The Alchemist's Door (27 page)

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Authors: Lisa Goldstein

BOOK: The Alchemist's Door
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“Erzsébet! Here?”
Marie spoke again. “Yes,” her friend said. “There is—there is a door the countess wants to keep open. Do you understand what she means by that?”
“I'm afraid I do,” Dee said. “Thank her for the warning. And ask her how she is, please. Has she found lodging in Prague?”
“Oh, yes,” the woman said. “She is staying with me. She had a terrible scare in Transylvania, apparently, something so frightening she will not talk about it. Did it have something to do with this Hungarian woman?”
“Yes, it did. She'll have to tell you herself what it was, though.”
“I understand. And meanwhile I will see that she is well taken care of.”
Loew and Magdalena had found a table, he saw. He bid farewell to Marie and her friend and went toward them, deep in thought.
So Erzsébet was here, in Prague. Everyone was here, it seemed, everyone and anyone who would benefit from keeping the door open, or from closing it. Prague was the center, the place where all the lines crossed.
He had not come here accidently, he saw. He had been brought here, the demon chivvying him, harassing him, leading him every step of the way to the one spot in the world where it could come through the door the easiest.
Once again he remembered the old Yorkshireman's story about the farmer who had been tormented by a Boggart for years and who, in running away from it, had only managed to bring it with him. “We may as well turn back to the old house,” the farmer had said, “as be tormented in another that's not so convenient.”
If only they could somehow turn back to the old house. If only they could return to England, away from demons and fraudulent alchemists and women who bathed in blood.
But what if the demon wasn't the only one who had guided his steps? What if he was here for a purpose—to stop the demon, to close the door, to find the thirty-sixth?
He joined Loew and Magdalena and ordered mutton stew and some beer. Loew shook his head; he would not eat anything not prepared according to his dietary laws, Dee remembered. Magdalena declined food as well, but Dee understood in time that this was because she had no money to pay for it, and he ordered another stew for her. “Was that Marie?” she asked.
“Yes. She seems to have found friends here in Prague, for which God be thanked.”
When their meals came she ate quickly, like a starving child. God knows when she had eaten last, Dee thought; it might not have been since they left Trebona. He would have to remember to ask her where she planned to stay the night.
“So,” Magdalena said when she had finished. “What is it you wanted to tell me?”
“Well, for one thing Izak's been kidnapped,” Dee said.
He was unprepared for her reaction. She put a hand to her mouth, an anxious look in her eyes. Now he remembered seeing
her and Izak in the Jewish Quarter, and he wondered again about their unlikely friendship.
“Oh, no,” she said. “What happened to him?”
He told her about the notes Kelley had sent and their visit to his house with the golem. By the time he finished she had regained her usual blunt confidence. “Well, then, we'll have to look around Master Kelley's house ourselves,” she said.
“What!”
“No one else will do it. Even Yossel is afraid of him.”
“We will not go into his house. You of all people should understand how dangerous it is to visit a sorcerer. Don't you remember Erzsébet?”
“I survived Erzsébet, didn't I?”
“With my help. And you can't count on that this time—I'm not going with you. I have no wish to meet whatever it was that frightened a golem.”
“Fine. I'll go alone, then.”
“No, you won't. I can't let you do that.”
“How will you stop me?”
Loew stared at them, his brows raised, the proscription against looking at another woman forgotten. “Who's Erzsébet? What happened to you?” he asked.
“Erzsébet Báthory,” Magdalena said, pronouncing the syllables with relish.
Loew's amazement deepened. “I—I've heard of her, of course,” he said. He listened as they recounted their tale, taking turns: Erzsébet's rooms, Magdalena's transformation, the dead body.
“So you're twenty years old,” he said to Magdalena when they had finished. “I wouldn't have guessed it.”
She grinned, showing her few teeth, sharp and discolored as pebbles. “I'm glad,” she said. “If you can't penetrate my disguise then it must be good indeed.”
“But Erzsébet did,” Dee said.
