I gulped when I heard that. I could see that he wasn't exaggerating.
"We rounded up the McDonalds and threw them off the island," Gunnarr continued. "They wanted revenge and tried to come back, but we were prepared. All the inhabitants of the island, all the members of the clan. We hid in that cave, watching them as they tried to take the island from the sea, but one of our members climbed up the hill and they saw us. They covered the entrance with hay and set it on fire. Stories say that only one family was saved, others that only one old woman survived. In fact, neither is true. It was Nagorno and I. The island was left empty, they all perished. After that we hid in Ireland and over time we became the heads of the northern clans, Hugh O'Neill, Count of Tyrone and Red Hugh O´Donell, Lord of Tyrconnell."
"And now you're talking about Kinsale," I interrupted.
"Yes, but I'll tell you about that some other day, stedmor. Some other day," he whispered behind me.
"My mother would have found the episode interesting," I commented, changing the conversation.
"Your mother? And why's that?"
"Because she was a psychologist and would have thought that your ability to end up in situations where fire is involved is a great emotional trigger."
"And once more, the vision of an ephemeral such as your mother gives us an opinion that's too biased. How would she have been able to see the full picture of the four longevos and their elements?"
"I don't understand, Gunnarr."
"It's an old theory I have. I believe that each longevo is linked to one of the four elements: Earth, Water, Wind and Fire. It's inevitable, the elements present themselves to us time and time again throughout our lives. My grandfather Lür's element is Earth, given his Real Name and his attachment to this planet to the point of never abandoning it. My father, Urko, is linked to Water. His name means "He Who Comes From The Water", which comes from his mother's clan and their belief that our eyes are this color because we are linked to the water and we must always live near the coast, just as my father has always told me, or we will lose our identity and the color of our eyes will be lost forever. My Uncle Nagorno, to Wind. He has always lived in places where the wind is stronger than any other element. Or maybe it's the other way around, wherever he goes, the wind obeys him and follows him, and ends up owning the surrounding area. I'm not sure, I've seen too many miracles happen by his side. As for me, and I don't know why the hell why, but I always end up coming face to face with fire. For now, I've always managed to beat it."
"I hadn't made the connection with the names."
"The sounds of our names are very old, they come from the first words, the first roots."
"Up until now I knew that the morpheme UR was repeated in many places around Europe where there was water. There are streams called Urti, the river Uringa in the Rif and all its derivatives, all the sources of the l'Or in Spain and in the Alps. Iago gave me a lecture on prehistoric and pre Indo-European place names."
"That's right, it's one of the oldest words that exists, although Lür is even older. The sound that accompanies it, represented nowadays by the letter el, accompanied the words that referred to something it contained, the support, the earth itself. All of our original names try to maintain this morpheme, adapting them to the different languages of the culture we were born into: Lur, Urko, Nagorno, Lyra, Gunnarr… We carry the stamp of the Ancient Family in our names, and that's not good, it's not good..." he said to himself. "Uncle Nagorno told me that my father calls you Dana. It's a very old morpheme, I wouldn't use it. You should be careful with that," he muttered, as if the simple fact of saying it out loud would hurt him.
"Getting back to the matter of the four elements, my grandfather Lür, on the other hand, thinks that each of us longevos has a totem: his is a mammoth, due to its longevity. My father, a cave lion, due to its intelligence and agility, Nagorno a snake and me an albino bear. That's what us Ancients are like, we have our absurd beliefs, our superstitions."
"The Ancients?"
"Yes, the longevos with many millennia behind them."
"You speak as though there were more than just your grandfather and your father."
"No, not that I know of. Come on, I don't want the snake to sneak up on us. My Uncle Nagorno mustn't find out about this or you won't be allowed out of your cell."
"Are you really worried about my wellbeing?"
He didn't answer, Gunnarr never did if he didn't have anything to add or if it wasn't convenient for him to give an answer. He simply ignored me and didn't seem to feel uncomfortable with the silences.
"My mother was Nagorno's psychologist," I told him, just to carry on talking. "In fact, she tried, to no avail, to treat the psychopath that is your uncle. A lost case.”
"Don't underestimate him. You know that I understand your hatred towards him, you've seen his worst side. The side that killed your mother, that kidnapped you, but I'd say that despite all that, you have an effect on him that no other woman ever has. What's more, when this whole episode is satisfactorily resolved, I'm sure that Nagorno won't ever bother you again. I know that he's really upset about this situation, he would have wanted to resolve it another way, without involving you."
"That's very optimistic of you. Do you really think that Iago will get here in time? What you've asked of him is verging on the impossible, and you're smart enough to know that."
"You have to have more faith in my father. We all have to. I do. I know that he would do the impossible to cure Uncle Nagorno in time. And then he will leave you alone. In fact, I think that you've gained a protector. I think that during the decades of life you have left, Nagorno will take care of you from the shadows, from a distance, as he always does for those he loves. And I'll get over my damn pride and forgive my father once and for all. If he appreciates you as much as you deserve, then I'm satisfied with the suffering I've caused him with your kidnapping. Trust my father, stedmor. He'll return the much needed order to the Ancient Family."
