Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘fantasy’

Chapter 27 Disaster

Llana looked at everyone in the firelight. “Are there any more questions?”

“So I meet you here next month at the same time?” Tobal asked.

“Right,” she said. “And I will give you the training you need to train Becca and Fiona.”

That was the end of the meeting, and they chatted the rest of the evening, sharing what had been going on in each other’s lives. Llana was very concerned about the medics being kicked off the mountain and the decision to build a permanent base at the old original gathering spot. She urged everyone to be careful.

The lake was beautiful, and they spent a lot of time skinny-dipping in the cold waters and lying on the beach in the sun, watching air transports bring workers and supplies to the gathering spot. With so much activity, it seemed hard to believe there was any danger in the area. Fiona seemed like a sister to him, and he was deeply in love with Becca. Their love was passionate. The days passed, and before he knew it, he had to head back to the cavern for the new moon tournaments. He urged the girls to leave the lake and warned them not to get too close to the waterfall—two were more vulnerable than three, and it might not be safe to stay.

The girls didn’t seem to take his concerns too seriously but suggested they might look up Nikki and see how she was doing with her last newbie. As Tobal left, they told him they were planning to leave the next day.

He was looking forward to his first regular meeting as a Journeyman. He found himself in the area a day early and thought he would check the camp out a little more. He was surprised to find several Journeymen already there. They welcomed him warmly.

Unlike circle, which was abandoned each month, there was always someone at this camp guarding it, hanging around in the caverns, socializing, sparring, or doing some type of assigned duty. They had a lot of time on their hands.

Staying in the camp was a way to socialize, work out, and practice. There was also a hot spring to soak in, and that was a luxury for sore and aching muscles. The tournaments were always scheduled early in the day and the initiations were scheduled closer to midnight. That was why Tobal had seen no tournaments on the day of his initiation. One of the caverns had been set aside as a fighting arena. It had soft powdered sand on the floor like beach sand.

There were a few medics wearing red tunics acting as judges or referees as well as emergency medics in case something went wrong. They took care of the many minor injuries that were common during these fights.

As the newbie of the group it didn’t take long for Tobal to realize how it worked. The referee laid out the ground rules, of which there were basically none. Anyone could challenge anyone to a fight. A person could not be challenged any more than one time in a day. However, a person could challenge as many people as they wanted to. It was set up in this way so if a person got beaten badly they would not have to fight again that night. But if they won and felt like it they could challenge someone else.

The oldest members by seniority got the first challenge and the youngest ones got the last challenges if they hadn’t already been challenged. Generally the older members took advantage of the inexperienced members by challenging them.

The first challenge was an old veteran that was burly and bearded. He was not well liked it seemed. He challenged Joy. It was easy to see why the grizzly had chosen Joy. He was almost twice Joy’s size. He clearly expected the match to be over quickly. Joy surprised him by being a lot faster, more elusive and more aggressive than Tobal had realized.

The brute simply couldn’t make contact with Joy and three times went sprawling as Joy tripped him during a rush but he always managed to fall within the rope circle and got back to his feet quickly. Every now and then a wild swing would connect and Joy would stagger. She simply was too light to do much damage to him. Tobal could see she was tiring and wasn’t surprised when a wild arm knocked her to the floor. The brute then sat on her and held her motionless until the referee called time and declared the brute to be the winner.

Joy really had trouble with this degree because of her small size and young age. So far she had only won three fights. The good news was that she was getting much better at fighting and she was also getting larger and stronger as she grew older. She was learning about fighting the hard way, by losing. Most of the older Journeymen had already challenged Joy and won. They couldn’t challenge her again. That meant gradually Joy was being more evenly matched as she grew in skill. The burly veteran she had just fought was undoubtedly one of the few older ones that hadn’t yet been able to challenge her. The entire thing made Tobal feel slightly sick.

Next up was Ox. Ox smiled maliciously as he challenged Tobal.

“You don’t have a knife to save you this time,” he sneered.

Tobal felt a weak sick feeling in his stomach and realized he was probably in for quite a beating. Ox still held a grudge against Tobal from that time in sanctuary when they had argued over Fiona. Tobal had only saved himself from a beating by instinctively pulling a knife and threatening Ox with it. This time though no weapons were allowed. It was simply hand to hand warfare with no rules.

Tobal assumed a boxer’s stance and tried a few jabs to no effect. Cautiously they circled the ring looking for an opening. Then Ox put down his head and charged straight at Tobal. He tried moving out of the way but was caught by a huge hairy arm that turned him around. Next a hammer exploded in the pit of his stomach and solar plexus doubling him up. He felt the bile rise in his throat as all the fight ran out of him. He lay in agony on the cave floor gasping for breath curled up in the fetal position trying to protect his stomach from further damage. Dimly he heard the referee call out time. Tobal had just lost his first match in less than two minutes. His eyes were stinging with tears.

Tobal was surprised when Joy re-challenged the brute from the first fight. It was easy to see there was no such thing as fairness in these matches. Anybody was fair game and the smaller and weaker got picked on more often than the bigger and stronger ones. If you were big and powerful things generally went your way. It didn’t seem right but life was unfair at times and the strong often did win. It was brutal survival of the fittest in it’s most primitive form and wasn’t very pretty.

Tobal tasted blood in his mouth as he sat watching Joy. She handled herself remarkably well this time and it was easy to see she had more stamina than the brute. She found an opening and finished the match by landing a kick solidly in the groin of the brute to the applause of the watching crowd. It was then that Tobal realized he had to be really careful. He had to learn a heck of a lot more about fighting than he knew right now. He also realized Joy was right in fighting after her first defeat. It was the only chance she really had to move ahead and it didn’t cost her anything.

He looked over the unchallenged members of the group carefully. Being a loser he had the opportunity to challenge and in a spark of anger challenged one of the remaining members that hadn’t fought yet. In a burst of fury and lightning movements he had tripped and thrown the person out of the ring over the rope. The referee called the match and Tobal was the winner. In a flash of sportsmanship he went over and helped the other person back to his feet and they started talking together.

“Man, what got into you?” The other person said. “You were like a demon or something. I never even had a chance. It was all over before I knew what was happening.”

“That’s how my fight with Ox went,” He laughed. “I never saw it coming either.”

His name was Jake and soon he and Tobal were hanging out together sparring and learning everything they could from any of the others that were willing to spend time training with them. Tobal really sucked at fighting and it was good to team up with someone willing to work hard with him. They spent most of the next two weeks sparring every day for hours. They mercilessly drove themselves to the point of exhaustion. It seemed to Tobal that he was always stiff and bruised but when circle finally came he was ready for it and felt that he needed a little break.

While the tournaments were brutal, the initiations were beautiful in their own way. Tobal watched in fascination as the circle was cast widdershins and the pentagram was drawn upside down. The power was raised, but it felt different and had a harder edge to it.

The primal earth energy of the Journeyman degree was much different than the spiritual light energy of the Apprentice degree. It was more visceral and seemed more magickal. The images of the Lord and Lady seemed more real and it was as if they were really there in the circle. He heard their voices urging him to get up and fight after Ox had slammed him to the ground but had not been able to get back up.

Watching the initiations he saw them beside the candidates after they had given up fighting the six dark hooded figures. His parents kneeled beside the candidate as the circle began to move widdershins and the High Priest and High Priestess bestowed their blessings upon the initiate. Then it seemed as if they merged and flowed into the candidate and disappeared.

Later he asked Ellen about these things and she was interested in what he saw. Apparently he was able to see things even the High Priest and High Priestess had trouble seeing or feeling. More correctly he was seeing and hearing what a High Priest or High Priestess was supposed to be able to see and hear. She was excited about his natural talent and he spoke about some of the exercises and meditations that Crow and Llana had taught him. He didn’t mention his belief that the Lord and Lady were his parents.

There was no requirement for him to go to circle except during guard duty, but he always felt it was very important to show up and see how his Apprentice friends were doing and celebrate with them as they trained and soloed their own trainees. Fiona and Becca would be getting their sixth chevrons and he wouldn’t miss that. He was also looking forward to some quiet time with Becca.

He arrived just in time to change into his black robe and take part in the initiation ceremony as a guard. He didn’t have time to look for Becca or talk with any of his friends and none of them showed up during the day to chat. It was mid July and hot.

Becca and Fiona usually looked him up at least once during the day and he had a nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach that something was wrong.

He tried not to worry as he and Joy made sure the candidates were properly welcomed into the clan and later prepared for their initiation. This time he was the one that cut the gray robe and shortened it to become a tunic. He remembered his own Clansman initiation and felt satisfaction as he cut away the fabric of the tunic. It was the first time he had cut a tunic and it was kind of ragged in spots and high. He might have cut the tunic a little short but she was good looking and had nice legs. The shortened tunic looked good on her.

There were eight candidates and later the new clansmen were taken to the sweat lodge for purification and left to meditate. It was a long day and the eight initiations seemed to drag on forever.

After the last initiate was gone he headed toward the circle and noticed that both Fiona’s and Becca’s students had returned from their solos. They were hanging out by the beer barrel but he still didn’t see Fiona or Becca. He walked over to congratulate both of them on their solos and asked where the girls were. The look on both of their faces told him immediately that something was wrong. They were surprised he hadn’t heard. Yesterday rogues had attacked both Fiona and Becca. Becca had been raped and badly beaten. Medics had taken her to sanctuary. Fiona had gone with her to make sure she was all right. The kids had stayed behind.

There was a hollow sick feeling in his stomach and he felt like he was going to throw up. He was shaken to his very core by the news and his face turned a pasty gray. He looked for one of the medics to ask for more information and made a beeline in the dark to the nearest red cloaked figure he saw. The medic was busy putting some things in his pack. His back was to Tobal as he walked up.

“Excuse me,” He began. “I need some information.”

“ Rafe!” He shouted.

“Rafe, what about Becca?” He asked urgently. “Is she all right?”

Rafe turned a troubled gaze on him.

“Becca’s pretty bad. Near as we can figure four rogues jumped the two of them with clubs while they were climbing half way up the cliff on a ledge by the waterfall. Becca got taken by surprise at the top. They grabbed her and were holding her down and tearing her clothes off. She was fighting back when she was knocked unconscious. Fiona managed to slice one of them pretty bad with a blade before being pushed over the ledge. Becca was already unconscious when Fiona fell over the ledge. She wasn’t able to help Becca and prevent the beating. She’s lucky she wasn’t hurt in the fall.”

“Alarms went off on our air sleds and we responded immediately. The rogues left Becca with a couple cracked ribs and took off running when three medics came flying in on air sleds. Tobal, she was raped. ” He looked at Tobal before continuing.

“We felt she might have internal injuries and took her to the city for specialized medical attention. Fiona went along as a witness and to fill out the reports.”

That was all Rafe knew except they were both at sanctuary now and Becca was in stable condition.

“I don’t know who the rogues were. They don’t seem to be anyone that is a part of our camp. But they know about us, that’s for sure. They didn’t wear med-bracelets, so they didn’t show up on our screens.”

“They don’t wear med-bracelets?” Tobal said grimly. “That means they are General Grant’s men.”

“The air sleds showed up suddenly?” Tobal asked violently. “How did the rogues get away?”

“We don’t know yet. That’s our new camp remember.” Rafe continued. “As soon as Becca was knocked unconscious alarms went off on our air sleds. What I can’t believe is that rogues would be so close to our camp.”

“I know where they were climbing,” Tobal said suddenly. “If they were on the ledge they would have been trapped. The only way down was hand and foot holes and the only way up was through a rock chimney. They didn’t run away. The medics let them get away!”

Rafe turned white as understanding dawned. “It wasn’t our Medics. The rogues were teleported there and out again. They must have a teleporting station set up right there on that ledge. We’ve got to find it and destroy it.”

“What did these rogues look like? What kind of tunics did they wear?” Tobal asked savagely already knowing the answer. “They knew the girls were going to climb the cliff and waited for them on the ledge. The girls were deliberately ambushed!”

“’They were dressed as Journeymen in black tunics.” Rafe told him. “That’s all we know at this time. Ellen’s looking into it further and making a complaint to the City Council.”

There was a lump in his throat and a heavy feeling in his heart. He had left the girls at the lake alone and unprotected. Part of what happened to them was his fault. He had even suggested they go there in the first place. Tobal took up his pack and asked Rafe to give him a ride to sanctuary. The trip was a little over an hour with the air sled. The full moon made night travel fairly easy anyway. It was his first air sled ride but he was too emotional to enjoy it.

As they traveled he wondered about the rogues. Were they really acting under orders from General Grant or his Uncle Harry and did they have the ability to teleport in and out at will?

