by Tim Powers
'Well, no.'
'Then stop acting like a kid who just learned what tripes are.' The old man squinted critically at Duffy. 'I hope you're ready for all this. You ask questions and then get all upset at the beginnings of an answer.'
'I'll be quiet,' Duffy promised.
'Good enough. The man you saw was a ghost. Sorry. When you saw him he was returning to his grave.' He leaned forward again. 'By Llyr, I'm going to give it to you direct - it was the ghost of Finn Mac Cool, returning to whatever remains today of his earthly dust. Finn is buried, you see, six feet directly below that fermenting vat.'
Duffy blinked. 'And there's no bottom to it? He must be absolutely dissolved in beer.
'Right. And the beer upward is saturated with his ...essence and strength, the lower levels most strongly.'
'Then this Dark, being the lowest, must be nearly Finn-broth.'
'Spiritually speaking, that's right,' Aurelianus agreed. 'Though physically it's just unusually heavy, superaged beer. Don't get the idea that it clots, or that we get bones and teeth clogging the spigot.'
'Oh no!' Duffy said airily, though privately resolving never to drink any of it. 'So when is it drawn? I've never heard even a hint of it.'
'That's because the last time the Dark was drawn was in the year 829; when the Sons of poor Emperor Louis were turning against him, as I recall. We'll draw it again on the thirty-first of October of this year. That's right, we let every drop of Dark age seven hundred years.'
'But good Lord,' Duffy exclaimed, 'beer can't age that long. Brandy or claret couldn't age that long.'
'Well,' Aurelianus admitted, 'you can't really call the stuff beer after all that time, that's true. It becomes something else. Something similar in many ways to the wine you drank in Bacchus' tavern, in Trieste. And you
noticed, I assume, that the Dark spigot was only a few inches above the dirt floor? Only the next three or four inches above that are drawn at a time, so the Dark is always a terribly limited quantity.'
'Is there much demand for it?' Duffy asked, certain that there couldn't possibly be.
'Yes.. .but not from beer drinkers. Because of its, ah, source, the Dark is very potent stuff, psychically, spiritually.. .magically. Physically too, as a matter of fact - it often shows levels of alcohol content theoretically impossible from a natural fermentation process. Anyway, yes,, much more demand than the meagre supply can-accommodate. It, in fact, is what Antoku wanted from me - a cupful of it to maintain the life he should have given up a thousand years ago. He was killed as an infant in a Japanese sea-battle, you see. I did let him have a cupful last time -, He halted and glared defensively at Duffy; then smiled awkwardly, coughed and went on. 'In any case, he thinks it is now his right. He is, I'm afraid, incorrect. And all the other Dark Birds, the Ethiopian, the several Hindus, the New World aborigine and the rest of them, they too hope for a sip of it, and some of their cases are nearly as desperate as Antoku's. But they won't get any, either.'
'Who will you give it to?' Duffy asked, beginning in spite of himself to get curious about the brew. After all, he thought, that wine in Trieste was very nice.
'Antoku evidently thinks I intend to give it to you,' said Aurelianus, 'since he set those afrits onto you. Or maybe that was supposed to be a warning to me that he could kill someone even more vital.'
'Uh huh. So who does get it?' Evasion is this man's second nature, the Irishman reflected.
'This time? Our King - the Fisher King. I told you, didn't I, that he's ill? And so is the West. Which way the connection works I'm still not certain, but the connection works I'm still not certain, but the connection unarguably exists; when the King is well, the West is well.'
'And this beer will cure him?' asked Duffy, trying to keep the skepticism out of his voice.
'Yes. Our King is weakened, injured, his strength dissipated - and there's the strength and character of Finn, the first King, in the Dark. He'll be able to put his lands in order again.'
'And you'll draw the stuff in October? Can't you do it a bit early? After all, when you're talking about seven centuries, a few months one way or the other...'
'No,' said Aurelianus. 'It can't be hurried. The cycle has to come round completely, and there are stars and tides and births to be taken into account as much as fermentation and beercraft. On October thirty-first we'll draw the Dark, and not a day before.' He raised worried eyes to Duffy. 'Perhaps you can see now why Ibrahim is so anxious to destroy the brewery before then.'
