by Pavel Kornev
Someone had tried to kill me.
Again!
After all, the steward didn't just go mad and fly off the handle. He thought it all out in advance and waited for the best possible moment. A dirigible crashing in the mountains – what story could be more banal? I mean, would they even find the wreckage? Perhaps, in a few years, someone might randomly come upon a piece of twisted frame.
But what was this for? Who might have wanted my death, considering that the world at large had already come to think me dead? Dead, or missing without a trace more than a year ago. One is not much different from the other.
There was no reason to try and kill me!
It could have been embittered malefics, who’d traced my footsteps. That mystical brotherhood brought revenge to the level of religious devotion, but setting fire to a dirigible and faking it as an accident was not their usual methodology. The people of the black book were accustomed to acting in a much more forthright manner, and were extremely predictable in that sense. They put all their eggs into the basket of magic. Buying people off wasn't their style. If this had been their doing, the steward would have doused himself in kerosene and, with a calm smile, flicked a match on the side of a box. A malefic certainly wouldn’t have tried to flee.
I had no faith in the Imperial secret service, either. Crown Princess Anna's guard had no reason to doubt my death: no one could survive having their heart removed from their chest. After I disappeared from the hospital, they might have searched for the people who ran off with my mutilated corpse, but that was all.
The ends weren’t coming together; I was at an impasse.
I had a flash back the blaze in the dirigible. A shiver rolled over me. Fire could undo most infernal creatures, and werebeasts were no exception. But I was lucky that my heightened metabolism had removed the toxins from my system before the fire managed to spread into the state room.
"Devil!" I sighed, finding a flat stone among the little pebbles. With a sharp flick, I released it, skipping it across the water.
A rather commonplace past-time.
I had a hellish urge to eat, but there wasn't even grass growing on this rocky outcropping. I was left only with lake water.
But don't think I spent several days there. Nothing of the sort. It wasn't even a half hour ago that I slammed down not far from here and had a nasty impact with the water. It hurt.
But it was a sharp and fast pain, totally incomparable to the extreme torment I experienced when my broken bones started growing back together, or my muscles and tendons started healing over. When my broken joints finally popped back in place, now that was excruciating.
I am a werebeast, and it isn't so easy to kill werebeasts, even with a fall from a kilometer in the sky. But, healing my body had started the flywheel of my sped-up metabolism, and I needed to eat something fast.
Eat something? Curses! I need to gorge myself! I don’t want to merely eat, but gorge myself. If I don't stuff my gut with meat right now, I'll start digesting my own body.
And the pain... the pain caused by the hunger in my muscles and joints was becoming ever more unbearable.
"Bugger!" My imaginary friend's favorite word tore itself involuntarily from my mouth and I realized that I would not be able to go on like this. A bit more and I'd no longer feel comfortable in my clarity of thinking. The hunger and pain after transforming back often deprived even much more experienced werebeasts of their presence of mind.
I was reminded of my father. Now, I understood the unbelievable effort he had gone through to stop himself becoming a beast once and for all. He was saved by his faith, but man's abilities are not limitless. As a way of coping with the pain, my dad drank and drank and drank. Then he died. Sucking down enough alcohol to kill a grown man day in and day out was just too much, even for a werewolf’s liver.
That thought put me beside myself.
I got up from the stones, picked up my jacket, which was splitting at the seams, and looked around. I was surrounded by the lake, with the green silhouettes of overgrown mountainside in the distance. In the west, the slopes were steeper, some with sheer faces. The color palette there was predominantly gray. Further in that direction, there was a corkscrew of black smoke winding up into the blue sky. That would have been my dirigible, still on fire.
In large part, the only thing stopping me from taking the inevitable dive into the lake was that I was afraid it would ruin my clothing once and for all. The fall had done a suitable number on my getup as it was, but after a second dip, even the highest quality fabric would be inexorably transformed into a dishrag. Looking like that, I might even get picked up for vagrancy.
I took a glance at my lacquered shoes, which I'd fished out of the lake and, with a fated sigh, started folding my jacket, which had just barely dried out in the bright summer sun.
