“Lord in heaven, it is you. Doctor Johann Georg Faustus! Praise be to God!”
The wizard stepped back as if he’d been struck by a blow. He dropped the rock. Then, with an abrupt movement, he grabbed Karl by the collar and pulled him so close that Karl could smell his alcohol-infused breath.
“How do you know my name? Who told you my name? Who? Someone from the church? A French spy? Speak up, man!”
“No one,” gasped Karl. “I know your name because . . .” He faltered. “Because I . . . because I am your assistant. Don’t you recognize me? It’s me, your loyal Karl. Karl Wagner, the student from Leipzig.” He squeezed the talisman around his neck hard. “God Himself must have brought us back together. Finally I remember who I was—who I am. Praise be . . .”
Then he broke off, sobbing, overcome by a flood of tears, longing, and memories.
Karl Wagner had found his master again.
A short while later, two ragged men sat opposite each other in a tavern down by the river. One of the men still cried soundlessly, and the other one was drinking himself into a stupor. Very little light got in through the spiderwebs covering the windows; the hazy outline of the Pyrenees stood on the horizon.
Through a cascade of tears Karl studied the doctor, whom he had recognized by his black eyes and the black-and-blue coat. Faust had aged in the last two years, appearing empty, drained. A long shaggy beard that reminded Karl of a rabbi’s covered his face, and Johann’s hair was matted. The red veins on his nose told Karl that the doctor was a slave to a very particular devil. A large jug of cheap wine stood between them. Instead of a lordly carriage and numerous crates and chests, Johann’s worldly possessions consisted of one old leather sack holding a few items for his magic tricks, and the coat, which he’d probably had made as a sign of his trade. The doctor’s hand shook as he lifted the cup to his mouth.
“What a strange coincidence that has brought us back together,” he murmured through his beard.
“Coincidence?” Karl shook his head. “I no longer believe in coincidences. This is a miracle—an act of providence.”
“Or an act of the devil.” Johann laughed dryly. “What happened to the ambitious young scientist who wants to explain everything with reason? Even heaven and hell, if he can?” He paused. “You haven’t seen what I have seen. And you don’t know what I know.”
“What about your illness?” asked Karl. “Your paralysis?” He studied the doctor with the eyes of a physician. “You no longer seem to be burdened by it. If it disappeared, it must have been a miracle. Or did you find a cure in the end?”
“Some . . . something like that.”
Karl swallowed and wiped his wet face with his sleeve. He didn’t have the impression that Johann was happy to see him. The shabby tavern they were sitting in, not far from the pilgrims’ hostel, served as the doctor’s accommodation in Toulouse. Evidently he still traveled the lands as a magician, even if he called himself by a different name now and was but a shadow of his former self. To help himself fill the gaps in his memory, Karl had spent the last two hours quizzing the doctor about details. Their journeys through the German Empire with Greta, then Faust’s mysterious disease, their escape to France, and their stay at Leonardo da Vinci’s. The answers had come haltingly, frequently interrupted by long gulps from the cup of wine that Johann kept refilling. The further Karl progressed in his recollection, the more close-lipped Faust became.
“We were down in the crypt at Tiffauges,” continued Karl hesitantly. “You wanted to meet Gilles de Rais. We drank the black potion.”
Johann nodded hastily. “That’s what must have erased your memory.” His eyes became empty and he took another long sip. “Lucky you.”
“What happened to John Reed? Did he also come to Tiffauges?”
“He . . . he died fighting Hagen and the other mercenaries in the crypt. God rest his soul.” The doctor lowered his gaze, and Karl was surprised at Faust’s apparent grief over the death of the red-haired man. Karl, too, felt grief, even though he had half expected that John was dead.
“But at least you managed to escape,” Karl went on. “And me?”
“Lahnstein and his men stormed the castle. They had no use for you,” suggested Johann. “So they probably left you for dead.”
“But then how did I get to Nantes, to the Benedictines? Someone must have cared for me and brought me there.”
Karl clasped the small amulet on his neck as if it might give him the answer. Once again it was as warm as if it was made of flesh and blood. Johann noticed the alabaster angel for the first time, and his eyes narrowed.
“Where did you get that?” he asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” replied Karl. “I remember so much now, but not that part. Can you tell me?”
Johann said nothing for a while, and then he answered. “It . . . it was Greta’s. An old midwife in Brittany gave it to her.”
Until then they hadn’t spoken about what had become of Greta, as if they both feared that there would be no return. Karl saw Johann’s face darken, and in the same moment he felt a stab in his heart. He thought of the image he had drawn many times, the crying young woman reaching out for him. It was Greta. She had visited him once after he was poisoned, and she gave him the amulet. Karl focused, allowing the memories to return. In his mind’s eye he saw a dungeon, at Tiffauges. Then he remembered a phrase that had been spoken there.
I’m going to Rome, Karl.
“I don’t want to talk about Greta,” said Johann in a defeated voice as he waved his empty cup at the tavern keeper. “I’ve