What was so important about the cave under the waterfall? They needed to really check it out before the enemy broke through the shield and took everything. He told Rafe that they needed to check the cave out thoroughly and see what they could find. Rafe agreed and said he and Ellen would look into it immediately on his return. He dropped Tobal off at sanctuary and sped back toward the lake.

Tobal went inside and stopped at the door to let his eyes adjust to the dim light. Fiona saw him and came running with a glad cry.

“Tobal!” She threw her arms around him in a big hug. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

She led him over to the cot where Becca lay and he sank down on his knees by her bed. He reached out for her hands. She smiled weakly at him. Her face was horribly bruised and there was a look in her eyes he didn’t recognize. He didn’t know for sure if she really knew who he was. It was like she was looking through him. As he reached to move a strand of hair away from her eyes she flinched away from him.

“Becca, it’s me Tobal!” He implored but her uncomprehending eyes remained the same. She was in shock. Part of her soul was gone somewhere else and he didn’t know how to get it back. He stayed with her and Fiona stayed with her but she remained unreachable. In anguish he grabbed her hand and placed it over the scars on his face.

“Becca, it’s me, remember me! My face. Feel the scars, it’s me, remember!”

She slowly looked at him and tears began to form in her eyes.

“Tobal.”

She softly traced the scars with her fingers. “I’m sorry.” She whispered and her arm dropped back on the cot.

He pulled her hand toward him gripping it hard and trying to bring her nearer. Something broke inside his heart and he cried, violent spasms shaking his body.

“Becca, I love you, I love you. Come back to me.”

Her fingers tightened in his. “I love you too,” she whispered.

Two days passed and Becca seemed to improve but something was still wrong. The rape and beating was still fresh and her experience made her both fearful and angry. She wanted to withdraw at times into her own space and be alone and at times she pushed both Fiona and Tobal away. Other times she needed them close to her.

It was the afternoon on the third day that Llana showed up at sanctuary concerned about what had happened. When Tobal hadn’t showed up for their meeting she had gotten worried and gone looking for him. She checked at the new medic’s base and was told that he was here.

“You’ve got to get Crow,” Tobal told her. “Crow told me that he would be needing to do another soul retrieval. He is the one that is meant to help her.”

“Both Crow and I will help her together,” She told him softly.

A few hours later both Crow and Llana had finished the soul retrieval and done spiritual healing work on Becca. She was sleeping peacefully. Crow, Llana, Fiona and he could not talk openly about things at sanctuary because newbies were there and clansmen were also showing up to get the newbies. Crow and Llana left and said they would talk with him later. Before they left Tobal warned them that the General’s men were teleporting into areas without warning and attacking clansmen.

They stayed at Sanctuary as Becca gradually improved. Both Becca and Fiona were looking forward to their Journeyman initiation and joked about it. The bad food at sanctuary was finally too much and they decided to make a leisurely journey to the caverns.

It had been two weeks and was just before the new moon. Physically Becca was pretty much healed but there were still deep emotional scars that were raw. He could feel the scars keeping them apart. Becca and Fiona were to be initiated into the Journeyman degree. They both felt it would help them to turn their minds away from what had happened. They traveled together and reached the caverns late in the afternoon. As the girls were being prepared for the initiations he joined the tail end of the tournaments.

Since he was late he hadn’t been challenged and was given the opportunity to challenge someone. He didn’t care whether he won or lost, he just needed an outlet for the rage and energy that had been trapped inside him since Becca’s accident. It was making him crazy and he knew he had to get rid of it.

In a burst of anger he challenged Ox. Ox had been having it entirely too easy because of his natural strength and size. Nobody ever challenged him and he only challenged weaker and easier victims. He never really had to fight. Tobal needed to fight.

Ox was surprised and incredulous but also had a wide grin on his face as he contemplated the beating he was going to give Tobal. Lumbering to his feet he swaggered into the circle and nodded at the referee. Tobal was on fire and there was no strategy. He was just going to pound Ox until the fight was over. It was going to be brutal but he was in much better shape and had learned a few tricks the past months. He had also been practicing daily. He had never seen Ox bother with any type of training or exercise. The brute seemed to rely exclusively on his own natural ability and strength.

Ox lunged and Tobal narrowly missed getting caught by those massive arms. As Ox passed Tobal swung a viscous blow with an elbow that caught Ox on the side of the head and dazed him. Tobal was not quick enough to take advantage and Ox turned with a bellow of anger. It turned into a slug fest in which neither one tried to get away but simply stood braced and pounded on each other, trading blows without regard for the punishment they were taking.

Tobal had learned how to brace himself for blows and took several blows to the midsection without buckling. Llana’s training had given him vast endurance and it was Ox who began to weaken under sustained blows to the head and midsection. He was used to fights that ended quickly and was getting tired. A wicked knee to the groin finally dropped Ox to his knees and the fight was over. Tobal was battered and bloody but victorious and happy. He had won his second fight.

There was something especially sweet about this fight he thought as he limped out of the circle. He watched as Jake fought his match. There was no doubt about Jake getting better too. But it was not enough for him to win.

As he left the ring and sat down at the edge of the circle his mind again returned to the conversation with Becca that had left his head spinning. He had asked Becca for a better description of her attackers. They had been bearded and hard to describe but she had torn the leader’s tunic off in the struggle. She had seen clearly a tattoo on his chest above his heart. It was a round circle with a male and female holding hands inside the circle. It was the same tattoo he had seen on his uncle as a child.

After the tournaments he washed up and got prepared for Becca’s and Fiona’s initiations. Having two initiations made things go much longer since they each had to be done separately. Becca’s initiation was first and it was almost the last. Tobal was Becca’s guide. He had requested to be her guide and Ellen had approved. He wanted to be close by in case something happened.

Read Full Post »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

“Hell! Hell!” groaned Hmmetschnur and ran his hands
through his wild hair. “If only I could get away from here!”
I said good night to him and went to my room.
By the light of the burning candle, I searched for the lady
of hell’s little pot and cut with the knife around the rock-hard,
dried-up bladder. Inside was a crisscrossed, cracked greenish-
brown substance. This may have been an ointment, but the
excessively long time had made it firm and brittle. I thought
that perhaps the candle flames might warm it up enough for it
to take on more or less its old consistency, and so I held the
blue jar over my candlestick. The melting stuff stank
disgustingly of old fat and pungent herbs, but I gradually
managed to soften the sediment, so that I could investigate the
ointment and test its magical nature.
In the glow of my five wax candles I saw again the gray
eyes of the Lady of Weinschrötter, who appeared to smile in
amusement at my cheeky beginning.
“Shall I not?” I addressed the painting. But neither an
answer nor a sign came from the now lifeless painting, which
yesterday had greeted me with a now vanished resemblance
that had frightened me to my very soul.
Was it the heat of the candles or the vaporous fat and
poisonous herbs that made me behave in this way: a flying heat,
which I had already felt in the afternoon during the walk, came
over me, and when I undressed, I felt how leaden my limbs
were. My blood pulsed in rapid throbbing as if a fever were
near.
Nevertheless, I remained stubbornly determined or
forced by something to stick to my plan to try the ointment. I
took off my shirt, spread the stuff on my chest, belly, hands,
feet and forehead, as I had learned from the horror stories, that
old Margaret had told me in childhood, and still remembered
the witch’s spell:
“Out the top and nowhere on!” laughed at myself for my
silliness, blew out the candles, and lay down in the creaking
four-poster bed.
The blood rang in my ears, a tingling sensation ran
through my limbs. I saw the half moon in the window, which I
had forgotten to close.
And then I slowly sat up in bed, slipped out from under
the low canopy and floated between the ceiling and the floor,
without me finding this strange. I had often flown like this in
my dreams, with casual movements of the arms or some
footsteps to steer the flight. But I now saw myself lying in bed,
illuminated by the blue moonlight. Open-mouthed with two
sharp wrinkles in my face, that went from my nostrils to my
chin as the result of some evil experience. I saw the
extinguished candles with the long scrolls, the bare cleaning
scissors, and my robe on an upholstered chair, the open hair
bag. I was amazed at nothing, nor was I startled when Lady
Heva Weinschrötte- cautiously climbed out of the picture frame
and floated out through the open window. I kicked the air with
a feeling of well-being, like a swimmer treads the water that
carries him. All of them followed after Heva. An old Jew with a
caftan, another one, whose white, scabby skull peered out of
the raised trapdoor, a hunchbacked woman with a snuffy nose
and eternally smacking mouth, and with a black tomcat that sat
on the hump and a white, lame little dog that was running after
her, another ugly, goggle-eyed woman, who sneaked to my bed,
hissed at the resting body and with crooked fingers reached for
the little pot to quickly lubricate her yellow, wrinkled skin. And
then in infinite well-being I turned to the open window and
flew in an instant over the bent and wind-shredded poplars, full
of joy at the regained skill of flying.
At will, I ascended with a very light hand and foot
stirring up and down, shooting light as a feather upwards or
slowly downwards, turned immediately, let the air carry me
horizontally or sank like a rock, just as I liked. Nevertheless, it
continued like that without me being frightened, and I drifted
like a flying feather before the wind. Even if I remained
motionless, I saw beneath me tree tops, reflecting water,
meadow surfaces and lonely little houses gliding past. But this
did not worry me at all; rather I surrendered with full pleasure
to the bliss, liberated from the weight of the body and floated
through the silvery moon light like a cloud. Also I made no
steering movements any more, but gave myself completely to
such bliss of an earth-liberated state.
Then, however, I saw closer and more distant figures in
the milky air, on the same path as me, gently drifting and
hovering like old wives’ summer. Young women with white
and golden brown limbs, with loose hair and willingly naked,
their eyes closed as if in sleep, their arms spread out; but in
between also bony and shapeless hags, then again fat ones with
sagging and flabby fullness, scrawny old women, disgustingly
hairy and coarse male figures, slim-limbed girls with weakly
curved breasts, beautiful boys and skinny, miserable bodies of
gaunt old men. However, as soon as I made an effort to focus
more sharply on a face, it became a vague round egg of
whirling mist and dissolved. But even that did not put me in
fear or astonishment. Rather, everything had long been familiar
and quite right, as if I had experienced and seen this many
times. And effortlessly, I was blown, through the will-less,
delicious detachment of my own limbs and the lightness of my
body, by the air between clouds, moon, stars which drew me
toward the friendly tugging of the earth deep below.
I sank. The figures gathered more densely around me.
I went down into the depths, gently sinking. A pale glow
dazzled. Lights bounced beneath me, bluish and yellow lights.
Faces with slanting eyes and flaring scoops of fire. And there
was fire everywhere.
Between bushes and grass there was a swarming and
jumping, a twisting and turning of innumerable figures that
surrounded me. Some squatted in rigid clusters around red-
yellow brushwood flames, murmuring in swelling, nasal song
from books, keeping the beat with their hands. A brown boy
with pointed ears, handsome and cheeky, round-hipped like a
woman, was chasing a black, bearded shaggy goat with wild
heel kicks through the midst of couples, who were twisting in
spasmodic entwinement as they rolled in the leaves. Gray
wolves whose dark sweat dripped from their muzzles crept
with glowing red eyes between beautiful, naked women. A
crippled man without legs pushed with agile monkey arms the
rest of his body through the tumult in a wheelchair and looked
out of long distended eyes like those of a crab. One, whose skin
stretched like parchment over the fleshless bones, blew
squawking on a hollow leg bone, while glow worms crawled
around in his eye sockets. A dwarf’s body consisted of a
bagpipe, and the purring and humming pipes protruded from
the back of his trousers, while the trunk-mouth blew into the air
tube and the twisted fingers of his hands wandered over the
indecent flutes. A row of gray-toothed women with dangling
tits danced hand in hand in circles around these musicians.
“Are you here too? Hussah!” There was a bellow next to
me, and when I looked, Montanus had just passed by, and his
belly was hanging red like glowing iron from the inflated
trousers. More and more new dance groups formed. I saw legs
from which the skin was hanging in shreds and laughing
mouths, out of which white and yellow worms crawled.
Dissolute children with disgustingly twisted eyes were writhing
in the arms of hermaphrodite creatures, women cried out
ruthlessly and dragged giggling, skinny boys to their steaming
wombs, from goat udders fat milk ran into the toothless mouths
of old men. One with broken, buckling limbs led another, who,
leaden-grey faced, had a rope around his neck and displaying a
monstrous manhood stumbled forward to a black-haired
woman who was shrieking and twitching and rolling. Flames
danced and shot pointedly out of the earth, and from out of a
bush in front of me rose the deathly sad, pale face of the
Bavarian Haymon with the crushed red nose, and his mouth
whispered:
“Take some advice and see that you will come again,
Mahomet!”
There arose a tremendous shouting, whooping and wild
singing. They waved with their hands, their legs flailing and
jerking against a high black stone block, on which, in the
wavering, uncertain light, a figure was crouched, his knees
drawn up to his chin, angular and silent.
I stared at it and recognized with raging horror Fangerle.
As if fused to the rock, he squatted there, his evil,
pinched face under the big peasant hat glowed like rotting
wood, and his long-hunters coat glowed in all its buttonholes,
as if blue fire was hidden under them. The piercing goat eyes
were directed straight at me, full of indescribable malice. And
then he uttered the horrible scream that Heiner had in front of
the wheel.
“I-i-i-ilih!”
A thousand arms, fingers, claws and nails stretched out
towards me. I wanted to rise quickly into the free kingdom of
the air, but they hung on to my feet, pulled me down.
“Catch him! Stop him!” shrieked Satan on the block.
Desperately, I kicked my feet and flailed around. But
new ones came, arms of women wrapped heavy and soft
around my neck, hot lips pressed sucking against my face,
claws tore at my hair; heavy masses clung to me, squeezing out
my breath. I could no longer get up, saw in deathly fear the
yellow goat eyes stare, the saw teeth bared, paralysis was like
tough dough around my limbs, my heart was hammering, close
to bursting, my breath caught, choking my throat.
“Lord, my God!” I cried out in deathly peril.
Then the hand of Fangerle grabbed me and flung me high
into the air. Scornful laughter rang out behind me, neighing.
The fires went out in the deep night, shadows flitted. Whirled,
it whistled in the air, cried, screamed, howled —.
I lay in my shirt in the middle of a wet meadow.

