Dark Labyrinth 1 Read online

  The runner went dejectedly to town. Hearing of his disgrace, all those who had laughed and played games with him, all those who had delighted in his generosity, now did not wish to be seen in his company. Very hungry, he begged the innkeeper’s daughter for food, and she scolded him gambling despite her warnings. She slammed the door in his face.

  As he left the inn, the runner turned into a narrow, dim street where he hoped to curl up and sleep undisturbed. At first, he didn’t see the shadowy man following him, but once in the alley, the stranger came close. He had sharp eyes and a broad face with a thin dueling scar on his left cheek. The man said, “I have a gift for you from Victor Frankenstein.”

  The runner felt a sudden irrational hope. Perhaps he was forgiven after all! Then he saw a long stiletto with an ivory hilt. With a swift jerk of his arm, the other man slashed his throat. “There, not a scratch on the rest of the body, especially the legs. Exactly as ordered.”

  The runner gurgled, feeling hot blood pumping onto his skin, his shirt, and the cobblestones. The assassin leaned over him with a feral smile. “Now Victor says your debt is paid.”

  The heels of the young runner’s boots beat an erratic drumbeat on the ground. His legs stuttered, then stopped running forever.

  #

  The thump is faint at first, then louder. Stronger. No other sound is such a powerful symbol of life. Victor lifts his head from the bandaged chest, raising his triumphant voice to the storm. “One of the hearts is beating!”

  Thump. The blood begins to circulate through quiet blood vessels. Thump.

  #

  With a loud thud, the silver smile of his sharpened axe bit deep into the trunk. Pine chips sprayed as the woodcutter swung again, using his mighty biceps. The impact rang through his hands and wrists, up to the shoulders, absorbed by a sturdy chest. His heart was pumping heavily.

  His old clothes carried the healthy smell of sweat earned through hard work. The axe handle was stout oak polished by the sweat of his palms, smoothed by years of use. His muscles ached after a day of such labor, and it was a good soreness.

  Five more swift strokes, and the gouge had gone to the core. The woodcutter checked the angle, judged where the tree would fall, then struck again. Splinters flew. With a groan of wood and a whisper of scraping boughs, the pine toppled. He stood back with satisfaction, then guided the old horse and cart around fresh stumps to the site of the felled tree. With a saw and a hatchet from the cart bed, he trimmed the branches, then cut the trunk into smaller pieces. He could sell the load in Ingolstadt. He would never become a rich man, but he had a cottage in the forest, food to eat, and a beautiful wife, Katarina. She was the most important part of his life.

  He’d been gone from home for weeks, chopping wood in the dense and untraveled forests near Baron Frankenstein’s isolated preserve. The loneliness of the forest only made the time sweeter whenever he went back to Katarina. When he was home, he liked to carve little animals out of scraps of wood. Since he and his wife had not yet been blessed with children of their own, he gave the toys to girls and boys in town. The woodcutter loved children.

  As night fell, he saw the glow of a nearby fire. Wanting company, he came upon a clearing where another man had stopped his wagon and built a camp. “Y-y-you are w-w-welcome to share my f-f-fire,” the stranger said, his words slurred both by a severe stutter and a foreign accent. “I h-h-have vegetables, but no m-m-meat.”

  The woodcutter offered some smoked venison that was chewy but edible. “I can add this to the pot.”

  The other man was a tinker named Goran, from Budapest. His wagon was full of oddities, pots, tools, trinkets, and five cages of birds (three doves, two songbirds). A gray wolf circled the campsite, making the woodcutter uneasy, and Goran introduced his pet, named Odin after a Norse god.

  As they ate their stew, the woodcutter talked wistfully of Katarina. “I met her in Ingolstadt, a dark-haired beauty. Her eyes are the color of roasted chestnuts, her lips as full as fresh berries, and they taste as sweet when I kiss them. I don’t understand how such a beautiful woman could have married a man like me. But one does not spit in the face of good fortune.”

  “N-n-no, my friend,” said Goran.

