself from calling out their names. “I was sure you would come here!” He hurried across to the bench to embrace the Irish professor and the Czech office worker. Sophia beamed, watching the reunion play out.
The four friends managed to all squeeze themselves onto the bench and recount everything that had befallen them since Elizabeth had killed Wilcox and the ghost fire had attacked them Sunday night, and since the mysterious ailments had struck them all down Monday.
“What about Theo?” Sean finally asked. “Have you seen him? Do you have any idea where he might be?”
Sophia shook her head. “No, we have no idea. We haven’t seen him and we’ve had no way to contact him. Now that all the hotels have been evacuated, how will we find him?”
“In the meantime,” George continued, “there is a powerful ritual that will build our strength against those who might still try to stop Fen’ka… though I seriously doubt our academics are in any position to thwart us
in any meaningful way.”
“Ritual?” Magdalena voice trembled with her excitement. “Another powerful ritual? As when we poured the spiced wine and charcoal onto the street?”
“Even more powerful,” George promised. “Have you heard of the sacred marriage rite of hieros gamos? Sexual intercourse, performed in a circle outlined with yew or cypress—yew, especially, is important because it is associated with water and femininity—and illuminated only with a green candle, would harness a great deal of creative power that would all be concentrated here, waiting to be used when we need it tomorrow. Of course, it would be even more powerful if performed outdoors.” He winked at Magdalena.
“We already have the yew bouquet!” Magdalena exclaimed. “Though my landlady has told me that one of the shrubs in the garden out back is related to cypress. It might do as well?”
“Yes, we have the yew,” agreed George, “which you have already used in association with the river water and our efforts to vindicate Fen’ka, poor woman.”
George was silent, and Magdalena wondered what was left unsaid. She was happy to interpret that silence in accordance with what she was hoping for.
“You have a green candle, I think?” George went on. “Let me look at your shrub and see if it is indeed a suitable relative of the cypress. With all the electricity out of order and the city in such confusion, perhaps no one will notice a rite in your garden tonight? At midnight?”
Magdalena could hardly restrain her excitement. Sex outdoors as the central component of a magic ritual? With George, who filled such an aching void that she’d willingly have sex with him again, under any circumstances, whether or not they involved a ritual? Victoria would be so jealous, she thought. If only Victoria hadn’t gotten involved with the stupid academics! This was more thrilling and exhilarating than anything she had done in her life.
“Midnight? With only a green candle for illumination? I’ll get it now!”
She was pitiful, really, George thought. And so gullible. He had not mentioned that yew was also associated with Saturn or remind her of its connection to death, dying, and the dead. Or that the horsehair the yew was tied with would reinforce its connection to the goddesses of the underworld who delighted in death and destruction. Or that cypress was similarly associated with Saturn, femininity, and death or dying. Neither did he say that the power that would be concentrated in Prague as a result would be at Svetovit’s disposal for the destruction of the city that had turned away from him so many centuries ago. Or even that the toad concoction and the river water she had so laboriously spread over the cobblestones would attract rather than repel the flood waters.
Theo sat on the patio, staring at the rising water as night descended.
“How do I find the others?” He had no idea of how to answer his question. Had they been stricken as he had? Had they recovered? Now that all the hotels were evacuated, where might they have gone? He had no real idea of where Victoria lived and all the phones were still out of order.
“I could light a candle in my footprint at the Loreto cloister,” he mused, “the way Victoria did to call us all together that first time.” But he had no candle and no matches.
“If I can’t find them, what can I do to stop George and Magdalena?” The question roused itself in his exhausted mind. “What do I know that might stand in their way?”
He reviewed what he had in his luggage upstairs. He had brought with him the one canister of salt that remained from Sunday night along the Royal Road in the Old Town. But Dmitri and Sophia had the tarot cards. So he could not continue burning the cards along the Royal Road on this side of the river as it followed the streets up to the castle.
What other weapons might he have? He struggled to think of even one at his disposal.
Victoria led Dmitri and Sophia, with Sean, back to her apartment. As the light faded, she lit some of the candles she had in the house, candles she had used in small rituals with Magdalena. Seeing the candles flicker, she recalled those happier times and felt a rage rise within her. She was furious with George for trying to free Svetovit to run riot in the world and for using Magdalena to do it. She was furious with Magdalena for allowing herself to believe George’s lies. She was terrified of what might happen to Magdalena, of what George might do to her. She was terrified of what might happen to the city if George’s plans succeeded.
