The Emperor of All Things - By Paul Witcover Page 0,103

you. Some believe dreams come from there.’

‘The moon is a globe of rock, Inge. I have examined its bleak surface through a telescope. It is a dead place, a battered wasteland, as though a great war was fought there long ago. A war that left no survivors.’

‘I didn’t say I believed it,’ she answered. ‘Still, I don’t suppose you’d deny that God can send us true dreams if He wishes it.’

‘By all means. But why should He wish it? Is there some flaw in His design that requires personal intervention?’

‘I wouldn’t know, Herr Gray. I’m a simple woman. I only know what I saw.’

‘But then why not go to the spot you dreamed of and dig up the body? Get your money back?’

She wagged a finger under my nose. ‘Now you are teasing me. The dream didn’t supply me with a map. I saw a crevasse, one of hundreds. Every year there are avalanches. Crevasses fill up. Others open. Should I waste my time searching for something that might not even exist any more? No, I have an inn to run.’ She picked up the candle from the table. ‘Now, shall I have some supper sent up, or will you eat downstairs?’

‘I’ll be down in a moment,’ I said. ‘I’m starving.’

‘A bowl or two of my stew will fix that.’ Inge removed the key from the door and handed it to me. ‘As I said, you’ll find no thieves in Märchen, but if there are any valuables you’d care to safeguard, purely for your own peace of mind, I keep a strongbox.’

‘Just my tools,’ I told her, glancing towards the rucksack. ‘But I carry them with me at all times. And this as well.’ I patted my hip, where I wore a long dagger in a leather sheath.

‘Och, you’ll not need that pigsticker here,’ Inge protested.

‘I’m sure I won’t, but I feel safer with it just the same.’

‘Well, as long as you keep it sheathed. I don’t want you waving a blade around under my customers’ noses!’

‘Not unless someone’s waving a blade under mine.’

‘Then we’ll have no trouble, Herr Gray. I’ll leave you to get settled in now.’ Executing a curtsy, Inge withdrew, shutting the door behind her. The floorboards trembled to her retreating footsteps.

I strode to the door and locked it. I thought it odd that my hostess would confess to having been robbed, albeit by her own husband, and then assure me that there were no thieves in town. But then, Herr Hubner wasn’t in town, was he? Whether his corpse lay entombed in ice at the bottom of a crevasse, or, more likely, he was enjoying a new life, with a slimmer wife, somewhere far away, the man was not to be found in Märchen. And if he knew what was good for him, I thought, remembering the fierce look that had kindled in Inge’s eyes, he never would be.

Alone, I performed my ablutions, then poured a glass of water and gulped it down. The water tasted pure, ambrosial; so cold, despite the heat of the room, it made my teeth ache down to the roots. Drawn, no doubt, from some pristine mountain spring. I poured a second glass. The contents glittered in the lamplight and went straight to my head like a liquor distilled from glacial ice, frozen instants aged to a ravishing potency. I leaned into the table, steadying myself against the prickly aurora that crystallized behind my eyes. It melted away in a slow, shimmering ebb, leaving me dizzied, breathless. My heart tolled in my chest.

A dazed weariness stole over me, all those miles I’d climbed catching up at once. That, and the stifling heat. I made my way to the bed, intending to sit for a moment before returning to the common room for a bowl of Inge’s stew, but the downy mattress had other ideas, seeming to pull me in as I had imagined Inge herself doing. I let myself fall back into its embrace, closing my eyes, in my ears a soft hissing that, already half asleep, I attributed to snowflakes expiring against the windowpanes over my head rather than to the efficiency of the stove.

I awoke to a faint, persistent rasping, as of something heavy being dragged across the floor. Someone was in the room. But the lamp had gone out; I couldn’t see a thing. I listened as the sound continued, seeming to draw nearer by slow inches – drag, pause, drag, pause – until it reached the foot