  The lonesome woodcutter inspected the tinker’s wares, hoping to find a special treasure for Katarina. His eyes settled on a fabulous gold medallion etched with a wide-armed cross and trimmed with ruby and sapphire chips. Making up his mind, he went to his cart, where he had two stout axes, both of the finest manufacture. They had served him well. He gripped the wooden handle of his best one, lifted it from the cart, and stepped toward the tinker. “I can trade you this for the medallion. To give to Katarina. It’s not gold, but made of sweat and wood and iron.”

  The tinker smiled but shook his head. “N-n-not for s-s-sale. A special k-k-keepsake.” Goran explained with halting sentences that a kind priest had recently given him the jeweled cross as a reward for driving off a robber in the woods. The tinker could never part with his treasure.

  Downcast, the woodcutter returned his axe to the cart. He knew that the forest was not safe from highwaymen and assassins.

  While the wolf prowled around the campsite, the woodcutter slept, dreaming of Katarina. He wished he could find some way to show her how much he loved her. The quiet cottage life did not suit a fancy woman like her. While he was away, Katarina spent most of her time in Ingolstadt with her best friend Greta. He didn’t begrudge her that. He wanted his wife to be happy. . . .

  After he and Goran parted company, he spent two more weeks cutting and piling wood that he would sell throughout the winter. When he returned home at last, calling Katarina’s name, the empty cottage only answered with silence. It took him only a moment to guess that she had gone to stay with Greta in town.

  Grinning, he decided to surprise her. His horse pulled the loaded cart down the rutted trail into Ingolstadt, where he sold his load of wood in the square, ignoring the jeers and catcalls from the gibbet, where a mad strangler was being hung. Earlier, there had already been a beheading. The woodcutter didn’t care about such spectacles. He used the money to buy all the supplies they needed and found he had enough left over to purchase some sweet pastries he could share with Katarina.

  He tied the old horse and the now-empty cart in front of the half-timbered town home where Greta and her husband lived. With a spring in his step, he went to the door, surprised that the windows were shuttered even in the warm afternoon.

  As he approached the loose shutters, he heard laughter, muttered conversation . . . and the sounds of exertion, groans, a gasp. His brow furrowed as he identified Katarina’s sweet-husky voice and Greta’s musical timbre—and the thin nasal voice of Greta’s husband. He heard rhythmic sounds, heavy breathing, a wooden bedframe creaking under strain.

  The woodcutter’s blood ran cold as he peered through a crack. He saw a crowd of arms and legs on the bed, naked flesh, a patchwork of intertwined bodies. He recognized both Greta and Katarina cavorting with a lean man: Greta’s husband. He had long dark hair, a wide face, and feral eyes; a thin dueling scar traced his left cheek. His lips were drawn back in a smile so deep it was almost a grimace. In the candlelight, all three were sweaty and panting, as if they’d been exerting themselves for some time. By the coordinated way they moved together, shifted positions and pleasured each other, they seemed quite well practiced at their ménage a trois.

  The woodcutter couldn’t feel his arms or his hands, the muscles that had ached from swinging the axe and lifting heavy wood. He realized he wasn’t breathing. Before he could tear his gaze away, he saw something else: Next to the candle on the fine lacquered nightstand lay the beautiful cross medallion fringed with sparkling chips of sapphire and ruby. Two weeks earlier, the tinker had refused to sell it to him, but somehow Greta’s husband had gotten it.

  The woodcutter’s heart dissolved, leaving only a cold vacuum in his chest. Conscious and rational thoughts vanished with an inaudible pop like a bubble bursting. He walked leade
nly back to his cart, where he selected his sharpest and stoutest axe. He lifted it in one well-muscled arm; for good measure, he took the second axe in his left hand. Holding both, he strode back to the door.

  With a single blow, he smashed the latch and the crossbar. Sparks and splinters flew. The sounds abruptly stopped. He kicked the ruined door inward, then stepped inside, raising both axes.

  The two women scrambled backward on the crowded bed. With just a flicker of his conscious mind, the woodcutter realized how beautiful Katarina was, her pale skin flushed, her dark and sweaty hair thrown back behind her shoulders. Her lips—yes, as red and full as fresh berries—were now open in a faltering scream.