“Yes,” said Loew. “That worries me too. What powers is she allied with?”
“Not godly ones, that's for certain,” Dee said. “She told me she summons them by her bloodletting.”
“I wonder—” Magdalena said. “Well, you both divide the world into two camps, God's and the demons'. But I wonder if there might be more than that. There are a good many powers that we know nothing about.”
“Nonsense,” Loew said. “There is God, and there are those opposing him.”
“Every religion tells us that,” Dee said. He remembered how exotic Loew's religion had once seemed to him. Now, allied with him against Magdalena's lunatic ideas, he realized that they were closer than he thought. “Whatever the differences between Loew and me, we both believe in a God that created heaven and earth.”
“Every religion? Really?” She looked at each of them in turn, and he caught a glimpse of the forthright young woman hidden behind the blurred form of the crone. He could see that she was about to make one of her dreadful pronouncements, something blasphemous or obscene or both. “You've never asked how I perform the magic that transforms me into an old woman.”
“Very well, how do you?” Dee asked.
“I pray.”
“There, you see—”
“I pray to a woman. She's something like my mother, the way I remember her, and something like a statue I saw once in a Roman ruin.”
“Well, of course the pagans believed in all sorts of errors—”
“Did they? How can you be sure they were errors? How can you know, absolutely
know,
that what you believe is true?
So many things exist that we can have no knowledge of—perhaps your gods are out there, somewhere, and mine too.”
“Enough of this,” Loew said. “What are we going to do about Izak?”
The discussion was making him uneasy, Dee saw; he had probably learned to tread carefully in matters of religion. And yet no one at the neighboring tables was paying them the slightest attention. In England people having these sorts of conversations had to look over their shoulders constantly; there were always spies eager to report heresies to the authorities for pay. Magdalena, at least, might have been arrested as a witch and possibly tortured. He felt a little shocked at the amount of freedom he seemed to have here.
“I told you,” Magdalena said. “I'll get him from Kelley's house. We can do it tomorrow—I was at the alchemists' tavern earlier today, and they said he has an audience with Rudolf then.”
“And I told you you're not going in there,” Dee said.
“And I asked you how you were going to stop me.”
Dee sat back in his chair, frustrated. She had become his responsibility, almost his daughter, he saw. Still, it was far better to think of her as a daughter than to remember her as the beautiful young woman she truly was. “The only way I know,” he said. “I'll have to talk you out of it—show you just how foolish this idea of yours is.” He turned to Loew. “Come, help me here. Even the golem was frightened by what he saw in Kelley's house.”
“That's true,” Loew said. “And Yossel is far stronger than all of us together. How could we survive something like that?”
Magdalena was silent a moment. Then she said, “When I was fourteen I became a prisoner of a man who used me very badly.”
She did not seem to want to continue. Dee said, hoping to prompt her, “Did he—did he take liberties with you?”
Magdalena laughed harshly. “Oh, it was far worse than that. You are a wise man, Doctor Dee, but you know very little about some things. He raped me, and then he shared me with his friends. And after a while he gave me to strangers. At the end of the night he would tie me up and leave me in my room, and I would try to sleep. And then in the evening he would come back and give me supper—the only food I ate all day—and then his customers would arrive again.”
Loew had gone very pale. “How did you get away?” he asked.
“One night he was drunk and didn't tie the ropes tightly enough. I worked my way loose, and when he came into the room I broke a chair over his head. I may have killed him—I didn't stay to find out. So you see, I know what it's like to be at the mercy of someone stronger than you, someone who wants to use you for his own ends. I'm going to find out what happened to Izak.”
“But you don't even know him,” Loew said.
“I know him better than you do.”
“What? How?”
She laughed. “I know a good many people here in Prague. Not much goes on that I don't hear about.”
“Very well,” Dee said. “If I can't stop you, I'll have to go with you.”
“And I,” Loew said.
To Dee's surprise she began to laugh. “Wonderful,” she said. “Two ancient men, tottering around after me as I try to move silently through Kelley's house.”
