Gestern Keep

This one’s a back-drawer novel. I’ve sent it out to two friends in my outside writing group, asking them if they think it’s worth revising, and if so, to get their advice. It’s set in 1520 in a tiny fictional realm between the Venetian Republic and the Habsburg Dominions. Fourteen-year-old Basti — Sebastiano da Napoli — has arrived at Gestern Keep, a remote mountain keep, to apprentice to a sculptor whose work he’s admired. The people gathered in the keep for the winter are a motley crew — The scholar-alchemists Lord Johannes and Lady Elisabeth and their son Dietrich, their reluctantly-on-the-marriage-market daughter Caterina, their ageless apprentice Araciel, the hard-drinking Venetian sculptor Danti, the mute flautist Hubert, the dwarfed and snarky visiting scholar Alrune (Danish for mandragora), and the grimly resigned cook Albrecht … and the ancient hunting god that haunts the keep, the Erlkönig. I did a ton of historical and cultural research while I was writing it, and read lots of books of ceremonial magic and angelology … I even wrote a religion professor to ask if early Christian belief could accept that a fallen angel could repent! (He said he thought so.) Anyway, the novel is about an ancient Teutonic god — the Erl King, Teiwa, Tîwaz — trying to wrest his land back from a divided Christianity; about repentant fallen angels and mysterious cursed heirs, tragic lycanthropes and medieval magic, and redemption and the power of symbols. IMO it all gets rather muddled and confusing, sometimes too erudite and sometimes too surreal, and far more Roman Catholic than I’m entirely comfortable with, so I don’t know if it’s worth trying to fix or not. Hopefully my writing group readers will be able to give me a good objective opinion; I told them I have no emotional investment in this anymore, so they can feel free to shred it as much as they want.

…In this scene, Basti, Caterina and Araciel are trying to get the help of the village priest, Father Völker, as they’re being pursued by the Erl King and his wolf pack. Basti has just learned that Araciel, whom he’d considered a friend, is actually a devil — a fallen angel, summoned by Johannes and Elisabeth to help them in their alchemical research and given in return a chance to seek a redemption on Earth that he couldn’t possibly hope to earn in Hell.

Caterina’s cry, faint over the storm, warned him in time to see something black and heavy hurtle toward him from the trees.

Basti raised his arms up to shield his chest and face, unable to do anything more.  The impact knocked him down, and snow flew up around him and the wolf that snarled over his chest. Sharp teeth ripped through the heavy fabric that protected his arms; amber eyes gleamed in the lantern light. Basti couldn’t draw a breath to cry out. He was paralyzed with terror as the beast’s teeth ripped closer to his flesh. Memories of the first time he’d been attacked flashed through his mind and he made a small sound in his throat.  Then, as though that sound had broken his paralysis, he felt a surge of anger. His whimper turned into a low growl of defiance.

Above him, a leather-gloved hand clamped down on the wolf’s scruff. Basti felt the wolf yanked from his chest, and his anger seemed to be plucked from him as neatly as the wolf. He scrambled backward, still seated, until Caterina grabbed his arm and pulled him upright. Unnerved, Basti staggered against her, still backpedaling.

Before him, the wolf squirmed and snapped in an attempt to clamp its jaws around Araciel’s wrist.  The apprentice grit his teeth and lifted his other hand, clutching his sword.  Too close to his foe to use the steel blade, he slammed the saber’s pommel into the wolf’s skull. Steel met flesh with a dull thud.

“Managgia!” Basti exclaimed, forgetting Caterina’s presence. He remembered the devil’s iron grip when he’d awoken from his drugged unconsciousness, and now his last doubts about Araciel’s supernatural nature vanished. The devil lifted the sword again, straining to keep a grip on the writhing wolf as he slammed the pommel into the side of its head once more.  Blood spattered, creating a black webwork on his pale dueling gloves. The wolf yelped in pain, and howls sounded from the forest around them, drawing closer.

“Come on!” Caterina yelled, grabbing his arm. “We have to get to safety!”

Basti hesitated, then let her pull him away, keeping his head turned as he tried to keep track of his friend. She was right. Neither of them could help Araciel. The devil was the only one of them who had any chance at all against the beasts.

They took the lantern with them.

Darkness shrouded the two combatants.

Another sound rose over the wolves’ song; a long, clear note, the call of a hunter’s horn. Fear slid through his gut as Basti realized they weren’t just running away from storm‑maddened wolves.

They were running away from the Erl King’s hunting pack.

“Araciel, run!” Basti shouted, then turned as Caterina yanked him up the church’s steps. His feet slipped on snow-covered stone as he scrambled.  Caterina set the lantern on the stair as Basti fought to turn the handle of the heavy wooden church door.  She risked a glance over her shoulder, and stiffened.

“No!” she gasped.  He turned, his eyes widening.

Araciel had stopped when he’d seen his young friends safely on the church’s steps. Now the pack was on him, the wolves’ eyes shining in the lamplight from the church. He lifted his saber in solemn salute between their glowing eyes and himself.

Basti froze, watching, as the fallen angel spoke a word in a language he’d never heard before.

The power of the word shook the wind and the earth around them.  The wolves paused a moment, then shook themselves and lunged.

This ends up becoming one of the key scenes in the novel for Araciel, when he ends up being tackled into the church by one of the werewolves — while the werewolf is immediately turned back into its mortal form, Araciel remains unharmed, which he sees as a sign that he’s been forgiven.

You may notice the moment where Basti suddenly feels a surge of anger and growls back at the attacking wolf? Yeah, the novel starts out with him having been bitten by a wolf before arriving at the keep. He’ll be running on all fours before the novel is out.

Anyway, I look forward to hearing what the others think. We’ve tentatively planned to meet for coffee on the 15th, which will be Friday of finals week. One of them completed NaNoWriMo last month, and I’m kinda expecting her to send me her MS in return for critique, although I haven’t seen it in the gmailbox yet.

(Image Credit: Jan van der Straet, “An Alchemist’s Laboratory,” 1570)