The Journal of Dr. Colwyn Rhys-Myers

Entry: 29 Apr 1919

As anxious as I was to learn exactly how intricately the piece that was Martin fit into the puzzle, and as equally anxious as I was to find out where the zhu was (it was going to take some time to get used to calling it that), no sooner had I put down my pen from recording my otherworldly journey then I discovered myself not terribly comfortably face-down on the writing desk some three hours later. Fortunately, it was still early afternoon, giving me enough time to make my way to the local constabulary and do what I could for my ever-more mysterious, yet still, I assumed, steadfast friend.

I asked the concierge for directions to the station. “Is something wrong, sir? Perhaps I could help?”

“No, danke schoen. They have some information for me.”

“I hope nothing untoward has happened. We do pride ourselves on discretion here.”

“No, I assure you everything is just fine,” I replied.

“Nothing to do with the explosion, I trust?”

I started. “Explosion?”

“Yes, the explosion at the estate not two days ago.” The concierge emphasized the words “two days” more than seemed necessary. “The authorities are investigating. They suspect it was no accident. There have been rumours, sir.” The concierge eyed me knowingly, and a bit suspiciously.

Two days? The estate? Two days! The estate! Suddenly, I realized that, to him and the hotel staff, I was a foreign guest, an Englishman at that, in an Austrian village not six months removed from the War, who had been missing for two days and suddenly reappeared, and that two-day period began with the apparent destruction of perhaps the largest estate in the region. I would have to think quickly; but, I was still bone-weary, and in no condition for verbal legerdemain.

I decided to play it straight. “I was asked to come see them. Apparently, they’re holding someone who says he knows me. No doubt you saw the note delivered to my room?”

The concierge inched closer to me over the counter. “We never spy on guest’s affairs in any way, sir; however, when the authorities are involved, we must protect our reputation. To be honest, the estate, its owner, what goes on there…the local residents have been concerned about it for some time. There are those who say its destruction was inevitable, ordained almost. If this person being held, if you…well, I’m certain you understand.”

I wasn’t certain I did; but, I understood enough to realize that after I spoke with Martin, it might be in my best interests to disappear as abruptly as did the estate. “Of course, you may count on my discretion.”

“Thank you, sir.”

I hurried to the station. The desk sergeant showed me to an interview room, and moments later a guard brought in Martin, who was looking decidedly disheveled, and decidedly unwell. The guard said, “You can talk in here; but, I’ll have to stay in the room with you.” He then walked over to the door and stood in that manner referred to by the military man as "at ease", but was in truth anything but. Martin collapsed into a chair, and I sat across a table from him.

“Colwyn, my friend, thank you.”

“For what?”

“For coming back.”

“From where?”

“From wherever it was our otherwordly friend took you two days ago,” Martin replied. “I owe you an apology, and an explanation. I owe you the truth, all of it.”

I glanced over at the guard, and then leaned in closer to Martin. “We’ll have time for that later. For now, how am I supposed to get you out of here? And why are you under arrest anyway?”

“After the mansion was destroyed, they found me outside. I had managed to crawl out during the fire, but passed out on the grounds. They suspect I might be responsible.”

“I think my telling them the truth might get us both locked up. So, how to get you out?”

“Go to this address.” He handed me a scrap of paper with an address and directions written on it. “Her name is Renate Schattner. She knows. Not everything, but…well, everything I know. I suspect you know more than all of us now. She can free me.”

“I’ll be as quick as I can.” I looked him over. He was covered in cuts and bruises, and what looked like dirt and grime might very well have been burns. “You need a doctor.”

“I am a doctor. I’ll be fine. ‘Physician: heal thyself,’ and all that. Go. Then, we’ll trade stories.”

“We’ll do more than that.” The guard took Martin back to his cell, and I left the station. I hailed a taxi, and instructed the driver in my best fractured German to take me to 35 Museumstrasse. I arrived perhaps twenty minutes later at a modestly ornamented row-house, on a quiet street lined with massive oak trees. The trees must have been there far longer than the homes, if not the town itself. I climbed the stairs, and rang the bell. After a brief moment, the door was answered by a young serving-girl.

“Bitte schoen, Meine Frau, ist Mme. Schattner zu Hause?” I asked.

“Ya. Darf ich erfahren, wie Ihr Name ist?”

“Dr. Colwyn Rhys-Myers. Sagen Sie ihr, dass Martin Lebeque meinen Freund ist.”