Read Full Post »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

“I will venture on it,” I said.
“You, a person of noble heart, will not be harmed by the
room, although –” he faltered and bit his lips.
“Although?” I pressed him.
“I, Baron, would not like to sleep here, and if there were
only one other place in the house, where it does not trickle in
by the ceiling or blow through empty window holes, I would
have chosen it for you rather than this damned courtroom! But
now I wish you a restful night!”
He bowed low and left.
I was alone, and took the candlestick to look around.
The wide chamber had been decorated with precious
leather wallpaper, which was now, of course, everywhere
damaged and tattered on the wall. It showed in hundredfold the
Treffenheid coat of arms with the Moor’s head, which had an
arrow shaft sticking out from the eye. Under it on a ribbon was
to be read the heraldic motto:
“One dies – another lives.”
In the corner next to the door stood a two-sleeper four-
poster bed with twisted columns and angels’ heads, the gilding
of which was worn away. At the lead-framed windows, which
had small gaps, the pale moon wandered behind wisps of
clouds, and a withered, broom-like poplar treetop sometimes
poked at the rickety panes. A table and a few chairs had just
been put there for me, as could be seen from the dust on the
floor.
More remarkable than all this, however, were two large
paintings, which were next to each other on the wall, separated
by a horizontally stretched out naked human arm, extending
from a red sleeve which, was holding a simple executioner’s
sword.
I approached the paintings with the light. The first one
was rich in small figures, and I had to look for a long time in
the restless candlelight until I recognized a procession on the
dark canvas, which was leading the sinner in a cart with solemn
seriousness to the place of execution. Under the picture, on a
white background, it read:
“If you have patience in pain,
It will be very useful to you,
Therefore give yourself willingly to it.”
The unknown painter had understood it, and painted into
the faces of the accompanying persons, secretly and
immediately recognizable to everyone, stupidly proud dignity,
thoughtlessness, malice, cruelty, indifference, and cowardly
contentment; but from the face of the man on the execution cart
cried out fear, and the staring look was almost a longing for the
final redemption by the redcoat, who stood tiny and distant on
the scaffolding.
This image made me fall into a depth of consciousness or
foreboding, which filled me with fearful darkness for several
minutes. It told me that something had happened or was about
to happen, and from my soul a voice spoke barely audibly:
“I know —.”
The roots of my hair were on fire, drops of sweat covered
the inside surface of my hands. But what it was, I could no
longer grasp with my mind, for as quickly as it came, it sank
again into a dark abyss. I turned my gaze from the terrible
image, ducked under the threatening sword arm, so as not to
touch it, and lifted the light towards the other painting.
A fine and cutting stab went through my heart. This face,
blissful and childlike, with reddish shimmering braids under a
small hood, with the delicate nose and the small mouth, with
the curved eyebrows, it was…
“Aglaja,” I whispered softly, and the heavy candlestick
almost fell from my hand.
But then it seemed to me as if a sad, dark glow went over
the lovely face. No, not Aglaja! It was Zephyrine who was
looking at me, as if she were breathing. The slender hand,
coming from a lace ruff, wore a silver ring of woven serpentine
bodies with a fire opal and held daintily between pointer finger
and thumb were three crimson roses and a snowy lily. But what
was written underneath, confused me in the face, which always
showed a beloved face. I ran my hand over my eyes and read
the characters under the painting:
Likeness of Lady Heva Weinschrötter,
Canoness to St. Leodegar, accused of sorcery
and sentenced to the sword
In the year anno 1649.

And then I stood for a long time, until the candles began
to crackle and the wax dripped. – What was appearance and
what was truth? The night had passed quietly except for some
creaking and cracking in the room and in the floor as is natural
in such old buildings.
The new day was of dull light and unfriendly, full of
wind and falling drops. There was a rustling in the walls, as of
rats.
The servant, who brought my breakfast, informed me that
the master of the hound was suffering from gout and would not
be visible before the evening. I should not enter uninvited into
his room, because he had a saddle pistol next to him loaded
with rock salt and pig bristles, and in his piercing pain he was
well able to burn one on me and everyone, as he had already
done to magister Hemmetschnur once before.
So I looked once more in the gloomy light of the room, at
the ruined face which was now even more clearly visible than
in the candlelight. I also discovered the trapdoor in the floor,
through which one could enter the dungeons and chambers
under the earth. And whatever I did, the gray eyes of the
painting of Lady Heva Weinschrötter followed me. But as I,
mindful of the evening’s feelings, looked firmly and attentively
at the rosy face under the gold hood, it seemed to me strange
and distant to me. The resemblance to Aglaja-Zephyrine faded
into the distance and finally disappeared completely.
While wandering around in the spacious chamber I
discovered opposite my bed a door so carefully fitted into the
wallpaper that it was easy to miss. When I pushed its creaking
hinges, I came into a narrow chamber with racks, in front of
which were rotten curtains of shot green damask, all covered
with dust. When I pushed them aside, I found in the
compartments whole bundles and piles of old files, and all sorts
of formerly confiscated corpora delicti, such as knives,
hatchets, bludgeons, rotten wheel locks, thieves’ hooks, gypsy
casting rods and the like, and attached to each item was a
carefully written note. Some I read:
“The knife, with which Matz from the Schellenlehen
stabbed Schieljörg,” and “Explosive and grenade called, Reb
Moische, the Hendl from Poland”. Finally I came to an earthen,
smoky pot, blue-glassed, which was tightly tied with a pig’s
bladder and on the square parchment on the handle, was
written in brownish faded ink:
“Numerus 16. Flying or witch ointment, found under the
bed of the lady of hell, and dug out of the earth.”
This relic of one of the women who had stood here
during the inquisition, aroused my curiosity very much, and I
hid it near my bed, in order to visit it later.
At the midday meal, only the magister appeared, who
asked me politely about the night spent and then said that I was
the first to have been granted a quiet sleep in this room. After
the meal I went for a walk with him despite the rain showers
and gusts of wind, and talked to him. The knowledge of this
man was astonishing, his exact knowledge of languages, and I
could not help but ask him, how he, with his erudition, could
not have found anything better than that of his unworthy
clerical services for the old master of the hound, who seemed
to take special pleasure to humiliate and make fun of his
education in front of others.
He heaved a deep sigh and said that if he only had
enough money so that he could reach the city of Paris, or only
to Strasbourg in the former German land, which the French had
stolen, it would be better for him in an instant. There he would
have friends who would gladly continue to take care of him.
But even if he had as much as he needed for the journey, he
would still have to be on his guard. For the master of the hound,
as he said, had already impudently threatened him, the
magister, and would not refrain from accusing him of
embezzlement and to have him punished, which he, as a poor
and helpless man, was unknown and without any ability to
defend himself.
I said nothing, but made up my mind, to help this
unjustly tormented person, if I could.
For dinner, the gentleman from Trolle and Heist was
brought to the table in a carrying chair, his right foot bound
thickly and sweating with pain. It was hardly possible to hold a
conversation with him, and only in view of the fact that I had to
stay here at all costs, I allowed myself to be subjected to
various of his quarrelsome and irritable moods. It was worse
with the magister than with me, he threw a pig’s bone at his
head for no reason and as for the hunters who were waiting for
him, he would spit wine at them or hit them with a stick. At ten
o’clock he began to drink murderously again, and at about
eleven he started his howling anguished chant. But the
intoxication did not work this time, and I saw how he looked in
fear with puffy eyes into the corner of the chamber devastated
by the fall of the wall. Finally- he hurled a heavy mug in the
direction of the apparition visible to him, laughed, and then
sank down, muttering to himself several times something about
a useless rhyme smith and court poet, and then sank into a
frenzied sleep, whereupon they lifted him up in the carrying
chair and carried him away.

