Early the next morning Oliver walked from his hotel to the train station and used cash to purchase a rail pass. He boarded the blue Munich intracity metro train and rode twenty minutes to a transfer station at the edge of the city. He waited in the passenger lounge there for about half an hour, then switched over to a slick high speed train that carried him in luxuriant comfort, at least by the standards of American railways, to the city of Füssen, two hours south-west of Munich. According to the travel searches he had conducted the night before, Oliver could have rented a car and driven to Füssen in half the time, but he had elected to travel by rail instead for two simple reasons: The first was that he could spend his transit time absorbing information about the connection between Wagner and Norse mythology through his phone. The second was that he had a vague sense that this journey, like so many others he had undertaken in recent years, might take a turn towards the distasteful, if not outright illegal. If that were the case, it would be best if he could claim to be resting in his hotel room after a brutal, and fully documented, attack the day before. Not the strongest of alibis, perhaps, but it would be better than nothing. Arriving in Füssen, Oliver hired a taxi to drive him to Neuschwanstein Castle, then settled into the back seat to watch the countryside roll by.

The taxi carried Oliver through the center of town, past dozens of stucco and stone houses, shops, and government buildings, each painted in a variation of soft pastels and topped with red tile roofs. The road passed over a narrow bridge of blacked steel and white concrete, which spanned the meandering waters of a river so calm that the brilliant greens, yellows, and golds of the autumn foliage were reflected against it in impressionistic perfection. Above the trees Oliver could see the snowcapped peaks of the Alps marching along the German-Swiss border to the south. The road meandered through two or three villages, little more than collections of houses and shops gathered around a school or church and surrounded by vast swathes of farmland, then began climbing the face of a mountain towards the towers of the castle high above. 

Tucked in between the green flecked rocky peaks of higher mountains on three sides, the foundations of Neuschwanstein Castle rose up atop an outcropping of solid rock that emerged from the surrounding evergreen forest. Gleaming walls and towers of white stone surged upwards to meet the soft green grey of the copper roof. Perched atop the mountain like a proud eagle, displaying its plumage as it gazed down upon the valley below, Neuschwanstein was the picture book image of a fairytale castle. In fact, Oliver had learned on his train ride from Munich that the castle was rumored to be an inspiration for the design of several fictional castles, including Disney’s iconic interpretation of Cinderella’s castle.

The taxi deposited Oliver at the base of a sweeping approach that led up to the tall curved gateway of rich oak studded with iron, which was set into the towering walls of red brick accented with large blocks of white stone. The same white stone formed the curving walls of the corner towers and the soaring expanse of the other castle walls. He paid the driver, once again in cash, and joined the crowd of tourists meandering towards the entrance. 

Oliver was not sure what course he would follow in continuing his investigation, but Evelyn Marby had told the cloaked intruder, and him, that she had sold the Wagner folio, whatever that might be, to the collection here at Neuschwanstein. He snagged a brochure from an oak paper rack beside the wicket gate and flipped it open as he stepped into the inner courtyard. Before he could begin to read, though, Oliver’s hands fell before him and he nearly dropped the glossy paper pamphlet as his gaze drifted upwards in slack-jawed wonder. 

Before him and to his right the white castle walls climbed upwards into a cloudless sky of a glorious pure azure blue, broken only by tall windows of thick glass, which reflected the sky with golden hue. Stone steps in front of him mounted to a second level of courtyard that marched away to the walls of the castle itself, while a narrower staircase, to his right, climbed up to to a third floor arcade that led to a set of red stained oak doors leading into the castle. The one place Oliver could look without being overwhelmed by glorious architecture was to his left, but that was no true relief from the visual assault as looking in that direction afforded him a sweeping view of the mountains of the Swiss border, marching upwards and away in successive rows of green pines, grey stone, and glistening white snowcaps as far as he could see. 

Oliver felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see a tall woman dressed in a blue velvet uniform motioning him to step out of the way of the small crowd that had gathering in the gateway behind him. 

“Please step aside,” the woman asked him in German. 

He smiled apologetically and stepped over to lean against the wall beside the gateway, permitting the other tourists to pass him as he continued to gaze upwards. Despite outward appearances, Oliver’s examination of the courtyard was not entirely captivated reverie. He was also searching for weaknesses in the castle security and, much to his frustration, seeing none so far. 

He glanced down to the brochure in his hand. The glossy paper was dark blue, printed with gold lettering, and bore several full color photos of a series of documents and wooden idols. The German text at the top of the folded paper proclaimed, “Wagner’s Inspiration.” The text beneath the photos went on to describe an exhibition of artifacts and documents that related the earliest known versions of the myths that had formed the basis of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. When he unfolded the brochure Oliver nearly laughed out loud with glee at his good fortune. Spread across two panels of the inside of the brochure was a photo of a battered velum folio, the brittle, stained pages unfolded to reveal lines of faded brown ink. The left edge of the document faded into the rich blue backdrop and, much to Oliver’s disappointment, the artistic photo filters and wide zoom angle conspired to make it practically impossible for him to read the text on the folio. The gold text on the inside of the rightmost panel exclaimed the value of the centerpiece of this exhibition, a folio that had belonged to Wagner himself, and which had been only recently recovered from a private collector after being lost to history in the years leading up to the second world war.

