The Drawing of the Dark: A Novel (Del Rey Impact) - Softcover

Powers, Tim

 
9780345430816: The Drawing of the Dark: A Novel (Del Rey Impact)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0345430816 ISBN 13: 9780345430816
Verlag: Del Rey, 1999

Inhaltsangabe

“Combining the best of mythology and real history, Tim Powers takes you on a rollicking magical adventure that is both tense and hilarious. You won’t read a more plausible explanation for Western civilization, or one that’s half so much fun.”—David Brin

Brian Duffy, aging soldier of fortune, had been hired in Venice by a strange old man who called himself Aurelianus Ambrosius. He was supposed to go to Vienna and act as bouncer at an inn where the fabulous Herzwesten beer was brewed. That was clear enough.

But why was he guided and guarded on the trip by creatures from the ancient legends? Why should he be attacked by ifrits and saved by mythical dwarfs? What was so important about the Herzwesten beer to the Fisher King—whoever he was? Why was Duffy plagued by visions of a sword and an arm rising from a lake? And what had a bunch of drunken, ancient Vikings to do with it all?

Then there was no time for speculation as Vienna was besieged by the Turkish armies of Suleiman. Duffy found himself drawn into a war of desperation and magic. It was up to him to preserve the West until the drawing of the Dark.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Tim Powers is the author of several novels including the Philip K. Dick award winner The Anubis Gates, the World Fantasy award winner Last Call, and the Locus award winner Expiration Date.  He lives in San Bernadino, California.

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e famous Herzwesten beer have to do with saving the entire western world from the invading Turkish armies? Brian Duffy, aging soldier of fortune, is the only man who can rescue the world from evil--if only he can figure out why the beer was so important to a mysterious old man called the Fisher King, and why his dreams are plagued with images of a sword and an arm rising from a lake . . .

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"All right, all right," Aurelianus said finally, flapping his hands at the woman. "Your personal speculations don?t interest me. Here ... here?s some money. Now get out. But first put that dagger back."

Bella sighed sadly and took a jewelled dagger out of the prodigious bosom of her dress. "I was only thinking a woman needs to be able to protect herself."

"Hah!" The old man chuckled mirthlessly. "It?s the Turk sailors that need protection, you old vampire. Out!"

She left, slamming the door, and Aurelianus immediately lit several incense sticks in the candle flame and set them in little brass trays around the room. "I?d open a window," he said, "but in very old towns you never know what might be flying past in the darkness."

Duffy nodded uncertainly, and then held up the book he?d been leafing through.

"I see you?re a student of swordplay."

"What have you got there? Oh yes, Pietro Moncio?s book. Have you read it?"

"Yes. As a matter of fact, it was Moncio and Achille Marozzo I was dining with this evening."

The old man blinked. "Oh. Well, I haven?t used a sword myself for a number of years, but I do try to keep up with developments in the art. That copy of della Torre there, in the dark vellum, is very rare."

"It is?" remarked the Irishman, walking back to the table and refilling his glass. "I?ll have to sell my copy, then. Might make some money. I wasn?t real impressed with the text."

Long cobwebs of aromatic smoke were strung across the room, and Duffy fanned the air with a little portfolio of prints. "It?s getting murky in here," he complained.

"You?re right," the old man said. "I?m a damnable host. Perhaps if I open it a crack ..." He walked to the window, stared out of it for a moment, and then turned back to Duffy with an apologetic smile. "No, I won?t open it. Let me explain quickly why I called you in, and then you can be on your way before the fumes begin seriously to annoy you. I?ve mentioned the Zimmermann Inn, of which I am the owner; it?s a popular establishment, but I travel constantly and, to be frank, there is often trouble with the customers that I can?t control even when I?m there. You know?a wandering friar will get into an argument with some follower of this Luther, a bundschuh leftover from the Peasants? War will knife the Lutheran, and in no time at all the dining room?s a shambles and the serving girls are in tears. And these things cut into the profits in a big way?damages, nice customers scared off, tapsters harder to hire. I need a man who can be there all the time, who can speak to most customers in their native languages, and who can break up a deadly fight without killing anybody?as you did just now, with the Gritti boys by the canal."

Duffy smiled. "You want me to be your bouncer."

"Exactly," agreed Aurelianus, rubbing his hands together.

