The Count of the Living Death (The Chronicles of Hildigrim Blackbeard)

by Joshua Grasso

  “This very hour,” he emphasized. “It’s the only way.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Mary sat facing her father, whose dark, unforgiving gaze tempted her to make a desperate leap from the coach. If only they weren’t going so fast over the bumpiest road imaginable! Was this even a road? Half a century ago it might have passed for a road, but now…no sensible person would travel ten miles on it in any direction. But her father was far from sensible at the moment. The moment she appeared he grabbed her arm and threatened to confine her in a nunnery in the most God-forsaken desert on earth. How could she do this to him, to her late mother, to the reputation of their family (which had so far escaped scandal for nine generations)? How did she expect him to explain to her fiancé why she had run away? And more importantly, how did she expect to make amends for her disgraceful conduct?

  Mary’s answer was simple: she crossed her arms and scowled, “do what you will.” Leopold would come for her. She had implicit faith in him and the magician; her father severely underestimated her resolve. They couldn’t make her marry him, that simpering, pretentious oaf. by/se hadNever mind that he was a Duke and had three estates of various sizes and an impeccable bloodline. Estates crumbled into worthless stones, and blood, once spilled, retained little of its original value. Love, alone, was beyond price. And she had an endless store to spend with Leopold.

  “I see, you’re thinking of him, are you?” her father barked. “That no-account Count. His father was a notorious eccentric. Consorted with wizards.”

  “You don’t know anything about wizards,” she muttered.

  “I know they stir up scandal wherever they go! The dark arts are like a malicious worm that tunnels into the heart of family and bleeds it dry. There’s a reason your Count hasn’t made a match yet. And he’s certainly barking up the wrong tree if he intends to court my daughter!”

  “Let’s not speak of it,” she said, with a pained sigh. “I’ll marry whomever you wish, whenever you wish. It makes no difference to me.”

  “Of course not; you mean to escape or have him rescue you,” he said, leaning forward. “But I warn you: there will be neither rescue nor escape. I’m putting you on a ship first thing in the morning bound for Cytheria, where the duke has his oldest estate. If we can bring him to accept damaged goods—for damaged you certainly are to his family—you will be married within the week. If not…well, let’s hope it won’t come to that.”

  “Cytheria?” she said, with a slight shudder.

  Cytheria had long been famous for the plague of 343 (or 1291, using the old reckoning), where half the population died within a single month. Few had ever returned, as the land was said to breed plagues and ailments; even now, to say one was going to Cytheria was synonymous with “suicide.” So this was her fate, unless he could he find her in time. Or would she be already stricken—and worse still, infect him with her pestilence? The tears came quickly now, as she clutched her head and felt herself sink through the coach, the road and straight into the depths of Hades.

  “Don’t be so dramatic,” he father said, lighting his pipe. “The duke needs this match as much as we do. And Cytheria doesn’t kill everyone off. Some do survive…and you’ve always had a robust constitution.”

  “I can’t believe this,” she rasped. “Is my life so meaningless to you?”

  “On the contrary, I care a great deal for your life; it’s certainly cost me enough,” he snapped. “When you have children you’ll understand. A family is an investment, Mary. It must be spent wisely, guarded carefully, and loaned only to those who know the value of money. Count Leopold would spend you in a spree of indifference and bankrupt the family’s position. As a father I have to think of these things.”

  “So that’s what I am to you: pennies and krouck? Someone to sell for a profit?” she asked, venomously.

  “That’s my right of seniority,” he said, nodding complacently. “Trust me…I know it sounds cynical and unromantic, but it’s the way of the world. I, too, was spent in my time. And I’ve come to value my price. As a woman you have tremendous value, and in time, you will come to own it. But not yet.”

  “I don’t want money—I want life!” she shouted, kicking the door.

  “The life you seek is imaginary. Love is like the clouds…very pretty to look at, but you’ll never reach them. Far better to buy castles and climb up towers to view them.”

  “Standing on towers makes me want to jump.”

