The Master's Apprentice, page 59
part #1 of Faust Series
There were no churchgoers yet, but it couldn’t be long until morning mass. Farther back, an old sexton was sweeping the floor. He was hunched low over his broom and didn’t notice the two strange priests.
Johann looked around desperately.
He saw nothing. No clue, nothing.
Greta had disappeared from his life as suddenly as she’d entered it.
Karl gently touched him on the shoulder. “I know you want to find this girl for your friend,” he said. “But you must see that it is pointless. They took her away hours ago. She could be anywhere by now.”
“We must look for her,” muttered Johann. “Look . . . for her . . .” The fever and the potion made him feel so heavy, so awfully heavy.
“Listen.” Karl paused. “When I told you they didn’t say anything else about where they were taking the girl, I wasn’t telling the whole truth. The leader shouted something else—it was rather hard to understand. But I think he said, ‘Take her up to the church and then . . .’” Karl swallowed. “‘And then straight to hell.’”
“To hell?” asked Johann, his voice shaking.
“To hell.” Karl nodded. “Those were his words. I didn’t tell you earlier because I can see that the girl means a lot to you. But I think it’s safe to assume that they killed her. But we survived! We only have to go out the church door and—”
Johann slid down against a column, his consciousness fading.
To hell.
Karl crouched down beside him with concern. “You must think about yourself now, Doctor. Forget the girl, forget—”
“I can’t forget her, damn it!” shouted Johann with his last strength. Then he managed a hoarse whisper. “I can’t forget her. She . . . she is my daughter.”
Karl gaped at him. “Your daughter? But how?”
Then Johann passed out.
Deep down below, a lock clicked open and Valentin Brander spoke his final prayer.
Crunching footsteps approached, and then he was picked up like a rag doll. Underneath his bandage, a smile spread across Valentin’s face.
They haven’t noticed.
There must have been four of them. He could feel their hands as they lifted him onto some kind of stretcher and carried him out of the chamber. Soon he heard the strange litany again as they neared the underground hall. Valentin smelled burnt oil and smoke, a lot of smoke. He couldn’t cough or his voice would give him away.
The men set him down, and the chanting stopped.
“We’ll catch that scoundrel soon, I swear!” hissed someone not far from Valentin. The voice reminded him of a snake. “What a pity the cripple never told me that Faust’s assistant was with him. My birds need food, and he’s a handsome young man. But that doesn’t matter now. All that matters is the last ritual—the third sacrifice.”
Valentin held perfectly still. When he’d sent word to the man named Tonio del Moravia a few hours beforehand that he was bringing Faust to the agreed place, he hadn’t mentioned anything about Karl Wagner. He wasn’t sure why—a whim, one last tiny attempt of resistance against the enormously powerful, inexplicable evil. Who was Tonio? A madman who had gathered followers who were just as mad as him, or was he more than that? In the few conversations Valentin had led with him at night in some foggy alleyway, he hadn’t come any closer to figuring out the man’s mystery. Something incredibly cold radiated from him; he seemed like an ancient reptile in a human body. Only his eyes had glowed.
Who are you?
Valentin had hoped to learn the answer before his death. But then he realized that he didn’t need any more answers after death, because there would be no more questions. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing but Greta, the girl he loved like his own daughter, the girl who had enriched his poor, pathetic life a thousandfold for the last few years. Images started to appear before his mind’s eye, giving him strength.
Greta laughing on a swing, her little hands clasping the hemp ropes tight, her legs dangling . . . Greta with a bleeding knee snuggling up to him . . . Greta with her doll on her lap, her mouth smeared with honey . . . Tell me a story, Uncle Valentin! Just one more story before bedtime—please!
He wanted to leave this life with those images in his mind.
The litany rose again, and Valentin heard the snake’s voice above the chanting.
“O Mephistophiel, O Satanas, O Diabolos, O Larua . . .”
Valentin no longer trembled; his body and mind felt calm. He was no longer afraid, because he knew that his life had had meaning. And that he wasn’t dying for nothing. Because of him, Greta would live, and she’d even have a father. More memories rose to the surface; there were so many of them.
