by Pavel Kornev
And even so, I couldn’t get a wink of sleep. Total nonsense was crawling into my head. Fears stole up imperceptibly at night, undetectable but punishing. I felt sick in my soul and full of sorrow, so I couldn't understand how long I'd busted my brains over this.
After all, everything was alright. Why worry? Could this really all have been from missing a morphine injection?
I didn't tell my girlfriend about the narcotics, supposing that I would manage that pernicious habit without her help. But would I? However, I simply had no other way...
LILIANA WAS BREATHING measuredly in her sleep; I was lying next to her and just couldn't doze off. And only when I heard twelve measured strikes of the clock on the wall, somehow unexpectedly, I fell into a nightmare in one fell swoop.
I didn't drift off, I just fell. I didn't even change positions. As I had been lying on my back, so I continued lying. Only now it wasn't the soft mattress under me, but the harsh surface of the gurney. And my soul was again cut by its squeaky wheel.
Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.
I was led down a hall with closed doors; the face of the man pushing the gurney was lost in darkness. I couldn't see it at all.
And still, I couldn't move or squeeze a single word out. I was paralyzed again. I was back at Gottlieb Burckhardt. The realization of that fact pierced my heart with a red-hot needle, and I would have died on the spot, but the universe had completely different plans for me. Gradually, an orange glow came over the corridor, and its uneven reflection lit up the orderly's face. It was Maestro Marlini, and his eyes were dancing with the fires of the underworld.
"Welcome to hell!" he broke down laughing.
I threw my head back and saw that the corridor ended with a crematorium furnace but, just before the dead hypnotist rolled the cart into the fire, I was thrown out of the nightmare as it tore to pieces.
I WOKE UP and spent some time lying on the bed with my heart beating feverishly, greedily sucking air into my wide-open mouth, but as soon as I started to calm down, I suddenly heard a familiar squeaking sound.
"The dead orderlies have come for my soul!" a maddening thought flickered up, but I immediately threw it out of my head.
The squeaking, meanwhile, didn't go anywhere.
I got out of bed, took the Webley-Fosbery from the pocket of the robe on the chair and listened, but no. The squeaking was real and wasn't just in my head. It seemed like something was squeaking measuredly somewhere on the first floor of the manor.
Burglars?
The weakness that had occupied me all evening left me. My legs were no longer giving out, and my arms were not shivering, so I threw on the robe, pulled on the belt and carefully glanced out into the corridor. After the electroshock therapy, my night vision had grown noticeably weaker, but the streetlights peeking in through the windows were enough to make sure there was no one in the corridor.
Squeezing the revolver under my armpit, I cocked it in a sharp motion, but still the metallic clink sounded out in the silence of the dark house like the striking of a smith's hammer.
Freezing in place for an instant, I overcame my lack of confidence and moved toward the stairs. I should have raised the alarm, but the hubbub that would have caused would most likely allow the unknown malefactor to hide, and I wanted to catch him red handed.
Who was he and why had he come? That was what I intended to find out, carefully going down the steep stairs to the first floor. The strange squeaking led me to a back corridor, I turned the corner and saw the store room door thrown wide-open.
Someone had decided to dig in the things from my family mansion? Not a thieving servant, right? And the squeaking, was that an attempt to break a lock?
That story didn't seem convincing, so I grabbed my revolver with both hands and walked to the door... and turned to stone when I saw eyes shining in the darkness.
"Can't sleep?" the Beast asked and again drew his kitchen knife over a sharpening stone. Sque-e-eak!
I was thrown, while the dark figure in the floor-length cloak stepped into the corridor and showed me his knife:
"Boy, just look what I found!"
I took a step back but not fast enough. A blinding spark tore off the edge of the rusty blade and hit me in the arm. My head started spinning, and I fell down on my knees, feeling my heart quiver in my chest.
"Bugger!" the albino barked, jumping back into the depths of the storeroom.
