Still inhabiting Werner’s body, Raka had been surreptitiously observing Albert’s routine for a week now. The fool is so methodical, he thought.
I could set my watch by his movements. Satisfied he knew the boy’s exact daily route to work, Raka placed himself strategically near the Bern clock tower to intercept Albert on his way to the office. Now, all he had to do was wait. Raka allowed his mind to wander in delicious anticipation of what was to come. His enhanced dragon senses had confirmed that the Shamir was in fact in Albert’s possession. Raka’s excitement grew as he thought about finally possessing it. The dragon in human form glanced at his boot where he had secreted his silver dagger in preparation for the encounter to come.
The fallen dark angel yearned for vengeance, not just on his youthful nemesis, but also on Arka, his brother, who had become a high priest in Atlantis. Raka scowled at the thought of how Arka had so severely undermined his progress in Atlantis before he had taken on his dragon form. He would show them all just how accomplished he now was. And how dare this Einstein person kill his servant Victoria—using Raka’s own cane and venom, no less! Raka attempted to calm himself with thoughts of what he could do, what power he would wield, once he had the supernatural Light source. But the hormones in this young body and the anger raging within him clouded his judgment and made rational thought and emotional restraint virtually impossible. Exerting tremendous willpower, Raka forced himself to be patient just a little while longer and sought something... anything... to divert his mind. He began watching the small crew of workers across the cobblestone square. They were preparing the coals in a massive brazier that had been erected in front of the clock tower. Apparently, they were planning to cook meats for some local festivity. The sturdy metal structure was massive, at least fifteen feet long and about six feet wide. The long metal gratings that would eventually be set atop the hot coals leaned against the base of the brazier. Raka curled his lip at the scent of the kerosene that the workers were liberally splashing on the large bed of coals. He flinched and moved back a step as the coals were lit with an enormous flash and an audible whoosh. Almost instantly, he could feel the heat from across the square, and he did not like being anywhere near flames.
* * *
Not long after the sun rose, Albert roused himself from a deep sleep and prepared himself for the day of work at the patent office. For some reason, he had awakened with a feeling of anticipation. Albert sensed something momentous awaited him. He had been staying up nights working hard on his theory of light and was sure he was close to a breakthrough. He shrugged off the feeling and completed his ablutions, then dressed suitably for the pleasant spring weather.
On his way out the door, he grabbed the gold-handled walking stick he had acquired in that bizarre encounter with Countess von Baden. He had almost thrown it away along with the Countess’s dress, but he couldn’t bring himself to discard something of such fine craftsmanship. The handle was indeed a work of art. Having kept it, he quickly became fond of the ornate cane with the ruby-eyed dragon grip that so comfortably fit his palm. He considered it to be his reward for fending off the crazy woman who sought to steal his compass and kill him. Making a final check of his clothing, Albert opened the door and stepped out of his two-story apartment building and walked down the stairs to Kramgasse Street. The sunny day and warm spring air put a bounce in his step. The cane swung forward and back, aligning gracefully with each footfall.
As he did every day, Albert strolled a few blocks to the Bern clock tower where he would board the streetcar to work. He was enjoying the spring air and letting his thoughts wander to his theories. In the last few weeks, the budding scientist had returned to his preoccupation with the velocity of light. When he was 16, Albert imagined himself running alongside beams of light. Now, he understood that in Maxwell’s equations at least, light always traveled at the same speed.
What's more, it would be impossible for an observer to attain that velocity. No human could move at the speed of light. Albert could see no solution to the velocity problem.
He was frustrated and sometimes considered giving up. As he rounded the corner toward the medieval fifteenth-century clock tower, Albert’s compass rang out the alarm tone that Arka had programmed into it. Startled, Albert halted in his tracks and spun around. The morning commuters and women with their shopping bags dotted the broad boulevard. He surveyed the crowd and spotted a tall, youthful man in a black leather trench coat and black fedora who looked vaguely familiar. He seemed out of place. Albert turned the corner and tucked himself behind the thirty-foot-high bear that defined the Zahringen water fountain.