  “Not without some return on my investment,” he said, exhaling smoke. “Mary, I never disguised my intentions. As the wife of the Duke Vladimir your value will increase twofold. One day you will be able to buy whatever you like: love, happiness, my head on a plate. But first you will be spent by the men who control your fate.”

  The conversation was over. Mary turned away from him, looking out the dark window into a hidden world. Only the clattering coach wheels and a few branches scraping against the windows consoled her. I’ll name my own price and spend myself accordingly, she told herself. Just you wait.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Blackbeard and Ivan followed the Count down the ancient staircase to the catacombs. The catacombs were originally part of an old temple from a forgotten civilization, which the castle neatly incorporated and rubbed out. Yet on the walls strange symbols danced out, beguiling in their exoticism and in some cases, familiarity. A young couple, obviously flushed from the summer sun, reached out to embrace one another. Elsewhere figures played instruments, hunted, and seemed to mourn their departed companions. Leopold was deeply moved, his fingers tracing their soft outlines. These people once lived here, once laughed and dreamed as I do. In the end we’re all the same; in the end we all disappear.

  The group continued down a dismal hallway ornamented with swords and eyeballs to the final resting place of his father. Leopold fought off waves of revulsion as he approached the chamber. His breathing became labored, as a cold sweat fogged his brain and weakened his legs. Ivan steadied him, though had little resolve himself. He studied Blackbeard on the off-chance that the sorcerer was merely testing them. Unfortunately, the sorcerer merely lowered his head as if to say that yes, the prospect was daunting, but to defeat death required a terrible sacrifice.

  “Is there any other way?” Leopold asked.

  “You already know the alternative,” he said, dryly.

  Leopold made a painful grimace. Only thoughts of Mary steadied his resolve. She was so young, so innocent; he couldn’t bear to see that creature do whatever it planned to do with her. He would rend the corpse to pieces if it would make any difference.

  “Open the chamber,” he said.

  The sorcerer pushed open the stone door—which typically required two or three men with crowbars—expelling a gust of putrid air. Leopold fell back, his head spinning; he finally collapsed in a corner, trying but unable to vomit. Ivan helped him up, encouraging him in whatever desperate words he could summon up (for he scarcely heard or believed them himself).

  “Our father is no longer here—this is not him,” Ivan whispered. “It’s like a snake when it sheds its skin. It’s just a tattered remain.”

  “Right, a snake,” the Count nodded, pale and shaken.

  They entered the chamber, where his father lay on a stone table covered by a richly embroidered cloth. The bare oh="Iowbarsutline of his father, though somewhat shrunken, remained. Leopold felt he could lift up the curtain and see his father resting, even lightly jabbering in his sleep. A trick of the light made it seem like the cloth was even breathing. Judging the moment right, Blackbeard gently removed the cloth—a moment of terrible shock for Leopold, who almost fainted—and revealed a composed, even tranquil skeleton. No flesh or hair remained. Everything had been carefully plucked away, the bones treated or cleaned somehow, giving it the appearance of marble. For a moment the Count wondered how this could possibly be his father. Was it a corpse for show, hiding the real, hideous remains somewhere beneath them?

  “Ivan is right; this i
sn’t your father as you knew him. It’s merely a shadow,” Blackbeard said.

  “May I…touch him?” he finally asked.

  The sorcerer made an obliging gesture. Carefully, but with growing interest, Leopold reached out and touched the arm. It felt like nothing; nothing human, that is. Just so much rock and stone. He ran his fingers along the rib cage, caressed the jaw, the head. It was strange doing this. He had rarely touched, much less held, his father. And now he was holding the most intimate part of him, the very network of his inner being. But Blackbeard was right: it wasn’t him. There was no question of sacrilege or horror. Leopold stared into the empty sockets, trying to imagine his father’s blue eyes set deep within.

  “How do we get them off?” Ivan asked.

  “Each of you take a hand,” Blackbeard said.