The servant raised an eyebrow at the mention of Martin’s name. “Herein, bitte!” she said, and motioned me inside.

I was ushered into a small, high-ceilinged sitting room, the walls of which were lined with bookshelves. I let my eyes drift over the spines of the books that filled each case to overflowing. Almost without exception, the books were ancient histories, scientific treatises, religious tomes, and philosophical works, many of them immensely old and immensely valuable. The library was an archivist’s dream. It took the most concerted effort of my will not to throw good manners to the wind, and to curl up on a small chaise lounge in the corner with one of the titles.

My reverie was interrupted by the squeak of the door to the hallway opening. I turned, and was greeted by a tall, mature woman of regal bearing and refined appearance. Her strikingly severe visage, complimented by deeply-set green eyes, and what I suspected was a permanently arched eyebrow and accompanying smirk, took an immediate appraisal of me, and, it would seem, approved.

“The Good Doctor, I take it? Welcome,” Mme. Schattner said.

“Thank you kindly for seeing me on, well, on no notice,” I replied.

“Life is much more interesting when experienced without overdue regard for rules and conventions. Please, take a seat. I have tea coming.” She gestured toward an occasional table flanked by two chairs, sitting before an arched window.

“After you?” I asked.

“Certainly,” she replied. As we sat, the serving-girl brought in a tray of tea and cakes. “Earl Grey,” Mme. Schattner said, “and not just in deference to your heritage. My preference, as well.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, as Martin has sent you here to me, he must trust you. And if he trusts you, I trust you. How may I be of service?”

"Forgive my abruptness..." I began.

"No need for apologies," Mme. Schattner replied. "You have a need, and it is urgent, perhaps? Such needs should be addressed quickly."

"Thank you. Martin is being held by the local authorities, and was hoping you could persuade them to release him. I know nothing of...well...he seems to think you're the one who can help him best."

"I see. That would explain why I haven't heard from him since he asked me to arrange things for you here."

"Ah, so you...thank you again," I replied.

"Did he say why he was being held?"

"They think he had something to do with the explosion at the estate."

"Herr Riegel's? I see. Did he?" Mme. Schattner asked.

I decided this woman was one with whom any form of subtrefuge was not going to work. Those eyes could see through anything. "Well, indirectly, yes. Perhaps. He was there when it happened."

"He was after Herr Riegel's antiquities, was he?"

"A thief? Martin? I can't imagine it." In truth, I could, especially as his mystery was deepening; but, this much I attempted to keep hidden.

"Not a thief," Mme. Schattner replied. "An inquisitor. A man possessed of an insatiable curiosity for the past: his past in particular." The pregnancy of her remark was not lost on me.

"And he has quite a past, hasn't he?" I asked. It seemed I might have been wrong about the Madame. While she was no doubt immune to subtrefuge, she was apparently not above playing games.

"That he does. You have known him since the War?"

"Yes, we served together. Inadvertently, more or less; but, very little in war is planned."

Mme. Schattner's smirk deepened slightly. "Well-put. You spoke often? Those rare moments of quiet in the trenches."

"We got to know each other, as soldiers do."

"No secrets on the battlefield: the camaraderie of men facing death incessantly."

"It does create a certain familiarity; wanted, or not, is another matter entirely. But, we became close," I said.

"Close enough you are here now. What truly do you know of him?" This question was clearly direct. The game, if there had been one, was over.

"He has more secrets than I know. But, he has been immensely helpful, and the only man I felt I could trust, in searching for a very dangerous object."

"Herr Riegel's giant amethyst: that giant, powerful amethyst." I was surprised she knew. I probably shouldn't have been; but, I was nonetheless.

"How long do you think he has been searching for that stone?" Mme. Schattner asked.

"Well, I came to him a little over a month ago for some help looking into the unfortunate death of a family in my village in Wales. They were friends of mine. I suspected the cause of their death to be related to something we'd seen near the end of the War. In Amiens. So, several months, perhaps."

"Correct, and not," Mme. Schattner replied. "He does not know it, though, he might now; but, he has been been searching for that stone almost since his birth. A very, very long time."

It was my turn to be cryptic, and to test her knowledge. "Almost two-hundred years?"

Mme. Schattner's other eyebrow raised. "So, you do know?"

"I didn't know for certain, until now."