Sophia, perhaps responding to the tears that slipped down Victoria’s cheek, drew Victoria to her. “We must not surrender,” Sophia said, stroking Victoria’s hair maternally. “We must not! Never!”
“Never!” agreed Victoria, sniffling. “But how to keep fighting? How, when they seem to have all the power?”
Sophia pulled a chair from the kitchen table and guided Victoria into it. She then sat across from Victoria, holding her hands. Sean and Dmitri, who hovered nearby and couldn’t have missed overhearing the women’s voices, slid into the other two chairs around the table.
“What do we do? We take stock,” Dmitri answered. “What do we have that can be a weapon, even a small weapon, against George?”
“What have we already used that we still have with us?” Sean asked the others around the table.
“We have the tarot cards, some of which we burned along the Royal Road,” Sophia answered.
Sean nodded. “Do we have any salt?”
Dmitri and Sophia looked at each other and shook their heads. “No,” Sophia said.
“We have my chalice,” Victoria suggested. “It is not the primary chalice of Prague, wherever that may be. But it is a chalice that has been used in rites before.”
“How could we use it?” asked Sophia.
“We could use it as we planned to use Magdalena’s, to spread salt on the Royal Road,” offered Victoria.
“But we have no salt!” exclaimed Dmitri.
“We could just go out and buy some more.” Sean could not stop the sarcasm from sneaking into his voice.
“No, we can’t,” Victoria pointed out. “The stores were all sold out of everything, even before they were all locked down and boarded up. With all the police patrolling the streets, we couldn’t break into a store either, even if we knew one did still have salt on the shelves.”
They all sat in the growing gloom of the kitchen, avoiding each other’s eyes.
“Wait!” Sean exclaimed, embarrassed at how he had snapped at Dmitri. “What about other herbs? Surely there must be some associated with defensive magic. Victoria, this is your kitchen! What herbs do you cook with?”
The others jumped to their feet, excitedly scrambling to search the kitchen. Dmitri got the candle from the living room. Drawers flew open, cabinets clattered. Jars of store-bought spices appeared on the table. Dried clusters and bundles of others Victoria had gotten from open-air markets tumbled with them onto the table.
“I found it!” Victoria raised her arm in triumph. “I never thought about it, but here it is by the stove! Not much, but enough, maybe?”
“What? What is it? I can’t see in this bad light,” Sophia peered across the kitchen.
Victoria brought her fist down on the table, rattling the jars of spices already there.
“Salt!” declared Victoria. “I found my salt shaker!”
Theo struggled to think of anything he might have to use as a weapon against George. “Salt.” No matter how many times his mind circled around it, he kept coming back to that one word. “Salt.” The only weapon he had was the canister of salt. “But how can I make that one canister of salt worth anything?” Other than finding more salt in some store, of course. But no store would be open now. Maybe not even in the morning. But certainly not now.
“How can I increase the power of that one canister of salt without increasing the amount of salt I have available?” He tried to think of what he could recall that might help him.
“We spread the salt on the Royal Road at night, on Sunday.” He thought back over their plans. “But that was to avoid detection, so the streets would be empty. So the time wh
en we spread the salt was important, but only in a practical way. Is there any way that the time of pouring the salt on the Royal Road might be important in a magical way?”
What had he ever read about the influence of time on magical activities? He tried to remember.
“How is time connected to magic? Well, Cinderella had to be home by midnight,” he mused, tapping his finger on the table beside him. “But the wicked witches are always stirring their cauldron at midnight. So, if evil magic is black magic and black magic can be the ‘dark arts,’ that means bad magic is more powerful at night,” he went on. “Midnight, being the darkest time of night, must be why the witches are always stirring their potions and making their brews then.” He thought another while, trying to follow the logic of magic. “If midnight is the best time to work black magic, then noon could well be the most effective time for working good magic!” He congratulated himself for working out that conclusion.
“Waiting until noon to spread my little bit of salt might be too late, though,” he worried. “George might be doing something tonight to make the flood worse. Noon will certainly be too late to stop him. And my little bit of salt would be lost in the rising tide of black magic tonight. So what can I do?” he asked himself, resuming his finger drumming.
Finally he came to what seemed the only reasonable conclusion. “I will spread the salt I have along the route of the Royal Road to the castle in the early morning. The rising sun will disperse what it can of George’s black magic and the tide of good magic, rising toward noon, should swell the power inherent in the salt. If I sprinkle it very carefully and very sparingly so that I can trace as much of the route of the Royal Road as possible, perhaps I can awaken more of the power of the Road to oppose George and Magdalena.”
Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy Page 114