Drawing of the Dark

by Tim Powers

  'What is it?' Duffy repeated.

  'To the handful who know of it it's know as Didius' Dire Gambit Overwhelming; it was discovered by a Roman sorcerer roughly a thousand years ago, and it has been hesitantly preserved and recopied through the centuries by a few notably educated and unprincipled men. It has never actually been used. At the present time I believe there are only two copies of the procedure in the world -one is said to exist in the most restricted vault of the Vatican Library, and one -' he pointed at his bookcase, 'is in a very old manuscript there.' The Irishman started to speak, but Aurelianus raised a hand for silence. 'The action that opens the gates for this dreadful aid is, baldly stated, the blood sacrifice of one thousand baptized souls.'

  Duffy blinked. 'Oh. I see.'

  'It could be done, of course. I imagine I could exert all my influence and trickery and engineer a suicide charge of a thousand men, and then watch from the battlements as they died, and pronounce the secret words. And it would certainly save Vienna.. .from the Turks. I think, though, that it would be better to die clean, without such assistance. A black gambit like that would ruin the soul of the sorcerer who performed it - among other effects, I'd likely be nothing but a drooling idiot afterward - but more importantly, it would taint the entire West. A connoisseur would be able to taste the difference in the very beer.'

  Duffy drained his glass again. 'I notice,' he said finally, 'that you.. .haven't destroyed your copy of the thing.'

  Aurelianus didn't answer, just gave him a cold stare. 'Do I tell you how to grip a sword?'

  'Not lately. Sorry.'

  In the awkward silence that followed, Duffy refilled his

  glass yet again, and took a healthy swig. Good stuff, he told himself, this Spanish brandy. He sat back in his chair and had another sip. Yes sir, truly excellent...

  For several minutes Aurelianus puffed on the short stub of the burning snake and stared at the snoring Irishman with a dissatisfied air. Finally it was too short to hold comfortably and he ground it out in the open mouth of a stone gargoyle's head on the table. He was about to awaken Duffy and send him back toward the barracks when the Irishman's eyes opened and looked at him, alertly and with no sign of drunkenness. He looked carefully around the room, then just as carefully at his own hands.

  When he spoke to Aurelianus it was in a Dumnoiic Celtic dialect. 'I was wondering when I'd meet you,' he said, 'I've been drifting back into wakefulness for some time now.' He smacked his lips. 'What the hell have I been drinking?'

  'Distillate of wine,' Aurelianus said. 'Are you Brian Duffy at all?'

  'Not at the moment. Did.. .did I dream a conversation with you, Merlin, in which you offered me the sword Calad Bolg and I refused it?'

  'No, That occurred - right in this room a little more than five months ago.'

  'Oh? It seems more recent. I wasn't quite awake, I think. I could remember and recognize things, but not control my speech.'

  'Yes. It was still mostly Brian Duffy, but there was enough of you present to give him inexplicable memories ...and thoroughly upset him, incidentally.'

  'I know. Before that I had been dreaming, over and over, of the end things before - that last cold night beside the lake. Then afterward there was that fight in the forest

  - I was fully awake then, but very briefly. I saw you, but was snatched away before we could speak.'

  'He's been out of my sight for the last several months. Have you been completely awake at any time since that day?'

  'I seem to recall waking up in the night three or four times, seeing torches and sentries and then going back to sleep. I don't know when - they could even be memories from my.. .life. And then last night I found myself in a soldiers' tavern, and wound up playing a harp and leading them in one of the old, heartening songs. They all knew lyrics for it, in one language or another - things like that never really change.' He smiled. 'And here lam now with, evidently, time to talk. What are the stakes and how do they stand?'

  'Let's see, what terms shall I use?' For a full minute he sat silent, his fingertips pressed together; then he leaned forward, and in the rolling syllables of a tremendously old precursor of the Norse language, asked, 'Do you remember, Sigmund, the sword you pulled from the Branstock Oak?'

  Duffy's face had turned pale, and when he spoke it was still in the Celtic. 'That.. .that was a long time ago,' he stammered.

  'Longer than I like to think about,' Aurelianus agreed, also in the Celtic. 'But what's happening now is something we saw coming then.'