"Well-played. I have been an amateur historian my whole life: an avid seeker of knowledge of all kinds. As such, I have come to know many people in many walks of life. It is how I came to know him. He has hidden his history well; however, with the appearance of the amethyst, he became, for the first time in his life, indiscreet. Incautious. I can only assume the origin of that stone holds answers he needs, answers that fascinate those few of us who know him."

"You assume well," I replied. "And, perhaps, I can tell you more another time. But, right now, that stone must be kept out of the hands of those who have no idea of its power. I'm not certain I'm the man for that task." More than that I was not prepared to reveal. Martin might trust those eyes; but, I wasn't as comfortable under her gaze. "However, I know without Martin's help, I haven't a chance."

A moment wherein time seemed to lose its ability to measure its passage passed between us. Finally, Mme. Schattner spoke. "Very well. I will send my Man with you to the station. He will carry a letter from me. I am owed certain favours. Martin will be freed. He deserves his answers. He has waited a long time for them." Mme. Schattner rose, walked to the door, and called for her serving-girl. She walked over to a writing-desk, sat down, and took pen and paper laying there in-hand. By the time her serving-girl had come in, the letter was almost complete. "Heidi, please give this to Jurgen, and have him accompany the Good Doctor to the police station." Heidi took the letter, curtsied slightly, and left the room. "Do you know where you will go next?" Mme. Schattner asked me.

"I have to check the estate first. The stone might still be there."

"The estate burned to the ground. It is nothing but a pile of rubble."

That worried me, and I'm certain it showed on my face. "The stone could still be there. If not, well, we have a few ideas," I replied. In truth, if the zhu wasn't there, we might be at a loss.

"If not," Mme. Schattner replied, "follow the trail of the others who seek it. They are not discreet. And perhaps, just perhaps, I might hear something. You know where to find me now."

"Thank you."

Jurgen appeared at the door. "Doctor, your carriage waits," Mme. Schattner said. "And, Doctor," she continued as we went to leave, "I hope to continue this conversation sometime."

"I feel certain we will, Renate. Might I call you Renate?"

"You may, Colwyn. It is 'Colwyn', isn't it?" Her pronunciation was perfect. "It is," I replied, my smirk almost matching hers.

Renate walked with us to the front door. "And, Colwyn," she said as we stepped outside, "remember, there are others looking, not just you, and not just Riegel. Arkadin. Look to him well. Guten Tag." Before I could question her final remark, but not before the second mention of that name struck me most uncomfortably, Renate had closed the door. As I stood there wondering if I had any chance of having that final question answered before I left, Jurgen pulled the car up to the curb. I decided I had learned all I would from her, at least for now, and at least from her lips. Jurgen let me in the back of the car, and we sped off.

While on the way to the station, I felt an almost overpowering urge to open the sealed letter Renate had given me. I didn’t, but felt a spot of judicious questioning as to its contents couldn’t hurt matters any. I leaned forward toward Jurgen. “Entschuldigen Sie, bitte, dieses Brief…”

“Yes, sir, the letter. You’re wondering about it?”

“Oh, you speak English?”

“I’ve been in the Madame’s employ for some time now. When working for the Madame, it’s best to learn as many languages as possible. She moves about a great deal.”

“Should I know what’s in this letter?” I asked.

“Best not to,” Jurgen replied. “Just give it to the desk sergeant, and let it, and her reputation, do the rest.”

I knew enough to let a matter alone; but, I would certainly ask Martin about it later.

We arrived at the station, and Jurgen graciously agreed to wait while I saw to Martin’s release. The letter, whatever its contents were, worked more quickly and more efficiently than the highest-paid and most influential Solicitor’s office. In moments, Martin was out of jail and standing next to me on the sidewalk wondering where to turn next. Fortunately, I knew in which direction our next step would lead. It was the steps thereafter that had me most worried.

Martin turned to me, “So, my friend, where next?”

“You need some rest and medical attention. I need to find the zhu.”

“I’m not letting you go on alone. I should never have…you…what did you say?”

“I said, ‘zhu’. The amethyst. That’s what it’s called on its home-world. It isn’t from here. But, I think you owe me an explanation first. Just what were you doing locked up in Riegel’s basement?”

“Fair enough. You lead; I’ll follow and talk.”

Jurgen was still waiting by the curb. “Gentlemen, will you be needing a ride anywhere? I’ve been instructed to be of service to you for the remainder of the day.”

“Yes, thank you,” I replied. “Could you take us back to the Katzen Grau, please?”