  Greta’s husband sprang off the straw mattress and into a crouch, not caring that he was naked. He grabbed a long ivory-handled stiletto from the nightstand, knocking the medallion aside in his haste.

  Katarina and Greta continued to cry out as the woodcutter waded forward, one axe in each hand. As he swung them, their sharp silver smiles whistled through the air. Greta’s husband danced with the knife, twirling the tip in the air as if performing some sort of embroidery. He seemed as familiar with his stiletto as he was in fornicating with Katarina. He didn’t even seem afraid.

  But the woodcutter had no need for knife play. Without finesse, he swung his axe, and a single blow severed the man’s forearm, which fell to the wooden floor, fingers still clutching the knife. A second broad sweep decapitated him more cleanly than he deserved. The head fell to the floor, eerily undamaged, and rolled so that his wide-open eyes could watch the rest of the spectacle.

  Then the woodcutter turned his axes upon the two women until they were no more than red kindling.

  Drenched in blood, he stood with both axes leaning against him. His muscles ached as they did after a day of hard work, and it was a good soreness.

  The screams had drawn a horrified crowd, many from the strangler’s hanging. The woodcutter did not resist as the constable and the town guards came to arrest him. He did not explain his horrific actions, though the answer was obvious for anyone who could piece together the myriad body parts.

  He did not speak a word in his own defense. In fact, he never uttered another sentence throughout his trial, sentencing, and swift execution.

  #

  Bandages shroud the broad, firm face. Victor touches the creation’s head like a lover’s caress, placing both hands on the stranger’s cheeks, one of which is marred by a thin scar from a knife fight.

  “Can you hear me? Are you there?” he says in a voice full of hope.

  #

  His head hurt from sharing one-too-many bottles of wine the night before, and the thin scar on his cheek throbbed again, as if often did . . . but if the wine and find food kept Greta and her friend Katarina happy, he would gladly pay the price.

  The thrill of the crowd in the town square buoyed him up. Two executions in a single day! He was particularly interested in the beheading of the foolish stuttering tinker. He stood close to the block, one woman on each arm, all three of them watching with intent amusement.

  The mad strangler’s hanging would take place later in the day, but by that time, he expected that the two lovely women would be entertaining him in bed, enjoying their good fortune. Life was good.

  More than a simple cutpurse or highwayman, he took any job that paid well enough. He was known in local taverns as a man who could accomplish difficult tasks that must remain quiet: eliminating debtors, traitors, spies . . . even rich old uncles who needed to die so families could have their inheritance. Recently, Victor Frankenstein had hired him to slit the throat of a servant who had stolen some family silver to pay off a gambling debt. In his work, he had been cut in knife fights, slashed in the face, even endured the pain of a lead musket ball in his ribs. Thus, the ache of a hangover was nothing.

  He had a fondness for good wine and brandy, dice and cards, stylish clothes, and especially women. Greta was as lusty as he was, and both of their appetites extended to her friend Katarina as well. For appearances, Greta’s friend had married an unlettered and oafish woodcutter, who was gone most of the time. Doting on Katarina, the oaf gave her trinkets that were small in comparison to what Greta’s husband provided.

  One time, a month ago, as a masked highwayman, he had waylaid a plump and red-faced priest who carried a jeweled medallion among his treasures as he traveled through the forest. The medallion would have fetched an excellent price, but before the highwayman could complete his robbery, a meddling tinker and his pet wolf had come upon them and driven the robber away. Some days later, dressed as a fine dandy, he encountered the tinker again and learned that the red-faced priest had given the stuttering foreigner his medallion out of gratitude!

  Incensed and wanting it for himself, the now-undisguised highwayman tried to buy the medallion for Katarina and Greta, who were both with him. They ogled the treasure from the tinker’s cart, but the stuttering idiot wouldn’t part with it. So, they had gone back to Ingolstadt with a concocted story. Weeping, Greta reported that the stranger had stolen her dear aunt’s jeweled cross, and then raped her and her friend. The constable and town guard rushed out to arrest the tinker straightaway.

  Once the medallion had been “returned” to them, and the tinker got the punishment he deserved, Greta and Katarina went back home with the handsome highwayman, arm in arm, where they all engaged in an afternoon of celebration. Everything was going so well.

