The Master's Apprentice - Oliver Potzsch Page 0,232

Johann had calculated that it would take him five minutes to open the doors, run down the corridor, fetch Greta, and disappear back down the well with her.

But there were no guards.

The room was empty, and there were no sounds coming from the guards’ chamber upstairs, either. Johann stood still and listened. No laughter, no shouts, nothing.

What on earth?

Meanwhile, Karl had also reached the smoke-filled chamber with his heavy pack. He coughed and looked about, blinking rapidly. Like Johann, he’d covered his nose and mouth with a damp cloth.

“Where are the guards?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t know, damn it! And I don’t have time to worry about it—let’s go!”

An eerie feeling made Johann’s skin crawl. What was going on here? The oil lantern in his hand, he started to run down the corridor. All the doors stood open and every cell was empty. What was happening? With rising panic, Johann raced toward Greta’s cell.

He threw himself against the unlocked door, and it slammed against the wall inside.

The cell was empty.

28

THE RUST-COLORED SMOKE had spread down the corridor and flowed into the cell, but everything was still and silent as the grave.

“Damn it, what’s going on here?” asked Karl, standing behind Johann in the open door. “Is it the wrong cell?”

Johann said nothing and walked inside. A few rats squeaked as they scattered. The bucket with the board had been knocked over. Greta’s doll was lying on the cot. Johann picked it up and stared at it, as if little Barbara could tell him what had happened.

What in God’s name was going on?

Had the guards taken Greta to the scaffold? But Valentin would have heard of it. And why were all the other cells open and empty? Where had all the prisoners gone, and the guards? Johann’s thoughts raced. Something was wrong here, very wrong. Suddenly he remembered several strange incidents from the last few days—warning signs he had overlooked in the rush. He’d wanted to rescue his daughter and stormed along blindly, looking neither left nor right. He still wasn’t sure exactly what was being played here, but the eerie feeling from earlier was growing stronger and stronger.

It was the feeling of having walked into a trap.

“Get back!” he shouted. “Out of here!”

He dropped the doll and they ran back up the corridor. The red smoke was so thick that they hardly saw anything. Almost blind, they reached the edge of the well, and Johann grabbed hold of the chain. He climbed down as fast as he could and entered the doorway that led into the room above the water. He’d already guessed what he was going to find there, but the reality still hit him like a blow.

Valentin was gone.

You’re so stupid! he thought. So terribly stupid! All your brains, all your knowledge didn’t help. You didn’t see the forest for the trees!

Silent despair filled his body. He had failed—completely and utterly failed.

You lost everything. You lost your daughter. You fool, you—

Johann paused his silent tirade when he heard something.

It was a humming and lamenting that drifted down the depths of the tunnels. The sound rose and ebbed, and after a while, Johann thought he could make out a few strange words.

“O Mephistophiel . . . Jesum . . . Escha . . . Eloha . . . Penothot . . .”

Johann signaled to Karl behind him to be silent. He listened. Then the two of them started to walk toward the source of the sound.

“Rolamicon . . . Hipite . . . Mephistophiel . . . Koreipse . . . Loisant et Dortam . . .”

Johann walked faster, hurrying to meet his destiny. He needed certainty, even though he had a fair idea where his path was leading him.

Or, rather, to whom.

“O Mephistophiel, prasa Deus . . . O Larua . . .”

Fear crept up in Karl; he was almost as terrified as he’d been on the pyre in Warnheim.

While he followed the doctor down the dark passages toward the eerie chanting, Karl tried to figure out what it was that frightened him so. His heart was pounding in his throat and he struggled to breathe. His hand clutched the hilt of the sword Faust had given him, but he had a feeling that he wouldn’t know what to do with the weapon, or with the wheel-lock pistol he’d stowed in the casing of the laterna magica. He still carried the laterna on his back, like a last souvenir from the old world above them.

The doctor had changed