At two in the morning the remainder of the crowd was sent home, and the lights were put out as the employees, having decided the clean-up could wait until the next morning, stumbled off to bed. Duffy took a walk out back, but all fires had been put out, his northmen snored peacefully in the stable and there was no evidence of smoldering bombs, so he went back inside.
Somehow he wasn't sleepy, in spite of having slept only four hours the night before, and all the drinking and running around of this evening. He sat down at his table in the dark dining room. As usual, he thought, Aurelianus managed to duck the question I most wanted an answer to, which is: Who or what am un this vast scheme? Why has everyone from Ibrahim to Bacchus taken an interest in me?
He silently lifted his chair further back into the shadows
then, for he heard two low voices in the kitchen conversing in Italian.
'Is there any word from Clement?' asked one.
'As a matter of fact,' replied the other, 'it looks like he will send troops this time. He's even trying for some kind of temporary truce with Luther so that the West can unreservedly unite against the Ottoman Empire.'
The two speakers emerged from the kitchen and started up the stairs without noticing Duffy. One was Aurelianus and the other was the swarthy, curly-haired young man, Jock, who'd pulled his hat down over his face when Duffy had passed him earlier in the evening.
Huh! the Irishman thought; didn't Aurelianus tell me in Venice that he didn't speak Italian? And speaking of Venice, it was there I first saw this Jock fellow, who introduced himself, that Ash Wednesday evening, as Giacomo Gritti. What connections are these?
The sorcerer and the young man ascended the stairs, and their whispering voices died away above. Those two are working together, then? Duffy mused. That would explain why young Gritti saved my life and directed me to a safe ship, that morning on the Venice docks, though it certainly doesn't shed any light on the ambush he and his brothers sprang on me the night before. Unless that fight was somehow staged...?
One thing is sure - I've been lied to a number of times, and can't even guess why. I don't like it when strangers pry into my affairs, but I absolutely can't bear it when they know more about my affairs than I do myself.
He stood up and walked to the servants' hall, picking up an empty beer mug on the way.
He placed his feet carefully on the cellar stairs as he descended them so as not to awaken the sleeping Gambrinus, and then padded cautiously across the stone floor to the door the ghost had gone through that afternoon. The hinges must have been recently oiled, for they didn't squeak when the Irishman slowly drew the door open. He groped his way to the huge vat in the pitchy blackness, and then felt for the lowest of the three spigots. It turned grittily when he exerted some strength; then when he judged he'd drawn half a cup he shut the valve and, closing the vat-room behind him, hurried up the stairs to the dining room.
He lit the candle at his table and peered suspiciously at the few ounces of thick black liquid that swirled in the bottom of the mug. Looks pretty vile, he thought. Then he sat down, and even without bringing the cup to his nose be smelled the heady, heavily aromatic bouquet. God bless us, he thought rapturously, this is the nectar of which even the finest, rarest bock in the world is only the vaguest hint. In one long, slow, savoring -swallow he emptied the cup.
His first thought was: Sneak downstairs, Duffy lad, and fill the cup this time. He got to his feet - or tried to, rather, and was only able to shift slightly in his chair. What's this? he
thought apprehensively; I recover from a lifetime's worth of dire wounds only to be paralyzed by a mouthful of beer? He attempted again to heave himself out of the chair, and this time didn't move at all.
Then he was moving - no, being carried. He was exhausted, and a frigid wind hacked savagely through the joints in his plate armor. He rolled over, moaning with the pain in his head.
'Lie still, my King,' came a tense, worried voice.
'You'll only open your wound again if you thrash about so.,
He groped chilly fingers to his head, and felt the great gash in his temple, rough with dried, clotted blood. 'Who.., who has done this?' he gasped.
'Your son, King. But rest easy - you slew him even as he dealt you the blow.'
I'm glad of that, anyway, he thought. 'It's frightful
cold,' he said. 'My feet are as numb as if they belonged to someone else.'
'We'll rest soon,' came the voice of the attendant. 'When we reach the bank of yonder lake.'