Raka scowled. He thought he’d glimpsed Einstein by the fountain; now he was gone. He scanned the crowd, then slowly made his way toward the monument. Albert peered around the statue. His eyes widened as he recognized the man in the trench coat as his childhood nemesis, Werner von Wiesel. As Werner approached Albert’s hiding place, Albert’s compass flashed the number 666. Albert’s eyes narrowed as he tried to remember what the warning meant. He knew it wasn’t right and had to try and get away.
Looking around, he spied the entrance to a narrow alley and scurried toward it. Raka sensed Albert’s movement and recognized his prey. Noting that the crowd had thinned, he confidently strode toward the passageway into which Einstein had run.
Entering the alley, Raka laughed. It was a dead end. Yards away, Albert was ineffectively trying to climb a pile of trash to reach a window high above. Hearing Werner’s derisive snicker, Albert ceased his futile attempt at escape and slid down to the backstreet floor to face his enemy.
“Why are you pursuing me, Werner?”
“Maybe I just like the sport of it, Jew boy.”
Albert scowled. “I had almost forgotten that’s what you used to call me. What do you want? You and I were never friends. Then, when you destroyed my friendship with Johann, you became my enemy.”
“Oh yes, Johann. I noticed you at his funeral,” Raka bragged in Werner’s body. “You looked so pathetic. Have you figured out that I was the one who pushed Johann into the trolley? He was such a goody-goody. I begged him to get the compass for me.” Werner snickered. “When the fool told me there was no way he was going to betray you, I got mad and went after him. Well, the rest you know. What do you think of that?” he taunted.
Until this moment, Albert had thought Johann’s death had been an accident. He had no idea Werner had murdered his friend. Anger and pain welled up inside him, and he moved threateningly toward his enemy.
Raka sneered, reached down and whipped the silver dagger out of his boot, pointing the sharp point toward Albert. “Easy, Einstein. I wouldn’t make any rash moves.”
Albert stopped his advance, eyeing the glistening blade. In a flash, Albert remembered what the 666-warning meant. “What do you want, Werner? Or should I say... Raka?”
Now, it was Raka’s eyebrows that shot up, while his rising anger threatened to overwhelm him. “What do you know of...” He realized it didn’t matter. Only the compass mattered. What Einstein knew was of no importance; he would soon be dead.
Raka took a slow breath, calming himself, and smiled an almost friendly smile toward Albert. He knew his possession of the compass and the Shamir would change the course of history. His triumph was mere moments away. “What I want is the compass. If you turn it over now, I will go easy on you.” Of course, he meant not a word of what he said, but maybe the assurance would prompt the boy to surrender the prize without a struggle. Albert couldn’t possibly win a fight with him, and it would be so much easier to dispose of the boy’s body if he could avoid a messy conflict.
For the first time, everything became clear to Albert. He was dealing with something terrifying, evil and magical. Despite his otherworldly adventures with Johann and the travelers, Albert felt utterly unprepared…and he was terrified!
Raka took a threatening step toward his victim, and Albert reflexively raised the cane to defend himself.
“You can’t stop me with my own venom,” Raka snorted.
Albert was confused. Venom? What is Raka talking about?
As Raka started his move toward him, Albert took a step back and lost his footing on a piece of wet trash. As his elbow hit the ground, Albert’s finger slid against the hidden trigger and a dart shot from the cane, hitting Raka in the chest. Raka roared in pain as Werner’s flesh instantly began melting from his body. His hand holding the dagger lost its form, and the silver blade fell to the back lane floor with a dull click. The leather trench coat slid off his body as his shoulders slumped and dissolved. The black fedora slipped down over Raka’s surprised eyes, then fell to the ground.
Albert was unable to look away, but unlike Victoria, who had melted into a pool of scum, something strange was happening with Werner’s disintegrating body. Amid the pile of clothing on the ground, greenish-black scales began to appear, and a reptilian form began to take shape in the slime. Albert realized the danger was not over. He sprinted past the resurrecting dragon, but Raka reached out to grab him. But he had not re-formed completely, and Albert was able to elude his grasp. Barely.