He melted into a cloud of gray smoke for a moment, and the passing unreality was not at all illusory: the carving knife slipped through his clawed fingers, and the Beast caught it only just above the floor.
"Stay away from me!" I ordered, catching my breath.
"Boy, what is this nonsense happening to you?" the albino was taken aback.
I got up from my knees and leaned heavily on the wall.
"You have too much power in you, and you cannot hold it inside. Don't get close to me anymore! Got it? Stay away!"
"That's it! The power is pulling me toward you! After all, you have also tried the heart of a fallen one!" the Beast realized, snapping his clawed fingers. "She recognized you as a family member!"
"Stay away from me!"
The albino melted into a wide smile with his whole toothy maw and made a little step, reducing the distance between us.
"Boy, what if you took the power from me, and put it into yourself?"
"Back!" I commanded, because I simply was physically unable to equal such a burst of energy.
"Bugger!" the Beast grinned in reply. "Why should I listen to you, Leo?"
"If the power of a fallen one eats me, it's the end of you no matter what! So, stop being stupid and let me fix everything. I'll think something up!"
"Tick tock, boy," the albino whispered. "Tick tock! Time is slipping away."
I extended him the revolver.
"Here, blow your own brains out, if you're so impatient."
"Nice try!" the Beast chuckled, wrapping himself in the cloak and walking down the corridor, continuing to sharpen the blade of the carving knife as he went. The very same knife that was used to cut out my heart the first time.
"Wait!" I shouted.
The albino turned.
"Yes?"
"After all, you're just an image from my head," I said. "In reality, you only exist there. Could someone else have gotten into my consciousness?"
"Ah, you've finally gone batty!"
"Long ago. Back when I invented you."
The Beast snorted.
"Who exactly is bothering you, boy?"
I gathered my spirits and admitted:
"Maestro Marlini."
The grimace of disgust turned the already fearsome countenance of the albino into the grotesque snout of a stone gargoyle.
"You should never have killed him," the Beast announced.
"That's not an answer!"
"Leo, you have such emptiness in your head, that I can hear the wind blowing between your ears. There's a lonely little boy locked in a prison cell in there and no one else. Bugger! Even I ran away as soon as I was able!" the albino threw out and walked away.
"Creep!" I exhaled at his back.
"I heard you!" came a quiet giggle in reply, then the Beast dissolved in the shadows, as if he didn't exist at all.
I put the revolver back in my robe pocket and glanced at the storeroom where the albino had thrown the open boxes and trunks all around. In one of them, there was a silver frame with a photograph of my mother; I felt I should take it with me, but I didn't touch anything else. I just closed the storeroom door and went up to the second floor.
LILIANA WAS SLEEPING soundly. I placed the frame with the photograph on the vanity table, threw the robe on the armchair and carefully got under the comforter, as not to wake Lily. After meeting my imaginary friend, I felt beside myself, but the nervousness didn't stop me from falling asleep. I was no longer afraid of nightmares. In fact, I joyfully took shelter in the gentle embrace of dreams, fleeing the problems and cares of reality, which were
quickly piling up.
In my dream, I was standing in the middle of an endless steppe. Everywhere my eye could see, there were red poppies bobbing up and down to the rustling of a light breeze. My head was intoxicated by the thick aroma of the flowers. I wanted to lie on the ground and stare into the endless blue sky but, before I managed to manifest that desire, I heard a woman's voice ring out behind me:
"Pretty, isn't it?"
I turned sharply and found myself face to face with a young girl in a long dress that seemed inappropriate for a walk on the steppe. A certain lack of elegance in her open and pretty face was more than made up for by the charm of youth, but the stranger with beaming bright fiery eyes didn't seem like a beauty to me.
Wait! Stranger?!
I remembered her from the newspapers; I closed my robe a bit tighter and bowed my head.
"Your Highness..."
