Leopold collapsed beside Ivan, who hastily took off his jacket to wrap around the Count.
“I can’t believe it’s over,” Mary said, resting her head against him. “You’re mine forever now. We can put all this behind us.”
“Yes…” he said, as his eyes turned to Blackbeard’s body.
It lay there seemingly on the verge of life, more like a man asleep than one who would never awaken. Even now, his hair caught in the breeze, and his arm, outstretched, seemed to twitch and shift its weight—
It moved. The body slowly, even clumsily, turned over and rose on all fours. The head lifted so that the eyes caught Leopold’s stare. They widened with recognition, as if seeing a long-lost friend. His expression, however, remained stern and impassive, the lips puckered as if withholding a secret.
“Blackbeard! You’re alive!” he shouted.
Mary and Ivan leapt in surprise, but were far less excited in their response. In fact, they didn’t know what—or who—he was talking to. Blackbeard remained cold and lifeless, the wind blowing his hair and clothing the way it might toss a scrap of parchment across a field.
“Leopold…I don’t understand,” she said.
“But—he’s right here! He’s alive!”
By this time Blackbeard had struggled to his feet and approached the Count, his head shaking with disapproval.
“Not how I wanted it to go at all. I apologize for my carelessness, Leopold.”
“Careless? We won! He’s dead—I killed him!”
“The Death? Mmm, quite. Good work. But the fact that you can see me doesn’t bode well in the long term.”
“That I can see you?” Leopold laughed, turning to the others. “Why shouldn’t I see you? Don’t you want to be alive?”
Mary and Ivan exchanged glances, fearing the struggle had unbalanced his mind; that, or he felt such profound guilt for the sorcerer’s death that he refused to acknowledge his end. She tried to speak but only exclaimed wordlessly, looking to Ivan for support. He merely shrugged and spit out, “Leopold…he’s not here. He’s gone.”
“Not here? But look at him!”rt.
Mary’s eyes welled with tears, not wanting to cause him more pain. She only gestured to the body and sobbed.
“Blackbeard—say something to them!” he said, waving his arms. “Show them—”
“Leopold, they can’t see me for a very good reason. I’m dead.”
“Dead?” he repeated.
“Your Death enticed my Death to come out early; it devoured me on the spot. At least it was painless,” he shrugged. “I cast a spell with my dying breath that might have saved me, but so much for that. Now, unfortunately, I am very much on the other side. And you shouldn’t be able to see me—none of the living can,” he said, gesturing to Mary and Ivan.
“Then…then why can I see you? Because I can—I can see, even feel you. You’re right here with me.”
“Before you had no Death, but it was there, attached by an invisible thread. Now the thread is broken,” he said, hesitantly. “You have no Death to return to: you are dead without dying. The ability to die is the vital ingredient to life. So, technically speaking, you are no longer among the living.”
“You’re joking! How can you say that? Look at me…they can see me, I’m very much alive!”
“Leopold, please, calm down. You don’t have to do this…” Mary said, pulling him close.
“He says I’m not alive—that I’ve cut some thread, that I’m…what, exactly?”
“I didn’t foresee this…a regrettable lack of vision. How can I explain? Simply put, I thought if your Death was slain in this world he would return to his post. I didn’t think a Death could actually die. I simply wanted to erase what he was and bring back his essence. Or rather, its essence.”
“And he didn’t…its not here?”
“Not if you can see me. It means you’re between both worlds, a kind of life-in-death, dead without the possibility of rest. Alive without the promise of…”
Blackbeard shuddered and turned away. Leopold followed him, despite Mary’s pleas to come back, to stop torturing himself with regrets.
“What? What are you trying to say?”
“I’ve cursed you even more terribly, Leopold,” the sorcerer said, with a catch in his throat. “You’ll live forever with all the thirsts and desires of life…and never be able to quench them. You’ll become…one of them.”
“Them?”
