“But you said it didn’t want Ivan,” the Count said.
“It shouldn’t want anyone—it only needs you! And yet it asked—demanded—you and one other.”
“Who? Someone in my family?”
“Me,” Mary said, reading his eyes. “It wants me, too.”
Blackbeard dropped his head in silent agreement. The Count gasped, suddenly aware of the tragic consequences of his actions. Each key, each lock, seemed to spell someone’s doom. By turning the second lock he had erased her future, though the voice promised they would be together. And they would be—just not how he imagined. A moment’s curiosity had killed the love of his life.
“Blackbeard, please, there has to be something…she can’t die for my mistake. I’ll do anything.”
“It’s beyond my powers to play with death,” he said, gesturing weakly. “There are no spells for this kind of opponent.”
“It doesn’t matter, I live or die with you,” Mary said. “Let it take us…at least I won’t have to go back. At least it’s with you.”
“No, I can’t accept—"
“We’ll always be together,” she said. “I’m not afraid.”
She kissed him and he allowed himself to give in, to believe that a death with her would be like a life together. Surely he couldn’t find her now only to lose her for eternity, the two of them swallowed up in some cosmic abyss and then spit back wherever? It had to be fate.
“But Blackbeard, wait!” he exclaimed. “This doesn’t make sense…how can my Death kill her? What about her Death? It’s not locked away in some box, is it? Can’t it defend her?”
“Normally, yes, this would be true…but we’re not talking about a normal Death. Your Death is its own creature, a force that exists in this world, able to kill anyone it likes. You may as well consider it a person.”
Leopold sank back, defeated. So that was that. Yet the answer that crushed him made Ivan perk up, inspired with a profound—but possibly foolish—thought.
“But if that’s true, can’t his Death die? If it’s not dead, so to speak? Couldn’t we just go in and kill it?”
“No, not with swords or axes or anything you can find in the palace,” he responded. “Alive it may be, but it’s still something other, something I can’t understand. t rofound”
“Then why doesn’t it climb out of the box? After all, what’s stopping it? Can’t it just reach out and kill us?”
Blackbeard opened his mouth to respond, to shoo his comments away—and faltered. He had examined the problem from every angle except the one Ivan so casually introduced. Yes, why didn’t it leave the box? The locks had tumbled off one by one. It had power beyond reckoning. So what stopped it from taking what it wanted? There was only one explanation: fear. It feared leaving the walls of its box. After all, it was born there, like a perverse womb. No child willingly left the comfort of its mother; even the pangs of hunger and the tortures of revenge were balanced by the fear of the unknown, of setting forth on its own two feet.
“Ivan may be right,” Blackbeard mused, aloud. “Whatever its power, it’s reluctant to leave the box. We can use that…but we need to know more.”
“Then let me help you. Killing is all I’m good at, apparently,” Ivan said, unsheathing the Count’s sword. “At least let me kill someone that matters.”
He offered it back to Leopold as an act of atonement. The Count took it, almost apologetically, before responding.
“I don’t want to make my father’s mistakes. Whatever happened, you’re still my brother. I hope you believe that.”
Ivan lowered his head, nodding. Leopold stole a look at Mary, who still didn’t believe it. They would never be related in her mind; his father was right to reject him, seeing this twisted imitation instead of his son. But for Leopold’s sake she bit her tongue, though swore Ivan would be forced to pay for his crimes. She would never forget the image of him standing over Leopold, sword in hand, intoxicated smile on his lips. One day that smile would be hers.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ivan returned alone to the room. As the door closed, he felt a thousand whispers scurry up the walls. The entire room seemed vibrantly alive, every stone and curtain quivering with life—or death, as the case may be. Only the box remained silent, the three locks lying conspicuously on the floor like slain opponents. Ivan approached and cleared his throat. It’s alive, and everything living has fear, he told himself, quoting Blackbeard. Yes, it could fear him…if he didn’t run out of the room screaming first.