Returning to the metropolis was a mistake – I now realized that very distinctly.
A breeze blew in, and I gave a shiver either from chill or the uncomfortable thought. It was most likely the latter – it wasn't cold. In fact, I was drenched in sweat.
Devil! I should have flown through England!
True as that was, London was also restless: the authorities there had recently led a series of raids on malefics, freemasons and socialists. Unions were leading workers to street demonstrations, adding fuel to the fire of the Irish independence movement. The police were on high alert, and I had absolutely no need to attract the attention of my former colleagues. I’d had a doctored passport made up under a new name during my stay in the Russian Provinces. It passed all imaginable registry checks, but still, the risk always remained of finding an overly vigilant constable or worse – a Department Three spook.
That was the last thing I needed, for someone to recognize me as Leopold Orso, the Viscount Cruce.
But it would seem now that someone had!
It was Leopold Orso precisely they were trying to kill. There couldn't be the slightest doubt in that. Lev Shatunov, as I was called after the document change, wasn't mixed up in any objectionable business. After receiving access to the safe-deposit box, I had left Zurich immediately and traveled the Old World, not staying in any one place for long.
Serious trouble had only befallen me one time, and that was garden variety stuff: someone tried to rob me. And it was my fault, really. At the start of my trip, I didn’t have the good sense to have a checkbook issued, and just dragged a thick packet of francs with me wherever I went. The robber was as savvy as he was cowardly. He simply popped three bullets into my back. When I came to, the robber was clearing out my pockets and removing the gold band of my timepiece from my arm. It's often said that greed can destroy a man. The robber coveted my golden bauble and, in the end, was made to part with his own head. It would be no exaggeration to call what happened a lapse of my self-control.
But was it really an attempted robbery? Or just a link in a chain?
Devil, I really should have flown through London! It was the simplicity of this route that had tempted me!
Heading to the New World through Atlantis was the easiest way. I didn't even have to make a stop in New Babylon. Directly from Lisbon, I was headed for the western shore of the island, where I was planning to fill my reserves before crossing the ocean.
I cursed, turned my head and took a cautious step into the transparent water. Near the shore, I could perfectly make out minnows scurrying over the pebbles. A bit in the distance, mountains and sky were reflected on the smooth surface of the lake.
I did not want to swim. I wanted to sit here, gather my thoughts and wait for something to change, but my hunger wouldn't subside and was egging me on more and more. Good sense echoed hunger. I was aware of the fact that no one and nothing would be coming to the island, so I'd have to swim no matter what. What was the point of wasting time, delaying the inevitable?
But I was so cold...
I returned to the shore and had already begun to unlatch my belt when suddenly...
"Around an island
and into midstream," came a well formulated voice belting out from the other side of the island, "the expansive river wave..." (Translator’s note: these are they lyrics to a Russian folk song known in English as The Song of Stenka Razin)
My belt latched back up, I hurried to scramble up the steep stony slope and gave a heavy sigh, not believing my own eyes.
On the backdrop of the gray spurs of the far-off mountains, there was a small pleasure boat gliding peacefully along the mirrored surface of the lake. A demure gentleman of middling years was rowing the boat with even strokes, his head hanging down in a somber fashion; his companion was standing on the bow with a bottle of wine in hand, singing in a high bass with abandon, probably imitating Chaliapin rather than having such a vocal timbre naturally.
I had no intention of missing the chance to get off the island without getting my feet wet, so I waved my jacket over my head.
"Hey! On the boat!"
The oarsman gave a frightened shudder and pulled his short powerful neck into his shoulders. The singer, meanwhile, slapped his hand to his head and said something to his companion. He started rowing with one oar, turning the boat toward the island.
I caught my breath with relief and started getting a look at my approaching rescuers. They didn't quite look like hunters: no dickies, tall boots or rifles. The singer was wearing a light linen suit. He'd gone out for his nautical voyage with his head uncovered; the oarsman, wearing a morning coat and pair of striped trousers, couldn't leave tradition by the wayside and had a boater hat hanging loosely off his crown. And he made the exact right choice: in the midday July sun, one could fry even in the mountains. If one started abusing wine along with that, singing was the next logical step.