  Leopold eagerly—and Ivan somewhat less eagerly—followed his command. The sorcerer breathed a few words of a spell. The skeletal hands gripped them in a cold embrace (Ivan screamed). A moment later, they simply broke loose of the arms. Ivan began shaking his arm wildly, hoping the hand would have the good sense to let go. Blackbeard chuckled and said something else; the hands dropped to the floor, as lifeless as before. The Count stooped down to retrieve his hand, feeling an almost parental urge to protect it.

  “Now what?” he asked.

  “Now we go to forge a weapon that not even a Death can ignore,” Blackbeard said, proudly. “But we must hurry…the hour has almost past. Though it cannot leave the room, it still has tremendous power.”

  Almost as soon as he said it, the catacombs shook, sending small cracks slithering up the walls. In the distance, a second, even louder boom rocked the earth.

  “As I said…” Blackbeard gestured.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The Count’s death may have been trapped in the box, but its powers extended far beyond this limited scope. Tremors shook the palace as fierce winds battered the castle walls. A storm had emerged from a crystal-clear night, as shards of lightning danced around its towering cumulus. Servants reported that someone was pounding on the armory door—or several people, by the sound of it. The blows were steady and increasing in strength. And no one could ignore a strange voice bellowing over the storm, a voice that said no particular words, but whose command was unmistakable. Let me out!

  Blackbeard affected not to notice as silently skimmed over a long and elaborate spell. No, that wouldn’t do, he muttered, turning the page, searching for the one shard of wisdom amongst so many years of spell craft. He had inherited the book h="I Nfrom his former master, who had collected spells from every language and school (and some never taught in school). Blackbeard had carefully collected nearly a hundred of his own, each one a subtle variation of the original spells—the canonical collection from the original masters. Yet the times had changed, and situations that could scarcely be envisioned one thousand years ago demanded new ideas and approaches. And indeed, there was no spell for killing a Death, much less for enslaving one, which is why the latter proved so fatally ineffective. He had to do better this time.

  In the distance a window shattered. The wind rushed in, lashing tongues of rain into the room and belching thunder. Blackbeard lost concentration for a moment but plunged on. It had to be here, some sliver of thought that could help him see, could light the way forward…

  “Are you sure it can’t get out?” Leopold asked.

  “No…otherwise it would have done so already,” Blackbeard muttered, still reading.

  “It’s a bluff—it’s trying to scare us,” Ivan agreed.

  “Then it’s quite effective,” the Count said, pacing the room. “But what if this ‘bluff’ tears down the castle walls?”

  “Then it would kill itself, which is hardly its intention. We just need to wait…and trust Blackbeard knows what he’s doing.”

  Blackbeard nodded, which was all the comfort he could provide. He knew exactly what he was doing...just not how to do it.

  Outside the window, night turned into brightest day as a dozen barbs of lightning crossed hands. A heart-rending crack of thunder shook both heaven and earth in its wake. Even Blackbeard paused, recognizing a note of hellish anger and desperation. They couldn’t keep it waiting much longer.

  “Very well, this one will have to do…I wasn’t sure about it earlier, but we really have no choice,” he said, pulling his beard.

  “Why, what’s wrong with it?” the Count asked.

  “It’s never been tested!” he exclaimed. “Theoretically, it should work…but this is far beyond the reach of abstraction. No sorcerer in recorded history has attempted what we are about to attempt. If we succeed…”

  “We’ll be famous?” Ivan said.

  “Infamous, more like,” he chuckled. “I might be drummed out of the Sixth Circle for cobbling together such a hodgepodge—and potentially fatal—improvisation. Much less for my role in the original spell.”

  His words were punctuated by distant explosion; not a thunderclap this time…no, this was something far more dangerous. There were screams in the distance. Leopold raced out of the room and down the hallway, looking out every window, finally catching a servant running wildly past him.

  “The south tower collapsed!” she screamed. “The storm is destroying the castle!”

