The Castle of Elsbethstein
“Have you the dagger?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Theodor Gärtner holds out both hands to me. I grasp them as a drowning man grasps at a rescuing hand. And immediately I feel a current of warmth and goodness flowing from him through me. And the fear that had wrapped itself tight round me like a mummy’s bandages begins to loosen its grip.
I see a faint smile on my friend’s face:
“Well, and have you defeated Black Isaïs?” The question is put in a matter-of-fact way and without any threatening undertone and still it resounds in my ear like the last trump. I bow my head:
“No.”
“Then she will enter our Kingdom, for she always appears where she has a debt to collect.”
Fear begins to pull its bands tight around me again:
“I have tried all that can be expected of a man – and more!”
“I know how you have tried.”
“My strength is all gone!”
“And did you really imagine that the black arts could bring about the transformation?”
“Vajroli Tantra?!” I cry, staring at Theodor Gärtner.
“A farewell gift from the Dugpas, intended to destroy you. If you knew what strength is needed to practise Vajroli Tantra without being utterly destroyed! Only Orientals are capable of that. It is sufficient that you have twice inhaled their poisonous fumes and survived. You did that of your own strength and that is why you are worthy of help.”
“Help me!”
Theodor Gärtner turns and beckons me to follow him.
It is only now that my senses wake to the scene around me. We are in a chamber in a tower. In the corner is a massive fireplace and in front of it the large stove usual in alchymical laboratories. All round the room are shelves on which, in neat order, stand the tools and vessels of that high art.
Is it John Dee’s laboratory? Slowly understanding dawns upon me: I am “on the other side”, in the realm of first causes. This chamber is so like the earthly one and at the same time unlike it – in the same way as the face of the child resembles the old man’s. Fearfully I ask:
“Tell me true, my friend – am I dead?”
Theodor Gärtner hesitates a moment, gives a sly smile and an ambiguous answer:
“On the contrary! Now you are really alive!” He is about to pass out of the room and motions me to accompany him.
He holds the door open, and as I go past him I have the same experience as before when the room seemed both familiar and new: I feel as if I have seen his face – long, long before this life. But the scene outside prevents me from musing on this impression. We cross the castle courtyard. There is no sign of decay, no sign at all of the ruin I knew. Nor, however carefully I look, can I find any signs of hot springs and the stone well-head over them. In my surprise I cannot restrain a questioning glance at my guide. He smiles, nods and explains:
“Elsbethstein is one of earth’s ancient stigmata, a place where the springs of earthly fate well up. But the springs that you saw were only a sign that we have returned to take possession once more of what has always been ours by right. The hot springs, which men wanted to tame to serve their greed, have already dried up. All this around us is invisible to men; they have eyes – and cannot see.”
I look about me in astonishment. The walls of the great hall, formerly open to the sky, are covered with a high hipped roof; towers and look-outs are crowned with fine slates. And it does not look at all new or restored; it is all covered with the patina of gentle ageing.
“Your place will be here if ... if we stay together.” Theodor Gärtner gives a brief wave of the hand and turns away. In spite of his unconcerned manner a dark cloud of fear settles on my breast.
Then my friend leads me to the old garden between the keep and the outer ring of walls.
In the far distance I can see a sunlit river and broad, fruitful fields and meadows spread out between gentle slopes, as quiet and peaceful as if it had never known change. But within me the garden and the distant view stirs up uneasy memories of primordial elemental forces behind the visible world. I have a keen, almost painful sense of having seen them before. I stop abruptly and clutch Theodor Gärtner by the hand:
“But this is Mortlake Castle, as I saw it in the coal scrying glass! And yet ... it is not the same; it is a shimmering image contained within Elsbethstein, within the ruin above the river of which you are Lord. – And you are not just Theodor Gärtner, you are also ...”
With a happy laugh he puts his hand to my lips and leads me back into the tower.
Then I am alone. For how long? I cannot say. When I look back to this period of solitary peace I feel as if, in some way I cannot comprehend, I had taken root in my native soil after an absence of centuries.
As I look back I have no sense of the passage of time. Later I do distinguish night and day, for I remember the sun once shining down on the magic circle of our conversation, and once it was dark and scented candles cast huge shadows onto high, strangely shifting walls. – –
It was probably the third time that evening fell on Elsbethstein when Theodor Gärtner interrupted our quiet conversation. Casually, as if it were some trifling matter, he remarks:
“Now it is time for you to hold yourself ready.”
I start. A vague fear rises from the pit of my stomach.
“You mean ... that is ...?” I stammer.
“Three such days would have been enough for Samson to let his hair grow again! Look within yourself. Your strength is renewed!” Theodor Gärtner’s open and completely unworried look immediately transmits
