A pleasant greeting was the last thing I'd expected from any of Gorgon's people. In truth, I was at a loss how to respond. Grella, on the other hand, was not.
The Nordic king swept past the guards to place a hand on the heads of each of the two hairy beasts even though he stood on tiptoes to do so.
“Are they not magnificent, Jean?” he purred. “Are they not all that this world should have been?”
“I suppose so. They are certainly hairy.”
Grella burst into laughter at my underwhelmed response; the beasts just sniffed.
“I never thought to see such as these again. It is a shame I do so with so little time left to observe them.”
“What is, them?” I asked, giving the hulking creatures a wide berth. Their protruding incisors and claws of scimitar length warranted a certain respect.
“They are polar bears, Jean, and I had thought them lost many thousands of years ago. How many have you?” he asked the bear's riders, who were again stood to attention.
“A handful, Your Highness.”
“Ah, so you know me.”
“We know of your legend.”
“Hmm, might I ask how?”
“Our master, Duke Gorgon, keeps all the ancient truths alive,” the guard said, pride dripping from his tongue. “We are an enlightened people.”
“Really,” said I.
“Yes, sir.”
“That does not sound like the Duke I remember.”
“He is many things to many people. To us, he is and always will be our duke. We would die for him,” they announced, chests puffed out and heads held high.
“Well, I don't think we need go that far,” I said. “Not today, anyway.”
The two men placed clenched fists to their chests and lifted their chins even higher.
“And to what do we owe this welcome,” Grella interceded before I could put my foot in anything.
“We are to bring you to him.”
“And what if we do not wish to be brought?”
The first guard, he who had done all the talking, smiled.
“May I enquire as to what amuses you?”
“Our Lord predicted you would answer as such.”
“And?”
“And that if you did, we were to say this: Sir Walter Merryweather of Britannia humbly awaits your audience.”
“Ah,” I replied.
“I presume he too is a guest of Duke Gorgon?” Grella asked.
“He is, Your Highness.”
“Then you know who my companion is as well.”
The two guards shook their heads.
“Ha! You are unknown, my friend. How does that make you feel, Jean?” Grella chuckled like crumbling granite cliffs.
“Suspicious.”
It was like a volcano that had striven to erupt, but never quite managed it, had, at last, its opportunity for release. The rumble of Grella's laughter rolled up from the depths of his powerful chest to startle the bears and force the guards back a pace. He let loose such a ruckus I thought he should never stop, but just as soon as he'd started, he did, the Nordic's seismic activity capped.
“You are a constant source of amusement, my friend.”
“Really?”
“I do not mean it an inflammatory way. I have just never met anyone like you, and I have met many in my time. You are by far and away the most suspicious man I have ever met. You trust no one and include yourself in the equation.”
“It's always paid me to be suspicious, particularly so of myself. I am a most untrustworthy fellow.”
“Rubbish,” said Grella. “You are the most trustworthy man I have ever met.” He gave me no chance to reply, instead, turning back to the Baltic guards and their great beasts. “Now, I must remember my manners this time. With your permission, gentlemen?”
“Sir,” a twinned response.
Grella raised his hands and gave the polar bears each a scratch behind their tufted ears. The bears responded with closed eyes and bared teeth. I suspected them about to bite. I was wrong. The two great creatures nuzzled into him as though Grella was a long-lost son. He removed his hands with some reluctance and peered into the bleak horizon. “Well, gentleman,” he said to the two Baltics, “despite an urge to do this for all eternity, I suggest you lead on whilst Jean is in no mood to protest.”
“Your Highness!” the two barked.
We followed the guards across the tundra, they leading their lumbering charges over the barren terrain. By grabbing a handful of fur beneath each bear's jaws, they manipulated which way the massive creatures walked; a tug left or right sufficient to guide the beasts wherever. I made a mental note not to do so myself as it looked a sure-fire way to lose one's fingers.
We travelled across the rock in echoing footsteps. The island was more suited to ghosts than people. Maybe we were the next best thing. We trudged passed endless boulders on an otherwise featureless plateau until reaching a ridge in the island surface, which we ascended. It was not a long or in any way arduous trek, and before I knew it, we all looked down upon a compound guarded by several more of the mounted Baltics.
The compound was small and almost filled by a craft not unlike that which the Marquis had made his blood deliveries in except for being less auspicious. It seemed a strange vehicle to guard in so desolate a place, but each to their own. The craft itself looked capable of carrying perhaps a dozen people, but certainly not even one of the great bears.
The slump of Grella's broad shoulders suggested disappointment. He assumed the same as I, and I had not the heart to confirm it. The bears he so idolised would not be part of his next journey and he knew it. I had to admit, there was something about them that inspired. Those rippling muscles hinted at a raw power contained within their white bulk that perhaps only the orcas matched. Those teeth, white and dagger-like that protruded from behind charcoal lips, would have confirmed any lingering doubts that the beasts were nothing less than killers in waiting. It was a credit to both beasts and trainers that never for a second did the bears look upon Sunyin as a potential foodstuff. Good job, too, for although they were big, they weren't big enough. It was plain for all to see why Grella would worship them so, and at the pain he must have felt at their supposed extinction all those moons ago. Sometimes, one does not appreciate another's world until one lives it, and I did, and I felt sorry for that king of a lost people.