Greta, stark naked in a wooden tub, giggling, her little arms stretched out for him . . .
“O Samael, O Azazel, O Beelzebub . . .”
Greta and him on a horse, riding together across the fallow fields outside Nuremberg, and she laughs—oh, how she laughs!
“O Iris, O Scheitan, O Urian . . .”
Greta dancing for him, spinning around, her dress a whirling circle . . . Her laughter . . . oh, her ringing laughter . . .
“O Lucifer, accept the third sacrifice!”
Something was driven deep into Valentin’s chest, but he felt no pain, only a pleasant warmth spreading all through his body.
He laughed as his soul traveled heavenward.
Far down below, in a world that was no longer his, someone screamed out loud with rage and disappointment, and Valentin knew that the devil had lost the game.
Johann was dreaming.
The August sun fell on him warmly from a cloudless blue sky; bees and flies buzzed around him, and the ears in the grain field were brushed by a wind as gentle as if someone were stroking his cheek. Margarethe was lying next to him, singing the old, familiar nursery rhyme.
Growing in our garden are parsley and thyme; our Gretchen is the bride, she’s looking so fine . . .
Together they dozed in their favorite hiding place in the rye field, not far from the walls of Knittlingen. The grain was trampled flat in a circle around them, and in the center stood the weathered stone cross.
“Will you marry me when we’re grown up, Johann?” asked Margarethe softly in his dream. “Will you look after me? Now and forever?”
Johann smiled and squeezed her hand. “I promise I will look after you. Now and forever.”
“Just like you . . .” Margarethe hesitated. She brushed a strand of flaxen hair from her face; the air shimmered with heat. “Just like you . . .” Suddenly her voice took on a different tone, low and jarred as if she were speaking from inside a well, as if she were someone else.
Someone profoundly evil.
“Just like you looked after Martin, right? You bloody coward! You piece of dirt!”
Clouds moved in front of the sun and a shadow covered Margarethe’s face, which ceased to be hers. It became that of Martin, then of Signore Barbarese, of Tonio, then of Gilles de Rais.
The face of Gilles de Rais, the handsome knight.
“I like to catch two children at once. Then I kill the first one and make the other one watch,” said Margarethe, and her lips melted onto the ground like hot wax.
Johann wanted to scream but only managed a gargle. His tongue had been ripped out and was lying in the dirt before him.
A thunderclap announced an impending storm, and the wind whipped waves through the rye field. He could hear footsteps now, as loud as the cutting of a scythe. They plowed through the field toward him—swish, swoosh.
Closer and closer.
Swish, swoosh.
“Who’s afraid of the boogeyman?” asked Margarethe in a hoarse whisper. It was the opening line of a children’s game of catch. And every child knew what to answer.
“No one,” replied Johann.
“And what if he comes?”
“Then we run!”
Swish, swoosh . . . swish, swoosh . . . swish . . .
He jumped up and ran across the field as the first raindrops struck his face. After a while he noticed that he hadn’t thought of Margarethe. He had forgotten all about her in his fear and had simply run away.
When he turned around, she was gone.
“Margarethe!” he shouted into the rain, thunder, and howling wind. “Margarethe, where are you?”
He searched everywhere with growing desperation. There she was! She was standing among the ears, waving. But when he looked again it was only a scarecrow. The scarecrow’s eyes were black, black, dead, button eyes, as piercing as needles.
“Where are you?” screamed Johann again.
“I’m in hell,” said Greta, his daughter, the scarecrow with the button eyes. “Search for me in hell.”
Then she stalked away on broomstick legs, a shrinking spot on the horizon until the rain washed her away. Only her words still echoed across the windswept fields.
“Search for me in hell.”
The boy who used to be called Johann a long time ago—in another life—awoke with a feverish scream. His face was bathed in sweat, and his mouth as dry as a brittle Eucharist host.
“Margarethe!” gasped Johann. “Stay with me! Greta.”