“As you wish.”

I turned to Martin, “Let’s at least get you cleaned up and get those wounds checked. In the meantime, you can talk.” Martin leaned back in the seat and stared at some unseen point on the horizon for a time that most likely seemed far longer than actually it was. My new-found experience with the apparently fluid nature of what we consider a fixed measurement of the passing of moments had taught me that, if nothing else. Finally, he spoke.

“When were you born, Colwyn?”

I paused as if in wonder as to why he was asking; though, I knew full-well to what he was leading. It was, perhaps, a bit cruel, a bit too full of the contrivance of the practical-joker; but, I could be as susceptible to the dictates of low cunning as the next man.

“1891. A bit old for a soldier, I know. The Front needed medical men. They called; I answered.”

“You have no need to justify that decision to me. I made the same choice. I too was born in ’91.”

“I thought you looked about my age: young, but perhaps a touch too old for the battlefield,” I replied.

“Too old, indeed. I was born in…”

I echoed his final words, “Sixteen-ninety-one.”

Martin slumped further in the seat, which was a notable achievement, considering he was already wedded to it in fatigue. “So, my greatest secret, and you already knew.”

“Only as of very recently. Two days, and a universe, ago. And the 'why' is still only a theory. What happened?”

“Whatever it was, it happened before my birth,” Martin replied. “In the summer of 1691, I was told, my mother, pregnant with me some eight months, was riding home to our estate when a fearsome storm arose. The day, they say, had been clear and calm, when suddenly clouds appeared more quickly than had ever been seen, and bolts of lightning slashed across the sky. Fearing to be caught in such a violent and unexpected outburst, the carriage-driver spurred the horses on, perhaps faster than he should have. But with whatever alacrity they rode, it did not matter: a meteor fell from the heavens and crashed through the front of the carriage, killing the driver. The horses, freed by the splintering of their mounts, galloped on. The carriage, now driverless, crashed into a tree. My mother was knocked unconscious, still inside.

“A passing group of villagers found her some time later. She was alive, and upon bringing her around, she was able to tell them who she was, and they arranged for our family’s servants to be contacted, and for them to take her home. She seemed uninjured, though understandably in shock, but that night went into a labour most prolonged and painful. I was the result, and thankful she was I was born alive and healthy. We did not know how healthy, or how strange, until later.

“A year passed, two years, ten, twenty, and neither my mother, nor I changed. My father grew old, our friends and relatives grew old, our servants grew old, passed away, and still we did not change. My mother and I were shunned, ostracized, called devil-spawn by some; the perverted ‘ideals’ of the Inquisition were still far from dead, and held dear not only in Spain. We were saved from execution only by the reputation of our family for fairness and equanimity we had worked generations to establish. We survived only by turning our estate into an hermitage, never to leave its grounds, and managing carefully the vast fortune our family had attained over those same generations.

“But the one thing we could not buy, we could not steal, we could not obtain by any means was an answer as to what we had become.”

“Presumably, you realized the zhu – forgive me, your amethyst – was somehow involved," I said.

“Yes. As our story became stranger and more notable, my mother became understandably obsessed for an answer. She learned not long after that the villagers who had found her had also found a large, purple stone not far away. It was embedded in the ground just feet away from the road, and splinters of wood were stuck to it. You have seen it; you can imagine its appeal to a poor peasant, its promise of wealth.

“The first villager who tried to pick it up died instantly. Two more were driven mad. Another vanished into thin air. Still another was supposedly turned into a hideous beast. The stone, now believed to be cursed, was finally moved, so the story goes, by a villager who was actually able to touch it briefly, put it in a crate filled with consecrated ground, and then bury the crate deep in the surrounding woods. The location of the stone was forcibly forgotten by all who witnessed its being moved.

“Eventually, the stone itself passed into the realm of folktale. The woods surrounding the burying place of the stone became ‘haunted’ for reasons never uttered. And our estate, our family, our history? A thing of the past. Our estate: a ruin. Our family: a tale told to frighten children at bed-time. Our history: a dry, dead, thing of forgotten, ignored texts and faded memory. This was my mothers’ intent, you see. With the passing of my father, my mother took our remaining fortune, and me, and ran. For, as those first few decades passed, she learned that we had not even been granted the dubious gift of immortality. We aged, but very slowly. For perhaps every ten of your years, we might age but one. By the time I was a century old, I was a young boy, but a young boy with the experience of ten men. And my mother was still a vital, beautiful woman who could love no one, claim no thing and no place as her own, forced to wander the world constantly changing her identity merely to survive, to avoid the stares of the curious, and the taunts and hate of the ignorant.