Read Full Post »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

Tiredly I groped behind the others, who had the bunch of
keys from the innkeeper’s belt and now climbed into the cellar.
In the hallway lay, big as a calf, the dog shot by Garnitter.
Behind empty wine barrels and other junk we found an iron
door, discovered the key on the key ring and opened it – rusty
dust flew into our eyes – but, good heavens! What was this?
All four of us jumped back in horror.
There were probably twenty corpses, brown, dried up,
withered, eaten by rats, stripped of all their clothes. And on
their shoulders they carried wide-squeezed disks with mouth
gaps, hair tangles, jumbled white teeth. One could see an ear, a
lower jaw, which was pressed up to the empty eye sockets, a
worm-like black tongue that stretched sideways, clenched
hands, blood crusts, splintered bones —
We rumbled up the stairs, ran out of the house and sat
down on the mossy stone balls, breathing deeply, and the rain
trickled down on us.
In the east it shone drearily. When it became quite light,
we fed the fat horse of the innkeeper with oats and hay, and
then harnessed him.
Before that, Hoibusch had looked in on the girl. She hung
with twisted eyes as if fainted in the ropes. – Then they climbed
up into the innkeepers’ bedroom, rummaged in cupboards and
chests and found a whole hoard of gold and silver coins,
jewelry, precious garments, fine linen and weapons of all kinds.
In the meantime, I crept into the chamber of horror. The
girl was awake, and her face was shining with tears. Silently I
went there and cut the ropes with the landlady’s knife, which I
had picked up, cut the ropes in such a way that she herself
could untie herself.
“Wait until you hear us leave,” I said, “and then see to it
that you save yourself -.”A glow of hope passed over her
decayed face, in which, despite all the depravity, showed the
harmless child of old.
“Gracious Herr-” she stammered.
“Be silent and do not stir until we are gone. Perhaps that
you may become honest again, girl. I dare on it!”
“Every day I will pray to God for thee, Lord,” she
whispered, “that he may have mercy on you as you have had on
Bärbel -“.
Quickly I went out.
I asked the three boys, as they came out of the house to
leave me out of the game, since I had important things to do at
Krottenrieder castle and the court could ruin all my plans.
It was all right with them, and since the way to the town
would certainly pass by the castle, we traveled with each other
through the dull morning toward the army road, the shivers of
the night in all our limbs.
“With all my heart I pity the young blood on the
column,” said Garnitter after a while. “She is not at all guilty of
any serious crime, and even if she came to listen, because she
had to, and one or the other prey fell into her lap.
“What are you babbling about?” Hoibusch said and he
struck at the lame gray horse. “One can see that you are a
windy philosopher and know nothing of legal matters. I know
the Roman law as well as the famous Carpzov enough to
already know today the judgment that she will and must be
given. And besides, I know myself to be of one mind with
Baron Dronte and the Sollengau -“.
“There is also a jus divinum, and of that you are
obviously ignorant. Of course, it has nothing to do with
scholarship, and has no paragraphs and subtleties and is better
to be found in simple-minded people than in those who, like
peacocks, have a green-gold wheel to beat, but have a nasty,
inhuman voice,” Garnitter replied.
“Are you trying to cheat me?” asked Hoibusch and pulled
back on the reins.
“No fighting, gentlemen,” I admonished. “Let us rather
be grateful to Providence, which has saved us from death.”
“This is also my opinion!” agreed the squire.
Thus peace was restored, and the Philosopher shook
hands with the jurist.
But no matter how often we tried to turn the conversation
to more pleasant things, again and again the terrible night came
to our minds and the danger from which we had escaped, but
from which the unfortunates in the cellar and our companion,
Haymon, the last Baron of Treidlsperg, had fallen victim to.
Around noon we met on a heath, which lost itself into the
forest, an old shepherd with his herd and asked for the way that
led to Krottenriede castle.
“The gentlemen have to drive far around there,” said the
old man and stroked his wolfhound. “Or else get down from
the wagon and take the narrow forest path on the right hand. It
goes straight to the castle, whose sheep I herd.”
Then I quickly climbed down from the wagon, took my
coat bag and shook hands with the good fellows who had
brought me this far, wishing them all the best in their lives.
Garnitter, however, I looked especially into the eyes; at first I
liked Hoibusch the best when I entered the Ball Mill, but now
because of the kindness of his heart, I was sorry that I had not
talked to him a few more times.
Once again, I asked them to let me, who had neither had
to make use of a gun nor had I been harmed, keep silent to the
courts, that I was involved in other matters that were extremely
important to me.
They promised me cordially and then drove on and went
to fetch the courtiers, to clean out the robber’s nest and to
arrange for Christian burials for the lamentable corpses in the
cellar, and also to redeem Haymon from the death stone and
bury him as well.
As I turned to go, Hoibusch stood up in the carriage and
shouted:
“Baron Dronte, I have sensed that you are on the side of
the philosopher, and that out of love for you, I want to turn it so
that Bärbel gets away from the tower and keeps her life!”
I waved back at him and slowly went my way.
But then I had to sit down under the trees and cry. I cried
for the Bavarian Haymon and about our young years–.
The path I had taken on the advice of the shepherd was
an old, dilapidated horse path, which led quite steeply uphill. In
places, falling water and landslides had torn away many meters,
and I had to, badly hindered by the coat bag, climb over the
steep clay slopes. But the higher I got, the better the climb
became, because all kinds of bushes and alluvial forest
strengthened and thus protected the path from destruction. The
hike lasted long enough, and it was getting late when I reached
the uppermost part of the moderately high castle. After a bend
in the path I stood unexpectedly before castle Krottenriede,
where I longingly hoped, I would finally be granted an
audience with Ewli.
But if there was something even sadder, neglected and
gloomier than the Ball Mill, it was this castle. A monstrous,
gray stone box with formerly red-white-red shutters, now faded,
peeled off and crooked on their hinges, it stood between
disheveled, thorny, mighty poplars and two ponds with brown,
putrid water, which was overgrown by poison-green lentils. On
the steep, damaged roof was a weather vane bent by the storms
and eaten by verdigris- representing an upright lion. Part of the
window panes were gray with dust, other parts had only jagged
shards in the rotten frames. A large pile of garbage, in which
broken bottles, scraps of clothing, rags, bones and ashes were
mixed together, piled up not far from the main entrance, a
pointed arched gate, over which a Moor’s head was carved as a
coat of arms, in one eye of which was an arrow. Since no one
was to be seen, I entered the castle courtyard and was
immediately attacked by a pack of spotted hounds. But before
the wild males could quite snap at me a silent young man with
a sullen wrinkled face appeared and whipped them into their
stone kennel, whose torn down iron grille had been replaced
and strengthened with a couple of heavy stones leaning against
it. I saw that both of his ears had been smoothly cut from his
head.
I was about to turn to him, but out of a gate a huge, fat,
white-haired man with a red face and a glowing nose
approached me and gruffly asked for my name and desire.
I named myself, and his face became immediately
cheerful. He held out his hand to me and shouted loudly while
he shook my right hand:
“What?”How? A Dronte? Melchior Dronte, perhaps even
the son of my old crony and Willow comrade?”
When he then learned the name and last place of
residence of my dead father, he embraced me, blew his warm,
wine-scented breath into my face and shook me by the
shoulders.
“My lord Baron, I rejoice to the depths of my eighty-
year-old hunter’s soul to get to know you. Your godly father
was a hunter comme il faut, and there will not be many more
like him in these shitty times. Ei, how the time goes by, and
now I get to know Melchior, whose birth we celebrated with
champagne from the big ducal silver cup, called the
“Sauglocke”, and look, this child, whom I saw with wet panties
already has gray hair at the temples. But what is the reason?
Has the skinny hunter already put the bullet in the barrel, in
order to lay an old deer on my blanket? So let’s be happy my
Lord Baron, and commemorate the knightly days of which
your name reminds me so fiercely.”
I thanked him, strangely and not pleasantly moved by the
fact that he had been my father’s friend. Even the morose man
who was missing his ears and who was now ordered to find a
place for me to stay somewhere in the castle, did not make me
feel very cheerful.
“But now I want to introduce myself formally,” said the
old gentleman and stood up straight in his green coat. “I am the
Master of the Hound of the erstwhile Duke of Stoll-
Wessenburg, Eustach von Trolle und Heist, and I have been
sitting here for twenty years among crows and owls, with a
small salary on Krottenriede. We hadn’t a thought at the time
squire, not a single thought, your Herr Father and I, as we held
Serenissimo’s head when the wine was about to run out for
those at the top.”

Read Full Post »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

Since the candle threatened to go out, I asked Garnitter to
come out with his treasures, and soon there was a new light
burning in the candlestick.
“Hang cloaks or blankets in front of the windows, so that
they do not see the light from outside,” I admonished, and
immediately they went to carry out the advice. In the meantime
I looked at the door. There was probably a strong wooden latch
on the outside, but there was no way to secure it from the
inside. The hinges, however, seemed quite freshly oiled to me,
and I brought it to the attention of the others.
“That bastard of an Innkeeper is up to something,” the
squire from Sollengau blurted out, “and because there are four
of us, since the drunk is not to be counted, we must be hellishly
on the watch, because the host can get help from the
Spillermaxen Gang or from the blue whistlers.”
I said nothing and continued my investigation. The floor
was made of tamped earth, the walls had been built up with
solid blocks and cement and were ancient, and the ceiling had
no visible opening and consisted of heavy, dark beams, such as
one can only rarely still find in such length and strength.
Then Hoibusch emitted a low whistle and beckoned me
hastily. He was standing by the pillar. We trod on the rustling
straw and followed his groping hand with the light. And there
we saw something that revealed to us the trace of the satanic
trickery that was at play here.
In its entire length, from top to bottom, the rough stone
column was smoothly polished as if something heavy often slid
up and down on it and transformed the roughness of the
friction points into polished grooves. And seized by the same
thought, we looked upward at the ring or the capital of the
column, which with its excessive projection and mighty width
enclosed the column. It stood out brightly white in its fresh
coat of paint, and was separated from the narrow, circular space
of the column itself, so that this heavy load, when it was
loosened at the top, could fall down.
And it was precisely in the area of this ring that our head
pillows were arranged around the column.
Haymon straightened up halfway in his sleep and
stammered with wide-open eyes:
“Don’t you want to rest, Montanus? – You can’t get ducats
from your Mary, brother – let go, put away the blue hand–” and
then he vomited out the wine and food from his stomach,
which had long since been ruined, and defiled himself nastily.
“Pull him away from this death-trap” I shouted.
Then they grabbed him by the legs and pulled him away
from the dangerous bed, but he crawled back in his madness,
while we continued and once again he was dragged away. Then
he seemed to want to keep quiet and remained lying down.
“Shh!” whispered Garnitter, who was listening at the door.
We quickly extinguished the light and stayed as quiet as a
mouse. Light footsteps came along the corridor.
“Bärbel, the false hussy -“.
“Shh!”
She listened at the door, leaned. The wood creaked softly,
Haymon chattered in his sleep.
“What say you of sulphurous flames, Portugieser? – Great
hell, brother, how it stinks from your throat! I won’t give you
my hand, you are black all over, you devil- roast -“.
Quietly she scurried away from the door, down the
corridor.
We heard Haymon rustling in the straw, hitting the floor
with his foot and stretching with a groan.
Footsteps again. The boys quietly drew their long blades;
I drew the pistol, my thumb on the hammer, finger on the
trigger, without cocking it. It coughed, scrabbled at the door.
Then it slunk away again.
“They think they’re safe now, the murderous hounds,”
said Hoibush. On the ceiling above us something slid. A low
rattle arose. A dull unintelligible voice spoke something. A
whirring, a grinding, a whooshing fall–
Boom! – It struck heavy and pounding, softly muffled.
Feet drummed like madly on the clay floor, leathery,
clapping…- in our room.
“Strike fire, Hoibusch!” cried the squire hoarsely.
Pink, pink! The tinder glowed up, the sulfur- twitched
blue and sizzled with acrid stench, the candle burned -.
“Almighty!” Garnitter wanted to cry out, but Hoibusch
quickly put his hand over his mouth.
It took our breath away. The wide column ring had
crashed down and buried the head cushions and the unfortunate
head of poor Haymon, who had crawled back in the dark
without our knowledge. His feet were spread apart, his hands
were clasped on his chest in the robe and the rest of him lay
under the murder stone. Like a thick, dark snake, glistening in
the candlelight his blood coagulated in the straw.
“Lights out!” commanded the squire. “They’re coming!”
Ready to strike, we stood on either side of the door in the
darkness. Speaking loudly with echoing footsteps the landlord
and his pointy-nosed wife came down the corridor and pushed
open the door.
There they stood. The innkeeper carried in his left hand a
large stable lantern, in his right fist a sharp axe, and the fury
behind him was clutching a butcher’s knife. We only saw them
for a moment. Hoibusch’s blade went through the guy, and
Garnitter slit through the yellow neck of the woman, so that she
fell down with the squeal of a stuck pig. The host was dead in
an instant, speared through the heart like a starting boar. The
woman was still wriggling, and then lay still on her side.
“Are you dead, bloodhound?” shouted Garnitter and
kicked at the dead man’s belly with his foot. Up in the house
the dog howled.
“The dog! The wench!” cried Hoibusch. “We have to
catch the wench; otherwise she will run away and send the
host’s henchmen after us!”
He and the squire set off with the lantern to look for the
woman.
Now Garnitter and I saw the four holes in the ceiling and
the ropes hanging, by which the stone could be pulled up again.
We set about freeing the dead Haymon. But the stone was
too heavy for us to lift, and when we pulled on the feet of the
murdered man, the bones of the crushed head crunched so
horribly that we had to let go with a shudder.
Then we heard a shot, the wailing of the dog, and then a
dragging and a whimpering, and immediately Hoibusch and the
one from Sollengau came with the woman in shirt and smock,
whom they had dragged out of bed, where she had been under
the blankets and had fallen asleep. They had tied her hands
with a calf rope.
“I am innocent,” whined Bärbel when she saw us.
“Jesus Maria!” she shrieked out, as she stepped with her
naked foot into the pools of blood in which the landlord and the
landlady lay.
“Confess, whore, or we’ll lay you down next to the two of
them!
Both!” said Hoibusch calmly. “Did you not set the dog on
us? Confess, I say to you!”
“O thou bloody savior! What shall I confess?” Howled
the strumpet and fell on her knees. “I have done nothing,
except that I went to listen at the woman’s command to see if
everyone was asleep. I have never known of murder in my life”.
“And what is this, you shamed woman?” cried Hoibusch
in a strong voice and produced something he had been hiding
behind his back. Stones and gold flashed – a necklace with
almandines and artfully forged links shone in the light.
The girl’s face was white with fear and she looked around
with confused glances.
“Red!” said Hoibusch quite coldly, and put the point of
the blade on her bare breast, so that a small little red drop
sprang up.
“Ouch! Mercy -” clamored Bärbel as she squirmed to and
fro. “From the lady in the cellar -“.
Then she fell down in convulsions, and foam poured out
of her mouth. It was a pity to look at. But Hoibusch remained
unmoved.
“You have learned your art of eye-rolling well, you
robber whore!” he said. “Stop making foam out of saliva, and
get up!”
And once more he tickled her with the point of his rapier.
Then, in spite of her tied hands, she sprang to her feet like a cat
and cried out in despair:
“Well, if that’s what it is, I’d rather be dead right now
than let the gallows man sound me out with the thumbscrews!”
And she made such a swift and violent push against the
drawn blade, so that it missed going through her body by a hair.
But Hoibusch was on guard, and immediately let go of the
handle, so she only slashed her shirt so that her dark breast
bulged out.
“To the pillar with her!” cried Garnitter, and the three
students dragged her there in spite of biting and shrieking, and
bound her by body and legs next to the dead Haymon, so that
they could remain in silent and terrible company. For we took
the lantern with us and left the room with its sweetish haze of
blood, leaving only the candle burning as a death light for the
deceased. As we stood in the corridor, we heard the shrill
screams of the tied up woman.
And I must confess it: I took pity on her, because I felt
that it was not only her fault that she had to become like this.
Surely an evil fate had clawed at her from childhood; an
unguarded youth, instincts unleashed at an early age, abuse,
which one with her child body already suffered, poverty,
misery and lack of love did a terrible work on her. Was I
allowed to judge, when I opened the abysses of my own soul?
But as clever as the three students were, and as good as the
heart of one or the other might be, at this hour and in view of
the poor dead they would have looked at me with disgust if my
thoughts had become spoken aloud, and I would not have
helped anyone. So I kept silent and mourned in silence how
wrong people’s customs are, and how thousands and thousands
of children grow up without any care. And not only the brood
of the poor people –. How had it been with myself?