  Duffy was sweating. 'Do you want me to.. .withdraw, and let him surface? I fear it has been too long - I don't think there is much of him left - but I'll try if you say to.'

  'No, Arthur, relax. You have most of his important memories, I think, and that will do. You see, it may be want maps of the local terrain, and an accounting of last. The entire West - which means more than you know - is menaced and tottering, and for what it's worth I think this is the battle we heard prophecies of so long ago.'

  The Irishman had got his color back, though he still looked shaky. 'Do you mean.. .actually... that Surter from the far fiery south...?'

  'His name is Suleiman.'

  '...and a horde of Muspelheimers...'

  'They call themselves mussulmen.'

  'And they are menacing.. .who? The Aesir? The Celts?'

  'Aye, and the Gauls and the Saxons and the Romans and everyone else west of Austria, which is where we are.'

  Duffy frowned. 'We fight in Austria? Defending Saxons? Why don't we fall back and fortify our own lands, so as to be ready for them when they get there?'

  'Because if they crash through here there may not be enough stones in all of England to build a wall they couldn't shatter. We can't let them work up the momentum. And they induct and train as soldiers the children of conquered nations, so the families we'd pass in our retreat would be the source of men we'd have to fight someday.' The old man sighed. 'It may indeed prove necessary to abandon Vienna and fall back - but it would be like falling back from the sundered walls of a castle to defend the keep itself. It's, not a move you'd make if there was any choice

  'I see. Very well, then, we fight them here. I'll want maps of the local terrain, and an accounting of our army and a history of how the siege has gone so far. We do have cavalry, don't we? I could lead them in a -'

  'It's trickier than that, Arthur,' Aurelianus interrupted gently. 'Listen - can you hover, awake, just below the surface of Duffy's mind, so that you could take over if I called you?'

  'I think so. He might sense me, of course. You have a plan, do you?'

  'Oh, no, no. I do have one option, but it's a thing,' and suddenly he looked old and frightened, 'it's a thing I'd.. .almost.. .rather die than do.'

  Duffy's knees popped as his body stood up. 'It sounds like sorcery, and it sounds like something better left alone.' He walked to the door. 'It's late - I'll let you get some sleep. I think I'll walk around the city for a while.'

  'You don't speak the language. Wait until morning and I'll give you a tour.'

  'I think I'll manage well enough.' He smiled, opened the door and was gone.

  * * *

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rain swept in wide sheets along the cobbled avenues, and the splashed-up mist on the stones as each gust went by looked like waves. The air in the Zimmermann dining room was a marbling of cold drafts carrying the dry-wine scent of wet streets and hot stale air smelling of grease and wet clothing.

  At a small, otherwise unoccupied table in the kitchen-side corner, Lothario Mothertongue dipped black bread into a bowl of hot chicken broth, and chewed it slowly. His eyes were anxious as they followed the frequently interrupted course of the new serving girl. Finally as she was moving past him he caught her elbow. 'Excuse me, miss. Doesn't Epiphany Hallstadt usually work this shift?'

  'Yes, and I wish she was here this morning. I can't handle all this alone. Let go.'

  Mothertongue ignored the order. 'Where is she?'

  'I don'
t know. Let go.'

  'Please, miss.' He stared up at her earnestly. 'I have to know.'

  'Ask Anna, then. Anna told Mrs Hallstadt something that made her upset, early this morning. And Mrs Hallstadt ran out without even taking off her apron. He may be dead, she yelled, and just ran out.'

  'Who may be dead?'

  'I don't know,' With the last word she yanked her arm free of his grip and flounced off.

  Mothertongue got up and went looking for Anna. He was ordered out of the kitchen by the cooks, and earned

  a few impatient curses by staying long enough to make sure she wasn't in there; he opened the side door and peered up and down the rain-veiled alley; he even barged in on a no doubt glittering conversation between Kretchmer and Werner in the wine cellar, and was rudely told to leave. When he returned to his table he saw her helping the new girl carry trays.

  He waited until she was nearby, then called to her. 'Anna! Where is Epiphany?'

  'Excuse me, gentlemen. She's off visiting her father, Lothario, and I don't know where he lives, so leave me alone, hm? Now then, sirs, what was it you wanted?'