“Guards,” I said.
“Sir.”
“Are we to travel in yonder craft?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you think I might ask a favour before we do?”
“Of course.”
To see Grella's face as he mounted the bear's broad back saddle-less, too primal to be tamed, was a thing of exultation. If ever he'd been a boy, then the king that rode down the mountainside was he. I watched him bob up and down as though on an undulating sea, head thrown back and fierce laughter echoing across the island. Grella was happy in those few minutes in a way I suspected he would never be again, nor ever had. He rode the great beast as though his life depended upon it, as though the world depended upon it, and never for a second cared who saw him. He drove the polar bear down the mountainside as though its lungs might burst and heart expire, then drove it some more. The bear responded in growled roars of antiquity which only made Grella laugh all the more. The pair were feral, dangerous, the stuff of legends. He rode the great beast at a lick right up to the compound gates before collapsing upon its back and hugging it in a bone-crushing grip; the great bear never flinched.
By the time the Baltic Guards, the second bear, seemingly jealous at its brother's exuberance, and I, caught up with him, Grella chatted to the beast's keepers as though they were kith and kin. The compound guards answered his questions with polite replies, their heads lowered in deferential respect even though he had not asked for it. I knew how they felt. There was just something about speaking to Grella that demanded one to act with such reverence. He was the best of us. He should have ruled us all.
“Jean!” he enthused, as I approached. “Did you see me? Did you see how the bear moved?”
“I did, Your Highness.”
“Pfft! You are not to call me that, you are my friend.”
“And ever will be,” I replied.
“As will I,” he smiled and patted me on the shoulder.
The guards cast sideways looks at each other as though they thought the pair of us insane, but only when one's tongue licked dry lips did I realise where their eyes were really cast.
“Do not even think it,” I said in iced tones. “Your fellow guards have done too well for you to spoil things with an ill-timed moment of madness.”
The guards returned their eyes to the task at hand.
“You still wish to take the monk with you?” Grella asked.
“There is no force on heaven or earth that will rend him from my grasp.”
“Good, because I suspect he will be the last of our worries.”
And in that moment I realised Grella all too aware of our situation. Also, that his sister was notable by her absence.
I said nothing as we mounted the ramped entrance to the flying craft. I thought I heard a set of unaccounted for footsteps but could not have sworn to it, as we took our places upon a shabby bench that was screwed to the machine's floor. Three Baltic Guards entered with us, plus one who was already at the flashing controls made four.
Grella stared out of the craft's entrance until its boarding ramp retracted like a tongue having tasted something sour to form a sealed doorway. That was the last we saw of the great bears, the craft windowless other than for a front screen. That saddened me. Grella, however, remained impassive, but I saw the faraway glint in his eye.
We took off with a chug, the craft less adept than the other vehicles in which I'd travelled. We rose into the air in jolting bursts until shooting forward at some incalculable speed, though I imagined it great. I observed what I could through the front screen, which was not much, the clouds passing by in bursts of grey until we dipped at the front end. High cliffs sprung into view on which, abutted right against the razor-toothed heights, stood a castle of fairy-tale bearing. With more towers and turrets than I could be bothered to count, each bearing the blue and yellow colours of the Baltic people, the castle gleamed like a blood blister against the ruby sun.
Grella took it all in his silent stride, once more taciturn and solitary, as we came to land just outside the castle's gates. I would have liked to say I did too, but I'd have lied.
“We have quite the welcoming committee,” Grella rumbled.
“It is not every day a legend comes to visit.”
“You think they come to meet an albino myth?”
“What other reason would there be?”
“You tell me, my friend.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I see from your expression, you recognise Duke Gorgon,” Grella commented, as he spied the Baltic leader, a hulk amongst the group that awaited us.
“Yes, and I recognise his daughter Violante, too.”
The slapped palm to Nordic forehead said it all.
Chapter Eleven
-
Gorgon
“Welcome, Prince Grella, your return is long overdue.” The giant, Gorgon, rumbled the words as thunder, inclined his head and offered a great shovel of a hand to the Nordic.
“How long is too long?” Grella replied taking it. The crunch of steel bone meeting steel bone was one of friendship, which both troubled and relieved in equal measure.
“Far too long,” he replied, levering a winged helmet from his head. Gorgon wiped away beads of sweat that ran like a turbulent river through a deep scar which spanned his bald pate. The liquid traced the lines of the trench to cascade over his right eyebrow and drip with a plop to the dusty ground. The effect was quite spectacular considering Eternals did not sweat and proved one thing with an assuredness that warmed my innards, well, almost: Gorgon feared us.
I watched from one side as the diminutive Violante, Gorgon's only daughter, eyed me with barely concealed ire. I couldn't blame her, for once I deserved every glare. She grappled with the edges of the sky-blue cape that almost consumed her petite frame smothering her like a clear, blue day might once have done a cloud. She hadn't aged a second since last I'd turned tail and run from her. The same now as she was then, Violante mimicked her Italian mother in both looks and temperament, no bad thing to an observing man.