“You’re safe, Doctor,” said a voice from next to him. “All will be well.”
Johann opened his one eye and the memories returned instantly. The worried face of Karl hovered above him. He was holding a wet rag, which he used to wipe Johann’s forehead. From the corner of his eye, Johann saw some old wooden beams on a ceiling, a narrow window covered in cobwebs letting in some milky sunlight, a small bed, and reeds on the floor with a foul-smelling chamber pot in the middle. From afar he heard shouting and cheering, and the music of fanfares, drums, and bells.
“Where are we?” asked Johann. He was a little dizzy and his head ached, but he felt better than earlier.
“In the attic room of a tavern,” replied Karl. “Not far from Sebaldus Church. You passed out and I carried you here. You slept for a few hours.” He gave an exhausted smile. “The tavern keeper thought we were two drunken itinerant preachers and gave me this chamber under the roof. It’s not the best room in the house, but at least I didn’t have to answer any nosy questions.”
Johann groaned as he felt the bandage on his face and the empty eye socket below. Carefully he touched the left side of his face; the cloths seemed fresh.
“I might not have studied medicine for very long, but I remembered a few things,” said Karl, eyeing his patient with concern. “There was a pharmacy not far from here, and I used the last of my money to buy a few herbs to stanch the bleeding. Lady’s mantle, shepherd’s purse.” He paused. “Our professor at the university said that we ought to cauterize the wound and smear it with a paste of egg and ash, but I didn’t. At least your hand and face are bandaged properly now. We’ll see what happens.”
“Th . . . thank you.” Johann slowly rose from the musty-smelling bed. He still felt nauseated from the potion Tonio had given him. “Water.”
Karl handed him a jug, and he drank in long gulps.
“What’s all the noise outside?” asked Johann eventually, wiping his cracked lips.
“It’s the Schembartlauf parade. It started about an hour ago—the whole of Nuremberg is in the streets,” Karl said. “Those masked jesters dance through town and tease the spectators, and I think at the end they storm a life-sized elephant made of wood and linen. I saw the giant contraption briefly on our way here—it was standing next to the Sebaldus Church. A truly impressive—”
Johann dropped the jug to the ground and it shattered into a hundred pieces.
“Hell,” he said.
Karl put his hand on Faust’s forehead. “You still have a strong fever, Doctor. You better lie down. I’ll bring you a fresh—”
“Hell,” said Johann again.
He stood up on shaky legs and walked to the door.
“For heaven’s sake, what are you doing? You can’t go outside! Where do you think you’re going? You are hurt—you’re hallucinating!”
“I’ve never been clearer in my head,” said Johann as he started to climb down the stairs. “I’m going down to hell to fetch my daughter.”
Soon they were both standing in the street. The carnival raged all around them. Throngs of people lined the sides of the lane, waiting for the costumed dancers to pass them by.
Johann squeezed through a gap and watched as half a dozen Schembart runners skipped past, with bells on their ankles and pikes in their hands. From time to time they would rush at the hooting crowd and pretend to stab them with their blunt weapons. People laughed and cheered, and the air was rich with the delicious smells of fried and boiled food.
Many musicians and jugglers who weren’t Schembart runners had also joined the procession. Troupes from all over the region used this day to show off their tricks or to roam the streets playing flutes or bagpipes. Johann looked around searchingly.
Where is the hell? he thought. Where is it?
A hand tapped his shoulder. It was Karl, who had pushed his way through to Johann. “You have a fever,” he urged. “You must go back to bed!”
Johann said nothing and continued to watch the procession. He struggled to focus. He was trembling and sometimes thought he was still dreaming. A huge, strong man wearing a costume made of dead leaves and moss was just walking past him. His face was hidden beneath a fake bushy beard, and he was swinging a tree trunk that had something tied to it that was impossible to make out in the jostle. Johann’s hood covered most of his face, but still he thought the giant looked at him.
The large man slowed down.
“Any one of those masked men could be one of the lunatics from the crypt,” whispered Karl, tugging at Johann’s robe. “If they spot us, we’re done. We must get away from here!”
