Drawing of the Dark Page 11

  Aurelianus looked shocked and Gambrinus laughed.

  'Talk of that sort is neither here nor there,' Aurelianus said sternly. 'But to move on: what have you heard about his.. .lineage, his nativity?'

  The Irishman shook his head. 'Nothing. Though I have the impression he's of low birth.'

  Aurelianus laughed this time, humorlessly. 'Lower than you know. He was born in Parga, on the Ionian Sea, and they'll tell you his father was a sailor; that may in a sense be true, but he was not a sailor of earthly seas.'

  'What?' Damn this wizardly gibberish, Duffy thought impatiently.

  'His real father was an air demon that visited his mother one night in the semblance of her husband.'

  The Irishman started to protest, then remembered some of the creatures he'd seen lately. Keep your mouth shut, Duffy, he told himself. Who are you to say there aren't air demons? 'Go on,' he said.

  'Such conceptions do occur,' Aurelianus said. 'Uh, Merlin, to choose the...handiest example, was such a hybrid. They have great, albeit tainted, spiritual power, and usually drift into black magic and similar unfortunate areas of endeavor. A few resist or are prevented from this course. Merlin, you'll recall, was baptized. Ibrahim embraced the Islamic faith.' Aurelianus frowned at Duffy. 'The powers of such half-human, half-demon people, though, are seriously depleted by sexual intercourse, and so they learn to shun attractive members of the opposite sex. That, you see - to do our enemy justice - is doubtless the basis of that libellous rumor you referred to a moment ago.

  'Oh,' said Duffy uncertainly. 'Sorry.' Good Lord, he thought; I'm not even allowed to insult Turks? 'And you say this halfbreed is telling Suleiman what to do?'

  'That's right. Ibrahim is subject only to the will of the Eastern King.'

  'Damn it all,' Duffy burst out, 'make sense, will you?. If he's subject to Suleiman -'Suleiman is not the Eastern King. There are always higher levels. Charles is not the Western King.'

  'He's not, huh?' Duffy was amused now. Aurelianus had gone too far. 'Who is? You?'

  'No. But the man is living just outside Vienna.' Seeing the Irishman's skepticism, he went on, more harshly, 'You think, perhaps, that the only orders and authorities - and wars - are the ones you can see from your front doorstep? I had hoped a man of your experience would have outgrown such country village ways of thinking.'

  After a moment Duffy nodded, genuinely abashed. 'You're right,' he admitted. 'Certainly I can't 'claim to know what is or isn't possible.'

  'You of all people,' Aurelianus agreed.

  'I'll grant you, then,' Duffy said, counting off the points on his fingers, 'that this East versus West struggle may be a higher - or deeper - thing than simply a dispute between Charles V and Suleiman about the ownership of some land. Also, I can't rule out the possibility that the weapons of war include magic. Fine! But what have I, or this brewery, got to do with it? Why was I so fiercely hounded - and peculiarly aided - on my way here?' Aurelianus leaned back, pressing his fingertips together. 'I must phrase this carefully,' he said. 'Uh... just as in swordplay it is more efficient to thrust for the heart than to pick away forever at the man's arm and fingers -

  • 'That isn't always true, by any means,' Duffy pointed out.

  'It's just an analogy. Be quiet. So a general can save time and trouble by striking directly at the heart of his enemy's kingdom.' He sipped the heavy bock. 'Did it ever occur to you to reflect on this brewery's name?'

  'Herzwesten,' Duffy said thoughtfully. 'West-heart.' He frowned. 'Are you trying to say -'Stop talking and find out. Yes; this brewery is one of the main - there aren't words - focuses, hearts, pillars, of the West. The East, of course, has similar centres, but at present the East is on the offensive.'

  Duffy was grinning in spite of himself. 'But why a brewery? I'd have thought.. .oh, a cathedral, a library...'

  'Oh, no doubt,' said Aurelianus. 'I know. Those things seem older, more dignified, more characteristic of our culture. But they're not. Listen, three thousand years before Christ was born, a people came out of Spain and spread across Europe. They were nomads, strangers wherever they went, but respected - nearly worshipped because they brought with them the secret of beer-making. They spread the art of brewing with a missionary zeal - you can find their decorated beakers in graves from Sicily to the northern tip of Scotland. The fermented gift they brought to Europe is the basis of more beliefs than I dare tell you right now; but I will tell you that in the very oldest versions of the story, it was beer, not fire, that Prometheus stole from the gods and brought to man.'

  Duffy blinked, impressed by the old man's speech. 'And that's why the Herzwesten is one of the most important centers, eh?'

  'Possibly the most important.' Aurelianus peered at the Irishman, as if gauging how much revelation he could take at one sitting. 'Being Irish,' he said slowly, 'you've doubtless heard of Finn Mac Cool.'

  Duffy nodded.

  'There actually was such a man,' Aurelianus said. 'He was the High King of these people I was speaking of, the nomadic beaker people - call them Celts if you like, it's not entirely inaccurate - and he died here.' He pointed at the floor.

  Duffy automatically peeked under the table. 'Here?'

  'He's actually buried under this building,' Aurelianus told him. 'You mentioned the old Roman fort that used to stand here; it was built around this brewing cellar, which had been producing beer for two thousand years when the first Roman saw the place. The brewery was built thirty-five centuries ago, to be a marker over Finn's grave.' He paused. 'You don't know the derivation of the name Vienna, do you?'

  'No.'

  'It was originally called Vindobona - the city, you see, is even named after Finn.'

  This is all very interesting, Duffy thought, but a trifle beside the point. He spread his hands. 'So?'

  Aurelianus sagged like a dancer stepping offstage. 'So.. .you've had a history lesson,' he said tiredly. 'Anyway, all this is doubtless why you were attacked coming here: word must have reached Zapolya - Suleiman's man in Hungary - that you'd been hired to defend Herzwesten, and he sent assassins out to prevent you. Evidently you were aided by some of the old, secret folk; you're fortunate that they're loyal to the west, and recognized you.'

  The Irishman nodded, but frowned inwardly. There's a lot you're not telling me, little man, he thought. All this was just a glimpse at one or two of the many cards you're holding. Am I one of the cards? Or a coin in the pot? Your answers have only raised more questions.

  'What is all this to you, anyway?' Duffy asked.

  'Why have you hired Bluto and me, and God knows how many others?'

  'I'm not exactly a free agent. None of us is.'

  'Ah,' Duffy said, 'you're "subject to the will" of this Western King.'

  Aurelianus' voice was barely audible. 'All of us are.'

  'He's living near Vienna, you say? I'd like to meet him sometime.'

  The old man blinked out of his reverie. 'Hm? Oh, you'll meet him, never fear. He's not well, though. He's injured, can't travel. But you'll be introduced to him.'

  A few moments of silence passed, then Duffy stood up. 'Well, gentlemen, if that's that, I'll see you later. There'll be a big crowd tomorrow, and I've got to rearrange the tables and take down the more fragile wall hangings.' He drained his cup of beer, and realized at last why it seemed so familiar to his tongue -it had something, a hint, of the deep, aromatic taste of the wine he'd drunk in the phantom tavern in Trieste.

  * * *

  Chapter Eight

  The last thing Duffy hoisted down from the dining room walls was a heavily framed painting of the wedding at Cana, and he peered dubiously at the smoke-darkened canvas as he carried it to the closet where he'd stashed the rest of the paintings, crucifixes and tapestries. Odd, he thought - this is the first time I ever saw the miraculous wine portrayed as a white. I'm not sure they had white wine in Palestine then. But in spite of the dimness of the scene, that's clearly a yellow stream they're pouring into Jesus' cup.

  The Oriental
had arrived, and was sitting at his usual table, sipping beer and occasionally turning on the Irishman a reptilian eye. Duffy had considered, and discarded, the idea of going down to the cellar to warn Aurelianus of the 'Dark Bird's' presence. After all, be thought now, he didn't caution me at all about my journey here - why should I do him any favors?

  Duffy was noisily dragging the tables around into a more regimented formation - much the way the monks used to have the room arranged, he reflected - when Aurelianus opened the hail door and strode into the room.

  'Aurelianus!' spoke up the Oriental, springing to his feet and bowing. 'It is a pleasure to see you again.'

  The old sorcerer started, then after giving the Irishman a reproachful glance bowed in turn. 'It is likewise a pleasure to see you, Antoku Ten-no. It has been a long time since our last meeting.'

  Antoku smiled. 'What are a few years between old friends?' He waved at the other bench at his table. 'Do me the honor of joining me.'

  'Very well.' Aurelianus slowly crossed to the table and sat down.

  And why, Duffy wondered idly as he slammed another table into place, the term 'Dark Birds'? I could understand calling the blackamoor dark, or the feathered man a bird - but how, for example, does old Pitch-'em-out-the-window Antoku qualify?

  Finally the last table - aside from the one at which the two men were talking in lowered but intense tones - was in place, and Duffywas turning to leave when a bench rutched sharply as Antoku stood up. 'Are you trying to haggle with me?' he demanded of Aurelianus. 'If so, simply name your price and dispense with the usurer's tricks.'

  'I'm being honest,' Aurelianus replied sternly. 'I can't help you this time.. .at any price.'

  'I'm not asking for much -'I can't help you at all.'

  'Do you know,' there was fear in the Oriental's voice now, 'do you know what you condemn me to? The flickering half-life of a phantom, a will-of-the-wisp oni-bi wandering forever on the shore at Dan-no-ura?'

  'I don't condemn you to that,' Aurelianus shot back strongly. 'The Minamoto clan did, eight hundred years ago. I simply gave you a reprieve once.. .one which I can't now renew. I'm sorry.'

  The two men stared tensely at each other for several seconds. 'I do not yet resign,' said Antoku. He started for the door.

  'Don't think of fighting me,' Aurelianus said in a soft but carrying voice, 'You may be as powerful as a shark, but I am a sun that can dry up your whole sea.'

  Antoku stopped in the vestibule. 'A very old, red sun,' he said, 'in a darkening sky.' A moment later he had gone.

  Duffy's joking remark died on his lips when he glanced at Aurelianus and saw the lines of weariness that seemed chiselled into the stony face. The old sorcerer was staring down at his hands, and Duffy, after a moment's hesitation, left the room silently.

  In the kitchen the Irishman drew a chair up to the open brick oven and began meditatively picking and nibbling at a half loaf of bread that lay on the bricks to one side.

  There seem to be a few teeth left in the old wizard's head, he reflected. He wasn't mincing any words with Antoku in denying him whatever it was that he was after - filthy opium, it sounded like. I wonder why he's always so apologetic and hinting and equivocal with me. I wish he wouldn't be - knowledge is better than wonder, as my old mother always said.

  Shrub leaned in the back door. 'Uh. . .sir?'

  'What is it, Shrub?'

  'Aren't you going to come fight the Vikings?'

  Duffy sighed. 'Don't bother me with these kid games you've somehow failed to outgrow.'

  'Kid games? Have you been asleep? A dragon-prowed Viking ship sailed down the Donau Canal early this morning, and stopped under the Taborstrasse bridge.' Shrub's voice rang with conviction.

  Duffy stared at him. 'It's some carnival gimmick,' he said finally. 'Or a travelling show. There haven't been real Vikings for four hundred years. What are they selling?'

  'They look real to me,' Shrub said, and scampered out into the yard.

  The Irishman shook his head. I'm not, he told himself firmly, going to leave this warm room to go see a troupe of puppeteers or pickpockets or whatever they are. I'm at

  least old enough not to be tempted by cheap thrills. But good Lord, whispered another part of his mind.. .a Viking ship.

  'Oh, very well,' he snarled after a few minutes, eliciting a surprised stare from a passing cook. The Irishman got impatiently to his feet and strode outside.

  The first thing that struck the roof-crowding, street-choking spectators - after the wonder of the painted sail and the high, rearing dragon figurehead had worn off -was the age and dispirited look of these Vikings. They were all big men, their chests sheathed most impressively in scale mail; but the hair and beards under the shiny steel caps were shot with gray, and the northmen eyed the thronged canal-banks with a mixture of apathy and disappointment.

  Sitting in the ship's stem, by the steering oar, Rikard Bugge pulled his weary gaze from the Vienna crowd when his lieutenant edged his way aft between the rowing benches and knelt in front of him.

  'Well,' Bugge said impatiently, 'what?'

  'Gunnar says we're caught fast, captain, in the canal-weed. He thinks we'd better wade in with swords and cut our hull free.'

  Bugge spat disgustedly over the rail. 'Does he know where we are? This isn't the Danube, I believe.'

  'He is of the opinion that this is Vienna, captain. We apparently turned into this canal last night without realizing we were leaving the river.'

  'Vienna? We overshot Tulln, then. It's those damned west winds this past month.' He shook his head. 'If only Gunnar could navigate. He's lucky a river is all he's got to contend with - what if we were at sea?'

  'Listen,' the lieutenant said, a little reproachfully, Gunnar's got problems.'

  'So I should smile when he pilots us into a smelly ditch,

  to be laughed at by beggars and children?' He pointed expressively at the crowd. 'Well, go on, then. Get them over the side and chopping the water lilies.'

  Bugge slumped back, trying to scratch his stomach under the sun-heated mail. But it's no good, he thought. We may as well go home. We'll never find Sigmund or the barrow now, even if they do, as Gardvord swore, exist.

  The grizzled captain cast his mind back, nostalgically. now, to the low-roofed, candle-lit room in which he and thirty other retired soldiers of the Hundested parish had sat at a table and cursed in astonishment and outrage at the tale told to them by old Gardvord, while the bitter wind whooped at them from the darkness outside and fumbled at the shutter-latches.

  'I know many of you heard the untraceable voice from the Ise fjord yesterday,' Gardvord had missed in that meeting five and a half weeks ago. 'A voice that called, over and over for a full hour yesterday morning, "The hour is come, but not the man"' The old wizard had spread his wrinkled hands. 'It troubled me. I therefore spent most of last night laboriously questioning the senile and reclusive huldre-folk about that prodigy - and it's grim news I got for my trouble.'

  'What was it?' Bugge had asked, impatient with the old hedge-magician's narrative style.

  With a have-it-then glare, Gardvord turned to him. 'Surter, the king of Muspelheim in the distant south, is leading an army north to capture and destroy the funeral barrow of the god Balder.'

  Several of the assembled men had actually gasped at that, for the old legends agreed that when Surter of Muspelheim marched north, Ragnarok, the end of the world, was not far off; a couple of the men had spasmodically blessed themselves, scared by their old pagan heritage into taking cover under the newer Christianity; and one old fellow, gibbering the beginning of a Pater Noster, had even attempted to crawl under the table.

  'Odin look away,' Gardvord had sneered. 'The men of the north aren't all they used to be.'

  Ashamed by the timorousness of his fellows, Bugge had pounded the table with his fist. 'We will, of course, organize an army to repel Surter.' This statement put a little heart back into the other old soldiers, and they had nodded with a tardy show of determin
ation.

  'Unless,' one nervously grinning man had quavered, 'this is all a fantasy, like the graveyard Stories children invent to scare themselves, and wind up half-believing.'

  'Idiot!' Gardvord had shouted. 'You heard the fjord voice yesterday! And the misty huldre-folk were more lucid last night than I've ever known them.' The old man frowned around the table. 'This is no mere guess-work, my stout warriors.'

  Bugge had leaned forward then. 'Who's the man?' he asked. 'The one who hasn't come, though the hour has?'

  'It is the man who will lead you. Listen to me now, you complacent fathers and householders, and don't make up your twopenny minds that what I'm saying is necessarily a fable. Do you recall the stories of Sigmund, who drew out Odin's sword easily from the Branstock Oak when no other man in the Volsung's hall could budge it with his best efforts?'

  'Certainly,' Bugge had nodded. 'And I also recall what became of that sword when the one-eyed god inexplicably turned on him. Odin shattered it in battle, and Sigmund, left unarmed, was killed by Lyngi's spearmen.'

  The magician had nodded. 'That's true. Now listen. Odin has allowed - ordered, rather - Sigmund himself to return to the flesh, to lead you in pushing back Muspelheim's hordes.'

  The men around the table had been skeptical, but afraid to let Gardvord see it. 'How will we meet him?' piped up one of them.

  'You must sail up the Elbe, through various tributaries and overland crossings, and finally down the Danube. When you have reached the city that is built around Balder's barrow, you'll know it, because,' he paused impressively, 'Sigmund will actually rise from the water to greet you. I suspect the barrow is near the city of Tulln, but I can't be sure. You'll know the spot, in any case, by Sigmund's watery resurrection.'