“In case we need it again,” she announced, pushing it into her shoulder bag as she emerged from the narrow doorway and wrapped her arm around George’s once more.
Passing out of the prison, the rooster reared its head back and shattered the air with an ear-piercing ululation that reverberated off the stone towers above them.
Victoria and the others stepped out into the early morning light. Sophia held the mixing bowl, fragrant scents wafting from the mix of protective herbs it held. Dmitri had the deck of tarot cards and matches while Victoria carried the chalice. The all-important salt shaker had been entrusted to Sean. Following Victoria’s lead, they set out for the Little Town Square, where they would pick up the Royal Road to the castle. Blessing themselves with the sign of the cross, Dmitri and Sophia nervously glanced at each other as Sophia took up a position beside Victoria so that Victoria could easily fill the chalice with the herbs and then sprinkle them from the chalice onto the cobblestones.
Theo stepped out from the narrow side street and entered an open plaza, which he recognized as the Little Town Square. Across the square, another slightly broader street began its steep ascent up the hill to the castle. Clutching the canister of salt, he made his way toward the last stage of the ancient processional route of Bohemian kings to their coronation in the cathedral atop the hill.
Stepping from the square onto the street, he tipped the canister and sprinkled a few crystals of the precious salt onto the Royal Road.
Although he was not sure exactly what time it was, he knew it was early. The streets had been empty once he left the hotel and he could see no one on the street ahead of him. No one to stop and ask him what he was doing, or why. No one to stop him. “No one to help, either.” He grimaced. Either struck down by strange ailments or lost in the hectic evacuation, the others who knew the real cause of Prague’s desperate situation were not available. He was the only one left of their small band to stand against George. He took a few steps and gently tipped the canister again. Salt splattered onto the road at his feet, some of the crystals jumping excitedly as they struck the ground while others adhered to the stones as if glued by the humidity, dissolving and vanishing as he made his way forward.
Slowly he trudged up the hill, partly because he was easily winded by the climb and partly to sprinkle the salt as he went. “Even sprinkling this little, the canister won’t last long,” he realized, looking up the hill ahead of him. He tried to sprinkle even fewer crystals each time he tipped the spout of the cardboard container. “Just let me make it up to that sharp turn ahead,” he muttered, remembering the hairpin curve in the road from previous visits to the city. “Let me make it that far, so I can at least see the castle gates before the salt runs out.”
Victoria entered the Little Town Square from the southwestern corner and led the other three across the trolley rails set into the street. The square was empty, silent in a way Victoria had never experienced it, making the roar of the river that much more ominous. With only a nod, as if by keeping silent they might evade George’s notice, she indicated the direction they needed to go. Hugging the western side of the square, they hurried along the palaces there, stopping abruptly when a street opened on their left. Peering around the corner, Victoria then stepped into the middle of the road.
It was a steep hill they faced, nearly empty except for one lone man far ahead of them who seemed to be making his way slowly up the hill.
“This leads up to the castle?” whispered Sophia. Victoria nodded.
“The Royal Road?” Dmitri looked back across the plaza and then up the hill again. Victoria nodded a second time.
“Time to begin, then.” Sean was businesslike, matter of fact and to the point. Victoria nodded for a third time and dipped the chalice into the fragrant mix of herbs in the bowl Sophia held. Trembling, Victoria then tipped the chalice slightly and an herbal cascade tumbled to the cobblestones.
“Careful! Not so much!” warned Dmitri. “It has to last all the way up to the castle.”
“To the cathedral,” Sean reminded them.
They walked up the hill, Victoria spilling a much smaller cascade of herbs from the chalice every few steps. The chalice still trembled embarrassingly in Victoria’s hand as she reached to refill the cup from the bowl. Turning, Victoria cast a thimbleful of the scented mixture to the ground.
“Do you think it’s working?” whispered Sophia. “I don’t see anything happening. Not like the other night in the Old Town.”