"Hm." Duffy drummed his fingers on the table top. "You know, if you?d asked me two days ago, I?d have told you to forget it. But ... just in the last couple of days Venice has grown a little tiresome. I admit I?ve even found myself missing old Vienna. Just last night I had a dream?"

Aurelianus raised his eyebrows innocently. "Oh?"

"Yes, about a girl I used to know there. I wouldn?t really mind seeing her?seeing what she?s doing now. And if I hang around here those three Gritti lads will be challenging me to a real combat in the official champ clos, and I?m too old for that kind of thing."

"They probably would," Aurelianus agreed. "They?re hot-headed young men."

"You know them?"

"No. I know about them." Aurelianus picked up his half-consumed snake and re-lit it. "I know about quite a number of people," he added, almost to himself, "without actually knowing them. I prefer it that way. You?ll take the job, then?"

Oh, what the hell, Duffy thought. I would never have fit in back in Dingle anyway, realistically speaking. He shrugged. "Yes. Why not?"

"Ah. I was hoping you would. You?re more suited for it than anyone I?ve met."
He knotted his hands behind his back and paced about the cluttered room. "I?ve got business in the south, but I?d appreciate it if you could start for Vienna tout de suite. I?ll give you some travelling money and a letter of introduction to the Zimmermann brewmaster, an old fellow named Gambrinus. I?ll instruct him to give you another lump sum when you arrive there. How soon do you think that can be?"

Duffy scratched his gray head. "Oh, I don?t know. What?s today?"

"The twenty-fourth of February. Ash Wednesday."

"That?s right. Moncio had a gray cross on his forehead. Let?s see?I?d take a boat to Trieste, buy a horse and cross the tail end of the Alps just east of there. Then maybe I?d hitch a ride north with some Hungarian lumber merchant; there?s usually no lack of them in those parts. Cross the Sava and the Drava, and then follow the old Danube west to Vienna. Say roughly a month."
"Before Easter, without a doubt?" Aurelianus asked anxiously.

"Oh, certainly."

"Good. That?s when we open the casks of bock, and I don?t want a riot in the place."

"Yes, I?ll have been there a good two weeks by then."

"I?m glad to hear it." Aurelianus poured himself a cup of the sauternes and refilled Duffy?s. "You seem familiar with western Hungary," he observed cautiously.

The Irishman frowned into his wine for a moment, then relaxed and nodded. "I am," he said quietly. "I fought with King Louis and Archbishop Tomori at Mohács in August of ?twenty-six. I shouldn?t have been there; as an Austrian at the time, Hungary was nothing to me. I guess I figured Vienna was next on the Turk?s list." No sense telling him about Epiphany, Duffy thought.

The wine was unlocking Duffy?s memories. The sky had been overcast, he recalled, and both sides had simply milled about on opposite sides of the Mohács plain until well after noon. Then the Hungarian cavalry had charged; the Turkish center gave way, and Duffy?s troop of German infantry had followed the Hungarians into the trap. That was as hellish a maelstrom as I ever hope to find myself in, he thought now, sipping his wine?when those damned Turks suddenly stopped retreating, and turned on the pursuing troops.

His mouth curled down at the corners as he remembered the sharp thudding of the Turkish guns and the hiss of grapeshot whipping across the plain to rip into the Christian ranks, the whirling scimitars of the weirdly wailing Janissaries blocking any advance, and the despairing cry that went up from the defenders of the west when it became evident that the Turks had outflanked them.
"You obviously have luck," Aurelianus said, after a pause. "Not many men got clear of that."

"That?s true," Duffy said. "I hid among the riverside thickets afterward, until John Zapolya and his troops arrived, the day after the battle. I had to explain to him that the idiot Tomori had attacked without waiting for him and Frangipani and the other reinforcements; that nearly everyone on the Hungarian side?Louis, Tomori, thousands more?was dead, and that Suleiman and his Turks had won. Zapolya cleared out then, ran west. I ran south."

The old man stubbed his smoking snake out in an incense bowl and reluctantly exhaled the last of the smoke. "You?ve heard, I suppose, that Zapolya has gone over to the Turkish side now?"

Duffy frowned. "Yes. He...

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Verlag
Del Rey
Erscheinungsdatum
1999
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0345430816
ISBN 13 
9780345430816
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
336
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
gpsr@libri.de
gpsr@libri.de

Friedensallee 273
Hamburg
22763
Deutschland

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