Straight from the mould-stained wall, straight from the cracks between the bricks, a bird emerged. And immediately transformed itself into a man with black hair and clothes. Or rather, into a human-shaped form. For Zachary Voigt knew very well that it wasn’t a man.

“O, my Lord…” he grunted, writhing on the straw. “O, Prince of Darkness… Beloved Master… You are come! You didn’t abandon your faithful servant in his hour of need—”

“I must disappoint you,” said the black-haired man, stooping over him. “I am not the Devil. Nor an emissary of the Devil. The Devil has little interest in the fate of individuals.”

Zachary Voigt opened his mouth to scream, but only managed to croak. The black-haired man seized him by the temples.

“The hiding place of the treatises and grimoires,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I need that information. You won’t benefit from them now, and they will be very useful to me. By the way, I will save you from further torture and the stake. Don’t thank me.”

“If you’re not the Devil…” The magician’s eyes opened wide in horror as he lost control of himself. “Then you’ve come from… The other one? Oh, God…”

“I must disappoint you again,” replied the Wallcreeper. “He’s even less interested in the fate of individuals.”

Chapter Fifteen

In which it turns out that although the notions of “profitable art” and “artistic business” don’t have to be a contradiction in terms, even epoch-making inventions don’t easily find sponsors in the field of culture, nonetheless.

Like every town in Silesia, Świdnica threatened anybody who threw rubbish or sewage into the street with a fine. It didn’t look as though the ban was enforced all that often, however—if at all. A short but heavy morning shower had soaked the town’s narrow streets and the hooves of horses and oxen had quickly churned it up into a bog of shit, mud and straw. Piles of refuse rose up from the bog like enchanted isles from an ocean. Geese toddled over the muck where it was thicker and ducks swam in it where it was thinner. People moved along boardwalks made of wooden planks, often falling from them. Although allowing livestock to roam freely was also punishable with a fine, squealing pigs were scuttling down the streets in both directions, knocking down pedestrians and frightening horses.