Eifelheim

Manfred summoned Dietrich, Hilde, and Max. “I had not the heart to forbid it,” he said. “Their ship’s rudder has been fully repaired, and they have no cause any more to linger.” He paused. “If they stay, all will follow poor Kratzer to the tomb. As you three were the first to welcome them, I am sending you with them to bless their craft. I hope for their speedy return now that they know which winds carry them here. The baron Grosswald has promised to return with skilled physicians and apothecaries, who may aid us against the pest.”

“Mine Herr,” said Dietrich, “their rudder—” He could not continue and said only, “I, too, wish them fair winds and calm seas.”

They rode the Herr’s rouncies past golden fields to the clearing where the vessel lay. Dietrich suggested they picket the horses at the charcoal kiln and walk the rest of the way, lest the nearness of so many Krenken panic them. Dietrich noted that Max wore now a scrip on his belt in which nestled a hand-held pot de fer. “You have finally secured one, I see.”

Max gri

“What will you do when there are no more bullets for it?”

Max shrugged. “Is there a flaw in my weave? They’ve taught us how to make safely the black powder, and that is enough. To make bullets for this device wants arts mechanical which we do not have. The bullets we use for our slings are too irregular in size and shape. But it is a cu

“Last night, Joachim begged Shepherd and others to stay.”

Max cocked his head. “He hates them so? If they stay, they die.”

“He believes that our great work was to win these creatures to Christ, and this labor alone has kept the pest from our homes. If the Krenken depart unbaptized, he says, the pest will come.”

Max laughed. “He calls them demons still? I’ve helped cart too many of their bodies to believe that any more.”

Hilde joined them at the base of the ridge. She handed Dietrich the bundle that contained his vestments. Max carried the bucket and the aspergum. “It will please me when they are gone,” she said, “and matters put back in order.”

Dietrich took his companions by the hand. “Have your own guests said aught about this voyage to you? Shepherd? Augustus? Any of them?”

“Why?” said Max. “What is wrong?”

Dietrich released them. “I do not know whether this is a terrible sin or a wonderful act of hope. Come.” With that, he led the way up the ridge and down the other side, where the Krenken stood about in divers attitudes, preparing to embark. They were fewer than before, and many were in the extremes of their particular illness, their skin having mottled. Most of these stood or squatted alone, but a few were supported by their fellows or carried in pallets. They stood in silence.

Baron Grosswald had erected a table and cu

He crossed himself. “In nómine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti…” A few of the Krenken repeated the gesture. The wind whipped through the trees, bending the branches and causing them to bow.

“Rédime me, Dómine,” he prayed for his guests. “Redeem me, O Herr, and have mercy on me: for my foot has stood on the straight path. Judge us, O Herr, for we have traveled in i

“Direct our steps according to Thy word; and let no iniquity have dominion over us. God has given his angels charge over us, to keep us in all thy ways. In their hands, they will bear us up, lest we dash our foot against a stone.

“Perfect Thou, O Herr, our goings and our comings, that our footsteps be not moved from the straight path. Incline Thy ear and hear my words. Show forth Thy wonderful mercies.” Then, raising his arms, he cried, “Send Thy grace before these pilgrims to guide their steps, and let it follow after them and accompany them in their paths, so that by the protection of Thy mercy, we may rejoice in both their progress and in their safety.”

Dietrich progressed around the vessel, blessing it with holy water which Max carried in the bucket for him, and finished by drawing the sign of the cross over the assembled Krenken, saying, “Go with God.” After this, the pilgrims, still silent, filed on board their ship. Some of them bowed or genuflected to Dietrich as they passed, though he did not think they meant more than courtesy. “Good-bye, my Krenkl’n,” he said again and again. “May God go with you.” One replied over the private voice-canal, “I will carry your message of charitas home with me.” Dietrich gave her a particular blessing even while his eyes searched among the passing figures.

“What seek you?” Max asked him.

“A face.” Yet, in an odd fashion, while he had learned to mark individuals, seeing the Krenken now standing in ranks, their particulars faded once more into the sameness he had perceived on his earliest encounters. It was as if, on the cusp of their departure, they had grown once more indistinct.

Perhaps Hans and the others, bound by duty to their posts, were already inside.

Some Krenken hesitated at the ramp and a few made to turn back. These, Grosswald’s henchmen encouraged with blows and shoves. One of the henchmen was Friedrich, who had stood with Hans when Hans and Gottfried had defied Grosswald. He froze on noticing Dietrich’s regard, then pushed his way through the jostling pilgrims into the ship.

Shepherd and Grosswald were last to board. The captain of the ship paused and seemed about to speak, but then he merely smiled in the krenkish ma

Shepherd was the last. She stood halfway up the ramp and looked about the clearing. “Strange world; strange folk,” she said. “Lovely, but deadly. There worse shores on which to beach, but none so cruel.” She turned to go, but Dietrich held out the three head harnesses.

“We won’t need these any more,” he said, though Shepherd would not understand now that he had taken it off.

But Shepherd only touched the mikrofoneh with a fingertip and pressed them back on Dietrich, along with her own. At the head of the ramp, she chittered a last, untranslated statement, then she was inside and the door closed upon her and the ramp clanked into its recess.

Dietrich intended to watch the vessel out of sight, for he was consumed by a curiosity as to how it proposed to do so. Hans had insisted that it moved on a cushion of magnetism in a direction “inside of all direction.” Dietrich had read Pierre Maricourt’s Epistola de magnete in Paris, and he remembered that magnets had two poles and that like poles repelled each other, so what Hans had told him was allowed by natural philosophy. But what had Hans meant when he said that these “i

Yet, after he had explained his experientia, and Max and Hilde went toward their assigned positions, several Krenken bounded down upon them and, seizing them in their long serrated arms, carried them away behind the far side of the ridge.