of serried golden grain and over villages, and always the Germans pointed me north until I was following the coastline of Jutland, stepping across the Korsor Nor, stumbling in Rostock, and then I was in Elsinore. It was night, frigid and starless. I stood before the house of my youth.
When I put the palm of my hand to the door, I felt heat pouring through the panel, as though the house were afire. I withdrew my hand and my glove smoked and I smelled the scorched leather. The seams between the planks of the door glowed suddenly red and then burst into flames. I threw my arm over my face while the door burned rapidly away, like a brittle tapestry or a sheet of parchment. I lowered my arm and looked into the house, amazed at what I beheld.
All was flame and swirling sparks. Lightning streaked along the rafters while thunder cracked and boomed beneath the floorboards. A forge, a hell, or a volcano’s mouth lived within the house, and in the midst of this terrible furnace was a man, eight feet tall and encased in armor, his long cape aflame but not consumed, or perhaps his cape was made of living flame. I could not see what this giant did in the burning house, but he held a chisel in one hand and a dead raven in the other. A bolt of lightning chased across the ceiling and I saw with horror that this figure had two heads upon his shoulders, the head of Tycho Brahe and the head of my father.
Each head screamed at the other, such obscenities and filth as I had never before heard.
“Charlatan! Dung eater! Sodomite! Piss-soaked foulness! Castrated demon bitch! Arse-loving priest’s whore!” Much worse followed. I stopped my ears against the noise of it, but the voices sounded inside my head, outcrying thunder.
“Stop!” I cried. “Silence!”
The huge man turned toward me. My father and Tycho scowled down, their steel-wrapped chest swollen with anger. They lifted their right hand and shook the dead raven violently enough that oily black feathers broke free and spun away into the flames. My father and Tycho opened their mouths and spoke in a shrieking unison, a sinuous wail of broken metal, hissing wind, and the cawing of crows.
“Who are you?” they cried.
“I am your son!”
“You are unworthy of our name, boy.”
“I am your name!”
“You disgrace us. We despise you. You would claim our house and take it as your own. We disown you.”
“No! I am worthy! My book—”
“Idiocy! Pestilence! Pabulum! Fantasy!”
Their mouths hung open, lipless holes lined with rows of teeth. The broken corpse of the raven caught fire and burned. Tycho and my father opened their hand and reached out, pawing at my breast. I struck at their hand, batting it away, but they took me by the shoulder and shook me, hard. Their voices rang in my ears, my name called over and over.
“Soren! Soren, wake thou! Illo, ho ho! Come, bird, come! Soren!”
My eyes flew open. I was under the bench in the kitchen. In the innocent light of morning I made out Christian, on his knees beside me. He had a hand on my shoulder.
“Soren!”
“My lord, I am awake.”
Christian released me and sat back, peering at my face.
“You look much affrighted,” he said.
“I have had an unpleasant dream, no more.”
“Aye.” Christian looked around the room and crossed himself. “This place is full of unpleasant dreams, which pour into our heads and poison our sleep. I will be happy to leave.”
“Aye, my lord. Do we go today?”
“Indeed, forthwith. Up, you. Up. Come to the beach with me, down by the old paper mill.”
“My lord, I do not wish to go there.”
Christian sighed with mocking extravagance.
“I understand your reluctance, but you will come. There is something you must see, and I dare say you will not believe your eyes.”
“My lord—”
“This is no request, sirrah. You will come to the beach with me.”
“Then lead on, my lord. Is it cold out?”
“It is cold, and the sun climbs into a cloudless sky. All the better for us. Up, Soren. Come with me.”
{ Chapter Sixteen }
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO CHRISTIAN
THERE WERE TRACKS LEADING WESTWARD FROM Uraniborg, toward the margin of the island. Christian had risen at dawn and walked through the snow drifts, around the frozen fish ponds and artificial streams Tycho had built, across the flat plain and down a path to a small rocky beach. Tycho once desired to make a harbor here, below the hillside where