The Drawing of the Dark

The Irishman allowed himself to be led to the far wall, which was fitfully illuminated by two candles. Filling the wall entirely, from floor to ceiling and corner to corner, drawn with painstaking care on the plaster in a near-infinity of fine, close-knit penstrokes, was a vast picture.

Duffy gave a polite glance to the maelstrom of churning figures. When he had first seen the picture, possibly seven years ago, he'd had to look close to see the faint outlines of the shapes on the white plaster; and when he left Vienna in 'twenty-six the wall was a finely shaded drawing, crowded and vague in subject but faultless in execution. Now it was much darker, for every day the artist added hundreds of strokes, deepening shadows and, very gradually, blacking out some peripheral figures altogether. Three years ago the scene pictured seemed to be occurring at noon; now the tortured figures writhed and gestured in the shade of deep twilight.

'It's coming along wonderfully, Gustav,' Duffy said.

'You think so? Good! Naturally your opinion counts in this,' the old man chittered eagerly. 'I've invited Albrecht to come and see it, but lately he hasn't even been answering my letters. I'm nearly finished, you see. I've got to complete the thing before I lose my sight entirely.'

'Couldn't you call it finished now?'

'Oh no! You don't know about these things, young man. No, it needs a good deal of work yet.'

'If you say so. Here, I'll stash this food in your pantry. Don't forget it's there, either!' Still looking at the old man, Duffy pulled open the door of the narrow pantry; a gust of fresh, cold air, carrying a smell like the sea, ruffled his hair from behind, and he closed the door without turning around. 'On second thought,' he said, a little unsteadily, 'I'll let you put it away.'

Epiphany's father, intent on touching up the shading of a cloud, wasn't even listening. Duffy ran a hand nervously through his hair, then laid a small stack of coins on a box that seemed to be serving as a table, and left the room. Descending the stairs he was careful to stare straight ahead, and he won his way to the street without being subjected to any more visions.

He strode unhappily back toward the Zimmermann Inn.

What, he asked himself, almost ready to cry, is going on? Until today I hadn't seen any outre things in nearly a month. I'd hoped I was through with all that. And at least those satyrs, griffins and unseen nightfliers last month were, I think, real, since other people saw or were affected- by them. But what about this damnable lake? Would another person have seen that? Maybe I'm crazy and haunted. That's it. Epiphany, will you take an insane husband to match your father?

From the walls came echoing the boom of cannons as Bluto and his crew of assistants tested the city's artillery for range. I wonder, Duffy thought, not for the first time, if the Turks really will try for Vienna this year. I suppose they will. And what with the shape the old Holy Roman Empire's in, they'll probably sweep right through and be in Ireland in two years. I should take Eilif's advice - just throw myself into the tide of warfare and keep too busy to go mad.

The soldiers were rowdy downstairs, shouting for the casks of bock to be opened just two days early, and the clamor eventually helped rouse the Irishman from his unusually deep and prolonged afternoon nap. He stared at the ceiling for a few moments and tried to remember what dream it was that had left him with such an oppressive, though unfocused, sense of dread.

There came a rapping at his door. 'Mr Duffy,' called Shrub, the stable boy. 'Werner says come down or be evicted tonight.'

'Coming, Shrub.' He was glad of even this annoying interruption, for it was a summons to rejoin the world, and for a moment the world had seemed on the point of going to bits like a scene painted on shredding canvas. 'I'm coming.' He put on his boots and sword and left the room.

At the door to the dining hall he paused to run his hands

through his gray hair and shake his head a couple of times. Odd, he thought - I feel as if I'm still half asleep.. .as if that damned dream, the one I can't remember, is still going on, and is in some way more real than my perceptions of this old door, my hands, and the smell of cooking beef in the warm air.

'Don't hang back,' came Anna's cheerfully exasperated voice from behind him. 'Push on.'

He obediently stepped through into the wide hail and moved aside for her to pass with her tray of pitchers. All the candles were lit in the cressets and wooden chandeliers, and the long room was packed with customers of every sort, from foreign mercenaries with odd accents to middle-aged merchants sweating under the weight of many-pocketed display coats. Probably a third of the company had upturned their empty or nearly-empty mugs, and Anna and two other women were kept busy refilling them. Several dogs who had got in somehow were grow- I ling and bickering for scraps under the tables.

It struck Duffy that a touch of hysteria had sharpened the good-fellowship tonight, as if the night wind whistling under the eaves carried some pollen of impermanence, making everyone nostalgic for things they hadn't lost yet.

A tableful of young students near the bar had struck up a song, a cheery sounding number with lyrics in Latin:

'Feror ego veluti

Sine nauta navis,

Ut per vias aeris

Vaga fertur avis;

Non me tenent vincula,

Non me tenet clavis,

Quero mihi similes

Et adjungor pravis!'

Calling on his rusty seminary skill, the Irishman was. a little appalled when he translated it in his head:

I am carried violently off