Albert ran out of the alley as fast as he could and frantically sought a place to hide. Now a fully formed dragon, Raka slowly picked himself up out of the puddle that had been Werner. Albert spotted a door in the side of the Gothic clock tower and ran toward it. The dragon cleared his head with a massive shake and set off in pursuit. There was nowhere Albert could go, Raka smiled.
Albert reached the door and pushed, still clutching the cane. The door was jammed. He pushed harder, then threw his full weight against the weathered wooden window. It opened with a pop and Albert fell inside. He found himself in a chamber housing some of the gears and levers that powered the ancient timepiece. He saw a wooden staircase and ran toward it, desperately making his way up the six very high floors of what had been a castle’s guard tower. At the top of the stairs, he found another door. This one opened more easily into a room above the clock face. He closed the door, wedging it shut with a piece of wood, and looked around. Thick dust covered everything, and it swirled into the air as Albert moved further inside.
The tiny room only had a small window leading out to a deck above the clock face and no other way out. Albert prayed the door would be strong enough to protect him and that the dragon eventually would be forced to abandon his pursuit. Albert was sure the monster would not want to raise a commotion and be discovered.
As surreptitiously as he could in twelve-foot dragon form, Raka darted quickly toward the tower. He made it without attracting a glance and disappeared into its interior. Once inside and out of view of the citizenry, he stormed up the stairs taking them two steps at a time, his talons crashing onto every second wooden step with a thud.
He reached the door to the chamber where Albert cowered and listened intently. Inside, Albert fidgeted nervously. He had heard the dragon thundering up the stairs and fancied he could hear him outside the door. Albert stepped further into the room and drew in a breath, inhaling a nose-full of dust that had stirred up with his movement. In terror, he clapped his hand over his nose and pinched, hoping to forestall a sneeze. Feeling the tickle subside, he relaxed. That was when a sniffle escaped his nose. With the sound, Albert gasped and paled, fearing he may have given himself away.
He held his breath and waited. When nothing happened for a moment, Albert allowed himself to start breathing again and began to relax.
Suddenly, the door exploded off its hinges, and Raka burst into the room. Spotting Albert pushing himself up against the wall, he smiled. Shaking his head in mock pity, the dragon reached out for the young man, but Albert batted the claws back with his cane and started inching along the wall.
Raka watched, enjoying the cat-and-mouse game. He knew Albert didn’t have a prayer. And Raka exulted, imagining his brother, Arka, experiencing the same terror.
He laughed when, in desperation, Albert smashed the window with the cane and tumbled out onto the deck of the clock tower. Chuckling, Raka leaped through the opening and landed on the stone ledge. He turned toward Albert, his back to the waist-high railing wall. When his eyes found his victim, his grin widened. “Seems like there’s no way off this tower, puny human.” He glanced at the ground far below. “Unless you can fly.”
Albert looked around frantically, seeking any way off the tower short of jumping. Puny human is right, he thought.
At that moment, the clock’s life-sized cast-iron automatons began their hourly dance, the chimes sounding and the brass bell clanging out a deafening peal.
Raka screamed in agony and clapped his clawed hands over his highly sensitive ears. He could not stand the thundering blast of sound. His reptile senses were on overload. He stepped back and bumped into the wall that was waist-high for Albert, but barely knee-high for the monster. Unbalanced, the dragon flailed his short arms, trying to regain his balance. Albert recognized the opportunity and ran toward the beast. With his full weight, Albert shoved the shaft of the cane into Raka’s chest. The dragon snarled in pain and disbelief, and reached toward Albert, grabbing the rod to steady himself. Albert pushed again, then let go of the stick and scurried back out of the dragon’s reach. He watched as Raka tumbled backward over the edge of the stone wall. Screaming, Raka made a desperate twist and caught the minute hand on the clock’s zodiac face. His fall arrested, he took in a deep breath and looked up, snarling at Albert, who was peering over the wall. “Say your prayers, Herr Einstein, because I will be up in a moment to deliver your fate.”