Read Full Post »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

Only one thing stood firm in my heart: the certainty that I
would see Zephyrine again. She and Aglaja, because they were
one and the same creature of God, destined for me and taken
from me again and again for the unknown purposes of eternal
powers.
During the day I had stayed in my inn room and had
answered every disturbance with the indication of indisposition
and the need for rest. In the course of the night, as the hand
approached the eleventh hour, I left the house and took the long
way to the pleasure grove.
The weather was damp and mild, and the spring wind
rattled under the roof tiles and made the weather vanes creak.
The path was dry. A long train of dark clouds chased across the
bright moon, like strange, stretched out running animal shapes.
Once or twice I was stopped by roundabouts or police
check points and was forced to show my papers and to arrange
my answers to the questions in such a way that it could be
inferred that I was on a secret love affair, which would be
unthinkable for a gentleman. In such a way, which caused me
enough displeasure, it was possible for me to get through and
even in the Egyptian darkness under the lanterns blown out by
the storm, ask for further directions from the public. For it was
not at all easy for me in such great darkness, which was
illuminated only at times by the crescent moon, to find the way
to the Lustwäldchen.
There I went astray a few times between the shapeless
tents and booths, which in the powerful darkness looked
completely different than in broad daylight. But the Magus and
his brother seemed to have attentively been on the lookout for
me, because when I, after looking around in vain tried to go in
another direction, a man suddenly stepped up to me, whom I
recognized as the harlequin, grabbed my wrist and said softly
and quickly:
“Come, Baron – we have been waiting for a long time.”
He led me between the darkened wagons and the canvas
tents to a large booth, from the crevices of which a very dim,
bluish light penetrated, opened a slit somewhere on the wall
and gently pushed me in front of him. The next moment I was
standing on the small stage behind the lowered curtain.
In the background still hung the cemetery scene with the
crosses and tombstones from the performance. The sides of the
stage were closed with dark curtains, so that I found myself in
a square of moving walls.
A few oil lamps made of blue glass gave a weak but
immensely pleasant and cold light, in which one saw quite well
after some habituation. I sat down at the invitation of the
brother in a reasonably comfortable chair that had been placed
for me. A copper basin with weakly glowing coals stood before
me. The brother approached me and whispered:
“Don’t speak to him when he comes. -Have you brought
the property of the person you wish to see?”
After some persuasion, I took the silver ring with the fire
opal out of my vest pocket and put it into his hand, and he went
to one of the side curtains, in the folds of which he disappeared.
Immediately he placed a bowl with grains in it next to the coal
fire and a small three-legged stool.
Then the curtain opposite me moved violently, and the
magus appeared. He was clothed in a dark, wide robe and wore
around his head a white cloth, as I had already seen in old
pictures. His face was pale gray and decayed, his eyes half
closed. He did not seem to see me and walked with his hands
stretched out in front of him like a blind man towards the
ember pan. His brother came quickly behind him, guided him
with his hands and pushed him down on the stool. Motionless
the magician remained seated. The brother took one of his
hands hanging down, opened, as it seemed to me, the closed
fingers, and put the ring in his hand, which immediately closed
again. Then he pushed up a similar stool for himself and
scattered grains from the copper bowl over the crackling and
smoldering coals. Immediately a blue, pleasantly fragrant
smoke rose up with a similar fragrance as that precious incense,
used by the Catholic Church on high feast days.
Immobile and without any sign of attention, the magus
sat in front of me and slightly behind him the brother, on whose
haggard and hollow-cheeked face the traces of progressed
pulmonary addiction were easily recognizable as the seal of an
early death. I turned my attention to the other again and now
saw that his eyes were directed at me with a fixed, lusterless
look. At the same time a swelling, melodic humming and
ringing began and I discovered that the brother had a Jew’s
harp between his teeth and was playing it with the index finger
of the right hand keeping the tongue of the instrument in a
constant buzz.
The Magus sat there for the time being in unchanged
posture. Slowly, however, his head sank crookedly against his
right shoulder, and his mouth opened. The hand that held the
ring began to twitch softly. Thus we sat for some time in the
blue light, and the hum and whisper of the music rose and fell.
Suddenly, however, I noticed between the open lips of
the motionless magus something that looked like the end of a
bluish-white, luminous cloth, which gradually began to emerge.
Moreover, it began to throb and knock behind my chair,
and this sound momentarily continued with even greater force
into the wooden floor, to then rise again into the chair, so that I
had to listen several times to the short, sharp blows with the
greatest clarity at my back and involuntarily looked around.
But there was no one behind or beside me, although the
knocking continued with undiminished strength. The white
tissue came out of the mouth of the sleeper almost to his chest
and then disappeared just as quickly as it had come, and the
knocking ceased with a crashing blow in the left armrest of my
armchair. In the deep silence the brother reached past the
magus once again into the incense bowl on the floor and
sprinkled grains on the coals. Something cold touched my
cheek unexpectedly and stroked my forehead. I reached out
quickly, but grabbed the empty air. But on the Magus’s
shoulder a large snow-white hand appeared, with its flat fingers
shaped almost like a glove. But then it stretched in an
excessively long, arm-like gesture over his head, sank down,
and lay quietly for a while like a third arm on his knee, until
everything faded away in a few moments and became invisible.
However, the sleeper now began to become restless, swayed
back and forth with his upper body and let a quiet, wailing
singsong be heard, whose words I could not understand.
It began to knock again very strongly against the floor
and then against my chair, and an empty stool, which stood at
the curtain and which I had overlooked so far, did four or five
frog-like leaps towards me, then turned around, stayed for a
while with its three legs stretched out in the air, and then began
to turn slowly in circles on the seat board. I suspected that
strong magnetic fluids were now active, which had been
obviously lying in deep slumber at the beginning. But at the
same time the trembling melody of the player strengthened and
accelerated, and the so far rocking motions of the magus
changed into violent and convulsive twitching, which seemed
very uncanny, all the more so because the newly nourished
fragrant smoke intensified and the two persons opposite me
appeared quite shadowy and unreal.
Then it seemed to me as if a folded, shimmering piece of
white cloth was lying there next to the charcoal basin, which
had not been there before. It moved in its center in an
incomprehensible way, as if a very small child or an animal
were covered by the linen and caused it to rise. But quickly the
strange cloth or the luminous mist grew in height, became
taller and narrower and seemed to want to take on the shape of
a human being. I looked in the utmost expectation straining to
see and believed to perceive the folds of a garment and limbs.
It was a human figure that arose before me.
And all at once, as if paralyzed by joyful fright, I saw the
completely pale and almost transparent beloved face of
Zephyrine, her eyes were fixed on me – but then something
grew out of the delicate head, from fine threads – glittering and
shining – Aglajas’ crown of the dead –
I wanted to jump up, to wrap my arms around the woman
that I so ardently longed for – But before my eyes veils were
laid, my feet were stuck in leaden shoes, my heart stood still.
Everything had disappeared. I saw only the raw stage
floor, the smoky, sweet smoke, the magus, who had fallen from
the stool with his eyeballs twisted and lay in convulsions. The
music fell silent.
Feet thumped on the flooring. The brother hurriedly
pulled the magus up, ran his cloth-wrapped hand into his
mouth and pulled out his tongue. With a wild gasp the
magician opened his eyes, looked around him and heaved a
sigh.
“Wake up, Eusebius!” cried the brother, shaking him
gently. “Wake up! Wake up!”
The magus looked first at him, then at me, and then let
his gaze go in circles, as if he first had to think about where he
was. He shuddered violently, grabbed his forehead with his
hand, stared at me and gurgled:
“Two–two there were–two–“
The other hurriedly fetched a tin cup and a bottle, poured
a dark, strong-smelling wine into the vessel and held it to the
brother’s lips. He drank in greedy gulps, put it down, and drank
again.
I discovered that my cheeks were wet with tears.
After a long effort, aided by his assistant, the
necromancer stood up and walked swaying toward me. His
face was slack and covered with sweat.
“The ring –” he stammered.
I took the silver jewel and kept it with me.
“Why two?”
He stretched out his hand toward me. It was trembling
violently.
“Why two, Herr?”
I nodded and said softly, “There were two, and yet there
is only one.”

Read Full Post »

Chapter 25 “My parents are dying!”

“If I had to say where I thought the problem was, I’d say it was in having us train six newbies before moving on. We could probably get by with training four or five instead.”

Then Tobal grinned at Zee and Kevin. “Still, that’s because we are good trainers. There are some people out here that still struggle to survive after two years. I would hate to train with them. I guess the bottom line is if you can survive out here for a year you must know what you are doing.”

“You have always done a good job training newbies,” Zee told him. “No one has ever complained about your training.”

“I don’t think anyone has ever complained about Becca, Fiona or Nikki either,” he reminded her. “I guess the best thing is to trust the Council of Elders to make these decisions for us.” He looked at Zee, “I have heard you are the most thorough trainer out here. You teach things many of us don’t even think about.”

She blushed and looked pleased. “Thank you Tobal. That was a very nice thing to say.”

Kevin nodded and gave her a squeeze. “We’d better get going. I want to get out of this rain.”

They laughed and with a final wave headed toward one of the shelters. Sarah’s, Anne’s, Derdre’s, Seth’s and Crow’s newbies were all going to be initiated along with Zee’s, Kevin’s, Fiona’s, Becca’s and Nikki’s. That was ten initiations and it was going to be a long night Tobal thought as he watched and listened to the Council of Elders.

Crow had proclaimed his newbie ready to solo but the Elders had not approved demanding one more month of training. Crow was pretty upset at this and it took quite a while before he was calmed down. He felt he was being picked on because he was so young and from the village. Tobal felt Crow had gotten a bad break and sympathized with him. Still it was true. No one else really knew him yet.

At circle Llana made quite an impression with her wolf cubs. She strolled in with the two cubs trailing at her heels. Tobal had not even been sure she would show up or that he would get his chevron. He hadn’t seen her since she had left to give her grandfather the message. The cubs were nervous and kept very close to her. He was glad to see her for several different reasons.

Tobal was officially recognized and given his 6th chevron along with the secret location where he was to be initiated into the 2nd degree in two weeks during the new moon. As soon as he could he moved over to where Llana was tying the cubs to a tree and kneeled down to scratch one of the pups behind the ears and smiled as it recognized him.

“Is your grandfather ok?” He asked.

She smiled, “Hi Tobal” and gave him a kiss and a hug. “Grandfather is doing fine. He was very excited to hear about Adam Gardener, Sarah’s father, and agreed that Adam was in serious danger so he left right away to talk with him.”

Then her face got very serious. “Someone broke into the store while they were talking and they needed to teleport out to escape. Neither one of them has been back to the store since. That was how close it was. They didn’t see who it was but they are assuming it was some of General Grant’s men. They also believe it is too dangerous to go back.”

She looked at him. “I gave your wand to grandfather since I thought he might need it. I hope that is ok?”

Tobal nodded, “I couldn’t take it with me to the Journeyman place anyway. It would not be safe there. Someone might discover it.”

“Tobal,” she said. “There has been a change in my plans. Grandfather and Adam have agreed to train both Crow and me in time travel to the locations that are open to us. We feel it is better to have four of us able to time travel than just two in case something happens to one of us.”

He swallowed a bitter lump in his throat. “That means you are going to quit the program?”

She nodded quietly. “We’re counting on you to stay in the program. I can meet you once or twice a month and continue your training so you will be ready to time travel as soon as possible. Without med-alert bracelets we will have much more freedom to come and go and meet with people.”

“How soon will that be,” he said in despair. “How soon will I be able to time travel?”

She sensed his disappointment and put her right hand gently on his shoulder. “You have learned a lot,” she told him quietly. “But there is still a lot to learn. Perhaps by the time you are a medic you will be ready. The ability to teleport is the key to the entire process. When you have learned how to do that you will be ready. In the meantime you will continue within the program itself. As Ron and Rachel’s son they will be watching you in the hopes that you will have the same abilities that your parents did. They will allow you to have as much training as possible before they attempt to use you. It is almost certain you will be chosen to be trained for Federation time travel.”

“Do I need to join those people?”

