Cover

Dedication

To Alison

Epigraph

Time and time again, the castle ruin Boll,

also called Neu-Tannegg, was the target of treasure hunters,

who believed immense riches lay buried under the rubble.

But all searching was in vain. . . .

—Traditional story from the Black Forest

HARD RAIN

Rain is falling on the Black Forest.

It moves like smoke over the treetops in the last light, beating an endless martial drumroll on branches and leaves, and setting the steep, wooded slopes of the Kandel mountain streaming.

A man runs recklessly down the mountainside in the rain, feet slipping in sucking mud as he stumbles among tree trunks. He gasps for breath, because he is not a young man. Beneath one arm, he clutches a roll of material tightly to his chest. He trips, falls hard, lies without moving. Then:

“Bloody Nora.”

Hauling himself up, he blinks back into the darkness, listens, stiffens, then throws himself on down the slope, even more desperately than before.

He comes eventually to a lonely road cut thinly through the woods. A car sits by the track, looking abandoned. Sparing a second to pat the roof, he flings himself inside, then bends to fumble beneath the driver’s seat, uncovering a panel in the floor, a shallow compartment. He tosses in his tube of material, flattens the carpet back down.

The engine purrs and he has the car moving fast, steering with one hand, working a phone with the other. He hits SPEAKER, tosses his phone to the dashboard, and grabs the wheel with both hands as the road veers into a ragged bend.

Trees jerk in his headlights. The windshield wipers beat in time with the phone ringing out on the other end. He grits his teeth, glances at his rearview mirror. Finally, the ringing ends, replaced by an ancient tape-recording laboring to life:

“Hello! I’m not here right now. Or if I am, I’m too busy to come to the phone. Mind you, I’m probably out. But you never know. Just in case you’re a burglar casing the place: I could be in. You never know!”

The man at the wheel grinds his jaw.

“This is a machine! Can’t say I approve, really, but there it is. Comes in handy, I must admit. So. You know what the fellow says: ‘At the tone, leave your name and message. I’ll get back to you.’ So please do. And I will. Unless you’re trying to sell me something. In which case, you really should wait until I decide I want to buy something and come to you. Would save us all a lot of time. In any case, leave a message, if you like. Unless you think the machine will steal your soul, like a camer—”