“There was nothing to see when we were sprinkling the salt,” Sean answered her. “There were only things to see when we burned the tarot cards.”
“Yes, I forgot.” Sophia blushed and, smiling sheepishly, momentarily turned her attention to her husband. In that moment, she tripped over a cobblestone. Crying out, nearly dropping the bowl of herbs, she knocked into Victoria and the chalice jumped from Victoria’s already nervous grasp. In the empty street, the clang of the metal cup on the cobblestones seemed nearly as loud as the roar of the river behind them.
The man ahead of them, nearly at the turn in the road leading to the front gates of the castle, stopped and looked back at them.
“No! Tell me that’s not George!” whispered Sophia hastily. “Now what do we do?”
Theo was nearly to the U-turn in the road that would bring him to the front gates of the castle. He lifted the canister to his ear and shook it gently, estimating there was almost nothing left inside.
“If I tear the spout away and rip open the top, I can get the last few crystals out,” he reasoned. Under any other circumstances, those last few crystals would not be worth the effort to extract. Now, every precious crystal counted. He wedged his thumb into the spout and began to rip it out.
A loud clang down the hill behind him startled him, causing him to nearly drop the box. He turned to looked back down the street. He saw a group of four people. From this distance it was hard to tell, but he guessed it was two men and two women. One of the women seemed to be clutching a bowl to her chest while the other was running to pick up something rolling back down the hill. A metal cup. A chalice.
“Sean! Victoria! Father Dmitri! Sophia!” Forgetting his previous caution, Theo called out to his friends down the hill.
“Theo!” all four voices down the hill rang in chorus. Victoria, managing to grab the chalice as it rolled into the edge of the sidewalk, stood and waved. Hastening as much as the steep incline of the road allowed, the four hurried towards Theo, who was trotting down to meet them.
There was a flurry of handshakes and embraces, all navigated around bowls and cups and nearly empty boxes of salt. For a moment, their laughter competed with the roar of the river. Then, in a burst of voices as they began speaking at once, the reunited friends learned what had befallen each other since they discovered the bridge closed on Monday morning.
George and Magdalena went up Golden Alley, the rooster and its cage bumping along on the cobblestones behind them, and turned up Jirska, one of the tangled streets running through the castle grounds. Coming into the plaza, in the center of which rose the great cathedral of Saint Vitus, George paused and stared at the wrought-iron angel perched high atop the apse. The angel faced them but was blind to their presence, intent on blowing its horn to wake the dead for judgment.
“Blow now, angel!” he taunted the figure. “Judgment has come!”
The Jesuit led Magdalena forward into the plaza. She looked around at the familiar buildings as if seeing them for the first time. “You told Dalibor to bring the sword and staff to the cathedral plaza. Is this the place where Svetovit was worshipped?”
“It is. When Dalibor delivers them, we will make the magic circle and sacrifice the rooster to summon Svetovit,” George told her. “The magic of the bridge is nearly gone. It can no longer prevent his coming or stop the consummation of Fen’ka’s dying wish.” He smiled at her. “The hour of her triumph has come, Magdalena. Did you ever think it would actually arrive?”
“No,” Magdalena admit
ted. “I was never quite sure it would all come to pass. But here we are!” She felt giddy with excitement.
When George didn’t immediately respond, she asked impatiently, “How long will it take Dalibor to retrieve the sword and staff, do you think?”
“Not much longer, I am sure,” George answered.
To fill the time, Magdalena pointed to the row of buildings opposite the northern side of the cathedral. “That tower is an old armory, although it is set up now as an exhibit about alchemy, not munitions.”
“Very interesting,” George said, apparently musing as he stared at the tower silently. “Those were the alchemists living along Golden Lane?” he asked, pointing in the direction they had come.
Before Magdalena could answer, a form shimmered into visibility near the armory tower. It was Dalibor, holding the great sword in its scabbard in one hand and the rabbi’s staff in the other.