“We need to know exactly where your parents are kept if we are going to help them,” she reminded him. “We will also need someone on the inside that knows their way around. Crow is going to start training a group to teleport and time travel at the village. I am going to be working with you and your group.”

“Your group?” He asked puzzled.

“Yes, your group,” she smiled. “You didn’t think you were going to be doing this alone did you?”

“Well, kind of,” he admitted.

“As you continue through the training you will meet people you trust and become friends with,” she told him. “ Some of them will be chosen to continue on within the time travel program. If you and I also teach them the teleportation process in secret they will test well enough to be chosen. Your group can then infiltrate the organization.”

“How long will all of this take,” he said in despair. “My parents are dying!”

“Your parents have been dying for twenty years,” she said softly. “ They will stay alive as long as they know we are coming. They have told me that. We will need between one and two years to get your group trained and ready. That means you will all be medics by then.”

“When will I be able to talk with my parents like you and Crow do? I mean when I’m not at circle or astral projecting to the cave I can’t reach them.”

“That should start happening soon,” she told him. “Your coming initiation should assist in that process. In the meantime keep practicing your meditations and astral projection exercises. And remember, you can talk to your parents and learn from them already. Ask them what you should do.”

“You said we will continue meeting each month,” Tobal said. “When and where will we meet next?”

“Let’s meet in the morning three days after every circle at your base camp,” she decided. “That will work for starters. Later we can find a better location if we want to.”

They left it at that and he noticed Llana and the wolf cubs were gone shortly after that. She didn’t stay for circle or to talk with any of the others. He realized she had come just to talk with him and to make sure he got his sixth chevron.

Even with ten initiations there was a shortage of newbies and Tobal noticed that several clansmen including Tyrone, Mike and Butch were not at circle. They were presumably waiting at sanctuary for more newbies and had been waiting the entire month. Tempers were flaring around the newbie situation.

Mike was angry and so were Tara and Nick who decided to just stay together for the month. Wayne and Char didn’t really care and were back together. There were five other clansmen really angry about the newbie situation. It had reached the point where four Apprentices simply left for the coast. That was more than the monthly one or two that normally elected to drop out of the program.

Tobal had been doing some heavy thinking about the newbie situation and realized that most of the problems were because Nikki, Fiona, Becca and himself had all trained newbies within a month and created a bottleneck situation with the newbies. They were getting their training too fast. There had been a problem when Rafe was training newbies one a month but this was far worse since Rafe was just one person. Now there were several people training that fast. Tobal decided to talk to Ellen about it after circle that evening.

Angel was High Priestess for the circle and Tobal noticed Dirk was acting High Priest for the first time. He was closely monitored by the old High Priest but went through the entire ritual himself. Tobal thought he had done a good job. He could feel the Lord and Lady during each of the initiations but was not able to contact them. It seemed they were focused entirely on the initiates for some reason.

The ten initiations took a long time and he missed chatting with Becca and the others. He did sit beside Ellen though and asked her about making all the training two months long for everyone.

She turned an amused eye toward him, “The Council of Elders has already discussed that in depth. We decided if a newbie is properly trained and ready to solo we have no right to prevent them. If some people can do the training within a month they have the right to do so. If some trainers are motivated to move through the ranks more quickly than others they should be allowed to do that also.”

“But what about all the bad feelings among the clansmen?” He asked. “What about the shortage of newbies?”

Ellen sighed, “Fiona, Becca and Nikki are the only ones left that are training newbies that quickly. They are trying to get their last newbies right now. No one else is trying to train that fast and the problem will go away when they become Journeymen. It is not right to punish them for being good trainers. We did not punish you or Rafe.”

“All in all,” she continued. “It is an effective system and we are inclined to keep things the way they are.”

Tobal nodded and changed the subject as Rafe sat down and joined them at one of the pauses between initiations.

“So what has been happening with the City Council this past month?”

“Not much,” Ellen replied. “Last month’s meeting was cancelled. The mayor contacted us and said they were not ready for a meeting yet. The mayor had dark circles under his eyes and looked a lot older than I remembered. This must be pretty hard on him.”

Tobal changed the subject. “Rafe, you have an air sled now?”

Rafe was wearing his red Master’s robe for the first time to circle. “It’s over there.” He pointed to a location slightly outside of the gathering spot. “I’m still not sure how fast it will go.” He chuckled and glanced at Ellen.

She looked at Rafe with a concerned look. “It’s not a toy Rafe. There have been several air sled deaths.”

He pouted, “I’m just kidding. Don’t take me so serious. Besides,” he continued glumly, “They watch us like a hawk. I can’t get away with anything.”

He brightened a bit. “But I am going to check out some of those forbidden areas that are marked on this map though. Maybe I will have something interesting to add by next month.”

Tobal had almost forgotten the map of forbidden locations Rafe had gotten from Ellen several months ago. Without an air sled Rafe had not been able to check any of them out.

Ellen protested, “Rafe, I don’t really think you should be doing things like that right now. Things are getting dangerous and we don’t really know what we are up against.”

“Checking out these forbidden locations is one way of finding out what we are up against,” was Rafe’s stubborn reply.

“I’ve got an idea,” Tobal said suddenly.

Then he explained the situation with Crow and Llana and how Crow was going to take one group and start training them to teleport and be time travelers while Llana’s group would remain within the system but receive the same training.

“Count me in,” Rafe said.

“Me too,” was Ellen’s reply.

“Good,” said Tobal. “I will tell Llana to start meeting with each of you and training you in what you need to know. She won’t be wearing a med-alert bracelet anymore and can meet you just about anywhere you decide. She won’t show up on any of the monitors.”

He looked at Rafe. “You could even take her by air sled and drop her off at some of those forbidden locations and let her check them out. Then she could teleport out with the information about the area. I think she can only teleport to a place she has been before but once she knows where it is she would be able to go back when ever she wanted.”

Ellen and Rafe looked at Tobal and at each other and nodded. It seemed like a fairly good plan. They would be waiting for Llana to contact them. In the meantime Tobal would set things up with Llana and get his Journeyman initiation.

Both Ellen and Rafe said they were going to be at his Journeyman initiation. He had almost forgotten about it. The secret location turned out to be a cave. Tobal hadn’t realized there were so many caves in the area. He scouted the area ahead of time looking for trails that led into it. He found a safe hiding spot for the things that belonged to his parents and left them in a bundle to pick up later after his initiation.

Finally satisfied that he knew where he was supposed to go he went into the camp itself. No one had said anything about coming early and the late spring weather made travelling a bit uncertain. He felt it was better to show up early than to show up late. It was only a few hours early and they would be expecting him.

He decided the best course of action was to stay on the path and make no sudden moves remembering what had happened with Fiona. It turned out he didn’t need to be so cautious. Turning a corner in the path were two guards standing in the middle of the path as a roadblock. They had a small fire going and there was a lived in occupied look that made Tobal suspect this camp was always guarded.

They greeted him warmly and one guard remained on the trail while he was escorted to a chamber and told to wait. After about an hour of silence someone came for him and again his guide was female. This time it was a girl Tobal knew as Lea dressed in a black robe and hood that covered her honey colored hair.

“Do you seek the Light and Wisdom of our secret circle,” she asked as she approached him in the darkness.

“Yes, I do.”

“There is no Light for you here. In the Apprentice degree you have received all of our light. What you need now is more darkness so the Light within you can shine forth more brightly. That is how you will attain the wisdom of our circle. Will you permit me to be your guide into the darkness?” She asked.

Tobal was surprised and a little shaken by this and wondered what he was getting himself into but he remembered Rafe and knew it couldn’t be too bad.

“I will permit you to be my guide,” he told her.

“You must leave everything behind if you are to enter this degree,” she told him. Then she told him to strip completely. She fastened a large blindfold around his eyes so he couldn’t see anything and taking his left hand led him further into the cave. In the other hand she carried a burning torch. Tobal sensed the light from the torch but couldn’t see anything through the fabric of the blindfold. His guide led him for some way and then stopped. A bundle of clothing was pressed into his hands and he was told to dress himself.

“Are you willing to receive the darkness,” she asked him?

“Yes.”

“What are the two passwords into our sacred circle, she asked.

“Perfect love and perfect trust,” he replied.

“No, in this degree these are reversed. In this degree you must have perfect trust to find perfect love. In this degree we study the duality of opposites inherent in all of nature. Think upon these things as you wait on my return.”

She told him to sit down where he was and took his blind fold off. As his eyes adjusted to the glare of the torch she told him it was very important he stay where he was because the cave was large and he could get lost or killed if he wandered away in the darkness without knowing where he was going. She was going to go and see if things were ready for the initiation. In the meantime he was to quietly meditate and prepare himself.

She turned and left him sitting in the darkness. As he watched the torch grew smaller in the distance and then disappeared altogether as she turned a corner. He had never experienced such total darkness and it was unnerving. For a moment he fought the impulse to get up and run after her remembering what had happened with Fiona. In the darkness the rock and earthy feeling of the cave seemed to close in on him and press against his ribs making it hard to breathe.

There was a sound in the darkness behind him and a bolt of panic and fear tried to tear itself loose and gain control over him. It took a massive effort of will to fight the feelings back. He began concentrating on his breathing and centering as Crow had taught him. He deliberately pulled the earth energy up from the ground and from all around him and encircled himself with it and called on the Lord and Lady to be there with him.

In the blackness of the cave he began to see glowing lights and couldn’t tell if he was seeing them with his physical eyes or in his mind’s eye. There simply was not any way of knowing if they were figments of his imagination or if they were real. He wanted to believe they were real but whenever he tried to focus and look at them directly they would disappear. This continued for some time.

He could feel his heart beating and pulsing in his throat and arms and in his heart itself. It was a slow steady rhythm that seemed to comfort and protect him. It seemed like hours had passed and he wondered if he had been forgotten but was not particularly worried. He had found his center and surrounded himself with protection. Then he heard someone coming and saw the faint gleams of light from the torch.

The light blinded his eyes as Lea came up to him and told him they were ready. She handed a second torch to him and lit it.

“You carry your own light into our circle.” She told him. “In the Apprentice degree there were two passwords. What were they?”

“Perfect love and perfect trust.” He replied.

“And what are the passwords into the Journeyman degree?”

“Perfect trust and perfect love.” He replied.

“Remember these passwords.” She said. “You will need them to gain entry into our sacred circle.”

As Tobal was led deeper into the cave it opened into an enormous cavern. Torches had been placed around at various points for lighting and there was no large fire in the center of the cave. The smoke from the torches rose and lost itself high in the vaulted ceiling finding escape through some hidden airway. Four small fires marked the four quarters of the circle at a smooth and level spot in the cavern floor.

A circle had been formed by dark hooded figures standing silently waiting for him. The High Priest and High Priestess were dressed in red robes with large hoods that hid their faces. Looking at them, Tobal couldn’t make out who they were. The hooded figures around the circle looked eerie in the flickering torchlight. He was halted at the edge of the circle.

Lea pulled him forward. “An Apprentice is among us proven by the elements of nature and of the earth. He wishes to join his light with our own so our community might be more illumined and our wisdom grow. He further wishes to follow the ancient craft and learn the ways of our sacred circle.”

The High Priest came over and stood in front of Tobal staring intently into his eyes.

“I must remind you that this is not a matter to be lightly taken. Your immortal soul will be deeply committed to the path of the Lord and Lady. Do you desire to have your destiny joined with theirs?”

“I do.”

“Do you seek the way that reaches beyond life and death? Will you serve the Lord and reverence the Lady? Will you keep secret from the unworthy that which we show you?”

Tobal replied affirmatively to each of these questions in turn.

“So be it. Child of Earth enter the path of darkness.” Stepping back he motioned for Tobal to walk in front of him into the circle. But his guide quickly restrained him.

“You can’t enter our sacred circle unpurified.” She said. Then taking a bowl of water from the High Priest she sprinkled him with it.

“I purify you with water.”

She waved the torch over him, in front of him and behind him.

“I purify you with fire.”

Then the High Priest stepped forward once more.

“There are two passwords that will allow you to enter our sacred circle. What are they?”

Tobal replied, “Perfect trust and perfect love.”

“Then lead us with your light into the greater darkness.” Said the High Priest. “Show us the way.”

Tobal’s guide tugged him widdershins toward the North quarter and Tobal led the silent party to the small fire signifying the North quarter. He stood silently before the fire wondering what to do for several minutes as they bowed respectfully and waited. The cave’s chill seeped into his bones, stirring echoes of the altar’s glow from his astral visits, a faint reassurance in the void. Then he felt his guide nudging him toward the west and he led the party to the quarter of the circle representing west and water. As before they remained standing silent before the watchtower with bowed heads. Again his guide nudged him forward toward the south.

