And so it was that Reinmar of Bielawa, physician, opened the casket with amulets, a gift from Jošt Dun, called Telesma, the wizard from Prague. So it was that Reinmar took an amulet from the casket. The one that was buried the deepest, the singular one, small and inconspicuous, the one that should never be used, because it could only be used in absolutely, extremely final circumstances, in a hopeless, dead-end situation. And so it was that Reinmar embraced Jutta and brought the amulet to her temple and uttered a spell that ran: “Spes proxima.” And so it was that Jutta sighed in relief and then smiled and relaxed.

And Jutta was no more.

All that remained was her name, an empty word which there was no point in even uttering.

Chapter Nineteen

In which what was meant to happen, happens. And the words of the visionary prophet Isaiah, son of Amos, spring to mind: We wait for light, but behold obscurity. For brightness, but we walk in darkness.

On the first day, his kingdom was divided towards the four winds of Heaven. The Earth was moved from its place, the gates of Heaven opened and the smoke of a great fire blotted out the horizon. The sun was turned to darkness, and the moon to blood. From each side gazed out despair and horror. And there was sorrow. And there were tears. And there was a dreadful, overwhelming solitude.

On the second day, there was a great darkness. Stars fell from the sky. Chasms of earth groaned from the four corners of the world. The chasms disintegrated among moans, the Earth and Sea trembled, and along with them the hills and the mountains. And effigies of true and false gods tumbled, and with their fall all the peoples disdained life in this world.

The heavenly firmament was rent from East to West. And suddenly luminosity—lux perpetua—arose. And from it came the voice of an archangel and it was heard in the lowest depths. Dies irae, dies illa…

Mors stupebit et natura,

cum resurget creatura,

iudicanti responsura.

Liber scriptus proferetur,

in quo totum continetur,

unde mundus iudicetur.

On the third day…

On the third day came Samson. And with him Scharley, Rixa and Tybald.

“Enough, Reynevan. That will suffice, O friend. You have bewailed her, mourned her with dignity and in a seemly manner. But now be upstanding and pull yourself together.”