  For several minutes Mothertongue sat dejected, reflexively looking up every time he heard the front door creak open. After a while a tall man came in, his hair plastered down by the rain, and Mothertongue recognized Brian Duffyand waved, a little reluctantly. He pursed his lips then, for Duffy had returned the wave and was crossing the room toward him.

  'Hello, Brian,' he said when the Irishman stood over him. 'I don't suppose you'd know where Epiphany's father lives, would you? Or that you'd tell me, if you did?'

  The Irishman sat down, eyed him narrowly and said something in a language Mothertongue didn't understand. Mothertongue cocked his head and raised his eyebrows, and Duffy frowned with concentration, then spoke again in Latin. In spite of an unusual accent the Englishman was able to understand it. 'You seem unhappy, friend,' Duffy had said. 'What troubles you?'

  'I'm worried about Mrs Hallstadt. She's been -'In Latinae.'

  Mothertongue stared in surprise at Duffy, trying to decide whether or not he was being made fun of. The intentness of Duffy's gaze reassured him, and though still .puzzled he began to speak haltingly in Latin. 'Uh . . .1 am

  concerned about Epiphany. She has been feeling bad lately, and then - I am sure unintentionally - you upset her yesterday morning by abruptly reappearing after an absence of many months. Now she has evidently received some bad news about her father, whom she has gone to see, and I would like to be with her in this crisis.

  'Ah. You care for this woman, do you?'

  Mothertongue looked at him cautiously. 'Well.., yes. Why, do you - still have affection for her?'

  The Irishman smiled. 'Still? I see. Uh, no, not the sort you mean, though I naturally have a high regard for.. .the woman. I am glad she has found as worthy a man as yourself to be concerned for her.'

  'Why, thank you, Brian, it is good of you to be that way about it, rather than.. .be some other way. Damn this language. It has all looked completely hopeless to me of late, but perhaps something can still be salvaged of the old order.'

  'The old order?' Two citizens shambled past, gawking at these men speaking church language.

  'Yes. Perhaps.. .perhaps you remember certain hints I was making, when I first got here, this last spring.'

  'Remind me.'

  'Well, certain powerful authorities have summoned me

  -, His face had begun to brighten, how now it fell. 'But they might better have saved the effort. It has all failed.'

  Why don't you just tell it to me.'

  'I will. It's an outmoded secret now. I - he looked up, with a certain battered dignity. 'I am the legendary King Arthur, re-born.'

  Duffy's gray eyebrows were as high as they could get. 'Would you please repeat that, giving special care to your use of the verb?'

  Mothertongue repeated it as before 'I know how

  fantastic that sounds, and I doubted it myself for years; but a number of visions, supplemented with a lot of logical reasoning, finally convinced me. As a matter of fact, I was aware that Arthur had come back long before I deduced that it was I. I believe several of my men have been re-born as well, and that some high power intended us to meet and lead the way to a final dispersal of the Turks.' He shook his head. 'But it has failed. I found the men, but was unable to awaken the older souls in them. I told my secret to Count von Salm, and offered to assume command of a part of the army, and I was actually mocked -actually laughed at and ordered to leave.' Mothertongue waved in the direction of the door. 'And then, idle here in my defeat, I noticed Epiphany. I happened to look in her eyes one day, and got a conviction as clear as my first convictions that Arthur had been re-born - I suddenly knew that this woman had known Arthur very well.' He shrugged. 'Need I say more?'

  'Just a bit, if you would.'

  'She is Guinevere. The gods are kind! I was unable to awaken the dormant souls of my men with a call to duty, but I think I can awaken her soul with love.'

  The Irishman stared at him with the wondering respect one feels for a child who has done some tremendously difficult, absolutely pointless thing. 'I wish you well,' he said.

  'Thank you, Brian! I would like to say I am sorry for the way I -'

  He was interrupted by a sudden jolt and rumble that seemed to come up through the floor. Duffy's face changed in an instant, and he leaped up and sprinted to the front door, wrenched it open and stood there listening. Several patrons cringed at the gust of cold air and the louder hiss of the rain, but nobody dared voice any objections. After several seconds another sound cut through the rain: the strident clangor of the alarum bells in the tower of .St Stephen's.