“You can't go in there alone,” Dee began, and Loew said, “You have no idea—”
She laughed again. “I need a protector, do I? You men could not have survived half the things I did.”
“But you know very little magic,” Dee said. “You said so yourself.”
“That's true.” She looked at each of them in turn. “You come with me, then, Doctor Dee. I won't need both of you.”
“But—” Dee said. But he knew less magic than Loew. And he had been opposed to going into Kelley's house to begin with. But he couldn't say anything; he would sound the worst sort of coward if he did. “Very well. I'll meet you at the Cattle Market tomorrow at ten. Do you know where that is?”
“Of course.”
Loew thanked them for the trouble they were taking for Izak, and the three of them separated. Dee walked toward the inn where he had left his worn and stained travel bags; he had decided not to stay with Doctor Hageck, who would doubtless attempt to talk him out of visiting Loew.
He climbed the steps to his room and opened the door. The heat of the day had not dissipated; the room was stuffy and close. It was only when he had unpacked and settled in that he realized he had never asked Magdalena where she planned to spend the night; he had been too shocked by her story to think of it.
He understood that what she said was true: he would probably not have survived the things she had had to endure.
D
EE HAD HALF HOPED MAGDALENA WOULD change her mind, but as he neared the market he recognized her now-familiar shape; she looked like a bundle of rags propped up against a statue. As he came closer he saw that the statue was the one Kelley had mentioned in his letter, and he grimaced at the coincidence. The market was closed today; it seemed eerily silent, like a city hit by plague. Dung and hay and scraps of leather littered the ground, skittering in the
mild wind. The sun had just started to burn off the clouds, promising another hot day.
She stood and they headed for Kelley's house, walking without discussion around to the back. The path brought them to a large courtyard. Dee studied the house closely, looking for the servant's entrance, and beside him he noticed Magdalena doing the same. Dee felt as if they were working in tandem, as if they had planned everything out beforehand. Well, that's not surprising, he thought. I should know her fairly well by this time.
He found a door; it opened when he turned the knob. Why wasn't it locked? What protection did Kelley have that he considered stronger than locks and bolts?
They went inside. Dee watched Magdalena carefully but she did not change shape. So Kelley's magic was of a different sort than Erzsébet's. Either that or it was weaker, but Dee did not think that was the case.
He looked around and saw that they had entered through the kitchen. The room was cold, a shock after the heat outside. Dim watery light came in through the unwashed windows. He smelled sour milk and cabbage. No doubt all Kelley's servants had fled long ago—that is, if he had managed to hire any in the first place.
As his eyes grew accustomed to the light, he saw that the kitchen was huge, as big as a cathedral nave. An open hearth lined with bricks gaped at one end. Tables stood against the walls, piled high with pots and plates and cooking knives. Ropes of old dried herbs hung from the ceiling, their scent making little headway against the stale kitchen smells.
They left the kitchen and came to a dining room furnished with a large oak table surrounded by at least a dozen chairs. He thought of Kelley sitting at the table, eating all alone in that vast space. Or would he be alone? Perhaps a different demon sat at each of the chairs, a hellish parliament.
He shook his head. He was allowing his imagination to paint terrifying pictures, to do Kelley's work of frightening for him. But so far, he reminded himself, they had seen nothing to be afraid of.
They walked on. The next rooms were empty, or had at most one piece of furniture in them, a stool or table or tapestry. Dee had brought a candle with him and he lit it at a guttering fire in one of the hearths, stopping longer than he should to warm his chilled bones.
Suddenly he heard Magdalena cry aloud behind him. He turned quickly. “Nothing,” she said. “It was nothing. I thought I saw—”
“Yes? What did you think you saw?”
She shook her head.
“Tell me,” Dee said. “What was it?”
“That man,” she said.
“What man?”
She shook her head again. Dee opened his mouth to press her, but then suddenly he understood. She had seen the man who had once kept her prisoner. Now he noticed that she was trembling from head to foot.
“Let's go back,” Dee said. “We don't have to do this.”