He painfully raised his head from the pallet on which he was being carried, and saw ahead a vast, still lake reflecting the full moon. After a while he was set down by his two panting companions, and he could hear water splashing gently among rocks and weeds, and could smell the cold, briny breath of the lake.
'My sword!' he whispered. 'Where is it? Did I -'Here it is.' A heavy hilt was laid in his hand.
'Ah. I'm too weak - one of you must throw it into the lake. It's my last order,' he added when they began to protest. Grudgingly, one of them took the sword and strode away through the shadowy underbrush.
He lay on the ground, breathing carefully, wishing his heart wouldn't pound so. My rushing blood is sure to force the wound open again, he thought, and I'll die soon enough even without that.
The attendant came back. 'I've done as you said, Sire.'
Like hell, he thought. 'Oh? And what did you see when you threw it in?'
'See? A splash. And then just ripples.'
'Go back, and this time do as I said.'
The man shambled away again, confused and embarrassed. It's the jewels in the hilt, the dying man thought. He can't bear to think of them at the bottom of the lake.
The attendant looked subdued and scared when he returned this time. '1 did it, Sire.'
'What did you see?'
'A hand and arm rose out of the water and caught the sword by the grip, before it could splash, whirled the sword three times in the air, and then withdrew below the surface.'
'Ah.' He relaxed at last. 'Thank you. I want to leave no debts.'
A boat rocked at the edge of the water now, and a woman in muddy shoes leaned worriedly over him.
'Our son has killed me,' he told her, controlling his chattering teeth long enough to speak the sentence.
'Put him aboard my boat,' she said. 'He's not long for this world.'
He awoke frightened, on a hardwood floor, not daring to move for fear of attracting the notice of something he couldn't name. It was dark, and he didn't want to rouse his memory. Whatever has happened, he thought, whatever this place is, whatever is the name of my enemy - and myself - I'm better off ignorant of them. If I know nothing, admit nothing, acknowledge nothing, perhaps they'll leave me alone at last, and let me sleep. He drifted again into treasured oblivion.
* * *
Chapter Thirteen
'Insensibly drunk! I expected it, of course. And on my beer, which I daresay you neglected to pay for, eh?'
Duffy opened his eyes and blinked up at Werner. He tried to speak, but produced only a grating moan; which was just as well, since he'd intended to voice only reflexive abuse. The Irishman loathed waking up on The floor, for one couldn't, in that situation, pull the covers up and postpone arising. One had immediately to get up and begin dealing with things.
Getting to his feet proved a little easier than he'd expected. 'Shut up, Werner,' he said quietly. 'Don't mess about in things that don't concern you. And tell one of the girls to bring me a big breakfast.' Werner just stared at him, anger growing in his face like a spark on a fur cloak. 'Did you even hear,' Duffy went on, 'about the siege gun somebody tried to blow this place up with last night? If it hadn't been for those Vikings in the stable, you and the rest of the city's dogs would right now be scavenging through a rubble pile on this spot.' Werner looked only bewildered now. 'Your beer,' Duffy added contemptuously, shambling to his table and collapsing into a chair.
Like a man beaten by bandits who sits up in the ditch later and feels for broken teeth or ribs, the Irishman gingerly prodded his memories. I'm Brian Duffy, he thought with cautious satisfaction, and I'm in love with Epiphany Vogel and employed by Aurelianus. It's the day after Easter, 1529. I'm Brian Duffy, and no one else. His breakfast and Lothario Mothertongue arrived simultaneously. Duffy concentrated on the former.
'Brian,' Mothertongue said, tossing his cloak across a bench and rubbing his chilly hands together, 'the time draws nigh. I am gathering my knights about me once more. And,' he smiled graciously, 'there is a place for you at my new round table. I heard of your courageous behavior last night.' He turned a speculative eye on the Irishman. 'Tell me, do you feel anything, any long-lost echoes, when
I say the name... Tristan?'
Duffy, his mouth full, shook his head.
'Are you sure?' Mothertongue went on, his voice tight with an intensity of emotion. 'Tristan! Tristan!' He leaned forward and shouted in the Irishman's face, 'Can you hear me, Tristan?'
Duffy seized a bowl of milk from the table and flung it into Mothertongue's face. 'Snap out of it, Lothario,' he said.