“A Wanderer.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
Blackbeard told him the terrible history of the Wanderers, poor souls unable to relinquish their hold on the living. Typically they had been murdered, betrayed, or else they were incredibly evil and couldn’t stomach the idea of leaving their power behind. When the Deaths had consumed the last ounce of their life, instead of moving beyond, the Wanderers held fast to an illusion of mortality. They were dead, of course, but they remained in this world as spirits, ghosts, wraiths, spectres, or whatever approximated their existence in life. Now Leopold had joined their ranks, but in a most unusual way: his death was gone but his life force remained, making him both spirit and mortal. However advantageous this might sound, Blackbeahe idrd warned him of the fatal consequence: nothing could give him peace, rest, or fulfillment. At night he would lie sleepless; at dinner he would polish off an entire meal in vain; at all times his throat would burn with an unquenchable thirst. Given time, most Wanderers usually gave up their hold on life, realizing that death offered compensations that no amount of grief or revenge could assuage. For Leopold, however, there was no question of giving up; he would have to go on wandering for…well, Blackbeard wasn’t entirely clear on the prison sentence.
“I don’t understand, how can I be in both places? I never changed!” he exclaimed, holding his head in fear of its breaking apart. “And what does that make you? Why are you here? Are you a Wanderer, too?”
“No, there are many kinds of spirits, those who walk the earth—as you do—and those who merely visit. I will be called away once my work here is done.”
“So that’s it—I’m lost? Congratulations: we killed your Death, enjoy being a blasted Wanderer?!”
“Naturally, it’s not that simple—”
“Not for you! You simply get called away! This is all your doing, remember? My father’s death-curse! And I have to be punished—I have to wander the earth—”
“At present, there’s very little I can do—” Blackbeard protested.
“Yes, of course, you’re dead, I forgot. You’re excused from the whole wretched affair. Sorry to bother you…”
Walking off in a daze, he was followed by Mary, who tried to take him aside, frightened at what she couldn’t understand. What little she could make out sounded confused, disjointed; that he was a ‘Wanderer,’ that he could no longer sleep or eat or find peace; that even Blackbeard couldn’t help him? Was this madness? Had they rescued him from the clutches of death simply to lose his mind in the process? Rest, he just needed rest. Everything would make sense in the morning.
“Leopold, please talk to me…stop moving for a second! I want you to talk to me!” she urged, grabbing his arm.
“There’s nothing to say, you’ve heard it already,” he said, wandering in circles. “I’m worse than dead now. I’m nothing. Everything we’ve done, all our suffering and struggles come to this—come to nothing! I might as well have opened the lock and let it out from the beginning. None of this would have happened.”
“None of this—of us being together?” she asked, taking hold of him. “And what about me? You would abandon me?”
“But I have abandoned you, Mary! I can’t mean anything to you now.”
“Surely you don’t believe that! Dead, or alive, or whatever else you claim to be, you belong to me and nothing can change that. Whatever happened, rightly or wrongly, it gave you to me. And I can’t question that.”
She kissed him, trying to anchor him back on earth, to remind him of what they fought for. For a momen
t, he remembered—and forgot all the rest.
“There,” she said, her eyes shining. “Did you feel that?”
“Yes…”
“Then you’re not dead, are you? You’re here, with me. With us.”
“You don’t believe me, do you?” he asked, pulling away.
“Leopold…I don’t know what to believe. Everything’s happening so fast. I just want it to end…”
“Ivan—at least tell me you understand. You believe me, right? You know what I’m saying is true.”
Ivan leapt up in haste, trying to wave off the responsibility. But his expression was more than clear: he hoped Leopold had temporarily lost hold of his senses. Mary was right, too much had happened too quickly. Blackbeard was dead; Leopold was saved. To contemplate another round of spells and disappointments was more than unthinkable, it was perverse. Frankly he wanted no part of it.
“After everything we’ve been through and now you doubt me? Now you think I’m insane?” Leopold said, angrily. “But I can make him speak—I can tell you what he says. Go on, ask me something only he would know. You’ll see!”
“Leopold, please. Haven’t we been through enough?”