“It was an illusion,” she said. “Come—we have to find Izak.”
They continued on through the vast house, opening doors and peering into empty rooms as they passed. Shadows thrown by his candle flickered on the walls. His ears began to fill in the silences; he thought he heard a chittering noise, and then the sound of small feet scrabbling across a floor overhead. He turned to Magdalena. “Did you hear that?” he asked.
“What?” she said. Her eyes were unfocused; she seemed to wander in a daze.
“Let's go back,” he said.
“No.”
Something moved ahead of him. He slipped back around the corner and motioned to Magdalena to stay where she was. His heart beat fast and strong, like a loose shutter banging in the wind. Sweat broke out on the back of his neck.
“Give me the gold,” someone said.
“No,” said another voice.
“We agreed to share it,” the first man said. There was an unpleasant edge to his voice; he sounded aggrieved and menacing at the same time. “I told you when the master was away, and where the gold was hidden. If not for me—”
“Nonsense. I needed no help from you. And I don't recall any agreement.”
The first man cried out in rage. Dee heard the ring of metal on metal, the sound of swords being drawn, and risked a look around the corner.
The two men fell upon each other. Their swords dashed in a ferocity unlike any Dee had ever seen. Then one man knocked the other's sword from his hand and the second man, heedless of the danger, moved closer, grabbed a handful of hair and pulled furiously. The first cried out and kneed the second in the groin.
The second man fell to the floor. The first bent over him and quickly stabbed him to the heart. But the second, incredibly, was still alive. He struggled up off the floor to a sitting position. The first backed away in horror.
What was it? What had the man seen? Dee moved for a closer look. “God,” he said. The second man still lay sprawled on the floor, and yet somehow he was also sitting, then rising. No, Dee realized. It was his ghost that was rising.
The first man put his hand to his heart, a look of extreme terror on his face, and collapsed to the floor. Then his wraith rose as well, and the two ghosts grappled with each other. Back and forth they went, each trying to gain the advantage. One knocked the other into the wall and the second man passed straight through it. The first followed.
The hallway was clear now. Dee was about to motion Magdalena forward when the voices in front of him started up again. “Give me the gold,” the first man said.
They were condemned to repeat their actions over and over again, Dee saw. Something in the house would not let them leave. He shuddered.
Magdalena had drawn up next to him and was watching the struggle in silence. When the two passed through the walls a second time he turned to her. “They'll probably do this until doomsday,” he said. “We'll have to go another way.”
“No,” she said. She seemed more alert now, having been given a problem to work out. “If Kelley wanted to hide something he would put it here, past these men. He couldn't have better watchdogs.”
She was right. Dee watched again as the two men repeated their meaningless ritual. How many times had they performed it? Now he noticed that their clothes looked decades if not centuries out of date, and that when they spoke their accents sounded wrong.
“How?” he asked.
“We'll wait until they become ghosts again,” she said. “Then we'll be able to walk through them.”
The picture made him shudder again. He studied the two men as they began their performance for what had to be the thousandth time. When the second man fell to the ground he edged forward, trying not to let his fear show. He did not want Magdalena to see him afraid.
He skirted the bodies on the floor. The ghostly battle swirled around him, and then somehow he was in the center, in the middle of the fighting, unable to see a clear path ahead. One of the wraiths passed through him and he felt all that man's feelings, fear and greed and anger and horrible frustration. His candle sparked blue where the wraith touched it.
“Move,” Magdalena said urgently.
He tried to take a step but discovered he could not. The wraiths' emotions overwhelmed him. Now both the dead men occupied the space he did, pushing and shoving through him, and he felt the complex tangle of their obsessions.
“Move,” Magdalena said again.
He took a step forward, then another. And then he was past them, rushing down the corridor, trying to shake off the loathsome touch of the dead men's souls.
“Wait,” Magdalena said.
He turned and found he had gone past a closed door in his hurry. She edged it open. He joined her, holding his candle high. Something massive stood in the center of the room.
“It's a storehouse, I think,” he said.