"With only each other and our curse for company, we loved and sheltered each other fiercely, and loathed each others’ company just as much. You know how little boys run away from home? I ran away, to join Napoleon’s Army as a nine year-old, or ninety year-old, musket-bearer. Mother found me and took me…well, one could hardly say ‘took me home’. But find me she did. The tale of the little warrior-boy with the thousand-yard stare was a hard one to hide.”

“But you live on your ancestral estate, or so it seems. Is the estate a fake?” I asked.

“Gentlemen, we’re almost at the hotel,” Jurgen called out from the front of the car. He pulled up to the door, then pulled past without stopping, and continued around the next corner. “What’s the matter?” I asked him.

“Two men outside the entrance. Riegel’s men. Are they looking for you?”

“Quite probably. This could be a problem. Martin, I wanted to check the estate to see if the stone was still there…”

“It might be,” he replied. “After you and our friend vanished so spectacularly, the chamber caught on fire. There were enough chemicals in Herr Riegel’s laboratory that it spread almost immediately. I was blown clear – your departure melted my remaining shackles,” I took a glance at Martin’s right wrist, and noticed it was badly scarred, “and I made my escape; but, I saw a few of his men trying to escape as well. Two of them were carrying Riegel himself. I also think I saw the stone still in the lead box on the altar.”

“Excellent. Jurgen, can you take us directly to the estate?”

“Certainly,” Jurgen replied. “A suggestion, if I may? I’ll take you there, then return to the hotel to obtain your belongings. I can relocate you to Madame’s.”

“Won’t Riegel’s men pose a problem?”

“For me alone? No.”

“Settled.” We drove on, and Martin continued with the strange tale of his past. “As the years marched on, we became anonymous witnesses to the start of the Industrial Age. With progress, with communication from place to place so much faster, and so much easier, it became more and more difficult to hide. We also had stretched our finances, our wiles, our sanity, far beyond their limits.

“We needed a home. If we could not have answers, at least we needed a home.

“I was a young man. It was perhaps 1860 or so. We made our way as gypsies back to our estate. It was still there. Disused, forlorn, forgotten, but still there. I conceived an idea. It was rash, it was dangerous, it was the product of a restless, desperate young mind; but, I was convinced it would work. I would return to our estate as my own descendant.

“Those who knew us were long gone. There had been rumours of distant relatives of ours in Italy when I was born. We would be them, come to reclaim and revive our ancestral home. Mother, she did not believe it would work; but, she had been running for so long, and she was so tired. To the naked eye, she was still a woman with years ahead of her. But, I knew, she could not live the life of an eternal vagabond anymore.

“I had charm. I had style. I had arrogance. And, I had luck. It worked. The townspeople were most skeptical; but, I won them over, and certainly none of them wanted the estate, and its curse. Yet, some of them remembered, had memories handed down to them, of what our family had been, the good they done. These memories I was able to use to our advantage.”

“That’s still a good sixty years from then, until now. You don’t look like a grandfather,” I said.

“I have learned to act, to deceive, to tell people what they want to hear: not to take advantage of them, but simply to live. I have been my Italian descendant. I have left on an African safari, and been lost in the jungle, only to turn the estate over in my will to my cousin, who has taken up residence some months later. I have been my twin brother, estranged, but come to fulfill his family duties after his brother has been killed serving in the French Foreign-Legion.

“The deception continues; but, I have a home.”

“What about your mother?” I asked.

Martin sat silently for a moment. “She was so happy to return. But, the weight of the memories, of the loss was so great, she could not bear it. She took her life not long after we returned. She left a note. It said only, 'Trouver la reponse.' ‘Find the answer.’

“Since then, I have worked tirelessly to learn, and to earn. In our modern world, money buys not only power, but knowledge. Power, I don’t need; knowledge, I must have. I have studied, I have travelled, I have scoured the libraries and legends of the world, and found no answers, until that day in Amiens when the Germans dug up the stone, and I met you.

“And then, I met our friend.”

“Did he find you, or you, him?”

