The Master's Apprentice - Oliver Potzsch Page 0,64

lying on the table, next to the abbot’s birth chart. Red embers still glowed in the ashes, and the room smelled of smoke and faintly of sulfur. There was also another smell, but Johann couldn’t place it.

His heart still racing, Johann thought about how narrowly he’d escaped death. There was no doubt in his mind that the villagers would have stoned or beaten him to death if he hadn’t managed to run away.

He particularly remembered one thing they’d said.

You steal our children . . . You steal them at night and you eat them . . .

It would seem that here, too, children had been going missing, just like in Knittlingen all those months ago. In both cases, the master had been staying nearby. Johann thought about how satisfied and fleshy Tonio looked every time he returned from his nightly excursions. He thought about the clay jugs and the wet sacks—especially the wet sacks.

You eat them . . .

Johann shook himself as though waking from an evil nightmare. What a load of nonsense. Tonio del Moravia may have been a gloomy-looking fellow, a conjurer, an astrologer, and a chiromancer, but he was no man-eating monster. He was a wise and stern mentor, a man who could teach him a lot.

You eat them . . .

Johann’s eyes turned to the stairs. What in God’s name was his master up to in his chamber? Tonio had strictly forbidden him to enter the third floor. But now doubts gnawed at Johann like a thousand tiny rats. He needed to find out what went on upstairs. He’d never stop worrying about it otherwise. He wondered about his chances of getting caught. Tonio had probably gone out for a while, not expecting Johann home before afternoon. He still had time.

Provided the villagers didn’t get here first to smoke out the alleged sorcerers.

Quietly, Johann sneaked up to his chamber and farther up the stairs to the trapdoor, which was usually bolted shut. Whenever the master left the house, he locked the bolt with a heavy padlock, and the key was always on his belt. But to Johann’s surprise the bolt wasn’t even pushed shut. Had the master forgotten to lock it? Or was he asleep upstairs?

Johann listened. On many occasions he had heard Tonio muttering until late at night, heavy footsteps thumping back and forth, and a dragging noise, as if something heavy was being pulled across the chamber floor. But now everything was silent: no footsteps, no muttering, no snoring, not even breathing.

For some reason Johann couldn’t explain, he made the sign of the cross. Then he pushed against the trapdoor. It opened with a soft creak. Johann paused, waiting for an angry scream, but nothing happened. So he opened the door completely and climbed the remaining stairs until he stood inside the master’s room.

Like in his own chamber, there was a bed and a table covered in books. A pile of clothes sat next to a chest in one corner, the windows were covered in cobwebs moving in the wind, and nothing seemed particularly out of the ordinary.

Except for the floor.

A huge pentagram had been painted on the floor, taking up almost the entire room. At each tip of the five-pointed star stood a burned-out candle, each candle surrounded by a pool of half-cooled wax. Johann knelt down and studied the rust-colored pentagram more closely. The paint was dry and exuded a faintly sweet smell—the same smell Johann had noticed downstairs. Johann sniffed again. It was just how it used to smell at home in Knittlingen when his stepfather butchered a pig to make sausage and ham.

It was the smell of blood.

You eat them . . .

A ladder led up to a square opening in the ceiling. In a daze, Johann climbed the few rungs until his head was outside, overlooking the platform that formed the tower’s roof. A cold wind blew into his face. He spotted a strange construction set up on the roof: a large tube about as long as his arm resting on a stand. Johann guessed it must have been in one of the heavy crates he’d had to lift off the wagon and carry up the tower. He couldn’t figure out what the apparatus might be. Was that the master’s secret? But why wasn’t Johann allowed to know about it? And what was the pentagram about?

Johann couldn’t resist the temptation. He walked over to the tube; it was made of copper and shaped like a narrow funnel. Each end