Raka reached over to make his way along the metal hand to the clock’s center. But his weight was too enormous and, as he reached for a more solid grip, the long metal hand broke off from the face of the clock with a snap. A look of disbelief crossed Raka’s face when he fell back away from the clock’s face and plunged toward the blazing inferno of the brazier far below.
Raka’s roars filled the air as his body twisted in pain. His small, vestigial wings were useless now. He crashed down into the middle of the brazier. Raka’s body ignited with a flash of light and a burst of heat.
People in the square, attracted by the screams, shielded their eyes, then ran toward the commotion. Peering over the edge of the ledge, Albert surveyed the scene. His eyes widened at the sight of Raka writhing on the red-hot coals, his body aflame. Not wanting to be seen, Albert backed away from the wall and quickly made his way through the window and down the stairs. In moments he was out on the square, melting into the crowd. Undiscovered, he paused to watch what would happen next.
The crowd muttered in horrified fascination, not sure what they were seeing amid the red-hot coals and sparks and cinders flying everywhere. Albert bit back a gasp as the dust and cinders settled, just as the indistinct dragon form transformed into that of a tall, blond-haired man.
At sight, Albert was transported in memory back to his visit to Atlantis when he had met himself in his previous incarnation as the priest-scientist Arka. The face he saw in the fire was the same as Arka’s, and Albert realized that he saw Arka’s identical twin, Raka, in his natural form, before he had fallen from grace and become the treacherous dragon.
Sadness filled Albert then as he watched Raka’s human body writhe in agony, and finally become entirely consumed by the unspeakably hot coals.
“Who was that?” a man wanted to know.
“Don’t recognize him,” another said, shaking his head.
“Poor fellow. How...?”
The crowd could only speculate as they cowered back from the terrible heat and flying cinders.
“What was he doing in the clock tower?” a man wondered.
“No idea,” another commented.
“I’m sure the authorities will figure this all out,” a woman suggested, shaking her head as she glanced at the now charred husk in the brazier.
Still running on high adrenaline, Albert tried to make sense of what had happened. He turned to a man next to him and asked, “Uh, what did you see?”
The man shook his head. “I don’t know. I heard screams and saw that fellow disintegrate in the fire.”
“You didn’t see anything else?” Albert asked hesitantly.
“Like what? All I know is some poor man fell into the brazier.”
The sounds of the fire brigade approach brought Albert back to his senses, and he heard the trolley approaching. Despite the extraordinary events of the day, he still had to get to work. As most of the would-be riders remained behind to see how this remarkable event would play out, Albert climbed aboard the empty train and found a secluded seat at the back of the car. Sitting down and taking a few breaths to calm himself, he drew his compass from his trouser pocket. He paused a moment, then held the device close to his chest with gratitude. The compass had saved his life. Albert silently repeated the compass blessing, and a bright hologram appeared before his eyes. As he gazed at it, he was lifted into a higher level of intuitive awareness. He turned his attention out the trolley window and saw translucent, ghost-like images of people in all modes of travel; some walking, some in carriages, a few on bicycles. As if viewing a movie in his mind, Albert watched them moving at different speeds and observed that the objects around them in were different sizes—some truncated; others elongated. Puzzled at first, he had a flash of inspiration: time and space were different for him and different for each observer he passed. Time depended, he realized, on how quickly you are traveling. Albert realized that the faster you go; the more time slows down.
As the revelation dawned, he suddenly understood that as you approach the speed of light, space distorts. Things would appear shortened. Everything was relative! Albert gasped as he became aware that he had the fundamentals of his new theory of light. Instantly, he felt the warm hum of the compass cease. He saw the crystals, once bright and sparkling, go dim. After all these years, the compass had gone silent.
Putting the compass into his pocket, Albert settled back and closed his eyes, relaxing into the steady rhythm of the wheels clacking on the metal track. I now know how time works, he thought to himself. Now all I must do is figure out how to prove it.