“Excellent!” George clapped his hands together, hurrying forward to retrieve the objects. “Come, Magdalena!” he called behind him. “You take the staff!” Magdalena scurried after him. George took the staff and handed it to her. She could feel the power within the wood, awake and waiting to be used again after its centuries of quiet rest in the attic of the synagogue.
George lifted the weapon with two hands from Dalibor’s grip. Magdalena was amused to watch George running his eyes along the scabbard and hilt, how he was nearly salivating with anticipation and pleasure.
“Is that all?” Dalibor asked, eyeing the Jesuit suspiciously. “No other tasks?”
“None,” George answered him, turning back to the caged rooster. “But stay and see what unfolds here, before you return to the darkness of the Jug,” he added, glancing back over his shoulder at the knight. Dalibor seemed to focus on both the sword and the staff. He nodded but did not move, remaining where he stood. George walked back to the rooster, ignoring Dalibor. Magdalena followed his lead, holding the staff upright but eyeing it with care, as if it might suddenly become a viper and strike at her.
“It will be best if we sacrifice the rooster with the sword,” George explained to her, “although it may be awkward, given the size of the sword. You will have to hold the rooster down so that I can strike the head off. You can do that, can’t you?” He grinned. Seeing his excitement and near-triumph, Magdalena nodded.
“I can do that,” she answered.
“You had a canister of salt and you’ve nearly emptied it on this part of the Royal Road?” Sean asked, to make sure he had understood Theo correctly.
“Yes. You were sprinkling herbs along the road to do the same thing?” Theo countered.
“Yes. We have just enough salt to burn one last tarot card before the doors of the cathedral,” Victoria answered.
“Well, then, lead the way!” Theo exclaimed. He ripped the spout from the box of salt and turned the container upside down, spilling out the last few white crystals onto the cobblestones. Together, the friends formed a small circle and, following the road as it sharply doubled back for the final ascent to the castle, Victoria resumed sprinkling bits of the herbs from the chalice onto the ancient stones they walked on.
The scent of the herbs wafted into the air, mingling with the humidity and a smell Victoria guessed arose from the river water as it continued its assault on the city. Looking out over the edge of the royal route, the rooftops of the buildings and houses in the lower parts of the city appeared as if they were islands in the river. Victoria hardly recognized Prague.
“Look!” Sean pointed across the retaining wall they walked along. “The bridge!” Victoria turned her attention that way. Along with the others, she gasped.
The two ends of the bridge, where it connected the Old Town and the Little Town, were submerged. The towers at each end rose from the rushing water as massive boulders that might interrupt but not stop the great rush of water. The central portion of the bridge rose like a sea serpent from the waves, but only barely. Some of the statues that stood on the balustrade of the bridge were up to their knees in the water while others seemed to be walking on the surface of the current and a few looked down on the torrent from their precarious perches along the central length of the bridge.
“It looks ready to float away!” gasped Sophia.
“It can’t!” Victoria shuddered, frozen with shock. “It has been there forever! What will happen to the city without the bridge?”
There was an uncomfortable silence. “There will be no more city,” Dmitri finally spoke quietly. “Without the protection of the bridge, there will be nothing to stop George—and Svetovit—or whatever other demons he is intending to summon. They will be able to do anything they want. The people will be at their mercy.”
“Then we must awaken the power of the Royal Road and burn that last card before the doors of the cathedral!” insisted Victoria. “We must!” She sprinted ahead of them, shaking herbs from the cup in her hand onto the cobblestones.
The others hurried to keep up with her, not an easy task given the steep hill and the fact that they were all several years older than Victoria. “Victoria! Wait!” Sophia called after their friend as loudly as she dared. “Victoria!”
They caught up with her where she stood before the great gates that opened into the complex series of buildings making up the great castle of Prague. She faced the open gates, clutching the empty chalice in both hands.
