Chapter 35
The Three Prophecies

Hans and Angela crept up to the peepholes, hearts pounding.

A fog of incense billowed from five upturned skulls hanging from the ceiling. Alcoves filled with animal entrails surrounded a sacrificial stone.

Archduke Arnulf, draped in a hooded robe, knelt in a hexagon outlined with candles. The Necromancer stood behind him, stroking a goat head. His eye sockets were fitted with a pair of glass palace doorknobs. They sparkled in the candlelight—two glittering balls of madness.

Hans and Angela looked on in horror.

“What would you know from the land of the dead?” the Necromancer asked in a singsong voice.

The vein at Arnulf’s temple throbbed. “Shall I ever be rid of the boy and the girl?”

“Yes, to be sure.”

“But they’ve escaped again.”

“Not for long.” The Necromancer nuzzled the goat head. “The hermitage is destroyed. There’s nowhere for them to hide. Soon the great forest will have been combed as thoroughly as a coronation wig—and they shall be ours.”

“The girl’s parents will pay,” Arnulf muttered. “I thought they’d be destroyed when I gave them a dinner tray bearing a roasted heart and their daughter’s jewels. Instead, they mocked me: ‘If our Angela were truly dead, you’d have presented us with her head.’”

“They’ll fall in time, Excellency. None can long withstand the lunatic asylum.”

Angela gripped Hans’ hand: Her parents weren’t in the palace after all; they were caged with madmen in the terrible stone tower at the city’s edge.

“Then there’s the boy,” Arnulf said. “The grave robber’s apprentice. He should have died with his father.”

“But Excellency, the grave robber’s alive in the dungeon.”

Hans’ ears perked up.

“No, I don’t mean the grave robber,” Arnulf exclaimed. “I mean the father that the boy was born to: my elder brother, Archduke Fredrick.”

Hans nearly choked. My father—Peter the Hermit—is Archduke Fredrick?

The Necromancer scratched his chin with a goat horn. “The world thinks Fredrick and his son were killed by pirates.”

“A fetching tale,” Arnulf said, “but surely you know the truth from wandering my dreams.”

“Indeed I do,” the Necromancer lied.

Arnulf rocked on his knees, his mind bedeviled. “I bribed the ship’s captain and mate to slay Fredrick and his baby at sea. As planned, when the ship returned, they reported a deadly attack by pirates. I executed them on the spot to bury the truth forever.”

“Then what have you to fear?” the Necromancer soothed.

“The boy. He’s heir to the throne.”

“Why? Even if he knew his history, who’d believe a grave robber’s apprentice? The past is a graveyard of secrets, where truth lies buried in legend.”

“Still, sleep escapes me.” Arnulf beat his head on the floor. “I need the spirits’ counsel: Need I fear the boy?”

The Necromancer cradled the goat head and droned incantations as he waltzed around the room, the glass doorknobs in his sockets spinning shards of light. He stopped in front of Arnulf and placed a speck of woodland fungus on the archduke’s tongue.

Arnulf was overcome by visions. He rolled between the candles. “I see a legion of my enemies! A swarm of rats running off with my crown.”

“Take heart.” The Necromancer took entrails from an alcove and slopped them on the floor. He ran his fingers over the intestines. “Hear the prophecy of the spirits: You shall reign till the great forest marches on the capital!”

“A forest march?” Arnulf convulsed in joy. “Impossible! I see my enemies quake before me.”

The Necromancer threw the guts a second time. He felt the liver and spleen. “A second time, the spirits prophesy: You shall reign till an eagle rises from stone.”

“An eagle rise from stone? Again, impossible. My enemies flee.”

The Necromancer sniffed the kidneys. “A third and final time, the spirits prophesy: You shall reign till your severed hands sail over a sea of bones.”

Arnulf howled in triumph. “This is the best of all!” He patted the golden reliquary hanging from his neck. “My severed hands shall never move again. Nor have I ever seen a sea of bones, nor shall ever sail upon one.”

The Necromancer smiled. “Sleep well, Excellency. Tomorrow messengers shall spread these prophecies about the land. None will dare challenge the word of the spirit world.”

Arnulf swept his greasy locks from his forehead. “Thank you, O wise Lord High Chancellor. You shall have treasure anon.” He strode from the room.

The Necromancer placed the guts and goat head on the sacrificial stone and went to follow. Hans and Angela gaped at each other in the dark.

“Archduke Fredrick is your father,” Angela whispered in awe. “Hans, you’re a prince—the heir to the throne. No wonder the archduchy’s future rests in you.”

“Forget about me,” Hans said. “What about your parents?”

“What about them indeed?” came a voice as dead as leaves in winter.

Hans and Angela turned to the peepholes. Two glittering doorknobs peered at them from the other side.

“I missed your scents in the incense,” the Necromancer cooed. “Did you miss mine?”

Hans and Angela screamed. They tripped down the stairs and stumbled to the turn, the Necromancer’s laugh echoing after them. “You’ll never escape these walls, my pretties. You’re trapped!”

Hans and Angela darted back to the room where they’d entered the passage. In seconds, they were out the door and racing to the spiral staircase. They zipped down—holding their breath by the banquet hall—and kept on going, down, down, down to the kitchen—where they ran straight into the housekeeper.

The housekeeper seized each by an arm. “What are you monkeys up to?”

“Looking for a chamber pot,” Angela babbled.

“A likely story,” the housekeeper sniffed. “You’re circus thieves out to loot the palace. I’m calling the guards.”

“No, please,” Hans said. “We heard a girl crying. We followed the sound up the stairs.”

The housekeeper’s eyes went big as pies. “A girl? Did you see her?”

“Yes.” Angela played along. “She was covered in worms, dripping milk. Her name is Georgina.”

The housekeeper fell back against the woodpile. “Aaa! You didn’t see me! I didn’t see you. Tonight didn’t happen! Please!” She flew from the kitchen and into the storage area, where she hid in a barrel of chestnuts.

Hans and Angela hurried to the laundry room, roused the Pandolinis, and told them their news.

“The Necromancer could be here at any moment,” Hans said. “He knows our scent. We’re done for!”

“We are never done for. We are Pandolinis,” the showman exclaimed.

Signora Pandolini reached into her nibble bag and produced a dozen bulbs of garlic. “Rub cloves on your skin and chew the rest. Then let the devil try to sniff you out!”

Hans and Angela lay awake all night, but the Necromancer never came. That meant only one thing. He was waiting to strike. But when?