After paying homage to the watchtower of the south Tobal led them to the Watchtower of the East where the process was repeated. Then Tobal was nudged by his guide to continue widdershins until they arrived at the entrance path into the circle itself. The High Priest roared out in anger.

“Seize Him!”

Taking his knife the High Priest pressed it against Tobal’s chest and cried out in anger.

“We trusted you and you have only led us in a large circle. We have arrived back at the beginning. Why have you done this to us?”

Tobal had no answer to give and his guide remained silent.

Read Full Post »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

The accursed bird intervened with a wild laughter
between them.
“Apollonius sees through you.”
Laurette let out a small reproachful sigh.
“You’ve always been a lover of youth and innocence,
Baron Dronte.”
“That remark touches something in me that is
unforgettable and valuable enough to shine like a bright star for
my entire life.”
“Oh – you are gallant!” She offered me her hand to kiss,
and stood up, excited and glowing, as it seemed to me.
I rose and resolved to leave her now- constrained by
conflicting and peace less feelings.
“How will I fare?” I addressed the bird once again.
“Since I did not succeed in winning your friendship -?”
“Off with his head! Off with his head!” the beast
screamed shrilly and looked at me with devilish joy.
I paid no more attention to the parrot and left.
Laurette accompanied me to the yellow room. The
curtain had hardly been drawn when I perceived a sudden
pallor in her, and just in time I was able to save her from falling
by taking her in my arms. I laid her quickly on a small sofa and
looked around. On a table stood a golden flask. I pulled the
stopper and rubbed the strongly scented essence on her temples.
She slowly opened her eyes.
“The abominable one frightened me so”, she flirted and
wrapped her arms around my neck.
Gently, I pulled free.
“I am a captive,” she lamented softly, “the satanic beast
guards me better than humans have been able to do. Do you
hear how it screams and beats with its wings? That is the signal
for the paid maid to come in and look after me. But she is not
here, I sent her to him with a note — we are alone -.”
Again her soft arms wrapped around my neck, and before
I knew it her hot red lips were sucking at my mouth.
Lorle-poor Lorle-, I thought, and then the most burning
longing for Zephyrine, whom I hoped to find in the
hunchbacked doctor’s house.
Tenderly I loosened her arms and looked into her eyes:
“Forget me, Lorle,” I admonished softly. “Don’t put your
happiness at risk for the sake of a fleeting minute.”
A flame flashed in her eyes.
“I thank you for your concern for me,” she said harshly.
“Now I know that you love another. And that I am nothing to
you anymore!”
“Lorle -!” I stammered.
“Go! Go!” she said, and tears stood in her eyes. “Why are
you trying to lie?”
Then I walked slowly through the yellow room and
closed the door between me and the sobbing woman.
I passionately pursued my research. The house “Zum
Fassel” was soon found, but it seemed foolish to enter Doctor
Postremo’s apartment under any pretext. I certainly would not
have succeeded in entering his mansion with the fair Zephyrine
in his presence, and even if this could have happened by
chance, not a word between us would have remained unheard.
That the doctor must have had a bad memory of me from the
gambling house was another factor.
It was therefore necessary to find a time in which either
the doctor was away from home and the niece was in the
apartment, or hope for the luck to see Zephyrine on one of her
exits.
But although I spent all my time on such scouting, and
opened the door of the spacious house, which was inhabited by
many people, neither the one nor the other opportunity
presented itself.
Then something happened to me, which newly shook me
and tormented me with puzzling questions and, strange as it
sounds, at the same time filled me with confidence.
I was walking through the nearby Greeks alley, to take a
quick meal in an inn. Groups of Greek and Turkish merchants
were plying their business on the street, according to the
custom of the Orient transplanted here, and it sometimes took
patience to get through the obstacle of those eagerly talking
and absorbed in their trade. Just now I was about to look for a
way through such a crowd of people, when I saw an apparition
at the end of the narrow alley, which put me in great excitement.
A man with a black turban, his bright eyes fixed on me, and
seemed to want to meet me. I saw clearly his pure features, the
amber necklace around his neck, the reddish-brown robe. This
time I had to get close to him. I forcefully made my way
through the astonished merchants, and I had to take my eyes
off the man in the robe for only a second and when I looked in
that direction again, he had disappeared, as he had every time I
was close to reaching him. I hurried as fast as I could to the
exit of the narrow alley, but it was in vain. Neither to the right
nor to the left, my eyes saw nothing but indifferent people who
slowly or quickly made their way. Desperate and with the
feeling that the sight of the unusual man meant something
important and decisive, which must be imminent, I came up
with the idea of the Levant merchants who had just been
pushed aside, in the hope that a person living in Vienna, who
walked along in oriental costume, must be known to them.
So I went back the way I came and spoke to an old Turk
with a good-natured face and a long white beard, who, despite
the warmth, was wearing a precious coat, trimmed with sable
fur, and seemed to be very respectable, judging by the behavior
of the bystanders.
With polite words, I asked him to forgive me for the
nuisance, and immediately added my inquiry about the man
who had disappeared from me. The Turk touched his forehead
and mouth with his right hand and replied to me in fairly good
German exceedingly politely that he did not know this man and
that he had never seen him. At the same time his eyes were
fixed with a strange expression on the small red scar, which I
owed to the fall of broken glass, when I, still a child, escaped
the collapsing ceiling of my room, and said with a peculiar
expression of reverence:
“You, Lord, who bear the mark of Ewli, ask questions of
me?”
I did not understand what he meant, and described the
turban and the robe of the stranger.
“It is the clothing of the Halveti dervishes”, said the Turk,
bowing to me. “Grant me your goodwill, Effendi!”
He stepped back, and I saw the others pestering him with
questions, to which he answered quietly. What he said seemed
to have been about me, because when I passed through the
crowd once more, they all bowed to me and voluntarily formed
a kind of trellis, through which I strode half ashamedly.
I took a simple meal in a restaurant with uneasy feelings
and thoughts of the stranger, whom I could not approach. Then
I wanted to return to my post opposite the house “Zum Fassel”.
On the way I passed by the Greek coffeehouse and
involuntarily took a quick glance through the windows.
There I saw to my joyful astonishment the hunchbacked
figure of Doctor Postremo. He was sitting bent over a
Backgammon board, on which the stones were jumbled, and
talked with waving hands to a mockingly smiling, black-haired
and yellow-skinned man with long, crooked nose, whose
behavior had obviously infuriated him. I stopped and noticed
that the stones were immediately again in position and a new
game began.
Thus the house had still another exit, which had escaped
my attention and which the Italian used.
Now or never I had to dare. I quickly entered the building
and asked the first person who met me on the dark stairs, for
the doctor’s apartment. Sullenly I was given the information
that it was located on the second floor.
I effortlessly found the door with the name and a bell pull,
with the figure of a yellow hand pointing to it.
Just as I reached out my fingers for it, a shadowy gray
woman came scurrying up the stairs, slipped past me and
inserted a key into the door lock. When she entered and looked
at me questioningly, I quickly pushed past her and said:
“Don’t be alarmed, good woman. I must speak to the
Demoiselle Zephyrine at once -.”
At the same time I pressed a prepared number of imperial
ducats into her withered hand.
That seemed to do the trick. The ugly hag grinned and
pulled me through a gloomy corridor into a half-dark chamber,
which, like the whole apartment was filled with the smell of
bitter almonds.
“Wait here!” she hissed and scurried out.
Not without uneasiness and expecting an ambush I let my
eyes wander around the eerie room. In one corner stood two
human, gruesomely bent over skeletons, where one could see
that the curved spine and the arched shoulder blades during life
had formed a hunchback, like the one Postremo himself had on
his back. Perhaps he had wanted to study his own mutated limb
structure.
On a rack, whose green curtain was only half drawn, blue,
brown and yellowish organs floated in large glass vessels in
clear liquid. A dried brain lay like the core of a giant nut on a
table, whose top was formed from some type of polished rock
that was unknown to me. Gray, greenish blue and rose-colored
snake-like figures with white angular spots in them and dark
red, sharply bordered sections – was this colored marble?
I ran my fingers over the greasy, egg-round slab and
suddenly realized with disgust that here was the smoothed cut
surface of a fossilized corpse before me, as they knew how to
make in Bologna. In a glass box at the window sat a
completely twisted, misshapen chameleon, which I at first
thought was dead, until it slowly turned its protruding eye on
me and turned its gray color into a dirty red.
Then a curtain rustled in the background. A white figure
stood motionless, with half-closed eyes.
“Zephyrine!”
I enfolded her in my arms, and sung a thousand tender
words into her little ear, drank in the heady scent of her hair
and covered her white face with kisses.

