Deliver us from Evil (45 page)

Robert nodded without answering, then breathed in deeply. 'And in the castle?' he whispered. 'What did you discover?'

'It was empty. Whatever had been there was gone without trace -and yet as
I
was to discover, it could only recently have left.' The Pasha paused; then smiled coldly. 'As
I
rose from the place,' he continued,
I
met with Tadeus. He, like me, had been drawn to the village, suspecting that it might have held some mystery; and indeed, he had attempted to reach it only a few weeks before. On that occasion,

though, he told me, he had been unable to find it - for the village and its castle had been accounted as lost.'

'Lost?'
Lord Rochester frowned. 'What do you mean?'

The Pasha shrugged faintly. 'That it had vanished from the face of the countryside.'

'How was that possible?'

The Pasha shrugged again. 'The roads which had once led there could no longer be found. It was as though the village itself had dissolved into air.'

'Yet when
I
went to Woodton,' said Robert in puzzlement,
I
had no difficulty discovering it.'

'Yes.' The Pasha narrowed his eyes. 'You had no difficulty. But had the Marquise approached the village, and you not been with her -what then, do you think? Would she have been able to discover it for herself?'

Robert shook his head. 'What are you saying?' he asked.

The Pasha paused. He glanced at the
mummia,
then up again into Robert's eyes. 'We know,' he said slowly, 'from sundry proofs, that you are not like other mortals, that you are somehow marked. You are surely not so fearful, Lovelace, as to deny that to yourself?'

Robert sat frozen. He could feel the chill in his stomach again. He clenched his fists, and stroked the knuckles along the curve of his lips.

'Why else,' the Pasha continued in a low and deathly murmur, 'would
I
be speaking to you now? For it is not my custom to discuss things in this manner with mortals, as though the world were a corpse laid out in a lecture hall and
I
some doctor, slicing and skinning its surface away, exposing the filaments of mystery underneath, which run so deep that even
I
cannot see where all of them may lead.'

'You cannot see ...' Robert frowned; then shook his head. 'What does that mean, then, in plain language? That you cannot tell me what this mark is, which you say has been stamped upon me? That you cannot tell what it might signify or portend?'

The Pasha did not answer.

Robert rose slowly from his seat.

'What we do not know,' the Pasha whispered, 'we must attempt to discover.'

Robert spun round, his face contorted with frustration and contempt. 'How?' he cried, if you do not know, what chance can there be?'

'None at all,' answered the Pasha, 'if you do not have the patience and the courage to sit still, and listen to those secrets which
I
can reveal.
I
have told you, Lovelace - and feel too weak to waste my breath on saying it again - that though the danger is terrible, a faint hope still remains.'

He gestured to the place beside him. Robert stared at the Pasha a moment in silence; then crossed to the cushions, and lay down. He breathed in deeply. 'You spoke of secrets.'

'As Tadeus did to me, amidst the blasted fields where the village had once stood - of the proofs of a great and deadly mystery.'

'And what were these proofs?'

The Pasha smiled coldly. 'Perhaps you are not as ignorant as you fear, Lovelace - for
I
am certain they will already be familiar to you. The plague Tadeus had already mentioned, in his letters to the Marquise. But he told me also of a breed of the risen dead - more virulent even than the plague itself, and resistant to all his powers of command. He had traced the origin of both to the ruined village and could no longer doubt, now that he had penetrated at last to its heart, that it had indeed been the seat of some monstrous evil; perhaps, he whispered in my ear, of the Anti-Christ himself.
I
scoffed at this; but Tadeus shook his head, and half-smiled. He knew that
I
was an infidel, he sneered; but one did not need to be a Christian to recognise the evil. Why, he told me, even in the Ghetto there were rumours abroad; and it had been a Rabbi who had suggested how the evil might be fought.

'This intrigued me; for
I
remembered the Jews in the crypt, and how they had claimed to be working for a Rabbi in Prague. Tadeus confirmed that this had been the very same man: Rabbi Jehuda Loew ben Bezalel.
I
asked him how they had met. Tadeus answered that it had been in a plague-stricken village, where Rabbi Loew had been seeking, like Tadeus himself, to discover the origin of the sickness, and of the risen dead.
I
was astonished by this and asked if Rabbi Loew was a blood-drinker himself, to know of such things. Tadeus shook his head. "But he is a great and learned magician," he replied, "wise in every branch of human knowledge, and perhaps in that which is not human too. For it is whispered in the Ghetto that he is the master of the science of the hidden name of God; and that the past and the future are open books to him.
I
can almost believe it; for how else did he know that the plague could be halted, and the dead preserved peaceful in their graves, by stripping the bones of all those who had died?
I
trust that explains, Your Excellency, the sight you discovered in the church at Melnik. And it is clear that the plague is already cured, and that the Evil Spirit, whatever else it may be, does not possess that power of Ezekiel's God to raise up dry bones, and give them back their breath. For instead, the bones in Melnik rest where they are stacked; and so it is that a deadly peril has been averted".'

Robert shook his head. 'But
I
do not understand. Why would Tadeus be pleased to see such a danger stopped?'

