City of Lost Dreams

THIRTY-ONE

Sarah gasped as she plunged through Gottfried’s energy field, zapped by a sharp electrical current. She staggered for a moment, and when she regained her footing she turned back. Gottfried had been replaced by two young boys. One of them, the leaner one, carried a crossbow that was nearly as big as he was. The leaner boy’s energy was . . . strange. It was pulsing and clicking, almost like a clock, or a bomb. The two ran down the steps and Sarah, pulled by some magnetic force she couldn’t name, followed them into the garden.

“Gottfried,” the plumper boy said. This must be Heinrich. She could see his sullen expression in this child. He pointed. “Look. Mama’s cat.”

But the boy Gottfried had fallen to the ground; the pulsing energy of his body had exploded and he was convulsing, his young body twisting and turning in unnatural ways, his eyes rolling back until they were all whites. Sarah looked at Heinrich to see what he would do.

He picked up the crossbow, took aim, and shot the cat.

The two boys vanished, only to be replaced by versions of themselves, seated at a chessboard in the garden. Their bodies flickered. They were little boys, wiry teens, young boys again, then in their twenties. Always playing chess, always facing each other across the board. Always the same hot rivalry, the same crackling tension.

“Heinrich,” said Gottfried. “Your move.”

The boys were intense, and the men more so. Gottfried was confident, but unhappy. Heinrich was angry. Angry and jealous.

“This may be our last game here,” said Gottfried. He looked exactly like himself now. This had to be recent.

“Not necessarily,” said Heinrich.

Gottfried made a move on the chessboard. Heinrich smiled and moved his own piece.

“I have beaten you at last, brother,” he said.

“Your skills have improved.” Gottfried leaned back in his chair. “I did not expect such a bold move from you.”

“It’s called the ‘shower of gold.’”

Sarah’s mind raced—where had she just heard about this chess move? From Nico. The move he claimed someone made on Herr Dorfmeister’s chessboard.

“There is a woman named Bettina Müller,” Heinrich was saying now, “a scientist. She works at the university. I’ve made friends with her assistant. This woman—Frau Doktor Müller—is involved in very important medical research. My company does not say what this is, but they are willing to pay a great deal to make sure she does not sell this research to foreign investors. This research will help our company, help Austria. This woman must be stopped. I need your help.”

So it was Gottfried, Sarah thought with a chill. Gottfried, loden-wearing Austrian patriot horseman, not to mention sexual maestro, who had stolen Bettina’s laptop?

Shower of gold. Shower of gold? Surely it wasn’t Gottfried who had—

She needed to get out of here. Before Gottfried returned.

Sarah shut her eyes. Philippine. She had to find Philippine.

“Come to the grotto. Come see what Philippine has made.”

Sarah opened her eyes. It was Ferdinand and Philippine again, surrounded by guests. A party. Musicians. They were drunk, laughing. It was nighttime and the guests held candles. They waved them around, making circles of light, and hooting. Sarah followed the crowd to the grotto, where a young man, elegantly dressed, sat manacled in a chair. The straps were made of leather and attached to metal locks. The man was laughing and struggling and the guests circled him, some taunting, some encouraging.

“It is a riddle!” Ferdinand cried. “Solve it and the chair will set you free!”

“You have to break the glass,” Philippine said. “But the glass is inside the locks.”

“I cannot . . .” the man gasped, and he rocked the chair.

“What is the riddle?” asked one of the guests.

“What can the blind man not do?” Philippine smiled. Sarah took a step back. Philippine seemed to be looking straight at her.

“The blind man can’t see!” the young man in the chair cried. But nothing happened. The guests began calling out suggestions. Sarah took a step toward Philippine.

Help me, she whispered. I don’t have much time.

“Philippine?”

It was Ferdinand. Standing next to her, looking straight at her. Her body felt . . . strange. Filled with energy but somehow unfamiliar, as if she . . .

Ferdinand took her hand. She could see him take it; she could see her arm rising; but she could only feel a slight electrical charge, a faint warmth.

She was holding the hand of Archduke Ferdinand, sovereign of Further Austria, who died in 1595.

Ferdinand led her toward the building that housed his collection of curiosities. Sarah could see her own jeans-clad legs and short leather boots, but she could also see, overlapping her present-day self, another self, someone wearing a fine dress of embroidered silk.

She hadn’t just found Philippine. She was Philippine.

“I have something to show you, my princess,” said Ferdinand.

It was the strangest sensation. They had overlapped, somehow. Like magnets.

“I’m no princess,” said Philippine. Sarah had said these words, too, almost five hundred years in the future. She had said them to Pols.

“You gave up much when you married me,” Sarah found herself saying now, as Philippine. “You endured your father’s wrath and the scorn of your friends, and you missed the chance for an alliance which would have brought you even more power.”

“I do not seek power.”

“I am glad to hear it.”

Ferdinand held Sarah’s gaze for a moment, and Sarah could feel how strong the bond was between him and Philippine. The things they had both given up for love and the differences between them—where they came from, what they wanted—only served to intensify their connection.

Ferdinand led her up the stairs and into the long hallway of the Kunstkammer. Gottfried had been right, it was nearly the same in his time as it had been in Ferdinand’s. No rug, no lights, fewer things on display. It seemed the oliphant hadn’t been acquired yet; perhaps the elephant was still alive. Ferdinand led Philippine (and Sarah with her) over to a small table. On it was an alabaster and marble toy castle, checkered and cantilevered like an Escher painting.

“It is a safe place, my darling. Watch.”

His hands moved over the castle, pressing first one thing and then another. At last, the drawbridge of the castle opened, revealing an empty compartment.

“An amusing contraption, to hold such a serious thing,” said Philippine gravely. “This is not a cure for the rash. This is different. This is . . .”

“Immortality,” said Ferdinand.

Philippine reached into her pocket and removed a small vial.

“This is why the Fleece must be hidden,” she said sharply to Ferdinand. “Do you understand what immortality means? Do you? Eternal life. Do you understand the temptation and the curse?”

“I do.”

“You think you can withstand it? You think immortality can be hidden in a box? I tell you it cannot. I would rather these stones be immortal.”

Philippine raised the vial and smashed it against the floor.

Ferdinand’s face was white. But he took Philippine’s hand and kissed it.

“You are right,” he said. “Thank you.”

Philippine withdrew a second vial.

“This is the antidote,” she said. “I will put this in your castle within a castle. But I will not practice from that book anymore. You must take the Fleece away from here. You must bury it deep. It must be hidden until the end of time.”

Time, thought Sarah. She didn’t have much time. Gottfried would be coming back. Sarah could feel herself inside Philippine, feel the woman’s blood all around her. And then, Philippine’s voice inside her head.

“What do you seek here?”

Philippine’s voice was infinitely gentle.

“I seek a cure for someone I love,” Sarah answered.

“The need is great?”

“Yes.”

“The need is always great.”

“This is different.”

“It always is.”

“Please help me.”

“We will help each other. You must go now. He is coming.”

Sarah was standing in the same place, the same room, but she was completely alone. All the phantoms had disappeared, and she could feel that she was firmly back in the present, and the present alone. The drug had worn off, abruptly this time. The lights of the gallery had gone out. The clicking had stopped. The objects in the room were barely visible in the fading light coming in from a high row of small windows. She looked down.

She was holding a small vial.

She was holding the antidote to eternal life.