  No one had expected Katarina’s husband to find them, or his axes to be so swift.

  After his head fell to the floor, the highwayman’s vision faded swiftly. He couldn’t feel his body, which lay much too far away. Thoughts, and blood, drained out of him.

  #

  Once the second heart begins to beat, the creation is close, very close to real life. Another jolt, and the muscle clenches, pumps, stutters to life. Stutters. . .

  The memories flow smoothly, without the logjam of words that had always caught in his throat.

  #

  As a tinker, he loved to make pieces fit together, to fix things that were broken. He owned a wagon full of pots, pans, prisms, swatches of bright cloth, and assorted treasures from foreign lands. Though alone, he had animal friends to keep him company. He whistled to his caged doves and songbirds; his pet wolf followed the cart like a dog. None of them cared about his stutter.

  Once, he and his wolf had driven off an evil highwayman who was trying to rob a priest on the forest road. In gratitude, the kindly priest had given the tinker a jeweled cross medallion, one of the tinker’s most prized possessions. Not long ago a muscular woodcutter wanted to buy it as a gift for his beloved wife. Another insistent would-be customer was a well-dressed man with a dueling scar; the man was accompanied by his wife and her friend (both of whom clung to him so adoringly it wasn’t clear which was the wife and which was her friend). With halting, tangled words he tried to sell them something else, but the three had stalked angrily down the road.

  A day later, to his astonishment, the constable and a group of guards came to arrest him. Sensing danger, the pet wolf attacked, trying to defend his master—and the guards shot the beast dead. The tinker wailed in grief for Odin, unable to find words in any language.

  He was thrown into jail, appalled to learn that the scar-faced man and his two female companions had accused the tinker of stealing the medallion from them; both the wife and her friend wrung their hands and swore that the tinker had raped them. His denials were vehement, though inarticulate. With growing terror, his stutter became worse.

  Distraught parents, including the town’s blacksmith, came forward to point fingers of blame, suggesting that the stranger must be responsible for Ingolstadt’s missing children. A baby had vanished only the day before, and ten other young sons and daughters had disappeared in as many years. A mad strangler had also been recently accused of the crimes, though no one truly believed him to be the criminal. Now, despite the fact that the tinker could not possibly have been in the area for that a
mount of time, the poor man was a convenient scapegoat. Once someone in the crowd voiced the suspicion, many others took up the cry.

  Since he had been seen talking to birds and consorting with a wolf, the tinker was convicted as a warlock. He had stolen a holy artifact, no doubt to be used in some Satanic ritual (which must involve the blood of the babies or innocent children). The townspeople demanded that he be burned at the stake. The loudest voice came from the blacksmith’s young apprentice, whose family had perished in a forest fire years before. The boy seemed hungry to smell the smoke of burning flesh.

  Oddly enough, Victor Frankenstein begged for mercy. “Ingolstadt is a civilized town and should not bow to superstitions.” But the crowd wanted some medieval touch of justice for such heinous crimes, and they already had an upcoming hanging. Very reasonable and persuasive, the Baron’s son suggested, “Perhaps the headsman’s axe should be brought out of retirement? The chopping block could be set up in the town square, as in olden days.”

  This sated the bloodlust of the people. And so the old executioner’s axe was sharpened by the vengeful blacksmith, who fervently believed the tinker had stolen and killed his daughter Maria.

  Hands tied behind his back, the falsely accused tinker was brought out and forced to his knees. As his neck was stretched across the bloodstained block, his frantic gaze caught a last glimpse of one man in the crowd. Victor Frankenstein looked intensely interested, a scientist studying a specimen. The tinker felt the ripple of a completely different kind of fear. Why was the Baron’s son looking at him so . . . hungrily?

  Because the headsman’s axe was razor sharp, and the cut exceedingly swift, the flash of pain seemed as gentle as a feather. The stutter of his heartbeat stopped.

  #

  Victor checks the machines, adjusts the electrical flow, then hurries back. He presses down on the cloth windings of the sturdy chest. “Live!” he shouts, as if the dead parts will hear him and obey his command. “Live!”