“Ask me something! Go on!” he said, almost striking Ivan.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” he replied. “That woman loves you more than anything on earth, and instead of consoling her, you spin out this nonsense, while she’s over there in tears.”
“Ah, of course, I forgot: you love her, too!” he said, with a bitter laugh. “You would like me to be mad, wouldn’t you? Well never fear, I’m a living corpse, no church in the world would marry us! So you’ll win in the end.”
The reminder stung. Mary avoided looking at him. Humiliated, Ivan said something about his mother’s favorite song. Everyone who knew her knew it; Blackbeard would have heard it, too.
“Indeed, I know it quite well,” the sorcerer nodded, wistfully. “Black Roses. A very haunting tune, especially the way she sang it. I’ve never heard it sung by anyone else.”
“Black Roses, he said,” Leopold repeated, crossing his arms.
Ivan paled. Now Mary looked at him, hoping to see contradiction, even a hint of amusement in his expression. What she did see made the tears flow faster.
“Yes…he’s right. That’s it. You couldn’t have known that. How did you…”
“He’s here, damn you. I’m not making this up. I’m sorry to inconvenience anyone.”
A profound silence fell over the party. Leopold leaned against a tree and pulled off pieces of bark. Mary watched, eyes blurred with crying, seeing happiness once again pulled from her grasp. Ivan looked for Blackbeard, expecting to discern his outline in the trees, or against the sky. He still couldn’t bring himself to call him ‘father.’ Where was he? Did he regret not knowing his son, or even acknowledging him as such? There was so much he wanted to know. As usual, his father only spoke to Leopold. Even in the afterworld the fates were against him.
“Can’t we do anything?” Ivan said. “If Blackbeard is here, what does he want us to do?”
“He’s not very big on ideas at the moment,” the Count muttered.
“If you would give me a chance, I did come back to help you,” Blackbeard insisted. “True, there is not much I can do about your current condition, but there is a way—”
“Yes, there’s always a way. What do I have to do this time? Grind up my grandmother’s bones?”
“Please, Leopold, listen to him. In fact, let me talk to him,” Mary insisted. “Ask him what I can do. I feel somehow that I have a role to play in all this. You’ve done your part; let me do mine.”
ackbea
“No…I can’t ask anything more of you. I can bear this alone.”
“Alone?” she snapped. “You can say that to me—to my face—when my heart is breaking in two? You really believe that? Or is it some heroic twaddle you’re spouting to protect yourself?”
“I don’t…I just don’t want to hurt you anymore. I know your pain is mine, but how much do I have to share? How can I protect you?”
“I don’t need protection,” she said, defiantly. “I just need to help you. I need you to want me to help you.”
“I do,” he said, holding her. “But at some point, I have to free you…I have to let you go.”
“Not to interfere,” Blackbeard said, after clearing his throat. “But Mary is right. She does have a role to play, perhaps the most important role of all. There is another way, a more difficult way...and it is, I fear, the only way.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
Mary listened with rapt attention to the silence of Blackbeard’s words. She watched Leopold’s reaction, trying to see what he heard, screwing up her eyes as if she could somehow make it all out. Leopold sat with a dark expression; at one point he opened his mouth, possibly to question something, but immediately fell silent. After a few minutes it became clear he was no longer listening, either. He had turned away, staring into the distance where the sun wheeled slowly toward the earth.
“Leopold?”
“It’s nothing…a pointless suggestion,” he muttered.
“What is? What did he say!”
Leopold only shook his head, as if shaking off the very idea of Blackbeard.
“You can’t just…Ivan, make him tell me!” she exclaimed.
“Leopold, whatever he said, you can’t keep it a secret. If there’s any way, no matter how terrible, we have to know.”
“No, it’s nothing we can do anything about.”
Mary laughed in dumbfounded amazement.
“I never thought I could dislike you, but there are times when I see your pig-headed nature,” she said, sitting beside him. “I don’t like it.”
“Better you hate me than this,” he muttered.