By the way, the thin man on the bow of the ship didn't seem drunk and easily held his balance, looking at me from behind the palm he'd slapped to his forehead. Dark blond and with a short, well-trimmed beard, he could have been taken for a very successful lawyer or even a professor if it weren't for a certain levity and even sharpness in his movements. For some reason, I got the impression this man was not cut-out for fist-fighting.
His companion was of a more solid build and worked the oars confidently without the slightest strain. His bushy mutton chops came together into a mustache. Along with the pipe in his teeth, it created the image of a sea captain. That image was spoiled a bit, though, by a thick pocket-watch chain. A merchant? That looked very much to be the case.
"Sirs!" I raised my voice when there was no more than ten meters between the boat and the island. "I feel awfully uncomfortable asking, but could you please do me the kindness of bringing me to shore? The water is awfully cold this time of year. I'll even man the oars!"
"There we go!" grumbled the oarsman, shivering nervously.
His companion, as if apologizing for the man, gave a good-hearted wave of his free hand.
"We'll take you there in fine fashion, have no doubt about it. How could we not help a countryman, Mister...?"
"Lev Borisovich Shatunov, at your service," I hurried to introduce myself.
"More likely, it is us at your service," the oarsman noted cantankerously.
The singer laughed.
"Don't listen to that old grumbler, Lev Borisovich. I welcome you aboard our craft!"
"One minute!"
I came down the slope, but not to the boat, to the other side, to get my shoes. I quickly grabbed them and rushed back, now feeling slightly worried I'd see my rescuers rowing away in the distance when I returned.
But no, they waited for me. Due to the rocks on the shore, the rower wouldn't risk bringing the boat right up to the island, and I had to walk to them in the water with my pants rolled up to my knees. But compared with swimming across the whole lake, that was a mere trifle.
The crooner on the bow of the boat, not at all ashamed at what his new companion might think, put the bottle of wine to his lips and took a good gulp.
"Take heart, Count! We have a great journey ahead of us!" he announced after that.
I nearly fell back overboard when hearing the address.
"Uhh... Count?"
The singer started darting his eyes and sighed sorrowfully. The paddler came to my aid.
"This farce is something even I feel capable of deciphering," he laughed good heartedly. "Lev, as in Lev Tolstoy. And Lev Tolstoy is what? That's right, a Count."
"But please," I disagreed, taking a seat on the bench, "why Count precisely and not writer?"
"Pardon me, Lev Borisovich!" the singer gasped. "But what do you mean writer? A writer is, you know, a person who follows their heart, up until midnight in a dingy apartment. A writer strings chapters together to pay off debts, then burns them in a drunken fit. But Count Tolstoy – he's a Count. A high word count, too. That’s what I say, anyway."
"I won't argue," I snorted and threw my shoes onto the wooden grate that covered the bottom of the boat, then started rolling down my pants.
"With your charades, we forgot all about common decency," grumbled the oarsman, having begun to turn the boat away from the island. "Allow me to introduce myself: Yemelyan Nikoforovich Krasin."
"Ivan Prokhorovich Sokolov," the singer joined his comrade and smiled understandingly: "Count, I suppose there's no reason for us to inquire about the circumstances of your arrival to this patch of uninhabitable land?"
"You oblige me greatly," I sighed, not feeling like inventing a decent lie.
"We expect the same of you," Yemelyan Nikoforovich grumbled.
"I'm such a dolt!" Sokolov suddenly slapped his palm on his forehead. "You aren't any old Count, you’re the Count of Monte Cristo!"
"Alright, that train has left the station," Krasin laughed good-heartedly.
"Just how does one not account for the island?" Ivan Prokhorovich was still lamenting. "Oh well, I'm guess I’m just getting old..."