Johann still wasn’t reacting, staring instead at some artificial horses that came after the dancers. He could tell by the feet under the furs that inside each costume were two men. The wild man had vanished behind the next corner, and the parade was proceeding. Noise and laughter rose and fell like water on a mill.
“The elephant,” uttered Johann all of a sudden, more to himself. Then he finally turned to Karl. “Where is the elephant?”
“The elephant? It was standing right next to the portal when we left the church. Why?”
“Damn, don’t you get it?” Johann was almost shouting now. “The elephant is the hell! That’s what the Schembart runners call their big parade wagon. Remember? Valentin told us last night. It’s the hell!”
“You . . . you’re saying . . .”
“By Christ, that’s the hell Tonio was talking about. No inferno or Last Judgment, but the parade wagon!” Johann grabbed Karl by the sleeve, his one eye glaring angrily. “Take her up to the church and then straight to hell—isn’t that what he said? That’s where they are hiding her. Every street in town is busy because of the Schembartlauf, so they couldn’t drag her away unnoticed. But it’s no problem inside the parade wagon—they can smuggle her right through Nuremberg and no one will ever know.” Johann’s sweaty face was right up close to Karl’s now. “Where is this elephant now? Where is the hell?”
“The . . . the tavern keeper said the parade would end on the main square at noon,” Karl said, trying to free himself from Johann’s grasp. “There’ll be a huge spectacle with dancing and fireworks, and at the end they storm the elephant.”
Johann looked up and saw that the cool winter sun stood high in the sky. Damn it, how long had he slept?
On the main square at noon.
“Let’s go!” he shouted. “We don’t have much time.”
He pushed his way through the crowd, jabbing people left and right with his elbows. His right hand burned like fire, and the pain in his head nearly drove him insane, but he pressed on.
“Hey! Wait for me!”
Karl rushed after him, his robe billowing. Johann shoved aside a burly older man who cried out angrily and kicked Johann. He staggered, caught himself, and carried on, struggling to find his bearings. His field of vision was impaired by the bandage, and he fought against dizzy spells; sledgehammers seemed to thump in his temples.
Suddenly he found himself right in the middle of a group of masked Schembart runners, dancing and jumping and cartwheeling all around him. Grinning masks stared at him, bells jingled everywhere, and someone pushed Johann to the ground. Towering above him was the wild man in his costume of moss and ferns, swinging his enormous tree trunk like a club. Now Johann saw what was tied to the trunk.
It was a doll made to look like a child, about as long as his forearm and very lifelike.
The wild man was aiming his giant cudgel straight at Johann’s head.
“Bienvenue en enfer!” he growled in French, and Johann thought he’d heard the voice before.
Suddenly the huge man staggered and cried out angrily as someone gave him a shove. The tree trunk missed Johann’s head by an inch.
“Run!”
Karl pulled Johann up and pushed him away from the eerie giant with the club and into a throng of laughing, dancing spectators who thought Johann’s stunt was part of the show.
Johann stumbled on, partly pushed by the crowd and partly dragged by his assistant. He could hardly breathe in the stench of sweat, alcohol, and horse dung; everything was so loud, so terribly loud—the drums, the bells, the shouts of the spectators, everything mixing into a monotonous mess. Behind him, Johann caught a glimpse of the wild man flanked by other masked men, the giant waving his tree trunk violently. But then Karl maneuvered the doctor around a corner, and the parade moved past them. Instantly, it was much quieter.
“They recognized us,” gasped Karl, leaning against the wall of a house. “I can’t really see their eyes underneath those masks, and I don’t know if they are the same men as down in the crypt—but I’m certain some of them recognized us. That huge fellow just tried to kill you! We’re not even safe in the crowd any longer.” He shot Johann a look of warning. “Do you still want to find that elephant?”
Johann gave a curt nod. He was too exhausted for words.
“All right, then. Let’s go straight to hell.” He gestured to the right. “This way. The parade takes a longer loop to the main square. If we hurry, we might get there before the Schembart runners.”