"Your father," I sighed. "Iago would be alarmed if he knew what I was thinking, and I'm also worried about my own reactions, in a way."
"Explain."
"How? I'll try to make you understand without you laughing at me. You see, Gunnarr, the days are very long in my cell and I force myself not to think about Iago, it would make me ill to think about how desperate he must feeling about my kidnapping and Nagorno's threat, and yours as well, there's no point in beating about the bush... Despite that, I think that my brain is playing tricks on me. I thought that I was stronger, that I would have more stamina, but I keep having the same thought, remembering over and over the stories you tell me about the berserkir, waiting for you to come at night to tell me a bit more."
"You're worried about becoming dependent on me so as not to drive yourself crazy."
"To be frank, Gunnarr, I'm afraid of having Stockholm."
Gunnarr pulled on the reins and the horse came to a stop.
“That means having an unhealthy dependence towards your captor."
"That's right."
"I don't think so, you just tried to run away from me."
"I had to give it a try, don't you think? But while I was being led by Nagorno's horse, I couldn't stop thinking: It's over, I can be free. This can all be over soon. And I couldn't stop thinking about the consequences, about whether Iago will forgive you, about whether I'll ever see you again, about your stories, about what happened to you, and above all, about whether I'll ever find out what happened in Kinsale that separated a father and son who loved each other as much as you two did."
Gunnarr kept quiet and we set off again. I couldn't see anything, I could just feel his belt and his chest rhythmically hitting against my back as the horse trotted along.
"Gunnarr, are you there?" I asked. "Have you fallen asleep?"
"I nearly did," he said, but his tone had changed. It was cold, distant, and that's what I was looking for. A reaction, a change. "Your explanations bore me, stedmor. And believe me, if anyone wants this kidnap
ping to be over, it's me."
We reached the stables in silence, Gunnarr lit a small light to put the horses back in their place and frowned at the sky that was beginning to get lighter.
"We should go inside, my uncle will wake any time now."
But I wasn't going to let this moment pass. Gunnarr seemed willing to confide in me and tell me pretty much anything.
"What you said earlier about the fire... the scars on your neck are from a fire, aren't they?"
He looked at me in surprise.
"No one's noticed them for a long time," he muttered to himself.
"I guess that's because no one's been that close to you in a very long time to see them."
He took off his dark shirt, that had one of those phrases that was everywhere lately: Keep calm and carry swords. Very Gunnarr.
"What happened?" I asked, looking at the scars that ran down his chest.
"I had a boat and a crew. In the 14th century I earned a living taking English Pilgrims across the English Channel to the Spanish coast, where they continued their route towards the old Camino de Santiago. I met a woman, their leader. She was powerful, although I could tell that she was disloyal. She asked me for a favor, a costly favor, that included spilling much blood. I did it, but I made sure to leave her tied to a promise. I got these burns coming back on the boat from that mission. My clothes set on fire, the ship sunk and I lost all my men."
I went over to him to get a better look in the dark.
"I know that my scars are repulsive to the eyes of a woman."
"No, it's not that," I said, running my hand over his scarred chest. I was more horrified that someone had lived through that. "It's just that the scars cover your entire chest, you must have thought that your heart was going to burn that day."
"You said it, stedmor. My heart almost turned to coal on that fateful day."
He accompanied me to the cell in silence and didn't lock the door until he saw me lie down on the bed, but he was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn't even say goodbye.
I waited for him to turn the light off and smiled in the dark.
My attempt to escape had been unsuccessful, but Gunnarr had given me enough information about my location: I now had an idea of where I was being held.
I just needed for Gunnarr to keep believing in my Stockholm syndrome. The next time he wanted to test my reactions, he wasn't going to get today's test run.
29
First Massacre
LÜR
Current Tanzania, 20.000 B.C.
"Lür, you have to come! You must see this!" shouted the girl, a gwadi, tugging on his arm.
Lür recognized her by her curly hair. All the other children in the village had straighter hair, maybe because they were all mixed-race, children of Lür, a white man, and his wives, who all had dark skin.
He dropped his bow and ran behind her, forgetting about the prey he was about to shoot. The gwadi's eyes were huge and he'd seen that look of terror before. He knew that something very bad had happened.
"It was the devils," the little girl said, with a dry mouth. "I saw them run. They were white like you and were shouting your name."
Lür went over to the huts in disbelief. The silence was so thick that he didn't even recognize the place. Until that morning it had been a noisy melting-pot of chattering women, children running around and the laughter of his oldest sons, who were almost warriors like him.
They were all empty. Other than one, the large circular hut made of bricks and reeds. The sacred hut where Lür had officiated so many ceremonies. He slowly walked in, despite the swarm of buzzing flies that had been attracted by the heat given off by the recently destroyed corpses.