“He found me. Almost immediately after the War, I began my search for anything concerning the stone. I learned of fragments found throughout Europe, I began connecting legends and folktales to what had happened to me. I conducted those unfortunate experiments with Monsieur Tesla’s equipment. Without my realizing it, I left a trail for him to follow. He contacted me in Vienna, the morning after our impromptu display at the Dorotheum. His language skills are – well, you know how hard a time he has making himself understood – but he made it clear to me that the stone was the thing for which I was searching, and that he could help me. It was not until I agreed to meet him in Hof, and we were captured by Herr Riegel and his men, that we learned Riegel had been following an entirely different set of clues left by the stone throughout history, and he became convinced I was some sort of conduit, some human channel he could use to harness the power of the stone.”

I smiled just a touch evilly. “Our friend communicates much more clearly than you realize, and has given me your answer; but, it’ll have to wait.”

“You bastard!” Martin screamed, grabbing me by the collar. “How could you make me wait after what I’ve just told you? Why would you?!?”

“Because we’re here,” I replied. Martin whirled around, and saw Jurgen had pulled the car off into the bushes on the side of the road about thirty yards past the ruins of Herr Riegel’s estate. “Ah,” he said, deflating somewhat, “my apologies. Business first.”

Before we got out of the car, Jurgen cautioned us, “Cut through the bushes just off to our left. I saw at least three men hovering around the edge of the property, and a truck parked behind the only wall left standing. I’ll see you back at Madame’s. Viel Gluck.”

We took Jurgen’s advice, and found a good vantage-point just across from the driveway that once led through the front-gate. Renate had been right; the estate was nothing more than a pile of rubble. Save for the lone wall remaining, which appeared to have been the wall by the garage underneath which I was almost certain ran the tunnel to the laboratory, the property was a flat wasteland of charred wood, and crushed stone. Jurgen was also right; there were three men, guards presumably, walking the edges of what had been the main house.

“Any ideas?” Martin asked me.

I watched two complete passes of the guards along their somewhat arbitrary perimeter. “I think the chamber was behind that wall,” I said.

“I believe it was, yes.”

“They don’t seem to be patrolling behind the wall.”

“Perhaps there’s another guard back there. It does look as if there’s a truck behind it,” Martin replied. “We can work our way through the trees to the back. We need to see what’s there.”

We worked our way around back, and surely enough, a large, military supply-truck was parked just behind the wall. A fourth man stood next to it, staring idly in our general direction. There were marks on the ground between his position and our surreptitious one in the trees that looked as if someone had been digging through the wreckage, and the ground was slightly concave, as if the room underneath had collapsed.

“That looks promising,” I said. “Now, can we silence the guard without his friends in front realizing it?”

Suddenly, Martin looked quite disturbingly focused. “I can,” was all he said.

By this point, dusk was settling in, and Martin, displaying more soldierly skills than ever I had known him to possess, worked his way through the trees, underbrush, and encroaching darkness to a concealed point only fifteen feet or so from the truck and its unsuspecting driver. With the sort of speed I didn’t expect from a man in his apparent condition, Martin leapt out, barrel-rolled his way across the last few feet, knocked the driver’s feet out from underneath him, and before he could call out, rendered him quite serenely unconscious. Martin walked back to where I was hiding, saying, “I remember him.”

“Remind me never to get as close to your bad side as I did back in the car.”

We walked as quietly as we could to the concave depression in the ground. As we drew closer, I began to feel a warmth in my stomach. At first, I thought perhaps this was some odd expression of nerves; then, I realized the sensation was not from within me, but on the surface. Martin broke my concentration by saying, “Colwyn, your vest is glowing.” I looked down to find he was correct; a dull, warm glow was coming from my vest-pocket. I felt inside, and discovered to my complete surprise that my watch-chain was acting almost as a miniature torchlight, and was quite warm to the touch.

Just then, as we had almost reached the truck, we heard the sound of a board creaking behind us. “Guards!” I whispered hoarsely. Martin and I dove into a narrow space between the truck and the ruined wall. I peeked around the rear fender-skirt of the truck, and saw nothing at first. Then, like an apparition from a penny-dreadful, I saw first one board, then two, then more, bending on the ground. The ground itself began to shift itself to the side of the boards, and a dull glow began emanating from the hole being created.

“Spectres?” I said, half to myself.

“The dead?” Martin asked.

“The zhu,” I replied.

“What?” Martin asked.

I looked down at my watch-chain. “The stone. The zhu. We don’t need to find it; it is finding us.”