The lid creaked open, just enough for a red eye to flash out. Ivan struggled to stand his ground. A tentacle peered out of a corner of the box, but just as quickly pulled back. The eyes blinked and focused on him, less fierce and interested as before.
“I’ve come to offer myself in the girl’s place,” Ivan said.
The box made no reply to this offer. Ivan pursed his lips, realizing he had to push harder.
“She’s dead. You left her no choice—she killed herself. So I come in her place.”
The eye flashed, stirring the box.
“Blackbeard will honor his promise and give you the Count…on one condition.”
A tentacle slipped out of the box, slapping lazily against the floor. In a shrill, echoing voice, the creature said there were no conditions, only demands to be met. It wanted the Count and the girl. Not him.
“But she’s gone…even you can’t have her now. We ojum2. As theffer you the Count and his brother. Me.”
The death withdrew its tentacle, flashing both eyes at Ivan. Without anger, but in a terrible voice nonetheless, it stated that the Count had no brother. It wanted the girl and the Count within the hour.
“But I…I’m the Count’s brother. We have the same blood,” he protested.
No, you do not. You are not, it replied.
Ivan lost heart and almost gasped for breath. Was this a trick? Blackbeard warned him that it would say anything to shake his resolve. It was clever, cunning, and whatever else the moment required. But this…how could it know?
“I tell you the girl is dead,” he persisted, though unnerved. “You’ll have to accept me in her place. Then you can have us both…again, on one condition.”
The creature slipped another tentacle out of the box, either with interest or irritation. It said he was in no position to state conditions, though it would humor his request. Perhaps it would also consider the substitution…if, as he said, the girl had truly destroyed herself. But time was pressing.
“The condition is this: he wants you to leave the box. You can have us both, but not in this room. Outside.”
The tentacle whipped in the air and smashed against the box. Both eyes fixed him in a deadly stare.
Unacceptable, it replied in a ghastly hiss. The Count will be delivered here along with the girl. Otherwise terrible things would happen. And the sorcerer alone would be responsible.
“Thank you, I will tell him,” Ivan said, retreating.
A quarter of an hour has passed, it rasped. Your time is almost spent.
Ivan walked backwards toward the door, watching the eyes watch him. The lid slammed shut just as he closed the door. Once outside, his legs wobbled and almost collapsed as she caught himself. The sound of his heart throbbed in his ears. If that was death…may he find the secret of eternity and live forever!
“Wonderful,” Blackbeard said, emerging from the shadows. “A perfect performance.”
“Perfect? You mean pointless!” he gasped. “Unless I missed something in there, it’s definitely not scared of us.”
“On the contrary, it’s terrified. Because now we know it’s secret.”
“It’s secret?”
“Yes, it’s not just fear—it’s something more. It can’t leave the box,” the sorcerer grinned, shaking his hands in a posture of prayer. “Locks or no locks, it’s trapped. We now have the advantage.”
“We do?” Ivan said, replaying the events in his head. “So now what?”
“We wait. Le
t the hour drift past.”
“And then?”
“And then we kill it.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Leopold sent his most trusted advisor to speak with the soldiers at the gates. Tell them anything, promise them the moon; get them to leave if possible. But the soldiers were implacable: they came for Lady Mary and would not retire until she appeared. Otherwise, they would tear down the palace walls. From a window the Count judged they could make good on their promise, especially since he had no trained soldiers to speak of. His guards were a motley assortment, cobbled together from this and that province and paid a pitiful salary. They wouldn’t put up much of a fight. Still, the soldiers might never find them. They could hide, play cat and mouse all night if need be. He would never surrender.
“I’m afraid we don’t have time for that,” Blackbeard cautioned. “If we are to fight it, we must strike now, without distractions. Surely you understand—”
“She can’t go back! They would never let us marry!”