“Is it… always open like this?” huffed Dmitri as he came up behind her. Without thinking, they all formed a line before the open ironworks, guarded by great club-wielding stone giants at either end.
“No, it’s not,” answered Victoria. “At this time of the morning, it ought to be closed. And there should be guards on duty.” She pointed to the two guardhouses in the shadow of the giant statues. “Is this more of George’s work? Has he already done something terrible here?”
They all stared a long moment before Dmitri spoke. “No, I don’t think that George has been here. There is no sign of violence or blood. I suspect the guards have all been called away to duty elsewhere in the city, because of the flood.” He gestured down the hill toward the river. “It must be a stroke of luck in our favor, though, that the gates were left standing open. Otherwise, there would have been no way for us to get to the cathedral, correct? The gates would have blocked the end of the Royal Road.”
Everyone else slowly nodded in agreement. “A stroke of luck. Or Providence,” agreed Sophia. “Shall we?” She took a step forward and turned to look at the others.
“Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.” Glancing sideways at his companions as if embarrassed, Theo added softly, “Shakespeare.”
“A man prepared has half fought the battle,” Sean retorted. “Cervantes.”
They stepped through the gates into the empty courtyard beyond.
“Now where?” asked Sean. “Where is the cathedral?”
“This way,” Theo and Victoria answered, both pointing to the left.
Sophia offered the bowl of herbs to Victoria. “There are just enough left for one more cupful,” she announced. She turned the bowl upside down and poured what remained of the crumbled herbal remnants into the chalice Victoria held. Turning left, Victoria poured a thin but steady stream of herbs onto the ground as they walked. But when the last, fragrant motes of herb dust fluttered into the air, she glanced at the priest’s wife, fighting tears.
The older woman wrapped an arm around Victoria’s shoulder. “We must go on, dear. We must go on. We still have the shaker of salt and the card.” Victoria nodded, keeping her eyes on the ground.
Theo took the lead now, since the others knew he had visited the castle complex on previous visits to Prague. He escorted the others through another courtyard, past a chapel that now served as book and gift shop, and turned right before passing through the arches they had been walking toward. Coming through another archway they might have passed without noticing, they found themselves standing before the great bronze doors o
f Saint Vitus’ Cathedral.
“So this is where the Royal Road ends, eh?” Sean asked. Without waiting for a response, he knelt and sprinkled salt from the shaker onto the pavement, making the circle. Dmitri reached towards him, the tarot card and matches in his hand.
“No!” Victoria cried in consternation. “No! This is not the end of the Royal Road! Do not sprinkle the salt here! Don’t!”
“I will draw the circle with the sword,” George continued explaining to Magdalena. “You set the staff there and then take the rooster out of the cage.” He gestured with the sword point at the cage on the luggage cart. Magdalena obediently set the staff down, leaning it upright against the handle of the cart. She dropped her shoulder bag to the ground beside it. The bouquet of yew tumbled out onto the plaza. At the same time, George pulled the scabbard from the blade and dropped it to the ground beside the staff. It clattered against the cobblestones. He lifted the blade so that its tip pointed to the sky. The blade glinted in the dull light drifting from the overcast sky.
George took several steps away from Magdalena, looking around the plaza, judging how large to make the circle he was about to draw. Choosing a place a few more steps away from Magdalena and the rooster, he closed his eyes and drew a deep, slow breath. He touched the point of the sword to the cobblestones and breathed in and out, slow and deep. He began walking to his right, tracing the route as he walked in a fairly large circle with Magdalena, the rooster, and the staff near its center.
If Magdalena had known more about the drawing of magic circles, she would have realized that George was walking widdershins, opposite to the sun’s course across the sky, the hallmark of circles drawn to perform black magic. She would have also realized that the circle he had instructed her to draw in her garden for the hieros gamos rite the night before had also been widdershins, cast for the working of destructive magic. But George knew she only noticed him wielding the great sword with both hands wrapped around the hilt, hacking at the air as he drew the circle around them.
Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy Page 117