A gust of wind blew in, rocking the boat. A slight ripple of somebody’s fear pricked me. But such fears had little power over me now; I was looking obsessively for a picnic basket. I knew it was somewhere. I could smell the intoxicating aroma of fresh grub. I swallowed my spit.
A werebeast can only be stopped by silver and electricity, but beyond that, we have another thing hanging over our heads like a sword of Damocles: pain and hunger. The pain is from transforming into human form, or the rapid healing process. After either one of those is completed, the body demands its energy be replenished, giving rise to an unbearable desire to fill one’s belly.
I was devilishly hungry, and the scent of fresh pone and meat pies were driving me batty. Fortunately, Sokolov caught my gaze and offered:
"Help yourself, Lev Borisovich. And feel free to have some wine, as well."
"Wine is a bit much in sun like this, Ivan Prokhorovich," I replied, refusing the drink as I placed the basket on my knees. "But don't you doubt that I will compensate all expenses."
My wallet had not dropped out of my pocket in the fall, and although the bank notes had soaked through while in the water, it wasn't long enough for them to lose all value. Coins included, I had just under fifty francs on me, which was enough for lunch for three, and to get my clothing mended. But from there...
From there, my path was clouded over.
"Shame on you, Lev Borisovich!" Sokolov rebuked me. "Helping a countryman in a difficult spot is the due of every decent person."
All that remained was to be glad that my grandfather had taught me my native language. There was also some thanks to my father, who had a tentative grasp and didn't allow me to forget it. Then, after fleeing from the metropolis, I'd spent enough time to cover my linguistic gaps enough to pretend I was natively born in the Russian provinces without risking being immediately uncovered. Accent? An accent is business as usual for people who dwell in foreign lands.
I opened the picnic basket and nearly drowned in spit. But I didn’t lay into it yet and asked my rescuers:
"Won't you join me?"
The burly rower went pale and quickly turned away,
while Sokolov started smiling again.
"Yemelyan Nikiforovich, unfortunately, feels quite unwell on the water. He has no appetite," he said and looked at the bottle in his hand. "And I, thank you very much, will limit myself to wine. This Madeira is ambrosial and delightfully self-sufficient!"
"That's no good for you in this burning heat, Ivan Prokhorovich," Krasin grumbled, confidently working the oars.
The singer began answering at length, but I wasn't listening anymore, clearing out the picnic basket. In the end, I wolfed down a meat pie, an open fish pie, a piece of cheese, a link of blood sausage, a fancy roll and two apples. It killed my hunger, but I wasn't exactly sated. I wanted something hot. Preferably – a first course, a main, and desert. And without fail, a strong sweet tea.
But for now, I leaned overboard, scooped up a handful of water and drank it. That made Krasin plainly squirm. His rounded face and massive jaw instantly attained the color of a fresh linen.
And again, I caught a fear. Viscous and powerful, it tore into my nerves in time with the lapping of the waves on the side of the boat.
Yemelyan Nikiforovich had a panicking fear of water. Normal lake water, cold and pure.
And that seriously surprised me. There is often no logic present in peoples' fears. Agoraphobia, for example. But why go off on a boat ride with that type of nervous-system malfunction?
"I'm afraid I've left you without a lunch..." I muttered thoughtfully, wiping my greasy fingers on a handkerchief.
"Don't worry," Krasin sighed loudly, his fingers gone white in strain from clenching the oars, "we'll take lunch in a restaurant."
At that moment, we came around a rocky cape, revealing a small bay, the calm surface of which was being crisscrossed by a great many pleasure boats. Refined gentlemen and hired rowers were working oars. Ladies were sitting under parasols in tranquil idyll. There was a long quay stretched out down the shore. On its far edge, an open veranda hung out over the lake with tables for those who preferred a mug of aromatic coffee and a sandwich to a boat voyage.
"Montecalida!" exploded out of me. I'd never before had the chance to visit this resort town, but the view was perfectly familiar from postcards. In my childhood, I’d spent hours staring at postcards, dreaming about visiting all the marvelous locations they depicted.