“And that’s your greatest concern—her parents’ consent?” the sorcerer exclaimed. “With all due respect...if you survive this confrontation the displeasure of her parents and all the soldiers in the world will seem like child’s play. For the present, we need to keep you alive; otherwise there will be no marriage or anything that follows.”
“Perhaps it is for the best…” Mary said, weakly.
“But they don’t even know if she’s here! How long could they look?” he said. “Wait, say we fled to the mountains—yes, tell them we simply ran off. Send them on a wild goose chase!”
“I understand the pain and uncertainty of parting,” the sorcerer said. “So imagine parting eternally without her. This is your only chance.”
The words found their mark. The Count winced, struck the walls and muttered something unprintable about fate. He knew what he had to do. But he didn’t care to do it.
“Please, I’ll go…this won’t be the end,” she said, leaning against him.
He only nodded, unconvinced.
“But you’ll come for me? You’ll find me, wherever I am, even if they ship me to the Northern Provinces and marry me off to a pagan Laplander?”
“I…yes, though I don’t even know what a Laplander is,” he said. “But there’s no place on the map I won’t go. Even to…where do Laplanders live?”
“Have Blackbeard show you,” she smiled, kissing him. “I remember the first time I saw you…at the Vysotsky’s for my coming-out. You were dressed in that ceremonial outfit—”
“I had it burned!” he exclaimed. “A hideous creation, my mother insisted. But I remember seeing you, too. Mind you, I was fifteen then, so I felt a girl of thirteen somewhat beneath my notice.”
“And yet you still asked me jum2memto dance.”
“Against my better judgment, I suppose. How we must have danced! Very stiffly, like this…” he said, holding her in an awkward dance pose. “Somehow, we hobbled along.”
“No, we glided…I was weightless. We soared over the room. Everyone was jealous.”
“Of two children?” he laughed.
“All the girls envied my happiness,” she said, her eyes shining. “Whenever we danced and I could hold you as I’m holding you now…I never thought we would get any closer. It would be my only memory of you. If I could have seen myself now, I would have felt amply repaid for all those miserable days and nights.”
“I wish I had known…all that wasted time,” he said.
“Yes, it was very stupid of you,” she said. “But I didn’t fall in love with you for your insight. So remind me why I did...”
Their final kiss lingered, spilling into hazy memories of what was and might be. They could faintly see a life together in another land, the shadows of children and friends around them. It was so sweet, so unbearable to leave…and yet like the happiest of dreams it dissolved in an instant. Their lips and hands parted. A look of terror and longing pooled in her eyes as she stepped back.
“Come soon…” she whispered.
Blackbeard gently took her by the shoulder and led her away, sobbing quietly. Yes, Leopold had done the right thing. He knew it because the breath seemed crushed out of his body. A profound sense of darkness enveloped him, as cold and spiritless as the grave.
Chapter Twenty-Four
There was no spell to kill death. It had simply never been written nor perhaps even thought of until today. Only a handful of theories existed, though Blackbeard felt them wholly inadequate to the task. True, Leopold’s Death was a living, breathing creature, but still not of this earth. A simple sword thrust or arrow shot would be insufficient. It required something more, something that could slip through this world and sever the invisible thread between life and death. But such weapons didn’t exist on earth; to find them one had to gaze deep in the mirrors of infinity itself.
“What mirrors? Where are they?” Leopold asked, as if expecting to find them in the room.
“Above us…the stars. All the secrets are buried there, though few can read them.”
“But what could they possibly say about death?” the Count scoffed. “They’re just a bunch of twinkling lights.”
“By that logic the whole of civilization is a series of anthills waiting to be swept out of existence,” he countered.
“If the shoe fits,” Ivan muttered.
“Pah! If we could see all the wisdom of the universe it would blind us,” Blackbeard said, collapsing in a nearby ottoman. “We need to be led in small, cautious steps to the light. Magic allows our eyes time to adjust, until what seems lijum2 sake ‘twinkling lights’ becomes a readable script, the very language of the universe itself.”