  'My God,' Duffy breathed, speaking contemporary Austrian for the first time that day. 'That was the wall'

  He ran back through the dining room, flinging several people out of his way, through the steamy kitchen and out the back door into the yard; splashing across to the stables, he dragged a reluctant mare out of the shelter, leaped and scrabbled up onto the creature's bare back, and rode her out to the street, goading her to a gallop when they reached the south-ward-stretching, rain-swept expanse of the Rotenturmstrasse.

  The echoing pandemonium of the bells was deafening as he drummed past the cathedral square. Though the rain was thrashing down out of the gray sky as hard as ever, quite a number of people were kneeling on the pavement. Make it count, you silly bastards, he thought grimly. If ever there was a morning for a high-density volley of prayers, this is the one.

  Soon he could hear the thousand-throated roar of battle, and he had taken a left turn and ridden half-way down a narrower, slanting street when he saw ahead of him, dimly through the curtains of rain, half of a great, ragged-edged gap in the high wall, and a maelstrom of men surging back and forth over the hills of rubble. Even from this distance he could see the white robes of the Janissaries. 'Holy God,' he murmured, then whirled out his sword and put his heels to the mare's flanks.

  The Viennese forces had been assembled within minutes of the mine-detonations, and were now grouped in two tightly packed divisions, trying by sheer weight and advancing force to drive back the waves of wailing Janissaries. This was desperate, hacking savagery, in which there was no thought except to press forward and kill. Long gone was the almost formal restraint of yesterday afternoon's sortie. A culverin hastily loaded with

  scrap metal and gravel had been unbolted from its moorings and was being awkwardly manhandled by a dozen men along the top of the wall toward the jagged edge, where it could be re-positioned to blast its charge down into the massed Turks; but the rain made the use of matchlocks impossible - point and edge were the order of the day, with all the bloody intimacy of hand-to-hand combat.

  Duffy charged headlong into one of the peripheral skirmishes that were clogging the wall street to the north of the main fighting. He parried a scimitar and then chopped down into a Janissary's shoulder, and the force of the swing sent him tumbling off the back of the wet hors
e so that he rode the Turk's body to the ground. Rolling to his feet with the sword he somehow hadn't dropped, he waded into the męlée with wide-eyed abandon.

  For ten minutes the battle raged at a maniacal pitch, like a bonfire into which both were throwing every bit of fuel they could find. The culverin was wedged into an adequate position on the crumbled lip of the wall, and two men were hunched over the breech, trying to ignite the charge.

  A blade rang off the slightly too large casque Duffy had earlier snatched from the head of a slain soldier, and the helmet skewed around so that one eye was covered and the other blocked by the chin-guard. With a yell of mingled rage and fright, the Irishman ducked his head and dove at his assailant, both his weapons extended. The scimitar edge, being whipped back into line, grated against Duffy's jawbone, but his own sword and dagger took the man in the belly, and Duffy fell to his knees, losing the helmet entirely, as the Turk's body folded. An eddy in the tide of battle left him momentarily in a corpse-strewn clearing, and he knelt there for a moment, panting, before unsheathing his weapons from the Janissary's vitals, struggling to his feet and lurching back into the fight. At that moment the culverin went off, lashing thirty

  pounds of scrap into the heaving concentration of Turkish soldiers and killing three of the gunnery men as it tore free of its new mooring and went tumbling away outside the wall.

  As if it were one huge organism the Turkish force recoiled, and the Viennese soldiers crowded up to retake every slack inch of ground. Men were still being skewered and chopped and split by the dozens with every passing minute, but the Eastern tide had slowed to a pause and was now ebbing. The European force pressed the advantage, crowding the enemy back into the gap. At last the Janissaries retreated, leaving almost half of their number scattered broken and motionless across the wide-flung heaps of rubble. The rain made their white robes gray.

  During the battle Duffy had eventually found himself among Leif's company of mercenaries and stayed with them; when the Turk retreat left the defenders clumped like driftwood on the new stone slope, the Irishman and Eilif were only a dozen feet apart. Eilif was bowed forward, hands clenched on his knees, gasping through a slack mouth, while Duffy sat down on the bright, unweathered face of a split block of masonry. The cold air was sharp with the acid smell of new-broken granite.