The Alexei-wolf threw himself toward the window, but rather than crashing through the glass, he was thrown back across the room with such force that the plaster cracked with the impact. Howling with rage, the wolf threw himself at the window again, only to be rebuffed again and tossed across the room, as the wolf himself might toss a piece of the kindling across the floor.
Pacing back and forth, the wolf devised a new strategy. If the window was unbreakable, he would escape out the door. He backed up and then took a running leap at the door.
In the hallway, men saw the wooden planks of the door buckle but hold fast as the great beast threw himself against it. “Hear the whimpers?” guests whispered to one another. “It must have injured itself!” Twice more the door buckled, and no one understand how it could continue to withstand such impact. Shrieks echoed up and down the stairway as guests expected the great beast to come bursting through the door into the hallway in a murderous rage.
“Make way, make way!” called the innkeeper as he clambered up the stairway, pushing his way through the growing crowd of curious thrill-seekers and frightened guests. He shook his ring of keys in the faces of those who would not listen and was finally able to find himself standing outside the door of the room he had rented to the Estonian.
He joined the others pounding on the door and calling Alexei’s name. Hearing no response other than the snarling of the animal on the other side, he hesitated. “But the Estonian had seemed a decent man,” the innkeeper thought. Had the pompous would-be magician that he knew Alexei had located given him a potion that had driven the poor man mad? The key turned in the lock and the crowd in the hall and on the stairs shrieked as they attempted to both lean forward into the room to see and pull back closer to the walls for safety to avoid the reach of whatever it was on the other side.
So great was the crush of those on the landing that several men, the innkeeper among them, tumbled into the room as the door opened. Their own cries of dismay added to the confusion. Hands reached everywhere, grabbing for something that would steady them on their feet. Someone reached up and closed his fingers around the holly hanging above the doorframe, crying out in shock as it pricked his palm. He dropped the holly and several others trampled it underfoot.
In the flickering gaslight they saw the great wolf before them. There was no sign of either Alexei or any of the thieves the crowd had imagined must be in the guestroom. Only the great wolf, slowly backing away from the door, his great lips curled back in a snarl as the sharp fangs glinted and drool dripped onto the floor. Torn sheets and broken wood were everywhere.
Then, suddenly, the wolf jumped at the men in the doorway and hurtled over them and down the stairs. Real panic broke out then, as the wolf’s claws scratched those backs and shoulders he scrambled across. He ran down the stairs and out into the night, leaving the pandemonium of the inn behind.
Leaping into the air, the werewolf knew immediately where he had to go, and in a few moments came crashing through the tall windows of Timotej’s house. Dazed from smashing through the glass, the wolf shook his head and looked around.
Alexei had expected to see the study again, but he had come through a different set of windows and saw the great four-poster bed of the magician, hung with damask and silken bed curtains. There was the sound of a man stirring into sudden wakefulness within the bed curtains and a face emerged.
The wolf howled and leapt at the man in the bed, who began shrieking uncontrollably. Afraid he might kill the magician, Alexei caught himself with the man’s nightshirt in his teeth and growled quietly. The man fainted as servants, hearing the commotion, burst into the bedroom. Alexei turned to face this new complication, the nightshirt still in his teeth and the unconscious magician slumped against his front legs.
Cudgels and knives were waving before him, but the werewolf could see the maid, holding a candlestick, in the back of the crowd of servants. A quiet snarl rumbled in the werewolf’s chest as wolf and humans faced each other, each afraid of what the other might do.
After a moment, the werewolf gently set down the nightshirt, allowing the man within it to lie flat on his coverlet. The wolf sat back on his haunches and lifted a paw, making a clumsy gesture.
The servants were transfixed as they saw the fur peel away from the wolf, leaving a frightened, naked man in its place. The crouching man froze, and the tableau remained unchanged from what it had been a moment ago, except that there was no wolf now.
