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'No. You've seen him yourself?' Duffy didn't relish the ghost idea, and wanted to establish the intruder's identity.
'I'm afraid I haven't. I've only heard him described by those who have.'
'Who,' Duffy asked, 'is he?'
Aurelianus sat back. 'I'll tell you that. But first let me mention that the vat you saw has been in operation ever since this brewery was started three and a half thousand years ago. Parts of it have been replaced, and it's been enlarged twice, but we. they.. .always kept the beer that was in there. It's a lot like the solera method of blending sherry. We pour the new wort in at the top and draw the beer out further down, so there's always a blending and aging process going on. In fact, there are probably still traces of the first season's barley in there, thirty-five hundred years old.'
Duffy nodded civilly, reflecting, though, that the surest way to get Aurelianus to talk about chickens was to ask him about cheese.
'Ordinarily,' Aurelianus went on, 'such a vat would have to be cleaned annually. We've avoided that necessity by leaving out the bottom boards entirely, so that the staves, and the beer, rest directly on the naked earth.'
Duffy gagged and set down his cup. 'You mean the beer is mixed right in with the mud! God help us, I never thought -'Relax, will you? The beer seeps down into the dirt, yes, but the dirt doesn't rise. We don't stir it. We just gently drain off the beer at various levels, and the mud isn't riled. Have you ever tasted better beer?'
'Well, no.'
'Then stop acting like a kid who just learned what tripes are.' The old man squinted critically at Duffy. 'I hope you're ready for all this. You ask questions and then get all upset at the beginnings of an answer.'
'I'll be quiet,' Duffy promised.
'Good enough. The man you saw was a ghost. Sorry. When you saw him he was returning to his grave.' He leaned forward again. 'By Llyr, I'm going to give it to you direct - it was the ghost of Finn Mac Cool, returning to whatever remains today of his earthly dust. Finn is buried, you see, six feet directly below that fermenting vat.'
Duffy blinked. 'And there's no bottom to it? He must be absolutely dissolved in beer.
'Right. And the beer upward is saturated with his ...essence and strength, the lower levels most strongly.'
'Then this Dark, being the lowest, must be nearly Finn-broth.'
'Spiritually speaking, that's right,' Aurelianus agreed. 'Though physically it's just unusually heavy, superaged beer. Don't get the idea that it clots, or that we get bones and teeth clogging the spigot.'
'Oh no!' Duffy said airily, though privately resolving never to drink any of it. 'So when is it drawn? I've never heard even a hint of it.'
'That's because the last time the Dark was drawn was in the year 829; when the Sons of poor Emperor Louis were turning against him, as I recall. We'll draw it again on the thirty-first of October of this year. That's right, we let every drop of Dark age seven hundred years.'
'But good Lord,' Duffy exclaimed, 'beer can't age that long. Brandy or claret couldn't age that long.'
'Well,' Aurelianus admitted, 'you can't really call the stuff beer after all that time, that's true. It becomes something else. Something similar in many ways to the wine you drank in Bacchus' tavern, in Trieste. And you
noticed, I assume, that the Dark spigot was only a few inches above the dirt floor? Only the next three or four inches above that are drawn at a time, so the Dark is always a terribly limited quantity.'
'Is there much demand for it?' Duffy asked, certain that there couldn't possibly be.
'Yes.. .but not from beer drinkers. Because of its, ah, source, the Dark is very potent stuff, psychically, spiritually.. .magically. Physically too, as a matter of fact - it often shows levels of alcohol content theoretically impossible from a natural fermentation process. Anyway, yes,, much more demand than the meagre supply can-accommodate. It, in fact, is what Antoku wanted from me - a cupful of it to maintain the life he should have given up a thousand years ago. He was killed as an infant in a Japanese sea-battle, you see. I did let him have a cupful last time -, He halted and glared defensively at Duffy; then smiled awkwardly, coughed and went on. 'In any case, he thinks it is now his right. He is, I'm afraid, incorrect. And all the other Dark Birds, the Ethiopian, the several Hindus, the New World aborigine and the rest of them, they too hope for a sip of it, and some of their cases are nearly as desperate as Antoku's. But they won't get any, either.'
'Who will you give it to?' Duffy asked, beginning in spite of himself to get curious about the brew. After all, he thought, that wine in Trieste was very nice.
'Antoku evidently thinks I intend to give it to you,' said Aurelianus, 'since he set those afrits onto you. Or maybe that was supposed to be a warning to me that he could kill someone even more vital.'
'Uh huh. So who does get it?' Evasion is this man's second nature, the Irishman reflected.
'This time? Our King - the Fisher King. I told you, didn't I, that he's ill? And so is the West. Which way the connection works I'm still not certain, but the connection works I'm still not certain, but the connection unarguably exists; when the King is well, the West is well.'
'And this beer will cure him?' asked Duffy, trying to keep the skepticism out of his voice.
'Yes. Our King is weakened, injured, his strength dissipated - and there's the strength and character of Finn, the first King, in the Dark. He'll be able to put his lands in order again.'
'And you'll draw the stuff in October? Can't you do it a bit early? After all, when you're talking about seven centuries, a few months one way or the other...'
'No,' said Aurelianus. 'It can't be hurried. The cycle has to come round completely, and there are stars and tides and births to be taken into account as much as fermentation and beercraft. On October thirty-first we'll draw the Dark, and not a day before.' He raised worried eyes to Duffy. 'Perhaps you can see now why Ibrahim is so anxious to destroy the brewery before then.'