Mothertongue got to his feet, outraged and dripping. 'I was wrong,' he hissed. 'There's no place in Camelot for you. I don't know who you may once have been, but your soul is now polluted and corrupt, a swamp wherein crawl mind-adders.
Duffy wanted to be angry, but was laughing too hard. 'By God,' he gasped finally, 'it was looking like a gloomy day till you showed up, Lothario! Mind-adders, hey? Ho ho.' Mothertongue turned and stalked out of the room.
Shrubs came dashing in as Duffy was polishing off the last of his black bread. 'Mr Duffy,' he said. 'Was there really a swordfight in here last night?'
'No. Not while I was sober enough to notice, anyway.'
'There was a Turkish bomb out back, though, wasn't there?'
'I guess you could say so. How does the yard look this morning?'
'Like a battlefield. That burned-up wagon is sitting right in the middle like a black whale-skeleton, and there's dried blood on the cobblestones, and Mr Wendell's leather shop and warehouse are kicked to bits. He's real mad. Says Aurelianus is going to pay through the nose.' The image obviously impressed Shrub.
'Ah. No other damages, I trust?'
'No. Well, some kids were up on the roof, I think. Messing around.'
'Kids? Did you see them?'
'No, but there's little faces carved all over the roof, and stars and crosses and Latin words written in chalk on the walls.'
'Well, get a couple of the other boys, fill some buckets and climb up there and wash as much of it off as you can, will you? I suppose -'No, don't, Shrub,' interrupted Aurelianus, who had padded up behind Duffy's chair. 'Leave those markings alone, and don't let anyone try to clean them off.'
'Yes, sir,' Shrub nodded, and darted through the kitchen door, eager to leave with the easier order.
Duffy looked up as Aurelianus pulled out the bench Mothertongue had vacated; the old man was paler than usual, but his eyes glittered with extraordinary vitality, and his black clothes seemed to fit his narrow frame better today. 'May I sit down?' he asked.
'Of course. Why leave those drawings on the walls?'
'Why leave your armor on in a fight?' He let out a bark of laughter. 'After all the trouble you and I went to, down below, to summon guards, do you want to erase their warding marks? Be satisfied with human adversaries - you wouldn't want to take on the... creatures that are repelled by those runes and cantrips and faces.'
'Oh.' The Irishman scow
led. 'Well, for matter of that, I don't feel like taking anybody on, these days.'
Aurelianus laughed again, as if Duffy had made a joke. 'Eat up, there,' he said. 'I figure you and I can ride out this morning and bring the King inside.'
'An interesting idea,' said the Irishman, 'but no, I'm afraid not this morning. I don't feel well, and I'm supposed to visit Epiphany's crazy old father.' Actually he had no plans for the morning, and would have preferred nearly any activity to calling on the old painter - especially after having suffered those lake-hallucinations at his boarding house three days ago - but he wanted to test Aurelianus, see how much latitude and freedom his new position was to allow him.
'Well, I guess it doesn't matter too much,' said the old sorcerer with a shrug.
Duffy was pleased. I'm my own man at last, he thought.
'That's Gustav Vogel, isn't it?' Aurelianus asked suddenly. 'I remember him. He did me quite a service at one time - it's one reason I'm helping his poor daughter. Is he doing any paintings these days?'
Duffy thought about it. He couldn't remember the old artist working on anything but that pen-and-ink wall drawing. 'No...' he began.
'I didn't think so,' interrupted Aurelianus, who seemed to have no patience with slow speech this morning. 'But this is beside the point. I told you I've got a sword to replace the one you broke two days ago; come up to my room now and take a look at it.'
'You can't bring it down here?'
Aurelianus was already on his feet. 'No,' he said cheerfully.
Duffy stood and began unsteadily to follow the old man up the stairs. The action reminded him of having seen Aurelianus with Giacomo Gritti the night before, and he halted. 'Didn't you tell me in Venice that you can't speak Italian?' he asked suspiciously.
'Why are you stopping? I don't know; I may have. Why?'
'What's your connection with Giacomo Gritti? Or Jock, as you call him now? I saw you chatting with him last night. You had better tell me the truth this time, too.'