Someone stirred in the back of the crowd of servants. The maid came forward, holding the light ahead of her, sure that she recognized the man who crouched over Timotej. It was the man with the vlkodlak. Rather, it was the man who clearly was a vlkodlak himself. She pulled one of the blankets from the bed and draped it around the poor, frightened man’s shoulders.
“Come with me.” She took his hand and the man slowly followed her lead. She got him off the bed and then led him through the servants, who parted to allow him to pass. The maid gave instructions that Timotej should be brought to the study when he awoke, and then led her trembling charge there. She sat him in the same chair he had occupied before and went to fetch a pot of tea. When she returned, the man still sat there, wrapped in the blanket. He shivered, but whether from chill or fright, she could not tell.
She poured them each a cup of tea. Then they sat. Waited. In mutual silence, sipping their tea occasionally. The man seemed grateful for her presence. She was simply glad no one had been hurt in the bedroom. They waited. Although the heavy drapes covered the study windows, the sky outside grew gradually less dark. Almost bright, even. Dawn kissed Prague.
At last Timotej was brought into the study as well, shuffling along in his slippers with a robe hastily thrown over his nightshirt. The man who led in Timotej stood awkwardly until Timotej dismissed him with a wave of his hand. The maid, catching herself sitting in the master’s chair, leapt up, but he waved her back down into the seat. He pulled up another chair and settled himself in it, one hand astride each of his knees. Alexei looked into his lap. Magician and maid looked at Alexei.
Alexei broke the silence first. “Twice I have come to you, magician, seeking deliverance from this awful curse. Twice I have begged for your assistance and twice you have failed to deliver me from the suteksäija—” Alexei burst into sobs.
“Twice? My friend, I recall you coming to my home but once—” Timotej began, but was cut short by the maid.
“Yes, you did come here twice. You gave the werewolf skin to my master, yes? The second time, I gave you the dill and the holly for protection, yes?”
Timotej and Alexei seemed to both realize what had happened, that she had acted on her own authority, posing as if acting on Timotej’s instructions. Silence, as the two men appreciated the woman’s intuition.
“Tonight…” prompted the maid.
Alexei fought tears. “The dill and holly served me as you had anticipated,” he finally choked out. “The transformation overcame me in my sleep, as it did before, but tonight I was unable to escape the room. I tried to break through the window, as I must have done before, but the holly trapped me there until the innkeeper unlocked the door. Then I burst out of the room, before someone could pick up the fallen holly, and came to the one place I thought might be safe. I came to the person I hoped could deliver me.” He took a deep breath. He looked at both the maid and her master, turning from one to the other.
Timotej exchanged glances with the maid. Clearly he could never admit that her intuition had proved more beneficial to Alexei than his instructions. Still, she knew he studied all the best of the occult handbooks, and should be able to follow them to perform an act that was certainly beyond her meager abilities. It might even accomplish what was intended. Timotej seemed to come to the same conclusion. He stood and looked down at Alexei, still shivering in the blanket.
“Saturday night is the time associated with dark magic and destruction. The sun has been sliding from the fiery lion among the stars into the sign of Virgo, the earthy vi
rgin associated with Persephone who governs mutation and change. But it is now Sunday, and the moon is waxing. At noon, I can perform a grand exorcism that should banish the werewolf from your life forever. You will lose all the powers of the werewolf, particularly flight and strength. You must be certain that this is what you desire,” Timotej announced in his grandest, most patriarchal, most kouzelnik-like voice. “As certain as your grandfather was that he wanted these skills to protect your village,” Timotej added, remembering that detail from the tale he had heard in the study more than a fortnight before.
“I do.” Alexei stood resolutely, wrapped in the blanket as if it were a classical toga.
“Then you must begin by bathing in water and dill.” He looked to the maid. “Take our friend here and see to it. Cold, fresh water. Bring him back here just before noon.”
She nodded and led Alexei from the study, bringing the tea tray, loaded with dill fronds. She hoped that Timotej knew what he was about to embark on.