'He had not yet succumbed to his ambitions and grown a worshipper of Evil.' The Pasha curled back his lips in a mocking smile. 'How else would he have been able to work with Rabbi Loew, who was only a mortal and, worse than that, a Jew? Yet
I
could tell that Tadeus' admiration was suffused with envy; and that he not only resented the Rabbi's learning but desired it for himself. He had tried to conceal this from me at first; yet the nearer we drew to Prague -where Tadeus had a home, and had suggested we should stay - so the more naked his jealousy became. He took me that night, when we had arrived in the city, to a narrow, winding lane in the shadow of the Castle, where the tiny houses were barely a shoulder's width apart and the scent of strange distillations hung heavy in the air. Tadeus gazed about him with contempt; then up at the massive darkness of the Castle. "There is a new Emperor come to Prague," he whispered, "who has gathered alchemists here to spin moonbeams into gold, and to provide him with the powers of the philosopher's stone. For the Emperor has been startled, it is said, by strange rumours of disaster, glimpsed in melancholy dreams or foretold by portents of fire in the sky - and so he has turned for comfort to the hidden arts. He is right to do so, of course; for how else is the evil now abroad to be confronted? Yet what a fool he is as well, to have gathered his pack of charlatans here when the true magic" - he gestured - "lies out there."

I
looked. We had descended the narrow lane by now, and from where we were standing the whole of Prague was spread out before us. Beyond the river, cramped within a wall, was a labyrinth of dilapidated buildings and streets, dense and misshapen, like the city of a dream. Tadeus was pointing at it. "It has ever been said," he whispered, "that the Ghetto is a place of potent witchcraft." His eyes narrowed as he turned to face me. "What is the source, do you think, of the Rabbi's secret powers?"

‘
I
continued to stare out at the Ghetto. "You have told me of no powers,"
I
murmured, "only of learning."

' "And is learning not power?"

I
smiled. "If you are so eager, Tadeus, to possess it, why do you not enter his mind and drain it from his thoughts?"

' "
I
have already tried," answered Tadeus.

I
stared at him in surprise. "And what did you find?"

' "All night in his dreams
I
wrestled with him - and like that angel who fought with Jacob by the ford,
I
could not prevail." He paused. "You," he whispered suddenly, "you are the greatest of our kind. You could break the Jew."

' "Why should
I
wish to?"
I
murmured.

' "Because
I
believe he is the tool of the infernal spirit."

I
frowned. "And yet he was the one who caused the plague to be halted."

"A trick, Your Excellency, a trick. You do not know these Jews as
I
do. We must break him soon before his powers grow too great. For with the Evil One's strength, what may not he try?"

I
could sense how desperate his eagerness was.
I
nodded, very faintly. "Soon, then,"
I
agreed. "
I
will visit him soon."

I
left Tadeus, and hunted all that night. Returned to his house,
I
felt strangely tired; and for the first time in a long while,
I
fell asleep.' The Pasha paused and closed his eyes; and at the same moment Robert saw a strange scene before him, like the landscape of a dream. There was a great and empty plain. All was still on it save for a single figure, just a pinprick in the distance but walking towards him; and with each step that he took, Robert was filled with strange dread. Nearer and nearer the figure drew, staff in his hand. He was cloaked, Robert could see now, and wore a hood pulled down close across his face. More than anything in the world, Robert wanted to see what was hidden underneath it - what his face might be like. He was almost by Robert's side now; as he raised a hand to the edge of his hood, Robert could feel, with a burning certainty, that there was some great and wondrous mystery about to be revealed. He began to pull the hood back. Robert started, and reached forward to seize it for himself. At the very same moment, the dream seemed to fade; and the Pasha opened his eyes. He breathed in deeply. 'And thus it was for me,' he murmured,
I
found myself awake.'

He stirred, and sat up more fully. '
I
rose at once from my bed,' he continued,
I
must have slept all day, for it was already night again and the streets outside were empty and still.
I
left the house; yet the dream still seemed to be with me, so that
I
almost wondered, walking through Prague, whether
I
had ever woken up at all. By the Charles Bridge,
I
paused for a moment and gazed across the river at the Ghetto walls. The towers and the roofs of the houses were so twisted that
I
thought again how like buildings in a dream they appeared.
I
walked on to the bridge, to cross towards them. As
I
did so,
I
felt a sudden shiver of something sweet and unexpected, like a ripple of silver passing through my blood.
I
looked towards the far end of the bridge. It was empty - save for a single figure approaching me. As he had done in my dream, he wore a cloak and a hood. He held a staff in his hand; and as he drew nearer,
I
could see that his shoulders seemed stooped, as though with great fatigue.
I
stayed frozen where
I
was. As he came level with me, so he lifted his hand. He seized the edge of his hood; and as he drew it back,
I
knew that this was real, that
I
was not still asleep. And yet his face might indeed have been a vision in a dream, for it was unearthly and terrible, stranger than any
I
had ever beheld, so that
I
was filled at once with a mixture of repugnance and awe. He was not a creature like myself, of that
I
was certain, for his eyes were far brighter than my own, and impossibly deep; and although his face wore no wrinkles, he seemed fabulously old, ancient beyond measure - but how
I
knew this to be so,
I
could not explain. The wanderer glanced at me piercingly, not pausing in his walk; then he passed me by.
I
stood frozen where
I
was, watching him as he left the bridge; and then
I
started suddenly and sought to pursue him. But he was already vanished, and the empty streets mocked me, echoing my cries.