Read Full Post »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

I looked around the distinguished room in which I was kept
waiting, and looked closely at the only picture, a man with
olive-brown, finely chiseled features, dark, sad eyes, of rather
unattractive facial formation, wearing a canary yellow uniform
with red lapels and under the coat, which was open, a black
breastplate. Then the maid reappeared, lifted the curtain and
asked me to enter with a curtsy.
I entered a boudoir entirely in gleaming gold with
precious furniture and a brocade-covered resting bed, on which
Laurette half sat, half lay. She smilingly held her hand out to
me from a cloud of lace and thin silk, smiling, and I was again
struck anew by the unusual charm that her pretty, rosy face
radiated under the artful coiffure. But while I stared at her, not
at all to her displeasure, enraptured, that disgusting, shrill
laughter sounded close to us, and only then I noticed a chubby,
bald-headed parrot of gray color, from whose crooked beak
came the laughter.
If my whole mind had not been filled with the image of
that sweet child’s face and the reddish-gold hair, I would hardly
have felt at ease in the presence of this blossomed woman, who
had stirred my first emotions of love. I felt that I could not have
restrained myself for long, and all the more so because Laurette,
with consummate art, soon showed me a part of her perfectly
beautiful breast, soon the noble shape of a leg or the curve of
her classic arm. Nevertheless, I could not resist the desire to
remind the distinguished lady of those days, when she was still
called Lorle and had kissed me in the honeysuckle arbor behind
her father’s house. But she slipped away from me in a playful
mastery of the conversation, and thus forced me to respect the
boundaries she wished to keep. Yes, when I, fired by my
blissful memories, dared to touch her bare arm with my hand,
she struck me on my fingers and pointed with peculiar, even
serious, significance at the parrot, who was entertaining
himself by wiping his beak on the silver perch.
“Take care, my all too friendly cavalier, beware of this
bird,” she said softly, as if she were afraid that the ruffled beast
might be listening. “Apollonius does not like it when one
caresses me in his presence. Besides, my little finger tells me,
dear Baron, that you have not come to court me, but that you
have called on my willingness to serve you in some other way.”
“I cannot deny it,” I replied, somewhat affected, although
it seems unclear to me from where you, my dear Laurette, have
received such wisdom.”
“Ei!” she laughed, “Don’t I have my soothsayer and at
the same time protector and guardian next to me?” and less
loudly she added:
“It can be called a true good fortune, that the good
Apollonius is becoming somewhat hard of hearing and is no
longer able to overhear all that is spoken.”
The fact that she lowered her voice seemed indeed to
disgust the bird. He rolled his ball-eyes, stepped from one foot
to the other, and struck the cage bar with his beak, so that it
rang.
“Louder!” he cried.
“You see?” said Laurette, glancing shyly at him. “He’s in
a bad mood today.”
“He looks like an old Hebrew, your Apollonius,” I said
aloud. “It is believed that animals of his species live to be over
a hundred years old.”
“Hihihi! Hehehe! I’m an animal?” cried the bird. “A
hundred years! Imbecile!”
“What do you mean, he speaks French?” I turned to the
beautiful one.
“He speaks all languages,” whispered Laurette.
“Take care! He guards me, tells everything to the Spanish
envoy – whose mistress I am,” she added hesitantly, her cheeks
flushing slightly. “But Apollonius also bears witness to events
and is able to see into the future.”
Now I knew who the pimp was to whom she owed her
well-being, and so naturally a faint feeling of jealousy would
have arisen at this discovery. Not being of a jealous nature, I
felt nothing of the kind. Nevertheless, I felt sadness and
remorse that this once pure and benign child through my fault
had been taken from the peaceful and safe shelter of her
parents’ home to the glittering and uncertain splendor of a life
based only on lust.
At the same time, however, I clearly recognized that her
restraint towards me was not due to gratitude towards a present
friend and lover, but rather the fear of the treacherous gossip of
the feathered fowl to which she obviously attributed intellect
and human-like malice.
That through such thoughts the extremely ugly, bald-
headed animal became even more repugnant and hated by me
than already at the first sight, is understandable. I was tempted
to interact with the chattering bird. Or at least to check in every
way, to what extent Laurette’s description about his intelligence
was justified. How could this small, round bird’s head, behind
these rigid, rolling eyes be anything different from that of other
animals?
The repeating and coincidentally making sense of learned
words and randomly putting together learned words might be
suitable to cause strange, astonishing effects. But I could not
and did not believe in a human-like thinking ability. The only
thing I understood was Laurette’s caution to speak softly, so
that the hard-of-hearing bird would not parrot them back at
inopportune times. I myself had heard a story, in which a
starling, also a talking animal, had betrayed his mistress by
singing in front of her husband in the most melting tones the
first name of a young gentleman, who had been suspected for a
long time of being the favored lover of the housewife. Without
waiting for Laurette’s warm gesture, I turned to the parrot,
looked at him and said:
“Well, Apollonius, if you are really so clever as you are,
tell me who won the most money the day before yesterday at
the Pharaoh’s?”
The bird ruffled its feathers, twisted its eyeballs in a
ghastly way, chuckled a few times, and then cackled:
“Defunctus” – the dead one. I looked at him, unable to
speak a word.
“I beg you, Melchior, let him go,” said Laurette quickly
and quietly, and in her gaze there was fear. Then she said loudly,
“Baron, don’t tease Apollonius, or he’ll tell me the nastiest
things that deprive me of sleep at night.
“It was I who won, infernal beast!” I cried, and pulled
myself together.
The gray one laughed and said with his head bent
forward, eyeing me maliciously:
“Donum grati defunctil”-a gift from the grateful dead.
“Why don’t you turn the collar on such vicious vermin?”
I angrily prodded. “Give him some peach pits and get some
peace with it.”
She shook her head.
“He eats no poison, fair Herr! Little killer! Little
murderer!” chuckled Apollonius and flapped his wings.
“Perhaps you have murdered yourself, chewy, disgraceful
beast!” I screamed and shook my fist at him. “Perhaps you are
a soul damned by God and must now repent in the form of an
animal!”
There came a heavy, almost human sigh from the bar, a
groan from a tortured chest. The parrot looked at me with a
fearful and horribly desolate look, and hung its head. Slowly he
pulled the nictitating skin over his eyes, and with an inner
tremor I looked – by God in heaven! -, I saw two tears dripped
from the eyes of the animal. But this lasted only a moment,
because immediately after that he stared at me with such
appalling insolence that I became hot and cold and my rising of
pity quickly disappeared. But when I saw the troubled face of
the beautiful Laurette, I thought how naughty and disturbing
for her peace my behavior must have seemed to her, and to
rectify my mistake, I decided to turn the matter into a joke. I
bowed therefore with ironic politeness before the animal and
said in a cheerful tone:
“Do not be angry with me, venerable Apollonius, I did
not mean to offend your wisdom. I am now converted and no
longer doubt in your wonderful gift to see the past and the
future. Would it not be possible to make friends with you, king
of all parrots?”
The feathered one shook with laughter, clucked his beak
and whistled. Then he moved his head quite distinctly, after
human style, violently denying, back and forth.
“So we can’t be friends?” I continued and winked at
Laurette. “I would have liked to ask a question – about a
hunchback I’m looking for -.”
My question was for Laurette, of course, and I was about
to explain myself further, when it came buzzing from the bar:
“Dottore Postremo.”
“What do you want with him?” said Laurette, in
astonishment.
“Do you know him?” I asked, unable to conceal my
excitement. A deep blush passed over her face.
“As it happens –” she replied sheepishly.
“What is it about him?”
“He’s an Italian doctor — a lot of women go to see him
who wish to remove the unpleasant consequences of a few
pleasant hours. He has a reputation, and the courts have often
dealt with him. But nothing could ever be proved. – But you
must not think, Baron, that I might -“
I laughed politely, “How could I, beautiful Laurette?”
“He is said, by the way, to have a very beautiful foster-
daughter or niece,” she went on, looking at me lurkingly. “A
girl who has hardly blossomed. He lives in the house called
Zum Fassel.”
She lowered her eyes and looked at me from under her
lids.
“Be careful! The man is capable of anything!”
“You are mistaken, Laurette,” I lied. “It’s not a question
of adventures.”

Read Full Post »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

On the other side of the bankholder an old man leaned low in
the chair with almost extinguished eyes, whose long fingers
crawled like spider legs out of the lace cuffs when it was
necessary to reach for gold. A daunting, ugly, hunchbacked
person with a deep brown face, finger-thick, coal-black
eyebrows and sharp, thin lips ate sweets from a gold paper bag,
and the pungent smell of bitter almonds, which I had already
noticed when I entered the room. Between him and a dark
green, silver-laced hussar with hairy hands shyly sat a young
girl all huddled together, who immediately attracted my
attention. Nevertheless my glance also took in as well a man in
expensive clothes, whose nose consisted of fiery red turkey
flaps and a high official, judging from his embroidered jacket,
who turned a blue-white, blind horse’s eye toward me. All the
people at that gaming table were somehow marked in some
way.
But the young girl, whose completely unexpected charm
so deeply touched me, had an indescribable resemblance to my
Aglaja, my dead cousin, was of perfect grace and beauty and
looked like a wonderful flower in a heap of rubbish. She
looked at me with a pleading and help-seeking look, as it were
that penetrated my heart like sweet fire, and in a moment filled
it with fierce tenderness.
It was as if Aglaja were sitting opposite me in a slightly
changed form, with a silent plea for protection and salvation
from some danger. Soon I heard her name, which the
hunchback pronounced in a strange German and always in a
harsh commanding tone:
“Zephyrine.”
And every time the monster spoke of some service from
the fair and lonely child, the toothless mouth of the spider-
fingered old man, whom they called Count Korony, lit up with
an unspeakably repugnant and lascivious grin. I immediately
made up my mind to approach this girl, who I loved at first
sight and to offer her my services, of which she seemed to need.
This feeling became so violent in me, that I could hardly
control myself and several times I was tempted to approach her,
especially when her gray, gold-flecked eyes looked at me and I
could see Aglaja’s unforgettable stars directed at me.
Nevertheless, I was wise enough not to admit a
completely incomprehensible affection and to wait for a
favorable moment, which would allow the inconspicuous
beginning of a conversation.
Meanwhile, the game was played very high, and the
bankholder with the hooded eye raked in whole mountains of
gold. Apart from him, the feisty Spanish Jewess was in luck. At
first I played well and doubled twice, but I lost on the very next
play. And little by little I got into a heat, tried to quickly bring
back what I had lost and again and again repeatedly lost. The
girl’s gaze clung sadly to me, and once it was as if she
reminded me with an almost imperceptible wink of her eye to
be careful and to keep an eye on the bankholder. I had to reach
deeper and deeper into my money cat, more and more of my
gold pieces went into the hands of the bankholder and the fat
woman, and as midnight approached, I realized with a
nameless horror that my cash was exhausted and only a few
gold pieces were my own.
Bitter remorse seized me for my imprudence. Too late I
thought of the fact that such secret playhouses were only set up
for the catching of bullfinches, and I remembered how often I
had heard that the apparent opposing players after the departure
of the plundered divided the profit that had been taken from
their victim. This was thanks to the skilful way in which they
worked together.
But as much as I was on my guard after Zephyrine’s
secret hint and looked at the bankholder’s hands, I could find
little wrong that would have given me the right to declare the
game invalid and demand the lost money back. But even then
my rebellion would have been in vain and ridiculous because
these numerous people were prepared for such things. I didn’t
even know where this house was located and would never be
able to find it the next day!
In despair, I bet two of my four remaining gold pieces,
when the clock on the mantelpiece of the fireplace struck
midnight and played a hoarse, mournful gavotte.
At that moment the double door was opened, and a
strange, hollow-eyed man, dressed entirely in black mourning
livery pushed a new player in a wheelchair to the table. It was
an ancient, quite frail old man with a white wig, just like the
servant, only more expensively dressed in black. His face
betrayed great wisdom, but also an eventful life. For it was
crisscrossed by countless wrinkles and furrows. But the waxy
color and the strange immobility of the wrinkles gave this well-
educated head of a witty old man something eerily corpse-like
and dead. Uncertain memories penetrated agonizingly on me.
Unconcerned about the poorly concealed astonishment of
the table company, the old man slid a roll of money onto the
cloth and immediately joined in the game without speaking a
word. Whispering, everyone looked at him. It seemed to me
that the candles had been burning darker since he had come
into the hall with his servant.
Then the man in the wheelchair turned two black,
lusterless eyes on me and said with a voice that seemed to
come from unfathomable depths:
“Herr von Dronte, I invite you to play with me en
compagnie!”
I only managed to nod. Like mist it sank on Zephyrine’s
lovely face, on her shimmering hair, on the ring-laden hands of
the Spanish Jewess and the nimble fingers of the bankholder.
The cards fell.
Silently, the old man slipped me half of his winnings, a
whole roll of golden sovereigns.
The bankholder mumbled something between his teeth,
the fat woman was wiping sweat and grease powder from her
forehead, and the hussar uttered a half-loud Hungarian curse.
Again the cards fell, thin old man’s fingers pushed new gold
pieces to me. The time passed, fell in golden drops down on me.
I saw that people from the other tables stood up, that a ring of
curious faces surrounded us. But all were silent. Only the quiet
fall of cards, the few words necessary for the game and the
metallic, fine clink were heard. Soon I could no longer put both
hands around the gold treasure in front of me. I began stealthily
to fill my money cat. When it was full to bursting I stuffed the
ducats into my pockets.
Already I had three times more money than I had
possessed when I entered this house. The coattails hung down
heavily, the vest bulged at the pockets. Everyone lost – the man
with the horse eye, the fat Jewess, the bankholder, the hussar,
the red-nosed one, the courtly one, the count, the hunchback
next to Zephyrine. With trembling hands they rummaged in
pockets and bags, their faces shone with sweat, the spit shine of
the brows melted into sooty blackness, their eyes gawked –.
I was rich. I could not even accommodate any more gold.
Then the clock on the fireplace gave the single stroke of the
hour after midnight and began to play the out-of-tune gavotte.
Immediately the black servant grabbed the chair, and the old
man, looking frail and suffering, nodded to me with a faint
smile, and the wheelchair passed soundlessly through the open
door through which it had entered an hour ago.
I jumped up and hurried out of the completely frozen
group of people around the table to express my thanks to him.
No one hindered me. I still felt how an ice-cold, small,
trembling hand sought mine, and I clenched my fingers around
a folded piece of paper, which she pushed toward me. I ran as
fast as I could into the anteroom. Where was the man in the
wheelchair?
A sleepy servant handed me my coat, hat and sword. I
gave him a few gold foxes and hurried down the stairs. The old
woman stood at the gate as if she had just let someone out. She
opened the door indifferently. While walking I heard the raging,
shouting and wild curses in the rooms upstairs. But I had no
time; I had to thank my rescuer.
But the street was empty. Nowhere a trace of the old man.
I ran into side alleys. Nothing. Nowhere a sound. How had he
disappeared so quickly?
Then – suddenly – I saw with terrible, indescribable
clarity, like a picture on a dark background, the chapel with the
dead man before me, from whose defenseless hand I was
supposed to take a cross – for Fangerle, the desecrator of the
corpse.
Half fainting, I leaned against a wall, and I almost fell
from fright, as the hinges of the lantern over me shrieked in the
wind.
I still held Zephyrine’s note in my cramped hand, I
unfolded it and read:
“Save me!”
In my great desire to protect Zephyrine from a danger
unknown to me, but of which she was well aware, I
remembered my childhood friend Lorle, with whom I had met
on the day of my arrival in Vienna in such an unusual way. As
strong as my nostalgia for her body had been, the acquaintance
with a being who reminded me in the deepest way of Aglaja,
had been enough to cool my desires with regard to the beautiful
Laurette Triquet, as she now called herself, and her sensual
embers. But no one could be of better help to me, in my
hitherto futile effort to find this beloved girl and her
hunchbacked guardian than that clever girl and, judging from
her rise, she was in possession of valuable relations.
In Schönlatern Street, I was directed to an old house,
which, similar to that gambling house, from the outside didn’t
show any of the comfort and beauty of its furnishings. A
magnificent marble group, the robbery of Proserpina, stood at
the foot of the stone stairs I was climbing, and Venetian
Moorish boys, painted in gold and colors, stood in their
wooden immobility on their heels, holding up lanterns.
The cute chambermaid, who, with coquettish skirts
walked in front of me up the stairs, opened the door to a pale
yellow silk room for me, then disappeared with an apology
through the heavy curtain held by cupids, behind which there
was a small door. At the opening of this I briefly heard a
shrieking laughter, which filled me with astonishment, since I
had never met a person with such a hideously piercing voice.

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »