AUGUST 1522, STELTZENBERG, SOUTHWEST GERMANY

      Eberhardt von Steltzenberg lay asleep on his four-poster bed in the tower of his castle, his barrel chest exposed. The canopy over the bed was worn and moth-eaten, full of dust and dead flies.

      It was a hot night; a mass of cloud brooded over the single main tower of his cramped castle in the forest. It blotted out the moon and stars, pouring a thick darkness over the land. His bedchamber took up the whole of the first floor of the tower. The heavy old ceiling beams were hung with cobwebs. His accoutrements littered the room: a suit of armour, his lance, saddles, his chests of clothes.

      On one side of the room was the trap door that led down to the great hall where his manservant and his ten hunting dogs slept; their excreta mixed with the rushes on the floor. The hot stench of it rose up through the gaps in the floorboards.

      The tower was packed with heat. There had been clear summer skies for the last few weeks; the dark red sandstone had been baked like a kiln during the day and now emanated warmth. The main door was barred shut and no breeze could stir through the five thin arrow slits that punctured the walls of the knight’s chamber. A heavy weight pressed on the air in the room.

      The figure on the bed breathed in slowly, his eyes fluttering in deep sleep, and then stopped.

      Dreaming furiously, Eberhardt saw a black spot appear in his heart.

      He could see it against the deep red in his chest.

      It grew slowly.

      He watched it.

      What was it?

      It was getting larger and heavier. He could feel the weight of it beginning to strain the fibres in his chest, like heartburn. It was hard and jet black, cutting into his soft tissues.

      The Nubian Deathstone had returned.

      He knew it.

      What was it doing there? Why had it come back to him now after twenty-one years?

      Blackness swirled out of it like a mist and began branching out along the blood vessels in his heart. The tendrils were reaching across his chest like black ivy.

      Confusion at first but fear coming now.

      He could feel the strength of the strands clutching at him, squeezing him. He could not breathe. Terror built, pouring through his veins.

      ‘I can’t breathe!’ he screamed.

      The figure on the bed twitched and convulsed. It groaned and scrabbled at its chest with both hands.

      His eyes flew open.

      Now he could see it properly! He could see the Deathstone and the black miasma that was choking him. It was the smoke from the stone all over again — the cloud of it was now moving in and out of his body at will.

      In the darkness he saw it clearly. The rock pressed down on him, forcing him deeper into the mattress. He struggled desperately against it, thrashing his arms and legs. He was a being of fear fighting a being of darkness.

      A mighty effort and he was on his feet.

      The darkness was all over him, both within and without, coiling around his body and weighing him down. The stone hung down inside him, the darkness wriggling through his blood vessels, penetrating out through his ears and his eyes, choking his throat. He had to escape it, he had to breathe!

      He lurched across the room, blundered into a chest and fell onto his knees.

      It had him on his knees now; he had to fight back.

      He forced himself through the pain and straightened his legs. There in front of him was an arrow slit. He could sense the clean air outside. He could tear the slit open and escape the foulness that was forcing itself down his throat. His fingers gripped the thin stone edge of the slit where it narrowed in through the thick walls.

      He tore at it with all his might. His huge shoulders knotted, the tendons tensed and sweat stood out on his skin.

      It did not move. The stone blocks were ancient but well laid.

      ‘The Deathstone is conspiring against me. It has seeped into the stones here.’

      He lurched around the edge of the room, supporting himself with one arm against the wall. His fingers found the next arrow slit and he heaved on that. Again it stayed resolute.

      ‘No!’

      The figure blundered round the circular room, pawing at the wall and then tearing at the arrow slits. His fingers were torn and bleeding.

      Five times he heaved and five times he failed. Finally he sank to his knees, wheezing for breath and clutching at his throat.

      Above him the thunderheads were grinding against each other in the sky. Dark winds swirled around the tower. Lightning flashed, and then came an explosion of thunder that banged the room like a drum and shook the floorboards against his knees. The hunting dogs in the hall below started up, baying and howling.

      The rain came in like a wave. It crashed against the stone, gushed off the guttering and spattered down the walls.

      ‘The sky. I can reach the sky.’

      He lurched to his feet again and blundered up the crude wooden steps that led to the trap door in the ceiling. Scrambling up them on his hands and knees, he hit the trap door with his shoulder and flung it open. It banged back against the floorboards and terrified the old woman, his grandmother, who lived in the upper chamber. She shrieked from behind her bed curtains. Seizing her horsewhip, she threw them open and flew across the room in her nightgown, a white-clad banshee shouting obscenities and flailing at him with the whip.

      ‘A plague on you, you dog! Coming into a lady’s chamber!’

      The new onslaught combined with the coiling darkness that still squeezed him. He ran from her and charged up the final steps to the roof. Flinging the next trap door open, he at last emerged into the air.

      It was hot and thrashing down with rain. He was soaked instantly. He ran to the edge of the tower and leaned over a gap in the battlements, seventy feet up, whooping in air. The pressure in his chest began to ease.

      The old woman caught up with him and laid the whip squarely across his back. He jerked with the pain, turned round and caught the whip. Anger at his oppressor filled him now that it had taken human form; at last he could fight back.

      Strength flowed into his limbs; he seized the creature by the throat and lifted it off the ground. He grabbed one of its legs with the other hand, held it above his head.

      A huge curtain of sheet lightning lit up the sky. The figure standing high up on the battlements was momentarily silhouetted against it.

      It held the oppressor over its head for a second and then cast it down, down into the darkness.