We all dismounted at once and the Wildgrave, who stood more than a head taller than myself, put a cold arm about my shoulders and led me through an archway directly into the keep. Here, too, staircases and flagstones were cracked and broken. The hall was lit by a single guttering brand stuck into a rusting bracket above a long table. Over the fire a deer's carcass was turning. The white-faced huntsmen moved with agility towards the fire where they warmed themselves, paying no heed to two shaking servants, a boy and a girl, who were evidently neither part of this clan nor among the living-dead, but could have been as damned as the rest of us.
The Wildgrave's eyes seemed to cool as he placed himself at the head of the table and made me sit at his right. With his mailed hand he poured me brandy and bade me drink deep "against the weather" (which in fact was relatively mild). To him, perhaps, the world was permanently chill.
"I was warned of your coming," he told me. "There is a rumour, too, amongst the likes of us, that you are entrusted with a mission which could redeem us all."
I sighed. "I do not know, Lord Wildgrave. Our Master has greater faith in my capabilities than have I.I shall do my best, of course, for should I succeed, I, too, might be redeemed."
"Just so." The Wildgrave nodded. "But you must be aware that not all of us support you in your Quest."
I was surprised. "I cannot follow you," I said.
"Some fear that should our Master come to terms with God, they will be worse doomed than ever before, with no protector, with no further means of preserving their personalities against the Emptiness."
"Emptiness is not a term I am familiar with, Lord Wildgrave."
"Limbo, if you prefer. The Void, my good captain. That which refuses to tolerate even the faintest trace of identity."
"I understand you now. But surely, if Lucifer is successful, we shall all be saved."
The Wildgrave's smile was bitter. " What logic provides you with that hope, von Bek? If God is merciful. He provides us with little evidence."
I drank my brandy down.
"Some of us came to this pass," continued the Wild-grave, "through just such an understanding of God's nature, I am not amongst them, of course. But they believed God to be vengeful and unrelenting. And some, I would guess, will try to stop you in your mission."
"It is difficult and numinous enough as it is," I said as, with a clatter, the boy placed a plate of venison before me. The meat smelled good. "Your news is scarcely encouraging."
"But it is well-intentioned." The Wildgrave accepted his own plate. With the manners of a former time he courteously handed me a dish containing ground salt. I sprinkled a little on my meat and returned it to him.
He picked up his venison and began to munch. I noted that his breath steamed as it contacted the heat. I copied him. The food was good and was welcome to me.
"We have still to hunt tonight," said the Wildgrave, "for we continue to exist in our own world only so far as we can provide fresh souls for our Master. And we have caught nothing for almost a month."
I chose not to ask him to elaborate upon this, and he seemed grateful for my tact.
"I have been instructed to take you through into the Mittelmarch," he said. As he spoke, others of the Hunt brought their plates to table. They ate hi silence, apparently without interest in our conversation. It seemed to me that they had an air of slight nervousness, perhaps because they resented this interruption to their nightly activities.
"I have not heard of the Mittelmarch," I told him frankly.
"But you know there are lands upon this Earth of ours which are forbidden to most mortals?"
"So I was told, aye."
"Those lands are known by some of us as The Middle Marches."
"Because they lie on the borderlands between Earth and Hell?"
He smiled and wiped his mouth on his mailed sleeve. "Not exactly. You could say they He between Hope and Desolation. I do not understand much about them. But I am able to come and go between them. You and your companion shall be taken through tomorrow evening."
"My companion is not of our kind," I said. "He is a simple, innocent soldier. I shall tell him to return to a world he will better understand."
The Wildgrave nodded. "Only the damned are permitted to pass into Mittelmarch," he told me. "Though not all who dwell in Mittelmarch are damned."
"Who rules there?" I asked.
"Many." He shrugged his gigantic shoulders. "For Mittelmarch, like our own world, like Hell itself, has multitudinous aspects."
"And the land I go to tomorrow. It will be marked on my maps?"
"Of course. In Mittelmarch you will seek out a certain hermit who is known as Philander Groot. I had occasion to pass the time of day with him once."
"And what am I to ask of him? The location of the Grail?"
The Wildgrave put down his venison, almost laughing. "No. You will tell him your story."
"And what will he do?"
The Wildgrave spread a mailed hand. "Who knows? He has no loyalty to our Master and refuses to have any truck with me. I can only say that I have heard he might be curious to talk to you."
"He knows of me?"
"The news of your Quest is rumoured, as I said."
"But how could such news spread so quickly?"
"My friend"…the Wildgrave became almost avuncular as he put a hand upon my arm…"can you not understand that you have enemies in Hell as well as in Heaven? It is those you should fear worse than any earthly foe."
"Can you give me no further clue," I asked, "as to the identity of these enemies?"
"Naturally I cannot. As it is I have been kinder to you than is sensible for a creature in my position. I am feared in the region of Ammendorf, of course. But as with all our Master's servants, I have no real power. Your enemies could one day, therefore, be my friends."
I became distressed at this. "Have you no courage to take your own decisions?"
The Wildgrave's great face became sad for a moment. "Once I had courage of that sort," he said. "But had I had the courage to be self-determining in my own mortal life I would not now be a servant of Lucifer." He paused, looking out from eyes which, moment by moment, had begun to glow again. "And the same must be true of you, too, eh, von Bek?"
"I suppose so."
"At least you have a chance, however small, of reclaiming yourself, captain. And oh"…his voice became at once bleak and heartfelt…"how I envy you that."
"Yet if I am successful and God grants Lucifer His wish, we shall all be given the chance again," I said, innocently enough.
"And that is what so many of us fear," said the Wild-grave.
Chapter VII
SEDENKO, HE SAID, had slept well all night. When I returned at dawn he had been snoring, certainly, as if he was still a little boy in his mother's tent.
As he breakfasted he asked eagerly of my encounter with "the Devil."
"That was not the Devil, Sedenko. Merely a creature serving Him."
"So you did not sell your soul to him."
"No. He is helping me, that's all. I now know the next stage of my journey."
Sedenko was awed. "What great power must you possess to order such as the Wildgrave!"
I shrugged. "I have no power, save what you see. It is the same as yours…good wits and a quick sword."
"Then why should he help you?"
"We have certain interests in common."
Sedenko looked at me with some trepidation.
"And you must go back to Nџrnberg," I said, "or wherever you think. You cannot go where I go tonight."
"Where is that?"
"A land unknown."
He became interested. "You travel by sea? To the New World? To Africa?"
"No."
"I would serve you well if you would permit me to go with you…"