She led Alexei downstairs, through the kitchen, into the small courtyard behind the house. There she indicated the large basin used for washing and vigorously swung the iron pump next to it. Water gushed into the great tub and she tore the dill into fragments floating on the surface.
“You heard the master.” She reached for the blanket, which the man clung to for a moment. It was bright daylight now and he seemed anxious, looking around him.
The maid guessed what was going through Alexei’s mind. “I will hold the blanket for you,” she offered gently. She held the hem of the fabric and Alexei gradually released his hold. She turned her face and heard the man step into the water, heard his gasp as the cold splashed up along his thighs, and then the splash as he submerged himself in the green-flecked water. Then his breath was expelled as he burst again up into the air. It would have been amusing if it were not so serious. She offered him the blanket as he stepped out onto dry ground again, specks of dill clinging to his glistening skin.
“It will be noon soon enough. Come into the kitchen and have a bite to eat in the meantime.” She led him back into the kitchen, where she clattered about and assembled a small plate of bread and cheese and another pot of tea.
“Stay here. I’ll be back to fetch you as the master instructed.” The maid went off to dress herself and face the rest of the strange day, leaving Alexei wrapped in the sodden blanket, slowly eating. Other servants came and went, but she knew that no one spoke to him. Some likely feared him. Some pitied him. All were confused with wonderment. Like the maid, they had seen magic happen upstairs.
Near noon, dressed in her cap and dress, her hands in the pockets of her great apron, the maid returned. “It is time,” she said simply. Alexei gathered the blanket around him and followed her back to the study upstairs.
The study had been rearranged in Alexei’s absence. All the furniture had been pushed back along the walls and bookcases. The carpets were rolled up along the base of one bookcase. Timotej stood barefoot in the midst of the room, wearing a white robe similar to a nightshirt. He held the knife that the maid had used to cut the dill and holly, as well as a length of string. There were four burning candles set on a nearby table and an open book, which Timotej had evidently been consulting all morning. On a round wooden tray there was a pot of red paint and a brush, an ornate silver cup, and a short staff. A pewter bowl sat on a ceramic tile, chunks of charcoal burning lazily within it, set nearby as well.
“Stand there.” Timotej indicated a point in the middle of the floor. Alexei stepped to where he was directed, the soggy toga still wrapped around him. The blanket snagged on a crooked nail, leaning jauntily out of the floor surface, and Alexei straddled the rust-covered extrusion. Timotej curtly nodded to the maid, dismissing her. Despite his love of an audience at what she was sure would be his first successful act of ceremonial magic, he must have decided that his reputation would be better served by stressing his mysterious authority. Reluctantly, she left the room. The door latched behind her but, once away from Timotej’s gaze, she stopped and turned. Kneeling at the door, she peered through the keyhole, hoping to catch a glimpse of what was about to unfold. One or two of the other servants appeared in the hallway behind her.
Timotej tied one end of the string to the handle of the knife in his hand, then tied the other end to the nail between Alexei’s feet. Pulling the string taut, Timotej traced a wide circle with the knife point around himself and Alexei. Releasing the string from the nail, Timotej placed the knife and string on the table and took up the candles, one by one. Checking a small compass, he placed each candle on the floor along the circle he had scratched in the finish of the wood. The four candles, placed north-east-west-south, were dim in the sunlight that streamed through the window.
Timotej took the pot of paint and brush and squatted beside Alexei’s feet, brushing the paint in three widely spaced lines that formed a triangle. Standing with a grunt and a push, Timotej gave another instruction: “Make sure you stay inside that dreieck, Alexei. No matter what else happens, keep your feet within the triangle.” Alexei nodded. Timotej replaced the paint and brush on the table and picked up his knife again. Untangling and then removing the string, he then used the blade to retrace the triangle around Alexei’s feet, muttering, “I painted the outline of the triangle so you would make no mistake.” He reiterated his earlier warning: “Keep your feet within it.”