  When he finally found a window looking to the south he saw it for himself. A shattered torso remained, with loose bricks raining on the trees below. Lightning illumined the angry blackness, which seemed to brood over which tower to decapitate next. And all thit. ce. Les…for him? For his father’s mistaken intention to make him immortal?

  “Stop!” he screamed to the heavens. “You can have me! Enough!”

  The palace shuddered from a final crack of thunder. The rain slackened, the storm retreated, and only a thin, cold wind blew through the window. It had heard him and agreed. Now he had no choice but to honor his bargain. He walked in a daze back to the bedchamber where Blackbeard and Ivan awaited. As he entered, Blackbeard leapt to his feet and presented him with a long object covered in a red cloth.

  “Go on, take it,” he said, pushing it closer.

  Leopold took the cloth, which slipped off immediately to reveal a grim, stone-white sword. It was far heavier than any sword he had held before, but at the same time easy and graceful. He sliced it twice through the air as Blackbeard watched with approval.

  “And this is…him?” the Count asked.

  “His hands—in your hands,” he nodded.

  “Even so, do you think…how can it kill death?”

  “That remains to be seen. In all the histories of recorded thought, you will be the first to challenge a Death to single combat. Regardless of the outcome, we’ll have stories to tell.”

  “You will, I suppose,” he muttered.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  There were no sounds coming from behind the door. The trio paused before it, expecting…something. Blackbeard placed his hand on Leopold’s shoulder and glared meaningfully. The Count opened the door, which emitted a faint groan, only a pitch or two lower than a human sigh. They ignored its message and entered the room. Blackbeard closed it behind them, knowing he had done his best, wishing he could do more, certain it wasn’t enough. Now for the waiting. Arms clasped behind his back, the sorcerer paced up and down the hall, ears straining for the ensuing melee.

  The box stood silent and lifeless. Though the locks remained on the floor the lid held fast. Ivan took a step toward it, terrified and impatient. What’s it waiting for? Leopold clenched the sword, thinking about when and where to strike. Could you decapitate death? Lance it through the heart? Cut off its arms and legs? Blackbeard, of course, had been entirely mum on the subject.

  Moments passed. Ivan remembered the way the death looked at him, could almost see it even now, writhing and squirming. Not seeing it again was far worse than what he imagined. It had to come out—and soon. Another step brought him within arm’s reach.

  “Should I…?” he asked, looking back.
>
  Raising his sword, the Count nodded. Open the lid. Ivan grasped it with both hands and lifted. Nothing. Only the sound of their racing hearts.

  “I don’t think…it’s not here,” Ivan whispered.

  “But where?”

  Ivan peered into the box, squinting through the blackness to discern some clue or shape.

  “I can’t see anything…”

  t. ce>

  Leopold danced forward, ready to strike at a second’s notice. He, too, peered down, but nothing stirred within the box. Was it dead? Had the mere act of wielding the sword driven it out? A foolish hope. No, it was still in the room, he could feel it. A cold heaviness settled around him, like slithering tentacles clutching his throat. He instinctively tried to brush them off.

  “Should we—” Ivan asked.

  “No, keep looking,” Leopold said.

  “Maybe it found a way out?”

  “Impossible, we would have seen it,” the Count said, stepping back. “Look everywhere.”

  Someone knocked on the door. Blackbeard? Leopold called out but got no response. He raced to the door and shouted again, “Blackbeard? Is that you?” Against his better judgment he turned the handle. Locked! He struggled against it for several seconds, feeling the handle turn cold in his grasp. More games! Why couldn’t it just come out and—

  “Leopold! Look—” Ivan shrieked.

  Leopold spun around but he was already gone. He called for him and looked wildly around the room, only to realize what he had felt at once. It had him.

  “Ivan!” he shouted, swinging the sword. “Come out, you devil! Show yourself!”

  A voice bubbled out of the box. Not the voice he remembered, but an angry voice, gruff with age. Drop the sword, it said. I have him. Do you want him back?

  “You wanted me—so here I am!” Leopold demanded. “No more games. Show me your face!”