Someone moaned. “I told you—I don't know anything,” a voice said. “I'm the last person Rabbi Loew would confide in. Please, I beg you, leave me alone.”
“Izak?” Dee asked.
“What? Who are you?” the voice said.
“We're friends. Rabbi Loew sent us.”
They moved forward into the room. The massive object was a bed, Dee saw. Izak was tied to one of the legs, his hands behind him.
“I've never seen a bed that big,” Magdalena said. “An entire village could fuck on that bed.”
“Magdalena!” Izak said.
She bent to untie the knots. “It's all right, Izak,” she said. Dee had never heard her sound so tender. “We're here. We're going to help you.”
Izak seemed dazed. Dee held the candle closer. Magdalena's ancient gnarled fingers found purchase in the knots. “Rabbi Loew sent us,” he said.
“Why should Rabbi Loew help me?” Izak said. “He doesn't care if I live or die. It was Magdalena's idea, I'll wager.”
Magdalena untied the last knot. Izak swung his arms slowly, wincing as feeling came back into them. “I don't—I don't know if I can stand,” he said.
Magdalena gently lifted Izak's arm over her shoulder. The boy grimaced and stood when she did, painfully slowly. Together they made their way to the door, Izak hobbling, Magdalena steadying him.
“Let's go that way,” Dee said, pointing away from the wraiths. “I don't want to meet those ghosts again.”
“What?” Izak said. “What ghosts?”
Magdalena seemed to weigh the chance that they might find no way out against the certainty of having to pass through the ghosts. “Good,” she said finally.
Dee indicated to her that she should go first; he did not want to hurry ahead and perhaps lose her, and he could keep an eye on their rear. She set off down the hallway, Izak leaning heavily against her rounded shoulders.
Their progress was painfully slow. They traversed a number of corridors, passing closed doors and empty rooms on both sides. Perhaps there was no way out, Dee thought. Perhaps they were doomed never to leave the vast house, to stay there forever, like the ghosts. Perhaps this was some rarelyvisited corner of Rudolf's castle … .
Footsteps behind him jolted him out of his reverie. He turned quickly but could see nothing. He was about to hurry on when he heard a low laugh.
“Who's there?” he asked.
Silence. Magdalena and Izak were somewhere down the corridor now, a lumbering shadow like a four-legged monster, and he ran to catch up with them. Behind him someone called his name.
He stopped again, raised his candle, and peered into the gloom of the hallway. “Kelley?” he asked, though the voice had not sounded like Kelley's. “Where are you?”
He could hear nothing. No—was that another laugh? It sounded like Erzsébet. Was she here now? The laugh deepened; now it sounded like his demon. His heart sped until he thought he might faint.
He hurried forward, nearly bumping into Magdalena and Izak. “Move,” he whispered urgently. “The demon's behind me.”
“Are you certain?”
“Of course I'm certain, woman! Who else could it be?”
“Who indeed?” she asked.
What did she mean? He was about to answer angrily when she said, “I thought I saw a man, remember?”
“Yes,” he said, understanding now. Kelley, or Kelley's house, was showing each of them what they feared the most. Magdalena had seen her captor; he had heard first Erzsébet and then the thing he had run a thousand miles to escape.
Think, he told himself frantically. So far the demon had only possessed those who had summoned it, or who had at least been in the room when it was summoned. It had grown stronger over the years, but he did not think it was strong enough yet to act of its own volition.
Another sound, this time of glass breaking. He jumped. Could he be certain of that? Kelley's house seemed to feed on the fear of those inside it. Perhaps this was not the demon, perhaps it was something worse, something called up by his own terror. And he was terrified, there was no hiding it. He remembered the repellant feeling of the demon crawling inside him and his fear grew by leaps and bounds.
“Quickly,” he said to Magdalena.
She said something he could not hear. His heart pounded loudly. She was moving slowly, so slowly, Izak dragging her down. Why had she been the one to carry him, why didn't he? “Give me Izak,” he said. “I can move faster.”

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