Watching the scene in the study unfold as best she could through the keyhole, the maid was both annoyed and curious. “He breaks the circle too often,” she thought, losing track of the many times Timotej reached across the edge of the circle he had inscribed on the floor to fetch items from the table. Although she had never seen her aunt perform such a ceremony, there were certain basic practices that seemed obvious to the maid, feeling her feet grow numb as she squatted there. The men behind her, growing more curious themselves, drew near and attempted to peer around her through the keyhole.
Alexei could sense a powerful charge building in the room. Something was clearly about to happen. “I hope this is finally what you sent me here to find,” he whispered to his grandparents.
Timotej cast a spoonful of something onto the charcoal, sending a cloud of fragrant smoke hissing into the air. Taking up the knife again, he approached Alexei and, lifting a lock of his wet hair, cut it away—with some difficulty, causing Alexei to jerk his head back with a small cry and glare at the aristocrat. Separating the hair into two thin strands, Timotej cast one onto the charcoal, and the odor of burning hair slowly mingled with the fragrant smoke that still burst in intermittent clouds from the pewter bowl.
Bringing the ornate cup to Alexei next, Timotej directed him: “Drink this.” Alexei took a hesitant sip of the liquid in the cup. Discovering it was spiced wine, fruity and pungent, he finished it quickly. Timotej took back the cup and then brought the staff from the tray.
The wine had rushed to Alexei’s head, causing him to feel slightly dizzy. Timotej, both hands raised over his head, circled Alexei. The staff, in one hand, swatted Alexei’s backside. Between his shoulder blades. Along his shoulders. Across his chest. Across his stomach. In the back of his knees. Not painful, but hard enough to get his attention. Certainly hard enough to cause a brawl, if Timotej had dared to do such a thing in a tavern.
All the while, Alexei could hear Timotej muttering strange names and phrases under his breath. Names of powerful angels or spirits, Alexei supposed. Angels powerful enough to drive the wolf magic from him, even as Timotej beat it from him.
Continuing his muttering and whispering, Timotej cut a small length from the twine on the table and retrieved the remaining strands of Alexei’s hair. Lodging the staff in a pocket of the white robe, he brought the twine and hair to Alexei. He tied the end of the hair to the end of the twine and gave the small knot to Alexei. As Alexei watched, Timotej braided the hair and string, tying a knot every few passes of the hair around the string.
Something changed in the air. Power surged around Timotej and Alexei.
Although neither Timotej’s robe nor Alexei’s blanket stirred, what felt like a great wind rushed about in the magic circle. Alexei, careful to keep his feet within the triangle, felt buffeted by both the wind around him and the wine within him. The wind seemed to be twisting and circling about the men in the center, becoming quicker, more forceful as the braiding of hair and string neared its conclusion. With a triumphant exclamation, in a single motion Timotej tied the final knot of the ligature and struck Alexei across the back of the knees one last time. Striding across the floor, he dropped the braid into the cup and then tipped the cup, with its remaining drops of wine and the braid, onto the charcoal, adding another spoonful of the incense. He turned back as Alexei felt himself surrounded by tendrils of smoke.
“The hair should have been cut before the triangle was etched,” the maid commented crossly to the servant men behind her. The men were unsure what she was referring to. The maid watched a bit, then criticized another step in Timotej’s performance of the exorcism. “The hair ought to have all been either burnt or braided, not both.”
Alexei seemed to be growing more unsteady on his feet, whether from the effects of the wine or the power twisting itself around him, the maid was unsure. One of the serving men, knowing how little Alexei had been given to eat that morning, nudged his companion’s ribs with his elbow and both smiled.
The smoke curled more tightly about Alexei’s legs. Alexei showed increasing signs of discomfort, then pain as the seemingly fragile, immaterial ropes wrapped ever tighter. He cringed, bending double and pounding his ears with his fists.
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