The Drawing of the Dark

Duffy had his dagger out and strode to the door. 'Come out of there,' he barked.

There was only silence from the dark room beyond, and an intensification of the steamy malt smell.

Duffy retreated to the fireplace, picked up a coal with the tongs and held it to the wick of Gambrinus' lantern. Armed now with the light, he returned to the doorway and peered warily into the stone-walled room revealed within. He couldn't see anyone, and, assuming the intruder was hiding to one side of the door, leaped through with a whirl of the lantern and an intimidating yell.

The room was empty. 'Enough now, what is this?' the Irishman snarled. Setting down the lantern, he examined

the walls for evidence of a secret door, but found none. The floor was simply moist earth, and the high-ceilinged room contained 'nothing but a monstrous wooden vat, taller by half than Duffy, the broad slats of its sides green with the moss of decades, perhaps centuries.

Duffy was about to go back to the dining room and worry about this new symptom of madness when he noticed three big, discolored wooden spigots set in the side of the vat, one at chest level, one at knee level, and one only a dozen inches above the dirt floor. Tarnished brass plates were nailed above the spigots, and he looked closely at them. The top one read LIGHT; the middle one BOCK; and the bottom one was so scaled with verdigris that it was indecipherable, and he had to scrape at it with the edge of his dagger. After a minute he had got it fairly clean, and could read its single word: DARK.

Now what the hell, he thought, forgetting the elusive intruder in his immediate puzzlement. He glanced up and saw a number of pipes emerging from the cellar wall and entering the vat at the top. Can this thing, he wondered queasily, be substituting for the tun tubs of a normal brewery? Does the fermentation of all Herzwesten beer take place, as it appears to do, in this great moldy vat? I wonder if they ever clean it.

After extinguishing the lantern he made his way thoughtfully back up the stairs. Maybe, he speculated, that fair-haired man, -whoever he was, led me into that room intentionally; wanted me to see that enigmatic vat.

He paused at the top of the stairs. I've frequently tasted Herzwesten Light, he thought, and every Spring I can have the Bock. What, though, is Herzwesten Dark, and why have I never heard of it?

Bluto had wandered off, and the only person in the dining room besides Shrub and his helpers was Epiphany.

She had wiped down the tables and washed and stacked the serving-boards for dinner, and was now slumped at the traditional employees' table, wearily slurping small beer.

'Piff, my love,' the Irishman exclaimed. 'Where have you been hiding?'

Epiphany started when he spoke, then smiled worriedly. 'You're the one that's been hiding, Brian,' she said. 'I've been looking for you all day. Anna tells me you were in a sword-fight last night. Good God!' she gasped as he approached her table. 'How did your face get all scratched?'

'Oh, the usual monsters have been giving me a rough time. But I give them a rough time, too. Are you working dinner?'

'no, thank God.' She brushed a damp strand of gray hair back from her forehead. 'I guess it'll be a real madhouse.'

'It's a madhouse anyway. I believe our employer is insane.' He reached across the table, picked up her beer and drank it off. 'Let's go up to your room. I've got a few things to tell you.'

She eyed him cautiously. 'Brian, you look like an old tomcat: this season's cuts crossing last year's scars.' After a moment she grinned and stood up. 'My room? This way.' Duffy followed her up the stairs, reflecting that it might still be possible to talk some of the old woman out of the girl.

Epiphany's room, a narrow one overlooking the stables, was neat, but, not intimidatingly so. Framed paintings leaned out from every wall, mostly religious canvases of her father's; though Duffy thought he recognized one as the work of Domenico Veneziano. A bird twittered manically in a cage that hung over a chessboard, the pieces of which stood unmoved in their four basic ranks. Duffy absently moved the white king's knight to the third row, over the ridge of the pawns.

'Sit down, Brian,' Epiphany said. Duffy dragged a chair up from beside the dresser and sat down on it while she perched on the bed.

'Let's see,' the Irishman said. 'I don't know where to start, Piff. Well. Do you know why Aurelianus lured me here from Venice?'

'To keep peace in the dining room.. .which you really -'

'Never mind. No. That was the story, yes, but he's dropped hints that that's not what he wanted me for at all. He thinks the Turks are coming to Vienna just to 'wreck this brewery, and he thinks - equally insane - that I can prevent them. Me, a stranger he just encountered at random hundreds of miles from here. And listen, that isn't all, he's got a madman's explanation for everything. You think Suleiman is the head man of the Ottoman Empire? Not according to Aurelianus! No, it's Ibrahim, the Grand Vizir, who also happens to be the son of an air-demon or something. And maybe you imagined Emperor Charles counted for something here in the West? Hell, no! There's an old fisherman in the forests outside town that's the real king.' Duffy kicked the bed post, secretly irritated to find some of his scornful incredulity feigned.

'It is all a lot of senile fantasies on Aurelianus' part,' he went on, trying to convince himself almost as much as Epiphany. 'Certainly, the old fellow can work magic tricks and conjure spirits out of holes in the ground.. .but, Christ, we're dealing with modern warfare here: cannons, troops, swords and mines. How can I save the damned brewery if the Hapsburg and Vatican armies fail to save Vienna? And if they do save the city, what point will there be in me standing vigilantly in front of the brewery flexing my sword hand? Hell - Aurelianus might have been something once, but he surely doesn't know what's going on now. The fact is that Suleiman wants the empire of Charles V, and is coming to break the eastern wall of it -and Aurelianus thinks the whole affair revolves around me, Herzwesten beer, and some old hermit in the woods who imagines he's a king!'

He had stood up in order to gesture more effectively during this speech, and now he sat down beside Epiphany on the bed. Her face was lit by the reflected, curtain-scrimmed orange light from the west, and for the first time since his return to Vienna she really looked familiar to him. This was Epiphany Vogel at last, beginning to shed the gray, acquired personality of Epiphany Hallstadt.

'Listen, Piff. I've done my share of killing Turks, and I don't see how my presence in Vienna could affect the coming battle one way or the other. Now I happen to have saved some money, and on top of that for some reason they're paying me a princely salary. I figure in a few weeks, early May, let's say, we'll have enough.. .that is, if it sounds as good to you as it does to me.. .what I mean is, what would you think of hoofing it to Ireland with me, before they lock Vienna's gates? We could get married -finally! - and live in a real slate-roofed cottage and, I don't know, raise goats or something. Don't tell anybody, though.'

'Oh, Brian, it sounds wonderful!' She blotted a tear with a beer-damp sleeve. 'I'd given up ideas like that till you came back from the dead. But can't I tell Anna?'

'Nobody. Aurelianus could legally prevent you from leaving, because you owe him money.'

She scratched her head. 'Do I?'

'Yes. Don't you remember? He bought up all the debts and bad accounts that were your legacy from that worm-gut son of a bitch Hallstadt, may he be turning on a spit this minute in hell.'

Epiphany was shocked. 'Brian! Max was your best friend once. You shouldn't hate him.'