“Were those both true things,” Aurelianus asked politely, “or was it just one?”
“That was one. The second is this: Ibrahim will have this city, and he’ll have it long before the thirty-first. The walls are tottering already, and there are fifty thousand fanatic Janissaries out on the plain waiting for a gap to run in through. There’s no way on earth this brewery will last these two weeks until All Hallow’s Eve. Ibrahim will be in here in half that time, and he’ll poison the Mac Cool vat, or more likely just blow it to splinters and vapor with a bomb. Do you understand? What you hoped to accomplish with the Dark is simply impossible.”
“I’m being a dog in the manger, you’re saying.”
“Precisely. You would preserve the Dark beer untouched—which only means that Ibrahim will be able to destroy every last drop of it, thus insuring that it will never do anyone any good. On the other hand, if you sell some of it to us—at a fabulously high price, never fear!—it will have served a purpose, two purposes, actually: it will have saved our lives; and out of gratitude we will help you and your King to escape from this doomed city. For though the Dark, if drawn now, would not have quite attained its full empire-redeeming strength, you know it would certainly be powerful enough to restore and rejuvenate a few old men.”
“What makes you think escape is possible for anyone?” Aurelianus asked. “The Turks surround the city completely, you know.”
The midget spoke up again. “You’re not dealing exclusively with foreigners, Ambrosius. You and I both know half-a-dozen subterranean routes out of Vienna—one of them,” he added, nodding at the altar, “accessible from this very room.”
Aurelianus stepped up onto the dais around the marble altar, giving the seven men the look of supplicants. “The battle being fought here,” he said, “is not the concern of any of you, for you have all dispensed with whatever allegiances you may once have had to East or West. My counsel to you is that you flee, by any of the routes your colleague here knows of—and bring water or wine to quench your thirst, for you won’t have a drop of the Dark.”
“Very well,” said the black man in the burnoose, “you force us to—”
“Don’t talk, old man,” Aurelianus interrupted. “Show me. Come up here.” He stepped back and spread his arms wide, and Duffy, peering from his hiding place, thought he could see the old sorcerer’s hands flickering almost imperceptibly, like a mirage. The seven Dark Birds hesitated. Contempt put a sneer in the wizard’s voice as he went on: “Come up here, you children-playing-at-magic! Try your little spells and cantrips against the Western Magic that was growing in the roots of Britain’s dark forests ten thousand years before Christ, the magic at the heart of storms and tides and seasons! Come up to me! Who is it I shall face?” He threw back his black hood. “You know who I am.”
Duffy was actually brushed with tingling awe, for the gray light seemed to make ancient, weather-chiselled granite out of the face that looked down on them all. This is Merlin, the Irishman reminded himself, the last prince of the Old Power, the figure that runs obscurely like an incongruous thread through the age-dimmed tapestry of British pre-history.
The sorcerer reached out a hand—it wavered, as if seen under agitated water—and seemed to grab an invisible loop or handle, and pulled. The black man stumbled forward involuntarily. Aurelianus stretched forth the other hand toward the midget, whose hair Duffy saw twitch and stiffen at a straight-out angle; the wizard closed the fingers of that hand and the little man yelped in pain. “I’m going to show you another way to leave Vienna,” Aurelianus said softly.
Then all seven of the Dark Birds were running for the doors, the two held ones having wrenched themselves out of Aurelianus’ magical grip. Duffy scarcely had time to scuttle around to the other side of the carpet stack before they rushed past him and were sandal-slapping away down the hall.
He looked back at the altar, and saw Aurelianus staring at him. “You appear out of a carpet, like Cleopatra,” the old wizard observed.
Duffy stood up and walked to the communion rail. “I see Antoku wasn’t the only one to get demanding,” he said. “I’m glad I didn’t ask for permission before snitching my sip of it.”
Aurelianus cocked an eyebrow at him. “The Dark? You tasted it? When?”
“Easter night.”
The wizard frowned, then shook his head. “Well, you wouldn’t have been able to turn the tap if they didn’t want you to have any.” He looked intently at Duffy. “Tell me—how was it?”
The Irishman spread his hands. “It was... incredibly good. I’d have gone down for more, but it seemed to paralyze me.”
The old man laughed quietly. “Yes, I’ve heard of it having that effect.” He crossed to a couple of narrow chairs by the windows, sat down in one and waved at the other. “Drop anchor. Drink? Snake?”
Duffy thought about it as he walked over. “Snake,” he said, and kicking his rapier out of the way, perched on the edge of the chair.
Aurelianus opened a little box and handed Duffy one of the sticklike things. “You’ve been fighting these days. How does it look? Was our thirsty friend correct about the walls?”
The Irishman leaned forward to get the snake’s head into the flame of the candle Aurelianus held toward him. “They’ve got miners and sappers under them, yes,” he said when he’d got it well lit, “but your blackamoor is wrong in thinking that it’s decisive. You’ve got to keep in mind that October is insanely late in the year for the Turks to be here—as far as supplies go, I suspect they’re in worse shape than we are, and they still have to turn around and face a damned long trip home.” He puffed a smoke ring, grinned, and tried without success to do it again. “The walls could probably be tumbled in a day or two; the question is, do they dare wait another day or two? To say nothing of the—I’d estimate—additional day or two of street-to-street fighting that would be necessary for them actually to take the city.”
Aurelianus waited a moment, then raised his white eyebrows. “Well? Will they dare it?”
Duffy laughed. “God, I don’t know.”
“Would you, if you were in charge?”
“Let’s see—no, I don’t think I would. Already the Janissaries are probably on the brink of mutiny. They’ll be wanting to get back home to Constantinople—for it will take months for them to get home, and even now they’ve waited too long to hope to elude winter. If Suleiman stays for the—let’s say—additional week it would require to break and seize Vienna, he’d almost have to winter right here, and leave in the spring; and that’s long enough for even Charles the Tardy to do something about it.” He shrugged. “Of course guessing is just guessing. He may think he could keep his Janissaries in line and hold the city till spring, crumbled walls and all. It’s hard to say. I think he’s shown inexcusably bad judgment in hanging on here as long as he has.”
Aurelianus nodded. “I suppose you’re right, militarily speaking.”
The Irishman grinned sarcastically. “Ah. But I’m all wrong spiritually speaking, eh?”
“Well, you’ve got to remember that Ibrahim is the one who finally decides, and his first concern is ruining the beer—when it comes to betting on the last card, he doesn’t really care if Suleiman actually takes Vienna, or if the Janissaries all die on the way home, or if Charles bloodily evicts them all from here during the winter. If he can wreck the beer before the thirty-first of this month, when we hope to draw the Dark and give it to the Fisher King, he’ll have done what he set out to do—and no cost will have been too dear.”