“Blackbeard, make him tell me!” she shouted to the air around her. “Or tell me! Surely you have some way to communicate directly?”
“Why don’t you tell her?” the sorcerer asked.
“You know very well why. It’s abominable—even for you.”
“Leopold, she deserves to know. It’s not your choice to make.”
“Then you tell her. I won’t have any part in it. I won’t make her do it. In fact, I’ll do everything I can to stop her,” he said, turning away.
Blackbeard gave a gesture of annoyance, typical of his interactions with the Count. He then walked over to Ivan—who, of course, had no awareness of his presence—and touched his shoulder.
“Forgive me, Ivan,” he whispered, “I have taken far too many liberties with you. I trust this is the last.”
Ivan made no response. ct,He simply lowered his head and swayed idly from side to side. When he looked up, however, he wore a very different expression; Leopold knew it the second he saw him. He got up angrily and walked away, muttering something about “confounded witchcraft.”
“Mary, come here; let me explain it,” Ivan said.
“Ivan, what?”
She looked at Ivan and seemed to glimpse something else just beyond him. A face that peered out from the mist, kindly and familiar. Ivan’s expression and movements confirmed what she felt. It was him.
“Is that…you?”
Blackbeard nodded.
“Forgive me for this unusual method of speaking to you. Leopold, for quite understandable reasons, wishes no part in this. But I assure you there’s no other way.”
“Yes, tell me! I know I can do something—please let me be useful!”
“Mary, you have been more than useful; you have been our inspiration,” he said, with a gentle laugh. “And yet I must ask you to make the final sacrifice…”
Blackbeard took her hand with a fatherly grasp and told her everything. From a distance, Leopold watched her face…saw the flush of surprise, shock, horror…then a firm, almost defiant understanding. She said something back, her eyes cutting over to him. They shone, not just with tears, but with love and self-sacrifice. He couldn’t let her do this. It was unthinkable. It p
robably wouldn’t even work. But if it did…what kind of life would she have? How many years would remain?
Mary embraced Blackbeard, who whispered something in her ear. The setting sun ignited the forest, silhouetting the treetops and the embracing pair. When they parted, Mary walked briskly over to Leopold, who wanted more than anything to avoid this conversation. Yet as the details of her face danced out of the gloom and became everything he knew and loved, he reluctantly got up to meet her.
“So he told you?”
“Yes…and I understand why you couldn’t tell me. You couldn’t ask me to do it. But you don’t have to.”
“I can’t…I can’t ask you…”
He broke down, his head falling against her breast. She held him tight, whispering words that had no specific meaning to anyone but them. The sorcerer looked on, somewhat moved himself, though he would never admit it. Now that he was dead he was beyond such things. Though, truth be told, being dead felt enormously like being alive…other than not having to relieve one’s self every half hour (a perilous symptom of old age).
“You know what I told him,” she said, stroking his face.
“Mary, no—”
“What happens if I don’t? You’ll live out this cursed existence, neither alive nor dead, suffering miserably. No sacrifice is too great to avoid that.”
“Yes, some sacrifices are too great. It’s too much to ask.”
“No, it’s very little. Then nothing can part us, no Death or magic in the world. This will be the end of it.”
“But we don’t know how long…how much time you’ll have left. You might regret—”
“Regret saving your life?” she asked, lifting his face to meet hers. “Even as a child of thirteen there would be no question, no regret. I would give years of my life to save you; I would give the very last one.”
“It’s not as dire as you might think, Leopold,” Blackbeard said, approaching them. “She might have a long life yet. We don’t know.”
“You never know,” he said. “So…how does this work?”
“We need to return to my chambers; I have spells there that can assist you. I’ll guide you as much as I can. Once the spell is cast, you will share Mary’s Death; her life’s blood will be yours, your fates will be connected. Of course, as I warned you, this will inevitably shorten her life. Perhaps by half…perhaps only by a smaller percentage.”
The Count of the Living Death (The Chronicles of Hildigrim Blackbeard) Page 18