This had to be the folio that his fiendish attacker had sought.

Oliver closed the pamphlet and slipped it into a jacket pocket, then strode towards the ticket booth discretely nestled into one of the narrow arcades beneath the stairs to his right. It was starting to look like finding Marby’s Wagner folio might be easier than he had expected.  

“Has this display started yet?” Oliver asked the attendant, speaking in German, when he reached the front of the ticket line.

The attendant, an elderly man with half-rim glasses under a thick head of gray hair, dressed in a velvet blue uniform much like the one of the woman who had hurried Oliver along, examined the brochure, then shook his head. “No, not yet.” 

“That’s disappointing,” Oliver said. Acting on a hunch, he continued, “I traveled here from Munich especially to see the idols. I thought they were to be the centerpiece of the display.”

The booth attendant glanced downwards, checking a schedule that was hidden from Oliver’s view. “This looks to be the announcement brochure that we put out this morning, which,” he leaned closer to Oliver and shook his head slightly as he spoke, “was produced in something of a hurry. The manuscript it highlights was only recently acquired by the institute and there’s been quite a rush to rearrange the exhibition around it.”

Oliver sighed in mock exasperation and shook his head, then asked, “Do you know when this display will actually open?”

“Next Thursday.”

“There wouldn’t be any way for me to slip in early, would there? I’m writing a book on the development of...” Oliver trailed off as the man shook his white head gravely.

“No. I’m sorry, sir, but if you need academic access you could to contact our director of research. Would you like her phone number?”

Oliver knew when it was impossible to go any further. He had spent enough hours bartering in crowded marketplaces across the globe, and shouting down his father over his career plans on the richly manicured lawns of Fairfax county golf clubs, that he knew when he was facing the end of a conversation. 

He accepted a card with the phone number of the director of research hand printed across it in precise lettering and purchased a ticket to the next castle tour. Though he would not be able to see the documents today, Oliver thought it wise to take advantage of the opportunity to scope out the castle’s security. That, and it never hurt to pause and admire great works of art.

The tour, which lasted about half an hour, wound throughout the first and second floors of the castle, pausing to allow the guests to gawk at the gold encrusted pillars and furniture, the murals of European monarchs, knights, and mythic characters, and the sheer grandiosity of the architecture itself. The tour guide, an elderly woman dressed in the same royal blue uniform as the guards and ticket booth attendants, explained the history of the castle to the group. Oliver only paid the guide passing attention. Instead he focused on searching each room and corridor for security devices. It was growing increasingly difficult to spot cameras, microphones, and pressure sensors these days, Oliver had spent enough money securing his own apartment that he was familiar with the state of the art in consumer spy gear, but in his experience the average museum security director preferred to spend their budget on visible security measures intended to deter thieves, rather than on more readily concealed devices that would merely record the theft. The Neuschwanstein castle staff was no different. Each room Oliver entered was watched over by at least two cameras, their black lenses surrounded by the milky white bubbles of infrared emitters, all neatly tucked away between the gilt cornices.

Oliver was not a professional, or even amateur, thief. He made a living of uncovering ancient secrets and slipping, slashing, or shooting his way into ancient ruins where what passed for surveillance was more likely to consist of a deathtrap or ancient curse, but cautious observation of his surroundings had become an ingrained habit over the years. 

It wasn’t looking good for him breaking into the castle, even if he found where the folio was kept. 

When the tour ended, Oliver found himself in the brisk air of the courtyard once more. He wandered the perimeter of the castle for another quarter hour, doing his best to remain close to clumps of tourists as he used his phone to photograph the exterior. He mentally kicked himself for leaving his professional equipment in the hotel safe, rather than bringing it along. With a better zoom lens he might have been able to get a better look at the security on the second and third floors of the castle. Eventually he jumped aboard a tourist shuttle bus to ride back to the train station. 

Oliver arrived back at his hotel in Munich in the early evening. He was in a foul mood, having spent an entire day, and a sizable amount of money, to learn almost nothing. A rational voice at the back of his mind told Oliver that he had made the journey out to Neuschwanstein purely on speculation, but that did little to assuage his mood. This entire venture was based on the supposition that a rival had been more successful than he in tracking down a shard, one which Oliver had long ago given up finding, and his repeated failures since arriving in Germany had brought back the feelings of failure that Oliver bitterly recalled from the days when he had given up on the search and thrown his research notebook into a box.

It didn’t help matters that he still had not heard from Hank or Amber.

He slammed his keycard into the hotel door, waited for the light on the handle to blink green, then ripped the card out and pushed through. Oliver shoved the door shut behind him and was surprised at the darkness of the room, as the autumn sunlight had still been gleaming off the windows of the office towers surrounding his hotel when he had entered the building. “Damn it,” he muttered, “do not disturb means keep out.”

He reached out blindly and found the light switch on the wall beside the bathroom door.

A man in a tattered black cloak lounged in the chair beside the window. He face was lost in the inky shadow of his cowl. A hand emerged from the cloak to drape over the pommel of a long sword of gray metal, which leaned against one knee. On his right shoulder perched a large raven, its eyes glinting at Oliver in the bright lamplight.

“Good to see you alive, Oliver,” he said in a voice like a glacier crushing gravel beneath its mighty weight, “I believe you will be of use to me.

Next Chapter: Mead Hall