The Master's Apprentice - Oliver Potzsch Page 0,207

up beside her and tried to feel the last bit of warmth. But there was nothing.

Over the last few weeks, he’d tried everything he could to help Satan. He had collected spruce sprouts and brewed a medicine from them, and he had palpated Satan’s abdomen. Toward the back he had found a hardened area, and from then on he had known there was no hope. All he could do was try to ease her pain. Despite his grief, Johann was relieved that Satan had died naturally that night. If the dog had suffered for much longer, he would have had to put her down. He didn’t think he would have been capable of cutting her throat.

They buried her behind the tower, in the hole where the crate with the tube and the books had been hidden. Praying seemed inappropriate to Johann, but he remained standing at the grave for a long while, in spite of the bitter cold and the icy wind that cut through his clothes like knives. Karl stayed with him for a while before sighing deeply, giving Johann one last sympathetic look, and returning to the tower’s warmth.

Johann was like an empty shell for the following days. Not even chess brought him joy, and he gave up watching the stars. He had placed all his hopes on finding the secret of his life here at the tower, but he found nothing. He had been wrong. Now that Satan was dead, he had lost all remaining willpower, the force that had kept him going and pushed him on since childhood. All he ever did now was stare into the fire. He felt so tired—so many years of traveling that had been nothing but an attempt to run from himself. What had all his cleverness, all his knowledge brought him? He stayed sitting in front of the fireplace until late at night and watched the embers die.

On the third day, Karl disappeared.

He hadn’t come downstairs in the morning, and when Johann checked in his chamber he found the bed empty. Karl must have sneaked past him in the early hours, when Johann had nodded off, and left him for good. Johann couldn’t blame him. He knew full well that the years had turned him into a choleric, imperious, and sometimes plainly unbearable man. Now that his will to live had left him, he wasn’t even a good teacher any longer. What was the young man supposed to hang around with him for? If he didn’t get caught for sodomy, Karl had a promising future. He was intelligent and inquisitive, though perhaps a tad too soft for this world. When Johann thought of him, he suddenly felt real affection.

Too late.

The only thing that puzzled Johann was the fact that Karl had taken neither provisions nor blankets. And the horse was still there. How did the boy think he was going to get by in the mountains?

Johann remained sitting in front of the cold fireplace for hours while a blizzard raged outside. He considered ending his life. He would simply have to go out into the snow, lie down, and go to sleep. Although it would be more appropriate to cut his wrists with the knife Tonio had given him.

The master seemed to pursue him right until death, just like Gilles de Rais, this foreign-sounding name that had never left him in peace. The mystery about that man remained unsolved. Once again Johann asked himself whether Agrippa may have known something about Gilles de Rais after all. But now it was too late to ask him.

It was too late for everything.

A raven cawed outside. Three times, like a knock on the door.

Johann stood up abruptly, hesitated for a moment, then walked over to one of the chests.

You damned beast! You won’t get me!

Never again would Tonio have any power over him! There was only one way to get away from him, and Johann was ready to choose that way. The knife with the strange initials sat at the very bottom of the chest. Johann lifted it out and ran his thumb over the razor-sharp blade. It looked like it was as old as the world, forged from the molten lava of volcanoes.

One cut and all his searching would come to an end.

Then he would finally join Margarethe, Valentin, Martin, his mother—everyone he had left and disappointed.

Only one cut.

Johann gripped the knife hard and raised it as if he were performing a ritualistic sacrifice.

You won’t get me.

Just then, he heard a noise.