"Come off it, cousin!" Crown Princess Anna laughed sonorously, fixing her hair which had been disheveled by the wind. "This is just a dream. Leave the etiquette for meetings in the palace."
Remembering how my last invitation had ended, I didn't exactly want to meet the heiress to the throne, but I didn't voice my doubts and stayed silent, waiting to see what would happen.
The maid of honor and oracle had brought us together, now the Dreamer and I didn't see one another as faceless silhouettes, but the Princess didn't make use of her new ability to look at me. All her attention was drawn by the poppy field. Or did she simply not know how to begin the conversation?
That thought ran down my spine with an unpleasant chill.
My rescue had obligated me to one of the most powerful people on the planet, and the requests of the powerful of were not known to be modest. What service would be demanded of me?
But the crown princess didn't voice any requests. Instead of that she led her hand over the field and repeated her question:
"Pretty, isn't it?"
"Yes," I answered in one word.
"It's from a painting," Anna explained. "I've never left New Babylon and know the world only through photographs and paintings."
"Such is the other side of power."
"Not at all," the Princess disagreed. "It's all the fault of my weak health. And I am immeasurably grateful to you, cousin, for my salvation. I simply cannot voice the shame I feel..."
"No need!" I frowned, trying to end this unpleasant conversation quickly. "What happened wasn't your fault, or mine. Other people made that decision. You have nothing to thank me for or reproach yourself over."
"I do!" Anna objected and, for the first time, I heard authoritative intonations cut through in her voice, like one would expect to hear in the voice of the heiress to the Imperial throne.
I should have been expecting that. Even if the Princess's grandfather had named himself Emperor, power changes people somewhat more reliably and quickly than many generations of marriage between close relatives.
Albert Brandt had once said something good about that: "the nobility becomes morally depraved long before they begin to be born physically abominable."
"As you say, your Highness," I bowed my head before the heiress to the throne and, at the same time, turned my back to the wind, which was picking up. The sky went dark. The poppies bent in waves like a stormy red sea.
"I owe you my life, but I still must demand a service from you for breaking you out of the clinic," the Princess continued. "I simply have no one else to turn to. While I have been in this coma, even my most loyal people have not had the determination to act. And if I delay any longer, the Empire will fall apart into separate provinces and a total war of everyone against everyone will begin."
"Duke Logrin cannot manage?"
Anna laughed evilly, and strong emotions formed on the face of my cousin in the most surprising fashion. It became more vibrant, making it uncommonly attractive.
"The Duke can't see beyond his own nose!" the Princess threw out. "He's only concerned with keeping his position and so he’ll agree with anyone for anything just to maintain the status-quo! He simply ignores anything that doesn't fit into his worldview! Berlin, Vienna and Rome are making a secret pact, and that is going without consequences! The volume of diplomatic correspondence between the governments of England, France and Russia is growing by many times, but no one is paying any mind to that. The Persians lay claim to Constantinople, the Egyptians to Gibraltar and Arabia! There's unrest in India, the New World is straying further and further from the metropole. Can Duke Logrin manage? The answer to that question is obvious. No, he cannot!"
The agitation that overcame the heiress to the throne rolled through the dream with a heavy wind, nearly knocking me off my feet as leaden clouds raced across the sky with a dizzying speed.
"What do you want from me?!" I shouted, striving to overcome the ghastly howl but then, the sky split in two with a blindingly bright light, as if a gigantic fireball was racing overhead. And silence came over immediately.
"Oh no!" Anna exhaled, jumping over me and hitting me on the cheek. "Wake up, cousin! Wake up at once!"
I simply didn't manage. The divided sky opened wide and a rain of burning sulfur began lashing down on the steppe. The poppies burned up in an instant, and a sea of fire spread out around us. Red-hot air and bitter smoke burned my lungs. My flesh held out against the onslaught of liquid fire a bit longer, but the agony drew on and on while the fire ate through my very consciousness.