All at once, the boards split with a resounding crack, dirt flew in all directions, and the glow of a purple stone the size of a football was clearly visible on the ground. The sound, as I feared, carried past the wall to the ears of the guards. We heard them call to each other, then heard their quickened footsteps running toward us.

I bolted toward the zhu, Martin close on my heels. It was still partially buried. As I scraped away the last of the earth holding it down, and lifted it out, Martin grabbed a length of pipe laying nearby. The first guard to round the corner of the ruined wall fell quickly from a single blow to the chest. We both ran for the tree-line, reaching it just as the other two guards came in sight.

We ran through the forest, trying to keep our bearings such that we wouldn’t stray too far from the edge of town. At first, we feared our unfamiliarity with the area would prove to be our undoing; but, gradually, the sounds of the two pursuing us fell further and further into the distance. By the time we had worked our way back to the road, all was silent. We began making our way quickly, but carefully, along the road back into the centre of Hof.

Not long after, the sound of a heavy vehicle behind us had us leaping over a hedge onto a well-manicured front lawn. Peeking through the hedge, I saw the truck we had seen at the estate speeding past us, two men inside.

“We need to get to Mme. Schattner’s,” Martin said.

“I agree.” Both the zhu, and my watch-chain, were now quite warm, and glowing enough that they would certainly draw attention should we simply walk down the street with them in the open. “Do you know a back way to the Madame's?”

“I think so." He looked at the zhu, and my watch-chain. "Why are they doing that?”

“I believe I know.”

Creeping from shadow to shadow like common thieves, we made our way to Mme. Schattner's without encountering our presumably quite-determined pursuers. Martin led us around back to the servant's entrance. A quick knock and furtive glance later, we were inside. Jurgen led us straight to the sitting-room, where we were apparently expected. “Colwyn, so soon we meet again,” Renate said, rising from a chair by the writing-desk.

“I wish it were social, Renate, however…”

“’Renate’, is it?” Martin said. “So familiar, so quickly? I’m jealous.”

Renate turned to him. “Martin, you need not be…Good Heavens! You look terrible! You’re hurt! Jurgen, Heidi, see to him immediately.”

“It’s nothing, truly.” His last sentence was punctuated with a thud. Martin was not normally one to punctuate his sentences with something so ungrammatical; however, the strain of his last few days had caught up to him. He collapsed to the floor in a heap as undignified as any of the wrongs he had suffered since pursuing his quest to this town, and its hopeful conclusion therein. Jurgen and I carried him upstairs to a spare bedroom, where I did as thorough an accounting of his injuries as I could. His external injuries would heal; as for those injuries he might have suffered within, those that I had seen all-too-often fell an outwardly healthy man, all I could do was wait until he awoke, and watch him as best I could.

Renate had followed us into the room, and was hovering nearby concealing her worry well, but not well enough. “He needs rest,” I told her. “More than that, I can’t tell. I’ll have to examine him more closely in the morning. Might we stay here the night?”

“Certainly. I’ll have Heidi prepare you a room.”

“I’ll stay here. Better I keep an eye on him, at least for awhile.”

“Very well. Jurgen,” she said, turning to him, “keep a watch out tonight. If those were Riegel’s men, they won’t have stopped searching that easily.”

“Yes, Madame.”

Jurgen went downstairs, and Renate followed him as far as the door. Before she left, she looked back at me appraisingly. “You’re a good friend to him, Colwyn. He needs a friend. Don’t let him down.”

An enjoyably awkward moment passed between us. “I won’t.”

My mind was, however, in one place more than any other, and it was there I needed to let it go now. “Renate, did Jurgen manage to get my things from the hotel?”

“Yes, he did. I’ll have Heidi bring them up to you.”

“Thank you. Good night.”

“Gute Nacht.”

I pulled a chair from across the room over to the bed, and sat down. Heidi brought in my belongings, and left them just inside the door. She glanced at them curiously as she left, and well she should have. Threaded between the handles of my old, service-issue haversack was a highly-polished stick about a yard long. It was beginning to glow.

As I have sat here through the night, writing this entry, and listening to Martin’s encouragingly steady breathing – the sign of an internally healthy patient – I have watched the glow of the stick, and the zhu I placed next to it, increase. Renate’s home, like many people’s, is kept slightly chilly. I, however, am comfortably warm, being kept so by a glowing watch-chain in my vest-pocket. Therein lays an answer, and a direction. Once Martin is well, I know where we must go next, and to whom we must pay a visit.

London. And Claire.