“That all sounds very well, but how do we read it?” Leopold insisted.
“Nothing simpler: we measure the stars in the house of your birth, correlating their positions to the house of your Death. For your Death began living the day I enslaved it. The calculations will provide an answer.”
The Count traded glances with Ivan, who shrugged. In an earlier time—namely, yesterday—they would have scoffed at calculating houses and births in the cosmos. Yet much had changed since then: both had locked eyes with death, whose presence was no longer an abstract reality. It lived and breathed among them, stirring hungrily within the box. In silent assent they followed Blackbeard to the ramparts, where the stars rippled like glistening waves overhead. By torchlight he removed an instrument he called a ‘modified astrolabe’ from his cloak. It looked like a small pocket watch, except that instead of a clock face it had a series of overlapping dials, each one inscribed with unusual markings. Blackbeard claimed this particular model was over five hundred years old and came directly from the hands of Turold the Magnificent (they shrugged). Screwing up his face, he examined the stars and methodically turned the dials, calculating distances, positions, and something he called “asymmetric conjunctions.” The Count watched impatiently, but nothing emerged. The stars still looked like dancing lights to him, each one blinking from some distant outpost. Did someone tend these ancient fires…or were they left to slowly burn out and fade into oblivion?
“What does it say?” Ivan whispered, after some minutes in silence.
“Patience…I’m juggling a dozen figures in my head,” the sorcerer muttered.
The dials continued to turn, going back two degrees, forward five, until the sorcerer flipped the entire mechanism over and started anew. He bit his lip and hummed tunelessly, avoiding the question that hovered around them, writing and rewriting his answer. The Count shared a nervous glance with Ivan before the latter responded, “so? What do you see?”
“Yes, it’s very interesting…the answer is clear,” he nodded, distractedly.
“And?” the Count prompted.
“Your Death’s life is bound up in your life—and your father’s,” he explained, rubbing the astrolabe. “All the stars are in alignment. Therefore, we can only proceed with your father’s involvement.”
The brothers sh
ared a nervous laugh. Their father’s involvement? Surely the sorcerer remembered that their father had ceased being ‘involved’ in anything? Or was that precisely the point: their father’s death had sealed his children’s fate?
“So are you saying…we have no chance?” the Count ventured.
“Not at all,” Blackbeard responded, uncomfortably. “However, what I am about to propose may not meet with your general approval. I mean no disrespect…”
“Do we have any choice? What is it?” Leopold insisted.
“As I said, we need your father’s help. It cannot die by your hands by/span>
“Yes, we’ve covered that. He’s dead, so now what?”
“Dead or living, we need his hands to slay the creature. And I mean this quite literally, I’m afraid: we need his hands.”
Count Leopold felt the world spinning around him. Only the calm, fixed stare of Blackbeard brought him back to earth. Surely he didn’t mean…not to actually go and dig up…to desecrate his corpse?
“This is magic of the highest order, and even more than that, it’s the will of the fates,” the sorcerer said, solemnly. “Your father helped me enslave the creature; his hands fastened the three locks in place. They must assist us in destroying our creation.”
“What about my hands? Who needs his when you have mine?” Ivan insisted. “After all, he’s my father; surely fate has something to say about that?”
“Your stars are in a different house, following different orbits,” the sorcerer said, with a tinge of regret. “You can’t stand in his place.”
“I don't understand...don't we share the same blood? Aren't his hands my hands?"
“Everything I know tells me so,” he said, with a shrug. “Only the stars contradict me.”
“Please, just so I understand,” the Count interrupted, pacing in frantic circles. “What you’re suggesting is…that we dig up my father and remove his hands? Or what remains of them? You want us to use them as some sort of weapon?”
The sorcerer nodded, fully realizing the hideous nature of his request.
The Count of the Living Death (The Chronicles of Hildigrim Blackbeard) Page 7