The pain knocked me out of the dream; I woke up and launched into a heart-rending coughing fit due to the disgusting stink of burning flesh and sulfur smoke. My pillow and sheet were soaked through with sweat, big drops were rolling down my cheeks and forehead, but I simply didn't have the strength to move and dry them with the edge of the sheet.
Meanwhile, a fragment of the dream was just spinning over and over in my head, like a film clip. It was the blackened burning lips of the Princess forming just one word: "Kill!"
"Kill!" she said soundlessly, then a flame burst from my cousin's wide-open mouth.
The Crown Princess didn't have enough time to say anything else, but that no longer played any role. The name of the victim would have to be voiced in our next meeting, and I didn't see any way to refuse the Princess's request.
I gave my word and was obliged to keep it. Or die. There wasn't a third option.
Part Four
Arrow
Lenses and Maxim's patented Silencer
1
A PERSON CANNOT LIVE without water, air and sleep. That is an objective reality, and nothing can be done with that.
I have known people who were afraid to sleep. Some were tormented by nightmares, others were simply afraid to wake up, but none of them could overcome their nature. Sooner or later, regardless of liters of strong coffee and lines of cocaine, they gave in and fell asleep. Some while walking. Others, forever.
I didn't have a single chance to hold out against sleep forever, and I was perfectly aware of that. The Princess would certainly reach me, if not tonight, then the next but still, from the very morning, I didn't even close my eyes once.
However, that didn't require any particular effort. Whether that was evidence of jitters, morphine withdrawal or electroshock therapy, I could not say but I still didn't feel even the slightest call to drift off. I simply lied there next to Liliana, listening to her measured breathing and trying not to think about new troubles and problems.
It didn't come easily.
Then Lily turned toward me and smiled.
"Your eyes are different, Leo."
I put on a careless look and led my palm over my unevenly cut hair.
"Not only my eyes."
"Well, we can get you a haircut!"
Liliana kissed me, threw on a robe and ran to the bathroom to get herself in order. I loafed in bed for a bit, then carefully got to my feet and listened to my own feelings. My ribs heart and muscles ached but, other than that, nothing was particularly troubling me. My head wasn't even spinning. And much to my surprise, m
y appetite was back.
I put on the robe and went after Liliana, but I wasn't able to wash up in peace. My girlfriend told me to get undressed and sit on a stool in the middle of the room, arming herself with a comb and scissors.
"It's easier to go to a barber!" I protested, shivering in cold, but Lily was in no mood to listen.
"It's five minutes' work," she said picking up the comb and starting in on the uneven tufts of hair. "As it is, I cannot look at you without tearing up!"
I just sighed.
Soon, my skin started to itch from the loose hairs, but every little attempt I made to scratch myself, Lily would shush me and demand I sit calmly.
"You know, Leo," she said at the end, "I want to tell my parents, but I'm not sure if it will be a comfortable conversation..."
"Why not?" I didn't understand the reason for her strange indecision.
"You just got back, and they'll probably ask me to stay at home. I'll have to spend a day there, maybe even two."
"Don't worry," I stroked my girlfriend's hand. "If you want, I can go with you, but not over night. I need to get my affairs in order."
"I understand that." Liliana flicked the scissors and suddenly giggled: "You're a man of royal blood, now!"
"Not formally, no," I objected and started slightly regretting my openness last night. "Clement named himself Emperor, and his brother became Duke, he was never part of the Imperial family."
"Doesn't matter to me," Lily smiled, setting aside the scissors and inquiring: "Well, how do you like it?"
I got up from the stool and looked in the mirror to discover that my new haircut made me look like either a new army recruit, or a stevedore. The short bristles rose just a bit from my head, but even the most skilled hair dresser wouldn't have managed to do anything nicer.
"Not bad at all. You have a talent!"
"You flatter me shamelessly," Liliana didn't take the praise seriously. "And grow out your hair before showing yourself to my parents. They're people of severe gaze."