They'd all been stacked on top each other: his wives, the adolescents, the children. On the top of the human pyramid were the babies, Lür's latest children. They were surrounded by a circle of cowrie shells, an expense that only she could afford in order to leave her mark.
Because he knew that it had been Adana straight away. The ancient sounds of her words, spoken years ago, came back to him as cool as the river water.
"It doesn't matter where you run, it doesn't matter where you hide. My sons will find you and remind you that you will never have a family if it's not with me."
30
Deadline
IAGO
Another night came around, and I received Nagorno's call again, and another night that I spent in my laboratory. Increasingly more tired, increasingly more desperate because the countdown seemed to be creeping by faster than my hours of research, and the results were still a long way off from optimistic.
After Nagorno hung up, I stared for a long time at the phone, as if it could give me one of the answers that were tormenting me.
"Was that your brother?" Manon asked, without taking her eyes off whatever she was looking at under the microscope.
"It was."
"What did he say?"
"The same thing he says every night: Is it ready?"
"What did you tell him?”
"The same thing I tell him every night: Soon."
"Are you sure that the call can't be traced? I could help you with that, give me the SIM card and I can get in touch with certain contacts who..."
"My father is already trying," I interrupted. I still didn't trust her enough to give her my SIM card and all its secrets. "Although Nagorno is generally more advanced with technology than we are. At best, he can try to pinpoint an area, but it would be too broad to begin a search."
I shook my head helplessly upon mentioning my father. Lür had lost several days tracking all the islands of Lugo and the surrounding area where my brother and my son could have hid Adriana. He never left anything to chance when it came to finding people. The times he had had to find me or one of my brothers in order to keep the Ancient Family together left no doubt in my mind that Adriana wasn't on the Galician coast.
I went to pick him up one rainy morning on his return. His shoulders were hunched and he rubbed his sleepy, dark eyes.
"Back to the drawing board," he muttered, as if reciting a mantra. "When there are no results, you've just got to go back to the drawing board."
That night, Nagorno called me again to share his impatience.
"Is it ready?"
"It will be soon, I'm on the right track. You just have to worry about keeping that heart of yours beating. How's Adriana"
"I'm the one who asks the questions."
"Nagorno, how is Adriana? Tell me something, give me something to hold onto."
"No details, don't try being smart."
"I'm not. You're the boss. Just tell me how Adriana is."
He was quiet for a while. Something in my begging tone convinced him that it wasn't a trick.
"Adriana is fine, brother. I'm not a psychopath, although you both think that I am. She's strong, she'll hold up, and Gunnarr is very concerned about her wellbeing, although he wouldn't be at all pleased to know that I think that."
Back once again to the perverse family dynamics, and Dana stuck in the middle of it, surviving as best she could.
Marion's voice pulled me back from my dark thoughts.
"Are you coming for dinner? You're going to pass out on the test bench."
"No, I'm going to stay here. You go. I'll go down to the kitchen and grab a quick snack."
"You haven't been out in days, Iago," she reminded me, as she took off her lab coat and pulled a trench coat from the coat stand.
"I don't need to go out, time's running out and we're not seeing any results," I repeated again. Every day we ended up having the same conversation, saying the same sentences, as if we were a married couple.
"We will, we'll see results soon."
"Or not. Perhaps I shouldn't have accepted to get into such a complex line of work given the tight deadline that my brother's given me."
"I know, but as you said yourself, there's no alternative," she said, picking up her clutch and walking down the stairs.
"
No, there isn't," I replied to an empty space.
No, there isn't.
I stood up and took one of the mice from its cages. It was impossible to tell in so few days whether the viral therapy was showing any results. I sat down, feeling unsure and full of doubts, in a field that I knew little about. If I had have followed the line of the HeLa cells, the one I began together with my Danish friend, Flemming, everything would be more familiar, more known, I would already have a base that I could tweak.
But unfortunately, the HeLa cells, some tremendously aggressive cancer cells that Flemming had used in our previous research, where not the answer that Nagorno needed. They killed my friend when he injected himself with them, they took over his body in just a few days and created such a metastases that modern medicine wasn't able to beat it.
And that's when it hit me: everything I had been overlooking.
The truth left me paralyzed, standing in the middle of the lab, and the mouse ran out of my hands.
I didn't care.
Let it run away, escape, I didn't think I'd even need it anymore.
Because I'd just realized that the HeLa cells wouldn't kill my brother. His cancer inhibitors were still intact, if I cultivated Nagorno's cells with HeLa cells, which would have an active telomerase, and I injected him with it, his heart would go back to having longevo telomeres, always long, always regenerating. His cancer inhibitors would keep tumors at bay, his life wouldn't be at risk.
The evil I inoculated him with would be reversed.
Balance would be restored.
Then he would give me back Dana and leave us alone.
The Sons of Adam: The sequel of The Immortal Collection Page 18