“Apocalypse my ass! This is nothing but a cheap trick!” he called out. “Guards, arrest this heretic! He is only trying to . . .”
Just then a black shadow emerged from the mist, accompanied by a sinister growling.
Greta had let Little Satan off the leash.
Like a dark angel the wolfhound leaped out of the smoke at Hagen, who was climbing the stage with his sword raised. Little Satan aimed for Hagen’s throat but the man dodged him, lunged forward, and, one moment later, stood in front of Faust with his sword against the doctor’s chest. The dog disappeared into the darkness behind Hagen.
“You’re going nowhere, Doctor,” snarled the mercenary. “Stay right where you are.”
Karl swore. They hadn’t reckoned on the huge Swiss soldier. A single man was enough to foil their elaborate plan. He shot a panicked glance at Greta, who was just picking up a fire poker from beside the brazier, holding it like a sword. Karl doubted that Greta—or the three of them together, for that matter—could do anything against the hulk with the longsword. As if he had read their minds, Hagen grinned and pressed the point of his sword harder against Johann’s chest. The fabric of his shirt tore and a bloodstain appeared on it.
“One wrong movement, sweetheart,” Hagen said in Greta’s direction without taking his eyes off Faust. “If you as much as blink, I will skewer your doctor like a rabbit. You’ll see how—”
He was cut off by a piercing scream behind him. In the light of the spreading fire, Karl saw that Little Satan had attacked Lahnstein in front of the stage. The calf-sized hound was pinning the mortally frightened, squirming man to the floor with paws as large as the palm of a hand.
“Off, off!” shouted Lahnstein over and over. “Goddamned mutt! Hagen, help me, why won’t you help—”
Lahnstein’s pleading gave way to panicked screams as Little Satan’s mouth came closer to his face. Hagen hesitated one more moment before lowering his sword with a curse, turning away from Faust, and leaping off the stage to help his master.
“You will burn for this, Faustus!” screeched Lahnstein, grappling with the dog. “You will burn alive for this!”
“Maybe,” said Johann, panting and wiping the sweat from his brow. “But not here and not today.”
As Lahnstein continued to rant and rave behind them, Faust, Karl, and Greta hurried through the biting smoke to a small side door near the stage. A tiny wedge Greta had installed the night before had prevented it from falling shut. During the same nighttime visit, Greta had managed to climb up to the chandelier and cut into the ropes just enough that one well-aimed throw had been sufficient to send the whole thing flying.
A dark, smoky corridor led them out into the courtyard, where chaos reigned. Guards were running back and forth with buckets of water, black smoke came pouring out of the palas, and delegates coughed as they staggered toward their chambers to save their belongings before the fire spread. The castle gate stood wide open as throngs of people fled out onto the road.
The troupe’s wagon was in the stable and the horse already hitched. Karl was climbing up when the wolfhound appeared from a cloud of haze, trotting toward them as if nothing had happened. His snout was red with blood.
“Little Satan!” exclaimed Johann joyously. “And I thought that Hagen finished you off.” He knelt down to greet the dog and stopped short. “Hey, what is that? Drop it, Satan! Drop it now.” With visible disgust, he pulled something from the dog’s mouth. Karl had to look twice before he recognized what it was, and when he did, he felt sick.
It was a human nose, or rather, what was left of it. A pale lump of cartilage with a scrap of skin.
“If I’m not mistaken, that is the beak of that papal representative,” said Greta from the box seat. “Yuck, Satan! You have bad taste.”
“It was much too big anyhow.” Faust tossed the bloody piece of meat far away from him. “But I fear we may have just made an enemy for life. High time for us to leave.”
He jumped up onto the wagon next to Karl, and Greta moved to the back. The gray horse whinnied and started trotting toward the open gate, while behind them, Altenburg Castle was ablaze.
Just like the doctor had prophesied, the apocalypse had arrived.
A solitary man stood among the smoldering, crackling chairs in the great hall and uttered a quiet curse. Guards ran past him; guests wailed, prayed, and shouted; someone was sounding the bells. But the man didn’t seem to notice any of it. He was staring outside through one of the barred windows, watching the doctor fleeing through the gate with his wagon. How ironic, he thought. Faustus had invoked the devil and thus managed to escape from him. The man took off his cap with the red feather and hurled it into the flames. He had been too impatient, and now he needed a new plan.
“Merde!” said the master angrily in the language of his childhood, from the time before he became an eternal traveler, forever hungry, forever on the search for something, much like the doctor.
“Dieu, je te maudis!”
Not far from him a burning beam fell from the ceiling, burying a guard. One of the guests, a fat abbot, ran past him with his robe on fire, looking like a torch with legs. The fire crept up the stairs and hungrily devoured the second floor of the palas.
The master nodded approvingly. Young Johann had truly learned much in the last decades, more than any university could have taught—yes, more than he himself could