“I see you still keep things pristine and orderly.” Grella gave the castle an approving look.
“Is there any other way to die but with dignity, Prince?”
“King,” I interjected.
“Pardon, did you say something, little man?”
Gorgon acknowledged me for the first time even if it was with disdain.
“Ah, so you remember, Jean.”
“Everyone remembers him. Everyone that counts, at least.”
“With fondness?”
The scathing glance said not, as I pondered over if Grella had just cracked a joke.
“Will his presence be a problem?”
Gorgon turned his massive bulk and weathered features to Violante, who responded with an almost imperceptible shake of the head.
“No,” Gorgon replied. “I welcome you both, although his burdensome presence might prove problematic.”
“And his?” Grella pointed to the monk in my arms revealing the full extent of his blood-splattered robes.
“No,” Gorgon replied.
“It had better not,” I growled. I did not appreciate the duke's licking of lips.
“Mind your tongue, sapling, you are in my home now,” he snapped, his tongue returned behind portcullis teeth. “No one shall touch the monk whilst I forbid it. You have my word.” Gorgon gave a sweep of the crowd that had gathered behind him.
“How did you know he was a monk?” I asked, cutting straight to the point.
“I know much.”
“Good, for we have need to speak, and it looks like you may have the answers Jean and I seek,” Grella said before I might drop myself in it further.
“Ah, you are as intriguing a man as you were all those millions of years ago?”
“Has it been so long?”
“Longer.”
“I hoped my jaw had not clanged when it hit the floor.”
* * *
Our small party of royalty, guards and me swept into the castle courtyard like a multicoloured tide. The towering summits of those pointed rooftops cast a semi-permanent night over the place despite the general lightness of brick. The palace, or castle, or whatever it aspired to be was just one big, conspicuous white blimp, rather like an onion bulb carved and crafted into something it should never have been. Although, I had to admit it a well-treated one. One plus to the pale palace, even if dyed a lighter shade of ruby, was we might otherwise have lost Grella, smeared in crimson as he was, in the architectural detail.
Gorgon's standards fluttered from every conceivable arm and masthead. The canary yellow and sky-blue shimmered in the low light, a sight I was sure would have looked most spectacular in true daylight. In fact, much though it pained me to admit, Gorgon's residence should have looked a wonder in almost any other light than that which we resided; what a waste.
If Gorgon's residence was imperious from the outside, it was doubly so from within. To say the master of the house was akin to Vladivar in personae, his tastes were much improved. Where iron and stone prevailed in the former, Gorgon's walls, passages and chambers overflowed with opulence. Mosaics of twinkling colours adorned every inch of wall space not already acquired by a portrait or landscape painting. Violante and her mother, sadly deceased, featured high on the list of captured images, but not exclusively. I marvelled at the craftsmanship of this sculpture or that marble bust and even dallied over a carving of an old-world vampire bending some pretty virgin over his knee, exposed fangs poised to strike. Doors of carved ivory were thrown open at our passage by attendees bedecked in the bri
ght Baltic colours and all exuded class. It had not always been so if memory served, but I held my tongue.
We marched after Gorgon, who remained silent throughout, into a hall of massive, tapestried walls. A single balcony, encompassing the perimeter of the chamber, surged between the extravagant decorations, drapes and coverings to overlook the many tables bedecked with decanter upon decanter of blood. A veritable feast for the palette and a reminder of just how predictable our passage seemed to have been.
There was more blood on display in this single room than I imagined the Marquis to own in his whole blood bank. It did not go unnoticed. Grella's fingers twitched as he passed the drinking vessels, but he did not touch them. I admired his self-discipline after having not sated himself for so many days.
A mere finger wag from their master and several palace guards pushed two tables together, then prised Sunyin from my reluctant fingers, only to lay him with great dignity on a makeshift mausoleum. I did not care for being apart from my old friend's remains, but his small form was in plain sight and that had to do.
When Gorgon took his place at the head of the last and largest table, Grella sitting to his left, Violante to his right and I to hers, then and only then did the Nordic pour himself a drink and down it in one.
“I see you are thirsty,” Gorgon chuckled.
“Somewhat,” Grella responded.
“I presumed you had feasted judging by your attire.”
“That is my blood.”
“Yours!” Gorgon almost upended the table as he shot back in his seat, his enormous gut wobbling on the table edge. “But I thought no man able to harm the Nordic royals.”
“It was not a man.”
“It was not?”
“No.”
“Then what, pray tell?”
“An orca took me. The beast dragged me beneath the Arctic ice and I grappled with it for a time.”
Grella spoke the words as though it was such an everyday occurrence that all who occupied the hall might have done the same earlier the same day.
“But the orcas are no more.” Gorgon's frowning resembled the sand dunes of the Hispanic region as seen from the Pyrenees. How I wished I was there. How I wished I was anywhere other than where I was.
Into Eternity (The Eternals Book 3) Page 9
